Triple Click - Triple Play: Metroid Prime Remastered

Episode Date: February 16, 2023

Nintendo surprised us all last week with a remake of Metroid Prime, so it's time for Triple Click to drop everything and play it. Maddy, Jason, and Kirk talk about Retro's classic first-person shooter: how influential it's been, what it does well, and where it goes wrong.One More Thing: Kirk: South SideMaddy: Tár (2022)Jason: Psychonauts 2 documentaryLinks: The Psychonauts 2 documentary: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIhLvue17Sd70y34zh2erWWpMyOnh4UN_Triple Click LIVE IN BROOKLYN, May 18th: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/triple-click-live-tickets-513213584647Support Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinBuy Triple Click Merch: https://maxfunstore.com/search?q=triple+click&options%5Bprefix%5D=lastJoin the Triple Click Discord: http://discord.gg/tripleclickpodTriple Click Ethics Policy: https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/ Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick 🚀  SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK:Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy📱 SOCIALS | @tripleclickpodInstagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

Just one person can ensure every Metroid is in captivity and the galaxy is at peace. And she's back, baby, she's back. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week we talk about Metroid Prime remastered, the Nintendo Switch version of a 2002 GameCube game that is perfect in every way. It's a stone cold classic. You should be playing it right now. I'm Maddie Myers.

I'm Jason Shrier. And I'm Kirk Hamilton. And hello. Hello. Oh, it's us. We are back once again. Ready to talk about a cool game. Yeah.

Been in a good mood. Mattie, you're smiling even more than you usually. I'm so excited about my life because I've been playing Metroid all week and now everybody's playing Metroid all week. Everybody in my life. Maybe there are other people playing some other video game, but I don't care about it. I don't know about it. I don't acknowledge it.

Just Metroid, Metroid all the way down. It's playing Metroid. The other game, just a heads up for people. We will be talking about another big game next week. But for now, we're just going to bask in the pure joy of Metroid. Today we're just basking. We're basking, guys. Talen 4.

My whole world is telling 4. Nothing else exists. I will say it's hilarious that the three of us were like, we're recording this before Nintendo Iraq. So if there's a Metroid Prime, surprise, remaster announcement, we won't know about it. We won't be able to talk about it. We did. And we did say something about Hollow Night, pour one out.

Maybe it'll return someday. We just got to keep saying this. I mean, we are the ones who made it happen. Yes, we're manifesting it. We just have to keep saying the names of games that we want to appear. Also, you're welcome, everyone. Yeah, yeah. We do it for the gamers, the lower case two gamers.

I'm having myself on the back because we achieved something. It wasn't Nintendo. It wasn't Retro Studios. It was actually the three of us. And if that's the kind of thing you want to support, us manifesting video games we want to play, then. And also this podcast, which is listener supported. You could support that too.

I would say that something you could do is go to maximum fun.org slash join, and you could become a member of our fine podcasting network. And you could support our show. You could also support other shows. But regardless of which shows you choose to become a supporter of, you get access to a bonus feed with everybody's episodes. And part of why I say that is because I know that I'm going to guest on another show's bonus episode. I will probably mention it on this show whenever.

it comes out. But you get access to the triple click bonus feed. And I will say we do an episode every month. And this month, we are going to do a beans cast. We're going to spill the beans, spoil several Ryan Johnson outings. I was going to say movies. Not all movies, but we're including the first five episodes of Pokerface in this, a show we're all watching. And we're also going to talk about knives out, glass onion, and brick, which is a movie I saw in high school and was freaking obsessed with. And can't wait to talk about it again with the two of you. So if you, the listener, want to hear us talk about that, well, you simply have to become a max fun member to do it. That's the brakes. But hey, you're already here. So you get to listen

to this, this episode, which is about Metroid Prime. Yeah, it is. I'm so excited. I'm so excited too. As soon as Nintendo, we'll watch the direct on Wednesday, and Nintendo's surprise dropped the Metroid remastered. That day. And it's basically, even though they're calling it a remaster, it's basically a remake, as we'll

get into shortly. But we were like, that day we decided to pivot. And we were like, whatever we were planning to talk about this week, screw that, we're talking about Metro. That's right. Here we go. Maddie, take us away. Here we go.

I didn't prepare a statement. I was too excited. I don't even know where to begin. I've played Metroid Prime One multiple times in my life. Most recently in December. Right. You talked about it on this very podcast. I played it.

Talked about it on this very show. Played it on my Steam deck. Loved it. Played a version with updated visuals created by fans. Prime hack. Yes, Prime hack. And twin stick controls. And I thought to myself, boy, it'd be cool if this was on the switch.

And I think at the time, Jason, you were like, like, well, what if they release it like right now? What are you going to do? Buy it again? And I said yes. And you were like, are you going to play it again? And I said yes. And that's 100% accurate. I'm about halfway through it. I'm playing it again. It's going great. Possibly because I just played it. So I remember where everything is. So I feel like a freaking mastermind just zoom it around. Do you want to explain for people a little bit about Metro. Should I tell people what it is? Sure. Why not? So, Metroid Prime, very first Metroid Prime game. So this is a game that was actually made by an American studio called Retro Studios in association with Nintendo.

It is sort of dubiously canon. I would say it's canon more or less, but it is a side story about Samus Aaron. Who's probably better known by the average listener for being in a bunch of 2D platformer games, most of which were made by or affiliated with this guy named Yoshio Sakamoto. He's the person who headed up development on Metroid Dread, which we talked about a lot. Also a 2D collect-thon platformer. You play a Samus-Aren intergalactic bounty hunter and fight aliens on various planets, most notably Metroids, who are life-sucking aliens who are also kind of cute when they're babies.

And also lots of lots and lots of other aliens of varying levels of toughness and terrifyingness. And Metroid Prime is interesting because it is not a 2D puzzle platformer. It is a first-person shooter. And it feels pretty different from the other Metroid games because of that. The first version of it came out in November 2002 for the GameCube. And the controls were pretty rough. I actually did not play it back then.

I didn't play the Prime Games until 2007 when Metroid Prime 3 came out. That was actually the first one I played and that one had motion controls. You had to point your remote at the screen in order to aim that arm cannon that Samus has on her arm. Also kind of annoying, but still way better than the original GameCube controls, which I haven't even, this remastered version does include them. I haven't even tried them because I know I don't like them, but you can't move and shoot at the same time. It's kind of like a weird point and click adventure game when you go into shooting mode. But listeners may recall the early 2000s.

Twin Stick shooters were not as popular then. I want to say Halo 1 also came out in 2002 and was like the first and perhaps most notable twin stick shooter of the era. Same era. Yeah. And so it wasn't typical. Resident Evil 4 also had the same problem. Yes. Although it's at least an over-the-shoulder shooter.

So I feel like it is a little bit different visually as opposed to. Yeah, but it's the same problem in terms of not being able to move in and shoot. It was a very common problem. And I think people even recognized it back then as a problem. It's just that like they didn't really, I don't know, we didn't have the same sort of kind of kind of controller design. On a different joystick than the one that they were walking on. PC gamers had a solution to this that had been true for quite a while. What?

