Video Gamers Podcast - The Squadcast (Free Bonus Episode) - Video Games Podcast

Episode Date: July 18, 2023

The Squadcast is our EXCLUSIVE bonus episode for supporters of the show. We tease a HUGE upcoming announcement and thought it's the perfect time to let you see what you've been missing from the best video games podcast. In every Squadcast, we chat video games, life, silly questions and more. It's the perfect, hilarious compliment to our normal video game episodes with a much more relaxed atmosphere. If you like what you hear, head over to multiplayersquad.com to get two bonus episode each and every month, along with ad-free listening AND early access PLUS exclusive access to our Discord server where the best gaming community on the planet resides. We hope you enjoy this special free episode of The Squadcast! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey guys, it's Paul here. I just wanted to record a quick introduction because I thought it would require a little bit of an explanation as to why you are getting this Squadcast episode, which is usually reserved only for our Patreon and Apple supporters. Well, there are a couple of reasons. First of all, we realized that it would be fun to give everyone a chance to hear what our Squadcasts sound like. You can consider it sort of like a free demo for one of the perks for our supporters. And then number two, and probably more importantly, we are actually going to be rolling out a lot of major changes to the podcast, which are going to start to take effect at the end of August. A lot of what we are going to do is still not quite finalized, so you won't hear us

get into a whole lot of details, but we did want to give a little bit of a teaser about what's going to be changing. So don't be shocked here in the next month or two. You might start noticing some changes. We might be rolling out a new logo, some new episode formats we've not yet done. We're even going to be tinkering a little bit with how our deep dives work moving forward. Possibly you might even see a new name, you know, never know. But the show is still going to largely feel the same for what you currently hear. It's just a little bit of a rebrand more than anything. Hopefully a chance to draw in some new listeners. I think that's about

it. So if you decide that you love this squad cast and you want to hear these twice a month moving forward, you can always check out our Patreon page at MultiplayerSquad.com. And let's go ahead and get this one started. Hope you all enjoy the show. Hello, fellow squad mates, and welcome to this edition of the Squadcast. We do want to say thank you to all of our patreon supporters we really appreciate your guys generosity we are literally only able to keep doing what we're doing because of you all i am your host paul and joining me as always coming up first we have josh oh paul you failed to mention that this is squad cast number 30 number 30 wow we've been doing this

for 15 months i was gonna say that's the key right there i was gonna say nobody thinks 30 is a special number that means we have been doing the squad cast for 15 months dude that that time goes by so fast if you would have just asked like how many months do you think you've been doing squad cast i would have said five or six yeah i would have said asked, like, how many months do you think you've been doing squadcasts, I would have said five or six. Yeah, I would have said like seven or eight. But yeah, 15 months into the squadcast. That's crazy. And joining Josh and me, we have Ryan. Hey, what's up, everybody?

Can we run this along? I got some fishing to do and I got to run a sushi restaurant tonight. Yeah, Ryan. Oh, boy. I wonder if we'll end up talking about that more here later today looking at some of the questions i think dave the diver might might be coming up but we'll see so to start out the squad cast episode we kind of wanted just to share not a not a full-fledged announcement a little bit of a teaser because we have mentioned before that we might have some

changes in the works here at the show. We've also teased it a little bit in our legendary channel on Discord. So former or current legendary supporters got a little bit of a heads up as well. But we wanted to just give you guys a little bit of a taste of some changes that are coming up. What do you guys want to mention? What should we talk about? Call us the Wizard of Oz, man, because we're going to give you a peek behind the curtain. There you go. I mean, I'll start off with saying that we're definitely trying to tease some stuff here. So

forgive the vagueness, but we're always striving to make the podcast better. We always like to shake things up just a little bit. You know, we always want the show to be, you know, what you know and love. But at the same time, we don't ever want it to grow stagnant and stale at the same time. So we have some big changes coming up that will affect the show in positive ways, we all think. And we think that you as the listeners will really like the changes as well um but it might be things like new show types um maybe some new visuals uh in some way i'll leave that as a dangling carrot there they're gonna go who's it coming to youtube maybe i don't know what's? Well, we're not telling you.

Sit and wonder. Yeah, it's shaken up a little bit of how we do the current deep dive system. I think that's one thing that we are really looking forward to because I think it'll be good for the listeners. It'll also be really good for us as gamers because we have always been in this odd situation where a game releases, but we don't have early access to those games. And so all three of us kind of drop everything and scramble and try to play as much of a game as we can within two weeks. And that's not always the best way to play games either. So I know like since Ryan joined, he said one of the first things he realized is that since there's a little bit of a running clock, that he's playing games differently. You're not spending as much time just experiencing the world, and you're kind of more destination-focused.

