Triple Click - The Good And Bad Of "Not E3" 2022

Episode Date: June 16, 2022

E3 is here... or at least it would be, if it hadn't been canceled in January. So instead we have this: a smattering of haphazard events all loosely taking place in June, except for the ones coming later. This week, Jason, Kirk, and Maddy try to untangle Not E3 2022 and talk about the highlights (and lowlights) so far, from Starfield to Silksong.One More Thing: Kirk: Josh Strife Hays’ Diablo loot video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o17lBUZgjTsMaddy: Venom: Let There Be CarnageJason: How I Became A Famous Novelist (by Steve Hely)Links:Support Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinBuy a Triple Click t-shirt: https://topatoco.com/collections/maximum-fun/products/maxf-tc-tclogo-shJoin 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

If there is no more E3, then when do we find out about video games? The whole month of June? And then forever? Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week, we talk about the E3 that wasn't. From Sony's state of play to Summer Games Fest to the Xbox and Bethesda showcase, and so much more because it's still going, folks. I'm Maddie Myers.

I'm Jason Shire. And I'm Kirk Hamilton. Hello. Hello. It's us. Hello to both of you. We're back again. Hello, my friends.

You guys don't hear something funny? Yes, please. My toddler, my almost three-year-old, has decided to stop sleeping in her bed and insists on only sleeping on the floor. And so now, now, instead of saying, okay, it's time to go to bed, she makes us say, it's time to go to floor. Oh, well, you got to keep it accurate. I mean, she's not going to bed. That's true. She's going to floor.

Yeah, that's my life. How are you guys? Does she stay there the whole time? I have so many more questions. Yeah, she hangs down on the floor. I mean, she cries for us a couple of times as one does to come and, like, adjust her blanket or move her books around. But then when she falls asleep, she just stays there until the morning, yeah. Wow.

Nice. Her floor is carpet. So it's not, like, uncomfortable. It's not like we're making her sleep on hardwood or something. It's like a comfortable carpet. Well, it sounds like it's her decision, so we can't really judge it regardless. Yeah, she says she doesn't like her bed anymore. It's going to save you a lot on furniture in the coming years.

Sure. I have to buy so many beds. Man, toddlers are so freaking weird. I know, they really are. Well, I have no transition, but I am just happy to be here. I have a transition. If you all out there want to help me keep paying for diapers for my toddler. Keep not paying for a crib or bed.

And just bathing in duckets, scrooge McDuck style. You could support the podcast that you're listening to right this very second. by going to maximumfund.org slash join and you could become a member. But I feel like the real perk is that you get bonus episodes from us because we put them out every month and they're pretty good. They're pretty darn good. And we are going to be recording one about Sweet Kodin 2 because Kirk and I are in the home stretch. Speaking for myself, I have only six dudes left to recruit.

I'm so ready. I got a Google Doc with all their names in it. I'm plowing down the list, folks. The tablets are filling up. I cannot wait to be done and talk about it with the two of you on a bonus episode. So if you want to listen to that, there's only really one way you can do it. There's no other way. You have to go to maximum fund org slash join and become a member.

There's no other possible way that you could get access to that important detail about SweetCodent 2. Not to mention that entire archive. Oh, well, yeah. But listen, we all know why people are here. They're here for Sweet Coden 2. That's true. That's what's getting the hype. Definitely not the Eldon Ring episode.

Not diehard, not Eldon Ring. They're just coolly sitting back and listening to this week where they know that we're going to get into all the fake E3 news. And they're sort of coolly excited for that. But mainly what's wetting their appetite is Sweet Codent 2 stuff. That's why they're sticking around. You joke, but I bet for a lot of people that's actually the case. That could be. That could very well be true.

A lot of people listen to the show because I torture you guys into playing old JRPs. And in fact, a lot of people have messaged me. And they said, Jason, if you win next year's bet, you should change StarCraft to a turn-based JRP from the 1990s. A lot of people have said that. That's cool because then I would change triple click into a podcast that I no longer co-host. Interesting. I would as well.

Yeah, I think the show might become Jason's show. And he would have to click all three times. We might have a triple rift. That would be tough, I think. I will go on the record and say I would accept a JRP that has been made more recently. I'm not going to put a year on it, but I would prefer Jason that you choose games that have been made more recently. Well, those I think we'll just kind of naturally play. Like when persona 5 kind of spoiling and fakey 3 announcement, when persona 5 comes to Steam, maybe we'll all play it later this year and talk about it.

That I'm cool with. It's truly just the 1990s of it all that's part of what I'm struggling with here. But we're not in the 1990s anymore. We're in the future because all we care about now is what's coming next. We only care about trailers. We only care about announcements. 2023 going to be crazy because this is fake E3 folks. We're living in it.

Betty, even the way you said that just now just made me so sad because we didn't actually get that because if he didn't happen this year. So this week we're going to talk about everything that did happen over the past week. But like, I'm so bummed. Like, I miss E3 so much and whatever nonsense happened over the past few days. Yeah, but like, hopefully it's not a shell of itself. Hopefully it's back to normal. But like, whatever nonsense happened over the past few days just did not compare.

And we can get into it. What we'll do is we'll talk about like all the different events that happened, which were kind of scattershot in all over the place. And we'll talk about some of the announcements that happened and our favorite things from show. But actually, first of all, I want to talk about like broad impressions of this kind of fake E3 here, because normally for people who are not super tuned into the video game industry, normally in June, there is this big event called E3. It's the annual video game trade show where people gather on Los Angeles and it's kind of broken up into two parts. The first part is these big, flashy press conferences where Sony and Microsoft Nintendo, all these companies

announced their big new games for the coming years. And then the second part is a trade show where everybody goes to the show floor in the LA Convention Center and actually plays the games and interviews developers, and there's just this constant stream of interesting news that comes out of it. We always did like bonus podcast from the show floor, for example. And as a result of a lot of things that we don't have to get into, E3 is no more this year. They're saying they're coming back next year. We'll see how that goes. But the pandemic has really put it into this whole getting together in person thing, at least for the time being.

So this year with this kind of nonsense scattershot approach. And I'm curious to hear your takes on it as Kirk, you as a total. outsider and Maddie, you as someone who had to cover this stuff. So Kirk, why don't you go first? Did you kind of follow along? What was your kind of broad impression of fake E3 this year? Yeah, I pretty loosely followed along and mostly hung out in our discord with people. The main thing that I watched was the Xbox press event because that felt the most like an E3 press conference.

Because it was. Yeah, that was a normally three press conference. Yeah. And it was, you know, I'd say, except for the fact that there weren't any shocking revelations in it. You know what I mean? Like, it didn't quite have the juice of any free press conference. Because they specifically said this will be only games that we're releasing in the next 12 months. But they said that in a really excited tone of voice. So it kind of seemed like good news, didn't it?

