Video Gamers Podcast - (Free Bonus) Squadcast - Episode 43

Episode Date: February 23, 2024

We're bringing you a FREE bonus episode usually reserved for the exclusive supporters of our show called - The Squadcast. Video Games, life, hilarious host games and a bit more of a relaxed atmosphere all make for one heck of a special episode. Don't miss the chance to see what you've been missing, and check out this awesome free bonus episode! Want more? Head over to www.multiplayersquad.com to support the show and get two of these every month, plus early access and ad-free episodes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

hello fellow gamers we are the video gamers podcast here with another squad cast for all you beautiful people i am your host paul and i am joined as always with josh hello and you know what they really are beautiful people. Yeah. Yeah. You right there listening in your car on the way to work this morning. You're beautiful. You're beautiful. You're beautiful. You're breathtaking. Yeah. You get a beautiful. You get a beautiful.

Okay, maybe not you, but everybody else gets a beautiful. And of course, we have Ryan. I like how mine's not a question like Josh's is. Josh? Paul's just checking to make sure I'm actually here is why. He knows you're here, Ryan. Josh, are you paying attention?

Yeah. Oh, yes, we have Ryan the Rhino joining us. We've decided this is the new nickname. Oh, man. All right, starting out this squad cast guys i know that sometimes we talk about other games that we're playing but the three of us are addicted to hell divers 2 we aren't really playing anything else so there's really nothing to talk about i'm very curious to see how long hell divers 2 lasts forever are we gonna be playing in the summer still i don't know we'll have to wait and see all right so let's start out this squad cast by talking a little bit about the the year in

gaming so far so we all said we were very nervous about 2024 i remember planning for our most anticipated episode and josh flat out said i have like three games how are we even going to record this podcast it's true and now here we are uh we are recording this on february 18th and i think we've already had like three pretty solid releases on the year something like that we still have a whole lot to look forward to now we we have noticed that even though we have this huge backlog of great games that we're playing right now there is a little bit of a void that is going to be coming later this summer, or at least it looks like it's going to be a void. I'm kind of curious to hear from you guys, like, are there any games you've had on the back burner that you're hoping to play? Or are there any upcoming,

you know, indie games that you think might be hit surprises? What do you guys think we're going to end up doing this summer? This is, million-dollar question, man. Everybody talks about, okay, 2024, coming out strong, who predicted this? 2023 was one of the greatest years in gaming. 2024 is going to be a bleak year comparatively. And so far, we all laughed that it has not been the case. And I mean, we still have Dragon's Dogma 2 coming out in a month. We've got Pacific Drive coming out in two days. Final Fantasy Rebirth, which I mean, Paul and I at least are super hyped for. But it's like we literally have these conversations behind the scenes where we go, guys, what game are we going to cover? How are we going to cover these in time? You know, we try to be organized and like,

we came up with a schedule, which I forget about every time I ask Paul, like, hey, should we cover this game? And then Paul just pastes a picture of the schedule that we came up with. And then I go, Paul, you should know me by now, You know, calendars mean nothing to Josh. All right. We'll let Ryan answer this as an unbiased party. How many times has Paul pasted that schedule in response to a question? I've asked him. What is a million?

Yeah. Legitimately, I think it's probably like three in the last four weeks. Yeah. Okay. But once a week, you know. Yeah. But like, these are all things that we like, we talk about, we come up with. And, you know, so plus we have the legendary, the hijacka hosts, you know, and we have three

pending right now, I think in that regards. And so it's like, yeah, then we're trying to like figure out where do we fit these in? Because we have to cover these big releases, but at the same time, we definitely want to do our due diligence with the hijack a host games. So there's like just been this storm of busyness

and then like late April hits. And then it's like, well, good news guys, there's nothing coming out in April. And then we go, okay, well, what about March? And then we's like, well, good news, guys. There's nothing coming out in April. And then we go, okay, well, what about March? Or not March, May. One of those M months. And then we go, okay, absolutely nothing in May, with the

exception of Hellblade 2, which is only a seven-hour game. And then it's like, what are we going to do? We're finally going to be able to play all that Skull and Bones and kill the Justice league that we've been waiting to probably go back to for spoken yeah sure you know give that another shot battlefield 2042 definitely deserves another chance a great spot i hear i'll tell you what that that uh old

70 year old uh sniper dude have you guys seen him that oh yeah yes and he just he snipes these dudes from across the map and he's he's just so happy yeah he's so he's just no ptsd he's living in the moment like reliving his past but for me um games the one thing i really really want to get to because i know you guys have been hounding me about is cyberpunk yes i was hoping oh i i you know i have the pc for it i got the build so i i want to really after all those issues with the launch you know i had a bad taste but i haven't had a chance to get back into it once kind of things calm down a little bit hopefully i'm done dispersing liberty as much uh i i would really want to get back in. I have maybe an addictive personality, so I tend to go hardcore and full bore into anything that I do,

and I just get sucked into it. So I know once I start it, I won't be able to do anything other than Cyberpunk. So I'm going to wait until it slows down a little bit. We get a lull in the games, and then I can just go in and do that, and then the expansion, the DLC and stuff. i can just go in and do that and then uh the expansion the dlc and stuff so yeah i mean i am actually excited for that so yeah yeah i i know

like one thing i would love to play are the tomb raider remasters oh dude obviously that's nothing we're gonna you know deep dive on the pod but i would love to have some time to play around in those i played all of uncharted one through three recently but i did not start four so i would love to be able to finish that up uh weirdly it's just a lot of remasters that i want to get around to dead space i still haven't played the remake oh yeah oh i know good man i played through the original i think at least three times on xbox so one of these days I'll finally pick it back up for PC so I guess for me remakes and remasters always get the boot while we're covering deep dives on the show so maybe I'll catch up on some of those really that's the

only thing I have on on my horizon if that's like your comfort food basically because you know what to expect but it's a little bit juiced up for you. I'll be honest. I don't really have anything in mind for the Horizon during those times. You guys know me. I'm a little flighty. So it's going to be whatever kind of tickles my fancy or whatever game somebody mentions that I go, oh, yeah. I mean, recently in Shrouded, I didn't get to play that one.

