Triple Click - Why Do Players Like Crimson Desert More Than Critics Do? [Mailbag]

Episode Date: April 30, 2026

Why have players taken to Crimson Desert when critics haven't? Is the PS4 Pro really the PS5? And is it worth going to Summer Game Fest if you're not media? All those questions and more as the Triple Click gang opens up the mailbag! One More Thing: Kirk: Deadloch Season 2 Maddy: Summer of 69 (2025) Jason: Beef Season 2 Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick🚀  SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK:Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy📱 SOCIALS | @tripleclickpodInstagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

They say there's no two episodes of Triple Click exactly the same, but can they say that for sure? Because they'd have to get them all together. And obviously, that's not possible, even with computers. Welcome to Triple Click where we bring the games to you. This week, we're opening up the mailbag and taking some of your questions about whether to go to Summer Games Fest, classic and educational games that should be remade today and much more. I'm Jason Schreier. I'm Kirk Hamilton. And I'm Maddie Myers.

Hello. Hello. Hello, hello, my friends. We're back for another episode. A couple of things up front. First of all, it is maximum fun drives. Yes. We're not going to do our usual spiel up front.

Instead, we'll save it for a little bit later in the episode. But just so you know, now is a very good time to become a supporter of Triple Click. One of the thing is we are doing a little bit of traveling, or at least I'm doing a little bit of traveling this week. So we had to shuffle some things around. We will be talking about Saros, the new. PlayStation 5 exclusive next week. And this week we're doing a burning questions episode. One of the other things you should know as we record this is that on May 1st, which is the day after this episode airs at 8 p.m. Eastern, we will be doing a live stream where we play some games.

Maybe Kirk's play some games and we make fun of him. On the YouTube channel, Triple ClickPod. At Triple ClickPod is our YouTube channel. So check that out Friday night, May 1st at 8 p.m. Eastern. So yes, I'm sorry to everybody out there who will have to wait another week to find out how many times Kirk has died in Saros. It's still being calculated as you're listening to this. Yeah, I haven't played enough to be able to. I was about to say it's more than seven because it's going to be more than seven. But I haven't played enough to actually, it hasn't been seven yet.

Oh, okay. It remains to be seen. It could be seven still. We shall see. It could be six. So once again, we are going to take some listener questions. We have a nice, healthy backlog of great questions. So we appreciate all of you out there for sending them in.

If you want to send in a question, you can reach us at triple click at maximum fun.org. All right. On with it. Kirk, you want to start with this first one? Sure. This question comes from Kevin, who writes, Hi, Tripsies. I'm a dad in my late 40s who has picked up gaming as a serious hobby within the last three years.

I'm now at a point where I am listening to multiple gaming podcasts, following all the new releases in industry news and generally diving headfirst into all things gaming. The one thing I've never done, for which I have intense curiosity, is attend a gaming convention or expo. From what I hear, the experience sounds like a ton of fun. Unfortunately, given my hobby is still somewhat in its infancy, I don't have many gaming friends, so a trip would likely be solo.

In the last few weeks, I have been looking at Summer Game Fest and the events surrounding it. I know not many official events are open to the public, but would it be worth a two-day solo trip for those that are? And if not, are there any other conferences or events that you would recommend? Any advice would be appreciated? Absolutely not. I think we can fairly say don't go to Summer Game Fest. This is why we're answering this.

I can help walk Kevin and everyone else out there through some of the options, at least. So Summer Games Fest is now the big June event. It is replaced E3. and it is nothing like E3. E3 was a big, just kind of spectacle of a show all in the LA Convention Center. You could go there. There would be thousands of people mobbed in the LACC and a bunch of halls with games and big demos and splashy trailers and TV shows and just loud noises everywhere.

It was quite something to see. Summer Games Fest is not that. Summer Gameswe has two components. One is a live show. that Keeley puts on, the keynote where he announces stuff, and that is in a theater, I believe it's at the YouTube theater in Los Angeles. And then it has a media-only component called Play Days, where media gets to go on this little campus and play demos of games. So the public is not allowed to go to that. We'll not be able to go to that part of it. And that part is the only part that

actually lets you see new games and play stuff and play demos and actually talk to people. The keynote part is just a waste of time, I would say, for most people, unless you just want to sit in an audience and cheer for new game trailers, which certainly does not. You want to experience decibels. That's a good place to do. Oh, my God. Yeah, it was so loud that like, oh, man, Kirk, we were there a couple of years ago and we actually just left in the middle of it because it was so loud.

So, yeah, I've been- punishing. I've been watching that from the hotel that I stay at in Los Angeles in recent years. Maddie, I believe you, we watched it together last year. Yeah, I think we did. Yeah. So a couple of other options that come to mind. One is the Game Awards, which is also just kind of sitting in a big theater, but at least that has more of a social component to it. A lot of people wind up just hanging out in the LA Live area afterwards, including at the hotel bar nearby. And so you have an opportunity to kind of do some schmoozing, meet some people. You'll spot me at the hotel bar. You'll spot a lot of like famous gaming people. You might look at one side of you and see Reggie Fisameh. And then

another side you'll see Phil Spencer or something like that. Shigarin Miyamoto over there. Who knows? So that's one option. I would say maybe the best option is to go to something like Gamescom, which I've never been to. But from what I've heard, that is the show that's in Cologne, Germany. So it's a bit of a further track than Los Angeles for people in the U.S. But that is the show that from what I've heard captures that vibe of E3 and the kind of the large scale spectacle of everything. So maybe that's an option. And then of course there's like PACs and stuff. I haven't been to those in a while. Yeah. I haven't been to those in a while either. But I think PACS is kind of, there's probably one near where Kevin lives. If he's based in the

United States, there's one at least in some distance, some long driving distance. Those are fine. I feel like as a non-press person, Pax, is tough because the lines for each game demo are so long that I think you have to kind of plan your day around it if you want to play double and triple eight games there. But if you just want to play a whole bunch of new game demos and meet other people, then there's an indie game festival in Boston that I've been to a few times. It's called like the Boston Festival Indy Games and it's really fun. And just from either a press perspective or just a human perspective, you actually get to like directly meet indie game developers and how. have conversations with them at a ton of little booths. And that, I think, is a really cool vibe that is a little different from something like a Pax where you're just standing in line for a really long time to play like five seconds of, I don't know, Pragmattoe or whatever

it may be. I don't know. Whatever you can imagine. And that, it depends on what you're looking for, I think, out of, out of an event and what you want. I think if you want to make friends, then some of those smaller events like the indie game festivals, you probably have one local to a city near you that you can Google and find. And that might actually be the most fun that you could have. Yeah, I think that would be the only additional advice I would offer is to like lower the stakes and keep it as close to you as possible because, you know, going to something like a Pax by yourself, like Pax is probably more fun with your friends because then you're waiting in line, but you're waiting in line with your friends. Like it is still, you're going to the hotel together.