Right. It did. But the point being that that kind of eliminates the possibility of any big surprises. Right. Day one. It's out now, et cetera. Yeah. I mean, Silk's song could have had a release date. That would have been pretty cool.

It did. Just a little thing that would have made that press conference 30% more exciting for me. Maybe they're saving it for a surprise drop in a couple of weeks. Well, they were, and they did tweet that it is, you know, they implied that it is coming out within the next 12 months. So that's exciting enough. Right. They said that it should come out in the next 12 months. So maybe that means that it's coming out on June 12th, 2023, because that would be precisely when that would be true.

Until I hear a date from the guys who make hollow night. I'm not going to believe anything. But it was cool to see. Kirk, what if there's a Nintendo direct in a couple of weeks and they surprise, announce it and launch it then? That would be great. That would, I would love that. We'll drop everything. We'll record an episode of just us screaming.

Oh, my God. But at this press conference, during this week that you've asked me about, that did not happen. So we are left to hypothesize about exciting things that might happen in the future because it just wasn't really that exciting of a week. Fun enough to sit around and riff with people, but nothing super exciting. Honestly, the most exciting thing for me is the Resident Evil 4 remake, which was announced quite a while ago at the Sony thing that I didn't even watch, and then I just saw it on Polygon. Not quite a while. It was too. Well, in, you know, in terms of this past week being E3, it predated this past week.

I could have talked about it last week. It was very much like a screw you, like Summer Games Fest E3, whatever. So I'm just doing their own thing. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So anyways, that was cool. And I just sort of saw that on Polygon and thought, oh, cool.

I mean, we all figured that was cool. going to happen, but it's still pretty neat to see that it's happening, and I'm totally going to play that. But also, that's a remake that we all knew was coming. So, you know, not ultra excited about too much, though there were some neat things, you know, some stuff that looked cool. So, Maddie, I know you were a lot more tuned in because your website had to cover all this stuff and you had to edit stories. And you also sent a couple of reporters from Polygon out to Keele's thing, which was kind of like come play some indie games at this little booth thing, kind of a fraction of what E3 would have been. So yeah, tell me your perspective on this whole mess.

So I think my favorite parts were the Sony state of play, which was on June 2nd, which Kirk mentioned, because it did feel like a miniature real E3 event, wasn't happy that it was at 6 p.m. ET because I had to make reporters stay late, never a fan of that. But I did like that it felt like an actual press conference with news that mattered. And then the Xbox and Bethesda showcase on June 12th was the other one that felt like E3 to me in the fun way, even though most of the actual announcements were, this is coming out very far away. So hurry up and wait, which is bittersweet. But those were the two that I enjoyed the most. Summer Games Fest on June 9th was very weird. A lot of different kinds of games shown. And then the pinnacle of the show was a Last of Us remake,

which I wouldn't personally have made that the pinnacle of the show. That kind of felt like a weird joke where it would be like, what if we remade the Last of Us again? And that was the most exciting thing in this entire showcase. But that's what Jeff Keeley decided, I suppose. And everything else that's happened. Well, that felt to me like, yeah, we'll do our new naughty dog thing at your show, but only if we're the closer. Like that, that felt to me like when I was the else. I wasn't as excited about that as I was about stuff that is new or interesting in some way. Like, I liked seeing more of Redfall. We had a preview of it at Polygon that sounds really cool. I'm excited that you can play that game single player. And,

I was excited is the wrong word, but there have been a lot of Overwatch two announcements, and my bestie Nico Deo, who was on this show, had a lot of thoughts on those, and that was really fun to hear from her about that. So, like, there was news, you know? So, Maddie, we'll go through, well, we'll go through everything one by one, but I'm actually curious about, like, your perspective as having to direct a team of reporters covering this event as opposed to E3s in the past. Like, how did it, how did it compare? I mean, hated it. Well, because it's so much more difficult now. Like, just from a, workflow standpoint. Like, everything is so spread out. It's not like, oh, we all know we have to work

really hard for four days. And then everybody's going to take time off after that. And like, it's all going to be spaced out fairly. This is like, if you look at the times and dates, it's like all over everywhere. People have been tired. Or, okay, I'll say I, I can't speak for everyone. I feel like I've been tired from covering E3 for the past two entire weeks. I know that's not literally what's happened, but it's kind of how it's felt to me. And I don't love that. I would rather it just all. And I be over in this gush of like adrenaline, excitement. Everybody's all hands on deck. We're all in this together. The team is pumping. The gears are turning. And then we get to like take a breath and exhale. But like this way from a newswriting perspective is way harder and weirder and it's

hard to know what to cover and what streams are going to have real news and what aren't. And even the publishers aren't honest. And there were a lot of publishers who were like, we don't know if we're going to do summer games fest or not. And like didn't really give us clear signaling about what was going to be there. And I don't blame Jeff Keely for not being able to do that either because it seems like publishers are still deciding whether or not they care. And also E3 might now be coming back. So that's an explanation for why some of them are like, we don't know if we want to bless Summer Games Fest with our presence or not this year. But it then means that covering news was just like, God dang it. I don't know. So I guess if you enjoyed anything on

Polygon, you're welcome. We're all very tired. I enjoyed. I enjoyed it. all the service posts that are like all the roundups of here's everything. Yeah, that's the good stuff. Those are always very helpful. Yeah. So yeah, let's talk through everything that happened. And then we can talk about like the things, kind of our highlights and low lights from the event. Yeah.

And first let me just walk through all the events that have happened so far. And then we can go through them one by one. So it started, Maddie, as you mentioned, with a state of a Sony state of play on June 2nd. It was only third party games where the focus, other than them saying like Spider-Man is coming to PC and a couple of VR. things. But that was third party. So like, you know, God of War, for example. And then Summer Games Fest was like Keely's big event, Jeff Keely's big event on June 9th, where it was two hours of just like game reveals. We'll talk about the specifics in a sec. But then on Sunday, June 12th was the Xbox Bethesda showcase. There were a few things I haven't

mentioned like there was a devolver thing and a guerrilla thing and a PC gaming show thing, Capcom thing. Wholesome Games Fest, if you said that. And one thing that were one thing that is going to go live, after this episode airs is a Final Fantasy 7 stream where hopefully they will reveal more on part two of the remake so maybe we'll see some of that this week and hopefully other stuff but a lot of big no shows no EA no Ubisoft

no Nintendo that's the biggest one no Sony really well we had a little Assassin's Creed stream today that was that was like nothing that was like teasing a September event was present I'm just saying that's true that's true they poached their head into summer games festival So you're right. They waved a little bit and then they backed out of the room again.

