Triple Click - What's The Deal With: Uncharted?

Episode Date: January 27, 2022

Maddy, Kirk, and Jason take a few minutes to react to last week's megaton announcement that Microsoft is buying Activision Blizzard, then prepare for the new Uncharted collection on PS5 by diving into the iconic adventure series. What's the deal with Nathan Drake falling on every platform he sees? Are the first two games better than the next two? And are Uncharted 4 and Lost Legacy worth playing today?One More Thing: Kirk: Dan Olson’s video on NFTsMaddy: First ReformedJason: The craziest football weekend of all timeLinks:“Drake’s Theme” by Greg Edmonson from Uncharted 3 “Line Goes Up: The Problem with NFTs” by Dan Olson at Folding Ideas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g&t=2344sParis Hilton and Jimmy Fallon talking about NFT apes: https://twitter.com/etienneshrdlu/status/1485956332989693953Support Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinBuy a Triple Click t-shirt: https://topatoco.com/collections/maximum-fun/products/maxf-tc-tclogo-shJoin the Triple Click Discord: http://discord.gg/tripleclickpodTriple Click Ethics Policy: https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/ Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick 🚀  SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK:Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy📱 SOCIALS | @tripleclickpodInstagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

There's only one thing more exciting than watching Patrick Bahomes and Josh Allen go back and forth for three hours. Listening to Triple Click. Welcome to Triple Click where we bring the games to you. Today we are talking about Uncharted. What is the deal with that old game series? Plus a little bit of Activision Blizzard and the big acquisition. I'm Jason Trier. I'm Kirk Hamilton.

And I'm Maddie Myers. Hey. Hello. We are back for another episode. We sure are. Kiddy click, click, as Maddie Myers might say. You know, as they always say. For God, I said that immediately after saying it.

And it was funny to see other people say it to me after we released the episode. The other day, I went to the gym and I was wearing my Triple Click t-shirt, which anyone can buy now using a link that's in the show description. They'll let anyone buy it. Just anybody. They won't stop. So I was at the gym. I'm at the gym and I'm wearing my Triple-Click shirt and nobody came up and said anything. I thought you were going to be like some guys like, hey.

No. No. Jason Shire. Not yet. One day. And then Ken Levine walked in. I heard your latest episode and I have some thoughts. I have some feedback for all of you.

But hey, if you want to become a triple click supporter and help us make this show possible without which, I mean, without a show, we wouldn't be able to sell T-shirts. So, like, really, that's the end goal here. I mean, we could. It would be weird. But I think it's better to sell T-shirts with a show. I think it makes more sense. As you may know, we are entirely listener supported, other than the T-shirts, I guess,

but those don't really make as much money, to be honest. I mean, one assumes listeners are buying those, so I think it's fair to say we're listeners-supported. We are entirely listeners-supported, then. We don't have any ads. We make the show. The show is possible because of you all, because of all you fun, fine, max-fun members.

And, hey, if you become a max-fun member, not only do you get that warm, fuzzy feeling that comes with supporting this, your favorite of any of your podcast, you'll also get a monthly bonus episode, including a ton of cool stuff from us recently. We talked about the Matrix last month. Before that, we talked about our favorite things, non-gaming things of 2021. And this month, I think it's safe to announce that for February. Yes, we should. Give people time to watch the thing we're going to talk about. Oh, not this month it's not February yet next month next month for February February we will be doing a beans cast on yellow jackets which is the buzz buzzy show that the three of us have been obsessed with we've all

get a showtime subscription each other about it it's really great we'll be talking about the whole first season and and getting into spoilers and predicting what's what's to come and lots of fun stuff revealing which lost characters we think are most like which yellow jackets characters oh yeah i have a whole rubic jason is mapped it all out i will share that that on the means cast. Remind me. Don't let me forget to do that one. I'm writing it down. Jason lost taxonomy. Yes, please.

And of course, you can become a member by going to maximum fund.org slash join. And if you do that, we are very appreciative. So, on with the show, Kirk, take us away. All right. We are talking about two things this week. We have a main topic, and first we have a secondary topic. Last week, Microsoft stunned the world of gaming by announcing a planned acquisition. of Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. The Take Factory has been working overtime with so many questions raised as to what this means for

the unionization drive at Activision Blizzard, the ongoing scandal and lawsuit regarding widespread alleged sexual harassment and workplace abuse, the likelihood of FTC intervention in such a massive acquisition, and of course, the fate of beloved Cherubic CEO, Bobby Kotick, who at least according to reports, will depart the company once the acquisition is complete, scheduled for 2023, but of course that all remains to be written. So yeah, big news happened as we normally

would have been recording last week. I know. So now we can finally talk about it. And I'm curious what the two of you think, because you've probably been working, especially last week, on covering this. So yeah, who wants to go first? What's your take? It's so overwhelming. I was thinking today about how I would

have to talk about this and it already feels like so much has happened since then. And there have been so many sleeps since then. Who even remembers a week ago? But yeah, that was a wild Tuesday for us at Polygon. And a wild Tuesday that began with a G-chat from Jason telling me that news would happen imminently. And I joked what? Microsoft buying Nintendo? And I still... I believe Jason's response was not far off. I curse myself for not getting that right. But yeah, it was wild. I was wearing my gym clothes

as I wrote up our very first news post of the day because I had just worked. out and I was the first to see the news at 8.30 a.m. And that was the rest of our day at Polygon was just all of us having impromptu meetings and talking about what it would mean, how much Microsoft owns, which the scope of that is absurd. What's going to happen to Bobby Codick? Is he going to leave? How soon is he going to leave? What is leaving look like for him? How big is his golden parachute? Too big if you ask me personally what I think about it. Any golden parachute is too big for that guy. I'm H.O. But yeah, yeah, that was a wacky. day and since then I've been thinking a lot about how much it reminds me of the Disney acquisition

of Fox, not only because the price points are very similar, but because that signaled a time period in which Disney went from being a company that people were sort of okay with the Marvel movies to being oversaturated and everyone thinking Disney was uncool. And I feel like we are witnessing that change in terms of how people talk about Xbox Game Pass and how excited every journalist I know is about that service. And now suddenly everyone's like, wait a minute, I don't want every single video game to be on Xbox Game Pass

and every single video game studio to be controlled by this. And that's worrying just from a corporate standpoint. And lastly, I don't know where the lawsuit heads from here. I'm worried it's just going to get buried in all this other news and people will kind of forget about it. But yeah, at least those QA testers that Raven Software are trying to effectively unionize. That's also happened in this past week. So I'm hopeful that that will go well for them. I don't know. Jason, what do you make of it? I'm sure