You're sitting around in the beanbags, you know, playing Switch together. Like there is kind of, there's plenty of opportunities for being social. But if you're on your own, I could imagine it actually feeling kind of isolating or like a bummer, depending on the experience you wind up having. Like you could still kind of feel alone in a crowd, and that might be a bummer. Where, you know, looking at your local town, you know, Kevin doesn't talk about where he lives, but there might just be like a game night, a tabletop night at a game shop that you could go to where you kind of start meeting people who are into this kind of stuff. And then maybe that game shop does a live stream where they watch the game awards and you can go hang out and

you know, there's a bar where they do that and you hear about it through people you're kind of meeting there. And then you can like have a beer and watch the game awards and get to know some people. And it's kind of like a lower key social environment with like a lower degree of difficulty where it isn't like, okay, I bought this ticket. I bought a plane ticket. I'm in a hotel. I don't know anyone here. And you're kind of going back to your hotel alone. And it's like, damn, I didn't meet anyone.

Like I could just imagine it kind of, it's a little harder to make it work in that environment. So maybe, yeah, try local. I think local, starting local is a good idea. in general. Yeah, I think that's good advice. There's also very specific conventions and get-togethers and fan events. So, for example, as this episode airs, I will have just gone to Final Fantasy 14 fan fest in Anaheim, California, which I imagine if you are a big fan of Final Fantasy 14, that is like way up your alley. Similarly, there's BlizzCon if you're a big fan of Overwatch or Warcraft or Starcraft and those feel a little bit more kind of accommodating for if you're a big fan of something,

but you don't know a lot of people. Maybe that's a good opportunity to go and meet other big Starcraft heads or whatever. So that might be an option. But yeah, local is probably the best bet. Back of the day, I would have said, like if this was 2018, I would have said, yeah, I think you should go check out E3. But there's nothing that's really replaced that in terms of just the sheer spectacle of it all. Yeah. All right. Next question. Maddie, can you read this one? Sure. This one is from Gray, who writes, long-time listener, first time emailing. Love the show so much. I'd be really curious to hear about your thoughts on the reception Crimson Desert has received since release and the big difference between the review scores from traditional media outlets and the way the game has been embraced by gamers, including lowercase G gamers like myself.

Jason, I know you fell off quickly, totally valid. Those opening hours are pretty rough. But I, like my many others have loved the sense of adventure and exploration. Why do the three of you think there has been such a big difference between the review scores and the way the game is actually been received? All the best to you all. P.S., please come do a live show in the UK. I hope we can. I would love to.

Yeah, man, one day. So what do we think? Yeah, what do we think? This is an interesting one. I mean, I think there's a narrative with games like this that I think it's important to consider the type of game that Crimson Desert is. So what Gray is talking about is that Crimson Desert did not get very strong reviews. There are plenty of people who have been like, you know, it's really pretty, but there's

not a lot going on. It seems like it was written by ChatGPT. There's like no. 77 on Metacritic. Yeah, 77 on Metacritic. I played like an hour of this because I had a copy, a press copy and was just like, okay, well, I'll try this out. I would come back to it.

This is the kind of thing I could see myself getting into. But I think this kind of game, like Crimson Desert is very much a game where they did everything. Like it has every mechanic ever. You can fly. There's like gliding. There's puzzles. There's like combat. There's like Souls kind of combat.

And it's a gigantic open world. It's incredibly pretty. There's like a billion just endless side quests that you can do. You can explore and find little hidden things. There are, I think, some genuinely cool little things hidden in this game. That's the exact kind of game to me that seems most primed for a reviewer. to play it and be like, man, this main character sucks, this writing is pretty mid, that it wastes a lot of your time, and to just be like, whatever, seven out of ten, I don't really

like this. And then for a lot of players to be like, I wanted exactly this. Like I wanted a just massive, infinite sort of, you know, cornucopia of content that I can experience. So, yeah, basically some people just want, like, a game with just a ton to do in it that it just lets them play and it's pretty fun and it's beautiful looking. And like, that's what a lot of people who play video games just kind of want. that's also the kind of thing that a lot of critics are, I think, more likely to kind of dismiss because of, like, the specific things that the game does well versus the things it doesn't do well. I don't know if that's necessarily true.

I mean, Breath of the Wild is a game where you just have a lot of stuff to do and it's fun to play and generally pleasing and, like... Right, but it's like, the specific weaknesses are, like, part of it. Like, the Crimson Desert has this just, like, total nothing burger story and main character, and then you have to actually really dig into it to some. start to, you know, understand what actually makes the, like, where the cool stuff is. Like, I don't know, like, it's a specific type of game that winds up having this reaction, right? Like, there is a reason that Crimson Desert is having this, like, this sort of split thing

between people who really like playing it and critics and not games in other styles or with, like, that other games, I guess, that have gotten a 77 on Metacritic. It's, like, particular to this, to some things about Crimson Desert. Do you think maybe it's because of just the inherent limitations? of reviewing a game, which are that you only have a limited time. And so if a game starts slow or has the first five to ten hours that are bad, it's really hard to overcome that first impression, especially if you're cramming in a whole lot of time. And I mean, these are all the pitfalls that we describe constantly. And it's harder to notice or even appreciate some of the

little things about the game that might be interesting in that context where you're already like, this isn't hitting me right. Because of it. it requires you to take several weeks of time to care more. I mean, for what it's worth, like, IGN, I think they said they played 110 hours. Yeah, this is part of why I'm hesitant to even make my case because I'm like, I don't know if I think. Yeah, I don't think this is a case where like critics did give it a chance. Like, I mean, I said up front and I said on social media that I only played a couple hours and really bounced off of it hard, but I didn't review the game. I mean, people who reviewed it, I think gave it a much more fair shake. So I don't know if that's

necessarily it. I don't know. I guess I haven't played enough to put my finger on why, but I have talked to friends who are into it. And yeah, the way they describe it, it sounds like one of those games where it's just really fun for people to just kind of turn their brain off and just go and do stuff for a while. It's very much like a just doing stuff kind of game. I also, I mean, a lot of people have said, like those opening hours are just really bad, and then it gets much better after chapter three, which I mean, okay, fair enough. I didn't feel incentivized to play much more than that.

But that's why I was very upfront about only having played a couple hours before I stopped. Yeah, I think it's something related to the size of the game for sure. Like, I'm thinking of that old Mad Max game that came out in the 2010. Oh, yeah, that's kind of like a cold hit now, right? It's right. It's the quintessential example of this kind of game where it gets its high 70s maybe or low 80s on Metacritic.

And critics kind of dismiss it as like, ah, it's sort of a mid, you know, Check the Box's Open World game. And then a lot of people are like, yeah, but I love Check the Boxes Open World games. And it's really pretty, and it's set in Mad Max, and it's cool, and it's great. And then it winds up kind of having a longer life and doing better. And Crimson Desert strikes me as a game like that. And I also think some people really do love a game that's just beautiful looking, and that game is, like, incredible looking. Like, it's just graphically amazing. And, like, that does still sell game.

