Loading Memories with Josh Covel from Still Loading Podcast

[00:00:22] Hello, hello. Welcome to A Novel Console Weekly Podcast where we talk about books, games, food and just games this time because I have today my buddy Josh from the Still Loading podcast and this is

[00:00:34] Loading Memories. I don't have a special song so just imagine that you heard a special song for this type of episode but hey, Josh is here. Josh how are you doing my man? I am doing fantastic.

[00:00:45] I feel like this is a fitting crossover with Loading Memories and Still Loading. This episode may never end with this combination of titles. Yeah, it's definitely going to be a long episode because for some reason I usually pick long titles and then when I'm typing them out on

[00:01:02] bus route I'm like that's not going to fit on Spotify or wherever people get their podcasts. Hey but thanks for being on for the listeners if this is the first time you're listening to

[00:01:16] a Loading Memories episode or the second time because this will technically be the second episode. What we do is we just sit down, we talk games that we grew up playing and basically that's it.

[00:01:29] We just have a try to have an hour long conversation maybe more and just talk and that's it. There's a good chance it's going to be more than an hour knowing me. I talk a lot.

[00:01:43] That's perfectly fine. So before we continue tell me about Still Loading. I've listened to a couple of episodes. I listened to the 2018, 2019 Game of the Year episode that you suggested. That was a pretty good episode. I forgot that a bunch of those games came out in 2019.

[00:02:05] I also listened to recently to the episode you did with Colby about Final Fantasy VII. Crisis Core, yeah. Yes that is my favorite piece of Final Fantasy VII content ever and I was pretty

[00:02:20] excited to see somebody that took both the original and the remaster and talked about both. That wasn't even intentional. I literally was just like who's the biggest Final Fantasy VII

[00:02:33] fan I know and it's Colby. So then he's like I never played the original. I'm like you know what that actually kind of makes it really nice. We're attacking this from two ends so you know what?

[00:02:42] It will take something semi negative by us not playing the exact same version and turn it into a positive. Yeah no that was definitely a very interesting episode just hearing about both sides and especially hearing Colby's take because he didn't grow up with Final Fantasy VII because

[00:03:01] he's severely younger than us. Severely younger than us and he came into it when he was sentient, when he had a conscious and he could make his own opinions so it's not like

[00:03:18] it was pushed into his face like it was with us growing up because it was either that or nothing. After that kind of like sweet spotting I always feel like there is an age range where

[00:03:27] when you play games those are the games that are the most formative for you personally like ages it starts when it's eight but I think like 12 to like 17 and I say that because

[00:03:38] 12 to 17 is when you start being able to kind of get over the fact that all games are like amazing because when you're a kid you think all games are amazing because they're just

[00:03:48] it's a game of course it's amazing. It has to be it's a game. I love games. And then when you turn 12 and like 12 to 17 like pre-teens to like teenage years you start kind of

[00:03:58] understanding things you like and don't like about games and that's also when you're in your most emo so when you ever have games like Final Fantasy that have like those big emotional

[00:04:09] through lines all of a sudden it's like oh my god this game is speaking to me I've never seen this before like it's it's that type of art that suddenly is speaking to you that had

[00:04:19] that had never spoken to you before so now at that age it's like those games that like resonate with you when you're 12 to 17 are the ones that just because now all of a sudden you

[00:04:31] can more critically analyze games I feel like they stick with you more for better or worse those are the games that when you get old enough you can acknowledge the flaws and it

[00:04:41] doesn't matter Donkey Kong 64 one of my favorite games of all time so many flaws in that game doesn't matter that game rules I get that 100% I agree Donkey Kong is one of those games that

[00:04:55] I did play while I was growing up and thinking back on it I had no idea what I was doing because I barely knew any English back then I must have been like maybe somewhere between 10 and 12

[00:05:09] and thinking about it like I should probably replay that game at some point and try to figure it out because one it's a collector taunt and two is Donkey Kong but it's notorious for how

[00:05:20] large the the amount of shit that you have to collect is the I'm actually going to be this is a little teaser for for both I guess the public at large because I haven't done it yet but I want