I should have mentioned that many. You're right. I should have mentioned that because it really is testament to how much of a disaster this whole thing has been. Because that was a six-minute event, literally a six-minute event where they were like, stay tuned for the future of Assassin's Creed in September, which is presumably when they'll do their next big Ubisoft forward thing. Nintendo is a big omission here because Nintendo usually saves E3 with some cool announcements. Sony was almost entirely missing other than their last of us thing. and their state of play.

And Square Enix was almost entirely missing other than a couple of appearances with Final Fantasy 16 at the state of play. So, yeah, let's go through it one by one. I mean, we talked about the state of play. There was a Resident Evil 4 remake, which you guys are excited for. Final Fantasy 16 footage,

which a lot of people were excited for. Although that also ended with a summer 2023 release window, which I think caught some people by surprise and was disappointing to some folks. But I think a combination of the pandemic and also Final Fantasy 14 development have hit that game hard. Summer Games Fest,

that was a really weird one, like you said. It was two hours. It had commercials in it, which is weird at E3, because usually E3, the commercials you're watching are like commercials you want to watch,

but this had like actual commercials. Yeah, there's a huge difference between commercials you want to watch and other commercials. The difference, it's so funny, but the difference is that the commercials are for games that are already out or like about to come out,

whereas the trailers, the things were excited for. or games that are way in the future. So hey, what are you going to do? But yeah, that thing had actual commercials in it. It was Jeff Keeley just announcing like one space horror game after another. There were several space horror games. I did think it was funny that Callister Protocol and Routine is apparently a game that was actually announced ages ago and there were some people at Polygon who've remembered it and were really pumped that it's making a comeback. I'm not a deep cut routine fan. So I was just laughing that we have games called Protocol and Routine. And they're both

space horror games. I just personally found that very funny. Although technically the full title is Callisto Protocol. I'm still like clearly things are out of whack. It's like are we going to have a game called status quo or like schedule? Yeah. Well my schedule.

Schedule is my upcoming game. Yeah. I don't know. I'm down for it. But also like I remember there being a lot of horror games in the game awards lineup this past year too. And there's already so many cool horror games out right now that I'm like, I feel like post-pandemic, a lot of horror creators are really thriving and just like, yeah, I'm just

going to lean into how fucked up everything is and make some terrifying shit. And hey, if you're a horror fan, which I am at least some of the time, it's a pretty good time to be a horror fan right now. It is. It is. Yeah, I mean, Dead Space remake is coming out like a month after the Colistow Protocol too. And that's, and like the quarry is out now and I hear it's pretty fun. It is. I can verify. I can verify that it's pretty fun. There was also that game Stormgate, which is a new real-time strategy game from ex-Blizzard people, which I'm excited about. Ex-StarCraft people specifically. Yeah. Although it's mostly people who joined StarCraft later on for like Legacy of the Void and stuff rather than the original StarCraft 2 people.

But yes, those people, the story behind those people is that Tim Morton, who's the leader of that studio and his crew, tried to get a real-time strategy game off the ground at Blizzard. Couldn't make it happen. Their pitches got denied. And so they went off to start their own thing. it and now they're making it on their own. They're like, screw it, we're doing it on our own. So that excites me as the real-time strategy fan. There hasn't been a new RTS game in a long time. Yeah, it excites me too. I'm interested in that. I still like Starcraft and I'm not even going to be that mad if I have to play it because of a bet next year because of how much I like it. But it would also be cool to play something new from people who worked on Starcraft too, which I liked. I know it's,

you know, it has its differences and it's complaints that people say about it compared to the you know, originals, but I liked it. So I'm psyched. There's The Last of Us One remake, as you mentioned. Neil Druckman from Nottie Dog came up on stage.

You also teased like that they have their multiplayer thing coming next year. That's like a become a big standalone thing. That looked interesting. Basically the multiplayer version, like the Last of Us 2 multiplayer mode, factions turn into its own thing. And that's going to be released next year. Last of Us remake,

I mean, we've known about the same. for a long time, thanks to me. But, I mean, what do you guys make of that? Will you guys play Last of Us a remake? I can't imagine caring that much about that. The idea is to tie it

to the HBO show, right? I mean, I just feel like it's more about that. That's part of it. Well, the idea is to get the original game running in the Last of Us 2's like style, so it looks like Last of Us 2 and feels like Last of Us 2. And then the thing that surprised me, actually, I had always heard that the plan was to package that with Last of Us 2

and sell them both the other on PS 5. So it's like part one plus part two. Instead, they're just selling it for 70 bucks on its own as part one, which really shock like surprises me. Nice work if you can get it. Yeah. But yeah, it does, it does feel like a way to get people who maybe never played it to play it now and then they'll understand the HBO show more, but it's not that complex of a story. And I don't say that is an insult for the record, but it isn't that complex. It's not about understanding. It's about people. I don't think they're trying to help people out of the goodness of their hurt. It's about people watching the show and then buying it.

It's about people watching the show and thinking, oh, this is cool. I want to buy the game now and giving them the easiest way to do it rather than having to dig up a PS3 or whatever. I guess it's on PS4. Right. Getting a PS5, which is so easy to get. Yeah, that makes total. That's true. Well, that does present an issue.

But it's also going to come to PC. A couple of cool endies, I will point out, that Keeley had highwire, which was this cartoonish, like, post-apocalyptic disaster sort of game and American Arcadia, which is this kind of dystopian like Truman Show thing where you're like in the city and you're escaping this Truman Show and so their cameras on you at all times and seem pretty creepy and fun. Just a couple of things that stood out to me. Do anything else stand out from the show for that you guys remember? Yeah, there were some other indies that I thought looked really cool. I wrote up, uh, Dust of the memories between, which is made by some of the Monument Valley people. It looked really cool. It's like

a strategy game about memory. that also has sports game influences, which seemed like a really cool combination of genres. And also that game, Choo Chal's, which is like a scary version of, what am I thinking of? The freaking train, the children's book. Thomas the Tank Engine.

He's always modded into Resident Evil. Exactly. And so somebody made an actual game like that. It looks really funny to me. It does. I will probably play that. I don't know. There are a few other indie games that looked cool as well.

So I'm not trying to knock Summer Games Fest for being mostly Indies. I think that's great. It just meant that I was like, I'm not sure what this event is. It's a weird experience. It was not very pleasant to watch, I think. And something about it felt off. Yeah. It was uneven, I think is how I put it.

I miss Summer Games Fest, but I caught a couple of the trailers afterward. For me, it's really, I take some pleasure in the knowledge that's at least one or two of these games that's sort of float by me right now, these indie games where I'm like, well, that looks neat, I don't know what that is. We'll turn out to be sleeper hits. It will be my favorite games ever. Just because that's happened enough times over the years. So it's kind of nice just being like one of you.

I don't know which one. It's going to like devour hours of my life and I'm going to fall in love with you and be telling everyone about you. So that's always just kind of a fun thing to have in the back of my head. Yeah, a lot of those, a lot of like those potential gems popped up at also some of the subsequent shows like the devolved. show and the PC gaming show and the wholesome showcase and whatever.