It seems that there are, I think a lot of people were drawn to it because when you see it on YouTube and someone's like, you know, I don't know, gliding around and exploding building while a dragon is overhead and landing and getting in its crazy fight. And you're like, what is this game? I mean, I watched so much footage of it and thought, this looks amazing. What the hell? And then playing it, you know, there's kind of a disconnect for me because the writing and the main character are like so not working for me. But I think that stuff kind of starts mattering less than where you play. and it seems like a lot of people got it and just put in the time to kind of find the coolest things about it

and they really like it. It's not just the writing and the story that I feel like at least the opening hours of this game week. I mean, you're playing and it's just completely incoherent. Like, you'll just have these quest objectives pop up that'll just be like, go give money to the beggar. Sorry, I'm counting that as writing. There's no context for anything you're doing.

You're just doing things and not actually doing life. Yeah, it's a narrative design problem. Yeah. There isn't a person to be like, go over and talk to this guy. It just says go talk to this. this guy. It does speak to the kind of the importance that reviewers and critics, and I think maybe a lot of normal players, too, place on narrative because a close comparison to this game is Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, which is a game that also has just a ton of stuff to do, but the writing is so much better

than it is in Crimson Desert and the storytelling and the design and the way that it all is all crafted around these two main characters who are very compelling, that I think that people really liked it more. And that game was a game of the year. nominee and received rave reviews from critics. So maybe that, maybe that, maybe it's the answer here is just that critics in particular place more value on story than your average player might. Maybe that's the answer. I don't know. Yeah, it could be. Yeah. It's an interesting, it's an interesting vibe in that game for sure. It felt almost as though my character was in a dream and was like having to deduce what the divine powers wanted him to do.

The divine powers being the game developers themselves. Well, no, but actually, Actually, it is kind of the gods, too. Like, your character is sort of chosen by the divine powers. And there's this feeling of, like, you walk into a town and you just kind of are supposed to go over here because you just are. And you're supposed to go talk to this guy because then when you talk to him, he reveals that actually, you know, he's magical and he, like, starts glowing and tells you, oh, you have a quest and then vanishes. It's like, oh, you helped me, even though you didn't have to. Right. You were a hero.

It almost feels like you're dropped into a sort of, like, a biblical story where you're having to act out the wrong. role of the like blessed, you know, whoever, like the prophet, without being really told what to do because the prophet wouldn't know what to do. It has a very interesting thing to it that I don't know if it holds up or if that's true throughout the game. I really found it to be this like very strange experience of like everyone else knows what's going on, but almost like the gods are messing with me. Like in there, they're having me go and like talk to this cat that turns out to be a magical cat. And there was no way for me to know that. It just sort of happened. But I had to talk to it because if I didn't talk to it, it wouldn't have happened. I don't know.

there's a very strange chicken and egg thing going on with the narrative design of the game. All right. Next question. This is from Morgan. Morgan writes, Longtime listener, first time, asker.

I just finished a book about invented languages called from Elvish to Klingon, where one of the chapters is about fake languages and video games. The chapter discusses the different purposes between in-game languages like Dini from missed and game jargon like leit speak. It was an interesting, if very dry, read. Here's my question. What is your favorite fake languages? language from video games. Oh, man.

I think, so I have one, I have a couple actually, but I would just mention Chance of Cynar, the game from a few years ago. Oh, such a good game. So this is a game about languages, and it has several invented languages within it. And you have to kind of learn how to translate from one language to another,

and the whole puzzle of the game is figuring out from context clues what people are saying, and then also figuring out how to kind of help them communicate with one another depending on their language. And that is for me, like, it's not only a series of cool invented languages, but also they really function as languages and the central design of the game is built around figuring out what they mean and figuring out how to translate between them, which I just think is so cool. So I feel like it is very much worth mentioning that game in this context. Yeah, that's a great poll. I just thought of Simlish reading this, which is a very

similar to English kind of a language, but just sounds like fake English that's created for the same. Is that consistent or is that just like made up noises every time? I think it's consistent. A little consistent. Yeah, there's certain phrases that translate to mean specific things that are used over and over. I don't know if anybody, I don't know if it's like Klingon or Elvish where you could learn enough words that you carry on a conversation. But yeah, it is great. And I do think that part of the charm of a fake language is like, do you want to listen to it for a long time, especially if you're playing a video game for many hours as the Sims requires necessitates, I would say. That and I don't know, the Mass Effect characters have some pretty fun ways of speaking. They're all inspired

by Star Trek characters, so no surprise there, I suppose. But that was the other franchise I thought of in reading this. I have two answers, two very different kinds of languages that you play, that allow you to experience them in different ways. One is ERAGN from Blueprints, which came out last year, and that's a game where learning that language is an important part of solving puzzles and getting deep into the mystery. And there's even a whole letter that you can translate

and some story lore that you get out of that and other bits and pieces here and there. Puns using it. It's pretty brilliant by the end of the day. And the other is All Bed in Final Fantasy 10, which is a very different type of language to uncover because you uncover that by learning each of the 26 letters, each of which translates to another, kind of like a code. And you do that by finding these objects throughout the game that are Albed translators, one per letter,

which is a much more just kind of straightforward mechanical way to learn a language. But still is very little, very fun to get those little endorphin rushes of like discovering a new letter and realizing you'll be able to understand more of the al-Bed language as you go and trying to find all 26 throughout the game. So two very different approaches that I enjoyed in different ways. Yeah, it is fun when games do that, like the Fez method, where over time you start to actually learn what a secret code means just by dint of seeing. Or tunic, you know, or tunic, yeah,

by dint of seeing the symbols over and over, even if they aren't necessarily a language so much as a secret code, you still start feeling really smart over time. I think that can be really rewarding in a way that a game can take advantage of. All right. Next question, Kirk. Let's see. Okay, so this comes from Hussein, who writes,

math blasters, but as a first-person shooter. Recently, I was imagining what math blasters would look like if it was brought back. I had played it way back on a 2001 PC after my mom bought a copy at Marshalls. In order to progress levels, you'd have to solve math equations, and the numbers you'd need would be scattered across the level. I'm not describing it well. I don't know. I think you did a pretty good job, Hussein.

That's pretty much math blasters. Hussein continues, I then thought, what if it got revamped as an FPS where reloading needed math equations or you'd have to take down specific enemies. In order to take down specific enemies, it required knowing what math formula would be needed. Anyways, what classic educational game

would you bring back and revamp? Oregon Trail, gritty reboot. Oregon Trail AAA. I can't believe no one's Is it? It's not just Red Dead Redemption

2? I guess so. Well, I guess you get tuberculosis in Red Dead 2 instead of dysentary but other than that, yeah.