[00:05:32] to be work I want to start working on my writing more and my first little bit that I'm gonna it's gonna be free on patreon I'm not gonna like put it behind a paywall just because

[00:05:40] my writing I don't think it's worth it just yet but I want I want to do a little essay on about why Donkey Kong 64 is good and why collectathons aren't necessarily bad because Donkey Kong 64 gets much

[00:05:55] maligned within a little tidbit I was talking with a friend of mine who's also a DK64 defender Donkey Kong 64 it's not that it has too many collectibles is that the pathing is really poorly designed like the route that you need to get all of those collectibles

[00:06:13] is it's tedious but there's and you also don't need to collect all of the collectibles but I'm going to save it there before I reveal all the things I want to say in the essay but that's

[00:06:23] just kind of like a little taste on it so it's not as bad as people make it out to be but it is definitely there are flaws too for sure yeah yeah now I can see that I can also see that with

[00:06:34] a bunch of some of the old rare platformers I have never finished what's it called banjo-kissui I have tried a bunch of times I have tried and the stages are just overwhelming and I don't feel like I

[00:06:53] have the brain capacity to buckle down and be like okay so I have to learn how to really play this game so I can do what the game wants me to do but it can be it can be tough but once you

[00:07:05] kind of get used to like the way they do things in those in those levels like I beat it for the first time I want to say four or five years ago so this is it's not even like it's coming from

[00:07:15] just like a nostalgic perspective for me I just I enjoyed my time with it I do want to replay it at some point because at some point I want to cover it on my show but um yeah so yeah I

[00:07:27] don't know where we at I'm lost I'm lost the thread so we were supposed to start talking about your podcast because I wanted to have you plug your podcast first because usually people dip

[00:07:39] out after we've said everything we've said so the listeners are fucked now and they have to listen to you talk about your show so tell me about still loading in your own words and

[00:07:48] what it's about what you like about it and all that stuff uh yeah so the still loading podcast I started like 10 years ago it it's evolved a lot it's almost 10 years it'll be 10 years later

[00:08:01] this year um I don't know when this comes out if this comes out before July then it's uh 10 years a little bit later if it's after July then I already hit my 10-year anniversary but in any case

[00:08:11] um it's a podcast that I describe as a gaming grab bag podcast that focuses on video games their culture and their history um so I cover a wide range of things I do deep dives on

[00:08:24] individual games where I like to talk about the history analyze the thematic elements of it like I really like analyzing thematic elements I like a lot that's one of my favorite things to

[00:08:34] do with games so I try to do that if the game warrants it I'm not going to like like we're referencing Donkey Kong 64 I don't know how many thematic elements of like emotional depth we can

[00:08:44] find in Donkey Kong 64 but you know what it's not it's not beyond me I will try to find a way damn it but um so I do stuff like that but then I also interview people in the industry

[00:08:55] I've interviewed composers and voice actors and game designers I've had people on like Austin Winterry who did the music for Journey who did the music for um he actually did

[00:09:06] Assassin's Creed oh shit what was it it was um oh I can't remember it was like it came out like 2015 he did he composed the music for one of the Assassin's Creed games um but he

[00:09:18] he said a fantastic was I've had him on I've had Sissy Jones who's the voice of Delilah in Firewatch I had her on um and then yeah game designers like Mike Micah and Stephen Frost and they work over

[00:09:31] at Digital Clips doing they did like the Atari 50 collection that came out about a year ago so yeah I kind of do a little bit of everything and then I do weird ideas and that like nothing

[00:09:41] interview or game relate like game and analysis related I do like I every year now I do an episode on the Final Fantasy fantasy draft which is what happens when you take Final Fantasy

[00:09:53] and Fantasy sports and just kind of mash them up together and that's been a lot of fun so I've done two of those there's going to be a third one in August this year so yeah that's kind of

[00:10:03] still loading it's a gaming grab bag because I cover a very wide range of gaming topics it's all video game related but it's not necessarily just game analysis or just interviews

[00:10:16] or whatnot it's a little bit of everything right right okay and that that's pretty cool I did see that you were you did an episode about cell phone game preservation yes um Japanese feature