Yeah, but we're talking controllers. Shut up. We're not talking to you. I know, but there were video games where you could move and shoot at the same time. In fact, there were quite a few. The way you say that is the way, it's the thing that makes people hate PC gamers. Well, PC gamer. Well, there was WASD and mice.

Actually, Half-Life came out several years before that. No one cares. No one cares. It's fine. Anyway, the Weimote version of Prime 3 was satisfying enough that they actually put out the entire Prime trilogy in 2009 with updated Wii controls for all three of the games. That is the version of the game that PrimeHack is built upon and it has Twin Stick shooter controls. You can even play it with mouse and keyboard if you want to.

Prime HAC being what you talked about in December. That's correct. Prime HAC being the fan-made version with updated textures if you want to download those. But forget all of that. Who cares? Nintendo actually finally did the thing that I've been begging them to do. do for years, which is put out Metroid Prime remastered on the Nintendo Switch. And then they didn't even make me wait for it. They announced it at the Nintendo Direct and they were like, they looked into the screen and they were like, Maddie Myers, get ready to refresh the Nintendo e-shop, because this is coming out later today.

We're not going to put a timestamp on it. We're just going to say the words later today, which is just a thing Nintendo does because they want to make me feel insane. But yeah, it came out in like an hour and then I bought it and then I installed it. and then I installed it, and I've been playing it ever since. But I want to hear from you, too, about how it's been going. I love this video game. I could probably talk about it for the rest of my life,

but I'm going to try to limit it to just one episode of this show. Kirk, why don't we start with you? What's your experience with Metroid Prime? I was just planning on just letting you talk the whole... I mean, I was like, I wouldn't just hear what Maddie thinks of Metroid this whole time. I can just kick back. Yeah.

That would be a pretty entertaining podcast. No, I'm excited to talk about. this game too because I love it. I do not have your storied history with this series, but I have played my share of Metroid, and I've played my share of this game. So I first played this in, I want to say, 2013, maybe 2012, along with Stephen Totillo, all of our former boss over at Kotaku, he loves this game and was always trying to get me to play it. And I don't know, we came up with the idea of sort of I'd play through it and talk about it with him and write some articles. And so I did, and I played through maybe

75% of it or so, playing on the Wii, but playing the Wii, the trilogy for Wii version, which, as he said, is kind of the version that most people play now, the basis for Prime Hack. And, yeah, I was playing with the Wii mo. Most people play before a week ago. Oh, yes. Now, now of course they're playing this version. Still most people play for Metroid Prime 2 and 3.

That's true. Since the remake only exists for the first Metroid Prime. So yeah, I played through with the Wii moat. I never really loved the controls, but came to understand this game's language. It's sort of gameplay language, which is pretty distinct. It still feels kind of distinct all these years later. And so I played a bunch of it, kind of forgot it. Then when I got a steam deck, among other things, I was like, I'm going to get Prime

Hack working and got it working, and it was pretty cool and started playing it again. And it was actually planning to play through it, especially after you talked about it, Maddie, and just kind of didn't get around to it, which I'm glad for, because a mere two months later. Yeah, really soon, really soon after it came out. Nintendo sent me a code for this one and I would have bought it anyways, but I just kind of installed it

thinking, okay, I'll check this out, we'll see what's what. Because it was right when it came out, they just sent out codes to press. And I just installed it. Sure, I haven't played anything on my switch in forever because of the Steam deck. And I started playing it and it was that same feeling I actually talked about last week

with Dead Space remake where your brain tells you that this is how the game always looked, even though it definitely didn't. And then the more I played, the more I had that thought of just, this looks, wait, this looks amazing, right? And then I kind of was going back and looking at what the original game looked like. And I'm just, now I've played a whole ton of this game. I was traveling this weekend and just took my switch with me.

And it looks so good. I mean, it plays almost as far as I can tell identically to the original. I'm sure there are maybe some tiny tweaks, but it plays so similarly. But it looks so beautiful. I am really amazed by how much work they put into the visual remaster of this game. And yeah, I'm loving it. I mean, it's just what a great way to play a great game. Yeah.

Jason, how about you? Is this your first time with Metro. No, I played it on GameCube back in the day. Wow. And then I played Metroid Prime 3. I skipped two and I played three on the Wii and then I played the trilogy on the Wii. Still didn't play two, but I played one and three. So I remember a decent amount of Metroid Prime 1, including how.

kind of annoying I find some aspects of it. Oh, sure. I'm willing to admit there are some very annoying power ups to obtain and the various scenarios, but go on. So I have found that I very, very heavily prefer the 2D games to the 3D games, especially in the week of Metroid Dread, which is one of my favorite games of 2021. Me too, me too. And so I appreciate Metroid Prime quite a bit, and I appreciate a lot of.

its design and its ideas and stuff. But there's some things about it that just really annoy me, including all the backtracking and the kind of the interface, the kind of the sense that sometimes you don't know which way you should be going, what you should be doing at any given point, which can be fun and satisfying in some ways. But I often find frustrating in this game for some reason. That's that there's a lot I love about it, too. really love the kind of classic Metroidness of it and going around and getting new abilities and

watching Samus gradually get more powerful and the shooting feels great and I think using Samus's blast cannon is a lot more fun than most other shooter like weapons, especially the more realistic ones. I really enjoy that. And this remaster specifically is just, it rules. It's just so well done. It looks incredible. It feels really great. This is the best feeling that a Metroid Prime has ever the best that a Metroid Prime game has ever felt because of the Twin Stick stuff that we talked about earlier. And yeah, it's just a really enjoyable experience. I'm remembering the whole Z-locking thing and smacking down enemies. And yeah, it's just, it's just been a blast to play through it, as annoying as it is that you get all those abilities at the beginning that the game teaches

you had to do and then you immediately lose. But we can get into that in a little bit and how stupid that concept is. But overall, it's just such a well-made game that I feel like it's a must-play for anyone who hasn't played one of these games, especially if you like other Metroid games or other style of this other Metroid-style games. Yeah. Or even if you just like first-person shooters, like if you played Halo way back when but you never played this, for whatever reason, didn't have a GameCube.

Who knows? I feel like a lot of people are playing it for the first time, which has been really fun to see. There are many things about it that feel dated, but to me also nostalgic and familiar. There's a lot of reading of text logs in this game, which is something that's another thing that's frustrating is having to do this scanning. So one thing, I just want to make one quick point real quick. Yeah, the annoying, waiting for the friggin scan to having to equip the visor scan, it's, It's a little frustrating. You got to translate the space pirate language, the Chosen language. Yeah, got to do that.

