Triple Click - Triple Play: Control Resonant

Episode Date: October 22, 2026

The Triple Click gang FINALLY delivers on a long-overdue threat and does an episode about Control Resonant. They talk about the ups and downs of Remedy's new action game, how long it takes to click with the combat, and how many of the side content shouldn't actually be side content.One More Thing: Kirk: Star Wars: Galactic RacerMaddy: LanternsJason: Final Fantasy ResonanceLINKS:  Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member 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

Why would I deceive you? There's no, there's no reason for me to do that. This is the besties. Welcome to Triphiak, where we bring the games to you. This week we are talking about Control Resonant, the new game from Remedy Entertainment and a sequel to 2019's Control. I'm Jason Shrier. I'm Kirk Hamilton. And I'm Maddie Myers.

Hello. Hello. my friends, my good gamer friends. My gamer friends, welcome back to another episode where we swear that we are telling the truth because we would never tell a lie. Why would we deceive you? Why would we deceive you? Just as a reminder.

You widening your eyes is terrifying. I'm just going to smile. I can't really do it. No one can do it. Yeah, the social clip needs to be Kirk doing the Elizabeth Holmes. A scientific smile and white eyes. Well, guess what? We all saw, you could see everything.

We saw everything. We're going to talk about it. And a bonus episode that you can only get by becoming a subscriber of our show, supporting our show. Go to maximum fun.org slash join triple click. And you can support our show and also get access to our monthly bonus episodes, including one that we are going to record shortly and put out at some point in the next week or two, probably sooner rather than later, right, Kirk?

Like maybe at the end of this week or something? Yeah, we're going to get it out. Yeah, we're going to do. Where we talk about Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheims, you can see everything, the documentary that is really taking the world by storm right now. So we're very excited to talk about that. It should be a very fun episode. And you can only listen to it if you support our show.

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Triple click. Kirk, what are we talking about today? Today. At long last, we are talking about. Control Resonant, the latest from Remedy Games, finish game development studio, responsible for Alan Wake, Max Payne. No, they're actually still going.

They are not finished, it's true. They are finished and not finished. Far from it. In a lot of ways, they're really just getting started with this game, which is a little bit of a passing of the baton, some new talent, taking over some duties on this game in ways that are interesting. Yes, we are talking about Control Resonant, which we discussed a little bit on our episode with Lucy James.

So it was my triple play and we gave some early impressions. But now I've finished the game. Maddie, you've played a bunch of it. Jason's played a bit and we're going to talk about it for a whole episode. And I'll say up top before we get into it, I didn't make this clear, I guess, when I talked about it last time, but I want to just say we are going to talk about the events of Control 1. Like, in order to explain the beginning of this game, Control Reson,

we do have to kind of say what happened at the end of Control 1. I saw some people complaining about that in the Discord, and so I just want to throw that out there. If you are still avoiding spoilers on Control 1, that's fine, but be... Go play it. Go play Control 1. What are you doing? It's really good. You should go play it. First of all, go play Control 1.

And then come back and listen to this. I didn't write a big thing for this. As I said, it is made by Remedy, who make kind of action weirdo games. This is a third-person action game. But unlike almost, I think actually, every game they've made, it's not a shooter. This is more of a character action melee fighting game. You play as Dylan Faden, who is the brother of Jesse Faden, the protagonist from Control 1. It picks up right after the end of Control 1, where Jesse has reconnected with the hedron,

which is this extra-dimensional being that was kind of driving her through the first game, and stopped the hiss, who were the primary antagonists of the first game, who are this kind of evil-invading extra-dimensional frequency, which is a very, cool idea, this horrible frequency that takes over your brain and kind of spreads and spreads and spreads uncontrollably. So Jesse has stopped the hiss and rescued her brother, Dylan, who is now the protagonist of the sequel. The setting of this game is the Federal Bureau of Control, which is a made-up government agency that is in charge of secret goings-on, objects of power, altered items that summon beings from other planes of existence. They're kind of the SEC.

foundation mixed with the X-Files. There are this weird bureaucracy located in a building called the oldest house, which is itself, this kind of extra planar place. There's a ton of complex lore that we can get into a little in this episode. It's all very cool. It was very cool when it was introduced in control. And it's since kind of spread out to just infect the whole remedy verse where all these games, Alan Wake, control. They're all in the same universe. The Federal Bureau of Control exists within Allen Wake.

All this stuff kind of ties together. And Control Resonant is like a big kind of pulling together of a lot of that storyline, really, of the culmination of the Federal Bureau of Control's storyline. And kind of Dylan and Jesse's story. So in the game, Dylan is kind of released from his prison where he had been kept by the Federal Bureau of Control. It's been seven years since the events of the first game. And during that entire time, everybody in the building has been locked down. And kind of, they've all been trapped within this building with the Hiss to quarantine and control the Hiss.

But after the seven years at the beginning of the game, there's like a new cascading resonance that's like broken out of the building and begun to like fold the world and duplicate the world all over itself and might like destroy our entire plane of existence. The Hiss has escaped in the chaos and is wreaking havoc across Manhattan. Jesse, who is the director of the Bureau, heads off to fix it. But before she leaves, she awakens Dylan and gives him this very powerful weapon called the aberrant, which is his kind of melee weapon. And then he is kind of drafted by the Federal Bureau of Control to go out into the world and help fight this cascade event that is, like, possibly going to destroy the world. Everybody in the Bureau kind of hates Dylan because in the first game, he was, like,

possessed by the Hiss and is a very powerful kind of person of power is what it's called in this universe, but he has like special powers. And as a result, the Hiss worked through him and killed a whole bunch of members of the Bureau. So a lot of people don't like him. They don't trust him. They think he is evil, even though he has to, you know, he actually isn't. He was just possessed. Then the game is just Dylan going through these different open world zones, doing all kinds of stuff, combat, solving puzzles, playing through really wild side quests as the world gets crazier and crazier as he sort of figures out what's going on and works with the FPC to try to save the world. And that's pretty much what the game is. That's a nutshell of it by me

off the dome. Hopefully I covered pretty much everything, but I'm sure we'll get into more in this conversation. I gather the two of you have different experiences of and opinions of this game. Maddie, I'll start with you. Maddie, what do you think of this game? I love this game. I'm enjoying it so much. And that's kind of a relief to me because I really wasn't sure what I would think about it because it's actually pretty different in feel than Control One, which I also loved. I made a dark horse argument for it on our triple click picks episode recently. It's a favorite of mine. It's kind of like a game where you get to play as Gene Gray and like fly around and shoot rocks at guys. Just be like this superpowered redhead lady who's exploring this mysterious building.

But in this game, you're playing as her brother Dylan. And I'll admit, like, as soon as I saw the trailer, I was like, oh, what, I'm not going to play as Jesse anymore. She's so cool. Like that I had to get over that initial sadness. But I actually really like Dylan and I really like the combat in this game. I do know that not everybody vibes with it. But for whatever reason, it just really works for me.

I really like the flow and feeling of it. I like swinging my big Green Reaper tool around. I have the scythe mostly is my favorite form that Dylan's magical weapon takes on, but there's a bunch of different forms it can take. You connect combos together, you chain different attacks together, you do aerial attacks, got that kind of like fighting game feel that I really enjoy. All of that is super fun. And I also just like the story of the control universe.

I really like the Federal Bureau of Control as a fixture in the world. And I even like the fact that every character inexplicably has a Finnish accent, even though supposedly this game takes place in New York City. I find it endearing. I know that's something about these games. Like the Allen Wake games kind of have the same problem. I guess you could call it a problem. This quirk, let's say.

And I find it endearing. I think it's sweet. It adds to the otherworldliness of the remedy verse that this is a world unlike our own. Nice. Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts on this. So like I said, I finished this game. Did I say that? I finished this finish game.