[00:10:30] phone preservation so um I mean I'm not the expert on it my guests were the experts on it obviously but in Japan in like the mid-2000s and the aughts and whatnot uh flip phones over there were way

[00:10:43] more advanced than the flip phones we had here like they had almost like full 3d gaming already on those things and that there's like sequels to some of your favorite series on flip phones in

[00:10:55] Japan like I'm talking like Final Fantasy 7 uh what is it before crisis was a big one there's a Devil May Cry one there is a Mega Man one like a Mega Man Legends style one there is

[00:11:09] um oh my gosh what else the I'm pretty sure there's a Monster Hunter one I'd have to double check but yeah they are like there's a lot of sequels to games and important franchises that are on

[00:11:23] feature phones in Japan well not only did they never come out here in the US but the it's actually kind of funny the issues you see with preservation of them is very

[00:11:36] it's a little too on the nose for what we're dealing with now with game companies just delisting games that you've bought and you can't get them back anymore or uh maybe they just turn off

[00:11:47] functionality for a game even if you still own it type of thing and it even if you still have it it doesn't work because they turned off the servers and stuff like that all of that

[00:11:56] stuff is stuff that has already happened in Japan back in the mid 2000s on cell phones because you know cell phone services only last as long as the the providers support them so

[00:12:09] if cell phones run on 3G and if they turn off the 3G networks for in favor of like 4G or 5G or whatever the next advanced step is that stuff goes away so what uh Rockman Cosmo

[00:12:23] and Naoya Naoya Shinoda who those are the guests I had on the show what they have been trying to do for the better part of the last two years is find ways to take those games rip

[00:12:33] them off the phones that they were originally on and preserve them in a way that you can that can still be played today and there is so many crazy things that they've had to do in

[00:12:43] order to uh hack through to get these things to work and I've had them on twice once uh the beginning of 2023 and again the beginning of this year and the episode this year is kind of

[00:12:56] was kind of like an update like what it was the status of game preservation in feature phones over the last year what advancements did they get to see and there's a lot of cool stuff

[00:13:07] just a just a quick example of that uh last year they they were pretty much at the ground floor still they were still just trying to figure out what to do and at the end of

[00:13:19] the beginning of this year they ended up completely preserving the entirety of every single Mega Man game on feature phones as well as others yeah so there's been numerous numerous breakthroughs and I'm not giving credit to my own show but because they went on

[00:13:35] podcasts like Retro Knot specifically I'm going to shout out Retro Knot because they're much bigger than I am shows like that they were able to spread the word and more people came in

[00:13:44] and helped and so because of that growth over the last year they've been able to do amazing things so yeah I I'm a big fan of video game history I I think the context of learning about how a game was

[00:13:57] made and even like where a game stands in terms of game in terms of the history of the medium is super interesting and super important because it's good to see where we came from

[00:14:09] and uh so that's just part that's just part of my effort to kind of help preserve game history by talking about history if that makes sense right right no that that that is pretty cool I at that one

[00:14:22] stood out to me uh because I didn't know that uh cell phone gaming was such a big part of preservation because usually you think cell phone games you think Candy Crush, Bubble Witch, something you know simple and stupid like that there's a million of copies off

[00:14:40] but then there was a video that I think it was did you know gaming made where they're talking about cell phone game preservation and how there's games that are just completely lost to time

[00:14:54] because they only came out for a certain amount of years on a certain amount of phones and people sell those phones online but if you buy it it doesn't mean that the game is going to be

[00:15:05] there and it doesn't mean that the game will be salvageable from the phone or whatever you know and it's a very interesting part of game preservation that's not just consoles or PC and I think cell phone gaming in general gets such a bad rap kind of understandably it's

[00:15:24] it's a lot of predatory business practices mixed into all that where you have to watch a shitload of ads or you have to pay money or you have to do all this and that but

[00:15:34] there is an element of like gatekeeping within the and I'm guilty of this my job not like trying to make it sound like oh us game gamers are they're mean to the cell phone gamers I mean that's true

[00:15:44] but I'm also guilty of it um but like I think what cell phone gaming in in terms of a the North American perspective really did was it it brought back a lot more of the casual