People were hyping that game up. So maybe I'll give that one a try. I know from like the podcast point of view, the one nice thing is, is like eventually we'll get back to the Forza Friends. Oh, yeah. And so it's like, and just so people don't think that we have completely like forgotten about this format, but our bonus rounds. Like, yeah, we've been saying for a month now, like now like guys we haven't had a bonus round in 2024 yet um you know and we're well aware it's just been an absolute flood of games and not that that's a you know a bad problem to have but we really do enjoy the bonus round episodes it's fun to get a little silly

um with that kind of stuff too. So I think we will just kind of fall a little bit back into like that comfortable routine where we're able to actually pick games for each other to play. We're going to have our fun bonus rounds and stuff like that as well. I mean, the other thing is, you know, there's going to be some surprise indie game, you know, there's going to be some surprise release or some game that has is way better than it had any right to be you know that kind of stuff too so it's funny to think that there's this void but honestly there probably isn't yeah there'll be a day of the diver or a hi-fi rush or you know there's always those that tink that come out every few weeks yeah all right moving on to the next question here.

I like this one. If you could make $150,000 a year doing a job that you've done in the past, what would you choose? So this means you cannot pick your current job. It has to be a previous one. And it has to be something that you have actually done in the past. So you can't just be like, oh, I want to be an astronaut, you know, or something like that. Sure. They probably make more than $150, oh, I want to be an astronaut or something like that.

They probably make more than $150,000. I was going to say, you better make more than $150,000. What does an astronaut make? If you had to guess, what do you think an astronaut makes? I'm going to say $200,000. I was going to say $250,000. I was going to say $300,000.

I mean, you got to be really smart to be an astronaut. We'll do a Google challenge here to say 250. I was going to say three. So, I mean, you got to be really smart to be an astronaut. We'll do a Google challenge here to find out. Josh, is your answer for this dolphin training? Yeah, easily dolphin trainer. I was a dolphin trainer for almost two years. You know, I got to swim with dolphins every day. The one downside to that job was just the pay.

This was a long time ago, but I was making about $18,000 a year. A year, mind you, living in Key Largo, Florida, which is a very expensive place to live. So yeah, I know what poverty feels like, but I also know what having an incredible dream job feels like at the same time. So if you told me, hey, you can make $150,000 a year and swim with dolphins every day, that would be the one for me. So astronauts don't make as much money as we would have thought. Oh, no. I pulled up a Business Insider article,

and in 2020, according to U. to US government pay scales, a civilian astronaut earns between $66,000 and $161,000 per year. No! $160,000 on the high end. I guess it does kind of make sense because we aren't exactly putting a whole lot of astronauts in space. There's not a ton of funding. So, yeah, not quite as high payment as I would think. exactly putting a whole lot of astronauts in space there's not a ton of funding so yeah not not quite as high payment as i would think i wonder if they're like hourly though but because you're in space you never get time off so you're just making like a ton of over hourly

nasa's hiring 26 an hour to be an astronaut keeping a time card up in the iss all right that sounds kind of dumb. Have you guys ever done that with the VR? Going to the ISS? No. Oh, you guys got to check that out. You can go up into the space station and you can pull yourself through. You can go inside. You can go on the outside and just kind of look around. Really, really

cool on a side note. That's pretty cool. I like that. That sounds fun. What about you ryan what's your uh dream job that you've had is it is it security working for your dad back in the day well this is the hard thing uh i'm from a family of entrepreneurs so i haven't had too many quote unquote real jobs um and i am now self-employed as well so what i would say as far as one that i just kind of thoroughly enjoyed mainly because the people that were there and just you know quote unquote helping people but i worked at kinkos when i was when i was a teenager and it was no longer around no longer

around now it's all fedex office they they changed the name or whatever but i just got to hang out and make business cards and print copies for people and and help people trying to do their copies out in the self-service area and it was just kind of a cool relaxed chill job it might have just been the the place i was at i had really cool managers i was uh i think 19 at the time they were super awesome um but yeah it was just one of those things the only thing that sucked was at one point some a bunch of people complained that the employees were all sitting down too much oh my god and so so they wouldn't allow chairs in the back station so you had to stand for eight nine hours a day that's stupid which was so dumb

because you're just sitting at a computer running copies and you go and you get the stuff you you know collate it and put it all into the boxes and then you put it into where you know people are going to pick it up and stuff once they come back in and so there was literally no point other than just kind of the presence you would you know show that you're standing up and working um so that was the only issue. But other than that, it was just a fun job. Christmas was crazy because we had a – Oh, like newsletters and stuff?

Well, no. And with FedEx because they were still joined with FedEx at the time because this was 2007-ish or so, 8-ish. And so Christmas, everybody came in to ship everything. We would have stacks of boxes to the ceiling. And the people, yeah, we knew all the drivers. And it was just a cool kind of fun environment. So if I could make $150,000, I would for sure do that.