Yeah, I'm like 20 hours in. So I've played a ton of it and I'm really digging it. Took me about 30 hours. There's actually a lot of side stuff I still want to do, but I played a lot of the side stuff too. I'll share my take in a little bit, I guess. But Jason, let's hear from you now. What do you think of this game? Yeah, I'm having a hard time with control resonant. I haven't played nearly as much as you two, but I've loaded it up and tried to play it many times and really keep bouncing off of it. I think my struggle with it is really a large part of what you identified when you first saw it, Maddie, which is that I loved control so much and there were so many things I liked about it. And it feels like for various reasons,

they have swung in the opposite direction with this game. For example, Jesse Faden, I thought was an awesome main character. Dylan Faden and I have absolutely zero attachment to and want nothing to do with after playing as him for a couple hours. One of the things I really, I wouldn't say loved, but certainly liked about control, is the gun play and the way that you get this service gun that can do all sorts of different things and feels kind of cool to play around with, especially as Jesse gets more mobility mechanics in that game.

in this I hate the combat. I am really struggling with the combat in this game. It just feels like every enemy has way too much health. It feels like I'm just kind of dying constantly. Maybe I'm just bad at it. I don't know. I picked the daggers and I'm just really not enjoying. It just feels very mashy and I'm trying to do all this aerial stuff, but it's just not working. And I'm just really having a hard time with the combat. Another thing I really liked about control is that it all takes place within the, uh, the, uh, the, the, the, the, the bureau, the building, and the building is shape-shifting and weird and has a lot of cool metrolvania aspects to do it. And so I was extremely disappointed that this game is an open world, which is just the last thing I want out of one of these types of games is another open world, especially another open world in New York to just walk around with weird red stuff in it. I find that the story is incoherent from what I've seen before and not incoherent in kind of the weird control-ish way, but like, um, incoherent in a way where I just don't understand what's going on or what the character's motivations are, anything like that.

And the stuff that I found so endearing about Control 1, like finding all of this paperwork with random censorship on it and hilarious bureaucracy jokes and weird objects that turn out to be, quote, objects of power within this bureau and like, I don't know, mic graves and fridges and staplers and stuff like that. All of that charm that I really enjoyed, I just have not found at all in this game and I will give it. I'll let YouTube mostly talk about it because you two have played so much more than I have and I imagine that things will change later but I just am having such a hard time sticking with it and just yeah, find myself bouncing off of it, especially the combat. I just am really not like engaged. Like I'm really just not, I'm really having a hard time engaging

with. Okay. I have, I think that's helpful like the things you've run down because I kind of have thoughts on each of those things, but I'll kind of give my impressions first. Yeah, I think this game is incredible. So I think this is just like a baller-ass video game. This game rules. The final quarter of it is so cool. But really, like, after a slightly rough start, like, it just picks up and gets better and better and better as it goes. And I'm, like, totally thrilled with it. Is there a point, Kirk, where you feel like it got better for you? Like, Is there a specific moment that happens? Kind of.

Like, yes, there are a few things that I think are like big pivots, and I'll mention them in a second. But a few more broad thoughts. Like, I think this game is like a visual masterpiece. Like, I just think it's like a work of visual artistry on a level I very rarely see in video games. Down to the art galleries you can go in on the street, which have beautiful art in them, like on the walls,

all of which is different and in very different schools. Maybe I can tease that our friends, Stephen Totillo told me he has a story coming about that art and where it came from and which artists were responsible for it. That sounds very cool. So I'll say read Game File, his newsletter if you want to hear about that. So visually, this game is wild. Like it starts out and you're like, okay, it looks like inception, right? I mean, that's the frame of reference. You walk into Manhattan and here is a city and then on the skyline. Like, what? There's a city going up and then it's coming over. And that seems like, okay, I'm familiar with that visual language. Sure, it's cool to see in a video game, but like it's not exactly new.

There are things in this game, so many of them. Settings and a lot of setup, actually, where you're walking into something new, where you're just seeing around you these visual tapestries, many of which use this like patterned repetition, sequences of floating figures, the world like layering and almost going in this fractal pattern out from you, kaleidoscopic visuals that, move in this like purely like liquid psychedelic way. These visuals are just like unbelievable.

And then the Northlight engine, which remedy uses, is like delivering this stuff on a technical level that I, it's just amazing that this studio isn't some massive quadruple A, you know, studio. They're not actually that huge. And yet they're able to deliver something this amazing looking. So that has just like really stuck with me. And it's something that develops as the game goes. And I guess that's my final overall thought is this is a game that. gets better and better and better and better as it goes. And by the end, it's like fully bloomed out into, you know, a fractal masterwork of its own creation. And it is a game that has rough edges. It does have faults. There are certainly things about it that like don't work that well. I struggled

with the combat at first. I also felt like the enemies were really spongy and they actually were even more spongy in the pre-release period when I was playing it. They patched it right after it came out. Which was nice that they did that. So I've played around a lot of. little with assist mode at times, though I've found the balance to be okay once I got going. It has other issues as well. But like, man, I think it's really great. I loved it. Like, I really loved this game. I thought it was amazing. I think first, let's talk a little bit about how different it is from Control One, because I think I've seen that feeling expressed, and I feel it myself, right? Because Control One is so cool. It's so special. It was such an amazing feeling

this enclosed building that is full of surprises, this wry humor of this brutalist architecture and the, you know, the kind of work-a-day forms filled out talking about like, well, the toaster oven that like ate my spouse is still here and we're keeping my eye on it, you know, all of that kind of stuff. And Resonant isn't that really at all. There's some really good oldest house stuff like later in the game, like it does get into all of the lore in some ways that I think are interesting and even ways that tie to Dylan's character. But it isn't that.

And I guess, Maddie, well, I'm curious for more of your thoughts on that, on like how this game is different from control and how you feel about that. Yeah, it's really lacking in the sense of humor that Control One had, I would say. And the things about the story that have struck me are the parts that are quite sad because the premise of the game that you went over is that Dylan, because he succumbed to the hiss, and then now has learned to control it. that's kind of what happened prior to this game beginning. During that time that the hiss was controlling his body, he, I guess you could say accidentally or because of the hiss's desires,

killed like over 500 people. And he keeps seeing these visions of all these people that he's murdered. And many of the people that he meets now know exactly who he is and they know that he killed all of these people. And they blame him for the hiss escaping from the oldest house and wreaking havoc on Manhattan and killing many, many, many more thousands of people. And so everywhere he goes, he's wrestling with that. And I think that's kind of a hard thing to be around. And it's like, I've come to really find it fascinating, the writing for this character, especially the way that he bounces off this other character, Zoe, who's kind of, she's playing like the man in the chair role where she's his handler and she hates him. And they have this kind of,

enemies to frenemies arc over the course of the game that I've found really appealing and refreshing in that she has really good reason to dislike him early on and they're they don't really have like cool banter they have like hard acerbic conversations where she's like I don't actually want to talk to you and like that is a really fascinating way to navigate a game I would say and it was so different that it was refreshing to me and ultimately. Ultimately, I appreciated that Dylan as a character is so willing to apologize to people in a way that most of your like classic male video game characters don't when they're a bad guy, like to kind of like hold up like a Kratos, for example, or whoever you might imagine is like a big gruff guy.

Like that's really not Dylan's vibe at all. he's pretty muted as a character instead. And it's like, I feel terrible. And if anything, I'm like the only person I know who can control the hiss on any level. So I may as well help all of these people. But I don't expect them to forgive me. And like, I found that really fascinating. Yeah.

I mean, the dynamic between Dylan and Zoe, well, you'll finish the game. I mean, they have a full arc their relationship does. Yeah. And a lot of Zoe's relationship. to Dylan involves her learning Dylan's story. And Dylan's story, which is backloaded in the game. Like, you really start to get into it in the back half. In some ways that are so cool, Jason, I trust you're probably not going to finish this game.