Oh, yeah, got to read that translations. One thing I found a little, just to kind of clarify why I prefer 2D over 3D, is that kind of a typical 2D level in Metroid is so much easier to grasp and figure out exactly like where you are in relation to everything else. And having a 2D map is way easier to scan and kind of be like, oh, yes, okay, I have to go backtrack to that part. because now I have the bombs, the morphability bombs, so now I can go unlock this section over here that I went to a few screens ago. Whereas in 3D, because of the way that the space works and at least the way my mind works,

but I'm sure the way a lot of people's mind works, it's a lot harder for me to just kind of grasp the physical space and the map and remember where everything is. And I just really prefer 2D games of this style for that reason. It's just like it's so much easier to figure out what the space is and kind of map it in your head and enjoy the feeling of backtracking as opposed

to just kind of being like, all right, I guess I'll just like try to figure out this map and just like open a bunch of doors until I figure out where I need to go next. So yeah, in general, just the 2D formula works a lot better for me. I think I agree, but only with regard to changing maps. Like in this game, not every map is interconnected, but you can't see all of them at the same time as you can in a 2D game where you, as you open up a map, for example, in 2D, you're like, okay, I still see like this lava section. And once I get the various suit, I know I need to go back to the lava section. Or maybe you see like, you know, the outdoor section and you're like, okay, that's where my ship is. And you can see all of that on the map screen as you unlock it. Whereas in this game, if you're in

in Magmoor Caverns, you cannot see the Fendriad drifts or whatever the heck. You can't see anything else. You can only see Magmoor where you are right. then. And there are like multiple parts of it and multiple elevators, which is typical of any Metroid game, you can only see the section of the map that you're in. So you might be able to look through it and be like, oh, okay, there's a purple door. I just got the wave beam. I can finally go unlock that. But you might not be thinking to yourself, oh, but where are all the purple doors in the Talon four section of the map? Because you can't even see that right then. You have to go all the way back. That part of it, Jason, I do agree with you. And yet I also think that if you could,

see every single map, the hugeness of the game would probably be even more overwhelming. I'm not sure how you would solve for that. But it is something that makes the game feel both bigger in a cool way and also kind of annoying because you have to walk back to elevators a lot and you don't really know if you're going with good reason or if you're just kind of exploring to see if there's anything more you can unlock. Yeah. I've found that as I'm playing.

I run into something where I'll not remember exactly what it was. was that stopped me in a certain area. And if I recall correctly, maybe one of the two of you remembers this better, did Metroid Dread tell you every single thing, you know, every single gating mechanism in the game on the map? I think it was the same as this game where as you got new abilities, the doors would then be marked on the map, wave beam, for example. But up until you got the wave beam, you would just see a purple door

and you wouldn't know that it's the wave beam that can open it. Do you know what I'm saying? I do. I guess. But you would see that there was a new kind of door there. But again, you wouldn't be able to see that until you were in the correct area to correspond with the relevant map. Just to be a little clearer about what I'm talking about, I'm not even necessarily

talking about the map. It's also the way that my head works. Like it's much easier for me to physically grasp a 2D space and understand the layout and like really feel like I'm mastering it as opposed to a 3D space where it feels more like I'm just like throwing darts at a wall trying to figure out what's going on. So I have a thought. that, but I guess I was just establishing that baseline. Like the way, one

way that dread is different is that it tells you that. And this is just on my own experience, not really responding to you, Jason. My experience is that I will frequently go back to a dead end, having forgotten that what I need here is the double jump or what I need here is the spider ball. And I'll be like, oh, right, I thought that

I, so I just got the, you know, whatever, the boost ball, and I thought that would get me here, but no, there's an half pipe here. It's a spider ball, I forgot, okay, and now I go back, and you take a lot of time. So, like, I do find myself doing a kind of pointless backtrack to some areas because the map doesn't tell me that I can't make a note on the map or whatever, so I just sort of don't know

where I'm supposed to be going. Yeah, that was something cool about Dread too was that you could leave little markers on the map, and I have wished that I had that ability in this game too. And that there were a few more save points. I mean, there are some very 2002 aspects of this game and the lack of save points is one of them. I was shocked by the auto-saving in Dread,

which I think I mentioned on our episode. Just that alone made it feel so easy to me because I was just used to a Metroid game punishing me and being like, no, you have to go all the way back to a save point, like Dark Souls style. Like you got to like remember where every bonfire is and you're going to fight the same six guys over and over again. Like that's part of why playing Dark Souls

didn't feel too bad to me. And when I was first playing it, I was like, oh, this is just Metroid. Like this is fine. Like I'm just going to fight these same guys over and over again, you know? Yeah, so to actually talk about Dark Souls, I think Dark Souls is an interesting comparison point, because it always is. How many times have I said that sentence?

But of course, it is particularly to this game, because when you start playing this game, if you have played Dark Souls, you will have the thought of, oh, there's sort of a lot of Dark Souls in this, or rather there's a lot of Metroid Prime in Dark Souls. And one difference in the way that the world works, because both are 3D games, both require you to traverse them, and eventually, you know, like Dark Souls gives you some sort of fast travel, but a lot of the Dark Souls experience doesn't have fast travel, and you do have to backtrack. But there is one difference, and I wonder what the two of you make of it. And that's that in Dark Souls, you're always getting something out of backtracking because, first off, you're always challenged and you kind of generally have to engage with it, but also you're getting XP for the enemies that you kill. So even if you are just kind of going back over an area you've been over a bunch of times, you're probably not going to find any secrets or anything, but you might get some good drops and you might get some XP. It doesn't feel like a waste of time.

Right. It gives you a little something. And Metroid doesn't give that. Plus, a lot of the areas in Metroid are pretty easy. Like, this game doesn't really offer a challenge in the way that Dark Souls does. So it's also just not really engaging in that same way. So the backtracking feels a little bit more tedious as a result. Yeah, it does.

Although every now and then you might find a missile expansion or an energy upgrade, which also feels very of its time where it's like that's as good as the drops ever get. I mean, it's not an RPG. It's not, there are no souls to be collected. So there is that. It is, and I do get the sense that the game is actually fairly linear.

Now that I've played enough of it, and I'm sort of paying attention. You can kind of go back and get stuff out of order. I just got the wave blaster, is that what it's called, where you have to knock down those pillars? I love that that's such a good puzzle. and that I think you can do really at any point maybe you just need to have enough missiles

but I don't think there's really that much more you have to do maybe bombs for your like ball bombs but that's it so there are some things you can go do optionally but generally it's kind of like you play through an area you fight a boss there's a new lift that takes you up to a new part of a previous area that you couldn't access and then on your way from that area to the next place you're supposed to go there's like a missile you know container that you couldn't reach before

and I love the audio cues for those two you can hear them It's all very organically designed. And then it is funny that they give you these tips or these hints where every now and then your scanner just goes, hey, hey, check it out. And then you press square. It's like, go over here. That's over there. Go to that thing. That's where the next power up is those are great because I frequently have no idea where I'm supposed to go.

