Triple Click - STALKER 2, Rise of the Golden Idol, and More

Episode Date: November 28, 2024

It's a Thanksgiving cornucopia full of video games as the Triple Click gang talks about what they've been playing. They discuss Rise of the Golden Idol, STALKER 2, Loco Motive, and Tactical Breach Wizards. Plus: spatchcocking!One More Thing:Kirk: Slow Horses (Mick Herron)Maddy: Les Miserables (2012)Jason: ThanksgivingLINKS:Support Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinBuy Triple Click Merch: https://maxfunstore.com/search?q=triple+click&options%5Bprefix%5D=lastJoin 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

The days are getting shorter, the goose is getting fat, and the last few amazing games of 24 are being delivered to our doorstep. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week, we do a video game grab bag of recent games, Rise of the Golden Idol, Stalker 2, locomotive, and, yes, we're talking about it yet again, tactical breach of wizards. I'm Maddie Myers. I'm Jason Shrier, and I'm Kirk Hamilton, and hello, friends. Hello.

We're back again. Happy Thanksgiving. It is that time of year when it gets really dark, really early in here. And I start thinking, should I get another light for this room? And I'm looking at myself on the screen talking to the two of you. And I'm thinking the same thing again. I look really dramatic right now. I look like Dracula in a castle podcasting at you live.

But that's mostly because of the vampire fangs you're wearing. Yeah, also it's the fangs. I'm celebrating Nospiratu. All of it is here. Well, we're a listener-supported show here. And we're part of the Maximum Fun Network, which is pretty cool, if you ask me. From the supportive listeners like you, we're able to do something like Triple Quest, which is a Dungeons and Dragons campaign that we're currently running on our bonus feed

and eventually running on our main feed. We already have episodes zero and one on the main feed, and part two is in the bonus feed, right now and eventually part three will be out. But I will say, uh, once you hear part two, I think you're really going to want to hear part three. That's, that's my opinion, having lived it, folks. Uh, but also I guess I buried the lead. Who, whomst is our dungeon master, but the one and only Matthew Mercer. And how could we do such a thing? Well, of course, it was through listener support. Uh, we were able to hire him to do that for us. And there are so many other things that were able to do because of that.

We are able to record all these wonderful bonus episodes for everybody once a month. And that, for all those reasons and more, you should go to Maximum FundDoteur slash join and become a member. And once you do that, you'll get to listen to those D&D episodes earlier than everybody else. And you'll get to support us. You'll get all those warm fuzzies. And you'll help me buy a new light for this room. Really, it is really dark in here.

So I'll keep everybody posted on that week by week. But hey, that that's enough of that. Maximumphone.com.com.com.com. I already said that. But I like to say it twice. Just in case somebody wasn't listening the first time. But now I've said it twice. But I'm the one running the episode. I can't, I can't throw it to anyone. I'm throwing the ball in the air and I'm the one catching it. And now we're going to talk about some video games. Hell yeah. This isn't just a triple play. We're cramming them all in. We played a few games here. And we're going to talk about each of them a little bit. And the first of those video games is the Rise of the Golden Idol, a much anticipated release for us here on Triple

Click. It is the sequel to the case of the Golden Idol, which was one of our three favorite mystery, point-and-click adventure games of 2023. Is that really true? It only just came out last year. Is that right? 2022. It had to be. Right. Yeah, yeah. That makes way more sense. 2020. And pretty soon, though, afterward, the sequel is out, Rise of the Golden Idol, very similar title, but pretty different in that. It is the same kind of point and click adventure style where you're dragging and dropping words as you discover them in a static scene that you're viewing. Usually that scene is depicting a murder. Sometimes it's depicting some other thing that you have to figure out, but most of the time it's a murder. And as you drag and drop those words around, the screen, you're filling up a series of almost

madlibs, and once you've filled them up, you've discovered what really happened in the scene that you saw. And I would say the main difference is that it is more difficult. That's been my experience thus far with Rise of the Golden Idol. I really had to crack open my notebook earlier on when I was playing this. But I want to hear from the two of you. Kirk, how far have you gotten into Rise of the Golden Idol? And what are you thinking about it so far? I like it because I like these games. I've definitely noticed it feels a little different playing it compared with Case of the Golden Idol. I think there's kind of a trajectory, though, if you played the DLC for Case of the Golden Idol up to Rise, where I think the DLC for Case of the Golden Idol was also more complicated and sort of required a little bit more lateral thinking.

And for me, like a little bit more guessing, which is actually something that I've had to do a little bit more of in Rise and has left me just feeling a little less connected to it. even though I think it's great and I love it. Like overall, I love the aesthetic. I love the writing. I love the story. So, you know, I like it. I'm like in the third act, I'd say. Same.

I think it's chapter three. That's how they do it. Yeah, as we discussed in the past, I think, Jason, this was your one more thing and we talked about it. There are these acts, which are usually three or four of the cases or, you know, sort of scenes. And each scene sort of starts out and you're looking at, a room and someone's standing there and it's in Medias Res, so it's like something that's going on, and you need to figure out what, so you sort of slowly piece that together. So when it comes to the sequel, for whatever reason, I've just felt that the game is more complicated

and sort of more demanding. I started out playing it with a controller because I actually played through the case of the Golden Idol entirely with Emily, and I was on the couch using a controller. I got to say, I do not like the controller. like playing this game with a controller. I've been doing that too and it's not good. Yeah, I don't like dragging the words with the thumbstick. And once I sat down at the PC to just play it with a mouse and keyboard, I was like, oh, okay.

I'd actually never played one of the games in that format, which is sort of funny. It's way easier. It's how I played it the first time around with Case of the Golden Idol. I played it all on PC. And it didn't even occur to me to try it with a controller because dragging and dropping with a mouse is the most natural behavior in the world to all of us who use a mouse. in keyboard nowadays, but I tried it on the Steam deck at this time, and they've created a version of it where you can kind of highlight something and then drag and drop it, but it feels, I didn't care for it. I think mouse, it works. You can do it if you have to, but I do think playing with

a mouse is the ideal setup for these two games. Yeah, I've definitely found that to be the case. So then I played a little bit with a friend of mine who was in town using a sort of trackpad keyboard that I was plugged into my PC and then streaming into the TV, and that worked okay. But it's really best, I think, just with the snappiness of a mouse. And I still find, I don't know, I'm sort of, it's a great game. I mean, like, it's not, it's really similar in terms of design and writing and, you know, vibe to Case of the Golden Idol. It's not quite blowing me away as much. And I'm not, or blowing me away, that's the wrong way to put it.

I don't think the case of the golden idol blew me away. It, it, uh, it charmed me. Like, I found it just really engrossing. And I'm, I'm enjoying rise, but I'm, I'm sort of, I feel a little held at arm's length, and I think some of it is the complexity. A little bit is the UI and the act of playing it, where I'm, I struggle a little bit with all the windows that have to be open. And I know there are keyboard shortcuts to let you get from one thing to another thing quickly. And I haven't learned them all yet, so some of it's on me.

But I have this feeling like I wish I could use my multi-monitor, like, work setup to play this game. Like, it'd be really nice to just leave all the words open on another monitor, you know? And like, you know, as you unlock words in this game, so as you explore and you find things, you like, you know, it kind of adds to the number of words that you have available to you that you can then use to fill in the blanks on the description of what happened. And this game kind of scaffolds it a lot more than the first game did, where there are multiple descriptions that you have to fill in. So you'll fill in one and it'll unlock another. Like they've built in a lot more sort of tiers in the overall mystery of the chapters. So like you'll start with just one thing, you know, who's who. And once you do that, it'll give you another thing.