I hope you will go and look up some spoilers so you can at least see. Can you address the question I asked earlier where like, was there a point where it started? I'm curious here for both of you. Was there a point where it started to click for you like that you would say? Well, I'm going to address that, but I want to stand what Maddie was saying. Yes, there is a point, and we're going to get into it with the gameplay, because there are like a couple of missions you can do. But I don't want to get sidetracked from what Maddie was saying about Dylan because I want to stay on that for just a second. Because Dylan's story is actually integral to the story of this game and in what makes it work as a sequel, in my opinion.

Because Dylan's story is in a lot of ways the story of the oldest house. Because he lived there, his whole life. If you remember, Control 1, Jesse came to the oldest house looking for Dylan. She was trying to find her long lost brother. They discovered this object of power when they were little kids, and it was this slide projector that opened, each slide led you to a different dimension. And the slide projector is like at the heart of the hiss invasion. It's at the heart of like all of this stuff.

It's this incredibly powerful object because it opens dimensional doors. But Jesse was an outsider, and it was like really weird. She came into this building, and the minute she walked in, it was like, there's this janitor who seems like he knows me. And suddenly I'm the director. and I have been given like the object of the gun, the object of power that like makes me the director. What was his name, Ate? Atee is a ordinary.

He's such a great character. So good. Recurring character and all these things. And so like she was, but she was an outsider and we were in the position of outsiders. And so then as we played through the game, what was so fun about Control One was it was leveraging that position. Like it would just show us these redacted documents that like implied, oh, there's a refrigerator and it kills people and we really need to be careful about it. oh, there's this whole department that's overcome with mold, and the mold is really sentient and maybe dangerous.

And like a lot of the humor and also just the like beguiling mystery of it all was that it was all unexplained and they could just tease at a million mysteries, a world of mysteries of hidden objects and other dimensions that like maybe there's something to it. And what Control Resonant is doing is the opposite of that. It's like, okay, now there is a crisis, a massive like, global thing is happening and now you are inside of the madness. Like you're through the looking glass or however you want to describe it. Like you're fully inside a world that is like broken and split on top of itself with this like crazy resonance cascade that's happening. And then the

whole game is kind of that way. It's like you can't just do that again. You can't do control one again where you're an outsider and there's all these mysteries. Like if they keep just showing us mysteries, it would have felt kind of frustrating after a while. Like okay, this is cool. But there's just kind of more objects of power that are kind of these fun little teased things. So what they've done is, I think, something much bolder is say, we're going to just blow the whole thing out. And then in telling Dylan's story, I think they have also, like, opted to tell the story of the oldest house. And when you learn Dylan's story and when Zoe learns Dylan's story, it's like a very important thing. And you'll see this, Maddie. And like I was saying,

Jason, people who finish the game, know what I'm talking about, they're like moments in the story that are so cool and unexpected where they're delivering Dylan's story. story, these incredibly cool ways, that I just hope even people who aren't going to play the game, like, we'll go find them just because it's so neat what remedy is doing. Sorry, when you'd say Dylan's story, you're talking about the events that happened before this game when he was, but before he was trapped, like, in that kind of state of unconsciousness, like, but he was living in the oldest house. Correct.

And like his relationship with Dr. Darling and with Trench, the former director and all of this. Like, it's the stuff is like all fleshed out. And we actually learn a lot of it from the point of view. of someone who was taken as a child and kept in the oldest house and, like, trained to be this, you know, whatever they wanted him to be, this person of power, this savior, whatever. And, like, his story, he's a very sympathetic character and deeply traumatized and really interesting in the end. And then Zoe is a great foil for him.

So that's what I'll say generally without spoilers there. But I think that, like, all of this stuff kind of feeds into what makes this game work as a sequel. Let's talk a little bit about the gameplay and the world design, because I do want to answer your question, Jason. and like, what is the thing that really kicks this game into gear? And I would say that, like, if this game were designed a little differently, if it was a game that held your hand more and kind of told you where to go, they would push you toward the faults, the Jesse sightings and the faults,

more directly than they do. Because those are the things that I think, Maddie, I see you nodding. Those are the things that really begin to open the game up first and foremost. And they're what I would recommend any new player do first, is like, go find Jesse and do the faults. Maddie, can you tell us what the faults are? Because I've been talking for a long time. Yeah.

And I think I remember even saying that to you, Jason, early on. Because I was like, the relationship between Jesse and Dylan is the other thing about the game that I think is really fascinating. So there's like this capacity for Dylan to enter into these other, I mean, they're kind of extradimensional platforming sequences, if you will. Yeah. And like through exploring them, he'll end up having or meeting Jesse. there on like the astral plane essentially where she's projected herself and is is trapped there seemingly and often we'll be telling him like get out of here and like you are learning the mystery of where jesse is now and like that compelled me to continue the game as well was just i also

found the platforming to be really fun in this game and i think that might also just be a core difference jason and we can talk about the combat too but like i think the fact that i enjoy the combat. Well, I haven't done any real platform. Okay, fair enough. But something important about these segments is that they give you new platforming abilities. Yes. And they turn the platforming into the incredibly cool thing that I'm describing. And they also, I would argue, make the game a Metroidvania again. That is the other, like, if I was trying to convince you to keep playing at Jason, which I'm truly not, but if I were to, I would tell you that the open world isn't really that big. It's not as big as it seems for starters. And secondarily, you're going to continue to

that new traversal abilities that are really fun to use and that continue to like unlock new parts of the world in the way that any classical metrodvania would do. You'll see things around the world where you're like, oh, I don't really understand what that weird kind of watery orb is in the air. What are those? Those are kind of everywhere. And then eventually you're like, oh, it's a, it's a thing that I can eventually use to traverse the environment. It's a grapple point. I think it's okay for us to describe these traversal. Exactly. Like, of course, you might guess it's a grapple point, but also this is a control game. So you might also just be like, that's just some weird thing that's happening. And who knows? And eventually you're like, okay, these are

traversal abilities. And that, that plus the kind of continued storylines with Jesse are another thing that just are a driving force for the game because you're rewarded by gameplay, unlocking and more parts of the world unlocking, but also you're learning more about where Jesse is and how you can find her. Yeah. And I want to be a little more specific even than that. the first ability likely that you will unlock is the ability to shift gravity. Right. That's true. And go up onto the wall and onto the ceiling. And that is the central design idea and I would say like artistic idea of this game.

And it's so essential to what makes it so cool that before you have that ability, it's not really the game yet. Like the later levels of this game. Yeah, you're right. Once you can walk on walls, the game does get a lot more sick. I love Gravity Rush and Gravity Rush, too. Those are two games that I've really enjoyed, and these are games that involve shifting the center of gravity around your character and falling in different directions. They're very complicated. They have their flaws, but they're very cool.

And it's been so rare to see somebody borrowing ideas from them. And this game is borrowing from Gravity Rush, in addition to some other games that have done this kind of thing. But, man, I mean, there are levels in this game where you're in a, like, pattern environment inside of an apartment building that's split out in infinite different directions. where there are like repeated and varied copies of rooms stacked left, right, top, and bottom, you're chasing enemies around and jumping up. The camera swings as you press the left button and all of gravity shifts until you're on the left wall. Then you're fighting. And then there's enemies on the ceiling above you.

They're like shooting at you. You're jumping the whole room spins 180 degrees as you land on the floor. There are boss fights in rooms where like enemies are on the wall, the ceiling, and the floor in front of you. when a boss is in the back, you're having to jump and dodge your way through shifting gravity around in 360 degrees. Like, the game completely defies gravity at a certain point. And the later areas in the open world, which go far beyond the initial ones that you see, are some of the coolest looking and most amazing, like, explorable areas I've seen in a game that I can think of, where it's just so amazing looking because of that art I was mentioning earlier.