you've been in the trenches. Yeah. On Tuesday, I woke up, yeah, like 7.45 a.m. too. I was on vacation. Yes. Yeah, and the Poconos with my wife. I was working out before work because I was going to work, but Jason was vacationing. It was, yeah, I was, I said, to my wife, hey, I'm going to be on my phone a lot today. Sorry about that. Sorry about this ruining our vacation. No, so, okay, so I have a few different takes that all exist simultaneously. And I think people tend to kind of see news like this and look to journalists and look to Twitter and try to be like, should I feel good about this or bad about this? Like, is this good news or bad news? And I don't really think there's a straight answer. I think it's too complicated for that because this means so many

different things for so many people. Like, it's going to mean layoffs. It's going to mean deals change. It's going to mean some people are redundant. It's going to mean that, like, maybe what if you're the person who handles call of duty at Sony? You're probably freaking out today, right? The repercussions of this, like, we're not even going to understand them for years to come. So please understand that it's okay to feel complicated about this and to not know how to feel when something like this happens. But that's said, a few different takes. One, I think consolidation is bad in general and can only hurt an industry. And in this case, Xbox is consolidating so much that it's pretty scary.

So much of the industry. Like so many different companies are owned by Xbox now. It's going to get a little scary, especially as they keep expanding as they keep trying to expand. Two, I think this will generally mean good things for the people who work at Activision Blizzard. Maddie, you mentioned the lawsuit. There are multiple lawsuits. I suspect those will be quietly settled as the acquisition has. happens, but more importantly, this means that a lot of these people who lost all faith and trust

in Bobby Kodick to run the company and to shepherd them and help facilitate a culture that they all found healthy, I think it means good things for those people. I think a lot of them are cautiously optimistic about a leadership change, about Bobby Kodokovina leaving, about things getting shaken up. And Microsoft also, despite having a history, a long history of having issues of their own, of broculture and mistreatment of women. I think in recent years, they've done a pretty good job at a lot of their studios of maintaining pretty good cultures, cleaning up. I think Phil Spencer is generally seen as a pretty strong leader by people who work for him.

Then from a business point of view, I mean, it has all sorts of repercussions. And I think the one that the most interests me and could mean the most for listeners out there, for players out there who don't work for any of these companies, is that because of Xbox's model, their business plan, they do not rely on big box releases the way that Activision did. They don't not need a bazillion dollar call of duty every year. They do not need Blizzard to stop focusing on tiny little things like Warcraft 4 and StarCraft 3 and whatever else. RTS games that don't make a billion dollars and only focus on Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4, right?

under Microsoft, you could see a lot of these companies flourishing and a lot of these developers flourishing in ways they haven't for a while. For a long time, the story of Blizzard was a story of Activision encroaching on their independence and coming in and changing things and cost-cutting and really just exercising their muscles in some big ways over the past few years. It's why Mike Moreheim left. It's why he was the CEO of the company. It's why a lot of big changes happen at Blizzard. Now suddenly everything is very, very different. And we could see a lot of cool things emerging from that. You look at Microsoft's history, a company like Arcane is able to keep doing business and keep making weird, small projects because they are now on Xbox GamePass. And so,

like, they don't need to be a bazillion dollar sellers. Xbox GamePass can exist as a library that just has this eclectic mix of games that gets people to subscribe. So there are reasons to be optimistic about the kind of the creative freedom that this acquisition might create at Activision Studios, at Blizzard Studios, and even for King, perhaps. Maybe we'll see them do some interesting things in the mobile space. People don't really think about King, but that's a massive, massive business. King is part of Activision Blizzard, of course, and they run Candy Crush, which makes a bazillion dollars. So yeah, overall take mixed feelings, and it's okay to have complicated feelings about all this. Yeah, I don't really have a whole lot to add. I feel the same as both of you pretty

much. And the timeline on this, I think, is just important to keep in mind because in video games in particular, things operate on such a long timeline because projects gestate for years and years and years before they come out. And it's just hard to get a sense of what anything, like, especially something huge like this kind of acquisition, can mean for the games that we all play, just as people who play video games, just because so many things are currently in development and Activision Blizzard, and while I'm sure some stuff will change, we'll really know what this means in like 10 years. And so it's okay, like you said, Jason, it's okay not to just come out firing with both barrels being like, I know exactly what this means for everyone, and here it is.

Yeah. Like, granted, that's sort of the job of people in media, and it's okay to just make predictions and try to understand things, even if you're doing it in public. But yeah, a lot of this I've just spent sort of reading a lot of conflicting and interesting takes and then being like, okay, well, we'll see in 10 years. Yeah, Kirk, to that point, look at Activision, right? Like, Activision merged with Vivendi to create Activision Blizzard in 2007. I believe it was announced in 2007, it really came through in 2008. But it wasn't until many years later that Activision really started getting involved with Blizzard's business. If you look at history, like it wasn't until much later, 2000, really after Titan collapsed. But a few years later,

Suddenly you're seeing Call Duty on Battle Nets. Suddenly you're seeing Bungy make appearances at BlizzCon. Like suddenly you're seeing this kind of loss of independence at Blizzard. But that was many, many years after the acquisition. So again, like you said, to your point, who knows? It could be years before we really have any idea what this means. Yep, that's pretty much it. We'll keep an eye on it and we'll see how it goes.

Speaking of things that take many, many years and focus on ancient history, though, we're not going to pivot to something else. We're going to be talking about the Uncharted series and answering the question, what's the deal with Uncharted? So I wrote an intro for this, and I'm going to talk us through Uncharted before we get going. So here we go. Are you going to play one of the title screen, dramatic musical stings while there's like a black screen, white text, a quote from Francis Drake? Oh, sure, sure, like a pan flute does a little flourish with some. Kirk is unfurling a diary that is so weathered and covered in coffee stains and he found it in an ancient coffin.

