Video Gamers Podcast - [Bonus Round] The Best Gift of All - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: December 2, 2024

Gaming hosts Josh and Ryan are back and we’re celebrating the holiday season by giving gifts to some of the most iconic video game characters. The goal is to give the best gift for that character and we’re competing to see who’s got the chops to be the best. Join us for a hilarious and fun gaming filled episode from the best gaming podcast on the planet! Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Ol’ Jake and Disratory Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Discord: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod  Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q   Visit us on the web: https://videogamerspod.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. Hello fellow gamers and welcome to the Video Gamers Podcast. The holiday season is here and what better way to celebrate than by giving gifts to those we love. On today's episode we're going to be doing just that, but with a bit of a twist. But first some introductions are in order. I am your host Josh and joining me, I'm giving him a subscription to the Bandana of the Month Club, and I'm torn between gifting him a copy of Elden Ring, Remnant 2, or Path of Exile 2. It's Ryan. I will happily take the Bandana of the Month Club. I very much appreciate that gift the others i don't know which one would you pick ryan elden ring remnant to path of exile 2 i i would probably say remnant

2 because we could play together and that at least will alleviate some of the pain and misery all right gifting ryan a copy of remnant 2 right now. No, you have to play. You have to. Yeah, you said you would, man. You have it. You have to play. You can't give a gift back either. Oh, man. Ryan, we...

Dude, I'm ready. I love when we just... I love when we have stupid topics, man. Oh, it's great. Honestly, this is... Because this is what gamers do. We love coming up with dumb situations. We love the kind of silly ideas and things like that.

And we've got a pretty good one today, man. We are going to be gifting Christmas presents to famous video game characters. Yes. And what we're doing is we have a list of 10 characters. And you and I have come up secretly with a present to give each of those characters. And then we are going to argue slash debate over whose present is the better gift. I am the best. I'm the best Santa. Yeah. I mean, we're going to find out to be honest. So I am very excited for this one because it should be a lot of fun. But before we get into the gift giving, we've got a little bit of housekeeping, Ryan.

We have not one, but two new supporters that we want to thank. Oh, brother. You know, we absolutely love the support of the show. It's what keeps this podcast going. And I know there's people out there that say, hey, you know, it's just a little amount. It's what keeps this podcast going. And I know there's people out there that say, hey, it's just a little amount. It's as little as five bucks a month. But it really does keep things flowing. And we always like to say thank you. So first, we're going to say thank you to a longtime friend of the show, an awesome dude. We have had many a

chance to talk to this guy. We almost got to hell divers together so close we just kept missing each other somehow but it's like dude this is this is one of those guys that you just kind of instantly know that you would jive with in in like the video game world but huge shout out to dk matt for supporting the show dk matt we love you buddy we know you've been a fan for a while. We are also a fan of yours. So thank you very much for supporting the show. Hold on. You didn't say it in like he's in the wrestling world.

You got to say it in the macho man. I didn't want to like, you know, throw it out there just in case, you know, DK man. Oh, that's a terrible macho man. No, that's not bad. No, that's terrible, man. Oh, that's a terrible Macho Man impression, man.

No, that's not bad. That was terrible, brother. All right, you're getting better. You got to pop that vein in your forehead, man. Oh, you got to get real deep down low. There you go. There you go. I would do my ultimate warrior impression, but I need to save my voice for the rest of this.

Yeah, I know. I need a lozenge already. And then second, coming in all the way from Sweden, we've got Soul Beetle, who has recently joined the community, who signed up for rare status as well. Soul Beetle is awesome. He's like, I think he's closer to my age than your age ryan because we've been chatting some kind of old school gaming and consoles like atari we were nerding out over some star wars cards the other day um but soul beetle's been awesome to interact with you can definitely tell the time zone difference there as well because it'll be like 3 a.m when he hops on and he's chatting with everybody. Yeah. And then it's like, oh, I'm sorry. I missed your messages, man.

But yeah, he's been active in the community as well. And so I have a special message for Soul Beetle too. And forgive me if I butchered the pronunciation on this, but tack for stodet. There you go. I looked up a little bit of Swedish there. So that's only for Soul Beetle and our other Swedish listeners. Nobody else has any idea what I just said. Now I want, I want a Swedish listener to send in an audio clip of how you're supposed to actually

say it. I would love that. So soul beetles in our discord, he can attach a, a little audio file and, and, uh, show us how bad I butchered that. Hey, the important thing is you tried. You know, you tried. You know, E for effort, right? Yep. All right, Ryan. And then we absolutely love reviews. We finally hit over 1,000 ratings on Spotify. We did it.

Road to 1,000, brother. We did it, man. Apple is, you know, people, it's a little bit harder to leave a review on Apple because it's like people want to actually write a written review, but we love reading the written reviews as well. And if you leave us one, there's a good chance we're going to read it on the show. This one comes in from Count Winston. And it says, I swear I got up this morning, not quite sure about my place in this world. My headshot count is down, my KD ratio is low, and I can barely dodge roll my way through Elden Ring anymore. My old hands were thinking about

putting my controller up for good. But today, I heard these buttery smooth voices coming from the Video Gamers Podcast. Like a king leading his troops into battle, this podcast has inspired me to pick my controller back up and charge into glory it's the best podcast ever signed lighthouse bengal oh that's so good i freaking hyped now man i know i want to charge into battle i know we just watched gladiator gladiator 2 is out now it's like i am ready yeah oh man and i want to say if you guys we will read these uh uh very with uh enthusiastic expression the more you kind of write them like a theater performance i keep waiting for another script i want to we just want scripts leave your reviews as scripts and we'll act them out and play them. It'll be amazing.

I love it. People are going to be looking for the, they're going to be like scrolling video game podcast, looking at reviews and being like, why does this show have a bunch of scripts written for it? Worth it. Oh man, absolutely.