And it's like, okay, so what was the initial, you know, series of events that led to this happening? And then you'll get maybe one more. And the whole time you're also trying to fill in the whole chapter story, which is like the broader one. And so there's kind of a lot to keep track of. There's a lot of different windows that you're kind of opening and closing. There's a big list of words. There's usually a list of names where you've named everybody in the scene. And then you also have to look at the scene.

And a lot of times, some of the best clues are not actually, you know, just words and names. You have to actually look at the environment and realize, like, oh, I see now. There's an early mystery, for example, where a guy gets pushed out of a window. One character sort of pulls the rug and someone tumbles out of a window, and you have to sort of figure out what happened. And you can only do that by looking at the scene. So between looking at the scene, looking at the words, looking at all the lists, I sometimes feel a little like I'm having to open and close so many different windows that I'm not really quite, in a flow. So I've noticed that a little bit. And I guess the last thing that I'll say before Maddie and Jason, I know you've talked about it a lot.

Well, hold on. Just pause for one second. I mean, one of the reasons you're experiencing that, I think, is that you're trying to play this on a TV, which seems a little bonkers to me. No, I'm sorry. To be clear, I am playing almost the entire game with a mouse and keyboard on a computer. Oh, okay. Then I forgot I said that. Yeah. And I have two monitors hooked up to my PC and I kind of wish that I could like drag some things over onto the second monitor. You wanted on two monitors instead of just one. I thought you said you were playing with a friend in your living room with the track pad. I played a little bit with the trackpad and my friend. I was saying you can play it and share it with someone in that way, which I think is a great way

to play this kind of mystery. It's fun to have two heads looking at all the words and kind of bouncing off of one another, same as how Emily and I played over at din. But no, I've played the majority of the game sitting at my computer. And so I'm finding myself just feeling a little constrained by the interface. And then, so the last thing that I'll say is, I've also found myself guessing more than I did in Golden Idol. And this was something we talked about, or sorry, with Case of the Golden Idol.

Yeah. This is something we talked about with that game, that sometimes the game just wants you to make a leap that you're just not quite making. And so when it tells you, oh, you have two or more, you have two or one of these wrong, but everything else is right,

you can brute force it. Like you can just start dragging in words. And if it kicks it over to incorrect, you know that that one's right. And then once you start, you can kind of narrow in on what you've got wrong and then figure it out. I found myself doing that more on even the last two or three mysteries that I've solved. And that doesn't feel great. Like it's not a big deal, but it's just been, a lot of times I find myself just, I've been staring at it for so long.

And I'm sort of not making the leap it wants me to make. And I'm kind of falling asleep. Sometimes I'm just sort of like maybe it's late or I'm tired. And I'm like, I don't know. I just want to move on to the next one. So I just brute force it. And that is like not quite as satisfying. So I don't know.

It could just be a me thing. So, okay. So there are a million different things to respond to in that monologue. But I'll say that like I think I agree with you. Having finished the game, I agree with you that the complexity, it's definitely ramped up in large part because of those chapter wide summaries. I think, and yes, I mean, the guess work, it really kind of your mileage may vary. It's like any adventure game or kind of deductive game, you may click with what the designer is trying to say or you may not.

And it could be extremely frustrating when you do not. I will say that I think the nature of a game like this, when the original, when the first one came out in 2022, one of the reasons that I will say blew me away. I think blew all of us away, at least to some degree. Maybe for you it was a little bit of a lighter breeze than a full-on hurricane. It's mostly that just feels like overheated language. It's not that I didn't love it. I loved the game. I loved case of the golden medal.

Nothing wrong with some hyperbole. It blew me away. Yeah, it blew me away too. So, like, it blew us away because there was nothing. We played nothing else like it ever before. Whereas the disadvantage of Rise of the Golden Islander, as we have played something like it before two years ago. And in my case, I played all the DLC cases too and finished those.

So last year, too. And for me, as someone who just will gobble up any of these games and drop everything I'm doing as soon as I get a code for one and just play it, it. I'm fine with that. But also just by its nature, it's not like you want to run around shouting the merits of rise of the golden idol to everybody you know the way you might have with the first

game, because it's not innovative anymore. It's just more of the same. It's like going from God of War to God of War Ragnarok or like Horizon Zero-Den or Horizon Forbidden West. The only ways in which this game can kind of build on the last one are by going more complex

and going bigger. And as you get further into the game, there's some there's some mystery cases that play around with time as well where it'll be like you can flip back and forth between different periods of time and the same scene and so it gets more complex and that's my nature because that's the only place they could go it's funny i talked to the developers a few weeks ago the two latvian brothers behind this game and they seemed totally over making golden idol stuff they have to do they're planning four more four dLC packs for rise of the golden idol so throughout next year there'll be four new expansions but after that it seems like they want to go in a totally

different direction and i don't blame them because yeah it's hard to surpass a game that really just like kind of comes out of nowhere and feels so innovative and special and unique and then when you come out with this new game and maybe you try to go bigger you try to go more complicated it can fail to resonate with people like kirk Hamilton in the same way that the first one did and it's that's just like natural yeah i have to wonder if a little of that exhaustion maybe comes through in the game. Yeah, I'm maybe, I don't know. I'm curious to hear your take when you finish it.

Because one thing I'll say is that like I found the overarching story to be absolutely fascinating. And once you finish it, well, I mean, once you finish it, there's some stuff that like you guys don't know about yet, which is what I'm referring to, which is that like stuff at the very beginning really starts to make a lot more sense. Once you finish the game and you kind of, you might find yourself as I did, going back and playing the old cases with a newfound appreciation for what they're doing and the little kind of hidden secrets in them, which I found really cool and a really enjoyable, delightful experience.

So maybe your opinion will change or maybe it won't. I mean, I can't imagine, once again, just like having that feeling of euphoria that at least I had, I think all of us had when we first played Case of the Golden Idol and we're just like, holy crap, this is unlike anything else I played before. That can't be recreated with a sequel. Yeah. I mean, I will say I think I'm enjoying it more because obviously I'm a super genius and I haven't had to brute force anything and just personally I haven't had to.

But the thing that is happening to me that maybe is also happening to you, Kirk, and I'd be curious, Jason, what happened to you is actually that there are more words that are synonyms or like very similar to each other and I'm putting them in and then realizing, oh, even though I was correct here technically, or like I know what the answer to the mystery is, like I've solved it in my own mind. I'm struggling to get the game to cooperate with me, which is sort of like a classic mystery game problem that I think we kind of talked about on our episode about mystery games back in the day. Or like as one example, there was a kind of fill in the blank situation where I was talking about both the parts that comprise the Golden Idol and also the Golden Idol itself. And those

were two different nouns. And I was misusing Golden Idol versus the word parts at various points. And I was like, I understand what happened here. I just was using the wrong nouns. And I just couldn't figure it out. And that was the only time where I actually looked up a walkthrough and I was like, oh, of course, obviously. Like, I didn't even feel bad looking it up because I was like, I know I solved this. I can tell I figured out what happened here. I just haven't. something's wrong and I don't know what it is. And that I don't think happened as often in the first one. I feel like there were far fewer potentially synonymous words

because it was just less complex overall and more minimalist as a game because there were just fewer terms per mystery. So that's another level that just makes the game harder. But personally, that's the only like true kind of problem I've run into. Other than that, I've just found like, okay, if I just look at everything for a really long time, I'll figure it out.