I have so many memories of going to Kinko's with my mom. Because this is before, you had the inkjet printers. It was terribly expensive it took forever to print oh yeah and you would go to kinko's you'd get a special little cartridge you'd plug it into like one of the printing machines it would let you print it would keep track of how many copies and you'd pay at the end and uh yeah i spent a lot of time as as a young kid sitting around kinko's waiting for my mom to make copies. My answer for this is ironically the very first job I ever had, which was at Harkins movie theater.

So I, I opened Harkins Arrowhead here in Peoria, Arizona, and that was such a fun job because there were just so many people that you work with and it's very social. And my favorite was my senior year of high school. I was way ahead in credits. I wanted to graduate early, but my parents didn't want me to. So my second semester senior year, I had marching band from 7.20 to 8.48

and then nothing the rest of the day. So I would go to Harkins. I worked the day shift. And I don't know if you guys know this, but during the school year when you're working like 9 a.m., there is nobody coming to the movies. So you're literally just hanging out with your coworkers, talking, joking around all day, ordering good food, messing around. I absolutely loved that job. I have so many memories of just cackling laughing upstairs with the other managers that I would hang out with. I loved that job.

I ended up working there a total of four years. Oh, wow. And I did not get paid very much at all, but it doesn't hurt also that I love movies. And if you work at a movie theater, you probably love movies also. I just remember talking movies all the time. Such a fun job. I would gladly do that today for 150 000 for sure yeah yeah all right moving on to our first controversy question is this a controversy no should mac and cheese be eaten with a fork or a spoon and there's clearly a winner to this. Yeah, it's the fork. Yeah, it's the fork.

No! Ryan! Spoon! No, you're not. You're eating mac and cheese with a spoon. Dude, you can maximize your scoop potential with a spoon. Absolutely. That's the wrong answer.

That is not the wrong answer. Oh, let me just stab stab stab stab do you eat spaghetti with a spoon no okay why because it's a pasta right if no okay hold on are you talking about spaghetti noodles are you talking about do you eat tortelloni or what what type of noodles if it's if it's not spaghetti long noodles i'll eat it with a spoon a hundred percent you eat tortellini with a spoon i'll eat and ravioli i'll eat uh not raviolis raviolis because i like to cut raviolis in half and then you just eat one or the half and half spoons have edges ryan listen listen i'm trying to maximize spoon potential here and so you can just man you can scoop a big

old hunk if you're using the fork you gotta stab stab stab stab and what do you get scoop with a scoop no then you can when you get to the bottom of the bowl and you can actually like stab the noodles the like the five noodles that are left and try bad takes bad takes all around i am usually team ryan when it comes to food. I'm definitely with Josh on this. When you guys were a kid, did you ever use a fork and impale the noodles on the little? It's like saying,

did you ever put bugles at the end of your fingers? You know, of course you did that. The witch's fingernails. Yeah. Yeah. And you slowly eat one by one. You're like,

oh no, my fingers. All all right i do feel like we might be in the minority on this one paul to be honest with you like i i am team fork on this but i i i'm willing to bet that most people would say spoon for better or worse i will say my default to everything is fork unless you have to use a spoon. So if it's cereal or a soup, of course you're going spoon anything that can go either way. I am always going to default to four. I'm with you.

Yeah. Lame. Yeah. No, I'll use, I'll use fork if you know, it calls for it obviously on most things, but small,

you know, noodles or things like that. I like to be able to just scoop a big heaping, you know, spoonful and then i can just go that way so that's just my personal preference that's fine i'm all for it any any method that gets pasta in my mouth i'm ultimately fine with all right moving on to a situation question here you are on an airplane sitting in the middle seat yeah which armrest is yours now they can't see it at home but i did put a little picture in the i like the picture so just to explain because people are going like what do you mean there's four armrests for three seats

yes and so now this creates the conundrum of if you're in the middle do you get both armrests and then the people on the outer side just get the one and so that's that's the question man ryan what you think i have the answer if you're in the middle you already have the uh unfortunate luck of being stuck in the middle of two probably smelly people. So you get both armrests. For sure. You absolutely get both. 100% because the other two people can also lean away. They did a little shift and they lean on their side

to their one armrest. You don't need to sit in the middle of your seat when you're on the edges. So middle gets both. They already are drawn unfortunate luck and they should at least be benefited with two armrests. That's the thing. Because if you're the aisle, you get the benefit of the leg room.

If you have the window, you have the benefit of the view. If you're in the middle, the only benefit you could possibly have is both armrests. So if you are an aisle or window seater who is using that middle armrest shame on you you gotta give the middle person one thing it's the only thing they get that's that's this is so true and it's so dumb at the same time but it is yes like if you number one never get the middle seat ever i i won't i won't share it here, but I had a horrible, horrible experience on a flight one time where I was in the middle seat and I had two very large people on either side of me that

were literally spilling over into my seat. Yeah, just don't ever go for the middle seat. But you're right. That is your privilege if you were stuck in the middle as you get both armrests. Yeah. And that's where you put your kids and you gotta stick the kids in the middle but yeah that's the only time that i would say maybe you could steal an armrest as if there's a kid in the middle but otherwise yeah that's that's your one benefit yep all right moving on to a game question this is one that we've had on the outline for a while. We just haven't gotten to. What is a game that you just can't fathom how people can enjoy? The Sims.

Oh, this is such a wild take. You hate Sim games, and I don't understand. I do. I love Sim. I was up. It was up there with like trucking simulator and lawnmower simulator and basically any Sim game. But then I started thinking about it, and i was like the sim copter sim ant was fun but that was also back

like before games were really really popular you know what i mean it's kind of like all you had and it was such a unique thing at the time um yeah for me and i know there's people gasping right now but i can't i cannot understand a game where you want to like just do daily life like you go to work in the sims like you build a house you have to sleep and like cook dinner and i get the whole you can have fun and lock him in a closet and burn the house down and all that stuff but it it's just like, why do I want a game that just mimics the mundane parts of life, man? I don't understand that. And I get that people love it because The Sims is a monster franchise. But that, for me, is the one game that instantly came to mind was just like, I can't fathom how people enjoy this.

