Triple Click - Diablo Through The Ages

Episode Date: October 7, 2021

Why is Diablo one of the best-selling series of all time? Just what makes Blizzard's action-RPGs so devilishly appealing? Kirk, Maddy, and Jason break down the iconic franchise and talk about why it's good -- and why it might be pretty bad. They talk about the addictive properties of loot hunting, how the games have evolved over the years, and whether there's really room in their lives for Diablo 4.One More Thing: Kirk: Far Cry 6Maddy: Metroid DreadJason: Squid GameLinks:Diego Arguello’s review of Far Cry 6 for Polygon: https://www.polygon.com/reviews/22711610/far-cry-6-review-ps5-xbox-series-x-pc-ps4-xbox-oneSquid Game subtitles: https://twitter.com/fwong/status/1444549630499254283Support Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinJoin the Triple Click Discord: http://discord.gg/tripleclickpodTriple Click Ethics Policy: https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/ Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick 🚀  SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK:Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy📱 SOCIALS | @tripleclickpodInstagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

Click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click. Diablo! Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week we're talking about a game with a lot more than three clicks. Diablo, the series that's worn out more mice than the opera and conditioning experiments of B.F. Skinner. What is Diablo's legacy and doesn't have a place in the modern world of gaming? Let's discuss. I'm Kirk Hamilton.

I'm Maddie Myers. And I'm Jason Shrier. Hello. Hello. Hello. It's nice to see you both. It's nice to be doing another podcast. It is.

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are a subcategory of your life i guess that's true i've always felt that kind of are yeah i think they kind of are they just slot in there and you could put something else in there but you won't you like triple good it's it's just one of your many available subcategories so anyways thank you so much to all the members who support us and if you would like to become a member go to maximum fund org slash join and become a member. And yeah, let's get into this episode. Jason, what are we talking about? Let's do it.

So today we are talking about a video game series. It is time for a hot topic about Diablo. Diablo. Can you get that beautiful, that beautiful Diablo to guitar music, that guitar strumming. Yeah, we need that opening guitar tuning business. Yeah, for sure. Matt, Matt O'Elman. Can we get like a...

Penticle in the episode title, can we get like some cool fonts in there? Yeah, we need a big old. The metal, metal horns emoji. That's true. Visuals and fonts notably important in the podcasting world. Totally. That's true. Hey, we should start a podcast with visuals where you see people.

We should have a podcast about fonts where we're just trying to describe them. That must exist. That's what we're going to do on this show. I have a lot of thoughts on the Diablo two fonts because they are a lot of some good typefaces. Incredible. Incredible stuff. So Diablo is a series of action.

That's true. Playing games. It is made by, well, it is published by Blizzard. The first two games, Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 were made by Condor, aka Blizzard North. Number three was made by Blizzard South, the Blizzard and Irvine. There have been, so there have been three major releases. All of them have gotten expansion packs. first two games came out in 1997 in 2000, respectively.

Third game came out 12 years after that in 2012, after many, many false starts and development issues. We have a couple of games to come, Diablo Immortal on phones and Diablo 4 on consoles and PC. And of course, the Diablo 2 remaster just came out, which is one of the reasons we're talking about Diablo, which is called Diablo 2 Resurrection, and it's a graphical overhaul of the,

the original Diablo too. They haven't changed any gameplay or anything like that. It is an entire graphical overhaul, which I think would qualify it as a remaster on your scale, Kirk, on your rubric of rematch rematches. Yes, it's a remaster. So when we talk about Diablo, I mean, we're talking about one of the most popular series ever. Diablo 3 remains one of the best selling games ever. I believe it is sold over 30 million copies, believe it or not. And so we're talking about a series that has launched a bazillion clones of other action RPGs. We've seen all sorts of games trying to emulate its success. And we've even seen a lot of its principles just go on to emulate, to inspire many, many other designers in terms of like loot and color coding and all sorts of other interesting

stuff. But first, before we even get into all that and the kind of lasting legacy of the Diablo series, I want to hear everybody's kind of level of experience with Diablo. Kirk, why don't you start and just talk about your kind of familiarity level with this series over the years. Sure. So I played the first Diablo on PC around when it came out and I remember not loving it and then getting addicted to it anyways. Like this was so long ago, you know, as a teenager and everyone was talking about Diablo. Oh, it's so cool. It's so interesting. And I remember playing it and even at the time being like, really? Like this is the whole game. And then kind of playing it a lot. I'm like, oh, okay, I'm getting into this. Like my character is

getting more powerful. And that's the quintessential Diablo experience. It's so is. You basically just described every Diablo game that's ever made, I think, is that you have this experience of, wait, that's it. That's all you do. And then 80 hours later, you're like, oh, no. Oh, no. The sun is rising in the distance.

And you're like, wait, it's Thursday? How is that possible? I don't know what happened. Where am I? That's the power of Satan's. So I didn't play Diablo 2, but I did play Diablo 2. but I did play Diablo 1. I just kind of missed it.

2000 was like, I was playing PC games then, but I don't know if I ever owned it, or I just didn't really get into it, because it really was kind of a memory of the first game, and being like, that wasn't really my jam. Like in 2000, I was playing like, no one lives forever. I was into Deiasex. Like I liked first person sort of chewy systems-based games.

And Diablo was, it just was kind of shallow. Like, I really was like, I'm not going to get into this, though I know, or at least gather that Diablo 2 was this beloved game in the series, then didn't think about Diablo a single time for a really long time, started writing about video games professionally. That was around when Torchlight 2 came out, I guess, which was a little bit before Diablo 3, if I'm remembering this correctly. No, I think Torchlight 2 actually came out right afterwards.

Hold on, I'll double check this. Yeah, let's double check the timing on. Yeah, zooming in here. So Torchlight 2 actually came out in September. Diablo 3 came out in May of 2012. And so Torchley, too, one of the reasons it became as popular as it did was because Diablo 3 was such as a disaster launch. It was one or the other, and I wasn't remembering which it was. It was that it was like, this is the Diablo 3 you wanted because it had all these things that Diablo 3 didn't have, including it didn't require you to be on the internet.

That was the Kataku storyline, yeah. Yeah, and I played that. So I guess I played Diablo 3 before that, and then I played Torchlight, and it was sort of back into playing those games a bit. but I've never really found them to be very gratifying on their own. And then I just don't really play Diablo anymore. I had a pretty good time playing it on consoles. And now we're just in this world where, like, Blizzard games in general, it's just hard to get psyched about Blizzard games

because of all the stuff about Blizzard and, like, just the way that it feels somewhat tainted to me. So now my experience of Diablo is tied up in that as well. So that's kind of where I'm at these days. Okay, Maddie, what about you? So I never played the first Diablo, actually, and I did play Diablo too. I think because I just happened to have the perfect friends group in the late 2000s, early 2010s for playing PC games where the point isn't really to play the PC game. It's to have a phone call with your friends and you all just kind of need something to do during the phone call.