I would like to read Kirk's diary. Look up, walked Apa. Called Appa. Told Ava how adorable she is. Told the dog that I love her. Played guitar for a while. Practice with scales. Uncharted is a series of PlayStation exclusive video games developed by Noddy Dog and published by Sony.

third-person cinematic action games focused on the exploits of a group of globe-hopping treasure hunters and thieves, whose ease with witty banter is matched only by their uncanny gymnastic ability and unusually itchy trigger fingers. The series began in 2007 with uncharted Drake's Fortune, a Tomb Raider alike for the PlayStation 3 that cribbed heavily from Laura Croft's adventures, while modernizing things somewhat with cover-based combat and a new focus on realistically animated performances and exciting bomb-blastic set pieces. You mean boombastic. Bomblastic is what I'm sticking with. 2009's Uncharted 2 Among Thieves was the one that really established the series' reputation

as a boundary-pushing technical showcase. It won multiple Game of the Year awards and it established series leads Nathan Drake, Elena Fisher, Chloe Frazier, and Victor Sullivan as liked, or, dare I say, beloved among the broader pantheon of video game characters. It was aided greatly by stand-up vocal performances by Nolan North as Drake, Emily Rose as Elena, Richard McGonagall as Sully, and the great Claudia Black as Chloe. 2011's Uncharted 3, Drake's Deception, was met with a somewhat more muted critical reception, and along with the Vita-only game Golden Abyss, which I at least didn't really love,

that same year, it started to feel like the bloom was somewhat off the uncharted Rose. Meanwhile, Crystal Dynamics revitalized their Tomb Raider series in 2013 by cribbing heavily from Noddy Dog's focus on grounded character work and set pieces, and the third-person Treasure Hunter Snake began to eat itself. Longtime series director Amy Hennig left Noddy Dog in 2014, amid the troubled development of Uncharted 4, and an ascendant Neil Druckman, along with his colleague Bruce Strayley, fresh off the crashing success of their team's 2013 game The Last of Us seized control of the project. Uncharted 4, a thief's end, came out on PlayStation 4 in 2016. It brought Nathan Drake's story to a close, followed shortly afterward by 2017's standalone spin-off Uncharted the Lost Legacy.

That starred Claudia Black's Cully Frazier and Laura Bailey's Nadine Ross and is also low-key the best uncharted game. That brings us to today. This week, Sony is re-releasing updated versions of Uncharted 4 and Lost Legacy as a collection on PlayStation 5. Maddie and I have both been playing early copies provided by Sony on the PS5. And of course, next month we'll see Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg, starring in a film adaptation of Uncharted directed by Zambuland and Venom director Ruben Fleischer. Those are the basics.

That's it. That's the deal with Uncharted. I finished. That's it. Let's talk about Uncharted now. So I want to know, let's just start with our sort of history with this series because it's been going on for 15 years now. Jason, why don't you start? What's your history with the Uncharted games?

Sure. First of all, it's funny that Amy Henig, who was the director of the first two games, started her career Crystal Dynamics before they had Tomb Raiders. Right, right. She came and Notterdam did Uncharted and Crystal Dynamics. Scott Tomb Raider. Kind of a funny little coincidence there. It is weird.

So yeah, my history, I did not play the first one because I did not have a PS3 until like 2009 or 2010 or so at an Xbox 360 and a Wii. Bought a PS3 at some point later on. I started with Uncharted 2 because everyone said that was the best one. And so I just skipped the first one. Then played 3 and then played 4 when it came out. By 4 came out, by the time 4 came out, I was at Kataku. so played an early copy of that, I believe.

And yeah, have really enjoyed it. Haven't played Lost Legacy yet. Also wrote, went down and visited Noddy Dog and wrote a chapter about Uncharted 4's development for my first book, Bloodsart and Pixels, which is cool. And, yeah, have enjoyed all the games. I think two is probably my favorite. I'm sure most people feel that way, although I didn't like the supernatural stuff at the end. So four maybe is more solid for.

for me overall, but enjoyed, enjoyed all of the uncharted games that I played. And we'll one day play Lost Legacy. Hopefully this year I will play Lost Legacy. Yeah, you'll be in for a treat when you do. It's really good. Maddie, how about you? So I was an Xbox fan girl, so I also didn't have a PS3 until I started dating a guy who was really into PlayStation and had a PS3. And we lived together and played together, Uncharted 1 and 2, and cosplayed as Nathan Drake and Elena Fisher. sure. This was back when I had long blonde hair. That was a couple's costume that the two of us did together in that time period. And these games, they're not co-op, but they kind of feel like they should be, and they feel so much like TV shows, especially the first two, which I, for fun, for no reason,

and for fun, I have rewatched all of the uncharted video game cutscenes on YouTube this past week. And let me just say, Uncharted 1 and 2 really go by and are so entertaining and fun to watch. Three and four, kind of rough. Don't super recommend the YouTube movie version of those two games. The pacing is weird. But 1 and 2 really feel like TV shows. And just the quips are perfect and the lining up of that with climbing around. And you feel like you kind of barely get to know Nathan and Elena, but that's also fine because they're just,

these somewhat wooden but endearing characters and three is kind of weird we can get into it later and then four has a very different tone that skews much more towards like the seriousness that the last of us and even the last of us part two have so it kind of makes sense that people who worked on the last of us the first game ended up working on uncharted four in terms of tone and themes which are like family and your past and dealing with those emotions but the first two just uh delight So I have great memories of playing those two. And now I'm playing Lost Legacy for the very first time. And I'm loving it. And I'm so glad that I had the chance to try it out because I know that it, I had always

heard it was Loki the best one. And it's kind of been fun this past week to revisit the series that I don't think about at all. But now there's a movie coming out and people, normies in my life, keep asking me like, what's it, what's up with this uncharted movie? And what are the games like? What's the lore in the games? and I'm like, is that even a question I can answer? I know.

But hey, we're going to answer it here on this show. We're going to try. Because Tom Holland's going to listen and he needs our help. Right, right. Yeah, so I've, yeah, let me think. So I played Uncharted 2 first as well. I also, I had a 360 before having a PS3, not for any real loyalty reasons.

I just did. And then I saw a bunch of people at the sort of, you know, gaming blogs we're talking about Uncharted 2. like this game is really pretty special. And I, at the time, I don't remember why, I was like, okay, I'm getting into video games. I think I'm going to kind of commit to this. And buying a PlayStation 3 was a pretty big moment for like, okay, I'm going to maybe be serious about writing about video games. It's going to be worth it for me to get this thing.

And that was, I think, the first game that I played, that in Metal Gear, Solid 4. I believe those are the two big PS3 games. And I was totally blown away by Uncharted 2 playing it just because it's an impressive game now. And it was really impressive in 2009 or maybe. Maybe I played it a year later in 2010. So then I went back and played through the first Uncharted, which is a more repetitive, kind of more limited to one location. Still a fun game, not on the same level as Uncharted too.

But still cool, and it gave me some of that backstory. Though, like you said, Maddie, you know, it's just this relationship between these two fairly cookie-cutter action protagonists, as charming as Nathan and, or as Drake and Elena are. So then, yeah, then I played all of them. I mean, I played Uncharted 3 and did not care for it. I found it to be very frustrating on a gameplay level, the gunfighting. I actually reviewed the, what's it called, the Golden Abyss?

Is that it? The Vita game? The Vita one? Yeah. I didn't play that. Made by Ben. Made by Sony Bend. Sony Ben's game, which...