But Kirk, I agree. I mean, it is difficult. I am spending a lot of time just sitting there, which is a weird way to play a video game where you're just looking at something and being like, well, let me really think about this. That's the best way to play video game. I guess I should clarify that I'm,

the thing that's keeping me at arm's length isn't exactly the difficulty. It's the usability. It's like the experience of playing it where I can't sift through the clues as easily as I want to. and I'm holding a lot of just sort of names. You know, there's a ton of names in my head.

While I'm kind of clicking through a variety of windows and trying to go back. And the interface is like, you know, all those little question marks. And I'm sort of just going around to try to remember to click on the one to see the letter that has the layout of the, you know, the thing I'm trying to put together. And it's more like the feeling of just sort of not wanting to go through everything to figure out the one word that I've got wrong. So then I just brute force it. It's not exactly feeling like, oh, I'm stuck. Because usually, right, you look at the scene and you're like, oh, I basically get what's going on. This is cool. And you have those moments of joyful sort of connection where you're like, oh, that guy isn't the guy I thought he was. The actual guy and the costume is over here in this car because of the way the guy is talking to him, you can tell, you know, that he thinks he's somebody else. And you start to, like, piece together all the deceptions and the red herrings. And that's really cool. But then getting that final 10 percent requires a lot of sort of memorization and sort of navigation of this very sort of. like the UI is just not quite up to keeping all of that as organized as I would like.

And so then I just kind of wind up feeling a little tired rather than like stuck exactly by the difficulty. Yeah. Although this game over there as a sequel, it does have some UI improvements. And the most notable one is that you can move the little kind of subscreens around, which you could not do in the first game. So at least you can organize your screen to some degree. Yeah, I think that's an improvement. Yeah, I guess it would be nice to have a second monitor and just move some stuff on the other one. Yeah, you just go full minority report with it and just have a billion golden idol screens.

That's a notebook so far. I think if you require that many open windows, you actually, like, you do wind up kind of wanting more real estate. Yeah, I think using a journal also just helped me so much with what you're describing Kirk. But I also had the mental hurdle of like, do I really need to do this? Like, I need to write down every single character's name and then describe them in a little note underneath their name to myself. And once I started doing that, the game got easier, but it is that mental hurdle of like, I got to take out a piece of paper at this point. And then once you do that, you're just like, well, now I've already got paper here. Now I'm already doing

this. Yeah. I've actually, I've considered screenshoting the game and just opening the screenshots up on the second monitor. Yep. It's a workaround. Yeah, for sure. Well, I'm really enjoying it. I'll definitely check back in when I've finished it. Yeah, it's great. I love the story. Yes. And for my, and for my criticisms. Like, it's great. Yeah, I'm really enjoying it. And the story is so cool. And like, those moments, we really can't undersell them of kind of having that moment of realization of like, oh, this guy isn't who I thought or like, oh, this, this actually played out completely differently than when I thought it was. And I even had one where I like thought I had the solution, filled out the entire solution and got like, not even a two or fewer incorrect, but a flat out

incorrect. And I was like, really? And I was like completely wrong about what happened. And I love, that because then I was like, oh, I see, it's actually a completely different person than I even thought it was. And that was very fun for me and is like exactly what I enjoyed about Case of the Golden Idol and what I'm really liking about this game. And just the story is so cool and weird and just there's nothing else like the story. The art is still second to nine. The art is wild. The art remains amazing. And then there's Eugene.

Yeah, Eugene. You guys have both met Eugene. Eugene is MVP. Yeah. Oh my God. There's always one. I like these characters. So let's move on.

Let's talk about another video game for a little bit. So this next one, totally different game. Also hard. Also difficult for completely different reasons. This game is stalker two. So only Kirk and I have played this one. I could not get my PC to run this game. And this was a real moment where I discovered that maybe I need to replace some parts of my PC.

But that's something that maybe I'll talk about on a future episode. I know it's also Stocker 2's fault. The game launched with some performance issues, but it wouldn't really run it at all for me. And I looked at the specs and I was like, okay, these are outpacing me. But that's my own existential journey to go on. So I've actually been playing this via Xbox GamePass.

And it's, it runs pretty well in the Xbox, but there are still some problems with it. And I'm enjoying it despite that. I'm having a great time. This is a kind of science fiction post-apocalyptic game. It's set in Chernobyl. I can't remember what it's called the Exclusion Zone. But it's like kind of in another version, an alt-history version of the world where there were multiple disasters there, as opposed to just the one which does happen in the world of the game.

But there's an additional one. And there are all these other sort of supernatural events happening. There's like kind of lightning storms all the time and like items float in front of your face. and it's, it's, it's freaky. And also there's a bunch of guys out there just trying to survive in the zone and, uh, steal each other's stuff and or work together depending on who they decide to trust. And yeah, it's, it's a real big vibes game. And I really like the vibe. And it was also made in Ukraine by people who were living through the Russian invasion while they were making the video game. And the game really reflects that sense of urgency at its best, in its best moments. I think that

that emotion is really palpable in the game and ways that are really impressive. And with each patch, I think it's really improved. So I'm glad I've been sticking with it. But Kirk, what do you think about it so far? Yeah, I really like it. And yes, it is rough. I'd say it's more of a performance thing for me

than an issue with bugs. And there was kind of an interesting review situation with this game where I believe, I had an early copy that I played a little bit of and it was quite buggy. like there were missing gun sound effects in the very first firefight I got in

and I was like, okay, I'm gonna maybe come back to this and then they released this massive day one patch that addressed like a thousand bugs or something and I read reviews and it really just seemed like reviews were written on that version before the patch and I've played a lot of the game now post patch and it's, I mean it's not bad

it is like rough, it doesn't run great it's weird, it has that stalker feeling which you know this game of course is a a sequel to a long overdue sequel to these 2000s era games, the earlier Stalker games, which were also notoriously janky and kind of funny and weird and required a lot of mods and sort of gave rise to a whole modding community that's already on the case with Stalker 2. So between the fact that they patched a lot of bugs out, and there are already performance mods and other kinds of mods.

There's like a mantling mod. There's a mod where you can run without running out of stamina because this game is huge. and you have to cover all this ground. So you can really already begin to customize your experience on PC at least, which is one reason to recommend the PC version. So I don't know. My experience actually hasn't been super buggy. It's a little janky in general, you know, the facial animations.

The sort of the AI is pretty weird. Like enemies just sort of appear sometimes. It's very unpredictable. But all of it is charming in a way that I'm kind of fine with. It's been an interesting like litmus test for the types of, of bugs and the types of jank that I don't actually mind and the types of games that I don't mind if they're janky versus, you know, I don't know some other games that would have maybe a lesser bug, but it would bother me more. And yeah, I'm really enjoying it. I mean, this game has big Far Cry 2 energy. It's definitely one of those weird, emergent, hostile games.

You're always, you know, it's not dissimilar from the metro games, though it is more a little more systemic. It feels kind of like PubG, you know, like a single player. player unknowns battlegrounds. And yeah, I'm really enjoying it. I find it kind of cozy, actually. I find the vibes to be fairly cozy a lot of the time. That's a wild statement. I guess it's cozy in the sense that you're always kind of doing chores in this game. I mean, they're like survivalist chores, but like your guns deteriorate. You need to go back to town. You have a weight limit in terms of how much you can carry. You have to be picking up food and paying attention to your radiation levels.