So yeah, I think the only thing, as you said before, Maddie, the only thing that really felt like E3 was the Xbox show on Sunday. And that's because it essentially was what Bethazza or Xbox and Bethesda would have done during E3 in any year. Like essentially they just, they took the Microsoft Theater. They did what they would have done like as normal. Yeah, Todd Howard was wearing a bomber jacket again, which was such a relief to me because he's been wearing hoodies for the entire pandemic.

And I feel like that's sending a message that, you know, it's sleepy time. Bethesda's asleep. But like now Bethesda is wide awake. Todd Howard's in a bomber jacket again, folks. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. It's time for space. Yeah, so the show opened with Redfall, which Maddie, you said you were super hyped about

after the Polygon preview. Yeah, Owen Good did a preview on it where he talked to the people working on it. And they tried to explain to us and everyone else they talked to that it's not left for dead, although I don't think that worked, and I think everybody still thinks of Redfall is Left for Dead, but with vampires. So, you know, good luck to them with that. But they are trying to stress that it's more of a Borderlands vibe where, like, yes, it is, could be a multiplayer co-op experience, but also you can play the entire game solo. It has a story. It has different kinds of powers that each character has.

And I freaking love Borderlands, and the game has a really cool look, so I'm down. I don't care if it has the Diablo-esque loop of Borderlands. I thought the vibe of Borderlands was fun. So I'm just, I'm cautiously optimistic. Does it have any immersive sim stuff? Yeah, supposedly, yes. I mean, the preview gets into that more about how that all works, but there's like a day-night cycle and like different enemy powers according to that

that they talk about. And so you have to actually plan out what you're going to do and where you're going to go when and who you want to be when you're there. I don't know if you get to change your character like you do in Borderlands or anything like that. But I'm psyched for that. I mean, I know I complained about the twist and death loop a bit, but I did really like it a lot up until that point. And like, I'm down for some immersive sim arcane shit.

So. Arcane makes good games. I'm cool. And I'm also now mentally prepared, like, I'll probably really hate the ending of Redfall if everything I've heard about pray is any indication. And if Deathloop is any indication. So now I know. Now I just know I'll probably think the end is weird and dumb. Although different teams, that's fine.

That's true. That's true. team Leon. This is Arcane Austin. One thing I should note is that it's funny, I actually heard that this game was way more of a game as a service, multiplayer focus a few years ago. And

I think what happened was, so essentially Xenamax, circa like I don't know, 2017, 2018, maybe even earlier, had this mandate. Everyone needs to be working on games as a service because they wanted to crank out that money maybe potentially to prepare for potential acquisition. Cut to 2020,

Microsoft buys them. Suddenly, Microsoft, which is all about their Xbox GamePass subscription, which we should talk about in a second in relation to the show, they don't care about games of service. So suddenly the people at Arcane have a lot more freedom to make the game they want instead of just being forced to make a multiplayer thing. So I believe maybe coincidentally, some of the multiplayer stuff, games as a service-y stuff was stripped out of the game at that point. And that's why now it feels more like a single-player game with co-op. And also why now they're trying to distance themselves from left or dead and back for blood comparisons that are like, oh, multiplayer game with a battle pass

and lots of unlockables and that's all there is to it. That would be great for a game as a service, but maybe that's not what they're trying to do anymore, and that's just fine with me because I'd rather not play that personally. Yeah, same. I'm totally going to play this game. Yeah, I'm excited for it. After Redfall, I like freak the friggin, friggin' friggin shoot out. The Hollenite Silk Song appeared on screen. And then it just ended with no release. release date. It was like the biggest tease. I was just so disappointed after that. Because I really thought, I really thought the next time they would, because like who needs to see more footage of that game? We all know it's going to be incredible. I just needed to release it. Come on, man. Come on team cherry. They told you it's day one on game pass. Isn't that enough for you? You just don't know when that day one is. But, but it's going to be day one on game pass. Do you think that game is done? I think it's probably basically finished and they're just obsessively perfecting it. Because I know they're pretty. perfectionist, those developers. And I just, I feel like the game is done and they're kind of just like,

we're not going to say it at eight until we're ready. And it's just they're taking forever, making everything perfect. I would be surprised. It'll probably be pretty great. So I don't know. I'm not too bummed about it. It was fun to see it and fun to see everyone get excited. And I feel like it's going to come out fairly soon.

And I can wait. I can wait as long as it takes, really. So Xbox, which has also decided to buy Activision Blizzard, even though that deal is not quite finalized yet, they showed off some Blizzard games. So my question related to this, so do you two think that this was called the Xbox and Bethesda showcase? Do you think that once that deal goes through, this will be called the Xbox and Bethesda and Activision Blizzard showcase? Or if they'll have a separate one maybe? Like an Xbox and Blizzard showcase because, you know, Blizzard has to feel special too. Like, why does Bethes get to be so special? Why isn't it just the Xbox showcase? You know what I mean?

I'm sure there was a lot of jockeying over that. And I wonder what that'll look like as Xbox continues to get bigger and bigger and bigger and soon as it's real. Well, so for now, they couldn't really do so much of that because Activision is not technically part of X-B. Oh, no, right. I'm saying after the acquisition is complete. Yes, but they did release multiple Blizzard announcements. They did a ton of Blizzard announcement. It was a weird part of it. It was realizing they owned these games too.

Well, so usually what's weird is that usually Blizzard does their own thing at BlizzCon, and that's when all the big Blizzard stuff happens. But there's no BlizzCon this year, and there hasn't been in a while. So, yeah, this is, so Overwatch 2 is, um, is, getting a free-to-play PVP release. So what they're doing with Overwatch 2 is really interesting. They're splitting up the PVP and the PVE. PVE was supposed to be the whole focus of Overwatch 2 and the reason they're doing a sequel. But I guess it was so heavily delayed. Yes. Well, originally, yes, that's why they did a sequel to too. Jeff Kaplan had this vision of like a PVE experience and he wanted to do an Overwatch show. He doesn't work there anymore. He doesn't work there anymore. So they're splitting it up, PVP coming this fall, free to play. Does that mean they'll sell heroes?

Who knows? I guess we'll find out. Interesting questions. Or they'll just add infinite heroes forever and you'll get to buy them all, I guess. Yeah, man, I wonder. And then Diablo 4, which looks pretty good, coming out next year, they said. The whole thing was just kind of deflating, though. It was weird on the one hand just because it was the sort of first real moment of just seeing Blizzard stuff happening at a Microsoft event and really kind of just internalizing how huge that acquisition is and what that means. It's just this stuff is all under the same umbrella now. And, you know, Overwatch is under this cloud. I mean, Nico told us all about it just a couple weeks ago. And that whole trailer, I mean, it was so sad.