And I don't think that's the best way to play games or to talk about games. So I think in how we shake things up, it's going to lead to better content. I think it'll be better for us as gamers, and I think it'll allow us to enjoy games more. So I think it'll be really interesting once we have some of these announcements. We are recording episodes on Final Fantasy 16 and then Deep Rock Galactic. Those will still be under the current format. And then after that, that's when we're going to be going through some of these shifts, and we'll share a lot more details later. But I think it's really exciting. I know I'm personally super pumped for this. It's always a little scary to make big changes in that regard because we've all talked about it. We've said, well, what do we think the listeners

are going to think? The quality of the show, the subject matter of the show is always priority number one for us. And so that's the first thing we talked about was like, how is this going to be like you said, Paul, do the deep dives, I think is going to shake things up to where it's like, it makes it much more interesting and a little bit more like participatory for people that are listening in that regard. And then, you know, you hit the nail on the head though, man. Like we grind video games. Every two weeks, we are playing a new game.

And I love that you brought up what Ryan said. And it's funny because this is the beauty of having a new host, right? Is you get this new perspective. And I never really thought about it until Ryan brought it up. But he was like, I'm playing games to beat them at this point. I'm playing a game for the end of the game to happen so that I know I've done my job. And that's not the best way to play a game. And it's like, we want to play these games and say, what do I enjoy about the game? Even if I don't beat it, that's okay. But what stands out? What's the fun? Where's this? And it was just so weird to hear Ryan say that and then go like, dude, I have been playing games to

beat games for the last two years now. We all play games on the side, but it's funny because it's like, we're playing Dave the Diver right now, Ryan and I are. And Paul mentioned, he's like, I'd love to play it. I just don't have time at this point. And it's kind of like, we need to fix that a little bit. And that's good, not only for us, but for the podcast and the listeners as well. So I think we found a way to really do all of that. And I'm pretty excited about it. Yeah, these masterminds behind the scene have been working hard on all that. And yeah, I think you guys are, as the fans, are really going to love what's coming up.

Definitely, like you said, going to shake it up. But it's just going to give us more time to really give you guys the best content, give you good understanding of what we're doing and how we're playing these games. And yeah, I was super surprised when I started. And I'm having a blast and I absolutely love doing this.

But I did. I started playing games to beat them instead of being just involved and just diving into it and letting that world surround me like I've always done my whole life. So I'm excited just as you guys are so it's it's gonna be good yeah yeah sometimes the best way to talk about a game is

when you just get to live in it over a period of time it's kind of like i don't know if you're gonna watch i don't know some movie series like whatever whatever marvel star wars i know some people love doing marathon sessions but there's a totally different experience if you keep drinking Mountain Dew and taking vitamin B12 shots to stay up and watch 12 hours of movies back to back to back to back to back, as opposed to just watching one every week and then talking about it with your friends and taking time. It's a completely different experience. So I think it's really exciting. Plusyan and i are gonna have to spend some time watching phoenix suns games starting here in a couple months oh ryan's repping us right now with the sun's hat

we might have to start a side uh phoenix suns podcast ryan there we go we're so excited for the upcoming season this is the year year. I sure hope so. I hate basketball. Now I sound like a Cowboys fan. This is the year. Yep. All right. So let's go ahead and move on. Let's go ahead and hit our first gaming question here.

What bad game have you played in the last year or so that you would like to see remade into a much better version of itself now i love this question yeah because good games get remade all the time but we've already played them and we've experienced it so as much as i love playing through resident evil 4 remake that's great but you know what i'm always more interested in remakingaking bad games that had good ideas and make them right. So I love questions like this. What game would you guys make a better version of? This one's going to catch you guys off guard. But it's one of the worst games that I've ever played.

But there was something there, right? And I know this sounds crazy because people are always going to pick an old game. I'm going to say Forspoken. Okay. And I know that people are like, wait a minute, right? And I know this sounds crazy because people are going to be always going to pick an old game. I'm going to say Forspoken. Okay. And I know that people are like, wait a minute, what? And it's like, dude, I hated Forspoken. But there were some good ideas with that game. I liked the world. I liked the magic abilities. I liked a lot of what the bones behind the game were. But man, did they just mess this up. And it's funny because Atlas Fallen is coming out very, very soon. I don't remember what the release date on Atlas Fallen is. But it's almost like, is Atlas Fallen what Forspoken should have

been? Because that's a AAA title in all aspects. But I hated it, man. I hated it for so many reasons. For me, this is a very bad game that I would like to see done in a really good way because there were glimpses, very briefly, of greatness, but then they faded away and kicked me right between the legs. You know, Forspoken was the first thing that came to mind for me as well. And I even said during that deep dive, I said, I think like

the 30 second elevator pitch of this game is fantastic. I love a lot of the background lore in the game. The whole idea that there were these four female Tantas who were charged with protecting all the people,

but how they all became corrupted and turned into the villains. And now you're showing up and you're kind of like the chosen one who's going to protect the people and you're going to systematically eliminate these tauntas and release the people of this curse. I thought that was such a cool idea. And the visuals were fantastic. I loved the combat system where you very quickly switch between the different colors of magic i liked the open world aspect of it even though it was a little bit you know under filled yeah yeah it was too hardcore the movement was great yeah the parkour was awesome yeah i mean

it was a little glitchy at times but i thought all that stuff was so good but literally every every other aspect of that game was a huge swing and a miss like the primary character uh what's her name freya freya yeah or just frey frey frey frey frey yeah whatever it was such an annoying character that you couldn't really relate to completely unsympathetic even though she's like an orphan getting robbed on the street, like you still just don't even really care for her. The dialogue was really bad. The freezing you in place during every line of dialogue. to make a poor game and i'll never really understand that but i think forespoken is a great example where it had a lot of promise and the trailers looked great but the actual product we got was just so bad uh what about you ryan what game was that actually your pick yeah that's literally the same thing oh my goodness man we've been doing this a long time, Paul. It's got good bones. Talk about on the same wavelength. What about you, Ryan?