And then the design of it is, like, shifting and rotating and spinning in space. as gravity turns, and it's like nothing I've seen before. It's so freaking cool. And it all ties back to that first ability that you get when you go to the first Jesse fault. And it's a critique of this game, I guess, that the game doesn't just tell you to go get that. Yeah, I don't even, I think it's like labeled as a side quest or something, too. Like, I don't even know if it's a main.

Yeah, you could play 10 hours and fight resonance and do all this stuff with like no other traversal abilities. And you probably would be like, man, I don't know. Like, this is okay, but it's a little. repetitive. You could also get bogged down and there's like Ubisoft style like repeating events in the world where you're just like defect, like protect the box with the guys so that you can get some materials from it or you know just like finding collectibles and stuff. But there are so many side quests that are like authored and really, really cool. There's a whole mold area called the

park that first of all I think is actually very funny. I found that this game has quite a, it has quite a lot of the humor I think from the original game. That area actually is quite funny because there's an ongoing thing where like it's mold and like the first time Dylan encounters it, it seems and smells like mold. And every character that he runs into, but especially Zoe, is like, don't eat the mold. Don't eat it, whatever you do. And Dylan keeps being like, I'm not going to eat the mold. Like, that's not a thing I would do. And it's just like this long, slow burn until eventually Dylan is like, the mold is low-key smelling really good right now. Man, you should eat the mold. There's like signs everywhere that say, do not ingest. Do not eat the

His first conversation with Zoe is so funny. She says, Dylan, whatever you do, don't eat the mold. And you get to choose your responses in all the dialogue. And you're like, why would, I'm not going to eat the mold. Don't worry, Zoe. And she says, good, keep telling yourself that. And you're like, what? And then like eventually when you start arguing with her where you start being like,

what if the mold smelled like butter and jam? And she's like, Dylan, I'm like, so yeah, I'm going to eat the mold. So there's, the mold is funny. That whole sequence is very funny. Great. And there are some side quests. There's a sidequest involving twins that you're trying to rescue because a lot of the side quests involve like survivors of this disaster. They've evacuated a lot of Manhattan, but there are still some people who got left behind.

There's this sidequest involving twins. That's so cool. Did you do that one, Maddie? The twins side quest. I didn't. I mean, but I've done so many other side quests. Like the whole lost taxi like thing I'm in the middle of. The taxi is so cool.

It's so cool. There are these scripted side quests that are these little remedy, just fun little narrative experience. where you warp to some other dimension and a weird thing is happening. There are a lot of puzzles you have to solve and these really interesting, creative, you know, like, hidden secrets that you're discovering. Like, it really is, like, there's so much of that stuff in the game. And I think, like, it's to the game's detriment that there's so much combat and that you can just kind of fall into, like, oh, okay, so this is like an infamous game.

I'm basically just fighting these enemies over and over. When, once you play through the whole thing, it's like, oh, man, no, this is like so many original and awesome ideas. This is going so many different directions. It's like delighting me in so many different ways. And that is true to this ethos the game has, which is that it does not hold your hand to the extent of a lot of its contemporaries. It does indicate where things are supposed to go. There are times where you're in a room and there's a light pointing at what you're supposed to do. It does some of that, but way less of it than your average game.

There's not going to be an NPC telling you, like, oh, you need to do this or that to solve the puzzle. Like you'll just kind of stand there and like look at a, you know, look at a wall and a couple switches and just be like, what am I missing? How do I figure this out? And then just like go read a letter again that's like lying nearby and be like, I guess this is it and this is my only clue. And eventually you kind of look at it and you're like, okay, I'll try this and it might work. And that's, that's rewarding.

And that's cool. Like I really like that about the game. Like I like how it just trusts me. It's just that as a result of that, it is possible to spend a lot of time not. getting the first cool traversal abilities. And like, I mean, there's a whole world of people, you know, of like YouTube videos now being like, here's five things I wish I knew going into this game. People should totally watch this because there's a lot of like obfuscated stuff in this game that needs to be explained. The way that the like abrogant level works, I didn't realize for the

longest time that you have to like, there's like a lot of forms for the weapon. You mentioned the scythe. There's like a bunch of different ones that you can unlock. Unlocking those just makes you more powerful even if you're not using them, which I didn't realize. it just makes your level go up. Yeah, it doesn't explain that. A lot of the abilities are really under-explained. Yeah, I think I would critique it as there's too much stuff in the menus. Like there's too many upgrade materials and it's all a little overwhelming.

And so I at least kind of just started ignoring it and was like, well, I'm sure I'll learn it if I need to. And then that meant that I did kind of miss these major systems, like the fact that the abrogate level is tied to how many upgrades. you've unlocked regardless of whether they're equipped, which is like an important thing to know because it makes you much more powerful with cheap, like late in the game, I just spent a ton of cheap resources to become much more powerful, not realizing that I had been sort of sleeping on that. Did you two lower the enemy health or enemy damage or like change? It doesn't seem like there's difficulty settings, just kind of specific sliders you can play around with. Did you guys do that? because if I were to go back into the game

and give it another chance, which I mean, maybe I will. I think I would just lower that because that is the thing that is really making me struggle the most is just how annoying the enemies are. I think it wouldn't hurt the game at all. I think it would be fine.

You totally could do that. It would be totally fine. That's what I was going to recommend to, Jason. And so the accessibility menu, which I also played around with a little bit just to see what it did and what was on offer, it does have,

it has those sliders that you're describing, like kind of the mean of the holler style, where it's like, okay, it's almost overwhelming how many things you can change. But there is a thing at the top that's somewhat obfuscated where you can choose like three different, like, I don't know what they're called, but they're kind of like personas where it's like different modes of play that just create a version of the game. And they have, yeah, there are difficulty presets, essentially. But they're not the same as like easy normal heart. They're like, here's one where like all the enemies are going to be really weak. but so will you. I made that up. But like, you know what I mean? And like each, you can kind of read each of

the three and be like, this sounds like what I want. And I tried those and I thought they were fun. I ended up going back to how it was because I was having a good time. But I just, I wanted to see what was there and play around with it. And like, like Kirk said early on, the game was really hard anyway. And so I was like, let me just like see if this is more fun for me. I got used to it after a while. But I was going to bring this up to So this kind of happened to me when I was playing Wolverine, like the opposite thing happened to me, insomniaks Wolverine game, where I never liked the melee combat in that game. And we kind of talked about it on the episode where Lucy James guested. But like I see melee combat is so subjective. Like to a point where I'm astounded by the designers who created because it must be so, so difficult to deal with the fact that everybody has a different quote unquote feel for like how fast should the punch connect. Does it out? actually feel correct. I don't know why Wolverine never felt that good to me. And the more it went on, the more I was just like, this is simply not vibing with me. And like for some reason, control resident is on the other end of the spectrum for me. But because I had that experience with Wolverine

so recently, I feel like I'm like spiritually connected to you, Jason, because I'm just like, yeah, sometimes you play especially a melee combat game. And it just, you just never feel like it's correct. Like, it just never feels good. I'm not ready to get on board with that. Fair enough. I think that Wolverine has significant problems. It does not develop its melee system nearly well enough. It has a lot of pacing and rhythm problems.

But there were people who loved it. I'm sure there are, but I don't actually think that this is just a subjective thing. Like, I think controls combat is miles beyond Wolverine. It is so much better designed. And Wolverine is like, has fundamental core problems. Okay, maybe it's an unfair comparison. Can I, well, hold on. I mean, my problem with the combat is.

It's not the way it feels. My problem with the combat is that it feels button mashy because all the enemies have a ton of health and are killing me immediately. And I'm just not enjoying playing it. With control, it definitely have come to like the combat more and more, the more I've played. Then I went and watched some YouTube videos of people talking about different builds and how they're approaching combat. And I came to like it even more. It's kind of crazy that remedy, on their first outing, remember, making a game like this, which isn't even just like, I don't know, a kind of straightforward brawler.