All right, Ryan, that's it for housekeeping, buddy. So again, thank you for the support. Hey, if you love the podcast and you want to support the show,

you can head over to MultiplayerSquad.com to do that while we're talking about it. If you haven't done so already in your podcast app, make sure you follow us. That way you get our episodes the day that they release. It also helps us out in the algorithm as well. Ryan, you feeling generous, buddy? I'm here for the gift of giving. You did all your holiday shopping? I did. I was actually at the mall this morning. My wife drove me there. Oh, you're a brave man. We're actually recording this on Black Friday. The fact that you went

to the mall on Black Friday. I'm glad you're here with us, Ryan. Yes, I survived. All right. Well, let's get into this. So like I explained at the top of the show, we have a list of 10 video game characters. We have chosen a present to give to that character that we think will resonate with them. Maybe it's funny, maybe it's something useful. Maybe it's something that plays into their background a little bit.

I mean, really, there were no rules other than that it should be geared towards the character that you're giving it to. Let's just start with this one, Ryan. Awesome game. Very, very endearing. If you haven't played this game yet, number one, you're missing out. But we are going to give a gift to good old Dave the Diver. Oh, Dave. Dave the man. Dave is the man. I love this game so much. Took the world by storm.

I saw a snippet that they sold over 5 million copies of Dave the Diver. Good for that, man. What a good game. It really is just a fantastic video game. So don't be put off if you're like, oh, it's old pixely or whatever. No, Dave the Diver is fantastic.

But Ryan, Dave's been a good boy. He's on the good list. Yes. What do you got for Dave? Dave, what does Dave need? What does Dave look like he needs? What would help Dave in his everyday activities? Something that he does sun up to sun down.

I'm getting Dave some Ozempic because homeboy, you need to lose some weight, brother. Oh, man. Ryan firing shots already. Dave, imagine how streamlined Dave's going to be when he loses a couple LBs and he can just zip through that water. No sharks are going to get him. No squids, nothing. He's going to be when he loses a couple LBs and he can just zip through that water. No sharks are going to get him. No squids, nothing. He's going to be just on top of it. He'll get back, bring all

of his fish up to the top, and he can run the sushi restaurant like nobody. Ryan, this is on point coming from you. You go to the gym a lot. You try to stay healthy. You take good care of yourself. Worrying about Dave's weight and his health is is really like it's a noble cause man yeah it shows that you care you know i thought like sushi like i don't know if this is true but it's like sushi in my brain is like a healthy food but like i know most of the time when i go to a sushi restaurant like I'm getting the fried roll and it's got the hot sauce on top and the cream cheese in it and all that stuff. And I'm like,

maybe sushi isn't as healthy as I thought. The Vegas rolled like the deep fried, like with the salmon and the other cream cheese and avocado. Oh, it's so good. I love sushi, man. Prescription froze.

I'm picking up Dave, the diver. It's not bad buddy we're gonna we're gonna trim him down he's gonna be good to go all right well uh here this is this is my gift it's pay no attention to the giant box that uh this gift is coming in uh i am giving dave the diver the prawn suit from subnautica. Oh, that's pretty good. Dang it. He ain't got to do nothing no more, man. He's got a prawn suit.

He can just go straight down to the bottom. He can mine. He can fish. You know, it takes all the stress off of him, man. Makes his job way easier. And who doesn't want their job to be a lot better? You know, and protects him from the sharks. I mean, if it can

almost stand up to a leviathan yeah then it can stand up to a hammerhead shark no problem little hammerhead coming across ain't gonna do nothing yeah now we it does come with an instruction manual as well because i you know i don't know how difficult it is to operate a prawn suit uh i picked it up pretty quick in subnautica so well here's the question can dave fit into it oh dang it yeah i bet you didn't think about that one i don't know what the uh capacity for well we can just combine our gifts and then it'll be it'll just be perfect all right all right ryan we have to decide whose gift is the better gift here one's about health one's about not having to do as much anymore uh one is a fantastic piece of

technology uh that would make his job way better but i will say this now not to argue against my own pick here but i've been scuba diving there There's something about just swimming free, man, kicking them legs, just coasting along the bottom of the sea. Would a prawn suit be a little too clunky? It may, it may be. And then it may turn into where then you're not going out on your own. So it's more of just a chore,

a job. You're just hopping in this machine. You're not supposed to agree with me, Ryan. You're supposed to tell me how awesome this is. But, no, no, no. I will say also the difference between having to dive down however many meters and then just hopping into the machine and going down that way also would be very, very sweet.

Don't have to worry about decompression. The bends is very serious condition. I have a very good friend that deals, he's a medical doctor that deals with that in San Diego all the time. So I understand how bad it can be. When we talk about protecting his health, I mean, the prawn suit really is just protecting him from that. Okay, so hold on.

He can use the prawn suit. It makes his retrieval of all the all the fresh fish faster so he has more time to come back and then he can do general exercise and good proper diet and health and and then he'll still lose weight but he also doesn't have to exert so much energy with swimming i it's funny because i feel like my gift is the direct antithesis of your gift because it's like he's doing all the swimming which is really good exercise and i'm like nah man you don't have to do none of that just control this suit and get fatter bro just hop in this next we'll have one you don't have to go in the water you can just control from the from the shore oh man i would say to me i'm gonna say the prawn

suits pretty sweet man that's a that's a good piece of high tech. I was kind of proud of that one. I was struggling at first, and then it dawned on me, and then I was like, okay. That's funny because I thought of one of those kind of handheld things you use to swim faster, like a big one. Yeah, little torpedo things. Yeah, little torpedo things. But I'm like, eh, that's kind of dumb. But I didn't even think about that.