What game are you going to remake? So for me, this is actually, maybe it's just kind of a recent memory and something that we just took care of, but I'm going to go with Ark. And like I said, maybe- Well, it is being remade. Yeah. Well- That is true actually hopefully hopefully they do it right because because i wanted to love this game with the with and maybe i was just you

know uh uh because you know i i love when i get to play with you guys online we're just in chat voice chat and we're doing stuff and that's that's when i have the best memories and i have the most fun so um maybe i'm influenced a little by that but the game itself not being able to get into servers the the lack of tutorial even just a basic one hey this is kind of how you just get started um just the issues of of the control where the dinosaurs were we just get just destroyed all the time and they're camping your bodies and i wanted to love this so bad and i wanted to to really dive into it and spend a lot of time i know it's a huge game it took like half of my two terabyte hard drive to install but uh but like you guys said the bones the bones are there

for an awesome game it just needs you know just sharpened up up, and if they can do this in the next arc when they come out with it and they can fix those issues, get it dialed in to where you don't have a lot of server issues logging in or booting or whatever the problems were, I would for sure be down to try it, and I'm excited. So hopefully the new one's good, but that was mine. It may just be recency bias. But that's the first thing that came to mind when I saw the question. It makes sense to me because now that we have played ARK, I am actually... And this is something I could have cared less about two weeks ago. But I'm actually now very curious to see where ARK 2 goes. I get there's a lot of outrage with it. No, they're charging us for a game that,

you know, they're, they're sunsetting arc. And now I have to buy the new one. But like, this is now a game that I will absolutely at least look into the news in the videos and like at least follow along with to see what arc two has to offer. Because I agree with you.

I think there was some things there that really really landed but there was a lot of it that just missed as well yeah i guess my fear is it'll be closer to a remaster maybe optimize some stuff i don't know how much they're going to actually overhaul but if they could overhaul the inventory system in particular oh yeah that would give this game a lot more like playability and be a lot less frustrating on a side note i kind of got sucked into a bunch of videos of snoop dogg playing arc this week so the video you shared was so good yeah yeah like i've seen snoop play like i've seen a lot of clips on. I never actually check him out when he's streaming or anything. But when I was looking up sound effects for pooping in Ark, like one of the very first hits is Snoop Dogg can't stop pooping in Ark and rage quits or

something like that. So I don't know if he installed a mod or just changed something in the console. But then I ended up like watching other videos where his bass gets rated and he just starts screaming and like you know runs out of the room it's great go go check out snoop dog videos playing arc it's it's hysterical oh that's awesome that that will uh that'll get me to play arc too oh there you go sure and as you might guess everything snoop dog has is like decorated with a certain theme, and it's very much on brand. It's absolutely hysterical. And the names of all his dinosaurs are very on brand.

All right, so moving on to a little bit of gaming news. So this week, as a little bit of a head notice, on Thursday, instead of having our regular This Week in Gaming episode, there is pretty much no news of the week. So this is literally like our number one news story, and we realized we're not going to be able to do only news. So we're doing something different on Thursday. But the biggest news story of this week is that Cyberpunk 2077 has crawled its way up on Steam. It now has a user rating of very positive, which I think is great to see. I know Josh and I are huge fans of Cyberpunk.

I know Ryan had some frustrations at release. But we have seen situations like this a couple of times, probably most notably with No Man's Sky, where a game releases and it's either terribly buggy or it's very underwhelming compared to what the gaming community thought they were getting and we have seen now with hello games and also a cd project red that they are willing to keep putting out new patches new content trying to fix the game over time to get it to where in all fairness it should have been at release and it wasn't but at least they didn't leave these games to die and take the quick buck and then move on um i think that's kind of easier for cd project red because cyberpunk is a new ip that they're going to want multiple expansions and entries they kind of had to fix this because they poured so much money into

it but when a developer does fix a game do you guys then forgive them and let bygones be bygones or do you still hold it against the dev no no mercy no mercy forgive you this is like the gladiator thumb down that's i'm gonna give two thumbs down i'm i'm just they they're not stupid they know what they're doing they know if these games are playable or if they're gonna have issues and if they don't then they need to figure out how to how to learn that ahead of time for these releases i'm so sick of developers releasing games that need like a 10 gig patch on day one because oh we got to do this oh we got you know it's it's just okay we're running into these issues now you know if you have server stuff i still think i think I'm still big on that. Over-buy servers. If, okay, after the first week, oh, we don't need that much, dial it back.