And it could be clicking on little tiny daggers. And in the modern era, of course, when I did this, it was Destiny 2. and people can listen to our backlog of episodes for my adventures in that arena. But Diablo, too, is kind of the equivalent where it's not, you don't have to think about it that hard. There's a lot of standing around in Diablo. This is a core part of the experience where everybody is just basically reorganizing their wallets, if you will. Like there's a lot of looking at numbers and then you drop a sword and you're like, does anybody want this sword?

And everybody looks at the numbers and they're like, oh, I've got this slightly better piece of armor. It's so granular. and you literally have to put your stuff together. Like if people are familiar with the Resident Evil Briefcase, for example, like that's how inventory management works in Diablo II. You're literally like tetracing your sword and your armor and your boots around. And it's so fiddly. It's just a bunch of little fiddly bits and spreadsheets essentially.

And that's it. That's it. You click on little daggers and then you click on little demon guys and little skeleton guys and you talk to your friends while you're doing it. And that's, I just have so many memories of hours of time doing that. And then Diablo 3 came out. And yes, it had a very tortured launch day. We can talk about the always online aspect of Diablo 3.

But I also played that for many hours with my friends. It's just like a clean line of the thing we played while we were all hanging out. And I don't even have strong memories of the story or what was drawn. drawing me into Diablo per se. That wasn't really the point. Like, we can talk about that if you guys want to get into it. Like, there's some, there's some classic Blizzard tropes here. There's a beautiful woman who gets corrupted by evil and then you have to destroy her. Classic stuff. We're talking Widowmaker. We're talking Sarah Kerrigan here. It's all here. It's all in Diablo for you if you want to unpack that. But who cares? You're there to click on some little tiny daggers and talk to

your friends. And that's, that's the vibe. That's still the vibe. It's always been the vibe. Yeah, I think that that sentence sums it up well. You're there to click on Little Tiny Daggers and talk your friends. Because I think the two big things that are most appealing about Diablo are the social aspect because it was one of the earliest games to really create this world where you would carry your items from session to session and like you could compete with your friends and trade with your friends and all this crazy stuff. And then two is the randomized loot aspect of it all, which again was just one of the first games to really popular. is the idea of randomiles loot, of color-coded loot,

and of just that endorphin rush when you, like, see a unique item pop out on the screen. To give you a little bit of my experience, I also played the first game, didn't get super into it, in part because I found it very difficult, and I remember always just, like, getting stuck at one point. Like, that was a hard game. It got much easier, in part because Diablo 1 was just one big dungeon, as opposed to Diablo 2, which made the game feel more like the Diablo 2 separated into acts and there were different towns. And like instead of just having a single dungeon in a town that you would go back and forth between,

Diablo 2 felt like an actual world where you were going to new places all the time and finding waypoints and stuff like that. Diablo 2 I got so into. I played like thousands of hours of that game largely for the same reasons as you, Maddie, which was that like it was the first experience. So like I played a lot of text-based buds before that or like, around the same time. And this was the first game that really felt like an extension of that where it was like, here's this game that lets you play with your friends, not just like one session at a time,

the way you might play StarCraft or Warcraft 2 or something like that, but in this persistent environment where you're carrying this character from session to session. And like, you could pick an online character or an offline character and like you could only do certain things, like an online character. You, it had to live on their servers, even though there were bazillion cheats anyway. The idea was like you shouldn't cheat with an online character. And there's all this cool stuff. But people did.

I can't believe I'm revealing this to you, but people did in fact cheat with the online characters. People did in fact cheat. But it felt very revolutionary at the time. And what's interesting to me is that replaying Diablo 2 resurrect it now, which I'm going to talk about, I just didn't feel the same kind of hooks in me that it did back then. And I think that's largely because there are so many other games that just do what Diablo does, these days, except even better. So nowadays, if you want the social experience, or if you want the randomized loot experience, there's so many options to choose from that it doesn't really feel

like there's this one quintessential game that like all your buddies are playing and like this is the place to be. The internet has fragmented. Everybody's like friend groups have, have gone to a bunch of different places. And it's kind of like, does Diablo two really have a place in your life anymore other than for nostalgic purposes? I'm not sure it does. Well, I never played Diablo with friends. I never played Diablo 3 with people, really, except Jason when I was staying at your apartment

in New York. That was super fun. Whenever 2014, 2015, and we got snowed in. It was snowstorm, yeah. Ooh, perfect Diablo circumstances right here. Land party situation? Amazing. Exactly.

And it was when it was out on consoles. Oh, my apartment was way too small for like three people because Amanda was there and you were there. It was way too small for three people. We made it work. Yeah, no, it was fun. but I'm just remembering living in that apartment I was like, oh my God, I'm tiny.

It was a cool experience because it was out on consoles and we could play on the same screen just on a TV, which was the first time I'd really done that. I guess I'd done a little bit, maybe like played with Stephen or something for work. But I never got into the online part of it

because like I said, I never played Diablo 2. So to me, the games were always just about that loop. And I think that's part of the reason why I would always look back at them and be like, this is just kind of boring, like it's kind of mindless. Because like you said, Maddie, I've, of course, played so much Destiny in particular as a game that you can just kind of screw around with your friends. And while that game does have those raids and other high-level challenges, my actual favorite type of gameplay in Destiny is when it's pretty mindless. You're just doing strikes.

Maybe someone has to fill out a big, long bounty or something. And you're just talking about movies or whatever over Discord while you're just shooting aliens, which I would imagine Diablo would be amazing for. if you were into that. Oh, yeah. And it has the same dopamine rush as well. Destiny does where everybody's getting randomized lute all the time. There's different colors. You've got to go do your chores and talk to shopkeepers and like trade things in.

I mean, there's a very similar feedback loop. Like it's so clearly influenced by Diablo. And I mean, obviously, I had many friends who were super into World of Warcraft as well. And I feel like there's plenty of crossover with the people who were really into clicking on stuff and being a part of a social experience. And Diablo was kind of adjacent to that, but it was like if you don't want to play an MMO, but you kind of want some of those flavors of socializing with friends, you can just get in on Diablo and like still kind of get something like that. Yeah, that's exactly what it was. If you don't want to commit to Ultima Online or like EverQuest or whatever it is. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, wow was a few years later. But yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I also remember that when I got really into Borderlands, which, I've described on this show is like one of the times when I just was playing the same game over and over. I mean, that game was sold as Diablo with guns. And I mean, that's precisely what it is. It's the different colors of loot. It's the randomization. It's just this pure feedback loop that, again,

it just does something to the human brain, man. Like, it just does something to you where you're like, okay, my loadout's pretty good now. But if I just kill a few more skeletons, just imagine how much cooler it's going to be. Well, so it's the combination of two things, right? It's like one is that that loop that we all talk about where it's just like, okay, my character's weak now, but if I kill this dude, I'm going to get more powerful and I can deck out my skill tree and get new cool gear and then I'll kill dudes even faster and then I'll get even better gear. And then I'll kill them even faster and just watching that power increase. And then the second kind of ingredient into this recipe of addiction is the endorphin rush and the randomly generated part