The prawn suit, that's a pretty good gift. All right. We're chalking it up. Prawn suit for Dave the Diver. Prawn suit one, number one. All right, Ryan. So our second gift recipient is going to be the one, the only, GLaDOS. No.

You know, now GLaDOS, not on the good list. She's been a little bit naughty. You know, doesn't have the best history with treating people with kindness and things like that. But, you know, sometimes a little kindness goes a long way. And so, you know, GLaDOS needs a little bit of love during the holiday season as well. And so we had to come up with a gift to give GLaDOS. And I'll be honest, man, this one was tough. I went for a bunch of different angles on this one. I finally landed on one. I'll give my answer first since you went first

with Dave the Diver. I don't know if everybody's going to resonate with this or not. But GLaDOS, she loves her test subjects, man. That's, you know, that's her joy in life is putting people through these tests and saying, hey, let's see how you perform, messing with their minds a little bit. So I am going to gift GLaDOS the character John, who is the main character from the Stanley parable from another game. And GLaDOS gets to have John as her test subject. Now, if I, have you ever played the Stanley parable, Ryan,

Ryan's looking at me so funny right now. You told me before my pick for GLaDOS may not resonate with you. I'm not sure, but some other people might get it. And you were spot on. I got no clue what you're talking about. Okay. You've heard of the Stanley Parable, right? I have. I have. Yes. Okay. Historically, I have not played the Stanley Parable, but it has been a game that I keep

telling myself, dude, I got to play this. You can beat the whole game in like two hours. Yeah. It's basically like a psychological experiment where there is a narrator and you are John, you know, and basically you're going about your day and this narrator is kind of narrating what you're doing. And it'll say, John opens the door. And then it's like,

you can choose to not open the door and turn around. And then it's like, he thought better of it and went the other direction. And so it kind of narrates everything that you do. And it's this neat little kind of like demonstration on, can you be influenced by like the narrator of this game? I know there's a ton of secrets in this game. It's got an achievement where famously,

if you don't play the game for five years, it says like you come back after five years and it says, when outside as your achievement. So it's like a whole bunch of like really cool hidden stuff. But for GLaDOS, I thought, like I said, she loves her test subjects and John is already used to being tested and

following directions. Cause that's what he does in the Stanley parable. Yeah. He's so he's open to testing. He, he, he has a complete lack of resistance to this. He doesn't mind being manipulated,

which is exactly what GLaDOS would want. Yes. So that's my pick for glados uh is a test subject of her very own who is a professional test subject what what a gift you've given a person to to to glados also john is doing this willingly this is not this is not forced upon john i just want to make that clear for everybody. You are going here. John thinks better of it. Oh, man.

I just realized I gave a human away as a pet to an overbearing, dominating. Psycho-dominating robot. Psycho-robot. Sorry. Sorry about that. Well, maybe if John is given to GLaDOS, my gift will help ease the process. Because one thing I know is GLaDOS does like to sing.

But it's not very good. So we're going to do some singing lessons to where GLaDOS learns how to use more than one or two notes. Oh my goodness. Can do a little bit more, a little more inflection, hit those peaks, you know. We're in the holiday season, maybe a little Mariah Carey up and down,

get the All I Want for Christmas, you know. It's just, there needs to be some work there. Oh my goodness, Ryan. Singing lessons for GLaDOS. Singing lessons for GLaDOS. Now, for anybody that has not played Portal or Portal 2, number one, shame on you. Yeah.

Those games are some of the most legendary, well-beloved games in the history of humanity. So make sure you play the Portal games so that you are familiar. They are very easy to play and pick up. My daughter actually is playing Portal 2 with her cousin. Oh, nice. And she told me the other day, she said, is playing Portal 2 with her cousin. Oh, nice. She told me the other day, she said, Dad, Portal 2 is really fun. And I said,

have you never played this before? And then she's like, no, I don't like puzzle games. And then I was like, but it's Portal. And then she said, yeah, but I don't like puzzle games. And I went, yeah, but it's Portal. And she said, yeah, but this is a fun puzzle game. It's like its own thing. It's its own entity, dude. You don't have to like puzzle games at all to enjoy Portal. So this is your public service announcement, number one, if you haven't played those. But spoiler warning for a game that's 20 plus years old, GLaDOS sings at the end of Portal and it's hilarious, number one. But number two, she's not the best singer in the world.

She's got a very monotone. she's a robot yes so singing lessons for glados would be hilarious dude uh increase that range teach her how to hit those highs you know hit the lows get the pitch find her find her vocal range that fits her you know programming if you will dang it right i'm just gonna go ahead and give this one to you man all right i don't i don't know that gifting a human to a psychotic robot is the best gift ever but you thought good at first oh i'll just take this subject and oh wait that subject's a human well that doesn't look as good i struggled on this one i'm not gonna lie singing lessons is so good it was pretty hard it was pretty hard all right i'm just giving that one to you and plus i think she'd like that the only thing i would say negative

is glennis is very like egotistical she might be like what are you talking about i don't need singing lessons probably so you know but she really does need them so yeah it's one of those things where she'd probably like be like this is stupid i don't need this but then when you left she'd like be like calling up the singing instructor like a little bit later like i hear you give singing instructions you know come over right now all right ryan we've got a lot more to get to but we're gonna take a short break and then we're gonna come back with our next character that's getting some gifts this episode is brought to you by samsung galaxy ever captured a great night video only for it to be ruined by that one noisy talker?

With Audio Erase on the new Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, you can reduce or remove unwanted noise and relive your favorite moments without the distractions. And that's not all. New Galaxy AI features like NowBrief will give you personalized insights based on your day schedule, so that you're prepared no matter what. Buy the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra now at Samsung.com. All right, we're back. Ryan, let's do this.