Yeah, I had some interesting ideas and I know it has its defenders. I didn't really care for it. It was kind of just too much uncharted all at once as well. You should drive over there and tell them because they're just like a couple hours away from you. I'll just show up. I'll be like, I'm just here to talk about golden abyss. And I didn't think it was that great. He won't let me in.

I have some notes. I just, I don't know who to talk to the uncharted people. Have you considered elaborately scaling the walls and just finding some very conveniently labeled handholds? And then maybe there's like a white rope that's just hanging over the side of one, one two by four that's sticking out. And then you use that for your grapple. But then if you step on, if you step on a platform, it'll collapse. That's correct. Unfortunately, there will be another way up. However, you'll be hanging on by one hand, and then your best friend will just so happen to be on that ledge waiting for you and they're going to reach down with one of their hands and pull you up. Let me just say, while I'm talking about the absurd platforming in this, it is so much more obvious if you just watch the cutscenes on YouTube, how much of a superhero Nathan Drake is from an acrobatic perspective, as well as how many times they reuse the same scenarios. Like Jason just described like Nathan Drake jumping across a ledge and then something buckles.

beneath him. Like, when you've watched that as many times in a row as I have this week, you start to feel as though you're unmoored from reality. That and the number of times that Nathan Drake hangs by one hand from a cliff. Like, it's absurd. Like, nobody hangs by one hand from a cliff ever in their lifetime. And yet it has happened to Nathan Drake no less than 14 separate times. It's his cover pose, right? He's always doing that pose on the cover with one hand. He's always hanged by one hand. It's a signature move. What? And, and the other thing he does, he slides down something for a very long time, like a muddy path. He'll suddenly be caught off guard and be sliding for a long time.

And then it will end in a cliff and he will have to leap over that sudden ravine onto a handhold. He won't get to leap from that slide onto a regular place to stand. No, no, no, no, no, no. He will have to leap into a handhold, which is absurd. Another thing, no action facts. It's crazy. If you've ever done any rock climbing, rock climbing, the idea.

I've done rock climbing. many of these activities. So I'm like, this is so hard. Like, I'm watching him and I'm feeling sympathetic. Catching yourself with your fingers. He is barely hanging on. He is supposed to be 40 years old and uncharted four. But of course, you know, we can, that's part of the fun of the game. Of course. It is ridiculous, though, when you watch it. And well, I want to talk about those trips. So just to wrap up, I played Uncharted 4 and didn't love it despite how impressive it was. I didn't love it. And then really liked Lost Legacy and actually reviewed that for Katakaku and really enjoyed it. I was just like, this is what I want, man.

This is like the speed and the pacing. I think the thing you said about watching them on YouTube is very interesting, and I want to like mentally put a pin in that because I want to come back to it. I think that just the pacing of these games and how they've changed is very interesting. But I think that there's also a thing. You're talking about how this trope, there are these uncharted tropes that are really, you know, ingrained at this point because there have been so many games. But the thing where Nathan Drake goes to climb onto a handhold and it gives way,

and then he's like, oh crap, and he like responds to it and reacts. and then catches himself. Like, that was really groundbreaking at first because it's kind of like an underlying thing with Uncharted is that there's a human, like a really humanizing effect on all of the characters, as ridiculous as they are and superheroic as they are. They feel like real people and they react like real people

and it makes it feel more exciting moment to moment. Because you're watching, it just feels like the animations. It's like, wow, this really looks like a real person hanging on the outside of this building or whatever. and that was groundbreaking at the time and only feels like a trope now because it's become so common. I mean, sometimes it works really well.

Like in the first game, there's this moment early on where Elena Fisher has a video camera the entire time because in the first game she's a journalist who's following Nathan Drake around and they have not yet fallen in love, romancing the stone style. So she has to, they have to swim across just out of this pirate ship

that they've narrowly escaped to get to Sully's boat and they have to swim across a stretch of ocean. And she manages to swim while holding her camera aloft and not getting into the water. But you don't see her do it. You're Nathan and you're not looking behind you. And then when she arrives at the boat, you can see her holding the camera up.

And solely and the other characters refer to how absurd it is that she's done this. And there's like other points in the game where people will be like, have you not broken your camera? And she'll be like, yep. And like everything she does, she's like protecting the camera. And the idea of having that be a detail that the characters keep pointing out and referring to is it's a level of realism, as goofy as it is that she would be able to preserve this extremely expensive camera and get all this footage of every single thing that happens in that game. Like that part's unrealistic.

But the part that felt groundbreaking was just that attention to detail combined with like just these little humanizing barks that you're describing, which I don't think they did in the first game. But I know by four they started having different kinds of calls that Nathan would do. according to what he had, if he had made it, like if he manages to make a grappling hook thing, he'll be like, wee or whatever. And if he just barely, like if you barely make it, he'll be like, whoa, and like not actually sound like he's having a fun time swinging across a ravine. And it's just, I don't know, those are the little, the naughty dog touches. That's what they crunch over. That's what you hear about. Those are the things that they add in that make a game feel much more thoughtful and coherent. I think, yeah, I think there's something to the fact that even in the most

outlandish story, little details like that ground you in the experience when I was playing. I just played through the first parts of Uncharted Four, and there's a sequence early on where Drake is sitting on top of a shipping container wearing a scuba suit, and the shipping container is lifted by a crane out of a river, and then lowered onto the deck of a ship. And you're just sitting with him the whole time. And as it goes over the deck of the ship, he kicks his flippers off, and the flippers fall down onto the deck of the ship. And it's like that That's the kind of thing where it's this totally outrageous thing. Like, it would just be really cool to ride on a shipping container, you know, on a crane,

like onto the deck of a ship. Like, that's the thing I could kind of imagine doing. And little details like that really do ground it. Though I got to say, so I found myself kind of bored by the beginning of Uncharted Four. And I found this before I tried to replay it, and I had a similar experience. So I want to talk a little more about the sort of the way this series has changed, because Maddie, I think it's so interesting that you just watched the TV version, like the cutscene version of all of these games because they really shift. And it's at Uncharted 3 because Uncharted 3 and Uncharted 4 are both like inner like woven with flashbacks to younger Nathan Drake.

And they're concerning like in 3 it's his relationship with Sully, who's this kind of father figure. So he's a kid. And then in 4, he's also a kid, but it's his brother. So it kind of feels like a redux. Right. Troy Baker's there and he's a brother who it turns out gave him a grappling hook a long time ago, but he never brought it up until now. And like there's just something in the way that like those games just they don't, they have this totally, it's much more complicated and ambitious, but also there's just so much story stuff being front loaded. It's taking so long.

And I have to say that the platforming just feels kind of dull to me right now. Like I've played so many more third person and first person platforming games in the years since these came out. And at this point, I'm like, this is just autopilot. There's no real way to fall. It's so sticky. It's basically just like press forward on the stick and like press the button. Like there's no skill involved. And they go on and on and on.