of it, which is the casino part of it, the slot machine part of it, which is like, oh man, if I kill this boss this time, who knows what I could get? I could get like the best item in the game. I could get this rare thing, this Stone of Jordan that will let me go and buy other things. And so it just those two, the combination of those two things in your brain is just the power of love and friendship. I mean, it's unstoppable. You add the social element. Yeah, aka social pressure from your friends so they can keep chasing loot because you make it better for them. Yeah, so let's talk about loot a little bit because we've talked about addictive games before. Some of these topics have come up on the show before, but I do think you can trace a certain vein of

video game design all the way back to Diablo and kind of lay the blame for it at Diablo's feet. Because let me just talk about a few games that I've been playing concurrently because they all have loot in different flavors and they all kind of relate to Diablo in one way or another. So there's Death Loop, which we just talked about last week. There's Far Cry 6, which is going to be my one more thing. And then there's Outer Wilds Echoes of the Eye, and that's not going to be my more thing, but we're going to talk

about that more later. So I think all three of these games, I just have been thinking about about Diablo this week, because I knew we were going to talk about it on the show while I play these three games. So, first, there's Outer Wilds. Outer Wilds is a game with no loot, and it is just pure... I was like really looking forward to seeing how you made that one work.

That's what I mean, though. I mean, it only relates to Diablo in that it has no interest. in doing what Diablo is doing. Far Cry 6 is actually the most like an Assassin's Creed game that Far Cry has been, where there is loot and there are even like leveled areas. So if you go into a really high level area, your guns don't do as much damage. So you're really chasing loot and there's unique guns and it's clearly like a whole loot system built into this game that is fundamentally a skill-based first-person shooter.

Death Loop is this weird hybrid of something like Outer Wilds and then something like Far Cry 6, where you are getting better guns, but kind of not really. The loot system in that game feels sort of half-hearted, and the real joy of that game is the knowledge that you unlock and the mastery over the levels. That's a sort of an intrinsic reward.

So there's a loot system, but it kind of feels unnecessary just in the gameplay, and then it feels even more unnecessary when you compare it to how cool it is to be solving the puzzle of the game and watching the whole thing slot together. And it's just, it's striking to me how all three of those games

implement loot differently, one of them doesn't at all. And all three of them, I think it's like to the game's detriment. Or it just is this lizard brain shit that I'm less and less interested in. The more video games I play. And the more, when I'm playing Far Cry 6, I'm thinking like, man, so like there's a level eight area over there and I'm just going to need to get a level eight gun. And it's just going to take me forever to get that thing. And it's all just this kind of skinner box lizard brain.

I want the better thing. And I feel that in my brain. I mean, I played thousands of hours of destiny. I know what it feels like, but I just increasingly want games to be more like Outer Wilds, and I look back to Diablo, and I look at those games, which are, they're so purely just that. It's like, click on the thing until you get the higher level thing. And I'm like, man, I guess it was always going to go this way. It had to be some game series that kicked this whole thing off, but it was Diablo that did it, I think.

Yeah, it's, but then again, as much as like I'm nodding along as you say all of that, and I'm just like, I'm so sick of this, like, this cynical, like, loop and endorphin rush that it gets me. I'm also, like, fondly thinking back to all this time that I spent, like, being like, like, the rush of, of just seeing one of those gold items, like, gold belt. And one of the things, one of the traits of Diablo is that you have to identify items so you don't know what it is. Which only adds to the endorphin rush because it's completely friggin pointless to identify an item. Like, you pick up an item and you're like, okay, I know it's, I know it's a next. I can't wear it yet. All I can do is look at it and then buy something or, you know, eventually you get

tecker cane, but like you buy something just so that you can unlock the ability to see whether or not you want. Well, but the idea of that is to make it more exciting. Well, so this is all casino shit. Like that's all casino stuff. Right. And I have so many fond memories of just like, like doing that experience of picking it up. And I don't know if you guys remember.

Mattie, you might remember this. but when you were playing in multiplayer Diablo 2 back in the day, there was no local loot. All the loop pool was shared. So you had to be the first one to pick it up if you saw something awesome. Like you had to click first and have the best internet connection. Unless you had a good relationship with your friends and you were kind to one another. I'm talking about playing with random.

Oh, well, I didn't do that. I can't even imagine. What I did a lot was like you would go online and you would go through BattleNet, which was this brilliant innovative invention. was the first ever like internet online hub for multiplayer games. You go on a battle net and you see like Meph run, like Mephisto run like people would just be saying or ball run. And you go with all these random people to take down these bosses at a high level and get super

cool gear. But even then, even if Mephisto dropped the one thing you want, you had to be first to click on it. It was crazy. Diablo 3 fixed that by making loot like character specific. So you don't have to worry about that anymore, which is smart. But back then it was it was a wild west. there's all sorts of crazy

things that happen. People would like drop things and then start in like there was no way to like transfer gear from character to character so you would get someone random to like start a game with you be in a game with you and like you would drop something log out and then log in your other character that you wanted to transfer to you

but like that person could just like rob you and just take all your stuff and leave there. There's all sorts of crazy stuff back then but anyway the point that I'm making is that looking back at it now I'm like man this is what turned me into a degenerate gamble or like this is the same thing that appeals to me about gambling, but I look back at it so fondly.

It's a little correlation causation situation there. It's really. I do wonder, I do want, well, I don't know. Who knows? I wonder if like, if this style that you're talking about, Kirk, with this kind of style of gameplay, like, I wonder how if it was actually kind of bad for a lot of people or bad for the game design worlds.

Well, I mean, this gets to the addiction thing that we've talked about, where, yeah, like, it's been bad for some people who get addicted to video games. Now, whether, like, whether that's the responsibility of the game designer, et cetera, like, that's a much bigger, bigger question. But it is, I mean, certainly it has been bad at times. It is, though, and I'll say, I guess, in the defense of this kind of game, if a video game is just supposed to be something that you're kind of killing time with, which, you know, for a lot of people is what video games are a lot of the time.

They just, like, want something to do for a few hours. having the reward loop of better gear just be the thing that pulls you along and an otherwise repetitive that's okay like not every game needs to be outer wilds and not everyone always wants to play outer wilds I've also found that

when I've been playing games over the last two weeks I'll be like well I'm just gonna play a couple hours of Far Cry because I like it'll just clear out some outposts and I'll get some better gear and you know like it's that same thing you just want to zone out yeah yeah and that's all right like classic podcast game yeah and yeah you're just doing your chores But I feel like, again, the most fond memories that I have

aren't of necessarily the dopamine rush, but the jokes that my friends and I would tell. Like, we had this bid about how we would try to come up with metal band names based on item name combinations. And I still think that torture barrel is a really good metal band name. Like, based on that joke from, like, 15 years ago, I don't even know. I don't even talk to those people anymore, and I'm still like, that's a pretty good band name.