I mean, it has that kind of like survival sim feeling to it. And yeah, there's combat. But also you can avoid it, or at least I do sometimes when I'm like, I really can't handle that fight right now. I'm just going to go the other way. Or I'm going to like go back and get some repairs done or something, do something else. There's a lot of that.

I've found I can run away from a lot of encounters if I am doing poorly and I like need to regroup or just find some weapons somewhere else. kind of reminds me of like a daisy when I was into that game. And I agree about PubG in the sense that obviously PubG is a battle real. You're dealing with other players that you happen upon all the time. But the enemy AI when it works really well in this game has that same sensation of like almost running across a group of other real people who are engaging in a fight that you're not familiar with. And you're kind of like, oh, sorry guys. Like I'm just passing through here.

Like that kind of energy is interesting. to live in and makes the world feel more realistic in a cool way. And like actual other people are there, which is the intent. Yeah, there's a kind of a granularity to an inventory management. Like when you kill a guy, you can unload his gun and take the bullets. There's a kind of scarcity. And it just feels along the lines of those kind of ARMA and ARMA mod type games where there's just like a little bit more detail and micromanagement.

But I find that stuff kind of please. in a way because, you know, having to actually engage with those sorts of things kind of centers me in the world a little bit more. And yeah, the coziness is just, you know, there are, yeah, there are these horrifying storms that come through that just murder you if you're outside. And there's something about having a really bad storm coming and then running to a town and seeing everybody running inside and you go inside and then you're in the store and you're waiting while like the red sky outside and the storm goes by and you kind of eat like some salami and you recover some help. And like guys have guitars and they'll tell stories.

I mean, that stuff is really cool. Like, it really does feel like you're hanging out with some other dudes in the zone. Yeah. There are radios that are playing all kinds of really cool Ukrainian music. They have like this massive playlist of, I believe, all the music, or at least a lot of it is, are different Ukrainian artists, which is just cool because it's all stuff I've never heard before. There's a really strong sense of place in this game that I enjoy. And yeah, I mean, there's the same annoying stuff from the earlier. soccer games is here.

Like, they're a mutants, kind of monsters that you have to fight. And they're mostly all a bummer, at least all the ones I fought are like not fun to fight and I just run away from them. Like the invisible guys. I don't know what they're called. But those guys aren't good to me. You just waste all your bullets on them. And you can usually just kind of run around them and like grab whatever you want and

then get out of there. And I've started playing that way. I've started doing that for sure. Dark Soul style. Yeah. So there's kind of a joy in this game, I guess, to feeling like you're getting one over on the game. Which is like, it's not a bad sort of second prize compared to a game where it's really fun to fight the monsters.

And so you do it voluntarily. This is a game where like it's not fun to fight the monsters really. And you waste like are bullets. So you instead find a clever way to just run around it. And then feel, I still feel good at the end because I'm like, ha, ha, ha. I got away and I didn't even have to shoot that thing at all. So I don't know. I find that sort of satisfying.

That reminds me of what playing Resident Evil too is like. I mean, there are some horror. elements in Stocker 2. Oh, sure. Well, I just mean in the sense that, like, you get into an encounter and it's better for you to avoid it because there's no reason to fight it. Yeah, and you're running out of bullets, like in Resident Evil, too. Like, you also have to think about every single thing you're picking up and where it is.

And so in that sense, it is like a survival horror experience. But I don't think it's that scary exactly. No, not really. It's not that Jason thought R.A.2 was scary. He didn't. So I guess it was a good comparison for him. But there's no, like, real jump scares, even when they're kind of an, trying to engineer one, the game is, I would say, rough enough that there just isn't quite the

smoothness required for the timing to work for a jump scare. It's more like, you know, that invisible doodle show up from time to time. But like, those guys are kind of everywhere. I'm not sure if that's even supposed to be a jump scare or not genuinely. It's more just annoying. Yeah, I don't, I don't really know if it is. But it's like a sort of a scary situation. Right. But it still feels kind of kind of janky. And so not that, not that scary. This game has a really funny vibe. I've been kind of alternating back and forth between the Ukrainian voiceover and the English voiceover. Yeah. Which I know, Maddie, you wrote an article about it.

I really like the Ukrainian one. I think it's really cool. I think it's a cool way to experience the game for sure. It is. There are times where I find I can't take on all of the dialogue. I get that. Because it's just a little too much to read it all, especially if I'm playing and someone's talking. But I think generally the Ukrainian voice actors seem stronger.

It might be that, like, I don't detect the shortcomings in their performances because, like, I don't speak Ukrainian. I don't know. I could also be just experiencing that. It's like kind of the classic, just like play with the Japanese voice acting. And then you won't notice whether or not you like the voice actors. It's like the equivalent of that. The English voice acting is all over the place.

It's like a variety of accents. The guy who plays is his name. Skiff's voice is way better in Ukrainian than in English. Some of the other voices are kind of hit or miss. There's a variety of accents and like quality levels to the performance. I got to tell you, though, I just had this cutscene with a guy that was like the strangest sequence where you come in, it's this guy solder that you're looking for in the beginning. And it goes into this cutscene where you're kind of walking up to the door that he's behind. And then, you know, it goes into cutscene mode.

So, like, you can't just go in and shoot him, basically. Right, right. And in first person perspective, this cutscene plays out where you go in there and he's there and he sold you out early, so you're pissed at him. And he has a gun. and you're like trading barbs about the gun and then you fight for a while you wrestle over the gun and you're trying to get to the gun

and then you get it and you point it at him and you're like ha ha now I have the gun and he's like oh whatever and he grabs a loaf of bread and he like is like holding the bread and then you shoot the bread and he's like ah and then he bites into the bread

while talking to you while you're interrogating him and he's chewing on the bread and then he starts to choke and so then in the middle of this cutscene he's choking and then your character like hits him on the back because there's like bread crumbs flying out of his mouth. And then he stops choking.

He's like, ah, this goddamn bread. Thanks. Like, no problem. Anyway, tell me who sent you. And then he like walks over and he starts pouring some tea. And then he like throws the tea kettle at you. Like this this cut scene is like more involved and bizarre than anything I was expecting. Like especially that anything that I'd seen in the game up to that point.

And I have no idea who is responsible for it. But it's actually delightful. It sounds great. I'm excited to get. anything like that in this game. I was like, oh, is there going to be more stuff like this? Because I really hope there is. Like, this type of strangeness was not a type of strangest that I was prepared for. And I really loved it. So hopefully there's more of that in the game. It made me want to keep playing to see more. Yeah. I think there is kind of a general energy of like you never know who you can

trust. And even when you do trust someone, they're always kind of on the verge of killing you with which that cutscene. It's a designed one to give you that sensation. I mean, at the end of the conversation, you can choose to kill him or not kill him. Of course, yeah. I feel like I've run into that by accident or maybe on purpose a couple times, not in cutscene form where like I sometimes just walk around without my gun out because then people will still talk to you sometimes. And like you aren't considered a threat basically if you just hide your weapons. And so I like was just walking around and found a quest that I had agreed to with a bunch of guys that I was supposed to kill.