You can go on the career track to be an astronaut collect a cool 66 000 a year and you get to live out your dream that's that's like the whole thing in the sims you get to live out what you can't accomplish in real life living it out you're just it's just you're vicariously pixel guy yeah and you're not really killing anything in remnant 2 but it gives you that feeling right yeah ryan's more of a fan of the sims ryan and i have played the sims together i know he's more of a fan we played a ton especially growing up i know um there's so many things too especially if you have a household where people are all playing and you're on the same you know this is old school back when you know you're all in the same neighborhood. I remember when we were playing and Bonnie, Paul's

sister-in-law, sister-in-law, my cousin, I stole her wife on the game and she got so mad. It was just so much fun. She was trying to steal her back. Yes, you have to do the mundane things.

They get mad when they have to do dishes and stuff, but the thing for me on the sims games is i love the architecture i love to build this most the most ridiculous cool house and i have all these crazy things in it and so it's just it's one of those things it's i i haven't played one in a while but i definitely played a lot of sims back in the day i wouldn't say i'm a Sim hater, but I'm also probably not a Sim lover. I think it's also a little more dramatic than Josh may realize. If you're inviting the neighbor over to come sit in the hot tub, these go places that are not just mundane details in life,

you're not just vacuuming and cooking dinner. I mean, there's a little more intrigue to it than just that. So there are other reasons. You're missing out, Josh. Yeah, I'm good. I like how I said I can't fathom how anybody did that. Both of you launched into trying to sell it, why it's fun. And I still can't fathom it.

Nice try, guys. What about you, Ryan? What game can you not fathom it nice try guys but what about you ryan what game can you not fathom people liking um as someone who has thousands of hours in this game why is anyone still playing destiny 2 brandon marine good question yeah our one and only discord moderator yeah still only plays destiny 2 i i don't understand it uh i have a really really good buddy my buddy sean he he i keep telling him and i joke and i and i i joked at everybody else is like you're just you have too many hours and you can't let it go like there's no reason to play it anymore it's

it's it's lost all of its fun enjoyment everything they're doing're doing is just... It's beyond words to me. I don't understand why anybody still plays this game. And that's coming from someone who has thousands and thousands of hours in Destiny 1 and 2. I just don't get it. Makes you kind of sad, doesn't it? That it's like you can see a game that went from the pinnacle of your gaming experience

to what it is now. So much of my life. It was where Helldivers is now so much of my life like it was it was where hell divers is now where i any chance i got i'm like oh you know even if i didn't have a mission or a nightfall or a raid or anything to do i'm like i'm gonna go grind mats so i can use it for this and i just wanted to be on the game that's all i wanted to do and now it's i just couldn't even fathom loading it up my buddy's been trying to get me to play he's trying to buy me expansions and i'm like i'm no i'm not playing dude i'm not

gonna play so yeah i just i don't get it and the one's beyond me yeah when i was thinking about this i have a pretty wide range of genres that i like i can fathom almost liking any kind of game, even though I'm not like a big Souls-like guy. I get the appeal. The one for me that is furthest away from what I enjoy is Escape from Tarkov. That to me, extraction shooters do not jive with me at all. We've talked a lot about why we game the way we do, and this also feeds into partially why Josh doesn't like sim games. For me, gaming is mostly about escapism, and I always joke that life has enough conflict and stuff to overcome. I'm not looking for a challenge in my games. So the whole idea of playing a hardcore shooter that is loaded with cheaters where if i bring any of my

good items and die i'm gonna lose them it's just so sweaty and and the cheating is what takes it over the top i it's hard for me to imagine why people spend so much time in tarkov but if the game was run perfectly well and there were zero cheaters, I could at least understand somewhat. I have zero interest. You could not pay me. You could offer me 150,000 a year to play Tarkov. Maybe I'll take the job, but I would honestly have to think about it.

I would do it. I would do it. If anyone wants to do it, I'm in. If you want to sponsor Ryan. 150 grand. Right here. Josh, what if you could play animal crossing eight hours a day for 150 000 a year oh my god would you take it or would you have to think about it i'm having to think about it right now so that means i'd probably

oh dude you'd have to at least sleep i mean eight hours a day every day monday through friday of nothing but animal crossing like i think i would start to hate life man yeah like that's how i would feel with yeah i mean i get that because you'd just be frustrated i'm with you a little bit paul i don't hate them like on that level but i do get the like it just leads to frustration this is why we don't rank them very high i was actually watching um uh Letter play Tarkov Arena the other day. And he loves the game. And I love that for him. And the arena mode, I could actually see being a little bit better because you're not losing

all of your gear because somebody hid in a bush and sniped you or something like that. I get the risk factor and the adrenaline. And that is the draw. But getting killed randomly and then losing all of my gear is just a recipe for frustration for me at that point. So I get it. I'm just not quite as far as on Paul's side of that. But yeah, I understand that thinking too, Paul. Well, Ryan, the good news is is that tarkov is rolling out their first micro transaction where you can buy a bigger stash with real life money so if you're making 150k a year at least you can afford the bigger stash all right perfect all right moving on to our next game question oh

i like these i like the questions that go a little bit behind the scenes was there ever a game or a deep dive that you guys argued over doing like for example one person wanted to cover a game and the others didn't i can't this is easier for me and josh dancer because we've been around longer i i actually tried to think about this one and i couldn't think of like a specific example but your memory for these things is better than mine paul the only do you have one i have one oh well it's sure because i don't final fantasy 7 it's okay final fantasy 7 rebirth don't you guys try to make me play it dude why do you keep calling me out man you keep saying everything i'm about to

say we just did this you're a mind reader yeah this is exactly quiet the second i read this i'm like oh yeah that's what it is it's final fantasy i guys i really don't want to deep dive it i know we're gonna have to i know the people the people all the masses out there want it i'm just not a final fantasy guy and i don't want to do it but what if you become one ryan what if this is the game how many there's like 17 final fantasies how am i going to become one, Ryan? What if this is the game? There's like 17 Final Fantasies. How am I going to become one now? Come on. That's a fair point.