[00:15:56] audience like there's a reason why after like Donkey Kong and Pac-Man and games like that that were super simple and as games got more complex the audience size dwindled because now it's a lot

[00:16:06] more it's a lot harder for people to wrap their heads around it now with people you know with people growing up and parents growing up now with gaming it's it's that core gaming audience has

[00:16:18] expanded again but I think cell phone gaming really like brought in casuals again they may never play you know a call of duty or a Zelda or Final Fantasy or any of these games that like I mean

[00:16:31] technical duties might as well be just like a casual game at this point too but you get what I'm saying like core gaming audience um they may never play that but they still play games and

[00:16:42] people just forget about it because it's like well that's not important that you know who gives a shit about Candy Crush or who gives a shit about Farmville and like well you know game history doesn't really just we don't decide what's important in 50 years we don't know who's

[00:16:56] going to give a shit and like what people in 50 years are going to be interested in or give a shit about so it's kind of important to talk about these things even if they seem simple and

[00:17:05] silly I mean I think one of the most underspoken things in game history is um this leads into what I'm going to say sorry what this will lead into one of the most under like under talked

[00:17:18] about parts of game history but one of the most important parts of game preservation is context historical context what a game meant to people at the time that it came out and the

[00:17:28] story surrounding it so for example um this wasn't one of the things I was this wasn't this wasn't what I was originally going to lead with but Animal Crossing New Horizons Animal Crossing New Horizons right when that if you give someone that cartridge in 50 years

[00:17:45] let's say it even has all of the updates all every single update that they added to the game let's say it's all crammed together in a cartridge so they got they got everything that Nintendo put

[00:17:55] in right let's say they can even experience it in order of progression like what it came out what it was like originally before all the updates and then as all the updates added on

[00:18:05] there's still a whole lot of context missing from that even if you just have the game data because if you just have the game cartridge you have no idea what it meant to people

[00:18:17] of our of our generation in 2020 when the whole world shut down and we had to throw fucking birthday parties in animal on people's islands at Animal Crossing and we had to hang

[00:18:27] out with our friends and design our islands and so that way it was like bringing your friends into this new home that you created and it was a way to connect with people and it was a

[00:18:36] phenomenon in 2020 and a little bit into 2021 that's super I mean for fuck's sake there was late night talk shows that had islands that they would like show on television like Animal Crossing

[00:18:50] was huge that's context for the game that if you just take the game and you rip the ROM and you do all that other stuff you don't get any of that shit you don't know any of

[00:19:01] that stuff so you know weird sense podcasts like yours like a novel console like I know you don't focus on just video games on your show you also cover books and whatnot but like shit like that

[00:19:12] like just talking about games is more important than you would think because without that context all you have is a ROM and you don't know the importance of it and now to take that same

[00:19:24] thought line and process and bring it back to what phone gaming Pokemon Go the summer of 2016 was like the close we joke around but I'm I'm semi serious about it is probably the closest to

[00:19:39] world peace that we have been in a long ass time people of every political identity was like walking around playing Pokemon and talking to each other in parks and it was a wonderful time

[00:19:53] and that I don't think you can really quantify by just looking at like a rip like if you just rip Pokemon Go off a phone right context is super important and that's what I was going to say

[00:20:07] I don't think the summer of 2016 specifically is talked enough about in terms of the context of game history because I feel like that means for crying out loud that's gonna be eight years

[00:20:18] ago really soon which is just nuts to think about but I'm sorry that was a long-winded rant about game preservation and cell phones and feature phones and just to be clear I have no interest in cell phone gaming but there are literally hundreds of thousands of games that

[00:20:34] have been delisted from the iStoe iPhone store or the iPhone app and all that other stuff and Android apps and all that other shenanigans and what about the exclusives on like that

[00:20:45] were only on Android or only on iPhone or only on Windows phones like there are stuff like that that's never like just because I don't give a shit about it doesn't mean it's not important so that's why I always find it interesting when

[00:21:00] like it's like when I look at feature phone games it's kind of like my end to be like you see these are important so therefore even though we may not like what some modern gaming is

[00:21:11] in terms of on cell phones it's still important because in 50 years hopefully we can learn from the predatory business practices of freemium and shit like that you know right so I honestly I'd never would have given game press I think game preservation is important I think