But I didn't know that. So I just was like walking around having conversations with them. And then eventually I was like, how am I supposed to advance this quest? And then I was like, oh, I'm supposed to just kill these guys. And then I like, I took up my gun. And I was like, oh, well, anyway, it's been nice. And then I had to just kill them all and then advance the quest line. Yeah, I'm not really, I'm not sure how some of it works.

I've had that in like a bandit camp where I'm talking to people, but I always have the dialogue option of like, and off of that attack, you know. For whatever reason this time, I didn't have that. And I don't know why that was because it took me, I had to like look at my journal and be like, so what am I supposed to be doing here? Oh, killing all of you. see now. It was very funny to me. Yeah, and it seems like there are repercussions for killing some people. Yeah. There are definitely factions. There's like a tool tip or whatever, a tip at the loading

screen about like you have to pay off faction bosses. I haven't really interacted with that that much and I don't know how well it works, but I guess we'll see. And I think I'm sure I'm going to screw up and kill the wrong person. I'm sure I already have. I'm just kind of, I'm just kind of wing in it. And I know there's also a thing where, and I am not even trying with this. I've died a million times in this game and I don't care. But I know. know that if you die fewer times, you get a different ending. Or so I hear from previous Stalker games, but I've already accepted it. I've accepted that I'm not going to get whatever that is.

I'm just died a lot of times and I'm moving on. Seven deaths, Hamilton is not, is not showing up for Stalker. No, absolutely not. We're like 20 something death Samilton. We're in the dozens for sure. We're 27 death, Maddie over here. So, yeah, it's not going to work out. But I'm having a good time and I'm really enjoying like the kind of class.

classic jank and I think the Xbox will continue to get patches and so will my PC in a different form and a more physical form in the future. Yeah, I would say to close out just as a recommendation for this game that if this stuff sounds good, like if you're already into this kind of game, you'll probably enjoy it as it is. I do think this game will get better and better over time. Agreed. Especially because it seems like Microsoft is actually like really supporting it and helping them patch it. And then like I was saying earlier, I think there will be more and more mods as time goes by. And I bet that in a few months, this game will be a much better version of itself. So you could also wait. I think you could kind of go either way. But I'm actually, yeah, I'm having plenty of fun with it now. Yeah, same.

And the fact that it's on Game Pass, I mean, if you already have that, cost nothing to try it other than what you're already paying for Game Pass, which is kind of like it costing nothing. So there you go. All right. So, Jason, you have a game here that only you played called Locomotive. You want to tell us about it? Yeah.

So Locomotive is this new game that just came out. It's from this British studio founded by a couple of brothers. And it's a kind of old school point and click adventure, very reminiscent of Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle and such. It's set on this train, it's a murder mystery. You play, at least in the first part, you play as multiple characters, but in the first part you play as this estate lawyer who is on this train to help do some amendments to the will of this.

elderly rich woman and the woman dies, she is killed and you have to figure out exactly what happened. And in true point and click adventure style, that means going around and talking to people and clicking on things and putting them in your pockets and then taking them out and using them to solve puzzles. And it's very charming. It's a very charming game. And I am really enjoying the writing and the characters and the animations, which are very silly, very old school Lucasart style silly of you just like taking a massive object and putting it in your pants that sort of guyber thing type stuff and other kind of silly animations and other silly just just funny happenings the thing that is annoying about it is the thing that is annoying about all point-and-click

adventures which is that sometimes the logic doesn't actually make any sense and you find yourself kind of frustrated looking things up it's unlike rise of the golden idol you can't brute force some of these puzzles. You have to really just go and look up what the fuck to do, which can be pretty frustrating. But it's a solid adventure. If you like Point and Clicker Adventures, you'll probably like this one too. I'm enjoying it. Yeah, sounds great. How's the story? The story, I don't know, I haven't finished it yet. I'm like in through the first act, you kind of, it changes characters after you get through this first big chunk. I'm playing this very delightful portion where like you, you,

the second character you play as is this detective fiction writer. And his chapter starts off with him in the publishing office pitching a manuscript to three editors. But the editors use this giant machine called the board that uses algorithms to determine whether a manuscript should be accepted or not. It's not, no, it's like an AI. It's like a big like spinning AI thing that is like, oh, this does not. have this, this and this. Like it goes through like bullet points of like, so it's like an AI thing. It's very silly.

And you have to figure out how to disable it in some way and get your manuscript to prove. So it's just a very funny game. The overall story, I mean, I don't know. I don't really have thoughts on that yet because you kind of have to see where the murder mystery is going and who the culprit is. But yeah, very charming. Cool. And you're also playing something else, Jason, if you want to.

Yeah, so I've been playing also a bunch of tactical breach wizards, which is, which rules, just like you guys said it did. And that game I'm also really enjoying. I don't remember if either of you made the comparison, but my immediate reaction is like, oh, this is like a more elaborate version of Into the Breach, which is a game that we all really enjoyed a few years ago. I didn't make that comparison. Oh, you did, but it's okay. Who's counting? Who's going back up? No one said this.

I think Jason came up with this. It's like into the bridge. I did. I was the first to make that comparison point. Because it's the reason I make that up is because it seems on its face. You look at it and you look at the way it functions and the camera angle and the conceit of it all. And you think of Xcom because it's kind of like an asymmetric grid based. You have three shooting characters.

You can like upgrade their abilities and so on and so forth. But it's really nothing like Xcom. It's really a lot more of a puzzle-solving game than it is kind of like a tactical RPG where you're like customizing characters and figuring out the best loadouts and stuff. This is more, you have pretty, pretty strict suite of abilities. You can do some upgrades in customization, but they're pretty limited. Mostly you're just kind of figuring out how to ideally solve each puzzle. And if you really want to go all the way, you solve the optional objectives too. Anyway, I'm really loving it.

It's a really cool game. I'm about halfway through, I guess, and I just finished the second kind of act. And it's like a four-act structure. Got it. Anyway, that's it. I mean, it's really cool. Yeah, it's really good. I'm glad you're playing it.

Kirk, was it you who was sharing like the FAQ in our chat about all the different things that the game is not? I thought that was really funny. And I was thinking about it as Jason was saying, the game looks like X-com and it's not X-com and people being like, well, is this game a rogue-like? and it seems almost like it would be when you start playing it, but it's not a rogue like at all. And they have like a funny answer to that where they're like,

we don't know why people are saying this. But it's like each level is really discreetly. People are saying this because every indie game is a rogue like in 2020. Yeah, but it's like each level is really discreetly designed to be a very specific puzzle that can be solved, but also to kind of tell you something about the characters who are in the puzzle as well because it's ultimately a story game. Like in addition to being a strategy game, it's a story. And I just think that's so cool.

I don't, I, that part of it also isn't really like into the breach or really like anything else I've ever played and is something that I really love about that game. It's cool. I'm glad you're playing it, Jason. We bullied you effectively. Good job. I think the, um, the Steam page and really all of the sort of meta textual stuff around this game, all of which I, I would imagine is written by Tom Francis. Yeah, probably. Yeah.

Francis Energy. Like and just as a sort of, I don't know, he was like a PC gamer reporter. He's sort of like, he kind of understands like the language of a Steam game and of like how to describe it. There's just something a little like self-aware about it. And so in the marketing materials, yeah, that they're like it's not actually like XCOM. It looks like XCOM, but XCOM is, you know, this like Jason just described. And this game is actually very different. And then also, well, yes, it has breach in the title and it is somewhat like into the breach because both games are grid-based and have a time mechanic where you can rewind turns, which is actually a pretty significant mechanical similarity.