It started with these, you hear these echoing clips from that first amazing, magical thing when they revealed the game all those years ago. Like, anyone can be a hero. Even you can join Overwatch or whatever they say, yeah. Right. All of that sort of evocative, beautiful language that promised this world that everyone was so excited about. And then it was just a bunch of, I don't know, PVP BS that just wasn't very exciting on a, you know, on a beta that I know a lot of people are sort of not excited about in a game that just sounds exhausting and exhausted. So watching that was sort of deflating.

And then the Diablo footage, it does look cool, but also like after Immortal and I've learned so much more about the monetization of that game, even than we knew last week. Like it's really, there's kind of a taint on that as well. So just the whole Blizzard part of it. Well, they specifically came out and said afterwards that the modernization for Diablo 4 will be cosmetic only and then expansions. And they can say that as many times as they like, but in the moment of watching that, of just more Diablo and seeing Diablo in the context of Diablo immortal, it was deflating as well. So the whole Blizzard part of it just felt kind of like a, like, ugh. Although they did specifically say that this game will have like more interesting choices, which made me feel like they listen to our episode. And they were like, oh, okay.

Yeah, they were like, let's rejured. Let's rejigger the script on what we were going to say here because triple click wants more interesting choices. You're welcome. That's a great point. Although to circle back to Overwatch 2 slightly, I did want to say the addition of the Junker Queen as the next character was also kind of tragic to me because she's another like gun tooting, DPS heavy, just exactly what Nico was talking about when she was on. Like the exact kind of character that embodies like something that Overwatch 2 is seemingly trying to do. do now, which is be like a Valoran to like or a CSGO alike.

When she came out, someone in our discord was like, personality, Australian. Yeah. Which I thought was very funny. Yeah. It's hard to feel excited about Blizzard stuff right now for so many reasons. Yeah, for a variety of reasons. But also, I mean, I think there's reasons to be optimistic about the future.

And Overwatch 2 and Dia before have been their two big games, their big blockbuster focuses for a long time. Once those two games are out, I'm kind of exciting to see what happens next. They've got other stuff in the pipeline. Maybe now that they're going to be part of Xbox, they can get away with doing some smaller stuff that they couldn't get away with in the past or that higher-ups there

and or at Activision would not greenlight in the past because now they're part of Xbox GamePass, which is all about smaller things, which gets to the next big announcement, which was that Obsidian Games is making a game called Pentiment, which is this stylish 16th century murder mystery that looks like it would have never,

ever come out in a thousand years if Obsidian was not part of Microsoft and not allowed to do these weird experimental things that will live on GamePass. And so it's worth noting here that every single announcement ended with this Chiron saying, play a day one on Game Pass. Like that was, Microsoft's entire pitch was you pay us $10 a month or whatever, $15 a month, and we will give you all of these games day one. You will get to play every single one of them here. And that to me is really interesting. And there's a lot, a lot that has been made and discussed over consolidation and the merit of subscription services for game developers themselves. But the one thing that it allows is kind of weird small stuff like Pentiment. And I think that is pretty beneficial overall.

Yeah. Because Pentamine looked pretty weird and cool and out there and I will play the heck out of it. Yeah, I'll play it too. The art style is like illuminated manuscripts, but if they could move around and come to life, and I just thought it looked really fun and weird. And I will definitely check it out. on Game Pass. You're welcome, Phil Spencer. I'm doing the thing. What's funny is that I think it's inspired by the book, Name of the Rose,

which I coincidentally started reading like two weeks ago. So I must have made this come to. Wow. Seems likely. Yeah. Another big announcement, Persona, 3, 4, and 5, all coming to PC and Xbox, and then a day later,

also PlayStation was announced for, has not been announced for Switch. So who knows if that's ever going to happen. But if you have a Steam deck, Who needs Switch? You can play Persona 5 on your Steam deck starting this October. Can't believe I'm going to play Persona 5 for a third time in its entirety,

but hey, it's just something I'm going to do. Maybe I'll beat it this time. I don't know. Who can say? I think you will. It's cool that P3P is coming out. I saw some discussion about that versus FES, which I played P3P,

and I would play it again. That was my first persona game. And I have very vague memories of it because it was before I really even knew what persona was. I do remember playing it and just thinking, okay, wait, so you talk to people and you build, like, I just didn't even understand how it worked because I didn't, I was kind of getting into games at the time. I think I played it on Vita. I don't really remember what year it was. But anyways, I would totally replay that game one way or another. So it's cool that I'll be able to. Yeah, it's a tough one. It hasn't, I mean, there's some antiquated parts of that game. Like, you can lose a lot of progress by just like getting an unlucky encounter the way that. I wonder if they'll change anything or make any changes. It seems like it's just a pure port.

Yeah. And I don't know. I don't think that game is... Well, they might have like a save state system of some kind that will make it easier. Maybe, maybe. I don't know if it's aged quite as well as people think that as opposed to persona five, which I think is just like... Percent of five has aged fine since 2017 when it came out.

Yeah, well, I mean, it's just when you compare it to percent of four and three, it's hard to go back, I think. It's just like hard to go back to randomized dungeons and just like... like unfair death attacks and shit like that. Interesting. That doesn't remind me of anything I'm currently playing. Yeah. We'll get into that on the Beans cast. Anyway, a couple more things that stood out to me.

A couple of cool indies. Ravenlock look cool. That was kind of like a big fable-ish action-adventure, really cool art style. Cacoon, next game from the director of Inside and Limbo. That game looks rad. cocoon that looks really cool and then we saw a good solid few minutes of starfield um much anticipated next game studios makers of fallout and elder scrolls um quick side note by the way soon after this show it came out that bethazda's net in pre-production on elder scroll six and that after that

they plan to make fallout five which is going to come out in like 2038 or something like so sure um but yeah starfield what did you do? you guys make a Starfield seeing it for the first time? Kirk, I'll let you go. I've been talking a lot. Mixed feelings? Yeah, mixed feelings. I don't know. I mean, I'll certainly play it. I've been thinking a lot more about Fallout 4 and that game was pretty playable too. You could kind of just cruise around. The exploration was still neat, but then it was so disappointing from a story standpoint and it really just kind of started to feel empty and the more time passes, the more I kind of think negatively of that

game or just have a lot of criticisms of it. And so looking at, watching, watching it, watching this game, I mean, the story was kind of there, I guess, but it was so focused on the no man sky of it all, the exploration, the crafting, the combat. And that looks okay, I guess, but it, you know, from an artistic standpoint, like the art style didn't really stand out to me. It was all pretty washed out, pretty, you know, gray and metal. And it just didn't, it didn't have a lot of pizzazz or charm. It just sort of seemed sort of tired. I think they call it NASA punk. That's their internal con-ne. further. I call it gray and brown. It seemed a little bit tired to me. And I thought it was

interesting that the part of the presentation near the end when Todd Howard started speaking about the size of the game and how this planet is so big and then this is just one planet in a solar system and there are multiple solar systems and there's going to be so much that I just felt this. A thousand planets. He said this just, you know, empty space opening up inside of me like this just this feeling. And I could see that reaction. action, at least in our Discord, and I guess that's bias toward people who listen to us, and they are all probably, we talk a lot about how games have gotten too big. I saw it on Twitter too.

Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. It's tough because, I mean, I think what you're getting at is like how long it took No Man Sky to get better. And people still have that memory of how that game launched. And there are so many things that Starfield is going to be trying to do at launch that are really, really hard to do. That's one of them to have like a thousand procedurally. if they are procedurally generated planets,

I don't know enough about how that system works for them and have them all seem exciting and interesting. And then also to have space combat that feels good at all. And then on top of that, you're going to have a story that's compelling, which is something that No Man Sky doesn't have because the players create that.

They're sort of off scot-free when it comes to that. That's a lot. That's a lot of things to try to get right. It is. It's a lot of systems. I think there's just a weariness of games that are sold on being huge. I mean, cyberpunk was sold as, you know, it would be this huge experience that it would take over your life, and then it was so disappointing.

Meanwhile, Eldon Ring wasn't sold as being huge and then turned out to be huge. So, I don't know, it seems like when someone comes telling me that the thing I need to know about their game is that it's so huge, it's just kind of a red flag. And I felt that more watching this presentation than I've maybe felt it in the past. Yeah, I was thinking of Eldon Ring, too, because I saw, you know, the classic tweet, many people wrote this where they were like, Like, well, you know, games, journalists, people who play games often pick just one game a year. And that's why they're so excited to have a game that's thousands of hours and that can be their only game that year. And I'm like, well, yeah, but I wouldn't be mad if I was just playing Eldon Ring for the rest of my life. Like, that's not why I'm skeptical of Starfield.

I'm just like, are you giving me something that I want to spend thousands of hours in your world doing? Like, what are the verbs that I'm going to be doing in that world? And are they exciting? And is there a story or little lore tidbits as there are an Eldon ring that really have me hooked in a way that is hard to describe? I'm down for all of that. I just didn't really see that in what they show. When they lead with size, it's now a little less convincing or a lot less convincing. So when I first watched this, I was really underwhelmed, especially at the beginning part where it's like, here's some space pirates.

Let's go shoot them up. And it doesn't even show you if there's like an option to do something else other than shoot them, which is like, reminiscent of all the worst parts of Fallout 4 where you just had to be in combat constantly. You can negotiate, you can hack, you can do any role-playing stuff outside of that. It's a Fallout game. Fallout's about shooting people. Yeah, that's true. But then my second time watching the Starfield gameplay, I was actually a little more interested

because there's a lot of stuff stuck in it. Like, I don't know if you guys saw there's this part where he's showing the character, he's showing the character creator and there's like some traits you can pick. And there's some really funny, funny, interesting stuff there. Like you can have parents and your parents will be alive and you can visit their house. But 10% of your money goes to them every month or something like that. Or like you can have a starter home, but you're tied to a mortgage. And seeing that and the amount of possibilities there got me pretty optimistic for like the some of the role thing stuff.

Just think of the possibilities of having a mortgage. I mean, that's the kind of fun stuff that's in Skyron though. Well, yeah, exactly. And like in Fallout also like that sort of humor and kind of. hilarious backstories and twisted so so that got me a little more optimistic and then seeing um and then i got a little less optimistic seeing some of the like now you'll be able to build an outpost and recruit some people and stick them here because it just felt like the type of thing that's very gonna very much going to be procedural and automated and boring as opposed to handcrafted but um

we'll see i don't know uh i kind of want to just have this done with so they can move on to alders school six but uh i don't know i guess we'll see yeah yeah i hope it turns out okay so So yeah, and that was the end of it. I mean, was there other stuff from the Xbox stuff that stood out to you guys that I haven't brought up? These are just the highlights I wrote down. I don't know. Kajima showed up for a second. He was like, hey, I'm Kajima.

You guys excited yet? I cared about less than Kogima making a cloud. Well, you didn't even put it on your list. So I guess that's true. Yeah, I don't know. He didn't even announce a game. He just said, I'm making a game. Yeah, he was like, I'm working on some stuff.

Congrats. Kajima was making a game. That's very exciting. I know we're almost out of time, but there were a couple things at the PC gaming show that looked cool. Oh, sure. I'm excited for Tom Francis's new game, Tactical Breach Wizards, which he's been working on forever and has been a known quantity. I feel like that's been in development for a long time. Yeah, that's how he does.

I mean, he was making Gunpoint for a long time, too, and Gunpoint turned out pretty great. It actually made me want to go play Heath Signature, which I never really played, his second game. But that game just looks great. I mean, just that it's tactical breach wizards alone. a great title play. I didn't know about Nivalis. I think that was revealed the Cloud Punk game that's like a kind of bar management game. That looks cool. I've always wanted to play Cloud Punk and I love the aesthetic of that game. And also I love that there was essentially a mod, a Half Life Alex mod that was announced Half-Life Alex levitation, which is being made by a pretty small team of people not at Valve, but it looked great. I watched the footage of it. This was at the PC gaming show, just a mod? Yeah. Interesting. Well, it's like an expansion that they built with acting and everything. They have an actor who sounds like, what's his name, Rees Starby, even, like, kind of over on your radio.

So it really is... I thought you're going to say they have an actor who sounds like Gordon Freeman. And I was like, oh, yeah, that seems pretty easy to get. Pretty easy to cast, really. Yeah, they got the accent, perfect. It looks a lot like Half Life Alex in a way that I'm not surprised by because Valve makes it very possible to do that. And just given how cool Black Mesa was,

which was another fan created and eventually Valve-sanctioned remake of Half-Life One, it's really cool. There aren't that many great VR games, and Half Life Alex's tools, I mean, just the technology behind that game is so incredible that it's really cool to see people making something with it, so I'm totally going to play that when it comes out.

And it was just neat to see that kind of thing as opposed to a game that's going to be made and sold and whatever. This was more of a fan-created mod, though obviously not, you know, it's somewhere between the two. Like, it's more sophisticated than that sounds, but it did look neat. Cool.