One of you and I, one of our favorite characters, Arthur Morgan. What a guy. What a guy. What a guy. Red Dead Redemption, Red Dead Redemption 2. You know, we keep talking about games that people should play but if you haven't played red dead 2 you are missing out a whole lot it's funny too because we've seen a couple people in our discord server that say hey i'm not into

westerns so would i like red dead and it's like i'm not i'm not into westerns at all like at all but i can tell you as somebody that is not into that theme, Red Dead 2 is one of the best video games that's ever been made. And so you absolutely owe it to yourself to play the game. Get through the first 40 minutes, which is slow, and then it's incredible. But Arthur Morgan is one of the more memorable characters in gaming. He's part of a really good cast of characters. This could go a lot of ways, Ryan. So what are you getting for your boy, Arthur Morgan?

Arthur Morgan. Alright, let's see here. What could we give to a man who I would say has everything, but he really has nothing. He lost his girl. He lost his kid. And I'm not going to give the spoiler on the other thing that he lost there, but He lost his girl. He lost his kid. And I'm not going to give the spoiler on the other thing that he lost there.

But I'm going to give Arthur Morgan Obamacare. Get this homie some medical insurance, man. Dude, come on. There's some medical insurance. This dude needs to go to the doctor that doesn't have hacksaws and all this stuff around. He's going to get fixed. Modern healthcare.

We're going to go with modern healthcare. Modern healthcare. Homeboy needs some insurance right there, man. Get him a doctor. We're kind of on the same vein, Ryan. Kind of on the same vein. I'm going to preface this. If you have not played Red Dead 2 yet, skip ahead about two minutes on this because I don't want to spoil anything there.

All right. That was your warning. Here we go. I am getting Arthur Morgan a prescription for isoniazid, which is the treatment for tuberculosis. And apparently it comes with some other medicines, which is rifampin, pyrazinamide, and ethambuto. Yes, I had to look up how to treat tuberculosis. Because, you know, Arthur, he was really getting his life together, man. He was. He was kind of getting out from under the thumb of Dutch, and he tried to make a life for himself and then bam

man comes down with tuberculosis and and it's all downhill after that so i modern health care or the actual treatment that's gonna treat and cure his condition right i think we were thinking on the on the same line for. All we want is we just want to save Arthur. I really do want to save Arthur. I feel like he could have led a good life. Now, as an alternate, I did think about just a plan so that I could say, Arthur, I got a plan. Yeah.

That would be what you would give to Dutch. Like, Dutch, here. I know you keep saying you got a plan. Here's your plan. Dutch always has a plan. Dutch always has a plan plan never seems to work out or come to fruition i mean they're not great plans necessarily yeah yeah all right well i i'd say you have the specific bitch which by the way did we already do this at one point before where we talked about like we did you saying like the medication i said i was like how do i know how to say that talked about feel like we did you say something like the medication isoniazid i was like how do i know how to say that because i feel like we like both had two different medications

that were supposed to treat this ailment and then we were saying i'm wrong or then somebody else told us that this is what it actually was and then so i don't know the chemist yeah i'll tell you what i do have an alternate which since i will name this, I did think about this too, because it was like, what would like an actual like meaningful gift be? And I did think about a very nice, like leather bound journal, since he likes to write in his journal and do his sketches and stuff. And I thought, man, this would be like an actual like heartfelt gift to be like, hey, I know you like writing this stuff down. I know you like drawing and stuff like that. And I got you this really nice journal that you could write everything down in. All it's going to say on every page is Dutch has a plan.

Just see Dutch. See Dutch. He's got a plan. Yeah, I'd say you got the specific meds, brother. So your gift's going to be the winner. Okay. Now, again, not to argue against myself but modern health care would treat him but then he gets other health care too he gets

everything he does kind of get everything you know and so if he's got obamacare going on he you know he's got hey you know maybe he's he's he's feeling a little under the weather, you know? And it's like, hey, he's got you covered. My toe! A little sinus infection going on? Yeah. You know, no biggie. Oh, man. Well, that's up to you, my man.

I'm going to say let's call this one a tie since we both thought about the same thing, which is really just trying to take care of Arthur's health. Yeah, we just care, man. That's all. We just care. We love you, Arthur. All right. Oh, boy. Things are going to get care, man. That's all. We just care. We love you, Arthur. All right. Oh, boy. Things are going to get weird, man.

Famously, and I'll be honest, I don't remember the episode that this character came about. I just remember Paul kind of going off the rails on whatever it was. Which is not normally Paul. Is not normally Paul. And man, I wish i could remember the episode off the top of my head it was another one of these just silly kind of stupid episodes but paul nominated his rust character paul's character and he literally said it's paul's rust character and we went what like what are you talking about yeah but that's who we are giving a gift to Paul. What an honorable guy. He's definitely on the good list this year. Uh, you know, he, he's taking care of his family. Uh, he's, you know, he's doing that. He's running the business, taking care of all that stuff. So Paul, we're going to bring you a good gift for your rust character in this regard. I guess it's my turn to go first. Now, Ryan, famously, you never got

to play Rust with us. And you and I were actually chatting literally before we hit record. And I was saying like, Ryan, man, we really need to play Rust together at some point. It would be so much fun. I'm kind of getting the itch to play it. So it's one of those things where at some point, we will absolutely jump in there and just let you experience the world of Rust. The one thing that I know Paul really hated was in Rust you unlock blueprints, right? So you can craft things. Yeah. And Paul was always the guy because the way the tech trees work, you want to give all the blueprints to one person because you don't double up that way. And Paul was always the guy that had all the blueprints.

So Paul was always the guy that had to do all the crafting in Rust. And things don't craft instantly. They take time. So Paul was famously just stuck at the crafting bench when we needed to make a whole bunch of stuff. And then he'd be like, all right, guys, I'll be back in 15 minutes while all this stuff crafts. I am getting Paul's Rust character, a Tesla Optimus, the recently unveiled robots that Tesla has come up with so that the robot can handle all of the crafting for Paul, which will set Paul free. Yes. To do what he wants to do so that all of the crafting can be handled by the Optimus instead. You're welcome, Paul. That is what a thoughtful gift. Like, come on, man.