But, like, I mean, it's just, like, that's what I remember about it. It's not like I'm looking back fondly and I'm like, oh, man, it was so cool when I got, got like this item. Like, who cares? They're all forgettable. It doesn't matter. They're all just little numbers somewhere. And I don't actually give a shit about the wins or the victories. Although in Jason's case, maybe you do care about clicking just fast enough to beat some other randos on the multiplayer. That's a very different experience. It just speaks to our different experiences because I absolutely do remember fondly. Yeah.

I remember in my World of Warcraft days, I remember how amazing it felt to like get an epic piece of gear and raids and like that sort of thing. So I definitely remember that. Same with destiny. I mean, that's part of it. Yeah. But I, but I feel like the socializing part of it was what was really meaningful to me. And the fact that Diablo is a multiplayer game, I mean, this is one of the few games of the era where you could play as a female character, which is pretty cool for the record. I mean, we can get into Blizzard or not, but like this was an early game where you could play as a female character and they were balanced equally. And that I thought was very cool, much like the fighting games I also liked at the time.

And so just the idea that you could be this rag-tag group of people that would all come together and defeat Diablo, it's extremely basic, but it's also pretty freaking cool to get your friends together and defeat Diablo. That's just, that's neat. And like, sometimes you don't need a game to be that complicated. It doesn't have to be challenging you emotionally the way that Outer Wilds does, you know? I didn't cry at the credits of Diablo. No, for sure.

There is totally value in that. And like you said, Maddie, often the real loot is the friends you make along the way. That was true in Destiny as well. And it really is as corny as it sounds. Well, only if they're gold-colored. Right, right. But all our friends are gold-colored. That's true.

It's interesting. The core gameplay is just kind of like rotating between your skills and clicking on monsters. So there's not a lot of thinking in that. But you still are doing some, you have some gears are turning in your head, especially in Diablo 2. Diablo 3 simplifies some of this stuff. But, like, Diablo 2, you have to, like, build. a character that makes sense because you can't just go back and reverse all your skill points like every level you're getting a skill point and you can only

or however many and stat points like five stat points in a skill point and you can only use those and then that's it it's permanent it's a permanent change so you can't go back and change them so you can and you could potentially yeah you could potentially like have your character class you could either pick a bad tree or like you could be spreading all your skills out among all the trees and like not do it an efficient way and you could find yourself in the really hard difficulty level is really screwing yourself over. So yeah, Diablo 2 is a beloved game

for many of the reasons that we mentioned here. And then in 2012, Blizzard came out with Diablo 3, which is controversial for a few reasons. One was the launch issues, but that's not important to talk about. I'm more interested in talking about the gameplay issues because that game, as Kirk you alluded to before with Torchlight 2,

that came in a lot of issues even after people could actually play it. So like a week after launch or whatever. Diablo 3 had to go through this whole, saga of getting fixed and tweaked and made less difficult and the auction house getting removed. And essentially it took like Reaper of Souls, the expansion in 2014, to really fix Diablo 3 and make that game feel like it was like finally lived up to the expectations step by Diablo 2, which I think is really interesting and speaks to kind of like big changes at Blizzard,

big changes in the people who made that game. And also a lot of big questions about like, what is Diablo 4? 4 are going to look like? What is the future of the series going to look like, especially in a post destiny world? So yeah, I'm curious. Kirk, I know you played some Diablo 3 and Matti you did as well. What did you make of that kind of the change of that game? And do you think, what do you want to see from Diablo 4? You know, the changes for me at least, it was cool that it came out on console because I liked playing it with a controller, which is like it's not even related to the changes that really hardcore fans wanted,

which were all endgame related and sort of these complicated. I remember what it's called, but you can go into these dungeons that are procedurally generated and it gets harder and harder and harder and harder. And some cool ideas with loot where you get all of the loot from the dungeon if you beat the boss, but only if you beat the boss. A lot of MMO style stuff,

like things that they do that Bungi does with Destiny, where they're just coming up with new ways to recycle the same basic loop and give you endless stuff to do, which is what a lot of people wanted and didn't get from Diablo 3, where I played through Diablo 3. And I was like, oh, well, I could, now I could play this as, you know, a different character class. I feel like there's still a lot of game here. I'm just sort of not that

interested in it, and I don't have a lot of friends playing it, so whatever. But being able to play with a controller was just pretty fun. And being able to play it on Switch was really fun. I think the Switch version of the game is really good. So for me, it was just, the fact that they released it on consoles was actually, like, a breath of fresh air for me. And I wound up really enjoyed playing a Demon Hunter, especially. It's kind of like a twin stick shooter almost. it really becomes a different game. It felt, it's weird because for such a PC-centric series, the console version of Diablo 3,

when it came out with Reaper of Souls in 2014, felt like the definitive way to play. Like, I remember playing it on PS4 and being like, wow, this is much better than just like clicking. Yeah, it's known for the clicks, but with the controller, it's just, it's better. Bing, Future Kirk here. And I just, I can't believe I didn't say

it's known for the clicks, but it's better with the sticks. That's the joke. That's the joke I should have told. and I didn't, and I'll have to live with that for the rest of my life. Okay, anyway, Bing. Yeah, plus local co-op is also seemingly a better way to get people who maybe would be turned off by the PC gamerness of it all into Diablo for the first time. Yeah.

It's not actually that complex of a game. Right, you can just chill out on the couch and, like, blow stuff up and talk. And so even your friends who don't play a ton of games can probably get the gist of it. I mean, they probably could even on a laptop. But hey, if you don't want to make them install something, they just come over and put a control under a hand. Yeah, I do, I agree, Kirk. I actually do feel like the fact that it came out on console

was a pretty big deal for Diablo 3 and something that was cool about it. I didn't actually keep playing it through to the Reaper of Souls period of time, though, so I can't speak to that at all. Jason, were you still playing it then, or had you fallen off? Yeah, yeah, well, that's when I really, I played a little bit when it, at launch, and then played a lot more when Reaper of Souls came out.