I mean, the benefit of Oregon Trail is that you could name your party after your friends. So I feel like the gritty reboot allows you to do

a full character creator where you can actually make them look like people you know and you get to like put yourself in the game sim style but it's gritty

so they can all die of dysentery, et cetera. And you get to see their gravestones. Yeah, I actually had like sort of an updated version of Oregon Trail. I think I may have talked about this on our entutainment bonus episode that we did a while back

where we talked about games we played as children that had a pretty complex first person shooter game that was part of the hunting mini game. And like the original version of Oregon Trail, you're like barely moving those picks all around and moving the crosshairs over the Buffalo. But like my version on my home computer was like a first person shooter. And that was like how child me learned I liked those. So I feel like there's a lot of potential there. It's essentially just a hunting, hunting game.

So I don't know. I don't see why it couldn't work. It's already been remade so many times that why not one more, right? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I would also shout out that episode we make. Was it a bonus episode that one about entertainment games? I think we put it in the main feed eventually because it was a favorite of ours. We'll throw a link to that in the show notes because we talked about this on an episode.

And I'll just throw out there that the Carmen San Diego games. Yes. I think could be really cool. if they were, you know, done up in a modern style, a kind of either a point-and-click adventure or a, like, 3D adventure where you have certain spaces all around the world that you're exploring, trying to find clues, interviewing people. I don't know. There's a lot of different ways you could go with it. That could be pretty cool. Orridden by way of Carmen San Diego.

Oh, that would be pretty neat. The master of heights. What if it's like a single location? What if it's aware in time is Carmen San Diego? And they really, there's one detailed single location, but you have a time machine and you're warping through different time periods. So you're learning history, you're learning about what's happening in the outside world, but you're watching this one space kind of change, which could make it a little, like, less developmentally, like sort of ambitious, like overly ambitious, where a time traveling world, like globe-trotting mystery game could probably be pretty hard to make.

If it was one location, maybe, but a bunch of different eras in time, I think that would do a good job of teaching kids about, you know, historical periods. That could be really cool. How about Mario is Missing, remade for Modern for the Swedish? too. It's just the same game. I never played Mario was missing. Oh man, it is a truly terrible game.

Mario is missing. I actually, I played it for, well, I played as a kid, but also for Get Played a few years ago. Back when that was called, How did this get, how did this get played? It was all bad games.

I went on the show and talked about Mario's missing. There was also, there was a series that I enjoyed as a kid called like Dr. Brain, the island of Dr. Brain, the castle of Dr. Brain. Those were always fun. Those were kind of,

collections of puzzle games, almost like come to think of it, kind of like Professor Leighton, I guess that's a modern version of those. Yeah. And I mean, those games are pretty educational. I mean, Professor Leighton is really a lot of like math and pattern recognition and sort of lateral thinking and creative problem solving. Like they're not teaching you like the stuff you need to pass the standardized tests or whatever, but it's, it is pretty educational.

It's more than just teaching you how to play. Like it's teaching you how to think creatively, which is probably pretty great for kids to play. Mm-hmm. All right, let's keep going. Maddie, you want to read this next one? Sure. This is from Joe who writes, hey, TC Gang. Let's try that again. Hey, TC Gang. Love the state of game consoles episode. Wanted to offer a take to see if you would be up for debating it. My take. The PS4 Pro disrupted game console release timelines.

It was the first console in the 21st century that provided a significant graphical update in a mid-cycle refresh, 180p to 4K HDR. No other mid-cycle refresh did this beforehand, which is why the PS5's launch felt lukewarm, quote-unquote, comparatively. A wacky way to sum this up, the PS-4 Pro is the actual PS-5. The PS5 is essentially a mid-cycle refresh, and the PS5 Pro is the PS6 in disguise. Thoughts? P.S. has been listening since this was green days, and you threw your hands down the best video game podcast out there. Would love to go to a live episode if you're ever in Minneapolis.

I love all the suggestions. I know. I love these. I love these places. UK, Minneapolis. I feel like we should do like a demographic survey or something and maybe that would be fun. Yeah. But hey, what do we think?

What do we think of Joe's... The PS4 Pro is the PS5 and the PS5 Pro is the PS6 in disguise. I think there's something here in the sense that these iterations have just made it way less interesting and exciting to get a new piece of hardware because the power increases only so much. It makes it feel more like phone iterations. than console iterations. I guess the big difference, though, is that there were no games that only ran on PS4 Pro,

whereas there were games, not many, but there were games that ran only on PS5. Similarly, now there's a PS5 Pro. There's nothing that only runs on PS5 Pro. So without that playing into it, it's not really, it doesn't, you can't really make much of a case as far as different iterations of the console because at the end of the day,

the exclusives are the only thing that separates these things from like, I don't know, your computer, right? And that's why the Xbox has just fallen off and that's why they're essentially just making a new computers because they've given up on this idea of exclusives. So it's hard to make

much of a case that the PS4 Pro is that significantly different, as much as I appreciate the take. You know, what was the 3DS? There was like a was it the new 3DS? What was it The new 3DS. Yeah, that had like, literally called the new 3DS.

That was the same era. And that had some exclusive games, right? Didn't it? Because it had that second little nub like for a thumbs to. Yeah, it had like three total. So that kind of fits into this conversation at least. But it had exclusives. And it was a console upgrade.

So there were four physical new exclusive games. Zeno Blades. So that is maybe. that's definitely worth talking about it. There were just like a few. It's like less than 15 I believe new new 3DS exclusives. So okay okay so now that's just fucking weird

I'm thinking about how that fits in though because I think that gives some context to Joe's question because here's the thing there was a new 3DS but the next Nintendo console was not just another new 3DS it was the switch right it was a totally different console like it was a completely different thing

So as a result, it was like there wasn't this one unbroken chain the way that there is with PlayStation's. So the question like doesn't really apply in the same way. You can't say, oh, that new 3DS. Well, that was kind of a bridge between the 3DS and the switch. Yeah, that doesn't really feel true because the switch is just dramatically different piece of hardware. The thing, part of what Joe is getting at it, part of what's going on here is that like the PlayStation is just kind of always the same at this point. It is just kind of a gaming PC that runs proprietary software and plugs into your TV. And so the 4, the 4 Pro, the 5, the 5 Pro, it's just kind of like, it's all kind of a slightly faster version of the same thing.

And because Sony just has this one console that they make in this one line, it feels a lot more like it's all semantics. Well, what are we calling it? Is it the PS5 Pro or is it the PS6? Like, it's just kind of down to what they called it. Well, but it's down to what games play on it. That's true. But there's like, it feels kind of anticlimactic or it feels sort of disappointing to get this like mid-sumatic. cycle refresh because it's just a little bit faster.

And then we get the PS6 that'll play all of the old games. Like the exclusives on the new console are kind of less of a selling point because the console is like fundamentally mostly unchanged. So I think what Joe is arguing is that like the PS5 felt lukewarm comparatively uses the word lukewarm because the PS4 Pro came out. And I don't really buy that. I think the PS5 felt lukewarm for a couple of reasons. One is that there weren't a ton of exclusive games for it, so you didn't really need to get one unless at launch you really wanted to play Demon Souls.