And even having played this game before. And I almost wish that this game gave you the option to do those whenever you want, like to just ask for it. me a hint. Yeah. Yeah. It feels a little like there are times where I'm just waiting for it. But instead it's like story gated where it's like, oh, you're suddenly getting some new data like you're getting an email from the planet that's like, there's, like, there's some space pirate stuff going on in Tallinn right now. So you better head on back over there. And it's, it's always like weirdly convenient. I don't think it, I don't think it would really work if you could request the hint. Oh, really? You don't think so. I feel like.

Well, having played it twice, I feel like the hints happen when you've just done something most of the time. Or like you're just far enough away that the game starts to be like, wait. Yeah, there's something to them. They're based on some sort of timer. I mean, it definitely knows, okay, you haven't found it yet. We're going to tell you. And I mean, it's fine. It totally works.

Like all of this game, it's very organic and kind of behind the scenes, you know, to make sure that you're having a smooth experience. there's just been a couple times where I wish that that was a little maybe they just happened a little bit more frequently because it is possible to kind of get all the way to the wrong side of the map and then there's just it is a little bit of that feeling of ah I have to go all this way back and unlike in Dark Souls where I'm kind of like well but that's cool because I'm really powerful now it'll be fun to go through these areas again and maybe I'll get some good drop

or I'll get a level out of it there's kind of just nothing I just have to kind of run past everything which is just a little bit less satisfying it does feel like being critical of this fantastic game, though. It's perfect in every way. This game is so timeless. I mean, it's remarkable how modern it feels. It has made me reflect on the one thing that Nintendo didn't have down at the dawn of the 3D age, which is the camera.

I guess I'm not the first person to say this. But if you play Mario, like Super Mario World, it feels just as good as any 2D platformer that comes out right now. They had it nailed all of those years ago. And I would argue Super Metroid is much the same. I mean, it's like, so pretty freaking good. Yeah. Right. So, right.

The 2D thing was pretty nailed. And they just didn't quite have the how to navigate a 3D space down because no one really did when it came to controllers. Like I said, PC games had figured it out with the mouse. And everyone wanted, like, that language existed. And no one could quite crack how to get that onto a controller, partly because the controllers didn't have the capability, right? Like, there was just one thumbstick on the Nintendo 64 controller.

Even when Halo came out, I remember it being a big learning curve for me and everyone. Yes. I know anecdotally. And I know we weren't the only ones. Just the idea of having to control both of those sticks at the same time was very like, you know, rubbing your stomach and patting your head at the same time. Like, yes, you can do it, but you do need to practice it a little bit and then figure it out. And now it's normal for the average gamer, but it still is like a big learning curve for somebody who's new. to games, like figuring out how to control the camera and move.

It was a hard thing to figure out. And it was like a period of time where just little things like the acceleration curve and the dead zone of the stick. There are all these things that people just kind of figured out. So now that that's worked out because the twin stick controls in this game are fantastic, playing it just feels like playing a modern game. I mean, this could be a game that just came out right now and it's a brand new game. And we would, you know, we'd have some criticisms of it.

It would be like, oh, that thing is kind of frustrating. Like, wow, is really no auto-saving? That's kind of weird. But we would be like, this is such a beautifully designed, evocative, fantastic, fun game. It's remarkable that a game from literally 21 years ago feels as timeless as a test. It's pretty wild. It's pretty wild and it's pretty great. And I'm so happy. The story is actually really, I think the story really holds up well because it's so mysterious and evocative.

And very soulsy, very obviously Dark Souls is very heavily inspired by it. different kind of environmental. You can ignore all the text much like in Dark Souls if you want to and you'll still get it. You can also try to piece it together and the environment. I mean it's very very different than a lot of modern games in that it's all

kind of told through the annoying scanner mechanic. But if you get invested into it and obviously there have been all sorts of theories over the years about the Chozo and the phazon and all the other shit that's crammed in there. Yeah, which is really cool

to me. I really like, I mean, I'll agree, scanning stuff in the motion of it is annoying, like, waiting for it to unlock. But the fact that- It's only really an issue when you walk into a room full of computers and there's like 65 things to scan. That's when I'm a little like, oh my God, okay. But most of the time I actually like scanning. Well, it's annoying. It's an issue because of the extra button. Like, if you could just press one button to scan, it would be much more palatable. But you have to like open up your detectives mode. Right. Yeah, you have to go in to, you have to put on the visor and then press a button. It just adds this clunky extra step to the process.

Anyway, sorry, Maddie. I just want to just say, like, I actually do like scanning mostly, but there are the times where there's just 100 things to scan it. It's a little bit more. No, I totally agree. And it's sometimes like, oh, did I already read this or not? And there isn't like a clear delineation of what you've already read and haven't read, not ideal.

But I do really like the actual story and how uninviting parts of it can be. Like, sometimes you're really just reading a lab report or like a, a fragment of something from the Chozo and you're like, yeah, I kind of know what this means, but I don't totally know like, okay, I get it. Phazon is bad, I guess, but how did it get here? And then you kind of learn more about that. And you're like, okay, there's this apocalyptic event that happened where this mysterious, you know, stuff from this other planet showed up here and caused a bunch of bad stuff that happened to the Chozo. And okay, but then the space pirates are studying it? That seems bad. Why would they be doing that? I don't know. You just kind of have to

piece those fragments together. And I really enjoy that method of storytelling. It's simple, but you don't really need it to be much more complicated. It lets Sammas feel like a detective and a scientist in addition to, you know, a bounty hunter and all the other stuff she's doing. And a real explorer. Like she really is having to put together the pieces of a mystery. And I really dig it. I dig that a lot. Yeah, it also stays out of the way of the vibes. I mean, this game has such a strong vibe, and it reminds me of subnautica and Outer Wilds. Those two games of recent games that I've played have such a similar energy where they're largely silent. You're just out exploring. You find these beautiful and evocative new spaces, and you gradually uncover a story. And I love

games like that. I mean, it's interesting that in this game, your primary interaction is to shoot things. You shoot doors to open them. Yeah, that's how you open doors. You shoot stuff. I mean, or blast mostly animals. Blame the shows are for that. They design their doors that way. I don't know why, but you gotta shoot them to open them. So Samus Lansom just immediately begins blasting every animal in sight. And, you know, I mean, it's like Danny DeVito and always funny.

Yeah. So anyway, I started blasting. Right. You're picturing Samas telling the story at a bar. So anyway, I started blasting. Yeah. Well, I landed, it got onto my ship and I started blasting. And, you know, that is very much feels like a 3D, uh,

version of what the 2D games do, because also in the 2D games, she's just running around blast, and that's what Samus does. Yeah, or the only way she has to interact with the world is also shooting at Dors or aliens. Right, and you can look at a game like Outer Wilds and see what would happen if this game didn't have shooting. It would just be the same vibes, the same exploration, the same general feeling of, you know, the floating, bouncing exploration without shooting anything, and it'd be great. Like, this game doesn't actually really need the comment. As fun as it is to jump around and shoot it and everything, and the bosses' fights are okay. They're pretty cool.