But it's just so much the bottom line, you know, black and white. What are our numbers at? How are we going to make the most money? I get it. You're a business and you need to get that, especially for your investors and whatnot. But release a game that's done. Remember those days? They released a game that's done you know remember those days really they released a game that's done and if there was any patches it was just like cool enhancements or upgrades to the game it wasn't it wasn't just to fix all the crap you've been dealing with for the

last three weeks or a month you know after you got so excited all the build up all the hype you even pre-ordered it you gave your them your your money early and then they come with that garbage i don't know that's a hot button issue for me and i'm just because i had both of those i had no man's sky and cyberpunk and both i was so let down with them when i was so excited uh initially so the thing that i think has really fed into this is digital downloads of games because prior to the internet when you had to buy a disc that disc had to be the final version and so they would finalize these games put them on disc and if those games didn't perform well they tanked and people wouldn't buy them and there's famous versions like superman 64

that word got around quickly and so nobody bought it because it was a terribly you know functioning game from a technical standpoint so the fact that now you have all these games in early access for years, I mean, how long was rust in early access? Like seven years still in early access. No, I know it finally released, but two years ago.

But like, I think in the digital age where you have the convenience of being able to download a game right away or to preload, which is is great i think the cons probably outweigh the pros where you get these unfinished products at least in the case of no man's sky that was more of an issue with gamer expectations people were expecting things that hello games never said were in the game and so part of that was more on the gamers than the dev team but how many bad releases have we seen especially on pc in the last year it's just it's unforgivable there is not a single developer that i 100 trust cd project red was probably the closest we still had to that because of god of uh the witcher and they have they proved

with cyberpunk you can't rely on them you can't rely on blizzard anymore you can't rely on bioware no like no yeah gearbox no no rockstar is rockstar is the closest i think at this point rockstar has the most trust for me but even then the definitive edition of gta was so bad yeah that was a money grab. Here's the weird thing for me on this is I am with Ryan and we did an episode on this where we said, what are the worst trends in gaming? And releasing unfinished buggy games was on our top five list. And it was just like, it's infuriating. And I think about that and I'm just like, you know, like, man, to heck with you guys, man. Like you've burned me so many times. This shouldn't be a thing. But then it's like, dude, cyberpunk is so good now. And the world is seeing that, right? Like

it's finally up to very positive. Like people are finally finally realizing, you know what? This was one of the biggest disasters in gaming as a release. But ultimately, they gave us a phenomenal video game. And so it's like, I'm trying to balance my love of Cyberpunk and what they ultimately did with that game versus they hosed us on the launch. And it's like, so I feel betrayed. But then at the same time, now I have a game that I will always remember playing because Cyberpunk's fantastic, man. It doesn't excuse it. It does not make it right. I am not condoning this practice at all, right? But the question is, do you forgive them? And when it comes to No Man's Sky and Cyberpunk particularly, my answer is yes. And I hate that.

I legitimately hate that answer, but I love both of those games. They're phenomenal video games now. And so it's like, can you imagine if Cyberpunk released this month in its current state, which is phenomenal? It would be world shattering like news people would be go they'd be losing their minds i mean all you'd be hearing about is cyberpunk and how good this game is and so it's like for what they released it i don't know two and a half years ago i forget exactly when it came out but it seems about two or three years ago

to all this like this detriment but they made a ton of money. That's the big thing, right? They still made a gajillion dollars even in its buggy broken release. So did that help the company because they made a ton of money and now they're using that money for other projects? Or did it hurt them because now people don't trust them as much? It's tough, man. The question is, do you forgive them? I do. I don't want to, but I do because I have these fantastic video games that they gave me. So it is interesting to track CD Projekt Red's stock because it's definitely way lower than it used to be. And that's because you have the lack of trust.

That's your answer, right? In the long run, I think it absolutely hurt them. Yeah. Well, that's the thing. Take the extra six months. This game's not ready. All hands on deck. Let's make this thing pristine, perfect, and release.

Because it's a great game. They knew it's a great game. But all the other stuff makes it bad and makes people upset. It's the experience. So spend the time. Get it done. And then, like you said, it'll be earth shattering, and it'll be makes people upset. Yeah. So, so, so spend the time, get it done. And then like you said, it'll be earth shattering and it'll be off the start.

You know, if you have a car company that's selling these cars that are a bunch of lemons and they're like, Oh no, no, we, we fixed it now, you know,

the next year's model, it's, it's fixed now. You're like, eh, I don't know. I'm going to go somewhere else. Yeah.

I'll go get this car over here. So I don't know. And I know we probably, we look at it in a little more in depth than a lot of people. And I mean, most people, they don't even know the developers that make the games. So they're not aware. They just know what games are coming out. And that looks cooler.

That doesn't look cool. But it's just, yeah, I don't know. I'm a stickler on that. I still don't get why. I know why. Because in my opinion, it's about the money. But just take the time and release it right. Get it done right. Or don't get why. I know why, because in my opinion, it's about the money. But just take the time and release it right. Get it done right.

Or don't do it. The one thing on this, too, is we see the other side of things. We've given Hello Games credit for No Man's Sky. They've been working on this game for 10 years now. And it's a great game. They've turned it into something that's truly, truly great. Cyberpunk. It's truly great now.