And the other thing is that the graphical improvements have not made humongous strides. And like we mentioned a couple of weeks ago, when we talked about the state of consoles, Red Dead 2 is still one of the best looking games out there. And that runs on the PlayStation 4. And the reason I don't buy this argument is because that game looks just as good on the PlayStation 4 original. like obviously the PS4 Pro makes it look better but when you're talking about the lack of graphical improvements if you compare Red Dead 2 running on the PS4 original

to just a game running on the PS5 a modern game running on the PS5 it is not a huge increase the way it is from say the PS3 era to the PS4 era and I don't think getting a mid gen refresh that lets you run games at higher frame rates and higher resolution

really makes much of a difference there because we're not really talking about technical specs like frame rate and resolution. We're talking about the actual graphical fidelity and how that hasn't made much of a leap. If anything, the biggest leap was the solid state drive, as we talked about and like the faster loading screens, and that really did feel like it distinguished the PS5 from previous consoles. Yeah, I remember that making a big difference for me, although my problem in evaluating that is that I didn't have a PS4 pro. So I remember back when I got the PS5, I was playing. Assassin's Creed must have been Odyssey on the PS4 and then put it on the PS5 and was like,

oh my God, finally the game is loading. I'm not just sitting here waiting to play the game. And I remember feeling like that was really nice, was that I could just play the freaking video game. And like that was a big difference to me. But it's like, yeah, in theory, it looked, it looked pretty good. I could still play it on the PS4. You could certainly make the argument I didn't need the PS5, but that was the most noticeable change. For me, I remember the most noticeable change was just that my console didn't sound like a jet engine taking off anymore. That was the big thing with the PS4

where playing God of War, I think it was on the PS4 Pro. I mean, I'm sure it ran at a higher frame rate but mostly it was just like you could hear the game over the because the console didn't just have fans running at maximum RPM at all times to keep from melting. All right. Let's get

to this next question. This is from Ewen. Ewan writes, I'm not usually a big nonfiction book reader, but I really enjoyed Jason's books. And now I'm yearning for more. Reading for Press Resent, in particular, I've been noticing a bunch of parallels in the podcast industry where I work. Maybe that's your next journalistic endeavor. As far as I know, Kirk and Maddie have yet to publish any books.

Do you guys have any plans for that? And what would you choose to write about? Well, Kirk, Maddie, let's put you guys on the spot. Your first, Maddie, go ahead. But I can't, okay, I don't want to, I will say this. I am working on something, but I don't want to say what it is yet. But I will say, I talked on this show a while back about wanting to write a book and how difficult it seems and how lonely it is and how much I really like working with a team of people. It's part of why when I founded mothership, I did it with a colleague. And it's why I enjoy hosting this podcast of the two of you instead of doing something all by myself. And I am working on something by myself, and it is very difficult.

It is definitely a change. But part of why I'm doing a nonfiction reported project is because it means that in my head, in my heart, much like Jason's books, it's kind of like a group project in a way. And it isn't like I'm writing it. Like I think writing a novel or a memoir would be even lonelier for me, but I really enjoy talking to people and learning about people and I'm very curious about a lot of things. And that drives me and the work that I do. And Jason, I don't know if you feel this way, but I feel like that's the most fun part of any

extended reporting project or book in this case is getting to talk to people and learn about something I didn't already know about. And hopefully I'll get to say what it is eventually. But for now, I'll just say I'm working on it. And I'm excited to work on something like this. Yeah. What would you, what book would you? write about if you, aside from the one that you're currently doing. Sure. I will, I can describe a book

concept I had that I didn't sell, which was that a few years ago, I really wanted to write about the intersection of Twitch streaming and Camgirls and how there's like a pretty straight line between those two forms of work and how we owe a lot of how we see personas online to like very early internet sex work. And I think that's really fascinating. And I still think that's really fascinating as like a linchpin of the way the intranet works now is that we're all performers. And I think the rise of only fans has made that really clear. And like that's something about internet culture and also games and playing games and you know the hot tub met on Twitch, all that stuff that I still think is really interesting. And and like anything else would involve me talking to a lot of people about something that I don't do and that I don't know a lot about but which I think is really interesting. But yeah, anything I write, it's going to have something to do with games. It's like one of my favorite topics to think about and talk about. So there's no real surprise there.

I would read that. Maddie, have you read or have you watched Margot's Got Money Troubles, the new Apple show? No, I'll check it out. Is that the premise of it? No, it's based on a book that Emily just read and we started watching it. But it's about a young woman who starts doing only fans. It's El Fanning and like Michelle Fiper. It's like an all-star cast.

Oh, that's amazing. I love El Fanning. But there's kind of like this rise of only fan-centric fiction because only fans has become such a large part of culture. Yeah. And it's really interesting. And that book idea sounds amazing. Like I would read the hell out of that. You should totally write it at some point.

It's interesting how much, I mean, we've kind of watched in our lifetime, like, perspectives change on sex work for the better in my view. And also perspectives change on unions for the better in kind of a similar time period in like workers' rights generally. And I think that's like something that five, ten years ago I never would have imagined was possible. And it gives me some hope for the work. honestly, to be like, wow, like times have really changed and people really talk about labor in a really different way than they did five, ten years ago. That's neat. Yeah, it is neat. Only fans have been a very revolutionary force in a way that is only now being understood, I think, by mainstream culture. Kirk, what's your answer to this? Oh, I would write a book about music. I'm not writing one right now. There's a few things I might write. One would be more of a technical book, like an educational book. That's a kind of a music theory thing. tied to Strong Songs, I will write this at some point, basically the Strong Songs Music Theory Companion, where at this point I've made 170-something episodes of that show, and I've covered every foundational music theory topic multiple times. So if I were to make a music theory book that was kind of

explaining all, you know, music theory, just 101, but then to tie it to the show in a way that I could like reference each episode, you know, while the Circle of Fourths, you know, goodbye Yellow Brick Road has like the Circle of Fourths is in that. I think that would be a really fun book to write. That's like, I don't, there would be some, I'd talk to some people for that probably, but it wouldn't be like that kind of bookbook. It would be more of like a, you know, theory textbook that accompanies my podcast. But I would love to write a book that is just about music. I think maybe I could imagine starting with something kind of broader that covers a lot of different aspects of music and understanding and appreciating it.

And then just talk to all my favorite musicians and producers and people and get them all in. in the book. But then again, I know that it helps to have a specific angle. So, you know, picking just like an album or an artist or something to write a kind of definitive account about, and there are so many people that I admire that haven't had that book written about them. Man, I'm working on an episode right now about Kind of Blue, the Miles Davis album. And I'm reading Ashley Khan's book. This is Ashley Khan is a well-known jazz historian. He wrote a book. It's just like, Kind of Blue, The Making of the Miles Davis masterpiece. And he went, and just talked to everyone who is still alive.