I would say the only time I think we've ever argued about like a release or a deep dive is if like we have this struggle where sometimes it's like there's this really big release that's coming out that we probably should cover from like a like a standpoint of like the podcast right like this is going to be a huge triple a title we're not super excited about it but we probably should cover it for like the show but then there's this game that we are excited about but is probably a lot lesser known um by a lot of people so i think that's the only time where we've really sun like hey which one are we going to go with and i think there's times where you know i'll go i'll think one thing and then paul will think the other thing or something like that but paul you had generally the case that's generally the case normally it's josh going we got to do this and paul's like i don't know and then i'm just like in the middle

just sitting here like i don't know i'm down for whatever and just like no no we need to do this and paul's like i don't know and then i'm just like in the middle just sitting here like i don't know i'm down for whatever and just like no no we need to do this and paul's like i i get i'm well uh so well and i normally word things in questions so like the other day we were talking about like recording a hijack and i was like well when are we gonna do the deep dive because like the schedule's kind of already full, and I'm more of the calendar schedule guy. No, I think the only thing that really pops up with this was very early on with Josh, Todd, and me, I don't even remember what game it was. There was some game that we said we were going to do,

and then it released, and the critical reviews were not very good. And I remember Josh saying, let's not do this. And I just remember saying, well, we can't marry every game when we would do Make, Love, Marry, or Murder. And I remember saying, I almost like that it's bad because we have to also rail on bad games at the same time. Maybe it'll suck to play, but we can all forge trauma bonds together and now

make fun of it in the aftermath. And that wasn't even a specific game. It was more of a general idea. Because at the same time, I think we've all played games where critics love it and we don't understand why, or critics hate it. And we're like, dude, you're just missing the point. This game's just fun. So no no i don't think there's any specific ones there's only one game that we ever announced it will be our next deep dive and then we scrapped it i don't even remember the name it was that stupid game where you kept getting where i kept getting stunned oh yeah it was the xbox um blood something blood sport or blood battle battle brawl battle yeah it was something like that it was yeah

like a character brawler type game oh that was one where where you me and todd played like two rounds and we're like nope we're out yeah i don't i don't even remember the name that's the only one where and that was like all three of us were on the same page because it's tough because you know we don't collect regular paychecks from this this is not like a normal job where you get an assignment, but you're getting paid and so your boss just tells you what to do. This is largely a hobby for us. So there is a certain balance between we want to cover big, well-known titles, even if they're poorly reviewed, but we also don't want to hate the next two weeks of having to play the game. So there is a little bit of a fine balance. Bleeding Edge. Bleeding Edge. There you go.

I couldn't think. I was like, it's not blood, but it's blood and something. Yes, that was the one. Sorry, I didn't even jump in, but it took me a minute to access the memory there. Yeah, that game was no good. All right, let's go ahead and jump down in our outline a little bit let's let's do a host game here that josh came up with this this one's a really fun idea this is where josh came up with a list of situations and the three of us are going to say who is most likely to be a part of that situation right that's the whole idea here all right should we just start at the top of the list yeah go down the list all right which of the three of us would most likely rob a bank paul i say paul as well i say me i say me also all the listeners are going wait a minute

yes it is paul paul would be the most likely because he's a genius and he could get away with it that's exactly why it's a victimless crime the money's insured i'm here for the insurance's money not your money right this is the line from heat you guys know how much i love heist movies if i had to commit a crime like you could do a lot worse than robbing a bank come on this is like in my mind the coolest crime you could ever commit is robbing lucrative too sure yeah i love the fact that people would i think their initial thought would be like me or ryan on this one but it is a hundred percent paul yeah it's me yeah instantly i was reading the outline and i was like yep paul yeah off the bat when you

guys when you guys like walk into a bank, do you start casing the joint? Are you eyeing the security cameras and clocking them? I don't go into a bank very often anymore, but there is a time where I'm like, okay, there's one employee over there. There's two over there. Get your painting on. There's a camera there. And then I just...

I will say, though, as a husband of a wife who worked at a bank, they really don't have that much money on hand yeah no they don't you can have you come in if you got like a hundred thousand dollar check you're like i want to cash this they have to order the money like they have to go and call it and bring it in they're like you should have called ahead and stuff like that so as it can be lucrative probably i'm sure at certain places, most banks don't have that much money on hand as far as cash. Yeah, for the risk involved. And to be clear, when I say it's a victimless crime, I know there are victims.