And then a couple other miscellaneous stuff, Capcom, just showed footage from all their announced stuff at their thing. But they also tease a little bit more Dragon's Dogma. So they're clearly making a sequel to that. No Phoenix Great, sadly, which was really disappointing. DeVolver had their show. That's the indie publisher Devolver. I guess they're not so indie anymore since they're publicly traded. But they have this game called the Plucky Squire that looks really cool and everyone should go just watch the trailer for that. I won't spoil it because it's got a fun. It's a cute trailer. Just go watch a trailer. And then yeah, and then the lack of

Nintendo is really glaring, just quite a glaring absence. But here's hoping there are rumors suggesting that a Nintendo direct is on the way later this month. Hopefully that can save the summer for us all and just have a bunch of cool stuff. Because yeah, normally about this time, yeah, breath of the wild too, available now on your switch and also Switch Pro suddenly launching in stores near you. I'm making that up. I have no insight knowledge. But wouldn't that be cool? It would be. It would be. UBesoft is going to have their own thing. also later in the summer probably I don't know end of August, September, something like that because they have some stuff to announce and Sony will hopefully do something.

They are expected to show more of God of War Ragnarok at some point soon. I mean, that's still on track for November as far as I can die. I wrote a story about that a couple of days ago. And Square Enix, they've got a lot to announce. In fact, something leaked. I don't know if you guys noticed this is a remake of Tactics Ogre, which is this really cool strategy RPG. Yeah, I like that game. By Matsuno.

So there's a remake of that coming or a remaster of that coming that just kind of leaked on the store, on the PlayStation store. But that hasn't been officially announced it. Great soundtrack. There's also Final Fantasy Tactics remaster slash remake in development. So waiting to get my hands on that. And yeah, overall, I mean, fake E3 is, I guess kind of still going and will just never end since all this stuff is still to be to be announced. Yeah, seems that way. and next week for fake E3 again. And then also maybe the following week again, yeah. I guess it's wonderful.

The whole month of June is fake E3. I miss E3. Please bring E3 back. Just make it happen. Just bring it back the way it used to be. That's all I asked for it. Like, sorry, Jeff, your thing does not compare. Listen, if it does, if it's not E3, I don't care if it's called that, but just please put all of the events right next to each other just for the sake of my work list.

For Maddie's sake. For all of our sake. Just put it all in one. week just make it happen. All right, let's take a break and then we will be back with one more thing. Hey, it's John Moe. Join me on Depresh Mode for conversations on how mental health shapes our life. This week, David Sedaris, with stories of his late father that he's finally willing to tell. I think there's a difference between, you know, a good person and a good character. Like, Hugh is a good character, my boyfriend, Hugh. And my father was another one of those people. He was a really good

character, but he wasn't a good person. Depresh Mode with John Moe, wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Jesse Thorne, the founder of Maximum Fun, and I have a special announcement. I'm no longer embarrassed by my brother, my brother, and me. You know, for years, each new episode of this supposed advice show was a fresh insult, a depraved jumble of erection jokes, ghost humor, and frankly, this is for the best, very little actionable advice. But now as they enter their twilight years, I'm as surprised as anyone to admit that it's gotten kind of good. Justin, Travis, and Griffin's witticisms are more refined,

like a humor column in a fancy magazine. And they hardly ever say Bazinga anymore. So, after you've completely finished listening to every single one of all of our other shows, why not join the McElroy Brothers every week for my brother, my brother, and me? Mark, Maddie, it is time for one more thing. Kirk, take us away. All right, this is a follow-on to our episode last week about Diablo Immortal and video game loot. I almost called it Diablo Immoral, which I believe is a joke that's made in this video that I'm going to reference. So we talked about a lot about this game, a lot about loot, a lot about how exploitative and manipulative it is.

We talked a bit about the microtransactions in it, but none of us have played that much. I certainly didn't have that much firsthand experience with the way that microtransactions and monetization work in this game, though I knew people were very upset about it. There's this video from a YouTuber Josh Strife Hayes who breaks down all of the micro transactions in Diablo Immortal. And it is wild. It's worth watching. In particular, there's a segment about, I'm going to try to explain this a little bit because it really sums up this game's unbelievably manipulative. of an exploitative approach to micro transactions in a way that's worth mentioning. So this is one of those games, like all of these games, where you have to buy a subc currency

in order to buy the things that you want. It's to buy casino chips. Yes. Right, it's casino chips. That's exactly. So it's just like pretty much all of these games do the same thing. And that's already a psychological trick because then you don't think of it as money. The pricing is something that I've seen before in these games, but it's really wild when

he breaks this down in this video. You can buy them in packs, so you don't just get, you have to get things they're called, what are they called? You buy something, it's like a purple currency, and you can get 60 of them, you can get 315 of them, you can get 630 of them, or you can get 1,750 of them. Like they're sold in packs for increasing amounts of money, $5, $10, $25. And they're these very specific numbers. And the reason for that is that you don't actually need that currency. You need to spend the currency on legendary crests. and then you take the crests and you plug them into the machine before you go into these rifts that are kind of the endgame dungeons that you do.

So before you go into a dungeon, if you plug a crest in, you get like guaranteed good loot. And you can put in multiple crests and you'll get even better loot. So you want to get these crests. You can like get them really slowly without paying. Sure. But of course, you can just spend this in-game currency, this real money currency, to buy them. And the way that it works is because you get them in those fixed amounts, 60, 315, you're always just short of being able to buy one more.

So, like, instead of, like, you need 320 to get, you know, a certain number of them. But you only get 315 if you pay five bucks. So that kind of keeps happening. So at $10, you get $630, you don't quite have enough, you don't have the $640 that you need. And then at $1,350 when you pay $25, you have, like, just enough, you have a little bit more than you need to get $10 of the crests. So it's, like, subtly tricking you or pushing you to $25,000. toward the $25 purchase where you can get 10 crests. The hot dog buns video game.

It is. I was thinking about the hot dog bun thing because the thing is you can mess up a hot dog bun and then need a backup. So there is kind of a justification for the hot dog bun thing. Actually, I was thinking about this since we last shouted about this. Xbox used to do the same thing for Xbox Live. You have to buy denominations of... Oh, yeah.

I mean, Destiny has done this every game. This is an old trick. But the merciless specificity of this, I don't know how unique it is, but it's remarkable because check this out. So you buy 10 of them, say, because you're like, well, okay, whatever, I'll just get the 10th pack and that's easy to buy and then I'll just have 50 left over. So you have 10. Then it does this thing.

You go to plug the crests in before you go into the dungeon. This is something Josh Stripe Hayes shows in his video. It does not show you that this is possible until you do it. So if you're a person who's bought enough crests to do this, you put in one and then you see, oh, I can put in two more. So if I put in three, well, that's the maximum amount I can fit. There's three little slots for the crests. When you put three in, this new thing appears, and it's like, do you want to put in seven more

crests? And then you can maximize your loot. And that's 10 crest. So that's all 10 crests that you just bought. So if you buy 10, you put in three and then suddenly it shows you, hey, right now you can just put in seven more. And then you've spent all 10 of your crests that you just bought. So the whole thing is like this super smooth system designed to funnel you into spending $25

getting 10 crest, then using them all at once on a single rift so that you just go back and do it again. which is pretty wild. So there's a bunch more stuff like that in that video. It's, yeah, it's shameless. It's gross. And I mean, it's worth seeing how it all works because it really does suck. So the video is great.