It's an amazing book. I'm like, dude, this is so cool. Like, just reading this very detailed account, this really well-reported account of the making of this famous album. And I'm like, man, there could be a book like this about so many different albums. And that would be pretty fun.

I don't think that's where I'll start, but I could see myself writing a book like that one day. Very cool. Just don't make it an oral history. I really don't. I prefer reading narratives to oral histories. No, I did just read an oral history of like this horrible company retreat gone wrong in Honduras.

I'll find it in Lincoln and the show notes. It was very great. It was a great read. But I wouldn't write a book. Yeah, oral histories can be awesome sometimes, but maybe not a whole book. Jason, Jason, are you going to tease whatever you're working on since we've all tried to do that? No. No?

Okay, fine. Secrets are sealed. Secrets. I mean, I've already written three books. You guys need more? Come on. Three is enough. Yeah, we all need more.

No, it's never enough. End those content, Jason. Never enough. The grind must go on. You've got to feed the machine. Let's do one more question. Kirk, is it your turn? Yeah.

This is Naomi. Naomi writes, Hey, listen, many games have companions or guide characters who travel with you on your adventures and give hints from afar. I'm thinking about Navi from Akorina, the radio friends in a Metal Gear game, or even a pet like Knicks in Star Wars Outlaws. My question is, if you were forced to have a character like this with you to go about your day, which one would you pick and why? Also, thanks, as always for the show. I often make sure I have one saved as a weekend treat to myself. Well, thanks, Naomi.

We're glad you like the show. Yeah, what do you guys say? I think it would be nice to have the last guardian just hanging out with you all the time. Just, like, destroying every building. A luck dragon or whatever. Destroying every building you walk into, like, cracking open doors, just like leveling houses. You just have this massive creature just following you around. Wow.

As someone who does have a slightly massive creature following me around in my house, It would be awesome if she were even more massive. And destroying things? How many things that she destroyed? So many things, Jason. Just by wagging her tail, I'm sure. Yeah, and slobbering on them. If Appa was the size of a luck dragon and was just identical to the way that she is now.

She was the size of Appa, really, from the last year. Yeah, I was just going to say Lieutenant Kim Kitsaragi. I feel like I need somebody just quietly calling me out for various foibles. To be your moral compass. In my life, I think that's not dissimilar from the person I married in a lot of ways. He just be like, Maddie, come on. Maddie, what are you doing? He just shakes his head and disappointment.

We're wearing a cool jacket. That's a good one. I think I would pick Ghost from Destiny, but specifically Peter Dinklage Ghost, not Nolan North Ghost, because I want that kind of melancholy vibe that the Dinklebot brought to early Destiny. And Ghost is also really convenient, the opposite of the Last Guardian, because he just material. realizes when it's time to talk to you. Also, he can bring you back to life. I mean, that's a pretty nice.

It would mean that I'm an immortal, undead soldier. But just to have him kind of, you know, I'm like hiking up Mount Tabor, and he just appears and says, ah, Tabor, in the day this used to be as a space station, as far as the eyes can see. Sort of waxing, poetic about whatever I'm looking at. And then the hive got here. Right. And I'd be like, oh, I have to get back to record for triple click.

It's almost time. And he'd say. Time. Time. That can't be right. And it would be wonderful. So that's my pick. It would be ghost from Destiny. Okay, great. All right. That is it for the mailbag. Once again, you can send us questions at triple click at maximum fun.org for future episodes. We're going to take a little break where we talk about Max Fun and how cool it is and why you should support us for Maximum Fun Drive.

And then we'll be back with one or thing. All right, Kirk, Maddie. It is maximum fun drive. This is the final week of our annual pledge drive that our network does. For those of you out there who don't know, we are a listener-supported podcast. We're part of the Maximum Fun Network. And that means that we make the show. The show is only possible because of people out there who subscribe.

And this is a particularly good time to subscribe because not only do you get our normal perk, which is bonus episodes every single month about all sorts of things, including one where we just ran about the Sopranos, season two and three, which is very fun. A mega-sized soprano. You also get a bunch of cool stuff. If you pledge, if you join at, or upgrade to $10 a month,

you get a triple-click keychain, which is super cool, designed by Tom DJ. It's really awesome, and it's a keychain. We had a bunch of pins that we made in the past, and now we're doing a keychain. It's really cool. I'm excited to get one. Just gradually, we're taking over all of your pockets.

Yeah, and we can take over even more depending on what other levels you might choose to join that. That's true. You could have your bag. You joined a $20 a month. Definitely don't think of this as that you're paying to become a walking advertisement for triple click. Don't think about it that way. No, no, no, no. Actually, you shouldn't anyway because really what you're paying for is for all of us to have significantly more complicated taxes, or just something that we've been talking about.

Yeah, don't pay because we don't want. Many weeks. No, no. You should definitely support us. So, yeah, the bonus episodes are great. And then you also get this keychain. The higher you get, the more cool stuff, you get $20 a month. You get a canvas travel bag or a Pfizer.

$35 a month. You get a water bottle. But realistically, I think $10 a month is probably where most people want to go. That, to me, feels like a good sweet spot. You get a key chain. You get bonus episodes. Pretty cool, I got to say. Pretty cool.

A bargain in my view. Yeah, I do so. wonderful work we do for you. Do you think that anyone has ever seen a keychain that someone is carrying with like a podcast name on it and been like, what's that? I'm going to go check that up. And they get on their phone and like Google it. Yes, all the time, Kurt.

Every day, multiple times a day it's happening. I've seen people like with stickers on the back of their laptops and be like, oh, that's a funny name. Like what is that thing that they're like advertising there? Keychain is hard to see because how often are. Like how much time do you actually get to spot someone's keychain unless they're leaving their keys on the table while they're sitting and doing something? Otherwise, usually you just kind of take out your keys for a second. So it's not really something you would get.

That's a good point. I guess I'll probably just like attach mine to my bag and won't even put my keys on. You could put a keychain on a zipper on your bag and then make it easier to zip and unzip. That's something I like to do with extra key chains. I'll do that as the ongoing triple click blingification of my bag. Exactly. Eventually. Eventually just be covered in shiny triple click things.

It's funny to do that with your own podcast's merch. I do feel like for our listeners, it's like cooler because they're repping that they're fans of the show. But like for us doing it, it's like, yeah, I make this. I make my own joke. It's less cool with each one that I put on. You're a fan of the show too. I'm just kidding.