People pay for the insurance, okay? I'm half joking. I just mean, I'd rather rob a bank than mug someone in an alley. Oh, yeah, for sure. Totally different. All right, next one here fart in public josh clearly josh i was gonna i was gonna vote for myself on this one two for two baby uh yeah that easily um i i once embarrassed my wife horribly in a blockbuster video one time oh no

looking through the game section this was i mean this was probably 15, 20 years ago. And there was a little kid, probably 8 to 10 years old, standing behind me. And I let one rip straight up on this kid. And he whipped around and looked at me. And I instantly started giggling. And he just ran down the aisle. And I could hear two aisles over with him just laughing to his friend going that dude just whipped one like right on me man and my wife heard it and she was mortified dude i mean mortified and to this day she still is like yeah do you remember when you farted on that little kid and i was like i sure do

i to me that's like the most mortifying thing that could happen I think I was in like third grade and I remember in the middle of choir oh that I accidentally farted and people definitely heard it and I 100% turned and blamed my friend Dan Kinnaman oh no he blamed me and apologies to Dan that was me but I was never going to admit it. I was like eight and I was like, nope, I am going down with the ship. I am denied, denied, denied until the day I die. I am not going to admit this happened. It was me the whole time.

Oh, that is hilarious. Oh, man. All right. Next one here on the list. Who is most likely to rage and smash their controller into a wall josh paul i i said ryan i don't think i don't think any of us would no but i felt like okay i don't know in my defense one of us has flipped the table during game night that okay i was 18 years old. That's a long time ago. I've also never flipped the table.

Yeah. All right. I'll take it. Fine. That one can be me. All right. Who is most likely to secretly use hacks? None of us, I hope.

It would be none of us. We are all very opposed to hacking, but if we had to say one of us who would it be i would say josh only because josh comes from a family of if you're not cheating you're not trying like josh is more likely to cheat in something like monopoly i don't think josh would like download hacks but that's the only reason that I would say Josh might be more likely. It's a little bit more baked into your DNA. I agree. Number one, again, let's be clear. None of us, we all hate hacking immensely, but I would say if we had to pick somebody for this one, I would say me because I hate to lose too. Oh, that's a good point. I will say I do not cheat. Like there was a time. Yes. When like my family, like you said, you know, if you're not cheating, you're not trying kind of thing.

But then later in life, when I grew up, I realized like, even if you're cheating, even if you win, you're not really winning. So it's like, I can't remember the last time I've cheated like any kind of game ever. Like, you know, it's just not something I do anymore, but there definitely was a time where it was like hey man if you ain't doing it that's on you yeah hacking in online games would be like i don't know boxing a toddler right like of course i'm gonna win and then what satisfaction is there like there there is none i just i don't understand i'm sure for like a match or two it's fun but after that where's the enjoyment you know what what do you

get out of that it's not it's you're not you're not doing anything the the the aim bot or whatever you have is doing all the work so i just don't see the longevity of enjoyment for something like that so yeah i i just have no desire to do that because you know you do it once or twice and then the fun's over yeah Yeah, totally agree. All right, next one on the list. Who is most likely to kill everyone with the Mortar Sentry in Helldivers 2? Ryan. Josh.

Ryan. Ryan. Josh. Not me. You can vote for yourself, Ryan. It's okay. All right, it's me. It's me. Also, guess who has never unlocked the Mortar Sentry?

I was just going gonna ask if you even unlocked it because i do have it i never will i will unlock every other stratagem except for that one just to prove my point that's why you never have the most kills yeah ryan you've given josh ptsd i have and that's why we got overrun earlier today because all the little guys didn't get killed by a mortar sentry yeah yeah all right which of us is most likely to be willing to do something really stupid for 50 bucks i'm gonna say me it's not me it's one of you two i'm having trouble with this this is a tough one between me and ryan i feel like i'm a little bit cheaper than ryan so it's like i think i'd be willing to do a little bit more for $50

than Ryan would. Like, Ryan would do it just for the fun of it. I would do it because you're paying me $50. I would, yeah, I'd do it for the clout, for the admiration and the street cred. Gotta get your street cred in. But, yeah, I mean,

$50 is whatever. So unless it's something cool, then I'd be like, ah, whatever. I don't want to do it. Yeah. I'm easily bribed. All right, we'll give that one to Josh. Yeah. Who would be most likely to go skydiving?

I'm going to say Ryan on this one. Yeah. It would be Ryan. As much as I would love to go skydiving, I'm terrified of heights. And I feel like Ryan would just be like, at any given moment, somebody's like, let's go. He would just drop everything and be like, okay, let's go.

There's a picture of me in my high school yearbook. Cause I, uh, I was on the marketing team and we went there part of a field trip. And I was like, guys, get a picture of me. And I went to the side and I hung off the side of a cliff.

Like I was climbing up it out of the grand Canyon. So I have zero fear of heights. And, uh, yeah. So I, I've wanted to go skydiving since I was a kid. No, thank you. I'm good. All right. This is the one I struggled with the most. Who is most likely to be the biggest baby when they have a man cold?

Because I don't think this is any of us. I think it's Josh. We all get sick, but we don't complain about it. i don't think this is any of us i don't i think it's josh we all get sick but we don't complain about it i don't get sick i don't i mean my wife would probably agree but when you get sick i bet you're a baby i i mean i do like attention honestly like and so my wife would probably agree although i don't i rarely ever get sick. And even if I am sick, I say I'm not sick because it's like I can still function. So. See, that's the thing. I tell you guys when I'm sick

only because there's a chance I might not be able to record. I deny being sick to my wife and everyone else. Like Nikki gets mad at me. It's allergies. Because sometimes I'll be like, man, I was so sick like the last four days. I'm so glad I'm better.