I mean, in Uncharted 4, you're doing this whole heist at this like auction and this building. And it's beautiful looking and so cool. And like Nadine is there. And it's exciting and you're meeting characters. But also there's these long sections of just like climbing around on this building. And I was really just like, I want this to be over. Like I wish, I kind of wish that I was just watching it on YouTube. Yeah.

Honestly, even watching it on YouTube is rough. Like there's, I mean, I guess it depends which YouTubers edit you watch, but the one I watched kept in a lot of those sequences. And I was bored because I wasn't even doing it. So I was like, wow, I don't know why. I'm watching Nathan Drake swinging back and forth on like a piece of rebar that's sticking out from a brick building because there's nothing here at all. Like there's no plot momentum.

And it's hours and hours and hours of that. And I do feel like three and four. at least in the YouTube's that I watched, there was way more platforming that was super, super boring. And I don't know if that's true in the games. Well, a lot of this is just the biggest issue is that these, okay, so you're naughty dog. You're coming up with this globe-trotting adventure.

You have to create these amazing cinematic experiences like this auction house, which looks gorgeous. And then you need to find enough stuff so that players spend more than 10 minutes in this thing because you can't afford to fill an entire game with just these 10-minute set pieces. So it's interesting. It's a challenge that like if you're a movie maker, you don't really have to worry about because you can build this elaborate set and just spend five minutes of footage in it because all you have to worry about is filling two hours. But if you're filling a 20 hour game and like these people, all of these companies have their metrics of like, well, we got to be above X hours or else the focus groups won't like it. Then you have to find ways to like fill that with gameplay even if it means just climbing around for a while in a suit. And I feel like games were getting longer during the time period that Uncharted was coming out too.

Like the first couple games are shorter and they get longer as they go along, which increases the amount of effort that you put in. I think though, I mean, I think they also feel longer. And to that, I mean, I think that Jason, that does explain why when it doesn't work, when it feels a little padded out, it feels that way. but Uncharted 2 and Lost Legacy both don't feel that way despite featuring lovely locations and, you know, amazing set pieces and stuff. Well, they're both much shorter. They are, well, and Lost Legacy is more focused. Like it mostly takes place in one place.

Yeah, well, that's the trick. But Uncharted 2 doesn't, and I don't think Uncharted 2 has that problem, and it's just because it's a pacing thing. Like, I think you can still manage your pacing carefully enough that you're not feeling like, okay, here we go again. I just got to do another long climbing sequence to get to the next cutscene, which I very rarely feel in Uncharted 2, which I played a few times. And there might be a few that I'm forgetting. But that game, especially the way that it begins.

It does this whole inmedius res thing where Drake starts and he's like dangling off of the, you know, the train that's hanging off the mountain. And the whole tutorial he's climbing up. And then it flashes back to earlier and you get some character stuff. And it's like all intercut with him staggering through the wreckage of this train. And you're like, what happened to this train? And it's so compelling. It really just pulls you along. And I think the real issue with three and then especially with four is that they just don't have that.

Four, it's like a really slow burn. It's like you're at this prison and it's revealed that like Drake is trying to get to something related to this thing that he's looking for. And he's kind of younger here. And then he's in the prison with his brother and then his brother dies. And then it cuts to like the future or the present day where he's like an older guy. and then it cuts to him as a kid with his brother. And you're like, what exactly is like happening? Like you're not, it's just not as propulsive.

Yeah. Well, first of all, I mean your description of it, I mean, the story is coherent, despite your summary. No, I don't mean that it's not coherent. I just mean it's such a slow burn. It just doesn't drag me, it doesn't pull me in. I think a large part of that is that I read in the book Blood Sweat and Pixels that they were originally playing around with all these different climbing systems

where they wanted to make climbing feel a lot different. they played around with like doing manual like having to like do the what are they called pittons pittons. They have to like stick them in. Ptons. You have to stick them in manually and individually and you can fall and you can slip. And they played around with all these different systems and ideas and none of them really worked. And that game went through all sorts of development. I mean, Amy had elected them all the project and Neil Druckman and Bruce Traley took over.

And that game went through a lot of development hell sorts of issues that might help explain the problems that that you're talking about. It doesn't, it doesn't though, because I think three, even though it had a different creative team, like Amy Henning wrote that one on her own as compared to Unshuttered Four, which, I mean, her name's not even on that one, although she did work on some of it, supposedly. They both have a similar problem, which is they're both trying to elaborate upon the character of Nathan Drake in his past and what happened to him. And that is just not what's compelling about the first two games. They're a little bit stupider. simpler and they're more fun. And that is just the case. It's funny.

It's like a question of how far back in the past are you looking? Because Uncharted II is looking back in the past, but it's the past of what happened to Nathan Drake to get him out of this train that is dangling off of his fucking mountain. It's like, how did this happen? The past two days ago. That's interesting. Not as a child to have him adopt this reckless lifestyle. I don't really super care.

Like, no offense to St. Francis School for Boys. the nuns who worked there, but I just don't super care about what happened to Nathan Drake when he lived there and what caused him to take on the name Nathan Drake. Like, that's the least interesting thing about him. It's like the scene of Indiana Jones being a professor. Like, you see that so that you can get to the part where he's evading a boulder in a cave later. Like, that's not the point of who he is as a person. I don't know. I would play Indiana Jones as a professor. He would play that game. Indiana trying to fend off hotties trying to come to his office hours. I probably try to get tenure.

The game ends and you get tenure. Yeah, right at dating. So I think also to bring this to Lost Legacy, which I also started and have played a few hours of on PS5 as well. And I was so struck immediately by just how much better the pacing in that game is, how much more drawn in I was, how much more I like it. I think it's more fun to play. And we haven't talked much about the shooting because I don't think there's much to talk about. I don't really like the shooting and untradict for. But the stealth, they finally have like a silenced weapon.