It really is and maybe part of my leniency with them is because they've put in the effort but then you look at battlefield 2042 right and now before the listener out there is going but they fixed battlefield no they haven't they've made it passable at best at this point it is battlefield 2042 is not a good game so i'm sorry if you're that guy that loves it now and they fixed it. No, but that's the other side of the coin where it's like they have put in the least amount of work imaginable so that people will at least maybe forget. Right. Like, I know there's people out there that said, hey, have you played Battlefield 2042 lately? It's better than it was.

That's not saying much. You know, it was a turd when it released. It's a smaller turd now. You know what I mean? Don't say that this game has been redeemed like Cyberpunk or No Man's Sky was. And they're just going to move on. They're hoping that people will forget at this point. They will never put the effort into Battlefield 2042 that CD Projekt Red and Hello Games put into No Man's Sky and Cyberpunk. It's not going to happen. They'll just release another one in another year and say, oh,

this is the best Battlefield ever, guys. Sorry about the last one, but trust us, this one's great. And so it's like you look at those two sides of the scale and you kind of go, well, maybe I do. All right, CD Projekt Red, you did fix it. Whereas EA, you kind of went, I hate you guys. All the problems are still there. Right. I think one of the major issues with why we get these unfinished games is because of these arbitrary release dates. You know, Starfield announces a release date,

and then it gets pushed back, and it gets pushed back, and it gets pushed back. Cyberpunk got pushed back, it got pushed back and it gets pushed back cyberpunk got pushed back it got pushed back and then it was you got to get it out in time for christmas to help with the stock price and they released this unfinished game and it ended up really backfiring on them right stop announcing release dates five years in advance yeah and we've seen more developers do this recently show us an announcement trailer feed us gameplay trailers build it all up over the course of like a month and say that the game is going to release two to

three months after that you got to wait until the game's almost finished and then start giving us stuff and then you know you're going to get a good final product i love the fact that gta 6 has kept everything under wraps there's no name there is no release date there's no release year they even went bananas about the leaked footage which honestly looked pretty darn good it's better than half the stuff we see in games like forespoken you know gta 6 could probably come out today whatever state it looks like and it's probably better than forespoken but they're just waiting and taking their time because when you have a moneymaker franchise like GTA, as long as you don't make it a colossal failure,

it's going to be a huge success. And I really hope that more developers will stop having this internal pressure with a release date. I know that there might be issues with funding and payroll and overhead. And I get that. But if you can take the time and release the final product in the long run, it's better business for everybody. And it's a better experience for gamers. And maybe we can start building some trust with more developers. Yeah. All right.

Let's go ahead and move on here. Next gaming question here. This is one that we've been kicking around a while, but it's been delayed a a couple shows where we didn't get around to it now that we've been doing a little bit of the ps5 shuffle you know playing final fantasy 16 josh has kind of been curious should spider-man 2 be on our radar as a possible deep dive and would josh need to play the first one in order to enjoy the second that's my big question there. Ryan has famously been harassing me because he's like, Josh, play Spider-Man. It's on my PS5.

Just load in. You're not going to mess up anybody's saves. It's my son's saves. Just swing around the city. And I keep going like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I will. And it's like, honestly, I probably won't. You know what I mean? Not because I don't want to, but it's just, you know,

we're busy with other stuff. Come on. Just give me 10 minutes. I know, man. It's like, I want to, but then it's like, I don't want to, but it's just... 10 minutes. Come on. Just give me 10 minutes. It's like I want to, but then it's like I don't want to swing around for 10 minutes and then go, this is great. And then not have time to play it. You know what I mean?

So it's like I'd rather not do it at all and then be able to dive completely in. Spider-Man 2 comes out in the fall. I know there's so many people that are hyped for this. They're saying, Hey, this is why I bought a PS5. It's going to be one of the best games of the year. You know, some people are even saying game of the year already. Do I need to play Spider? I mean, no, we're not playing Spider-Man 2 because it's not out, but it's one of those things where it's like, do you think that having played the first one would matter? And being that it's such

an epic release, I mean, for a lot of people, this is like God of War Ragnarok releasing or something like that. So it's like, do we cover this game? Probably, maybe. I mean, I think it comes out at a time when there's not a ton of other stuff out there. But then it's like, do I need to play the first one to appreciate the second one well it's it's kind of one of those things like i mean it's spider-man you know everybody knows spider-man everybody kind of knows the villains and what the the arc hero arcs are and all that stuff so do you have to no will you still have fun? I would probably almost guarantee it. You have the certified Ryan guarantee. But

is it going to help? Yeah. And then also you get to have a lot of fun playing this other game that's an absolute blast. The Spider-Man and then the Miles Morales. They're both absolutely amazing. That's what I'm telling you, man. Just swing around the city. Just go out and get

in a couple fights. Stop a couple crimes. And you'll be like okay you know and that's probably what will happen so you're probably smart and that fact is i don't want to get sucked in i know hey man well we got nothing on on tab for the ps5 so you can keep it as long as you want so i i'm open to let you hang on to it if you want to if you want to play a little bit more but i i'm i'm so excited for this game but like i said do you need to play it no but would i recommend it yeah one it's awesome two it'll it'll help you a little bit i feel like the gameplay is going to be similar so going into it familiar with at least like the gameplay portion would add like a comfort level i guess yeah yeah that's probably about it i mean the spider-man games only incrementally change they largely feel the same i i could very well be wrong