I'll admit it after the fact. And so she'll call me out sometimes when she's like, you're sick, aren't you? And I'm really not. I'm like, I'm not. I know you think I am. I know you think I'm playing games. I'm not sick. But I grew up with a little bit of a drive by on my dad here. My dad is, he does not handle being sick well. And there were a lot of status updates that I always hated hearing. And I made it my mission in life somewhere around four years old that I will not complain when I'm sick. And so I was like, this is the one I would not want put on me because I very intentionally do not complain about being sick. Yeah. Ryan can probably imagine sort of what I'm

talking about. Ryan's been exposed to some of the shenanigans over the years. Yeah, oh yeah. Alright, should we keep going with this list or should we save? No, no, no. Knock them out. Let's do it. Who's most likely to eat something off the ground? I would...

This is me. I was going to vote for myself because I don't care about germs, man. Me neither. I was was gonna vote for myself because i'm not i don't care about germs man me neither i was gonna vote for me okay so we're all gross okay well i have a recent story for this so at the open i ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that was probably one of the best i've ever had off the ground how did that happen pray tell i was walking through with my friends and we were going up to this other hole and we see this guy carrying this huge tote of of food and he's walking through and it's got piled high a couple things fall off some other guys pick them up and the guys just beelined away so he's gone they're like uh

and they are two sandwiches and they just didn't know what to do with them. So they set them on the back of one of the carts for like the open. Me and my friend look at each other. I'm like, those are sandwiches. I was like, they just fell right there. Let's get them. Now unwrapped. Unwrapped sandwiches.

No, they're not unwrapped. They were wrapped, but listen, listen, listen, listen. It was wet and muddy because it was at the open. Eh, it still had a wrapper on it. So it was... Okay, it did have a wrapper on it. Some of the bread was a little wet and soggy and kind of wet and muddy.

Yeah, so I kind of picked that part off a little bit, but I did eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich off the ground at the open with 400,000 people there. For a second, I thoughtyan was about to be the real life example of my favorite joke from the show parks and rec oh we're at the town meeting the lady says i found a sandwich in the park yesterday and i want to know why it didn't have any mayonnaise that's that's almost ryan uh yeah i i i'm not a dermaphobe at all. This would not bother me. I remember someone calling me out on this and said,

no, there's no way you would do it. And I was like, dude, if you dared me, I would chew gum someone else chewed. And my friend said, all right, here you go. And I chewed it and then spit it out five seconds later. But that doesn't gross me out. I couldn't care less. You're still alive.

Yep. Still alive. And we never get sick. So there you go. Yeah. All right. seconds later but that doesn't gross me out i i couldn't care less you're still alive yep still alive and we never get sick so there you go yeah all right who is most likely to ask their wife to take care of a bee loose in their house ryan ryan listen okay this is situational it's not because it was so funny it's not because i didn't want to take care of the beat or i couldn't or i was afraid i was playing games or i was what happened i was we were in the middle of a hell divers mission that's what it was josh was afk which made it even funnier yeah that i just keep hearing i i hear r Ryan's son, Jackson right in the room. I can't hear what Jackson is saying,

but then Ryan's like, okay, it's just a B it's fine. I'll take care of it in a minute. And like, cause Ryan's, you know, focusing on hell divers. Jackson comes in to talk about the B again.

And the next thing I know, Sarah comes in Ryan's wife and Ryan's like, honey, you don't get it. It's suicidal difficulty. I can't just go. So I told Josh, I said, You missed a lot of bee drama in the last few minutes.

So I love that it made its reappearance. Sorry, Ryan. I had to put it in there. That's fine. And we had to ask Ryan for a bee update later. So it turned out Sarah was able to take care of it. Lo and behold, they got the bee out fine. Oh, whoop-dee-dee-doo they got the bee out see it's not that big of a deal i will never forget that ryan's like honey it's suicidal difficulty i don't think it's because they

don't understand i'm like i got 800 bugs coming at me right now you got one bee take care of it oh i love it oh it's so funny all right who would be most likely to be in a situation where they have to emergency land a plane we'll think that they can emergency land a plane oh think they can like who would think that they can land a plane i mean they say anyone can do it if you're being talked to by mission control or are you saying like all of a sudden you're in a cockpit and you have to land this plane without any help no yeah that do i think you could do it you could land a plane like i think i could do it do i who would i trust to do it paul because paul would listen they're like open flaps to play this do this if you gave paul a checklist he'd do it in a heartbeat

if you had instructions written down paul would master it i'd be like hold on let me bank this yeah oh yeah ryan's going full flight invert the plane fly upside down we're in bird video games i did play a lot of microsoft flight simulator so my answer is paul easily yeah paul all right i would say me if i have instructions if there's no instructions i might i might say josh i feel like if it was just here's a thousand buttons good luck figuring it out i don't know that i'd be able to do it i feel like josh would just keep a cool head start tinkering with stuff and might be able to figure it out. But yeah, that's a funny one. Good answer.

All right. Who is most likely to think that they can win a fight against a bear? Ryan. Ryan. What? And to be fair, Ryan would have the best chances at fighting a bear. But you also think you can beat Paul and I simultaneously, Ryan. Well, one, I could 100% do that.

Two, the bear wouldn't expect pocket sand so that was my defense against you i said i'm bringing pocket sand yeah it was a good defense i'm gonna use it against a bear you use it against a greater opponent duh oh man did you guys see on reddit just the other day the guy with the shotgun and how the bear keeps charging oh yes yeah yeah and he doesn't shoot the bear dude Dude, that guy was cool as a cucumber because I would have shot that bear long before that guy did. Oh, I've seen so many of mountain lions that are stalking hikers that get close to their cubs and stuff.