But then he actually very clearly articulates the difference, which I can't remember the exact language, but basically that in tactical breach wizards, there's a far greater suite of options available to you, especially as your team expands on any given turn. And where Into the Breach is a much more linear or much more like rigid kind of design. And I do think that's something you'll find as you play more,

Jason is that it becomes less and less of a puzzle game as it goes. I actually heard some people disappointedly describing the game as, oh, it's actually just a puzzle game. And I really wouldn't, I know you weren't saying that, but I really wouldn't say that, especially the more I've played, because once you have a full team and you've kind of customized all of your different team members, there is a variety of different approaches you can take depending on how you, you know, do your builds. And then you have all these different options for taking people out. And then the only time it really gets puzzly is when you start trying to do those side objectives, which are such a great little idea. Like the Ubisoft games used to do this. I guess maybe some of them still do,

but I love this approach where there are these optional objectives that both give you a fun challenge and it's usually very rigid. Like a lot of times it'll be knock, you know, knock out five people with Jen on the first move or only go twice. A lot of times it's like, you know, only take two turns and then complete this scenario. And what's cool about that optional objective is, is both that it gives you a fun challenge to try to do, and it also tells you that it's possible. Yeah. Right.

It's possible to figure out a way to do this. It's kind of a double-edged sword and that I find myself sometimes, like, chasing that a little too hard. And the game really tries to remind you over and over. These are optional. These are for people who are finding the game too easy. You definitely don't have to do them.

You're not going to unlock any thing. You unlock outfits or something if you do that. But I still found myself sometimes chasing them. But I kind of like that and thought it was fun. And I just like when a game tells you some really difficult thing that you can pull off. And I think this game communicates with the player very well. Yeah, same. I'm also very capable of just giving up.

If I'm like, I tried this a few times and I'm not having fun, I'm going to continue on so I can see this story and have a good time. But I also like knowing, like, oh, I could have done this in two moves or whatever if I had figured it out. And I'm sure somebody out there's really good at this kind of thing and they know how to do. Plus there are those like optional challenge rooms that, that, that unlock each chapter, and there are more and more and more of them as you go. And I didn't even do all of them. Some of them are really hard. And they're all,

they're all like really distinct. Those are very puzzly, like one room with an extremely specific scenario that you have to figure out. Those are fun in a kind of different way than the more open-ended campaign missions. Yeah, yeah. So I feel like I should list all the games we just said, just in case somebody wants to hear them again. So I'll just run them down. It's only four games. So we talked about Rise of the Golden Idol at the beginning. That's the one that's the sequel, the point and click adventure sequel to Case of the Golden Idol. And then we talked about Stocker 2. That's our Eurojank, uh, FBS, sci-fi post-apocalyptic game.

I saw someone call it Slavjank, which I thought was kind of funny. Very good, very good. It'd be a little more specific regionally. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's be specific with it. And then Jason talked about locomotive, uh, which is like a mystery game, uh, that he's playing. And then last but not least, tactical breach wizards, one of our faves, probably going to come up when we talk about our goadies.

We'll see. We're getting to that time of year. And so with that, we've discussed some video games. Let's take a break and then we'll be back for one more thing. Doctor Game Show is a podcast where we play games submitted by listeners with callers from all around the world. And this is a game to get you to listen. Name three reasons to listen to Dr. Game Show. Kyla and Lunar from Freedom, Maine.

Dishes folding the laundry, doing cat grooming. Okay. Thank you. Oh, things you could do while listening, yeah. I love that the reason, I'm like, why do you listen to this show and Lunar's like dishes? Fantastic. Manolo. Number one is that it will inspire you.

You're going to be like, oh, I could do that. That's all we have time for, but you'll just have to find after Game Show on maximum fun to find out for yourself. Do you like stuff, things, items? Because Maxfundstore.com has tons of stuff. from a bunch of shows. Want a shirt? We got them. Bumper stickers?

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or kind of dumb. We've got it all. And we are back for one more thing. Kirk, why don't you go first? Sure. So my one more thing quite a while back was the Apple TV show Slow Horses. Yeah. Which has continued to be great.

And they just finished, what, their fourth season or something. And every season the show has been great. It's really gotten better as it's gone. But my one more thing is actually the Slauhaus books by McHaron, which the show is based on. I actually found the first, book, which is called Slow Horses. It was published in 2010. I found it among my dad's stuff when we were clearing out my parents' stuff over the summer. And I was like, oh, that's cool.

I didn't even know he was reading this. It was kind of a very, kind of a sad moment of like, oh, I watched the show and it would have been nice to talk to him about it. So I was like, well, I'm going to take this book with me. I'll take it home and read it. So now I have his copy of Slow Horses. And I read it, even though I had already watched the season, you know, the first season of the show, because the show does follow the books in order. And there are like 12 books or something. And they've just gone straight up in order. Every single one is a pretty faithful adaptation of the book. So I'd already seen the season. I knew what was going to happen. And I actually found that I enjoyed the book even more as a result. I knew where we were going. I knew what kind of

a story to expect, like what kind of a spy story, I guess, because there are, you know, a lot of different kinds of spy stories. So from there, I just kind of kept reading the books. I started checking them out from the library and I read the first three and now I'm reading the fourth book after having finished the fourth season which just aired. The fourth book is called, I think it's called Spook Street. See, Joe's are spies and Spook Street is like where the spies have to go. Right. So these books, these books are like the show based on the sort of MI5 like British spy stuff. But with a slightly comedic bent, I would say like a dark comedic bent, it's not really a comedy. The books are very funny. I'd say the books are almost funnier than the show, though the show is also often quite funny.

It's about a group of spies assigned to an outfit called Slough House, which is the house that they all work out of. They're MI5 agents who have screwed up in some way or another. So they're like, one is a drug addict, one is a gambling addict. One, like, made a huge mistake during his training, even though he was supposed to do well. And also kind of got sold out by some people. So all of them have been screwed over in some way. And then Lamb, who is the kind of, that's the name of the guy who, that's the name of the guy who, who's in charge of everyone.

He is kind of the worst of all. He's like an old Cold War spy who's this kind of horrible, unkempt, smelly, farting, belching, asshole who's in charge of them all. But also, of course, he is an incredible spy. And you get the sense that on some level he cares about his people,

even though he'd never really let you know. And he's played by Gary Oldman on the show and is a really incredible performance. Jackson Lamb is his full name. So it's kind of all about, all of these different misfits who work for Jackson Lamb, they always, they keep winding up getting sucked into some kind of shenanigan or another. A lot of times it's like a problem of MI5's own making where they're just caught up in some internal politics where their adversaries are

also members of MI5. Occasionally it gets a little more international, but it's not quite like a spy story, you know, like there are spies from another country. Most of the time it's like, oh, our chickens are coming home to roost because of some shit we did during the Cold War or whatever. Anyways, the books are really funny. Mick Heron is a very, very funny writer, even though in the end they're really like these hard-boiled, kind of well-put-together spy capers. He writes very, with a great amount of momentum. He does a lot of editing where he cuts in between multiple scenes that are happening at the same time. And the show feels that way, too.