So you have some actual stealth tools in Lost Legacy, which helps. You do. But I think it's interesting because Lost Legacy is about close. she's childhood in a way, but just narratively. Like it's just narrative color for her character where she talks about like her father and her relationship to India and to like her ancestry. And that is like a cool character note to explore in the story. But you're not constantly flashing back to like young Chloe and her father as he takes

her around and shows her the sights. And it's kind of a function of the fact that Lost Legacy undoubtedly had a smaller budget and a more limited scope. when you have these like huge naughty dog scope like games where it's like well yeah we'll do a whole thing with like a young nathan drake and we'll fully like flush the whole thing out with animations and like it's it's too much like they didn't actually need to do that much so in the case so lost legacy really benefits from being smaller it does because nadine has to tease out chloe's story through dialogue which is so much more effective because chloe is this very mysterious person and you don't really know anything about her like that's her whole deal she's like like the bad girl who, you know, Nathan Drake dated at some point in the past and we don't really need to know what happened and that's fine. And so then her and Nadine having this kind of like antagonistic relationship and they both have their own mysteries and they don't want to reveal them. It's so much more fun to have characters deal with that in dialogue while they're doing something

as opposed to just suddenly having a flashback where it's like, and now Nadine's past as a mercenary and you're going to play as her in a place you've never seen before. And then we're going to go back to Chloe. And then we're going to see Chloe when she's 10 years old and her father's trying to find the tusk and like they're in a fight. And it's a totally different model of Chloe because she's 10 and like a different voice actor and we paid for all this. It's like you don't need that. You can actually just have the characters tell me about who they are now and have that reveal something without showing me like a ton of other locations. It's really the difference that kind of that I'm thinking of that kind of encapsulates this is that in uncharted four. So like you describe, in Lost Legacy, it's a lot of Nadine and Chloe just talking and figuring out.

Which I love. Their relationship is great. I mean, it's really well fleshed out throughout the game. That game really is good. I'm going to play the whole rest of it. I really do like it. In Uncharted 4, when Drake's brother comes back, he starts to ask him, like, hey, so what have you been up to? And it's such a fun question because you're like...

Nathan Drake takes out all three video games. He's like, well, two is the best one. His story can be like, here is a ton of ridiculous shit I've been up to. But he starts to tell it, and the camera just sort of goes up. to the sky and it fades out and we don't actually get to see that conversation, which would have been a really fun conversation to see. It's also a fun conversation to imagine, but they didn't need to show all the flashbacks maybe. They could have just shown a little bit more of them, you know, talking. I guess there's a lot of them interacting too. That game is just kind of too much.

It is. But I will say, though, that I was surprised by how much I liked Elena and Drake's relationship in four. That is the strongest part of that game. That is also my biggest criticism of the previous three. Because, so like, between every game, Elena dumps Drake and you don't know why they broke up. And it's like irritating to me that you don't get to find that out. Like, she dumps him at some point. Well, and then between three and four, they get married and you don't know what they get married. They get married and get separated between those games. And it's like, what happened, guys? Like, you got married and broke up. Like, that's huge. And you don't find out why. Like, that's maddening to me. But four is the only game that they actually break up.

during the game. And then there's like a reason why there's tension between them. And you get to find out so much more about Elena as a person and why she would even be with Drake in the first place by the end of the game and why Drake would be with Elena and like what powers their love for one another in a way that quite frankly the previous three games don't bother to do. So I will say like that was a part of Uncharted 4 that I really liked and was just like, well, this is something different that this game is doing. even though I agree, like the first half of the game is just kind of a pacing mess. And I don't know why the brother character's there. But don't invent a brother four games in.

That's my note. I'm glad you mentioned that because, right, I think that is true. And remember that from playing it being like, whoa, this stuff with Elena is great. Because like you said, there's sparks between them. There's tension. Drake is in the doghouse for a while. I remember there's this really great sequence where they're kind of platforming together. Oh, yeah.

And he's kind of trying to like feel her out and see how he's doing. and if she's thawing on him a little bit and then of course they do and it's like this whole dynamic relationship where I never felt that way about his what's his brother's name? Is his brother's name? His brother's Troy Baker, yeah.

His brother is Troy Baker, yeah, Ray. is the enemy. Sam is his brother. Sam. Yeah, Sam. I think I'm higher. I haven't played on Charter for it since it came out

but I think I'm higher on it than use you so I guess I won't replay it because otherwise I'll be lower on. But the thing I really like about it, other than those like quiet moments when you're in the house playing playing Crash Bandicoot and eating noodles.

Lovely. There's a lot of good stuff like that. But also I like that it's a story about like addiction and it can be read pretty easily is a story about addiction to work and to crunch and this like magnetizing force that crunch has

and how Nathan Drake can't escape it and Noddy Day can't escape. There's some interesting parallels there I was saying. Yeah, except then the ending is very bittersweet because it's about how actually the adventure never ends and you're always going to be on the next adventure. Which, yes, 100%. I definitely ended in Uncharted 4 and I was like, you guys might want to think about therapy.

Like, I feel like I've been to a lot with you guys. So the last thing to talk about is really just the fact that this series that has always been criticized for being overly cinematic and overly like a playable movie is now becoming a movie. I don't know what to think of this. I'm sure we'll all probably see the Uncharted movie and talk about it at some point. Well, it's in theaters only. Yeah.

But when it goes on streaming, I don't think I'll be able to resist watching it. Of course. Yeah, definitely. I mean, it looks so bad. I expect it to get terrible reviews. Yeah. It's really lacking, as Tom Holland is lovely, but like, it's really lacking from what I've seen so far, a lot of the charm of like either Uncharted or Indiana Jones.

So I don't know. I'm not feeling it. Yeah. I mean, it is a permutation of a permutation because it's like Indiana Jones becomes Laura Croft, who becomes Nathan Drake, who becomes a movie again starring Tom Holler. It's like, what is happening? Like, we're through the looking glass 16 times at this point. Like, why does this movie exist? And it also feels like just another case of like, you know, the Alicia Vakender Tomb Raider movie or the Michael Fastbender Assassin's Creed movie where they come, they go. everybody doesn't like what's happening and doesn't understand why the movie was made and it doesn't manage to capture the magic of actually getting to interact with that character and embody them because it can't do that. And I don't think this movie should exist, but maybe I'll be proven wrong. I said that about the Pirates of the Caribbean movie too. Based on a Disney ride, absurd. And then it was

like really cute and funny. So, you know, stranger things have happened. It could be a surprise, but I agree. It does feel like it's going to be like those other video game tie-ins. and they just, no one really seems to be able to capture what it is that makes these video games work. And it's not just the interactivity. It's like the characters. It's the performances. It's something about them just doesn't quite get translated when people try to reinterpret them. Anyways, we'll see.

I think we'll watch it when it's on streaming. But I'm definitely going to keep playing Lost Legacy. It's a cool game. And yeah, that's the deal with Uncharted, everyone. So in case you were wondering, now you know, why don't we take a break? And we'll be back with one more thing. Hey there. I'm Ellen Weatherford.

And I'm Christian Weatherford. And we've got big feelings. about animals that we just got to share. On Just the Zoo of Us, your new favorite animal review podcast, we're here to critically evaluate how each animal excels and how it doesn't, rating them out of 10 on their effectiveness, ingenuity, and aesthetics. Guest experts give you their takes informed by actual real-life experiences studying and working with very cool animals like sharks, cheetahs, and sea turtles.