Just give the guy a break. Let him go off and do what he wants to do. And now these robots can handle it. That's a pretty quality gift there. Good luck beating that one, Ryan. Yeah. Mine may not be a very nice gift because i've i've i've heard tall tales of paul the crafter paul the creator the farmer he oh the farmer pumpkin patch that that paul could make is legendary paul paul the fisher so yes so uh what did you not hear

in in all those descriptions paul is uh he's not a he's not an angry man he's not a violent man violent man paul you haven't heard paul the fighter i would say oh so so what i'm gonna get paul i'm gonna get paul a white flag so he doesn't have to do any and he can just wave that bad boy and surrender immediately just wave the white flag so he's like i surrender let me take my pumpkins just don't kill me i okay that's pretty good man i'm sorry paul i still love you it it is like it is funny because i was famously like the pvp guy where i'm like i'm gonna shoot this guy i'm gonna shoot this guy oh of course paul's like no man just leave him alone you know like he's not bothering us or any of that i won't say that paul was a pacifist because paul would definitely stand up and and

protect the base and we you know he was always shooting rockets when we were other bases and stuff like that uh so you know but pvp in rust was not necessarily paul's favorite thing uh not so good with the bow uh usually the first guy to go down in a fight so a white flag for paul would let him just live live the peaceful life that he wants to live. He's like, you guys battle out. I'm I'm out. I'm out.

I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go plant this pumpkin. Now, Ryan, the, the, the only problem with this pick is that people in rust would not honor a white flag.

No, they would not just straight up shoot you in the face. I've watched so many. I haven't played rust with you guys, but I've watched so many videos of just where guys are like, yeah i don't know we're good here let's just trade this and then boom shoot him right in the face like oh yeah the the saboteurs are are rampant in rust for sure yeah you trust nobody yeah at all in rust so all right we got to decide. Take the crafting hassle away from Paul or give him a way to hopefully get out of any violence

and let him just focus on the peaceful things in life. So here's the deal. You give him the robot, then maybe he can really dial in on just combat and he can be a backup with you guys. Mine just puts him right back in the job and the chore of, you know again not to argue against myself but i'm kind of arguing against myself i kind of like the robot the

robot is a good is a good all right i'm gonna go with the optimist as well just because i know it's not paul's favorite thing to sit there and just have to spend 20 minutes crafting yeah nobody wants to do that and also the white flag while a great idea i think would just make paul just be like come on man i was waving my flag why'd you kill me oh boy all right ryan moving on to the next one here a big daddy from bioshock now these things are weird they're very protective of the little sisters. They're very difficult. You can't really interact with them in the game. You have to just try to avoid them or fight them if you want to get to that essence that the little sisters have.

I'm trying to think what the name of that was. I'm not even going to try to remember. Some kind of essence thing that you use to improve your skills. I couldn't even remember Rapt and stuff. I don't, I don't, I couldn't even remember rapture. So I don't know. So,

all right. Is it me? I went first. Yes. You, it's your, it's your pick here. So,

so like you said, big daddy's super protective over the little sisters, always trying to, to keep track of them. They're always running amok, always cruising around. Now, have you been to Disneyland, Josh, or Disney World?

I have. Okay. I'm sure any amusement park in general, I'm sure you've seen those beautiful, amazing little devices that are the backpack leash for little children. I am getting Big daddy a backpack leash for the little sisters

that he can throw on those little ones and and keep them wrangled up so he's not always having to track them down this is going to be the the perfect uh wrangling tool that big daddy can use okay i thought i was wrong for gifting a human being to GLaDOS, Ryan. But putting a little sister on a leash, that might be... They're always running amok. I get it. I mean, I get it. And honestly, the Big Daddy might be like, hey, stick around.

Oh, man, that's too funny. And once again, Ryan, you and I are kind of on the same path here. Although I went with something that's a little bit more freedom than putting somebody on a leash. I went with an Apple air tag GPS tracker. So the big daddies always know where the little sisters are. Oh man. Uh, it's funny because in, bioshock i remember like you could see the big daddy's like knocking on the vents that the little sisters would crawl out of yeah and if the little sister didn't show up right away you'd hear the big daddy kind of like groan and make some sounds like it was waiting on her uh to show up adam is also the name of the essence that you were trying to get. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Adam. Now, let me ask you, Ryan, before we get to who had the better gift here,

are you killing that little sister and taking the Adam, or are you setting her free? No, I'm killing it, yeah. Give me that Adam. I can't tell you how many little sisters met their demise at my hands. You know why? Because they had an air tag and not a leash. I mean, that's, well, no, I took out the big daddies, man.

I took... That big daddy had to go too. They're not letting the little sister just get yoinked. Yeah, that's true. They come stomping in. All right, well, that says something about us. So that was the beauty of Bioshock, dude. Yeah.

I remember before the game came out, I still remember this vividly, where they were like, these big daddies are the protectors and you can try to fight one but man is that going to be an epic battle and i remember the first time going like all right okay man here we go i'm gonna i'm gonna see what this is all about like let's try to take on this big daddy uh and then the first time you actually kill one and then the little sister's sitting there and she's cringing away from you and then you just feel like a monster and then i'm like you're just like give me the atom yep

and then it was worth it because i got some cool new ability yeah i need my cool hand powers bro like come on um ryan i'm gonna advocate for you know just personal freedoms here and uh not restraining small children. I'm going to volunteer my Apple AirTag GPS trackers as an alternative to your entrapment and restraints. All I know is it's a tried and true method. If you keep them right within three or four feet in eyesight, you're good to go. As much as i hate to

argue this and again why are we arguing against ourselves this is a gift for a big daddy yeah and i feel like the big daddy would actually like the leash better because then the little sister is always right there he'd have like six of them or eight of them on on one lease like those people walking like the multiple like the dog like walking a ton of dogs you know he'd have like six of them or eight of them on one lease. Like those people walking like the multiple, like walking a ton of dogs. You know, he'd have a bunch. Wasn't it one big daddy for one little sister? I can't remember now. I don't remember, dude.