[00:21:29] it's very very important to the point where I think it's more important to save a copy of Pac-Man for the Atari is more important to preserve than the whole Beatles discography

[00:21:43] I mean right that's a I guess that's a matter of opinion I'm not even a Beatles fan but still either way both are important that we can at least agree on that right right um but I always thought that it's very important to preserve the data the

[00:21:59] for for any kind of game games that were published that weren't published games that were you know released for a certain amount of time and then delisted or games that were only online

[00:22:08] only and then once the server should shut down they're gone but I never saw that side of what was going on when the game came out and like you said animal crossing had that big

[00:22:20] attachment to it of the world shut down this is the only place where we can hang out with our friends that somewhat brings us joy and same with Pokemon it I'd never seen that side before

[00:22:35] and I think that's a very interesting way to look at preservation apart from just saving the game itself so that future generations can study and and learn from and you know apply what they see

[00:22:48] into whatever they're making um but yeah no you brought up predatory business tactics for freemium and all that shit and that is the part that I hate about mobile gaming yeah and that

[00:23:04] that is the part that makes me not respect that and not want it to be a thing because eventually you will see the big developers be like oh this shit works on phone let's put it on consoles

[00:23:14] and then you get bullshit like the loot boxes and Overwatch which I don't play Overwatch but still that happened and then a bunch of games adopted it fucking Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War

[00:23:25] which are single player games adopted that bullshit uh you know it's wild to me right it's ridiculous it's something that has no place in gaming and whenever it's there I feel

[00:23:38] like I'm being disrespected as a gamer and I'm being lied to as a consumer I there see and it's interesting so I agree with you I do think that what's interesting about loot boxes specifically

[00:23:51] kind of being like the console version of freemium almost even though you still pay for the game I'm of two minds with it I'm partially loot boxes we can vote with our dollars and I think

[00:24:03] I don't believe that sentence for the vast majority of public you know like you hate this evil company vote with your dollar I'm like that's not going to do a fucking shit

[00:24:11] it's not gonna work it's not gonna work but in terms of games it's I think it's a little bit easier because you have a lot smaller of an ecosystem than the entire public as opposed to just the

[00:24:21] ecosystem for that specific game and gamers have frequently been able to make their voices heard enough to do stuff like that now and the reason I'm of two minds with it one I wanted

[00:24:30] to go away I don't like freemium I don't I don't mind loot boxes if it's purely cosmetic and there's nothing like gameplay even then I don't understand why people spend money on it but you know what

[00:24:41] if it's a way for the developer to make extra money and people deem it to worth value then it doesn't affect the game it's just literally there for kicks and giggles so I'm cool with it

[00:24:52] right so as long as it's cosmetics it's cool but when it's actually pay to win where if this person spends ten dollars and that means that they get something that makes the playing field

[00:25:04] excessively uneven in their favor then that's a problem yeah I'm yeah 100 I agree with you 100% and like that's unfortunately that's pretty much what every EA sports game is it's like whether you're playing FIFA or well it's not FIFA anymore but if you're playing NHL or football or

[00:25:25] soccer or whatever you and they have the ultimate teams it's just you're just paying for randomized trade digital trading cards which essentially like their proto NFTs before NFTs were like a thing

[00:25:41] and yeah it's you just kind of pay to win and even then it's just you're just gambling you don't know what you're going to get into a pack what I find what the reason I'm conflicted

[00:25:52] with the microtransaction bullshit because I hate it I genuinely hate it I think it's predatory and I don't think it's good for the medium one of the reasons games have were able to stay 60 dollars

[00:26:04] for so long is because of bullshit like that because I was able to prop up the ballooning development costs of developing everything in HD because if you think about it up until like what the last year or two when they started upping games to 70 dollars

[00:26:19] game video games are one of the few products that never adjusted with inflation it was like 60 dollars since like the ps2 era for like almost 20 years it was 60 dollars for brand new games that's insane like to have not get adjusted for that much I'm not saying microtransactions

[00:26:40] are worth not having to pay a little bit more for game but that's how that's one of the ways they kind of subsidized having to without having that's one of the ways they subsidized