It's a field trip to the zoo for your ears. So if you or your kids have ever wondered if a picture, you or your kids have ever wondered if a can count. Why sloths move so slow or how a spider sees the world? Find out with us every Wednesday on just the zoo of us in its natural habitat on maximum fun.org. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Somewhere between science and superstition, there is a podcast. Look, your daughter doesn't say she's a demon. She says she's the devil himself. That thing is not my daughter. And I want you to tell me there's a show where the host don't just report on French science and spirituality, but take part themselves. Well, there is, and it's Oh No, Ross and Carrie

on Maximum Fun. This year, we actually became certified exorcists. So yes, Carrie and I can help your daughter. Or we can just talk about it on the show. Oh, no, Ross and Carrie on Maximum Fun.org. All right, and we're back for one more thing. I'm going to go first because mine is really brief and just a recommendation that I wanted to make that I'm sure a lot of listeners already know about. And that is The Folding Ideas video made by Dan Olson, a YouTuber, made a video about NFTs. It's called Line Goes Up. I believe it's Line Goes Up, The Problem with NFTs.

It's two hours and 18 minutes long. It's pretty much just him talking to the camera. It's kind of, I would say, a John Oliver style. you know, explainer slash screed about crypto and NFTs. He actually starts with the financial collapse of 2008 and 2009 and goes from there. I watched this entire thing, paying very close attention to it. I wasn't expecting to do this. I saw it, I think, I don't even know where, maybe just in my YouTube sidebar. And, you know, I like Dan's videos a lot. He made a video about flat earth. I think it's called In Search of a Flat Earth from a few years ago.

ago that's really incredible. I think I recommended it as a one more thing on here, or you did, because I told you to watch it. I think you just recommended it to me. Yeah, and I had finally watched it. I've seen some of his film criticism. He has like a great series about the 50 Shades of Gray movies that it's just sort of really funny and interesting. He also has a great video about the nostalgia critic. Now we're just going on about how Dan Olson is great YouTube videos, but he does. He does. He has a great sort of vibe to him. It's very matter of fact. very intelligent, you know, lots of intense direct communication, but it's also got, he has this sort of sly humor to him that I enjoy. So this video is incredibly good,

and I just would urge people to watch it. I know it sounds long and intense, but this topic is so complicated and so purposefully complicated by the people who have engineered this whole system, that it kind of requires that to understand it. But I really feel extremely enlightened by it. I mean, I have a better understanding now of cryptocurrency and thus NFTs, which are just totally inextricably intertwined with crypto, and how that works. And also just what an insidious, terrible thing it is. Really, like, I'm very convinced by his argument that this thing is rotten all the way down, and it's just this, like, new iteration of the same old thing, like, of the same imbalanced powers, the same wealth inequality, the same distribution of wealth and power. It's so

remarkable. I'm going to watch the whole thing again because it's so dense that I really need to process it. And also, I'm not like a finance expert by any stretch of the imagination or a coding, you know, technology experts. So it's a lot of stuff that I'm vaguely familiar with and he explains it, but he moves pretty fast through a lot of stuff. So this video is amazing. It's remarkable. I really, really respect the hell out of the amount of work. It must have taken for him to put it together. And I recommend it. We'll link it in the show notes. And yeah, just watch it in chunks. You know, watch it in little chunks. And it could be fun to watch with someone else to discuss it a little bit. I think it would help some of the concepts stick if you kind of did that.

So yeah, props to him. Great video. Wow. And also, yeah, wow, fuck cryptocurrency and NFT's God. Yeah, I'm psyched to watch this. If you want something a little shorter, I recommend the one-minute video of Paraseltin and Jimmy Fallon talking about the gorillas that they bought. That was enjoyable too. That video is, I can't finish watching that video.

I can't. I get too embarrassed. I've tried to watch it multiple times and it's too, it is too cringe. Pretty cringy. Okay, Maddie, what is your one more thing? Okay, so I watched a movie called First Reformed from 2017. And the reason I watched this was because it's kind of been back in the conversation again, even though it's from 2017 because it's a movie about climate change activism. and a lot of folks were just talking about this in the wake of Don't Look Up, and people were just thinking about movies that they felt approach the topic better. This is a very weird comparison point. Like that is the context with which I approach the movie, but I don't know if that was a logical way to approach the movie.

So this movie, directed and written by Paul Schrader, he's a pretty intense dude, apparently. He's done some other movies with very intense leftist politics. This movie is also about suicide and depict suicide and despair about the climate and the world ending on a level that I don't know that everyone will necessarily be up for. So I'm just prefacing it by saying that. It is about, so Ethan Hawke stars in it. He plays a priest who starts meeting with a guy who's experiencing a whole lot of despair about climate change and global warming and activism and just being like it feels like everything's pointless. And his wife is worried about him.

So she goes to just their reverend at church and is like, can you talk to him? Because he won't talk to anyone. And the character Ethan Hawk plays ends up himself becoming radicalized. And it's about his personal journey and despair that he experiences talking to this man. And it's, I guess I don't want to give it away. But it's interesting. It's much more internal. It's not like a comedy or anything even remotely like don't look up.

So it's kind of interesting that people are comparing those two films in any way. It's much more about just the idea of what you do and what you want to care about when you feel like the world is ending and no one cares about it. And also, I'm not a religious person, but I thought the perspective of being a religious person and deciding that that should be a part of your perspective on faith and God is to care about the planet and be a climate activist was really cool. and just an interesting character arc for anyone to have. And I hadn't seen it before. And I just thought that was neat. So that's sort of an uplifting part of the movie, I guess. It's just the idea that this very Christian character,

you might assume would be conservative, is instead not at all, and instead becomes very radicalized to this leftist cause. I mean, he himself in the movie is like, this shouldn't be a political cause. And I agree with the fictional character on that. But nonetheless, protecting the planet. maybe it shouldn't be that radical. So yeah, if you're up for something extremely heavy and

Ethan Hawk being super, super good in a movie, first reformed, good movie. Nice. The two Schrader movies that he wrote for Scorsese, I haven't seen. I haven't seen Taxi Driver or Raging Bull. Can I confess to that on this show? And I really want to see them both. I know he is a very celebrated writer, but yeah, he wrote Taxi Driver. I guess I should have said that in case people like don't know who Paul Schrader is by name recognition. He wrote Taxi Driver. That might help ground you in who this guy is. He wrote noted celebrated film that Kirk hasn't seen. We could watch those for our Scorsese Beans cast one day.