It's been so long. Okay. So now we have a moral dilemma, Ryan. Do we go with the better gift for the big daddy, but might also be a little bit more inhumane? Or do we go with the, you know what? I'm picking the leash, man. This is a present for a big daddy. We're making their lives better.

Yeah. And I mean, you're also stuck way underneath the ocean. It's also the retractable kind, right? Where it kind of goes out. Yeah, it can go out and come back in. It's got a little bit of room to scamper around. Can explore the room. It's for the big daddy, Ryan.

It's not for us. Yes. Okay. i don't even know what the count's at but i'm happy i got that one all right moving on i love this character so much man oh so good talk about a memorable character in a video game we are gifting the one the only johnny silverhand from cyberpunk 2077 a christmas gift you know johnny maybe he's a little bit misunderstood maybe he's got a dark past where he made some bad choices you know but through the course of cyberpunk 2077 he acts like a friend he does to v you know and and they start to kind of form a bond they start to work together i don't want to spoil anything because it's a much more recent game than maybe portal is um so we have to come up with a gift for johnny silverhand what do you got ryan

oh wait no you went first last time didn't you oh i think i did yeah you did the yeah okay ryan i uh i came into a little bit of money recently oh and i really wanted to get johnny silverhand a really good gift okay and uh if there's one thing that we know about johnny silverhand he's a rocker dude yeah of course he the man uh what's the name of the band sam or something samurai in cyberpunk something like that i forget something samurai you know he we get cut scenes where he's the front man for his band before they you know they're mean to him i wanted to get him something really special ryan so i got him jimmy hendrix's 1968 fender stratocaster woodstock edition which is the iconic white guitar that is still in existence he didn't burn it it exists in a museum that's what

i'm getting from my boy johnny i i i would almost say a hundred percent i knew you were gonna go with that there's no way i swear because i knew i'm like he's a rocker he's gonna guitar he's the the most expensive one that would be the one you'd gift or one of those top, top of the line, super high end. Oh yeah. Yeah. That's, I mean,

that's a, I tried to, I, I, I will say, man, you know, you and I were kind of wing it kind of guys, right?

Like we don't, we, I did some actual research, Jimi Hendrix's guitars today. I found a site that is just dedicated to every guitar the man ever owned yeah which ones he burned on stage which performances and this one that has been dubbed woodstock because it's the one he played at woodstock is the uh one that is still around and one of the more iconic guitars that our boy jimmy hendrix uh played so that's what i'm giving them do you have the value on that one what's uh because i remember seeing it auctioned for like a couple million dollars

i did see that little snippet in there as well it's a museum now so some would argue that it's priceless but i'm pretty sure it's sold at auction for like two million yeah i remember looking through like the most expensive guitars recently and then honestly this morning when i was looking through our list of of these people we're going to give gifts to i thought about that and then i'm like josh is probably going to do that too i'm like i'm going to look for something different unfortunately mine is much much much less expensive i will say but again again, it's about the compassion and the care about one's health. And Johnny Silverhand smokes a whole heck of a lot of cigarettes. If you see him, he's always, he is just chain smoking like you wouldn't believe.

So I thought I would get him at least a vape and then he wouldn't have to worry so much about all the carcinogens. You're giving Johnny Silverhand a vape? Yeah, I thought it would be good. Oh, my goodness. This seems much... You know vaping's not good for you, right? It is not good. It is not good, but it is much better than cigarettes.

But it seems much less extravagant now that you actually did pick that Jimi Hendrix guitar. Yeah. Okay. So one is like an iconic piece of rock history. Yeah, I know. A one-of-a-kind item, or we could try to still destroy his lungs. It's water vapor, bro.

Oh, it's just water? Okay. It's a water pipe, man. It's meant for tobacco i had a guy i had a guy that worked for me for a while that that kept trying to vape in my truck and i was trying to vape everywhere he just kept arguing with me it's water vapor it's what i'm like i don't care what it is you're not gonna vape in my truck oh my goodness so uh okay i'm just i'm gonna concede all off the bat you can have jimmy hendrix guitar i should all right i should have went with i was gonna go with the guitar too but uh

yeah all right you um okay moving on we're we're going this one man uh this one oh boy i don't know how i feel about the gift i picked for this one, but we're going with Bowser. Oh, all right. Bowser, you know, he's on the naughty list. This man's this thing, you know, he's not been very good, but, you know, he's getting a Christmas present from us, Ryan. What are you what are you giving to Bowser? Man, what what does a man who has everything need? You know?

Bowser was first introduced in 1985. Bowser's been around for a long time. What has Bowser been doing for all that time? He's been chasing Princess Peach. Just over and over. Unsuccessfully. I mean, well, partially. I mean, he gets her, but then she gets taken back.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to give Bowser a couple dating apps. No. And Bowser needs to find himself a new girl. No. Bowser's got to move on, man. She's not interested. You keep kidnapping her. Mario keeps saving the day.

Bro, you got to take the hint. Move on. Let's find you someone you match with. Whatever dating app you want to use to get there, you can do it. But we're going to find Bowser some love in a different place than Princess Peach. Oh my goodness, Ryan. Okay. We have to say this just for the integrity of the show.