I am a fan of our show. It's really cool. We are in the band and we're wearing our own fan t-shirt to our own concert. Yeah. Well, I mean, what are you going to do? And yeah, and you get all these bonus episodes. We have dozens of bonus episodes that we've recorded over the years. You can check those.

out. We talk about shows and books and movies and all sorts of cool stuff. We talk about cooking and life and sometimes we do silly things like try to figure out which in which is the best October in history for video games. It's a classic. Yeah, for the best October. And this year we've done, we talked about Resident Evil Requiem. That was a really fun bonus episode. Like I mentioned, we've been talking about the Sopranos. So most recent is season two and three. So yeah, become a member upgrade, help us out make this show possible. We don't do ads here at Triple Click. We just do listener support. And we appreciate our listeners out there who make it possible for us not to do ads and still make this show financially viable for us. So thank you out there. Yes,

thank you, Paul. Yeah, thanks. All right. Let's get back to the show. And we are back. It is time for one more thing. Maddie, start us off. Sure. So my one more thing, is a very funny movie that I watched. It's directed and written by a woman named Jillian Bell, first time director. And it's really funny. It's called Summer of 69, like the song. And it is about a very socially awkward high school girl who has a crush on a boy, a very popular boy, football player boy, and she has zero sexual experience. But she hears through the grape line that this popular boy's favorite position is 69ing. And so-

Is it 19669 in this movie? No, it's the present day. Okay. It's the present day. And so she, despite having never so much as kissed a boy, is like, I am going to somehow figure out how to become so sexually experienced as to seduce and 69 with this boy. And it is so funny.

It involves kind of a series of madcap events whereby she becomes very good friends with this woman who is a professional stripper and hires this woman to teach her about sex and to teach her sex education. And these two women have this kind of like older sisterly younger sister relationship that develops over the course of the film. it's like, I mean, it's directed and written by a woman, so it, like, comes with a lot of heart and care about, like, how that relationship could be really positive. And, like, it's not a mockery of the idea of, like, this young girl really wanting to learn these things. And it's like, I don't know, it's, like, respectful and also really, really funny at the same time in a lot of ways that surprised me. And it's just, it's, it's really endearing. I thought all the performances were great. It has kind of like an indie movie vibe. It's, like, very, few characters in it and pretty straightforward. If you like sex comedies, especially like a woman-centric, girlhood-centric sex comedy, you'll really enjoy this. It was really hilarious. It's called Summer of 69. And I recommend it. I think we watched it on Hulu, which, yeah, Hulu also distributed it. So that's probably where it still is. It's great. Sounds silly. Recommended. Yeah, that sounds good. Kirk, What's your one more thing?

My One More Thing is a very funny TV show that we just finished watching the second season of Deadlock, which is streaming on Amazon. And I believe that I made Deadlock Season 1, my One more thing back when I watched it. You did, yeah. And yeah, so hopefully some people out there watched it. Not to be confused with the Valve game that has not been announced yet. It's spelled differently. Yes, this is Deadlock, L-O-C-H, which the first season took place in Tasmania. This is an Australian comedy.

The first season took place in Tasmania in, I think, a fictional town called Deadlock. And the second season does not take place in that town, but they just kept the name. And so, yeah, this is partly to endorse season two, which is very, very funny. And also just to endorse the show for anyone who hasn't watched it yet. Because Emily and I watched season two, and I was just reminded of, like, how wildly funny and kind of crazy this show is. So, as I said, this is an Australian, I would say a murder mystery comedy. It is a madcap comedy, a joker second. The logline could be kind of like a much gayer hot fuzz,

where it kind of has that feeling that hot fuzz has only many of the characters, are gay women in particular, and there's a lot of gay humor, and sort of like that is very much the center of the sort of storytelling. It is created by two women known as the Cates, I believe, in Australia, Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan, who's humorous last names, I think I've already acknowledged on the show, but it is wild that their names are McCartney and McLennon.

And they are, I think, a fixture in Australia. They're like, they go way back. They've been doing sketch comedy and all kinds of, like, writing and comedy together. They are really funny. I mean, just watching a show like this, this is one of those joke a minute, just like constant, constant, like,

kinds of cursing you've never heard. like one of the two characters on it, the character Eddie, is just like inventing new kinds of like blue language that I just would never have thought of like every second. It's just like a million different ways of like, you know, ways of saying fuck basically. And she's just like totally out of control. So like that kind of show, I don't know. I don't see them that often because it's a really high effort kind of writing. You've got to just fit so many gags into every single line of dialogue. And they never run out of ideas.

Like it never stops being funny. So this tells a story of two detectives. They became friends in season one working together on this murder case down in Deadlock. Their names are Dulcy and Eddie. Dulcy is played by Kate Box. An underrated comedian because Madeline Sami, who plays Eddie, is the, like, super rambunctious. She's the character who's cursing all the time, who's like a mile a minute. We have to turn on subtitles to understand half of what she's saying because there are so many jokes and her accent is like really strong.

where Dulcy is the kind of straight-laced, you know, upright. She's married to this very, you know, like, kind of touchy-feely, like, Earth-mother kind of lady who, like, they have, like, a very healthy relationship. Well, I don't know about that. Okay, they have a marriage. And Dulcy is, like, ostensibly the more kind of by-the-books cop. And then Eddie is the loose canon. And they wind up working together.

And it's that familiar dynamic. In season two in particular, Kate Box, So they've relocated up to Darwin, which is in Northern Australia, which if you think about hemispheres, Northern Australia is kind of like the Florida of Australia. That's crocodile country. And this is very much a crock country story. There's a crocodile-related murder. Crocs and like Croc, like, tour, you know, crock farms where people, tourists come to see the crocs.

They're on this river where there's like crocodiles on the river. That plays a very important role in the story. Where in season one, there weren't really any crocodiles because that's. I don't know if there are any down in Tasmania because Tasmania is far to the south of Australia. So it's very, very different in terms of the climate. So you're in kind of Australia's Florida, and the characters are just like, it's like Florida man, mostly Florida women actually, but just these absolutely wild characters who run these crock farms and are completely unhinged, screaming at each other in these really thick Australian accents.

Sometimes I was watching the show and because I'm not from Australia, I was like, is this insensitive? Like, are some Australians offended by this? I don't know. I can't really. I don't think so. I think it's mostly like because the Cates are so keyed into Australian cultural signifiers and jokes, they're like, they're so funny. And in a way that I can just tell is deeply Australian. I mean, are you offended by Florida like jokes?

Well, I think there can be depictions of like Florida, like Florida white trash to put that in quotes that I think can be insensitive. Yeah. Put a pin in this. until November of this year, and we can talk all about that. Right. It can be a kind of, right, I guess, right, when GTA-6 comes up. Yeah, this actually could be an interesting primer for GTA-6, since there are these crocodiles. There's this kind of swamp crime vibe to this show.

But yeah, I don't really know. I don't get that sense. And I do get, I love this feeling. I also had this feeling with Dairy Girls, for example, of just a little bit of tourism, where it's a culture I'm not, you know, firsthand familiar with. There are just jokes where I can just tell this is a very Australian thing. They get in the car and they turn it on and some song fires up. And it's a song I've never heard in my life that just sounds like some 80s sing-along bar jam.