[00:26:50] subsidize the cost and so they didn't have to up the price of brand new games right because because like you said they they were uneven during the nests to the Nintendo 64 era they were prices were sort of well and then they stabilized place then they stabilized

[00:27:10] PlayStation 2 going forward because I remember them being around 50 bucks ish and then PlayStation 3 they went up to 60 and they kind of stayed the same until now when they're 70 which I don't mind paying the 70 dollars because when you adjust for inflation a super nintendo game would cost you in

[00:27:32] today's dollars 120 dollars where I would rather just pay the 70 for you know brand new game than 120 for a game. Like in dude even if back in like 90s dollars some super nintendo rpgs were 100

[00:27:48] dollars in like 90s dot like dollars so like you adjust that for inflation you're looking at probably close to 150 to 200 probably more than 200 now with how much inflation has rose over the last year but yeah we went off on a tangent all as the game history went on.

[00:28:06] We're good that's that's what the show is um yeah no I oh I just got a notification telling me that I'm recording with you. Oh good. Yeah my phone's going off it's like record with Josh.

[00:28:19] So the reason why I brought you here I love you know hearing people talk about the games that they grew up with you know the stories that they they might have an association with a certain game

[00:28:35] and a certain time of their life where you know let's say like there was a summer that I just hung out the entire summer at my grandma's house and all I did in the afternoons was just sit in the balcony with my Game Boy Advance and play

[00:28:52] I don't know a chain of memories or supersonic warriors while listening to music on my CD player and to me that that was a great time that I had while I was growing up and I just want to

[00:29:04] hear and listen to people telling stories like that and what their favorite game is and why and how did it start and how they started playing what was their first game and all that so what what is your favorite game of all time it's a donkey 64

[00:29:19] no no no that is a loaded question though that is a very like I it's funny to kind of tie in our previous conversation about game history and preservation I don't have a favorite game

[00:29:33] of all time and I say that because I genuinely doesn't mean I like every game but I be I think because I approach video games almost with a historical lens even if it's a modern game even

[00:29:46] it's just like I don't know like a game that I don't think I'll like even if it's a current game I should say I think pretty much every game is good in some way shape or form even if I don't like

[00:29:59] the game that no go don't get me wrong there are objectively bad games like the game is literally broken or it's janky as hell and it's programmed to shit and it doesn't work and

[00:30:09] you know those are they do exist I'm not saying bad games don't exist but by and large like most games that come out even if they're meh I you can find something that's interesting about them usually

[00:30:22] not when they're contemporary like if there's a game that's like awful now or like not great now it's like a B or C tier game in terms of quality you look at that 20 years later on and you'll

[00:30:33] find it interesting because you'll be like okay so I know what came out in 2017 but now let me try this other game that didn't get a lot of love in 2017 type of thing or this and that um and who knows

[00:30:45] maybe that c-tier game at the time is now like an A plus game like 20 years later because of gaming taste change and shit like that I got the perfect game for that type of category of

[00:30:58] B or C and it came out a couple of months ago it's Robocop Rogue City oh geez okay it is it is a great Robocop game and it's a very very interesting RPG and I think a decade from now people are

[00:31:16] going to talk about it and be like this game was fucking awesome why didn't people talk about it more when it came out I mean dude there's it's even like that with popular games or games

[00:31:25] from popular series like if you look at like uh for fuck's sake look at every Final Fantasy game after Final Fantasy 10 Final Fantasy 13 comes out everyone's like this game is not that great it's fine

[00:31:37] it's okay but it's not a good Final Fantasy there's better the older ones are better and now you like look back on it like 15 years later and people are re-litigating it you're like oh you

[00:31:47] know what we didn't get Final Fantasy 13 a fair shake you know we'll now they'll find things to like it so I say all that because I don't I can't really tell you what my favorite game of all time

[00:32:00] is and I know that's a cop-out answer I can say what has I will say at least uh I will at least try to give an answer though I'm just gonna like leave it at nothing um the game that I would

[00:32:15] say currently it's usually whatever I've played most recently because it's stuck in my mind but in all honesty I would say Red Dead Redemption 2 um that one I think I heard on your episode with