The game sucks. So go watch it. We'll link it in show notes. I think people should go check it out. It's worth your time. So the game's not out in China, and it comes out in a couple weeks in China. I am so curious to see how Chinese gamers react to it because they are a lot more used to these types of microtransactions that U.S.

gamers would not accept. So very curious to see what happens. I mean, leaving that aside, it seems like this game is probably going to make a lot of money. I'm sure. It's depressing. But, man, it's wild what they're doing. From a lot of whales and other people who are preying. And minnows. Yeah. All of them.

And minnows, yeah. Maddie, what's your one more thing? My one more thing is a movie called Venom Let There Be Carnage. Or Venom, too, as some might call it. Some venom heads up in here. I was reminded by Kirk that I should watch Venom too because Kirk talked about Venom 1 on this very podcast not too long ago and how extremely

fun it is and how it's also kind of stupid and silly and a little bad sometimes and I like it when a superhero movie feels like it has some rough edges and like it hasn't been buffed to a high sheen by Disney Corp and Venom it really has some rough edges and I certainly say that of the venom movies you could say that it's let there be carnage as well it's also very strange and there are some parts of it where I'm like, I'm not really sure this makes any sense. And it's never going to be explained. And that's okay with me. I had a great time watching it. I really, really enjoyed it. I did see some people in the Discord talking about how they had liked Venom 1 but didn't like Venom 2. So I'm going to try to describe why I liked it for the people

who aren't sure if they will. If your favorite part of Venom 1 is Tom Hardy talking to himself as Venom and the two of them just cracking jokes back and forth, then you will like Venom 2. If there were other things about Venom 1 that you liked, I'm sorry, because that's not what Venom 2 is. Venom 2 is Tom Hardy talking to himself for roughly two hours. And I love that. But if you don't love that, then you probably won't like it. But yeah, I'm recommending it. Venom let there be carnage.

I laughed pretty much the entire time. And I had a wonderful time. Hell yeah. I still haven't seen it, but I'm excited. You should watch it. I think you will like it. Because I do like Tom Hardy talking to himself doing the Venom voice. Are these part of the Morbius extended universe?

Susanna. You know. That's what they say. I don't know. I guess. I haven't actually seen Morbius. I don't know if I should. I feel like the meme has like

become so powerful that in a way we've all seen Morbius in our hearts. We've seen enough of Morbius. But I don't know that I need to see Morbius. But yes, technically Morbius is part of the Marvel universe, no? So sure. I guess they're all part of the same universe. Let's say yes.

Morbius extended universe, yeah. Yeah. Venom, I think Venom appears at the end of Spider-Man. He does. And there is a similar, an accompanying post-credit scene at the end of Let There Be Carnage as well.

My One More Thing is a book that I reread recently because it's one of my favorite books ever. It's called How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Healy. It was published in 2009. This is an old one. I've read this book like 10 times, but I reread it recently. So I thought I would share it because it's one of my all-time favorites.

And sometimes you're just got to be like, hey, everybody should read this book because it's one of my all-time favorites. So this book is about this guy. It's written by, I should preface it by saying it's written by this TV comedy writer. So it is right away you should know that this is like one of the funniest books that I've ever read. So it's written, it tells the story of this guy named Pete Tarslaw, who is this kind of slacker, who graduates college and is kind of doing nonsense, work for hire jobs, or he helps, he like plagiarizes for kids, helps kids plagiarize their college. admissions essays or like helps turn kids college admission essays into like actual readable stuff

helps write them for kids so until one day he gets an invitation in the mail to his ex-girlfriend from college's wedding and he is so betrayed by the fact that his ex-girlfriend is out there getting married that he decides to like commit vengeance as revenge he is going to write a novel that will be a bestseller an all-time bestseller and he will come to the wedding and look like the coolest guy there. And from there, he goes on this journey of, and the writer, Steve Healy goes on his own journey of just satirizing the entire book industry.

Every single caricature you can think of is in there. Every single author you can think of is in there. Steve Healy writes his own versions of, like, the New York Times bestsellers lists, and it's just full of gems. There's just incredible, incredible stuff in there. And so Pete Tarzlaw, the main character, he is inspired by this guy named Preston,

in book, Brooks, who wrote a book called Kindness to Birds, that is just exactly what you think. All you need to know is the title and you know exactly what it is. And he decides he's going to write this literary con and he like throws in all this bullshit about like chasing a tornado and a grandmother who seems very regal. He like writes in the book about how she should he needs to use. He's, uh, Pete Tarcelot the main character is

jotting down notes as he prepares to write and he's like, use words that make old ladies seem beautiful, like graceful and Regal. It should probably be played by Merrill Streep or something like that. And then it cuts to World War II and there's flashbacks and it's this whole saga. And the book is incredible. It just has all these twists and turns as you follow Pete's journey into literary success or lack there of. It's pretty incredible.

One of my favorite books ever, I highly recommend it. Everyone should go read it. Every paragraph is funnier than the last. It's called How I Became a Fake. famous novelist, once again by Steve Healy. Go check it out. This is great. You got love a called shot in the title, right?

Like a heartbreaking work of staggering genius. How I became a famous novel. It's great. Yeah. I feel like this will be a good companion to my having recently read Misery by Stephen King, which is also like novelist writes a novelist that is sort of a parody of himself. And this is like the funny version of that. And I feel like it would be a good pallet cleanser for me.

Can I read to you a couple of the fake New York Times bestsellers that Steve Heelier wrote for this book? just the brief descriptions. Mind Stretch by Pamela McLaughlin. Trang Martinez suspects her Pilates instructor may also be a vicious serial killer. I'd read it. Amazing. The Balthazar tablet by Tim Drew.

The murder of a cardinal leads a Yale professor at an underwear model to the Middle East where they uncover clues through a conspiracy kept hidden by the Shriners. I'm pretty sure I did read that. Yeah, that one sounds familiar. That might be an assessment. One more.

One more. Great Fish by Liz Martin. The biblical story of Jonah retold from the point of view of the whale. Oh, yes. Would read that as well. Anyway, you got to read this book. The interludes between chapters are like fake excerpts from some of the books that he mentions in the in the book. So like he also, Steve Haley really had a blast writing listening.

He like writes these fake excerpts from these books. One of them ends with like, Mr. President. How much do you know about aliens? Anyway, go read it. It's amazing. Go read it. All right. That is it for this week's episode. Kirk, Maddie. I'll see you next week for Fakey 3, Part 2 of 57. Yeah, I can't wait. See you then. Cannot wait. See you both 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 fun.org and find a link

to our discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Audience supported.