This is like a full-on DMC aerial combat, like really complex and varied builds with, I don't know, three main melee attacks, three secondary melee attacks, something like six or seven combo finishers, all of which have like tie in with your upgrades and also like a whole summon like system where there's like two different kinds of summons. It's a really complicated and like very technical melee combat system. And the more I put into it, the more I get out of it. And it's actually, like, amazing how well it works. I think the feel is part of it.

Like, it is something that can be better or worse, in my opinion. Anyway, obviously, it's all a little bit subjective. But, like, the way they've built the mobility, the way that Dylan can leap and slide, the range and stickiness of enemies when you begin to attack someone, and the interruptability of his attacks in particular, where he can, you can do a dodge, like, at any point in your attack animations. It's so fluid. the invincibility frames given from a dodge are like crazy long

where you're just like fully face dodging through attacks and like once you kind of get that your head around all of that and work out a few combos and unlock a little bit of the tree to give you like the final combo attack and stuff it becomes I think really fun even fighting the basic enemies and then also you start doing more damage and so the sponginess of the enemies becomes less of an issue but there's definitely like both a learning curve

and the game has to kind of get you have to unlock a little bit more to get to where it's really fun. But I do think that it is really fun. And now with everything unlocked, like, I mean, it's the kind of thing that, like, over time, I think people will increasingly come to appreciate just how good this combat system is. Because I feel like I'm only scratching the surface. And I really like it and have uncovered and, like, played around with a lot of different builds. Yeah, I feel like for me, one of the turning points was, like, getting past that first boss fight

and feeling like I understood the combat at that point, as opposed to, like, the traversal mechanic that Kirk mentioned. And like, I thought that was really cool. But for me, the thing I was enjoying was the rhythm of the combat and doing aerial stuff and jumping around. And the Dodge feels so good in this game that, like, you're jupping around, like, hollow night or whatever. I don't know. It feels really fun and exciting. So for me, I just was like, great. This doesn't feel bad.

And I don't have that feeling that I do sometimes where I, like, come across a group of enemies. And I'm like, great, more guys. But that's because I'm having fun fighting the guys. Right. I think, and to kind of pose a version of your earlier question, Jason, with the combat, there was a thing that kind of unlocked it for me, and that was unlocking my first combo finisher, like once I had enough upgrade materials to get a combo finisher. Because at that point, we basically described this, but you have kind of two attacks,

a primary and a secondary attack that can look very different, like little knives for your primary and a big drill for your secondary. I mostly went with this kind of hatchet sithe, like not the big swinging sithe, but kind of an axe, I guess, which is in the middle for my main attack, and the big hammer, because just hammers are fun for my secondary. But like, when I actually started switching up more and more later in the game, and then was like, oh, these are all awesome. And, like, I can actually really customize my build for like different scenarios or just for fun. And then you get a combo finisher, which is like a mega attack. Like for me, for a lot of the game, it was just this huge sword swing. And side note, it's really cool how in this game the aberrant Dylan's weapon becomes all of these things we're describing.

And then they just fall off on the ground. So he's just leaving like chunks of these huge axes and like size lying all around him everywhere. I just think that's like another cool little detail in this game. I mean, Manhattan's already destroyed. Who cares? Right. It's just kind of chunks of Dylan's weapon everywhere. It's like Spider-Man's webs kind of, I guess.

Anyhow, the combo finisher is like a big moment. And that was when I was like, oh, okay, so three attacks and then womp, like I smoke them with this huge sword that does a ton of damage. And then I started figuring out, oh, my dodge attack always launches them into the air. So, like, now I'm like aerial all the time. Oh, I just unlocked an ability that gives me a bonus if I'm in the air. Oh, I got another ability that gives me a bonus if I'm behind them. So I knocked them into the air, dodge behind them, jump up, and then suddenly I'm doing like crazy damage on every enemy. So, like, it's very technical.

You have to actually look at your build and, like, pay attention to all of that stuff. But then once you do... And like read the little descriptions basically. Man, it's like I really think... It's like crazy. I love the combat system. And it won't vibe with everybody, but I think it's really impressive

that Remedy's designers have pulled this off given that the studio has this long history of making shooters. Yeah, I agree. But I also just... Can we talk about the music for a second? There's so many other things that I also really enjoy. Yeah, when you say music,

so there's Petriolanco's score. And then there's also, of course, some songs. I mean, talk about either one, I guess. Yeah, there's Zoe's mixtape because she has this taste in music that kind of scans between like punk and electro pop, I suppose. And she, once she and Dylan are kind of in their frenemies phase before their eventual friends phase, she kind of starts being like, well, you were in a coma for seven years. So I guess I'm going to play some music for you. And those sequences will match a song that obviously has been selected by the game's developers, but is selected by Zoe. quote unquote and it will like go with something that's happening in the game and it that's just I'm just a sucker

for that like the lyrics are about the thing you're doing and it's like an awesome song that's playing there's like one moment in control one that does that and people talk about it all the time because it's like the coolest thing ever and I won't go into detail because again you should just play control one even if you listen to this whole episode just go ahead and play it but this game does that type of thing several times where you're going through something and a song is playing and it's part of what you're experiencing and it's amazing. Agree.

It's so cool. They did get that genie in the bottle again or whatever. Recapture the lightning in a bottle. What's the expression? Whatever. They pulled it off again. The cats in the back? I don't know.

Multiple times. And yeah, there's one that I think we're both thinking of Maddie that I would not, there's a big hole. But it's, yeah. And then there is a musical sequence that is so freaking. I was like, I love this, like the entire time playing it, just like yelling to the heavens about how cool it was. Like the ashtray amaze. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. It's like this game's version of that, I think. And I do that a few times. So Kirk maybe knows there's more sequences even after that. There are some great needle drops. And I would have to say, Petri Alonko did a great job with the score. Overall, I really dig the music in the sound design.

I think like, so Martin Stieg Anderson, who is an amazing composer and sound designer, he actually was one of the composers on Kairn earlier this year, but he did the sound for Limbo, for Play-Ded. He was like the visionary sound designer of those games where the sound is so amazing. He's a really incredible composer and sound designer. And he worked on the first game along with Petriolanco. Now Petriolanco is going solo.

I think it's kind of interesting that that's happened across a few different disciplines with this game. And as we wrap up, like something to note here that I just think is cool to see. So Mikhail Kassur, who was the director of the first control and is the director of this game, did not write the first control. Sam Lake, obviously the famous visionary at Remedy and writer and, you know, creator and such a powerful creative force there. He wrote the first control. Sam Lake did. But Kassurinen wrote Control 2 along with Ashley Smith.

So Sam Lake actually, I'm sure, you know, consulted and was maybe in some way involved in this game. But this is not a Sam Lake game, kind of for the first time. And it does have its own energy. but I think it's really cool to see this studio sort of letting people take a little bit more creative reign and finding other voices and letting it come out. Same thing with the music where Martin Stieg Anderson

really knows what he's doing, like he's a very established voice, but Petri Alanko is a great composer, and now he's kind of gone on his own to make the music for this game, and he did a great job. So I think that's like a cool thing behind the scenes with this game, is that this feels like, it's not Remedy 2.0,

it's certainly a lot of the same people that worked on the first game and that have worked at the studio for a long time. And they, I have to, I mean, the amount of expertise that would be required to put something like this together on a technical and design level is just absurd. But it's so cool to see this studio like hanging together but also evolving. And like they're not content to do the same thing over and over again. And I'm like floored by that, by the boldness here where Control 2 could have just been, oh, there's a new wing in the oldest house. It's Jesse's time to, oh, the gun got weak again, so she needs to, like, get new gun powers and, like, go and explore it. Would you look at that? There were a bunch more funny memos to read in this building, and we're still in the oldest house.