[00:32:28] Eric you're not a fan of that right it's uh last of us and anything naughty dog I'm not big on well Red Dead was Rockstar but yeah okay yeah so anything GTA no if it's not GTA by Rockstar

[00:32:46] yes definitely so I absolutely loved uh Red Dead 2 and I think that was a fantastic game sorry so you were saying you don't like naughty dog that was the last thing you said okay

[00:32:58] yes so so I don't like I'm very mad with everything naughty dog I don't think they're as good as people say they are um at it's a whole conversation that someday I'll get into in death um but

[00:33:13] grant a GTA not GTA Rockstar I've loved pretty much everything that had Rockstar has released that hasn't been Grand Theft Auto so I I wasn't big on the first Red Dead but looking back on it

[00:33:27] that was a great fucking game I I didn't appreciate it enough when it came out and I did play all of it I absolutely loved uh Red Dead 2 I think it's the best western game

[00:33:40] ever made yeah um I love Max Payne 3 I loved uh LA Noir when it came out I will never play that game again but I loved it when it came out so I think Rockstar is great when they're away from Grand Theft

[00:33:56] Auto because Grand Theft Auto to me is very very pretentious and that is something that I just don't like even if it's you know humor and tongue and cheek and whatnot I just it's not for me

[00:34:07] I have not played the games enough see I'm not a GTA fan as well so I'm kind of with you on that I it's one of those series I want to like but I just can't seem to get into um and I can actually

[00:34:18] kind of see your criticism of Naughty Dog I disagree Naughty Dog is one of my favorite developers out there but I think the reason they get so revered in the in like games press

[00:34:32] and everything A they they A they're just like I guess they just have such a pedigree they've had such a pedigree for years like Between Crash and Jack and Daxter and everything but also

[00:34:43] their games just look consistently are the some of the best looking in any console generation and generally they I remember you saying you don't think Last of Us has a good story I think it

[00:34:54] I heartily I think you said did you say that am I am I misremembering no I I don't I don't think it's a great story and the reason is because the walking Telltale did it with the

[00:35:04] walking dead a year before and it hit harder in every single way way more than Naughty Dog hit at least for me no that's fair yeah I totally get it so it's a personal preference see I disagree

[00:35:17] on the story but I will say and it's I think of this of Last of Us and I kind of think this was uncharted none of their gameplay elements really reinvent the wheel they're all

[00:35:28] competent like I love Uncharted it's one of my favorite series but the shooting mechanics and the platforming mechanics there's nothing new and if anything the platforming mechanics are what we see in almost every open world game now with like the like the white colored wall

[00:35:48] like cliff ledges for you to grab onto that I mean that's super influential whether you like it or not is a personal preference I think we're Naughty Dog has excelled is with characters and

[00:35:58] with storytelling and I understand you don't like Last of Us 1 totally fair I you know I don't I'd have to I'd have to play the Telltale walking dead games to see the comparison you're talking

[00:36:09] about because I have not yet but um I think they get revered because of that and people overlook the fact that their gameplay elements aren't anything that's like universal I would say the the things that they've done the best believe it or not in the last like

[00:36:25] bit in terms of gameplay specifically I actually think Last of Us gameplay really does well to reinforce the story because the whole thing is like you're scrounging you know it's post post apocalyptic you're trying to survive so you have to scrounge for resources and everything

[00:36:40] in order to continue on through the game and a lot of the different enemies you fight reinforce the narrative and stuff like that like the the themes of the narrative so I like that but

[00:36:51] the game like when uh not when Last of Us 2 won Game of the Year in 2020 or whatever it was I think it was 2020 and I would have given it to Ghost of Tsushima personally just because Ghost of Tsushima

[00:37:03] I had not played an open world game with like combat like advanced combat mechanics like that and I think that was a lot more interesting and they also solved the issue of like constantly having markers on your map everywhere like you just did you play Ghost of Tsushima?