i have trouble believing that you would like playing it josh simply because of the combat the combat i'm not gonna say it i mean it's adjacent to button mashing it kind of reminds me of like the first arkham game where something flashes and you press the button and you just kind of do it over and over and over and i know that's not really your style i thought you were gonna say gotham knights and i was gonna barf a little bit so oh it's less it's it's less way less complex than gotham knights so i have i have trouble believing you would like it but maybe i'd be wrong all right but so in that vein then paul are you hyped for spider-man 2 i mean you have a ps5 so it's like is that a game that's like super on your radar is it kind of like i mean

they're fun games but yeah yeah i think i think they're fun i think they're definitely worth playing i mean you know we saw spider-man be a game of the year nominee my kids are more excited about it than i am i enjoy them quite a bit but i don't think i would put them in like must play category but if you already have a ps5 it's definitely one of the best exclusives so it's well worth picking up it's not the kind of game you go pick up a ps5 for but if you already have the ps5 then it's a great option when you're not playing anything else. Right. It's not in the tier of God of War.

No. But it's just below that to where it's a great game. It's a ton of fun. You know you're going to have fun with it. Yeah. You know you're going to have fun. There's times where I'll just... My son, Jackson, will be playing and then I'll just come in. I'm like, give me that.

I'll take the control. And I just swing around the city, go stop a couple crimes and I'm like, that was fun. Because you can just, you know, as you're swinging, you do these crazy flips and you can do all this cool stuff and the scenery it's so beautiful and they did such a great job of just making so much happening where it seems like

there's so much and so big but it's also small where you can get down to the little areas and you can walk on the street if you wanted and people walk by and you can bump into them and they get mad at you and stuff. So it's also small where you can get down to the little areas and you can walk on the street if you wanted. And people walk by and you can bump into them. They get mad at you and stuff. So it's cool. Like Paul said, I don't think it's a must play.

But for me, it's fun. And then to the combat, it is a little button mashy. But also, there's a lot of options. Like you can web a manhydrant top or a door from a car you can you can use different of your abilities you know there's there's a lot of different options in the combat it's still a little button mashy but but there's different options you can go through there's variation at least yeah variation between each combat so it doesn't always just feel the exact same it does get a little repetitive with the gangs you got like eight guys and then a few more show up and stuff but no i think that part you may not like and you may not really really like it as much as you know like me i do or some other people but i think you would enjoy the game the

the footage that i've seen on spider-man 2 so far i thought was very impressive you know like they had the big showcase they showed craven the have Venom, obviously, the symbiote portion. There was a big boat chase and all that. And I was like, dude, this is a spectacle. I'm in for this. But I've not played the game, so I don't know what the overall gameplay loop and stuff like that is. And regardless, it's still the best way to traverse a map for my money. So when it's really fun just swinging to the next objective that adds that adds a lot to it honestly when it's not just getting in a car and driving like atomic heart that was so boring going from point to point but when you're playing spider-man it's actually

arguably the best part of the game is just swinging to the next objective all right moving into our next question here. I thought this was a funny one from you, Josh. Everyone has a touch of OCD. How does that manifest for you? Oh, man. I'm completely normal, guys. What are you talking about? No OCD at all? Since I came up with the question, I'll go first. I mean, I'm an optimist. I'm a happy guy. I don't really have a lot of... I'll tell you what, the one thing that will get me more than anything is not being able to fix something when I feel like I have the PCs. I'm better than your average person when it comes to computers and troubleshooting issues and things like that. Occasionally, my kids will come to me and be like, Dad, my headphones aren't working. And I'm like, Oh, okay. Well, you just need to set it in Windows

to your headphones again. Windows probably shut it off for whatever weird reason. And then they're like, No, it is set to that. And it's like, all right, I'll come help you. And then I go and it's like, everything is set the way it should be. It's plugged into the proper USB port. Everything is like, but it's just not working. And I get so frustrated with that because I should be able to fix it and I can't. And it doesn't make any sense to me why it's not working. I will get obsessive about trying to fix it. And then my wife is just like, what are you doing? I'm like, the sound's not coming through the headphones and it should be like, oh, I've checked everything. All the settings are there. And it's like, and I will just like, I'll go off the deep end. Yeah. I will like go off the deep end for a little while, like, you know, trying to figure out why

this isn't working. And it's that way with stuff around the house. If I'm trying to fix an outlet or a sink's not draining, and it's like, dude, I've checked everything. Little things like that will really bug me. So that's my OCD thing. Yeah. For me, at the risk of sounding like Anakin, I don't like sand. Sand.