I think when Kirk came over that time you mentioned was when I really started thinking game was like Reaper of Souls PS4 the game like on consoles the whole thing well Reaper of Souls and PS4 were the same time they came out on the same day like the console versions and the expansion were at the same time so yeah so they're synonymous for good reason

and yeah I remember enjoying it more once it was fixed but I never really Diablo 3 really never gripped me the way that Diablo 2 did I think because at that point in my life I just had so the other things to play. Diablo 2 is very much for me, at least a game that I played just because there wasn't a lot of other stuff to play. And it like just sunk its teeth in me for all the reasons I mentioned earlier in a way that other games hadn't. Something I failed to mention earlier,

by the way, was that like is the procedural generation aspect of it all, which is another thing that just keeps it continuously addictive is that every single level you go into in the game is completely randomly generated. And randomly is the wrong way. Procedural. generated. So it's going to be a completely different map every time you play, which just adds to this like just constant, you're constantly getting the endorphin rush, not just on a micro level, not just on a macro level with like the big new loot drops whenever you beat a boss or whatever, but also on a micro level with like, oh, what's around this corner? Oh, it could be like a shrine. Oh, cool. I found this hidden passage here or whatever it is. And it's just an exceptionally well-crafted

game in that sense and that it just like is perfect at like being the type of game that will keep you up playing all night. So Jason, I'm curious. If you could answer the question you asked before that you said Diablo 3 or Diablo 2 asks like the remastered version is, does this game have a place in the world now? Because I know we don't really know about Diablo 4, but just playing a modern version of Diablo 2, like does it feel like it has a place for you as someone who loved it originally? I think maybe it would if I didn't have so many other games to play. It's a big if. Yeah, that's the thing. Maybe at some point I'll be like, oh, I feel like jiving into Diablo 2 and like beating in and seeing how it goes.

I already found myself suffering from the same choice paralysis I always did when I was playing Diablo 2, which is like, oh man, I want to start all of these characters. I don't know which character class to go with. And I went up starting on my switch like four different characters just to play around of each of the different character classes. I was like, oh, I don't know. I think that might be the biggest barrier for me is I don't know which character class I want to commit to. But yeah, at least for me, I don't know if it has a place in my life. I also don't

know how many like newcomers to the series would be like, oh yeah, I want to really spend the next 100 hours playing Diablo too. I think it probably appeals to nostalgia, nostalgic fans, maybe people who want to play online with their old buddies or like who have a group of friends see they're looking for like a good online action action RPG to play together because there aren't tons of options I mean there are few that like people are really into like a path of exile and like what's that other one grim something hold on I look at grim fandango yeah yeah that one yeah I'm pretty sure that's what it's called just this whole Lucas arts game it's like 1998 big big action RPG classic loot multiplayer collectathon no I was right

Grim Dawn. Grim Dawn. And yeah, I'm very curious. I want to talk about Diablo 4 a little bit because we don't know much about it other than the fact that it's trying to be more like Diablo 2 than Diablo 3 was. Because Diablo 3, a lot of people weren't super thrilled with like the art style and the way it got a little bit lighter. And people want that grim, dark shit that you were talking about that heavy metal. It was pretty grim and dark in Diablo 3. Yeah, but it also looks like an adorable diorama at the same time.

Like it's very fluorescent and like as you're looking in that isometric view at everybody, you're just like, oh, these are little dolls. These little torture chambers. The devil's a little tiny doll guy and it's just a cute little torture chamber and cute little spikes and it's cute. So I get why people want it to be darker, but I don't know how much darker it could ever really be. Right. Is it kind of baked into just the overhead dollhouse perspective? Like when it's running at a high frame rate and high res, it just looks like this neat little dollhouse of decapitating goat men. This looks like a diorama. Yeah, I was thinking about, I know we're not talking about the remaster right now, Jason. But in terms of your question, it is top of mind for me because I've been playing it and switching back and forth between the original graphics, which look terrible but in a enduring way to me. They look like very gritty. And like you can see every pixel because it's so low res. And then the new graphics, which look beautiful, but really weird and uncanny,

my eye where I'm just like, it's, it feels as though I'm looking at like a Photoshop of Bart Simpson's face to make him look like a human man or something because I'm just like, this is, this is Diablo too, but it's like shined up in a weird way. And so I've actually been playing on the old graphics a lot. And the other part of it is that sometimes clicking on stuff in the new graphics just doesn't seem quite right. Like the clicks seem somehow misaligned to me, but clicking on stuff in the old graphics. That could just be my imagination. Please don't take that as like an actual indictment of the game. It may just be that I'm better at clicking on things

when they're huge blocky pixels because then I can see it better and it's easier for me. But in light of that, I feel like part of what made Diablo 2 seem dark was actually its cornyness in the font that I mentioned at the beginning and also the minimalist pixels

and the grittiness of it all. You can kind of tell you're looking at some bloody zombie guy but also it's just kind of some squares. Whereas the more high fidelity that gets the more silly it seems in Diablo 3. Like it just seems too colorful and cartoonish almost because it's it's not sure like how gritty it wants to be. Plus it's isometric.

So you're pretty far away from what you're actually looking at. You always feel emotionally distanced from a torture chamber if it's a tiny little diorama torture chamber as opposed to like a VR one that like Kirk would explore and Jason and I would never be able to. I totally explore torture chambers all the time. Of course. Of course you do. I don't know what you do with that helmet on.

But you know what I mean. It's like it is literally further away from your eye in the isometric view. So it looks cute to you. I don't know. Maybe I sound like I'm disturbed person because I'm like, listen, the torture chambers are adorable. And the more high fidelity you make them, the cuter they're going to be. And there's just nothing you can do.

I think that's true. It's true. There's something about having that distance. And the pixels of the old one really help as well. Like the gritty, like just the fact that you can't really see what's going on. helps it, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's, I mean, that's what people want from Diablo for is less visibility. Kind of to see what's going on. Yeah. So there's something to be said about leaving some things to the imagination. But light definitely plays a big role in, in Diablo and Diablo too,

because you really can't see a lot. And that's part of what like adds to the whole atmosphere of it. Yeah. It's like seeing the light sources and stuff. But yeah, is there, is there, is there, is there, I've been trying to think of the, trying to think of my own answer to the question, what would make me, like, really sink into Diablo 4 when it comes out. And I'm not sure other than, like, if my buddies were playing and I wanted to, like, play with a bunch of, like, a group of cool people who were playing. I think, I think the three of us should play. That's mainly what's convinced me by this conversation is that I feel like we need to play it.

Is that we'll all cooperate and play some? Yeah. That would be fun. Maybe the game won't actually be that good. But I think if the three of us played and maybe we streamed it, that could be really fun. But yeah, you click on stuff, I don't know. You click on a dagger, you click on a little potion. That's what you do.

That's all it's going to do. Yeah, clicking on stuff will so the Destiny and Borderlands comparisons are another interesting one because in those you have a lot of the same concepts. But instead of just kind of mindlessly clicking, you're shooting, you're aiming reticle at a monster and shooting it. Right. You're clicking on a head instead of on a really tiny skeleton's head. And you're like, there's a much higher skill ceiling. Yeah. It's that you can move.

your cursor around and you have to actually think about it a little bit. And it's not, it's not as mindless when you're doing that. And destiny, obviously, one of the reasons destiny is so broadly appealing is because it's one of, it feels so good to shoot things in that game. It's like one of the best feeling shooters ever. And I think that if Diablo four is just like going back to clicking, I think it's really going to be lacking something that a destiny has going for it. Like, on a certain level, if the, of the minute to minute experience, like, you know, you know, in Diablo 4 isn't as good as it is in Destiny 2, then why would you not just be like,

hey, guys, why don't we all go play Destiny instead of this? Well, and it'll have controller controls, but even playing something like Death's Door to pick a recent game, like that game feels so great to play, and it looks kind of like Diablo, but it plays more like Zelda, and it just has a lot more going on. The combat is kind of more of this dark-soulesy thing.