But really, like, the magic of this game is the first time that you drop into the submerged, like sub-aquatic area, the music changes, this gorgeous track comes on, and then you get sucked into something, and usually, I feel like they give it it was designed to do this, you blast it with your blaster, and you see Samus's face reflect back as you in your visor. And it's magic. I mean, that's the magic of the game. I guess that did involve a blaster to see. her face. But maybe you even have a flashlight that would make that happen in the nonviolent version of this. I'm not complaining about the fact that you shoot things. I think it's fine. But it, I think the fact that Outer Wilds exists, and actually for that matter, Subnotica, another game

that does not have any guns exists, just shows how potent that just exploration, beautiful world, mystery vibes are. Totally. It's interesting you say that that's what you find to be the magic of this game, because I find the magic of this game to be that. that you, yeah, shooting stuff in the face. No, that you get to a new area and you're like, hey, this thing looks taller than I could reach

with my jump. Maybe I'll be able to get a double jump around here. Or, hey, what are these like magnetic rail things? Maybe I'll get something that'll let me get on it somehow. That to me has always been the really appealing thing about Metroid-Slas Metroidvania slash whatever you want to call it, these

types of games. And actually that ties into like why I I've always hated the Samas loses all our powers of the beginning thing because one of the things that's really, that I really love about this stuff, the same and the same applies for like Zelda dungeons, is getting to a new area and then being surprised and delighted by the new thing you're going to get. And knowing at the very beginning that like, oh, well, there's a grapple hook mechanic. So I guess I'll get that at some point is it kind of takes away from the magic of that. But that said, Metro Prime still has plenty of stuff that like surprises and delight to even because you don't have everything at the very. are just a couple of things that you think. But I think that I've always found to be the most appealing thing about this game and games like it is like that kind of steady accumulation of not just like, not things that make you more powerful, but things that like you do cool new stuff.

Yeah, exactly. Especially the double jump. Double jump is the best. I get that feeling. I don't always feel that way with this game. I certainly do at moments. I mean, I think the moment when you get the double jump in this game is so exciting because there are so many. there are so many places

where I'd wanted to use it that I can't even keep them all straight. And it feels really good. It's a good feeling. That's true. The game feel in general is incredible. The first person double jump feels amazing. I know.

And I've played so many bad first person platformers in my life that make me feel motion sick or terrible. And so it's just, it stands out so much to me when I'm playing one where I'm like, I understand exactly where I'm jumping. I'm never questioning that. And if I don't make a jump, I know it.

as it's happening. I'm extremely aware. Yeah, which is really, really quite a feat. Making it first person game that makes that work. Yeah, it's really quite an accomplishment. I do wish the field of vision was a little bit wider on this. There are times where I feel a little claustrophobic in first person, especially right after I've been zoomed out to third person.

Well, you're wearing a space suit and you have to be able to breathe, Kirk, so I don't know what you're talking about and you should probably just accept it. That is actually a benefit of Prime Hack is that Prime Hack has an adjustable FOV, which is nice because you can just not. feel quite so clostrophobic? I only played this in handheld, so I think maybe playing on a screen, though, I would maybe start to feel a little funny. Oh, see, I am playing it with the pro controller on my super nice monitor, which is an

experience I recommend, just so that you can, like, really stare at those water droplets on Samus's visor or whatever or on your arm cannon. You could just really get into it. And those are lovely. But to the upgrades, I guess there are times where I always feel like I got one upgrade, but it wasn't enough. It's kind of built into the system where you get an upgrade,

now there's one new place you can go, but there's still three places you can't go. And this is especially true in the first half of the game, which can actually be sort of a frustrating feeling. It's not a bad thing. Like the game wants you to feel frustrated because you want to, you know,

know there are places you can't go. It's frustrating, but in a fun way. Yeah, I don't mind that because you know eventually you're going to be able to get there. Yeah, I'm not doing this as good, this is bad, I'm more exploring the different feelings this game inspires to me, and that is one of them. Sure, sure.

Yeah, like productive frustration where you're like, dang it, I have the double jump, but now what the heck is this door? Like, what even is that? There is a good reason to make a player feel frustrated in the game. Like, it can be a healthy part of the experience. Yeah, which is also why I slightly disagree with you, Jason, and I actually think it's really fun that Sammas has all of her powers at the beginning of the game, because it's telling you, this is. what her normal experience is like in life is going around having this really freaking awesome suit that can do all of this stuff. And when she loses her powers, it's frustrating for her too. So that you as the player get to share in the experience of exploring the world along with her

and you're literally in her shoes. So like if you're annoyed, that makes sense because the same thing is happening for her. I don't know. Man, she just misjudged that one jump. She just had been a little careful. She just kind of followed. I don't know. I just kind of fall. She doesn't lock every single power of her suit. It's not that I'm annoyed, to be clear. What I don't like about that is that it removes the magic of discovery of those specific powers. Because you're ready to know there is a grapple hook in the game. Yeah, that's the point.

You're comparing it to Zelda, where in Zelda, you get the powers one at a time. Imagine if in Zelda in like Wind waker, it was like, oh, there's this like cool leaf thing I can use. and now it's getting taken away, but now I know it's in the game. Like, it would just be annoying. Yeah, I get that. And it does kind of feel weird to me that I now know exactly what a grappling hook point looks like. And when you're like going across Magmore Caverns, you're like, well, eventually I'm going to be able to just grapple my way across the whole thing. It would be much more fun if you didn't know that when you got that.

What is that? Exactly. Yeah. I see. I see those size. I mean, I think that that's why like Metro Dread, for example, doesn't do it because I think it recognizes. Well, you do lose your powers at the beginning of. Metroid Dread, you just don't fully understand what all of them are. But you do get smacked down by the

Mysterious Chosa General at the beginning of Metro. Yeah, but you don't, yes, but again, that's not what annoys me. What annoys me is learning all this stuff. And yeah, I'm very curious to see what a lot of Metroid Prime 4 does with all these kind of tropes and ideas and mechanics because that, of course, is in development of retro studios right now and who knows when it's going to come out. But it is. This is a big vote of confidence for that game, just because of how good it's. looks like the best looking switch game I've ever played. A little tidbit for you guys. I recently learned from

someone who knows that Metroid Prime remastered was finished in 2021 and it was just sitting on a shelf and not released. Which is so bizarre and something that like I think only Nintendo does because

most companies are just scrambling to finish their games and like polish and like patch and like get as much as possible and like slipping six weeks because of it and like have to like look at I don't know anything Jedi Survivor just had to slip a few weeks to like fix bugs and finish the game this game is sitting on a shelf for a year well it helps that Metroid Prime was already done that's true but still remastered most people oh I know yeah they went in put Dead Space out I don't think Dead Space remake was just sitting

on a shelf sitting on a shelf for a year Nintendo is really the only company that does this it's pretty wild well but my follow-up question which you may not have the answer to is were they perhaps planning on also releasing two and three at the exact same time? And then eventually it became clear that they couldn't. And they were like, let's just put out one. No, the plan, I don't think that, well, I don't know for sure. But I know that retro worked directly on this game. And I think the idea was like, we want to set this bar for Metroid Prime 4.