It's pretty breathless, especially, I think it's season three. Like, once things get cooking, it almost unfolds in real time. And most of the books are that way, too. so they're super readable. Like you just get started and once it gets cooking which doesn't take long you really kind of just

go through to the end. So anyways, for anyone out there who likes the show I just thought I'd recommend the books. They're really fun and actually reading the books after watching the show has been a really rewarding experience

and has made me appreciate the show even more when there's a new season. I feel like I just have more insight into the characters and appreciate them even more. So yeah, they're great books and I recommend them.

So are you not going to continue because you don't want to spoil the show or you're kind of at a stopping point. The question, I actually have the next book on my Kindle from the library. And when I finish the one I'm reading, I'm going to have to make that decision. They shoot them really far ahead of time. Like, I think they've got the next season in the can, but I'm guessing it won't hit Apple TV for a while. So I don't know.

I'm going to have to make that decision. And I'm not sure what I'm going to do. Yeah, because I feel like that would change the paradigm for you, where then you'd be watching the show already knowing what's going to happen. And that's happening. I think I did that with Game of Thrones. Like, that'd be okay. Yeah. It might be fun to try it the other way.

around and see how it is. But I haven't decided. Yeah, that's always a tough one when it's like all the books are out, but the show is only now coming out. I mean, at least they're all done. I think the books are all done. That's unlike Game of Thrones. I'm not sure. There are so many. I'm not sure if he ended because there hasn't been one since 22. It's not that kind of thing, right? It's like a serial. It's not like there's an ongoing story. There, especially now, he's introducing more and more stuff that's probably going to come back in future books. But yeah, each story stands alone. Okay, fair enough. People get killed.

Like, you know, there's like things change and then the story kind of unfolds. And there's things that could be maybe spoiled that you would be like, okay, well, now I know this is going to happen. But whatever, that's books, that's shows. You got to make your decisions. All right, I'll go next. So I watched a movie, the movie adaptation of the musical, Le Miserab from 2012. It's a very controversial movie. I don't know if you two know this.

I'm really showing my theater kid pride here. So this movie is really hated by people who love Le Miseraph Because it made the controversial choice To have all of the actors sing live And you can really tell Like it's not like, oh, you know, they're bad singers or something Some of them are excellent singers But you can definitely tell that they're really singing live on a soundstage

And they're being miced as such And sometimes there's a lot of variability and volume Because of that And also the other controversial choice is that the orchestra follows the singers. And this is very unusual across the board for a musical, is that the singer could set the pace of a song and kind of like take dramatic pauses when they choose to and the orchestra would follow them. And it's really strange, but I thought it was fascinating.

I expected to dislike it. So then I liked it more than I thought I would just because I expected to not like it and because I had heard from so many people that it was terrible. And if you hear something's bad and then it's okay, you kind of are like, all right, well, I'm going to like kind of see what's interesting about this. And I do think it's a fascinating project and I was glad I finally got around to watching it. Hugh Jackman stars in it as Valjean. I don't think he, I actually really like his performance, but his singing voice, he really struggles with some of the range of that role. It's a really, really hard role to sing.

It's like a huge range of high notes that he doesn't really have. And Russell Crow plays Javert and famously doesn't have the right. I mean, people say Russell Crow can't sing. He can sing fine. It's just he's not performing the role the way that I feel like Javert's normally performed. And that's really weird to watch. He's a really understated performance. And it's like he's giving nothing.

But I enjoyed it anyway. And I thought some of the moments of the live singing were really moving. Like Anne Hathaway's performance, I thought was amazing. And I don't know if you'd, you are familiar with Les Mis at all, but it's like an extremely sad musical. It's very, very melodramatic. Like to say the very least about it. It's not called lay joyous. It's so melodramatic. This is the kind of thing I liked as a teenager because who doesn't love melodrama when they're a teenager? So all of these songs are the kinds of songs where if somebody was saying these words to

you, you could picture them sobbing while saying them. Like pretty much every song kind of works that way where you're like, someone would be crying while doing this. And a lot of times the actors are crying while they're singing. And that's part of why the performances are so unusual, because when you're crying, it's really hard to sing, obviously. And so, like, this live performance of it is, is kind of moving in a very different way because the actors are really bringing it in that way. And Anne Hathaway is sobbing throughout I Dream to Dream, like, just full on raw, sobbing, like, drool coming out of her mouth, just really bringing it in this. And, like, I liked it. I couldn't believe it.

I liked it, but I was like, this is really working. I do think she's kind of a genius, though. And I don't know that it works when everyone else does it. And I also read, you know, some people hate that performance because she chooses to do that. But I thought it really worked. So if you're like me and you were kind of putting off watching this because you were like, I don't know what I all think of it. I'm glad I watched it finally.

I did palette cleanse afterwards by watching my favorite version of Les Mis, which is called quote, The Dreamcast. It has Leia Salongas Eponine and Colm Wilkinson as Jean Valjean. And I watch it and I was like, this is just taking me back. I just love this shit. I could watch this a million times. So like I did kind of like, you know, double feature Les Mis for myself. But I do recommend it if you're hesitant.

I think there's something interesting about it even though it doesn't always work. And I feel like after this movie failed in that way with people, the whole idea was thrown out. But I think there's something to it for certain songs, if that makes sense. And it could work. Doesn't Wicked do this, though? Does it? Oh, interesting. I feel like I saw them talking about Wicked having some live singing in it.

That's cool. I wonder if they do some live singing and some not. Because I feel like that's a better way to approach something like this. I sure you weren't thinking of people talking about singing in the movie. In the movie. I believe I saw that's all Bing in if I'm wrong. But I believe I saw that some of the performances in Wicked are sung on set. But then there's also live singing of people who just can't help but sing in the movie theater.

Then also in the movie theater, unfortunately. Yeah, so that's lay miss from 2012. Weird experience. Jason, why don't you go last? My one more thing is Thanksgiving. Yay. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love Thanksgiving.

It's so good. You got your family, you got your football, and you got your food. And every year for Thanksgiving, I cook. And so I wanted to give you guys and our listeners a couple of useful tips in case you are hosting Thanksgiving or would like to one day host Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving. So I'm going to give you guys a couple of tips. And number one is, Kirk, you know what's coming. Oh boy. Gotta Spatchcock that turkey. You got to. She said it. Every year. You got to take that turkey and you get some good kitchen shears or like a good knife and cut out the backbone and then just kind of

flatten it as much as you can. Crack the wishbone. Flatten it as much as you can. Put it on a wire rack over some veggies. And you stick that thing in the oven at 450 degrees. It'll be done in 80 minutes, 90 minutes stops, depending on big your turkey is. And your guest will be like, wait a minute, you made a turkey in an hour and a half. Like, I've been sitting here doing a four-hour basting every 20 minutes, like ritual and Thanksgiving is miserable because of that, but no, there is an easier way. And a couple other things you can do to make the turkey even better. You can dry, brine it, which is another kind of key tip. And here is the real, the real pro tip is you take it and you do your spatch cacking and then you put it on the wire rack and stuff and you put it in the

fridge for 24 hours uncovered before you cook it and that dries out the skin and it makes it super super crispy you can do this with the chicken by the way every time i make worse chicken or something i do the same thing spatch cocking and i don't always have time to do like drying into the fridge but that also helps make for like crispier skin and much better bird um so that's tip number one if you want to make your thanksgiving hosting experience like less miserable because the turkey is so hard to cook. This is what you do. And it'll make things so simple and easy. Well, you're freeing up the oven for most of the day too. So you're freeing up the oven for most of the day. You can work on other stuff. Yeah, a lot of people have to do like all their stuffing and pies and sweet