We did not share our gifts with each other before recording. Oh, are you kidding again? I am not joking. I have it right here. My gift to Bowser because he's always thirsting over the ladies and he's always trying to find a date and he just keeps capturing princess peach. I got Bowser a membership to Tinder select, which costs $499 a month. I didn't even know this was the thing. What?

Yes. Apparently. Cause I was like, isn't there like, like subscriptions for Tinder or something? That's what we got to talk about. $500 a month. Are you kidding?

I looked it up and I said, what are the different Tinder memberships? And apparently there's like the normal ones, but then there's an invite only one. I guess if you're like a multimillionaire or something. Oh, okay. They want the high class people. Yeah.

There is an invite only. So you can't just sign up for this. You have to be invited to it, but it's called Tinder Select. It's $499 a month, but I got Bowser a dating membership i got bowser a dating membership you got him a dating app oh my goodness oh my gosh all right well we're calling that one a tie right i cannot believe we both went that route oh that's funny although um that's like 6k for

just a dating app that's wild dude i bought an a tesla optimus for paul's rust character yeah dude and and you bought the the guitar so like we go all out at christmas apparently so man i can't believe we both went bowser needs a date he needs other women in his life so this may be a sign b Bowser. You're a little thirsty. You're just going after the same girl. Get the hint, brother. Oh, my goodness. All right, Ryan.

We are running out of time here. We're going to shorten this list just a little bit here. Let's go with Cortana from Halo. Okay. I got a dumb one for this one, man. I'm not going to lie. I guess I'm just going to answer mine. This is so stupid. So Cortana, you know, she's an AI. She's, uh, she's, you know, she's always with Master Chief. She's really smart. What do you get an AI AI that has access to almost all the knowledge in the world. And we've seen Cortana kind of change over the years from the different Halo games and stuff like that. But she's a lady.

And it's like one of those things where what would she enjoy? I am getting Cortana her very own battle pass with cosmetics and skins so that whenever Master Chief gets kills, she gets XP towards the battle pass and can unlock new skins and upgrades. Oh, my gosh. Okay. Personally, I think Cortana's perfect. She doesn't need any upgrades, bro. Well, she might want some upgrades, though.

Yeah, she may. But you're kind of forcing that on her. You're saying, listen, you're not good as you are. Take these upgrades. You need to upgrade. Cosmetics, Ryan. It's all about those skins. Okay. It's Cosmetics, Ryan. It's all about those skins. Okay.

It's all about the skins. It's all about the skins. Plus, it makes it more fun when Master Chief's going on like a rampage and he's taking out all these aliens. She's like, oh, oh, I just hit level 70 on the battle pass. Pretty soon I'm going to hit the prestige tiers. That is true. That is true. Okay.

I get that. I get that. Yeah. So that's fair. What I'm going to go with is maybe a That is true. Okay. I get that. I get that. Yeah. So that's fair. What I'm going to go with is maybe a little more communal. I want, you know, Cortana, she has Master Chief. That's great. Master Chief's just, you know, just your average seven-foot cyborg human super soldier.

You know, like, what is she she gonna communicate with him about other than oh you're great you're amazing i want to get speaking of subscriptions the chat gpt premium sub for cortana so she actually has another ai to speak with okay okay she's gotta be lonely i would really appreciate some ai companions she's gotta be lonely she's gotta be lonely i would really appreciate some ai companionship she's gonna she's probably gonna say this ai is just a big old doofus compared to her i was gonna say chachi pt is like the dumb puppy dog right that's just like you're like oh you're so cute look how dumb you are maybe it's more like a pet yeah exactly but yeah that's that's what i'm going with i i don't hate that ryan that's that's i mean it it is definitely the inferior ai

um man this one's tough an ai companion to to interact with and chat with that's probably a little bit more on cortana's level than master chief is um or her very own battle pass complete with skins and upgrades it's a tough one man this is a tough one i mean do you just want like digital virtual skins or do you want like a a companion a friend somebody to be with communicating master chief is always out on missions and doing stuff and you know just talk to somebody i okay i yeah i'm gonna give it to you everybody wants that kind of dumb puppy man you know the little puppy dog you're like dude okay you're like really dumb you keep pooping in the house you know but i kind of like having you around chappy chippy t is coming

for you when when they take over and you kind of got me with the whole, like, what, she's not good enough as it is? Like, she might like the way she looks. You hear that, Cortana? I like you the way you are. I mean, she has changed over the years, though, too. So, obviously, you know, she has changed her appearance. So, we're just going to assume that she's got the appearance she wants. Yeah.

Even if it's inferior to some of the earlier games, Ryan. Yeah, like Halo 3. no yeah yeah no excuse me all right moving on moving on all right uh you know this this this character is definitely we're gonna we're gonna go a little bit quicker here ryan this character definitely on the naughty list uh oh yeah you know may have tried to crush the rebellion um maybe redeemable has some good qualities maybe maybe but we have to give a gift to darth vader oh here we go oh boy buddy all right what do you got for uh lord vader right so so what is the biggest thing that caused Lord Vader's downfall? Was it his arrogance? Yeah. Was it his...

No. It was his rage. No, it was not his rage. It was not his arrogance. It was not his poor decision making. Was it Padme? Padme really the source of all his problems. Padme did cause a lot of problems, but she...

Not the biggest reason, I think. The biggest reason was he didn't have the high ground so i'm giving lord vader a trip to mount everest so he's got the dang high ground once and for all what you're giving him the high ground the high ground mount everest he's just gonna be at the top and he'll be like he's got his built-in oxygen tank. Obi-Wan, come find me. I guess he doesn't need oxygen. Does the suit protect him from the cold? Dude, this is the future, of course.