I particularly do not like walking barefoot on sand um and that's it's not i guess it's not sand specific it's more that i don't like getting things on my feet like i'll walk around our house barefoot like maybe i get out of the shower and you you walk into the kitchen and you step on something sticky. That's about the worst thing that you can do to me. That makes me so mad. Like it disproportionately angers me when I get something dirty on my feet. Or I've started making fun of my son. He will take showers and I'll walk in and with the angle and with our darker flooring i can't sometimes tell that there's water all over the bathroom and i'm always yelling at my kids like you got to keep

the inner shower curtain on the inside so i'll be in my socks walking around the house in my socks and i'll walk in the bathroom and get soaking wet socks on my feet that's the worst drives me crazy yeah so i started calling my son the wet bandit after uh home alone yeah because he's just leaving all this running water on my floor uh that's that's my ocd what about you ryan well to the wet socks real quick the first time i ever went uh hunting i went with i none of my parents or family and stuff so i didn't grow up with it so i went and i like a dum-dum was up north where it's all wet i wore uh uh desert boots and so i had completely soaked socks for like half the day from the morning dew when i walked and oh it was that's wet socks like that is just the worst thing ever and i was you know i'm five six miles from

camp and i'm having to hike all the way back and And oh, so I'm with you on the wet socks thing. That is no fun, I don't think, for anybody. were like checking bags and stuff like that. I did not realize that we were standing on a portion of a concrete pathway that dropped down about two feet on both sides with running water. And it was very funny because the way you walk up, I didn't see any of it to my left. And I kept thinking, man, it's really weird that there's no guardrail there on the right. It'd be so easy for someone to fall in there and and maybe a minute later i went to go take a sidestep just to like reshift totally stepped right off the ledge right into the water had soaking wet sock and shoe for like the next two hours yeah i think i'd rather have both feet wet in that case that's funny yeah Yeah, so that was funny. It was a little bit like Michael Scott

in the koi pond in The Office. There's a little bit of that where yeah, I just totally fell inside. Wait, so what was Ryan's OCD thing? We didn't get to it yet. I didn't tell Ryan yet. I was talking about socks. So mine is I'm a pretty go with the flow.

There's not much that bothers me, But from homeownership, I've had my house for a little over 10 years, probably 11 years now. I've replaced every outlet, every receptacle, everything in the house, all the fans, all that stuff. But for some reason, all

the light switches and the outlets, when I install the new faceplates, I always turn every screw perfectly horizontal. Oh oh you go horizontal every single one is vertical in my house that is so funny it's so ridiculous and so oddly specific but every single one i i when i'm installing it i mean who knows if it shifts over time if i see it it'll bug me i may you know go back and fix it but i turn every single one horizontal so okay i i don't know what percentage of the population is going to understand the

frustration when your screw only has to go 10 more degrees but you hear it start to crack yes and it's like now do i how do you get it that way if it's not tight or if it's too tight sometimes you just have to chance it and sometimes they do crack whenever i replace light outlets like that i always buy one or two extra because they're only like 59 cents or 99 cents but yeah sometimes you have to end up unscrewing it like half a turn but i did not know that this was i can't believe you that's so wild because i'm like nobody in the world's like this and you're i you making the line vertical. And I'm like, no, no, no. You guys would hate my house, man. What are you doing?

Oh, my goodness, you weirdos. Josh's are just everywhere. Oh, my goodness. I just looked around my office, man. And I'm like, that one's diagonal. This one's up and down. That one's side to side. Oh, man.

Now I know how I'm going to prank Ryan. I'm just going to bring a slotted screwdriver. The first thing that came to mind was like, if I'm ever at Ryan's house, I'm bringing a flathead screwdriver, and I'm just going to change all his screws. Hey, just because I set an OK Google alarm at 2 a.m. after poker night one time does not mean you have to give me back. All right. So moving on to our last question of the squad cast, we got to always hit at least one food question. I think the way this is worded is hilarious because it's such a Josh way to word last question of the squad cast we gotta always hit at least one food question i i think the way this is worded is hilarious because it's such a josh way to word the question

what is a common food that would likely make you gag if you tried to eat it and josh wanted to make it clear we're leaving out exotic foods like you know importing some durian or century eggs and stuff like yeah yeah no. None of that easy stuff. Like a normal food that's at a normal supermarket, common, you know, that you would probably actually gag if you had to eat it. Well, I'll go first, I guess. This is kind of like an American staple.

It's at every fairground. It's at everywhere you go, but for whatever reason, since I was a kid and I vividly remember as a kid going through the lunch line, when it was that day, just the smell would make me gag. I don't know why because I like both of

these items separately. Mine's corn dogs. Wait, what? Corn dogs are delicious, man. Yeah, I love cornbread. I love corn dogs. Wait, what? I don't know what it is. Corn dogs are delicious, man. Yeah, I love cornbread. I love hot dogs. But you put those bad boys together, and for whatever reason, just the smell of it, like, I can't do it. I'm just like, uh, uh.

That's the weirdest thing. Ever since I was a kid, ever since I was in, like, young elementary school, I remember. You dip them in ketchup or mustard though, right? It doesn't matter? It doesn't matter. It sounds like it's more the smell. Are you a fan of hot dogs in general? I would choose many, many different things over them, but I will eat one.

I'll go to Costco. I'll grab a hot dog. I love hot dogs, dude. One burger, one hot dog. I mean, I would prefer a Polish dog or something over that with seasoning salt and whatever. But I've tried it. I'm like, I'll try one. But I just, whatever reason, the combination and the smell together, it sets me off.