potatoes or whatever else beforehand because like they need to reserve the oven for the turkey all day. But nope, you don't have to do that. You can cook everything like that morning of. My prep, I have some other prep. My Thanksgiving is a little bit. unique because some of my family keeps kosher. So we do non-dairy sides. So I can't do like mac and cheese or like mashed potatoes smothered in butter. But I do do a couple of things that I think are really key to like making a really good Thanksgiving meal or making a good meal in general. And they're all really easy. None of this is like difficult to pull off. One of them is making homemade chicken stock or turkey stock for like as like a base for your gravy. You got to make homemade gravy. You can't do that

mixed stuff. And chicken stuff. And chicken stock. is really surprisingly easy to make it home and taste exponentially better than the canned stuff. It's one of those things. There are like a few things you learn as a home cook that like really elevate your cooking that are actually surprisingly, like deceptively easy and making homemade chicken sock is one of them. You just need time. So like basically you take a chicken, cut the skin off if you want it to be healthy or just take some chicken breasts like boneless chicken, not boneless, but skinless chicken

breast. You want the bones in there too. Or even just bones. You can do it a lot of different types of chicken, sticking in a pot with some water, a bunch of vegetables, onions, carrots, celery, like, leaks, potatoes I sometimes put in there. You can do this with, like, the gross, like, the vegetables that are, like, on

their way towards rotten on the bottom of your fridge, and it's totally fine, as long as they're not, like, actually rotten. And you just let it simmer for a few hours, and it turns into delicious stock that you can then use for your gravy and for your, to moisten your stuffing, and stuff like that.

And then, if you're like me and you have to cook a Thanksgiving meal without butter, something else that I do, I make what's called schmaltz. And so what you do with that is you take your chicken skins. And this is where you can do two things at once. You can cut the, you can get a big chicken, cut the skin off, use the chicken itself, the carcass itself, for the stock and then the skins for this, which is you take these skins, a bunch of skins, and you put them in a saute pan and you cook them on like low heat for like a solid 45 minutes. You just let them sweat out. And all the

fat will render out. At some point you can put in an onion in there for flavor too, but the fat will run out and it'll just kind of sit there and the skins themselves will like turn into these crispy, delicious treats. You take the fat, you pour it into a container or something and you can use that essentially as butter or as oil or anything and add all this flavor to something. So like what I do is I'll take a bunch of chicken sticks, make the skins, make those. I'll serve the skins as like a little bit of an appetizer for guests because they're delicious, especially with some onions. You can you can do a bunch of stuff for them. You can kind of use them as a topping on like green beans and have that nice crispy flavoring on green beans.

And then use the schmaltz to just flavor, add a shitload of flavor to anything you're making. So I'll use it as the base for the gravy instead of butter. Use the schmaltz and then some flour and make a little rue. Again, super easy. Add your chicken stock or turkey stock and mix it up and make some gravy. I also use it instead of butter for my stuffing. I'll just stick a bunch of schmaltz in there and it adds all this flavor to it. not quite butter but you can't use schmaltz for pies unfortunately if you're doing dessert you

you really got to go got to go butter unless you're going to go like vegan butter or shortening or something like that yeah there's some ways around it but it's it's very hard to not use butter it's hard so if you're making a pie I feel like you really you gotta use butter is this where the word schmaltz comes from like maltsy performance does one precede the other really so schmaltz was first the cooking a yiddish word I assume well I don't know which was first, but they're both Yiddish or German. The same word, Schmaltz. Wherever the origin is.

Amazing. Yeah, I'm not sure why it also means like sappy. But yeah, Schmaltz is like dripping and gooey, I guess. Yeah, I can see that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's rich. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't feel the connection.

It kind of makes the sort of sense. Yeah, I could see it. Um, one more thing is that everyone, when they hear about spatch spatch cracking there, it's like, okay, interesting. Like, I'm intrigued at this idea of like, only having to cook a bird for 90 minutes. And it's, seems like you get a, especially if you see my pictures. I just posted one on blue sky. If you see my pictures, it looks incredible. Like, it looks so crispy and delicious. And the

inside is so most of the things batch cooking does is that it allows, um, it makes it so you're not overcooking the white meat while you're trying to get the dark meat to the proper temperature. Because usually the dark meat needs to be at a higher internal temperature than the white meat and the white meat overcooks, which is why everyone has all these memories of like dry, like Thanksgiving turkey that just tastes gross. And you need to cover it with gravy in cranberry sauce just to make it taste like anything. But no, this makes it all cook perfectly. A lot of

people are like, but then you can't stick stuffing in the middle of the bird, which is true. But what you can do is you cook it over some like carrots and celery and onions and stuff. And at the end of the process, not only will you get these vegetables that are delicious and turkey flavored and fatty

and incredible, you can use those in your stuffing or in something else. Or you could just take the turkey drippings themselves, like they're be a layer of liquid under the vegetables too. You could pour that into your stuffing and then before you cook it and then throw it in the oven and it'll taste just as good as if it was inside of a turkey. So there's really no downsides to spatch cocking the turkey, I would say, unless you really

want to show off to your guests like a giant fat turkey, but like whatever, you just carve it and put it on a plate and it'll be just as cool, just as good looking. Nice. So those are my Thanksgiving tips. I like how every year this is your, this is like your, this is like your, like your, you're trying to slowly convert everyone in the world dispatch cocking their turkeys. It's a good mission. It is. It's worth it. It's worth it. It's like so, it's

such a, the reward for the amount of, like, effort. I'm a big fan of things that are very low effort for right high reward. Yeah. What's better than that? All of the tips I just described are some of them. You really, if you're hosting Thanksgiving, which I, I recommend, you can really do it in like a low effort way that does not require any sort of fancy cooking like techniques or anything like that. I mean, a lot of the Thanksgiving classics are really easy to make, which is why they're so great is because they're just really simple and comforting.

And they're like a special once a year. Like we could be making stuffing all year round, but we don't. It's for Thanksgiving. There's just something about it. It's funny. We're not hosting this year. We're going to a friend's house. And I think we're going to have brisket.

But I think Emily, I think that was like a turkey that was super cheap or something. And so she just bought it anyways. so we have a turkey. And so we will, at some point, I think we're going to have some friends over and do a kind of week after Thanksgiving turkey dinner. You should spachcock. I think that we might spashcock it.

I'll let you know how it goes, Jason. Let me know if you need advice or tips or tricks. I'll send you some pictures of me cutting out the spine of my turkey. I can't wait. Although I'll say mine is 20 pounds, so I'm looking forward to messing home with that tomorrow morning. Yeah, it's a real weightlifting situation.

20 pounds. Okay, wow. All right. Well, obviously this is coming out on Thanksgiving, so everybody's listening while they're having some turkey, or they live in another country and they're just having a nice day. And it's just a regular Thursday for you. And that's fine. Well, if they live in another country, it might be Friday every time they're going to. That's a great point.

You could actually listen to Triple Quick on any day you please. That's awesome. It's true. We can't stop you. We could. We can make these like self-destrapped after 24 hours. We're not going to do that, though. We're going to keep it the same way it has when it'll come out on Thursdays.

You can listen whenever you want. And we'll be back again next Thursday with another one of these. Yeah, see you then. See you by next week. Bye. Triple Click is 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 maximum fund.org and find a link to our Discord in the show notes.

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