We want Metro Point 4 to like maybe use these assets or maybe at least hit this quality bar in terms of visual and feel and stuff like that. So it was a good kind of like way to to hit that, to test that out and to hit that kind of like set that standard for themselves. Yeah. I don't know. I haven't heard anything about them also doing two and three. So I don't know if that's in the cards. I don't know why it was sitting around. Maybe the idea was like to have it closer to whenever Metro Brime 4 comes out.

Right. In terms of release schedule. But we don't know when that'll be. Right. But no, as far as I know, they weren't like planning on remake. remaking two and three as well although i don't know for sure i i don't know if there's a team somewhere doing that as well or if they're just going to release like ports of those because they could do that too right like it's like here's what we wanted to do with one we wanted to like really do the whole

crazy visual treatment and we want to set the bar for itself before but two and three we'll just make those playable as ports like that's very possible with the twin stick controls and all the other yeah with with what they are just like release them by the way fun fact you can have actually play Metroid Primary Master with motion controls, like with the Wii controls. So maybe if they release two and three, maybe they'll be able to do that. I mean, I feel like they will. So there's multiple controls games in this. There's four apparently.

I haven't tried them all because I've just been playing it the normal way. Like what I'm not going to get my Wii mode out of the basement for this. I don't need to do that. Well, no. It's not the Wii mode. No, you do it with the switch control. I'm not going to use the joycon either. I honestly, I pointed my arm at a screen to be Sammas's

Blaster for long enough in my life. No, yeah. I waved my Wii mode around for Link's sword and Twilight Princess. I remember those times, and I don't need to go back to that. I'm good. And Skyward Sword, yep. But glad it's in there, just so that people out there who are especially playing it for the first time

and want to feel what that was like, they can have that experience. You know, it's funny. I play so many Steam Deck games now with the gyro controls like as a mouse, which makes first person games really great, especially if they have good integrated mouse controls. And there is another control version in this where you are playing twin stick, but you can also turn it so that the motion controls just move the camera, which I'm not actually using. It could be really cool, but you don't

really need it because the lock-on is so strong in this game and you use it all the time. I'm finding I don't need it. But it's really nice that they give that option. I have really grown accustomed to handheld like thumbstick aims, but you can fine-tune your aim with gyro. That's a really great kind of aiming combination. Yeah. I feel like it might be useful against specific bosses. Like, I think it's,

I think that boss is called Shegoth, the one where you're supposed to be hitting her in the head, but the lock-on doesn't connect to her head. It connects to, like, the part of her body you're not supposed to hit. Is that the one who shoots frozen ice?

Yeah. Yeah. I actually used ball bombs to kill that. I just kept rolling in and dropping bombs and rolling out. That would work. It's either that or missiles. But if you shoot her with charge beam

it's not going to work. Jason, I don't know if you're up to her yet. I'll give you some tips off the air. But it's a very deceptive fight. No, not yet. But I did see a she got off at Hot Topic the other day. Oh, sure, yeah. You've got to be careful with the ice breath.

Yeah, we all know that. Just to kind of talk about the bosses for a second, it is a very Nintendo thing to have each boss be a puzzle of that kind, where you have to figure out over the course of fighting them based on their behavior. you're like, oh, if I hit her in her back, she like charges up and hits me even more. Maybe I should stop doing that. Maybe I should try hitting her somewhere else and see if that works. But I also really like that it just plays into the part of Samus that is observing.

Like early on, I can't remember the, I think it's like Flagra, the one that's charged up by all the solar powered things all around it. And you have to like keep knocking down the solar power so that the boss shrivels up. And that is also something where. It's just, you just have to look around the room and observe what's going on in order to figure out what to do. I mean, also scanning the boss will tell you some information. Yes. The key every time is to scan the boss and it tells you how to be the boss. But also, there's some environmental observations required of you to be like, okay, what do I do here?

What am I supposed to do? And there's nearly always something in your environment that will tell you that information. And I just really dig it. I dig it when a game gives me the tools I need to survive. It's so much subtle stuff. I mean, it's just the way that Nintendo games, like this style of game just communicates so, so well. I mean, there's a literacy to it, but it's speaking a language. Like, you're reading the language that it's writing.

Yeah. And it writes the language so clearly and so playfully. You know, just watching that creature knock back down the solar panels if you wait too long. You kind of just really understand what's going on. And then, of course, there's one, and then there's two, and then there's three, and then there's four. And then there's four. And then there's four. And you're like, oh, my God.

and there's four places where you can become morph ball because, you know, there's always a place where a morph ball can go. I mean, talk about the Chozo setting up those doors. They've always got places for a morpaw. The big rock enemy, like, it starts with its weak points on its limbs, and then eventually as it gets stronger and stronger, its weak point is in its chest so you know that you're near the end. Like, there are all these little ways that the game communicates with you

that are just very subtle and elegant, and you don't even think about them unless you're thinking about them. And it's wonderful. This is such a wonderful game. I'm really glad that everyone can play it. Yeah. It's worth noting real quick to your point, Maddie. You mentioned before that it was made by retro studios and kind of, I forgot the word do you use,

but that Nintendo oversight. I think Nintendo had a pretty big involvement in this game. Yeah. I think I said partnered. I think that was the word I went with. Yeah. I think they had producers from NCL, Nintendo Japan, coming out all the time and checking in on the progress and offering notes and stuff and Tanabe.

Well, and Kenji Yamamoto, music is like such a huge part of this game. Oh my God. The music is so good. Yes, the music is huge. And they also had Nintendo's facilities for testing and stuff, which is a big part of what makes Nintendo games Nintendo. So I think it's worth noting that this was very heavily Nintendo influenced, and you can really feel that. It's really the perfect kind of collaboration between like Western styles and Japanese styles

in a way that you don't really see with a lot of video games. I guess on that note, I'll just say everybody in the world, should play this game. It's the greatest game ever. I have no complaints. Everything he said about the auto-saving was a lie. I was kidding. It's perfect. And let's take a little break and come back with one more thing. I'm Jordan Morris. And I'm Jesse Thorne. On Jordan Jesse Go, we make pure, delightful nonsense. We rope in awesome guests and bring them down to our level. We got stupid with Judy Greer. My friend Molly and I call it having the space weirds. Pat Nosswald.

Al-Rog Burger and some Aragorn fries. Thank you. And Kumail Nongiani. I've come back with cat toothbrushes, which is impossible to use. Come get stupider with us at maximum fun.org. Look, your podcast app's already open. Just pull it out. Give Jordan Jesse go a try.