And I'm like, this has to be to Australian fans, like the funniest thing in the world. Like what just happened that this song started playing? Because there's a whole world of music in Australia that like never quite made its way overseas. So there's a lot of that. And really just, I mean, it's a compressed season. The first season was eight episodes. This season is six. I think in both seasons there was a pretty good mystery that's like very complex and complicated.

There's a million characters. There's a lot of red herrings. You're just meeting all these colorful characters. There's a lot of great like horrible like body parts and stuff. You know, like crocodile is like eating a guy. So they're recovering pieces of his body throughout the season. At one point they just find like, I think they call it the cock and balls because it's just like his butt and his like penis. And that's it.

and it's like severed at the top and the bottom. So then they just have it like in a medical examination and they're just having to examine this like hilarious prosthetic that their props department made. So there's a lot of that kind of humor. And it's just very, very funny. And it moves so fast that by the end I was like, I almost think they needed another episode to kind of stretch out,

you know, spend a little more time with the side characters. Luke Hemsworth, one of the Hemsworth brothers, turns up in this is a very, very funny character. I wanted a little more time with him. But in the end, it's almost like, I don't know, being left wanting a little more isn't such a bad thing. And it's so dense with jokes. It's moving so fast that I was like perfectly satisfied and just laughing and laughing the whole time. So I really endorse it.

It's great. And if you haven't watched Deadlock, if you have Amazon Prime, I really just, this show is awesome. Like more people should watch it. It is if you just want to laugh and laugh and laugh at something that's very different and very funny, I highly recommend it. So that's Deadlock Season 2 on Amazon Prime, a fantastic and very funny show. Cool. All right. My one more thing is season two of beef, which is a show we've talked about on this show before. Beef is a show on Netflix. And the first season was about two people who got in a road rage incident and spent an entire season of television just trying to sabotage each other's lives. And that first season was so good and also so self-contained that it made a lot of people wonder, like, what could they possibly do with the second season? Those kind of, characters stories were over. So like there's nothing you could really do there. Fortunately, they figured out what to do with the second season, which is introduce a new set of characters and a new

thing to get angry over. And so they got a phenomenal cast of characters for season two of beef, including Oscar Isaac, Carrie Mulligan, a guy named Charles Melton, who I wasn't familiar with, and Kaylee Spaney, who was the lead in Civil War, that movie from a couple of years ago, and has also been in a bunch of other stuff since. And they play, so Oscar Isaac and Carrie Mulligan are a couple. And then Charles Melton and Kaylee Spani are a couple. And there is this generational feud between them. The Melton and Svaney characters are very Gen Z, very like early 20s communicate in that

Gen Z way, are almost unrealistically stupid in some cases in their just kind of lack of understanding of the world around them. And then Isaac and Mulligan's characters are more, I would say probably Gen X rather than like elder millennial. They're a little closer to like a little bit older than Kirk. And it is fantastic. I've watched five episodes out of eight so far. So not, I haven't seen if they stick the landing, but loving it so far. Just very entertaining.

Given how hard that first season stuck the landing, I would bet on them. Yeah, 100%. And it's a lot of the same like creative core behind it. including the director, Jake Shreyer, no relation to me. Even though my wife kept being like, oh, you directed this. Oh, cool. And I don't even, I'm not going to say what, like, causes the feud because it's very fun to just watch it unfold.

Yeah, say less, yeah. There is a fun, like, kind of fake out moment at the beginning where there's, like, almost a car crash. And instead of the, what happened in season one, the two, like, drivers are like, you go, no, you go. And they're just like extra nice to each other, which is great fun. But no, but it's very much, it's like, it's a season about relationships and these two couples just kind of like finding different ways to navigate their respective relationships. It's also about money and who has money and who doesn't.

A lot of the story, most of the story takes place at this country club and everybody involved has, like, works at the country club and is not, and has to service all these extremely wealthy clientele, including a rich playboy dude played by William Finkter, who is also. great in this. William Pinkter is long, like veteran actor who's been in a million different things at this point. And yeah, it's, it's very fun. It's a very fun season of television from what I've seen so far. I'm not going to get into any more specifics than that other than it's just very fun to watch just like the first season was. I would say as good, if not better than season one of beef. Cool. I'm super excited because we're rotating away from Netflix, but I have a few weeks left, but I'm definitely going to watch this. You're rotating, what is rotating away from Netflix?

Like we cancel our Netflix for a while because it's so freaking expensive and there's nothing that we're watching. Oh, and you switch, so you switch like with other services. I get it. Kind of streamer rotation. You've got to cycle through the streaming services these days. Yes, keep them on their toes, make them give me the deals to entice me back. Make them work for it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like the first season was really, it was about a lot of things, but it was a lot about class. Like, it had a lot of really interesting stuff to say about money in class. So it's cool that they're sticking with that with that theme. Oh man, I forgot to say. So yeah, I mean, the first season is very Korean. This season is also very Korean. One of the chief creatives, let me pull up his, I'll pull up his name. The creator and showrunner is Lee Sungjin, who is Korean. This one, I forgot to mention that one of the characters, not a star, but one of the characters in it is played by Song Kang Ho, who is the lead character in Parasite, the dad of the lower. class family and parasite. Incredible.

A lot of Korean art is about the class divide between the rich and the poor, as we've seen for parasite and many other things. And this is very much exploring that same sort of thing. One of the kind of the owner of the club is this billionaire Korean woman who has their own story and character traits and interesting quirks. And the Gen Z dude, Austin is his name, is half Korean. And that plays a key role in the story. as well.

Oh, man. I'm so excited. I'm so excited to watch this. I can't wait. Yeah, it's really cool. It's really, yeah, class and money plays a big role in it just like in the first season. It's kind of the undercurrent that fuels a lot of what is going on. But the beef itself is very fun to watch and it's very fun to watch.

What's interesting about this one as opposed to the first season is that these characters already had a relationship before the kind of the beef started. And so they already know each other. not like trying to track each other down or like get to know each other or anything like that. And also that it's kind of like two couples working against each other as opposed to just a man and a woman working against each other. It's just very entertaining. It's very good. It's very well done. Oh, I can't wait. I'm like to talk to you about it when I've watched. Yeah. Hopefully I'll get to finish it before I start traveling. But we'll see. But yeah, let me know when you start watching. We'll chat. All right. That is that for this week's episode.

And Maximum Fun Drive is about to end. So now is your last chance to get a bunch of cool perks and sign up. And also we'll be doing a stream. Don't forget, as I mentioned earlier, on Friday, May 1st, the day after this airs at APM on our YouTube channel at Triple ClickPod. And otherwise, things will get back to normal next week. We'll be talking about Saros. So check out that game if you're curious about it. And you want to hear, like you want to have played it before we talk about it.

Otherwise, you can just wait and we'll be. tell you if it's good or not. Yeah, we'll tell you. Yeah, we'll let you know. Cool. Well, yeah, I will see you both at the stream and then I'll see you next week after that. 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 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.

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