He's finally got the high ground. He's finally got the high ground. That's what he needs. And a Sherpa, because you have to have a Sherpa. So it's like a two-in-one gift at that point. Gets the Sherpa, gets to see the sights. I don't know if this is the most genius thing ever, the stupidest thing i've ever

heard right it's probably both i okay well i don't even know what to say on that get it get it top that top it i don't think it okay because he's got the high ground nothing can go higher than that right well i was gonna get vader a certificate to a really posh spa that does excellent skincare treatments. Just try to help some of that look. A nice facial, a soothing mask, an aloe mask, or whatever the heck people get at these spas that make their skin look glowy and smooth. Red light treatment. I can't even argue with he's got the high ground. We're giving him a trip to the top of Mount Everest.

All right. I will say you did have a you had an alternate that you told me and I thought it was really good is you said a beach vacation because Anakin hates the sand. Yeah, I was trying to get a little goofy on that one. That one was pretty good too. I got one for Vader, but I did think about a beach vacation just to kind of tease him a little bit.

Yeah. But all right. You know what, Ryan? We have time for our very last one on this. We promised the people a list of 10 and give them a list of 10 we will. Our final character. What do you get for the man that knows everything?

Ryan that sees all and has infinite knowledge of things. We are giving a gift to my boy, my mirror from God of war from Norse mythology, famously the one that has the knowledge of all realms and all the all things i guess um maybe he doesn't have a body but you know that's uh that's neither here nor there so all right uh is it you you gave oh man yeah you led with mount everest so i guess it's my turn i i just wanted to do something silly and stupid for my mirror and i don't know why this kind of makes me giggle inside,

because it's the dumbest gift ever. I am giving Mimir a coffee mug that says, World's Greatest Severed Head, right? Now, he can't drink coffee because he ain't got no hands, but he can just sit right next to him and wish that he could drink out of it. Oh, man. Oh, brother. That's quite a gift. I could just hear his voice being like, brother, what am I supposed

to do with this? Brother. I appreciate it, but what am I supposed to do with a coffee mug? But he is. You're the world's greatest severed head mamir we love you we do it's like the cheesy gifts that like a kid gives their dad you know that the dad just winds up loving because it's like the kids gave it to him it's like dude i'm never gonna use this this is the most useless thing i've ever received but you bought it for me so yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna use it world's greatest severed head world's greatest severed head you know some things can't replace sentimental ryan

that's true i mean there was a lot of good severed heads in a futurama though if you remember those i never saw futurama oh my word okay we're gonna we're not even gonna get into that wait a minute we're not pinky the brain thing i feel like i've heard something no no no you okay okay no yeah we're not even gonna get into that because i that just blew my mind i'm gonna address that later with you off air because oh okay futurama that's that's wild i was actually going to do one that you took earlier i was going to give him a Mimir the Tesla robot and he could put his head on top of the robot

so he could actually have a body again. And that unfortunately was taken and I don't want to double dip. So I decided I am going to search and search the deserts of Agrabah for the lamp

and give it to Mimir so he can have the genah for the lamp and give it to Mimir so he can have the genie of the lamp and he can... You can tell I'm making this up on the spot and he can have a wish to wish his body back. Do you think that's what he'd wish for? That or like realm

domination or... He's wishing for Sigrid, man. The Queen Valkyrie. Well, no. He'd get his body back. He'd get Sigrid back. domination or he's wishing for sigrid yeah he wants her back queen valkyrie well no he did he get his body back he get sigrid back and then he gets three wishes right and then he would uh and he wished back uh kratos's wife isn't that a thing though like what were the rules is you can't make somebody fall in love you can't i thought it was you can't bring somebody back you can't bring somebody back from the dead yeah so kratos sigrid is still around though yeah yeah she's still around maybe if

he had a body back then he could you know woo her i now i will say when i was because you know me i'm competitive and i was like what does he actually need i did think about krang from teenage mutant ninja turtles his suit because it's an android body if you remember it's like in the middle from the teenage ninja turtles and i was like we'll just put my mirror's head right in the middle of that man oh that would be perfect and. And I was like, we'll just put Mimir's head right in the middle of that, man. Oh, that would be perfect. And then I just got stupid. And I don't know why it made me giggle.

But I was like a coffee mug just sitting next to him. I'm going to pretend you picked that. And then I'm going to give you the win because that's much better than... Sometimes you just got to get somebody something funny. Because now I'm just picturing M mirror in the middle of the body. I can't believe we both pick dating app for Bowser. Yeah, I think it's he's putting it out there. He's like, hey, I need love.

Oh, my goodness. All right. Well, that's it, man. We've given our gifts. I didn't keep score again, Ryan, because as people know, you and I aren't so good at this keeping score thing. So we're just going to declare this one a tie. Yeah.

Yeah. Everybody wins on this episode, right? All right. Now, listen, if we missed the most obvious gift, you know, if you're like, you guys are idiots, man, how did you not think about this for Cortana? Join our Discord server, hop in there and let us know what would have been a better gift for one of these characters. The link is in the episode description. All you got to do is look at this episode, scroll down, click that link, and you will be in gaming nirvana. Our community is absolutely fantastic. We don't say this lightly,

but legitimately everybody that joins and starts chatting with people goes, oh my goodness, you guys were right. This place is fantastic. We get nothing out of this. There's no like monetary incentive for Discord. It's just, we want a place for gamers to be able to hang out, chat video games.

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Say, hey, you guys ever listen to some gaming podcasts? You know, you guys should absolutely check out the Video Gamers podcast. That helps us out immensely to get the word out there. And hey, if you want to be more like DK Matt and Soul Beetle who just signed up to support the show, you can do that at multiplayer squad.com. That's it for this one,

Ryan. That was, that was a fun one. That was, that was good. It's giving gifts to people, right? We're men of the people.

We just are gift givers. All right. So that's it for this episode. We hope you enjoyed it. Happy holiday season, everybody. And until next time, happy gaming see ya