Being smart is hard. Be dumb instead. Hi, I'm Hal Lovlin. And I'm Mark Gagliardi. And we're the host of We Got This with Mark and Hal, the weekly show where we settle the debates that are most important to you. That's right. What arguments are you and your friends having that you just can't settle?

apples or oranges, Marvel or DC, fork versus spoon, chocolate or vanilla, best bagel, what's the best Disney song? We got this with Mark and Howl, every week on maximum fun, we do the arguing so you don't have to. Oh, all answers are final for all people for all time. We got this. We are back with one more thing, and I would go first, but I feel like I've already talked a lot. Jason, why don't you go first today? Tell us your one more thing. Sure. I have a very, very exciting one more thing. Yeah, you do.

I'm extremely excited about this. So, long-time listeners of this show and split screen will know that the documentary about the making of broken age from Double Fine. It's called the Double Fine Adventure documentary is one of my favorite pieces of media ever. It's so good. It's so good. I've watched it through like. Is it the best thing ever other than your books about game development? It might be.

It's up there. I think it's the best thing ever about game development in terms of just like getting an insight for how games are really. because it's more in depth than anything ever. Like my books, I mean, I'm proud of my books, but like those are based on me interviewing people after the fact. This is a documentary crew that was unseen for three years of the making of this game and has thousands of hours of footage. There's nothing else like it.

Like, nothing else can compare. That said, they are being paid by the studio, so they don't have quite the same kind of level of like third party neutral. a bird's eye view as a journalist might have, but still, it is pretty raw. Anyway, the same production company, two-player productions, just came out with a documentary about Psychonauts 2, which has been in the works this documentary has for, I don't know, six years, seven years, it starts, if you start it. It's all on YouTube for free right now.

It's in 32 parts. It's 22 hours long. 32 parts. It starts. We feast. We are going to feast on game development. insights. Yes. Show us the pain. Show us the frustration. It starts in 2015. So just to give you a sense of the scale of this thing. It's many, many hours of footage. It's an incredible story. I'm almost done. I'm like two-thirds of the way and maybe a little further, maybe three-fourths of the way. Note to self the next time Jason says he doesn't have time to do something for the show. He just watched 20 hours of a documentary in three days.

Uh-huh, uh-huh. Wasn't that excited about watching the live-action Mario movie for some reason? You're fine to choose how you spend your time. Well, I'm watching it. Kirk, I'm watching it during the workday because I'm planning on writing. Oh, it's work, is it?

So it definitely work. Watching die-hard isn't work? We're not here to talk about how I spend my time. We're not here to talk about the double-fine of Jackie. It has or hasn't watched. where was I? That is the question.

I mean, if you enjoyed the first one, you will enjoy this one. Yeah, because it's incredible. It's incredibly well done. It's got incredible storytelling. It's empathetic and thought-provoking and emotional.

And these guys, I mean, Two-Byer production, the people behind it must have been pinching themselves at the drama they got on this project. Because Psychonauts 2, is one of the most turbulent productions in modern history. And so I won't spoil exactly what happens,

but some of the things that people will know for the most part are that Microsoft purchased Double Fine in the middle of it, that Star Bree, the publisher that originally worked on Double Fine, went through bankruptcy and all sorts of issues in Sweden. And also there's some personnel stuff that the documentary really goes in depth of them. You can see some real serious,

tensions and creative conflicts and kind of like personnel issues with certain members of the team just like not getting along and you see the results of that and they are not kind of resolved in a tidy manner. They are handled in the way that most human conflicts are and that like you can watch this and think to yourself, wow, these two people are probably never going to talk again after this and like, wow, these relationships are like completely irreparable. And it is, it is pretty wild. There is some stuff, just as a kind of caveat to that, there is some stuff that like the documentary, even they weren't able to get into,

cameras weren't allowed in some meetings, like, don't expect to see, like, behind the scenes looks at the negotiation of the Microsoft deal or anything like that. That said, there is a whole episode that goes behind the scenes on like Tim Schaefer, like, waiting backstage before he's about to announce that they're being acquired by Microsoft

and get to see him getting super nervous and it's really endearing. And man, there's just so much good stuff in here. And it's just such a, like, a phenomenal look at the reality of making games and how hard it is. And it's especially, like I mentioned before, after hearing that, like, Retro just had this sitting on a shelf for a year and a half, whereas in comparison to this, where they're, like, fighting for every week and they're like, oh, my God, we cannot finish this in the four weeks we have left. It's really just quite a, quite a contrast. Anyway, we'll post a link in the show notes because it's all available. for free right now on YouTube. All you have to do is go to Double Finds YouTube page and you'll find this entire 32 part epic series. And I highly recommend that anyone who cares about games, even if you don't care about psychonauts too, which you should because it's a great game. But even if you just care about games, it's still entertaining enough to watch it. Um, highly, highly recommend it. Everybody should go out and watch it like right now. Yeah. I'm really psych to drive in. But,

uh, I didn't have time because I was watching a different movie, uh, which I'll talk about now. It was called Tar. Really weird movie. So neither of you two have seen this movie, right? I'm very familiar with it that have not yet seen. Yeah, that was also my situation. And I kind of wish it hadn't been. I wish I had known nothing about it going in.

So if you're a listener who knows... Oh, I thought you were to say, I wish I hadn't watched it. I wish I hadn't watched it. Wish I had never seen it. No, that's not really true. I'm glad I saw it. Really strange movie, though. Kind of a horror movie,

but not in a typical way. It's sort of like a human drama horror where it's like, boy, this is a really crappy person that I'm spending a couple hours with in this movie, but also bad things are happening to her and I may be rooting for them to happen to her, but also I don't know how to feel about any of it.

It's a movie where you end and you're like, I don't know how I felt about anything I just saw. So here is what it is about. It is about. A famous director, fictional director. Conductor. Conductor. Yes.

Okay, so she's a conductor. She's a composer. She's an egot winner. Least believable part of the movie to me. Immediately broke my immersion as soon as I heard she was an egot winner. And I was like, I don't understand now. That's possible. I need more information about that.

But don't let that hang you up. She's really mostly a conductor. And she's preparing. EGOTB Emmy, Oscar, Grammy, Grammy, Tony. She's a composer. That's pretty doable if you're a converser. Yes, but part of why it's not believable is because she, yeah, Kirk's achieved it.

But he's, he's, seven deaths, whatever. A few years, running. Yeah. So part of why Lydia Tar, who's played by Kate Blanchett, by the way, part of why it's a little unbelievable to me that she would be an Egot winner is because she's presented as like a classical music conductor and composer who sort of emulates classical music and in her compositions. And so the idea that she would win a Tony is odd to me. That's the biggest stretch. You never know. Like some high concept Broadway thing.

Yeah, exactly. So you kind of have to go with that. You're like, okay, I can see how maybe she would have won an Emmy and a Grammy. I needed them to explain more. But don't be like me. You got to just get into this for the vibes. So the deal with it is, is the vibes movie. Kate Blanchett, she is a lesbian.