That'll be kind of interesting. That would be so many movies. Maybe we'll, maybe, maybe one day. Jason, what's your one more thing? Okay, so my one more thing was going to be this book I read and really enjoyed over vacation. But then this weekend happened. And this weekend, you guys, I am not exaggerating in the least bit when I say that this weekend was the craziest weekend of football of all time.

I think I've gathered that. I think I believe you. Seems that way. It's the playoffs. You guys, have you seen talk of this on social media? You can't miss, and on, you know, noted sports blog defector. They talked about it quite a bit. Yes.

Okay, so here's, let me set the stage. So it's the division around of the NFL playoffs, which means eight teams are entering this weekend, and only four teams can leave. So four games, one winner each. And some context here is that the NFL playoffs, unlike other sports, it's like a one game thing. So you lose once, you're out. You have to just win four games.

to make it to the Super Bowl or to win the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl is the fourth game. So unlike basketball, you have seven games, the seven game series to win, right? Baseball, you have five games or seven games. So, okay. So, oh, man, where do I even start? So on Saturday, we, like, immediately start with some crazy football. The Titans sacked Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow nine times.

You have the Bengals still won, still upset the Titans. Then the 49ers upset the Packers and kicked Aaron Rogers the hell out of there, noted anti-vaxxer Aaron Rogers as a fun, fun evening on Twitter and a wild game because they only won because of a punt return touchdown. It was crazy. Then Sunday comes along and Sunday things got a little out of control. So first of all, it was Rams Buccaneers. The L.A. Rams against Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And so the Rams entering this game were underdogs. They took an early lead and never let go. They didn't let go the first half. They were up 273 at one point.

Now, some people may remember a Super Bowl a few years ago when the Atlanta Falcons were up 283 against Tom Brady, and Tom Brady somehow came back to win the game. It was absurd. I think I won a bet against you that year, right? Didn't I win $33 from you? Because I bet that Tom Brady would win. No, I think you came on the Rams, the Rams Patriots game when the Patriots just... I just remember I should always bet on Tom Brady.

That's all. Maddie just wanted to remind us of a time she beat Jason in the best. No, no, no, no, no, no. It wasn't a bet against me. It was, you made a bet through my online site, and so you won. It wasn't me paying out. I was at your house watching the Super Bowl. Yes, yes, you won.

I put it in on my site for you, and so you won money. It wasn't money from me. It was from my bookie. Anyway, so, so people are like, people on social media are like, could it be? Could it be? Like, is this really possible that, like, Tom Brady is going to get just destroyed in this game? or could he have a comeback? And 273 quickly turned into 27, what was it, 276?

And then 2713. And soon Tom Brady had tied the freaking game. It was 2727. It was inexplicable. People were like, oh, my God, I can't believe this is happening again. But with just like 40 seconds left, the Rams came back and won it. So, woo, Tom Brady's out of there. It might be his last game.

We shall see. His reign is over. Three games of craziness could not be surpassed. Could they? Then we get to the Buffalo Bills. against the Kansas City Chiefs. Man, so going into this, these are two of the best quarterbacks in the league, probably the two best quarterbacks in the league. So people expected fireworks. People expected Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes to have this like epic duel back and forth.

And for a while, we didn't really get that. It was exciting. It went back and forth a lot. There's a great like 75 year old yard pass from Josh Allen for a touchdown, which was incredible. Some good stuff. But it wasn't like super crazy. It wasn't like a super high scoring game or anything like that. Then we get to the last couple of minutes. So let me set the scene. So the Buffalo Bills are down. It is 2621 Kansas City and the bills are driving and they have this long, long drive. They are trying to kill as much clock as possible because they do not want the chiefs to get the wall back. They just want to score and have that be the end of it. They wind up stalling at fourth and 13. They need 13 yards just to get a first down. Things are seeming dire because

it's under two minutes left, and so they don't have a lot of time to step the clock. They're probably going to lose if they don't convert here. Instead of just converting, Josh Allen throws a 27-yard pass to Gabriel Davis and scores a touchdown with a minute 54 left. So suddenly the bills are up, 29 and 26. But wait a minute. Too much time left for Patrick Mulhoms, 154. Patrick McHolmes takes it back in like three plays, five plays.

Went up throwing him past the Tyreek Hill who just zips across the entire field and scores a touchdown. He goes like this, he like puts his peace sign up at the end of it. He's like, see, yeah. Scores a touchdown with one minute and two seconds left. It's 29, 33, chiefs are out. But wait a minute, that's too much time for Josh Allen. Bill's come back. It takes six plays before Josh Allen gets his way all the way, including another fourth down,

gets his way all the way to the end zone, scores. Gabriel Davis, 19-yard touchdown pass, 36, 33 bills, 13 seconds left. but wait a minute that's too much time for Patrick Mahomes. 13 seconds left. It takes 12 seconds for Patrick Mahomes to get his team

into field goal range. Three plays, 44 yards. Harrison Bucker kicks a 49 yard field goal and they are off to overtime. And people were just like my heart was racing so fast. I was like, I cannot believe this just happened. With 13 seconds left,

like the chances of Bill's victory like on a victory predictor where close to 99% it seemed unfathomable that the homes could take them back in 13 seconds. So we go to overtime and we all know that so because of the NFL's stupid overtime rules

all you have to do is score a touchdown and then you win the other team doesn't even get to see the ball again and so we all kind of knew that whoever flipped the coin toss and got the coin toss right and got the ball first which is win more than able to score on the other team. Bill's called tails its heads chiefs get the ball. Chiefs immediately

immediately takes four minutes for them to score a touchdown and game is over without the bills even getting to see the field. So kind of an anti-climacting ending to that and raises questions about the NFL's overtime rules. But oh my God, what a game. 13 seconds left to score and to somehow like pull out the victory. It was just like if you look at the ESPN is this great chart that is like chances of victory. You look at it, it's like it's like peaks and valleys. It's crazy. The back and forth in that game was amazing.

There were a total of, what was it? Because there was a two-point conversion in there. So it was a total of something like 25 points scored in the final two minutes of that game, which is like unbelievable. It was, what a weekend. Like, I feel like I'm still feeling the high from last weekend's football. What an amazing sport. What a weekend.

Oh, my God. I love football. Nice, yeah. I've watched a couple of those highlights in there. They are pretty incredible, but not as much fun as hearing you recounted. And if you're curious, I lost a lot of money to the Packers. The Packers lost me a lot of money. but I won it all back because of the Chiefs and Bills going over and the Rams winning.

So decent weekend for me too. Congratulations to you. And that'll do it. That's another episode for us. Thanks as always to all of our members. And thanks all of you for listening. And yeah, we'll be back next week with more Triple Click. I'll see both of you then.

See you guys 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 to triple click at Maximumfund.org and find a link to our Discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist-owned. Audience-supported.