Like, you can imagine a version of that that would have been plenty pleasing, but maybe in the end would have felt a little like, are we just treading water, you know, what are they doing here? And instead, they're like, no, we're going to have new people write it. We're going to totally blow it out. We're going to make a completely different kind of game on every, like possible level. and still, in my opinion at least, deliver. Like, deliver the goods, the, like, remedy feeling, this surreal, incredible adventure in a way that they never have before. And I think that is, like, very, very cool to see from a studio,

especially a studio that I love as much as I love Remedy. So I really am wild about this game. I think it's just so freaking cool. And they should all be very proud of the very cool thing that they made. Maddie, any final thoughts on Control Resonant? No, I really agree. I think it's really special and it's not at all what I expected. And I think that's really neat.

You know, why not? Why not have it be something super different? And I'm sure if they make another control, it'll be absolutely nothing like either of these games. And that's fascinating. And I'll say without spoilers that, yeah, I mean, they are obviously, there will probably be another one of these. And I'm so excited. I'm excited to hear that. Yeah.

Just based on where resident ends. We'll see. We'll talk about it when you finish it. It is very. exciting what they're setting up for the future of this series. All right, well, that is Control Resonant. Let's take a break and come back for one more thing. Hi, I'm Andrew Reich and I host Ed Pilot Society, and I am here with Max Fun member of the month, Jacob Eads. Thank you so much for being a listener of our show. And congratulations on being this month's member of the month. Pleasure to meet you.

What made you take the leap to become an actual member of Maximum Fun? I'm spending all this time, I'm listening and enjoying them for content. Because it's not like just supporting one podcast either. It's supporting a whole network of people. So I feel like the dollar really goes a long way. Can't tell you how much we appreciate it. And as our member of the month, you will be getting a $25 gift card to the maximum fun store, a special member of the month bumper sticker.

You can take that car with that bumper sticker and drive it to the parking spot at Max Fun headquarters in Los Angeles, which will be there just for you. I might have to get one of my friends to bring like a cardboard cut out of me who lives in Los Angeles just to show that I was there. Support the shows you love, including this one. Check the show notes for a link or go to maximum fun.org slash join. Hey, Max Fun listeners. It's me, Jackie Cashin. I have a podcast with Lori Kilmartin. Say hi, Lori. Hi, Jacqueline. Hi, Max Fun listeners.

But not very formal. have a podcast and it's about stand-of-comedy and how much we love it and how much we dislike some of it. So listen to that podcast. It's called The Jackie and Laurie Show. We drop new episodes every Wednesday that gives us plenty of time to decompress from our comedy weekends and discuss things with sane level heads. No, it doesn't. But if you are a woman our age or a man our age, or you know what, any person of any age. I think you'll enjoy your podcast with Jackie and Laurie Show on Maximum. dot org. Bye. And we are back for one more thing. Well, that was a lot of control resident.

But Jason, what's your one more thing? My more thing is a game called Final Fantasy Resonance. Just the one. With the NCE ending, not the NT ending. This is a game that is way up my alley. I absolutely love it. So this is a game I've been playing on my Steam deck every night before bed for like the last four weeks or so.

So what is this game? This is a game made by Square Enix. Obviously, it's Final Fantasy. And it is an HD2D game. So it's made by that department at Square, T. Masano, that they're called. And it is a traditional turn-based JRP based on the story and characters

of Final Fantasy Brave XVis, which was a mobile gotcha game that Square Enix came out with, like, I don't know, 10 years ago, a long time ago, and it's since shut down, and they decided to take Brave XVus and kind of turn it into a traditional console game, which means that there's no gotcha, there are no loop boxes, there's no manipulative microtransactions in this game. And what they did was they fleshed it out in a lot of different ways. They did new pretty much everything.

The graphics are completely new and they're gorgeous. the gameplay feels very new. The combat system has some similarities, but is mostly new. Everything about it is new. And it tells this kind of original story about these characters and you go around the world and you get different methods of travel and you solve different problems in different kingdoms in the world. It's got all this kind of classic JRP fair.

But it has a couple of interesting twists. One is that in combat, you can summon what the game called calls visions, which are these spirits, a lot of which are from old Final Fantasy games. So one of your characters, your main character, Rain might have, I don't know, lightning from Final Fantasy 13 or like Cloud from Final Fantasy 7 standing behind him in battle, and that'll be his vision. And essentially what those visions are is it's almost like the job system of this game. Each of them have different abilities and you can improve them and you can master them and once you've mastered them, you can equip another vision and bring over the skills

from your previous vision along the way. And there's a ton of different permutations that you can play around with different tactical abilities and strategies. And in combat, a large part of it is figuring out your enemy's weaknesses and then using those against them to like stagger them so you can do more damage to them. But also you can buff them and debuff them. So there's a healthy amount of strategy that this all plays into. The game is also full. of references to old Final Fantasy games. It is very much nostalgia bait meant for the person who grew up playing these Super Nintendo Final Fantasy games and wants a whole bunch of references to them.

For example, there's a whole side quest that is set on a Phantom Train, just like Final Fantasy 6. Do you suplex the train? You don't fight the train, but you do ride the train briefly. So it's very much like nostalgia bait for Final Fantasy fans, but it also has a lot of strengths in its own right. The music is really good and it's all original. The combat system is really cool and it's just a lot of fun to play. It's got great vibes. It looks incredible. It's got a lot of cool areas to explore. You get an airship. You get to ride around. You get to explore all these different

little side quests and caves and stuff. It's got a good sense of humor, which is something that I think has been lacking from, certainly from Final Fantasy 16, some recent Final Fantasy games. not so much of the seven trilogy, but at a certain point, Final Fantasy started taking itself a little bit seriously in a way that I think did a disservice to it. Got a good sense of humor. Yeah, it's got a lot going for it. I really am enjoying playing through it. I'm not quite finished, but I'm pretty far into it.

And I like pretty much everything about it. I would say on the T-Masano scale, it's not quite as transcendent and as Octopath Traveler, too, which I still think is the best game square is made in a long time. But it's really good. And I highly recommend it to people who are into Final Fantasy or term-based JRPGs, especially if you grew up playing the Super Nintendo games or you have some sort of fondness in your heart for those games. It imagines a different world almost where there's a parallel track of like 2D Final Fantasy

games and 3D Final Fantasy games, which I imagine could be the case if this game is a hit. I imagine they will make more just like it. Because it has the story of what I believe is season one of Final Fantasy Brave X-Vius, the mobile game. And there are other seasons too that I imagine they will add through sequels or DLC or whatever. But it works pretty well. And this is the second time I believe that Square has taken one of their mobile games and turned it into like a proper console game and I think it works pretty well for them especially because they've just like thrown a lot at it. They've done a lot to it. So I'm really enjoying it and I recommend it. It is out. I believe the day this episode comes out. It comes out. So yeah, we're checking out.

Also runs incredibly well consistent 60 frames a second on the steam deck. Nice. Yeah, I was going to, I was assuming you played it on the deck. It seems like it would be a fantastic steam deck. Oh yeah. It's a great lying in bed and maybe watching TV with. my wife for putting on football, just playing it. Although you do want to crank the music because the music rules in this game. Nice. Yeah, that's great. Awesome. Yeah, that sounds like fun.

Jason Core for sure. If only there weren't seven million video games out right now. Yeah, I mean, you can see what my priorities are. Oh, absolutely. I think they're in the right place. I honestly, I'm like glad you had something to play that wasn't controlled resident because you needed something, you know? If this wasn't hitting.

There's actually, other than Echo Weaver, which maybe we'll talk about a little bit more down the road once you two have a chance to play it. A lot of the games that came out this fall aren't great for the Steam Deck. So it was nice having this one to lie in bed and play with or play on the train to the city or something like that. It was nice having this one. Yeah, I'm still bummed that Zero Company doesn't run that well on Steam Deck. I've played it a little streaming and it's such a good handheld game. But obviously it's probably hard to get it running on the deck, but it would have been a great Steam Deck game.