That's a key part of like, How she's perceived is that she's like this high profile female conductor who's like somehow achieved all of this wild stuff in her career despite being a woman and a lesbian. And she's super rich and super out of touch with the regular world, but also is held up as this icon to, you know, young people coming up. And she's still trying to relate to them. And something that I knew about this movie going in was that it would be about her getting canceled. and what happens to her after that. But it's really not about that at all. She doesn't get canceled till like the end of the movie.

And so forget that if that's what you're going in on. And instead just think of this as a vibes movie about bad stuff happening to her and her being kind of a weird person. And also it being a horror movie where scary, spooky stuff happens and you aren't sure what's real. And there's like kind of a magical realism element. some of it where you're like, was that a dream? There's some of that.

Interesting. Okay. So, I don't know. I think it's really strange. It sounds like I will never watch this. You should maybe watch it. I want to watch it. You should maybe watch it. Because it's really weird and I don't know that it's Yeah. I don't want to go into too much detail, but it's kind of good. I'm going to watch movies. I don't get the screeners like you do. Yeah, no, I get the screeners. I'm not going to watch it. Yeah. It's weird. I think Tar might be streaming. It might be like on I think it's streaming at this point. I think it's streaming at this point. I

I feel like the main reason I watched it is because Lydia Tar is sort of like a joke on the internet at this point. She's like a meme where people pretend she's a real person and people are like talking about how bad it was that she got canceled and so on. And like she's sort of like a joke. And I was like, I want to see the movie. And the movie is like so not the vibe of the meme. And it was kind of funny to watch it.

And also I'm a little jealous of the people who watched this movie and thought it was based on a true story and were like, who's Lydia Tar? Because I know too much about the polio. politics of the real world. And I'm like, it's sad to me that people think that there's like a noted, super rich lesbian egot winner that they hadn't heard of. Like, I'm a little jealous of those people. Sadly, it would be kind of cool if she were real, even if she is a bad person. But she's not. Anyway, Kirk, what's your one more thing? I'll go quick. My one more thing is a TV show that I've been watching the last few weeks that I'm just loving and didn't really know about until Emily,

my partner just started watching it one night at random. I was playing some game on the Steam Deck, so I wasn't really watching the show. We do this sometimes, the parallel play thing where I'll play a game, and she watches a show. She kind of, I think, just picked it out on HBO. This is an HBO Max streaming show,

and started watching it, and I looked up, and I was like, oh, what's this? And then every now and then I'd pause and watch a scene, and every single time I did that, the scene was laugh out loud, funny. So there came a point where I was like, okay, this show is clearly really funny. I kind of watch it from the beginning.

So that's what I've been doing. The show is called South Side. It is a half-hour sitcom set on the south side of Chicago. It is created by it and featuring an entirely black cast. It is like super neighborhood specific, super culturally specific to Chicago, a city that I know fairly well from having grown up in Indiana. But obviously, dot that well, I never lived there and never lived on the South Side. And it's so funny. It's so good.

And I think a lot of people listening to this probably won't have heard of it or won't have seen it. Yeah, I hadn't heard of it until you. You mentioned it to me, and now I would like to watch it. So it's created by two guys, Bashir, Salahuddin, and Diallo Riddle, who are both on the show. Almost everybody who, like, writes and works on it, stars on it. And then it's a real family affair. So Sultan Salahuddin, who's Bashir's brother, he plays another main character. And Chandra Russell, who's married to Bashir, plays his partner.

The two of them play cops, but they're these, like, bumbling, corrupt idiot cops who are very, very funny. Bashir Salah Houdin is like the funniest guy. He's just the ultimate jump and he's always getting jumped on the show. And then Kareem Young is Kareem and Quincy on the show. They're twin brothers. And then Zuri Salahadine plays Stacey. She's their sister. So like so many people on this show are related.

So they're all just, you get this feeling that it's this big group of people who are all friends and family. And they're all just screwing around and having fun. And I've read some interviews with them since discovering the show. And of course, there's lots of people out there talking about it. I feel like the show is great. And their idea going in was to make a show with the vibe of the Simpsons that takes a kind of Simpsons approach to storytelling and ensemble madcap antics. But it's live action.

Right, to a live action show. Yeah, wow. So you get the two main characters, Simon and Kay Kareem. They're repo guys for a rent-to-own furniture store. And then, like I said, two of the other main characters are cops who were just kind of always around in the neighborhood. So you get these characters who have a reason to be going a lot of different places, which is a really great narrative setup. Okay, they're repo guys.

So they're just going to walk into who knows where this week. But then it really quickly becomes higher and higher concept. There have been three seasons now. And by the second season, there's an episode where the whole thing is a remake of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, where Turner and this one actress run off the set of the actresses cop show that she's making. And it just recreates a ton of scenes from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, but with a kind of south side afrocentric view that's really cool. There's, I don't know, there's, like, it gets totally ridiculous every episode.

You know, supernatural stuff will happen. There's like a couch that if you look inside of it, it shows you the meaning of the universe. It's very Simpsonsie in that way where, yeah. It has that kind of Simpsons vibe where. Ferris Bueller, of course, set in Chicago. Yes, and right, that's why they did that. And then there's also a lot of Chicago stuff that I just don't know. I didn't know what stepping was.

There are so many things you will learn watching this show. and then I'll ask my friends who've lived in Chicago, hey, do you know about this place? Or like that thing. Like, oh, yeah, that's totally a Chicago thing. Which is just fun to watch something that's, like, very specific to one area. So, mostly, though, it's just funny. I mean, I don't know.

I've been watching a little bit of Mythic Quest season three. And, like, that shows interesting, but I just don't find myself laughing that much. And then going and watching a sitcom where it's just, like, every joke is really funny. And sometimes I'm, like, laughing and laughing at the jokes because it's just, like, hilarious people being hilarious over and over again, is just a really wonderful thing.

So felt like there'd probably be some people out there who haven't heard of it and want a lighthearted 30-minute sitcom to watch, if that's you. South Side, it's on HBO Max. I can't recommend it enough. That was my next question. HBO Max. Going to watch it. Going to check it out.

After I finished this 32 part, whatever the hell. Right. First 22 hours of Psychonauts do. Then you can maybe break it up with occasional episodes of South Side. It's a good side dish. Cool. All right. Well, we've done. it again. Greatest episode

about the greatest game ever made. Yeah. What a treat. What a treat. But we won't. Then we got to do a Metroid Prime episode out of nowhere. Hey, that's wonderful. Yeah, what a treat. Lovely. And Maddie didn't even have to win a back. I know. I got to just experience this just for fun. We all got to just play it. We're talking about Dead Space and Metroid Prime. It's like all the games that you and I have picked for our best in years we lost.

I know. It's actually really funny. Well, just wait. I mean, you know what else is getting remastered this year? We don't know. I don't know. We're out of time. We'll see you next week, everybody, for another episode of Triple Play. No, Final Fantasy Tactics. Just wait, you guys. I'm excited. I would play that.

All right. But seriously, though, see you guys next week. Yep, see 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 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.

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