So, I mean, I guess if I hear stuff, like, about how the combat is just very different than past Diablo game, I might get into it. But again, for me at least, these days, when a game, the more a game goes into loot like that and loot systems and just I can see the inevitability of the next 80 hours, it just really turns me off now because I don't have as much time

and I don't, I can play like one game like that at a time and I'll play it for a really long time. And it just sort of, when I start a game and then I'm just like, okay, I kind of see what they're doing here. It's a lot harder for me to get into it. Yeah, those times and games, not a lot of space in our lives for those. I will say to your point, Kirk, by the way, I should mention that a few years ago, we at Kataku reported that there was a, that after Josh Mosquero, who's the director of Reaper of Souls,

after Diablo 3, he was working on this game, those code named Hades. That was going to be like a Diablo kind of spin-off that was very inspired by Dark Souls and would play around with some of those ideas that got me really excited. and I was like, damn. But that game was canceled, and Mascar left Blizzard, so sadly we will not see that. Fortunately, a game called Hades did come out that was a lot like Diablo, but was kind of better than Diablo has ever been. Yeah, and it's is is is asymmetric and it's pretty awesome.

Yeah, minus the loot. It is very Diablo-ish, except does not have the loot. But it has a random element. I mean, but I'll take Hades any day of the week over any Diablo game I've ever planned. Right. Right. Well, that's the thing. I mean, Diablo is in such an interesting place, and I do not envy the design.

is working on that game because it has to like live up to Diablo while also feeling innovative and fresh. And I worry based on some of the things that I've heard over the years that they're going to go a little too far towards like we want this to be Diablo too and that it's not going to feel that innovative. But I guess we'll see. And like that there's like a crisis of leadership at Blizzard. I mean it really doesn't seem like this is the time for the studio to release a game that's going to change everything. The director of that game left as part of what was implicated as part of the recent crisis. So absolutely, that's another thing that is like, this is a miserable time for a lot of people at Blizzard for, because of everything that's come out and because of everything that's,

that's been alleged. And yeah, man, that will be another shadow over Diablo for when it does come out. Assuming it still does. I mean, it could just eventually die. We don't know. But I just wanted to, like, share a little anecdote about playing remastered that I promise is related to Diablo for, because I dragging it back to, sorry, it's called resurrected. It's not called remastered. It's important that we keep the zombies and skeleton guys. To add resurrected to my little lexicon. So anyway, I was playing, I was playing it with a games journalist who I won't name because of, but I want to quote them, but I don't know if they would want to be cited. So I was playing this with them. And we were clicking and clicking and clicking. And they were like, is this really all there is to this game?

And I was like, yeah, that's all there is. It was much like the conversation at the beginning of this call where it's like yeah it turns out that's all there is to diablo too that's that's it you just click and they were like oh you know what this would be a really great phone game and then we just both like killed ourselves laughing at that because of course Diablo immortal was the most controversial announcement anyone can possibly remember but it kind of would be a good phone game though right Diablo is actually really suited to mobile gaming right so and and Diablo immortal like the buzz for that is pretty good like people who play the video i'm not It's pretty good.

It's probably going to be a great game. People just don't want to hear that because it's like, oh, every phone game has been influenced by Diablo, but not in a good way. Not in a good way to clarify. Like, they've taken all the wrong lessons. The reason people were so mad about that. Like, that was entirely Blizzard's self-inflicted wound. The reason people were mad about that was because that was announced as like the big surprise twist ending of a BlizzCon show. And that was before they had announced Diablo Four and they refused to acknowledge that Diablo Four was in the works.

and like they're big plans at some point to like say actually we're making a Diablo game for PC too. But they scrapped them. I know. I know all that context. However, it's also true that there are many old school PC gamers who really like Diablo too and think mobile games are shit inherently. And there's certainly plenty of problems with mobile games and microtransactions. Things like dungeon keeper happen. Like there is a reason.

Yeah, classic franchises on phones. Of course. I'm not denying any of that. However, what if there was a real game? freaking good Diablo on a phone. That is not that hard for me to imagine based on Diablo too. Like I can picture what that game would be like, and it'd be pretty fun. Like tapping stuff forever on your phone.

Just in time for us not to commute to work anymore. I know. All right, let's take a break. And then we will be back with one more thing. Hey, excuse me, everybody. I just wanted to say a few words about the beautiful couple. I've known you two for a long time. And you get along like peanut butter and chocolate.

Or, you know, like comedy and culture, like Maximum Fun Podcasts. Actually, they're having a block party from October 11th to October 22nd. And that's kind of like your party, right? You have a community of friends and family, and Max Fun has a community of shows and audiences that support them. You're having a new start with your life together, and Max Fun will be putting out new episodes that are especially welcoming to new audiences.

So it's a great time to introduce your friends to your favorite show or jumped into one you haven't tried before. Is he still talking about podcasts? And they're setting up a volunteer event where we can help out our local communities. Plus, maximum fun is going to have games, prizes, episode wrecks, so much other fun stuff.

What's wrong with Kyle? Is he okay? Oh, anyways, anyways, sorry for getting carried away there. If it's all right with everybody here, let's all raise our glasses for a toast to the Max Fun Block Party, which you can learn more about at maximum fun.org slash block party, and don't forget to join in on October 11th. Actually, that sounds pretty cool. And we are back. It is time, Kirk and Matty, for one more thing.

Maddie, take us away because this is very exciting. What is your one more thing? So I have been playing an advanced copy of Metroid Dredd, which is a Metroid game, a new Metroid game for the Nintendo Switch. I've been playing it. Oh, my gosh. And it rules, and I love it so much. Yes.

I'm so happy to hear that. It's amazing. Oh, man, we're getting a new Metroid game for the first time in how many years and it rolls. That's so cool. And it's really good. It's really good. So this is another 2D Metroid game. And so if you're a Hollow Knight fan, for example, or into other 2D.

What's Hollow Night? I know. You guys haven't ever heard of that. And you're not into it. Then you would probably like this game. I will say, I think that if this is your first Metroid game, that's totally fine, you'll be fine. I will also say it's very difficult. It is.

So my colleague Russ Freshstick is the person who's reviewing it. and he beat it in like two days because he's a Holo Night Master and that's fine. I have had it for several days. I have not beaten it. I am enjoying exploring. I'll put it that way. That's my kind way of describing the way I'm playing this game. Very carefully.

It's quite difficult. There are very many, there are a lot of boss battles, but unlike an old school Metroid game, there's a very friendly auto-save system in this game, which if people are familiar with Samus Returns, was also made by the same developers, Mercury Steam for the 3DS, way back when launched around the same time as the Switch, so nobody but me and Stephen, Stephen Totella, our old boss. Only Metroid diehards played it. I played it. Fair enough. I played a little, but yeah, it was pretty good. But, you know, everybody was busy playing Breath of the Wild on a plane or whatever and talking to their seatmate about how crazy it was that they were playing a Zelda game on a plane.