Ever since I was a little kid, I don't know why. I don't know what happened. But walking through the lunch line, I'd be like, corn dogs today. I would have never guessed. So not to, not to jump in here and throw a wrench in, but have you ever had the sausage wrapped in pancake? The breakfast ones,

like the breath, the breakfast one. So basically it's a breakfast sausage on a stick and they wrap pancake around it. It's more pancake batter than like a corn bread. Now does that instantly, does that kind of trigger your brain to be like, Nope,

but it looks exactly like it does look exactly like a corn dog. Now, does that instantly, does that kind of trigger your brain to be like, nope? But it looks exactly like a cornbread. It does look exactly like a cornbread. No, that sounds like I just dip it in a whole mess of maple syrup. That's what I do. Oh, it's delicious. And they smell like pancakes when you microwave them. So they're pretty good.

Yeah, that sounds good. I just, I don't know what it is, but it's just one of those weird things. How funny. I've learned so much about Ryan today, man. That's what this podcast is for, baby. What about you, Josh? Are you going with mushrooms or something else?

You know, it's funny. I can tolerate mushrooms. I don't like them, but they won't make me gag. And so this is a little bit specific because there is a caveat, but it's mayonnaise. Oh, okay. If you asked me to eat a spoon of mayonnaise, like if you took a jar of mayonnaise and dipped out a spoon and said, Josh, eat this, I would probably throw up,

like in all honesty. Now, that said, I love egg salad and like tuna salad. And you love runny yolks. And I love runny yolks. So this is kind of a weird take. It is. Trust me, I get it. It's kind of like Ryan's corndog,

because I mean, corndogs are delicious, and I know that people love mayonnaise, you know, but it's one of those things. Josh loves egg yolk, and he loves oil. Just don't blend it together. Dude, I cannot for the life of me figure out what it is. And I eat mayonnaise in things, you know, like my wife makes some like deviled eggs, right? You have to have mayonnaise to make deviled eggs. Doesn't bother me one bit. Tuna salad or chicken salad. I know there's mayonnaise in mayonnaise in there i'm not a fan of ranch believe it or not because i think it it leans into the mayonnaise side a little bit too much i'm much more of like i like blue cheese because it's stronger flavor and it hides the mayonnaise maybe or so i don't know but i remember when i was a

waiter at a restaurant people would order a cup of mayonnaise to dip their french fries in and i remember thinking like you guys are psychos but apparently that's way more common than i initially thought at the time but if you told me josh eat this spoon of mayonnaise i'll give you 50 bucks i think i would throw up and fail that challenge to be honest i don't i love mayonnaise too i don't think i could do that either like thinking of just eating a straight spoon of mayonnaise i mean i could eat a spoon of ketchup i could eat a spoon of mustard a spoon of barbec I mean, I could eat a spoon of ketchup. I could eat a spoon of mustard, a spoon of barbecues. I could eat a spoon of almost any condiment or sauce out there.

But the idea of just eating a spoon of mayonnaise just really grosses me out, man. Yeah, and being a condiment, it's definitely a lot easier to find something gross just by eating too much of it as opposed to like eating a bigger bite of a burger is no different than a small bite of a burger but a whole spoon of mayo as opposed to a thin layer on a piece of bread is completely different um you guys might know my answer to this my answer to this is nothing because all food as long as it's prepared right can be delicious if it's prepared what if it's prepared right, can be delicious. If it's prepared. What if it's prepared wrong, Paul?

Then sure, anything can be disgusting. You know, you just let it go bad. I just told Ryan the other day I was getting ready to smoke a pork shoulder and I cut it open and immediately got hit in the face with rancid meat smell. And yeah, like that makes you want to gag. And like eating rotten meat, of course, would be gross. But like any common food, no. Any food can be good if it's prepped right if i just take a bite of eggplant it's disgusting but if you prepare it right it's delicious same with mushrooms i don't

like them raw but when you cook them and make them really crispy i think they're fantastic i don't think there's anything that would make me gag there's definitely foods that i don't like like i actually like almost all food the the only group of food i don't like is like pumpkin and gourds i don't like squash but i'll still eat it it's not gonna make me gag i just don't love it so i don't really have a food that i would gag on all right all right yeah i believe it and as much as i know about paul i i believe that there's nothing out there that he's not like all right i'll eat it i'll just add a little this add a little that even people who are like well what about like chicken feet you can buy that in the grocery store it's like yeah sure you know if i'm at a chinese place and it's prepped you know i'll

give it a shot maybe i don't go back to it it's not gonna crack open a can of sardines just down the hatch that oh yeah yeah sardines anchovies those no problem paul yeah if you want the easiest hack to cook just throw anything that's savory anything that's savory throw it in anchovy and it'll be better guarantee it and here i thought ryan was weird paul's answer is the weirdest of all of them all right well with that being said i think that wraps up this squad cast. We do want to say thank you once again to all of our supporters. We definitely appreciate you all.

And until next time, happy gaming. Turn your screws on your light switches horizontal. Oh, save me from these weirdos, please. All right. See everybody. everybody