So it's really too bad. Well, Maddie, what is your one more thing? Mine is a TV show that you, Kirk, talked about on this show. Previously, it's called Lanterns, and I just wanted to reiterate that we really loved it. Nice. You finished it? And Dina especially really loved it. And I wanted to relay some of what she had to say about it that I thought was interesting,

that I've kind of seen, like, other people talking about online, but I don't know that anybody he's really put it in an essay. And if my wife were an essay, maybe this is what she'd be writing about. But this show, so this show is about, it's a superhero show, but it's also this show starring Aaron Pierre as this character who is dealing with this immense pressure from his family. And he has this experience that my wife was relating kind of metaphorically to like this kind of black American experience that a lot of people have and her version of the metaphor. So basically, John is growing up in this world where there are these space cops called green lanterns and aliens come down and give somebody on Earth a special ring and then they get superpowers. And John's father was offered this ring,

but part of the test is whether or not you describe yourself as fearless. And John's father is a black man. And this is decades ago, although he certainly could be fearful in the present day. But decades ago, he definitely wasn't fearless and failed the test. And this white guy passes the test. And that is like a really big part of the show and what it's saying. And so John's parents, his mother specifically gets another visit from the aliens who are like, hey, we didn't actually understand about institutional racism and like how it worked on your planet. Like we didn't know that that was a thing here. So we feel kind of bad about this. And like, maybe we made a mistake with the ring delivery system that we invented.

And we think that your son has potential. But you're going to have to make sure he can pass later anyway, bye. And so John grows up in this like pretty abusive environment. And my, my estimation and Dina's estimation. And you don't really understand like really why his parents are treating him like this at first because the scenes are kind of shown in such a way that you're like, oh, okay, like I guess he has to be. the green lantern and they're teaching him to be fearless, but like at what cost. And he has this

like tough relationship with his brothers and all these other pressures put on him. And I think that I've definitely like seen kind of like my black mutuals on social media and my friends talking about this quality of like it being really similar to a family who can only afford to send one kid to college or like one kid to like, you know, the special school or have whatever opportunity. And like the other kids end up really competing or feeling like some type of way about the one kid that gets that opportunity. And like that kid who gets it is then feeling like all of these complicated feelings about the pressures that they're under.

And I think Lanterns portrays that in a really fascinating way through this superhero story that I wasn't expecting. And it ended up having a lot of really interesting conversations with my wife about it after we watched each of these episodes and like what it was trying to say. And I also think Aaron Pierre is just freaking dynamite in this role. And if you haven't watched him in Rebel Ridge, which we talked about when it came out, he's so good in that. And like he just has such movie star quality and seeing him get to play a role like this is really cool.

So yeah, I recommend it. I think Lanterns is a really fascinating show with something to say that doesn't really have anything to do with like aliens or superheroes. and is instead like this other kind of metaphorical story about a really specific part of the black experience that some people watching probably could really relate to and I thought it was really interesting. Yeah, some of those brothers is really interesting. They call him chosen.

Yes, yes. Dino was like cracking up so much of them calling him chosen all the time and like just, I don't know, it was very funny to her. Yeah, a lot of like subtle layers depicted in their relationship and that what you're talking about, that sort of inequality between them is really interesting. Sounds like it's very much in conversation with Watchmen

from Linnelof also. And Dina hasn't actually seen Watchmen yet because I watched it without her the first time around. And I was like, we got to circle back and watch that now because I actually think she'll really like it. I made me want to rewatch Watch Watchman who rewatches the Watchman. Yeah, I think we are going to rewatch the watchman. It's funny, man, a little bit of a side note, I suppose, but it's funny that Damon Linoff lost was criticized so much for its depiction of black men in particular. Yeah. It's fun.

It feels like he's responding to that. in some ways by making these two shows. It feels like he like went to school and in some form and like really try it. And hired some core Jefferson and some really good black writers too, I think is a big part of it. For sure. He understands how to build a writer's room for sure. I mean, Core Jefferson's episode of Watchman is like just one of the greatest episodes of TV ever. Is he on Lantern?

I don't know that he is, but I would love if he were. But no, I think he just, he worked on Watchman and it's fantastic. With some good writers on that show for sure. Absolutely. Did you watch The Underground Railroad? Aaron Pyr was in that, too. Yes, yes, that's another excellent show with a really different vibe. I really want to watch it.

It has a lot of kind of magical realism elements combined with historical fiction that make it like really blown out and like trippy. Not a bad thing, but it's like a, it's not just a show about the underground railroad. You know what I mean? It's like really unusual and fascinating and more kind of surreal. Yeah, I was looking up Aaron Pier on IMDB just to try to remember. remember kind of where he had been before Rebel Ridge and then saw that credit and it reminded me, oh yeah, I really wanted to watch that and hadn't, but it makes me kind of want to go watch.

Yeah, it's cool. It's cool. It's weird and cool. Nice. Well, yeah, Lantern's really cool, really cool show. Totally agree. And that's cool to hear Dina's perspective on it. All right, well, I'll go last. My one more thing is Star Wars Galactic Racer, a game about racing a little crocodile guy named Biddy Blass, who is the most popular character on the entire internet right now. And who could have seen that coming? I don't know about that. Elizabeth Holmes is up there.

But is she a character, Jason? There must be memes combining them now. There has to be a scene where it's like, it's like cut to Elizabeth Holmes. Would I deceive you? Cut to Biddy Blas. Scream do. Go to Elizabeth Holmes. Surely this exists.

This has to exist on the internet. I feel almost certain that it does. But anyhow, Star Wars Galactic Racer. What a game. Holy shit, didn't see this one coming. This is like the most fun I've had with a racing game since I can remember. And one of the most fun games I've played this fall, just in terms of pure adrenaline and joy per second.

This is a game made by Fuse Games, a UK developer built out of, I think, headed up by a lot of people from Criterion, who used to work on the burnout and then the Forza Horizon series. And there's a lot of burnout DNA in this game. game. This is a racing game set in the Star Wars universe where you play as a character named Shade, who is a very kind of sketched out character, but he gets involved in racing in the kind of post return of the Jedi period. So like the empire has fallen. This is like kind of right around, right around at that time. The empire has fallen, but like there's kind of a big void and no one's

really sure what's going to happen. I thought this was going to be a pod racing game. I like I like, I like ignored this game completely. I guess I don't know what it is. Like I saw the trailers for it and stuff and I was like, whatever. Wasn't there already a pod racing game? Like, who cares? That's like really beloved. It's like kind of a cold favorite, as I recall.

I have learned that since that it's actually a great racing game that a lot of people really love. But I didn't play it. And like I just assumed, oh, this will be like prequally, you know, racing against Subalba or whatever. You do race against Subalba in this game, but he's an old Subboba and it's much later. But you're not actually pod racing. And I think that's kind of an interesting lore backdrop to this, which is that like, I'd forgotten this, but the pod racing, the whole thing with pod racing in the Phantom Menace is that like humans can't even do it.

Do you remember this? Like it was all these aliens doing it because like it's so insanely fast and dangerous that like human beings are too slow except that Anakin could do it because he was so strong with the force, right? And that was kind of the explanation. Forgot all of that, but sure. You can't like there couldn't be a pod racing video game because pod racing is too fast. Though I think you do race some pod racers later in this game, and it's like super insane when you do it.