I was still playing this Metroid 3DS game. And so Mercury Steam in that game also had like pretty kind auto save features, but for this one, I feel like it's super kind. So people have probably seen like those scary robots in the trailers or the robots like stalk you around. And I talked about how they're sort of inspired by the SACs, the Samus clone from Metroid Fusion that stocks you around. And they're super fast in this game. But I don't know. The game, it just, it just auto saves every single time you turn around. And that makes it easy, at least in one specific way. So you feel like you can get right back into the action really quickly. And I could go on and on about this game and I will.

But I'll just say one other thing since we're already talking about loot. We'll do a triple play on it. We should say that we're going to do a triple play on it. Yeah. So the thing, so Metroid doesn't really have loot per se, but I was kind of enjoying thinking about it in those terms, according to Kirk's description earlier in the show, because obviously Samus gets several upgrades.

And that is probably my favorite part of the game, because every time you get an upgrade, usually it's hard to find. Usually you have to do something difficult in order to get it. And then when you get it, you're like, I'm a god. Suddenly I can go places I've never been before. I can open doors. I can like fall around. I like saw all those places where I could have gone ball mode before.

Now I can go ball mode. It's sick. I do whatever I want. And then of course, after like an hour of that, you're like, man, I've done all the ball mode stuff. Like, I don't know where to go. I'm stuck. There's nothing else I can even do, I guess.

And I just don't even know what I'm doing. And then you, like, see some other weird little door and you're like, I wonder what that leads to. Oh, I've never been here before. Oh, shit. This is crazy. And that's just like the best feeling in the world. Oh, my God.

I want to play this game so. This sounds amazing. I love it. And Samas is the best. That's, that's okay. Okay. Well, we're going to jump more into this. We're going to do more into this in a couple of weeks when Kirk and I have time to like really

sink our teeth in. So very excited. That's awesome. It's great. That's great. That's the best. Kirk, what's your one more thing? As I mentioned earlier, my one more thing is Far Cry 6, which I've been playing on a early copy. The Ubisoft sent me.

And I love Far Cry. And I like this game. It's pretty fun. It's, you know, it's not like super grabbing me for some of the reasons I alluded to. The loot thing is a bit of a turnoff just compared to the way this series used to feel to play, where there was kind of like you would collect things and get better weapons, but it wasn't as numerical. Like, it wasn't this feeling of, you know,

the Ubisoft regimented world that's been really arranged for you. There's this feeling in this game where you do the tutorial island. And I looked at my map and like, okay, that's the tutorial island. Let's zoom out and see what the rest of the map looks like. And it's like, oh, my God. Yeah, it's humongous. The tutorial island is like a booger of snot on the nose of like this massive giant that is like the rest of the map.

Well, and then, yeah, when you get off of it and the main game starts, I've been playing it also. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Copy and early copy from Ubisoft. And you get into it in the main game starts, and then it's like, and these are the three massive new segments and, like, the three missions you'll have to complete

to get to the boss who's played by Gus Frang. Right, and he's great. Though it's pretty brutal. And some of that is just a little bit like, I'm actually also watching your one more thing, Jason, which is also fairly brutal. And I'm like, this is a lot of brutal content. It's just a lot of murder and torture in this game

where I'm like, okay, okay. Yeah, he's a bad dictator. This is, this is an art. early. But really what I'm there for is the fun stuff, which is also that was the fun stuff in Far Cry 5, where you're just exploring in there, I can't remember, it's like treasure hunts, I think they're called, where it's like a cool

little mini-adventure where like a person's left notes and you have to like go on a little, like solve a puzzle or go like platforming. Some of the platforming in this game so far, and I should say I'm pretty early, feels like first person uncharted, really like, even more so than past games in the series in a way that's really cool.

So when I'm like ziff landing around in a cave and like climbing up and trying to get to a thing and find some treasure. That's very cool. Like, exploring the world is cool. Are you playing without waypoints, like with all your UI stuff off? No mini map, but the waypoints are running. Because you don't really need the mini map, but you kind of do. But I wish there were a few more adjustments there. And I'm actually bummed that they've gone back to a mini map since Far Cry 5 had a compass. And I think the compass is better. But yeah, I just turned that off. But no, I'm using all the little bits and bobs on the screen, and that's fine. A couple of just quick thoughts on it, though. I'm liking it.

I'll play it. Like I said, I kind of only like having one of these. games and I'm still playing Ghost of Tsushima director's cut and they're so similar. I mean, like it's that same thing where it's a huge map. It goes on forever, kind of repetitive. But I'm liking that game more. It's actually really noticeable to me that there's no wind in Far Cry the way that there is in Ghost and Sushima where the wind is this like beautiful thing and everything is blowing in the wind all the time. It kind of makes the world just seem flat and old fashion. It's one of those things that now that I've seen it in a like modern current game, it makes games look like they're kind of last gen,

like where everything is just, all the leaves are kind of blowing, lightly like every Ubisoft game. Like there's not gusts of wind. I like the way, you can use the PS5 controller on PC. I'm playing it on PC. I love this trend.

This is true of Death Loop as well. There's other games too. I think this is true of Assassin's Creed Valhalla where you can plug in your dual sense and then you get all the cool trigger stuff and the Rumble in the PC version. I hope everybody does that. Yeah, it's so good.

Yeah, I play Death Loop that way, by the way. Right. Go on. Oh, Deathloops, dual sense stuff is really cool. Like your footsteps, you can tell how loud you're being. In this game, too, but I hate aiming with the, so I like do both. So when I'm walking around, I use the dual sense and when I'm flying a helicopter or whatever. And then I drop it and go to mouse and keyboard when it's time to shoot guys, because it's just so much better.

So anyways, I think it's a pretty cool game. It's not like knocking my socks off or anything. It's a big old Ubisoft game. No, it's a fire game. It feels like every, like there's a part of the beginning where it's like, here's a flame tower. I go burns and fields and I'm like, I've done this in every park. Yeah, they're not really pushing the envelope with this one. I don't think.

Aside from, like, your character has a name and is in cutscenes, that's cool. Like, there's some stuff like that. And I'll play more and maybe there will be more as I go. I was going to say, so I'm also playing it. I don't know how much more I'm going to play. It's fun. But one thing I'm very curious about is I'm curious to read some takes when reviews come out from Hispanic writers and Hispanic critics.

And I'm curious to get some, because the story is like, it's set in this island nation called Yara and your job. you're playing as these guerrilla fighters who want to overtake this dictator who is just terrorizing this island. And I'm very curious as to like what people make of the story because I actually think it's interesting and a lot of the performances are really good. And I think that it's like, at least from my perspective, it seems like it's well done so far. It's very brutal. Like you said, Kirk, very dark and a lot of murder and torture and stuff. But like I'm very interested in the story and feels very interesting to me and very true to me.