It's scary, man. I just saw one the other day where a mountain lion came down to the guy in this little cavern, and it's really tight, maybe four feet across, and it's really tight, maybe four feet across, and it's kind of a stretch and then a T. And the mountain lion's trying to get out because it's freaked out. And it just keeps running in circles around him

and he can't get out. And the guy's just standing there. He doesn't know what to do. Oh, man. But I could beat up a bear. Does it depend on what kind of bear? Polar, grizzly, brown? I would smoke up a bear. Does it depend on what kind of bear? Polar, grizzly, brown? I would smoke a black bear. Koala?

You'd smoke a teddy bear. Brown bear. Yeah, teddy bear I could beat too. Grizzly bear, no thanks. Yeah, yeah. All right. Last one. Who is most likely to be contacted by the CIA to complete a secret mission to save the world?

I'm going to say me. What? Maybe it's because I want to be a top secret agent. We need an undercover dolphin trainer. Also, I think I have the widest set of skills amongst this bunch. I have a particular set of skills. You and Liam Neeson? Yeah.

You got a lot of skills? Okay. Dolphin trainer. Hey, dude, the Navy uses dolphins? Sure. To go find mines and stuff underwater? Yeah, Josh is like Aquaman. He's just swimming through the ocean.

On my dolphins. Just riding. I could see Josh or I could see Ryan. Either way. I say Paul because it's going to be in the capacity of... It may not be on the front line. I could totally see Paul, the man behind the computer. He's the guy in the van.

Paul's the guy in the van that's directing everybody, shutting down the traffic lights. That's the first thing I thought of. Ving Rhames in Mission Impossible. I'll take it. All right. And then we always have to end with a food question. So we are going to be ranking these three Italian staples,

spaghetti, meatball hoagie, and chicken parm. This is easy. You got to rank them. One, two, three. One being the best. I have a quick question. Is the spaghetti just straight up noodle like pasta and sauce or is it with other things? You can't have meatballs on it because there's the meatball hoagie.

Yes, a meat sauce. So just a meat sauce. Okay. Just a meat sauce is what i was or it could be like the garlic brown butter or like the um yeah i mean you could you could go with the spaghetti you want you just can't use meatballs on it because meatballs are already in the meatball what about italian sausage sure okay all right who wants to go first i'll go i know my answer mine is meatball hoagie number one spaghetti number two chicken parm number three really yeah okay i love what's uh good meatball

hoagie is oh so good also simultaneously really bad meatball hoagies can go back i was just about to say this ain't no subway meatball hoagie so get out of here with that nonsense i'm talking like an actual good like a really good bread good like dense seasoned meatballs like i'm talking the real deal it's been baking all like for like three days straight in the crock pot you don't want a soy meatball no subway no no impossible meat meatball yeah a really good like especially if you make them homemade like homemade legit meatball subs are so freaking good a little surprised to hear you put chicken parm last because it's such a popular dish what why do you have that it's just like i mean i feel like every chicken parm is the same yeah you know i mean i've had like the chicken parm olive garden i've had the chicken parm at some really fancy italian restaurant i've had the really terrible chicken

parm from i think it was subway that was trying to do it for a little while like and it's like weird because like that's three levels and to me they were all about the same yeah the ceiling is relatively low on chicken right what what about you ryan how do you rank these three uh i'm gonna be with josh on the chicken parm at the bottom yeah like he said it's just all there's it's one that i definitely don't eat that often when i do it's all right you know but it's just kind of it's all just chicken parm so i never had one that i was like whoa that's a good chicken parm you know so um and then i'm definitely going the meatball hoagie number one you get those big beefy meatballs with i make i want to say i make a pretty decent meatball and you get that little

bit of a where the onions are done but it's a little crunch inside when you bite that meatball oh it's so good so good and then yeah spaghetti with um i i prefer italian sausage that's one of our go-tos for our you know the crouch family household staple so i make that quite often and and uh i love it so yeah chicken parma at the bottom i think you guys are crazy to not put spaghetti at the bottom that's definitely last for me if there was no meat spaghetti at the bottom. I think you guys are crazy to not put spaghetti at the bottom. That's definitely last for me. If there was no meat, spaghetti at the bottom. Oh, man. Good spaghetti at its best is a 7 out of 10. I will never order spaghetti at a restaurant.

I mean, I won't either, but I still think it has more potential than chicken parm. Do we all agree that the accompanying garlic bread or breadsticks are so much better than the spaghetti oh yeah yeah it's not even close yeah so to me spaghetti is dead last to me the other two are almost a coin flip if i had to just pick one i actually would put chicken parm one because i like that it inherently has the crispy deep fried texture. A meatball hoagie, as much as I like it, generally you have a soft meatball, soft cheese, and soft bread. And I feel like the basement is so much lower than a chicken parm. Chicken parm is always going to at least be serviceable and it's going to have decent texture now if this is me making it at home and i know it's going to be really good then it's the meatball hoagie number one

to me honestly the only thing i thought is just that spaghetti is so much lower than the other two you're going to deep fry the hoagie is that what the difference is no how are you going to deep fry an entire hoagie don't i'm toasting the bread i'll tell you that deep fry something this is america dude we deep fry everything deep fried sticks of butter deep fried oreos deep fried everything yeah i'm not a huge chicken guy but if you're pounding it super thin and then coating and deep frying it that's i'm gonna argue that's probably the best way to prepare chicken yeah all right i mean honestly you can't go wrong.

All three are delicious. I love Italian food. I don't know about you guys. I'm not going to be mad with any of those options. For sure. All right. Well, I think that wraps everything up for this squad cast. We want to say thank you so much to everyone out there.

Thank you for listening. Thank you for the support. We love you all. Until next time. Happy gaming. See ya. See ya, everybody!