But basically, like, in the fiction of this game, the racing circuit kind of died out and, like, pod racing went away, and now they're trying to bring it back. And so people are racing, like, speeder bikes, like from Return of the Jedi, or you race kind of like a floating car or, like a hover car. And then there's this cool thing called the Knife's Edge that I just finally unlocked that's, like, the dopest car, I think, like, it does these, like, you're going super fast and then you hit the, like, drift button and you cut up on your side. and like go corner super hard. But basically it's like a sci-fi racing game, you know, like F-0. I think there's a lot of F-Zero in this game. Or like Mega Race, which was actually a game I played a lot of in the 90s. And some people listening to this will be like,

Mega Race mentioned and we'll be very happy about that. But there's kind of like, I don't know, I'm not like a racing game expert by any stretch. It's actually like surprising to me how much I love this game. I'll explain why. That's actually for some real design reasons. But it's surprising to me because, like, I always start a Forsa game and I'm like, cool. And I start it.

I'm like, wow, the world is really cool. The cars are really cool. And I start going. And then I'm kind of like, all right, I don't know. I don't have time. And I don't feel motivated or really care. And part of that I think is that I like the sci-fi racers more. Like, I like it when you're getting crazy vehicles that fly and have like super afterburners and can like do insane stuff.

Like I just find that more fun. It's a little more like Mario Kart. Like it's more of an arcade feel. And just the side. sci-fi aspect is fun. And that might go back to playing mega-race when I was like 13 and falling in love with that game. Who knows? But that's part of it. But another part of it is that this game builds stakes into its design in a way that I think is ingenious. And I've never seen in a racing game. But like I said, I'm no expert. I haven't played that many racing games. But there is a

roguelike built into this game. This game follows a roguelike structure. And that one idea works so beautifully that it makes the whole thing work for me and makes it so exciting. So the narrative of this game, right, this guy's shade gets and starts racing in this new circuit. And there's this big jerk. His last name is Boole. His last name is Boole. He just sucks. He's like a rich jerk who like his parents are really rich and he wants to like buy this league

and he's also a racer in the league. And it's basically like a sports story where like the big jock, rich asshole like wants to buy the team and buy the, you. you know, or the gym or whatever, and then you're like, scrappy guy is going to beat him in the final showdown and stop him from doing it. You're the Mighty Ducks or whatever. And I should mention a thing I did not know when I started this game is that Chris Remo, who's actually a friend of mine, former Idol Thumbs podcaster, worked on Firewatch and like some games back in the day, now living in England. He and Duncan Fife, who also, like, wrote and has written for a lot of different outlets and they're kind of in that same circle. they're the two lead writers on this game, which is super interesting.

So they, like, wrote the dialogue and the barks along with some other writers. But that was their role. So that was something that was just cool to discover and has since sort of colored my experience of the story. So I, like, have to mention it only because I'm like, the whole time I'm playing it, I'm like, man, I can't believe Remo helped write Biddy Blast. Like, what the hell? That's so funny. So I just think, and I think it's just very cool that they worked on this because I think the story is really cool. But like I was saying, the rogue-like structure, that's the secret sauce.

Like, that's the idea this game had that I would be shocked if we didn't see replicated in racing games from here on out. The way it works is you get like a ticket. It's like a tournament ticket at the start. And then you get put on a kind of like a branching path like in, I don't know, Slay the Spire, I guess, does this. Like where you kind of choose like each node. Like sometimes you can do a higher risk node or a lower risk node. and you're kind of working your way toward a boss, just like in Hades or whatever. And as you go, you're like doing races, and if you win the race, you get points and you can use that to buy more upgrades.

But most of what you're upgrading throughout this run is just your racer, which one way or another, you're going to lose at the end of the run. Like if you crash out and have to start over, you lose the vehicle that you built and you have to start all over again. Now, when you crash out, you start over and you don't die or anything. You just do another run. and then gradually you're unlocking another kind of upgrade where you can make your vehicle permanently better. So you're getting better and faster with each run, which helps you get further each time.

So there's this kind of rogue-like quality where each run is unique. And once you're like five or six races in, you crash a couple times and you're down to your last crash. And it's like, if I crash this third time, I have to start all the way over. Or you get up to the boss race, the first time is against Sibulba. Like they bring him out. And he's like totally whiff. You're like, I can't lose to this guy.

I'm going to have to start over. And there's this feeling of like excitement and stakes as a result of this that is one of the things that was really missing for me from a Forza Horizon, where in the Forza games, there's this very player friendly thing where you can press the Y button and just rewind. So like you're driving and then you crash and go off a cliff, you can just rewind to before you crashed and then just keep going. And that's really nice in one sense because it lets you just kind of keep going. Like it keeps the movement going, but there's no friction.

There's no stakes. There's no tension. You're not like, oh my God, like I cannot crash. Like, I am going to go full digital mode here and just like absolutely beat this guy. And then when you're in the final stretch and you're like cranking your afterburners and you're in the red and you're about to blow up and you win and like get to keep going. Like the exhilaration of that is out of this world. Like it's just so exciting. I enjoy it.

The YouTuber Dunkie made a video. about this game and it's mostly just him joking around and playing it but like a little ways into the video he's on the second race or something and he's like racing and he finishes and he's like wow they're going really hard for like the second race or he like says something along those lines and i just thought it was it's so perfectly articulated the way this game feels where you just start playing and you're in i was like instantly just over the top like excited and stressed and thrilled and like having such a good time. Like the game feel, the way the ships feel, like the way you have to kind of like punch in all your buttons. Like if you catch on fire, there's like quick time events to kind of bang it and

put it out, which is all very Star Wars. You know, all the technology sucks and you have to like hit everything with a wrench to make it work. The sound effects, the way when you hit your kind of extra overdrive, your ramjet, it's called. Like it's so tactile and thrilling and cool. I can't say enough about this game. Like it's so fun. It's so, man, it has a lot. There's so much I haven't seen. It's like very layered. There's so much strategy and depth to it. There's a whole online mode. You can like play through one of those roguelike runs with a whole host of other people. Man, it's like a tour to force. It's so much fun. I really was not expecting to show up on triple click and be like, you know, falling out of my chair, ranting about how cool Star Wars Galactic Racer is.

But it's so much fun. I like play it. I'm going to keep playing after this. I play it every night. just do a run or do a few races just because it's just like that much fun. It's that great of a game. So a real triumph. Can you play it on Steam Deck? You can. It does not run, I don't think, at 60 frames per second, but it is playable. It's verified.

And I know some people do. And I think it would be fine. Like, it'd be fun to play on deck. And, man, I really recommend you both try it out. It sounds really fun. You'll be having fun within like five minutes. I'm just so, I played it at Summer Games Fest and just racing games are just like so uninteresting to me, unfortunately. Yeah, if it's not your thing, it's not your thing.

But if it's at all your thing, and if you like races and racing games, and then if you like Star Wars, too, it really very much may be your thing. So anyone out there listening to this? I mean, I like Chris Rimo's sense of humor, so that could win me over. He's very funny. Yeah, it is a funny game. And it has biddy blast, you know? I mean, what more could you want?

Yeah, quite a game. Star Wars Galactic Racer, definitely worth checking out. And that's another episode of Triple Click, folks. Did it again. We sure did. Put on our afterburners and made it to the finish line. Yeah, we did. We're making it slowly toward the finish line of this fall,

though there's kind of one major final boss. Yeah, there's a big boss at the end that we have to fight, I guess. Yeah. Escape Academy 2. That's right. Exactly. Escape Academy 2. That's what we're all gearing up for. Every guide's writer is preparing.

Honestly, a game I'm incredibly excited for. Actually, yeah. It's not GTA6. Sounds good. I love the first one of those, so I am excited to get into the sequel of that. But yeah, there's still more fall in video games to come on Triple Click. But for now, I think we can call it. This was a lot of fun.

Jason, Natty. I'll see you both next week. See you next time. Well, actually, we might be back sooner than that or the bonus. In the bonus feed. See you sooner than that for you can see everything. Make sure you subscribe. With a regular feed, I will see you.

you 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 maximumfun.org slash join. Email us at triple click at maximum fun.org and find links to our merch store and our Discord server in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network of artists-owned shows. Supported directly by you.