I'm curious to hear it takes the people who know that world more than I do. Agree, I feel the same way. And some of it, I mean, I'm so early that I have no idea where the story even goes. This could be a thing where it completely deep-sixes itself, or it winds up being really interesting. Bing! Future Kirk here again, as I edit the episode. And the review embargo is up, and a lot of people who have played way, way more of the game than either me or Jason have now weighed in. Diego Argoeo reviewed the game for Polygon and was pretty unimpressed in general with the game's depiction of Latin culture and just the writing in general.

Anyways, it's a good review. I'm going to link it in the show notes that you can check it out and get that perspective on it. Okay, back to the show. Bing! I will say that I think it's really funny that the main character's name is Doni Rojas, just because I've been watching Ted Lassow. And I'm wondering if there's going to be a footballist life Easter egg in this game somewhere. I did get an Easter egg that was amazing.

There's an achievement when you pet the crocodile at the beginning of the game. It was like your first companion. Yeah, he's a good boy. You got an achievement that is like Twitter or hashtag, like, can I pet the crocodile? or can you pet the crock? Oh, that's so funny because of that Twitter account. Yeah, there's a lot of good animal petting. A lot of good animal pet the horse.

Yeah, it's really good. Yeah, I don't know how much more I'll play, but I would like to play more. I'll keep playing it and maybe we'll report back. So I have expected for a long time that my one more thing would be the many Saints of New York, the soprano's movie, but it was so bad that I don't even want to talk about it. So putting that aside, I want to talk about something awesome. My one more thing is the biggest thing on the planet right now, a TV show called Squid Game,

which is the biggest thing on Netflix has been watched by like millions and millions of people. Including me. Not all of it, but I've watched a few episodes. Not me. I'm just being contrary. No, I just haven't that time. I've been playing Metroid. Go on, Jason. I'm like six episodes in, and I got to say it's popular for a very good reason. It is like amazing. It is incredible. It is so good. Seeing people like good? Oh, never heard of that happening before. Sometimes you'll see like a Big Bang theory or something that's like populist. There's a lot of garbage that's popular on Netflix.

That is fair. Sure. But this is like incredible. And it's not just incredible because the concept is that it's like a bunch of people dying and competing against one another in this like Hunger Game style like death game competition. It's also really well written and well acted and like well done in every single way. It looks gorgeous. It's like it's like prestige TV.

It's like the the gruesome like schlok of like death and a death game with like the cinematics and the acting of like real good prestige TV. So anyway, the concept of a squid game is it's a Korean show. It's set in South Korea. And it's about these, all these people who are so severely in debt and like just have been destroyed by capitalism and ravaged and financially that they agree to participate in this death game where they play childhood games like red light green light. You know the one where they say green light and you have to run and red light you have to stop. Knowing that the losers of any of these games, will die, but the winner will get millions and millions and millions of dollars. So those are the stakes.

And the show is really good at like setting up these amazing characters and making you really care about them and like care about what's going to happen to them. And obviously there's a lot of death. But the show is absolutely captivating. It's enthralling. It's like it's like Dangan Rampa, the TV show. It's like Zerrhus Gave. It does have Dengen Rompah energy.

Yeah, I find it very, very compelling. even while some of the scenes of violence are like legitimately hard to watch. Like there are times in the show, which I guess I'll warn people too. It's like there are times where I look away. I'm like, I can't. This is just like mass murder that's just happening. And it's meant to be horrifying. But it really is.

And the performances are so good. I mean, the cast of this show is just amazing. And yeah, like you said, it's a really well-made, well-written show. Everyone should watch for the subtitles, by the way. Do not watch the devs because you got to see the- Yeah. So, like, not the closed captions, just the one that's English without the CC, right? That's the better.

version of the translation, I think. Oh, yeah, that's right. I've seen people criticizing the translation. Is that a thing? There are two versions of the translation, and one of them is a direct translation of the dubs, which are obviously approximate because they're trying to line up with the lipslaps. And the other one is just a translation of the green. I don't even know which I've been watching.

Maybe you hate the show. No, I'm just kidding. I'll have to look into that. Maybe we'll link something in show notes. Because I was reading about this where there's a scene like early where the guy says, stop calling me sir. And what he was really saying is kind of like stop calling me like, you know, you're superior, like stop referring to me as your superior.

But the direct translation doesn't really convey the nuance. And I did see, I think it's like a vulture recap, they were mentioning that there's some debate about the subtitle. Which translation, yeah. Okay, that's good to know. So English, not English CC is the way to go. English is the way to go, not English CC. But it's good.

And it's like, it's got that battle royale energy, but there's that crucial difference that all the characters do ultimately choose to be on this show, which is far darker really in a way. Oh yeah. It reminds me of like the sorry to bother you warehouse. It's kind of like an Amazon parody where all the characters like move into the warehouse together. Yeah. It sounds like that. Yeah. It's very, it's funny. Like the last Korean thing I watched was parasite like a lot of people out there. And it's just like constant Korean criticisms of like capitalism and where that takes you. It's really interesting. I mean, there's a lot of wealth inequality in South Korea, right? Like just very similar to here. And obviously resonates with any American.

American viewer. Yeah, and I think one of the really smart things that the show does and one of the things that really elevates it, like I said, it feels like prestige TV. Like, it doesn't feel like you're watching something like, oh man, like got to watch this popcorn like death game, like watch all these people die for our amusement. It's like, it's like, it's, like, it's, like, it's, the death is never amusing. Dangan Rompah is popcorn. We can, we can say that. This is more like actual. And one of the things, one of the smart things it does is that the entire, most of the first episode is not about the death game. It's about the main character of the show and just like how desperate he is. So like a solid first, the first half of the first episode basically, half hour,

is just dedicated to like watching this guy and seeing how the horrible choices he makes and the sad life he has found himself in. And that really just sets the tone for the rest of the show because it doesn't like get you started with death right away. Like there's no death for a while, which I think is really smart. And yeah, Squid Game, it's awesome. I'm sure everyone out there has already heard of it and is considering checking it out, but highly, highly recommend. Yeah, it's the kind of thing we're going to, I mean, you can tell we, like, I just want to keep talking about it. So maybe we'll talk about it more in the future on the show somehow or because it is a really provocative, like really provocative show. Yeah, I haven't finished it yet.

Cool. Nice. It would be a good beans cast, maybe. It might be down the road, yeah. Yeah. Okay, cool. Well, that is it for this week's Diablo Fest, and we will be back next week for another episode. Yeah, see you both next week. Bye. produced by Jason Schreier, Maddie Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration.

You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network, and if you like our show, we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at Maximumfund.org slash join. Find us on Twitter at Triple ClickPod. Send email the triple click at Maximumfund.org and find a link to our Discord. in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time.