[00:37:19] Oh yeah yeah um I can agree with that I definitely can agree with that that Ghost of Tsushima should have won it over the Last of Us 2 as much as I love the Last of Us 2 because I loved it I

[00:37:33] loved every second of it I love Dabby everything that happened to Ellie and to Joel and I thought it was perfect like that game made me actually care for these awful fucking people

[00:37:49] that deserve that little shit on them right um to the point that I bought the remaster and I cannot wait to get a second a chance to play it all over again um but Ghost of Tsushima

[00:38:00] is in my opinion it was a better game it had a better story the problem is that when I played it I played it immediately after finishing Assassin's Creed Odyssey so I was burnt out on that type of

[00:38:15] world yeah I could see that I could see that but I I the story and the combat was engaging enough for me to see past the open world and the game how it's structured and whatnot and actually

[00:38:29] be able to enjoy it even though I was burnt out and I didn't want to touch a type of game like that ever afterwards but yes no I agree with you it's fantastic it's funny I'm actually playing

[00:38:41] uh Horizon Zero Dawn again like on stream and whatnot and off stream and I'm kind of feeling that already where I'm like oh man like this is this game's taking so long to play I don't know

[00:38:51] if I'm going to want to play another open world game after this and I have like big games that I'm currently working on for the show and whatnot um but to bring it back once again I told you this

[00:39:02] was not going to be a short episode to bring it back to your original question like with this tangents favorite game of all time like I said I don't necessarily have one but the

[00:39:11] game in the last like five years or so that has impacted me the most has been Red Dead 2 um and I say that because with Red Dead 2 when I first played it I hated it I I a lot actually

[00:39:27] I keep referencing your episode with Eric from the unlockables your guys criticisms of Rockstars controls is my same criticisms why do I have to mash X to fucking run just let me fucking run

[00:39:37] you don't need to do any of that um so I there's so many things in that game that really got under my skin in terms of like the actual controls of it and then I started getting into the story

[00:39:51] and then I got used to the controls and so that was no longer this tedious thing to get used like to that was bothering me it just became muscle memory and then once it became muscle

[00:40:00] memory I stopped focusing hyper focusing on minor minutiae of problems of like just regular jank that you come into you come into contact with in almost any game especially open world game like I mentioned Horizon I try to control Aloy is like there's so many moments where she

[00:40:18] gets stuck on rocks and shit like that and I'm like why did this not bother me for Horizon but it took me a little bit to get used to with Red Dead and Red Dead was better like mechanically

[00:40:29] at least when I played it I played it after all the updates and everything but you don't get stuck on a rock you trip over it yeah but like what really got me with Red Dead was

[00:40:43] Arthur more the character of Arthur Morgan the whole story and his whole journey the amount of interactivity in that game is just staggering like and how like there's physics like you can

[00:40:55] shoot water troughs and like where the bullet holes are water will pour out of it like they coded physics like that like it's insane the amount of interactivity in that game and obviously the the famous thing when they were marketing the game you know horse testicles you

[00:41:10] know when he goes up to the mountain the horse testicles right up close to the body and when it's down in the valley you start stupid right it it's it's so I did you play Max Payne 3

[00:41:27] I have not played a single Max Payne game I own the first one and I think that's it okay so Max Payne 3 had a bunch of the shooting stuff from Red Dead where you would be in a gunfight and let's say you would shoot somebody in the stomach

[00:41:44] and they're still alive but as the gunfight progresses if you don't kill the guy eventually he will bleed out to death that's wild that is things that they implemented into Max Payne that they took and they've been implementing into their games ever since because the way that these

[00:42:02] rocks are games used to feel to me is that they would release let's say midnight club and they would take the driven from there and put it on Grand Theft Auto and then they

[00:42:11] would take the shooting from some game and then they would put that into Grand Theft Auto as well and they would just keep evolving all of these formulas that they had created and

[00:42:22] mastered into a package that would you know be cohesive but the thing is that even though the gameplay and everything feels great everything else around it I'm not interested in so I don't

[00:42:37] care about the gang wars I don't care about the Italian mafia the the parodies and whatever no I want I want the story to be I don't even want to say relatable because I can't relate to

[00:42:52] Arthur Arthur Morgan you know I'm not a western desperado I would say the difference is that they treat art like the stories in Red Dead Redemption as more serious than parody like the stories in

[00:43:05] Grand Theft Auto are all like there's some serious moments in them for my understanding but for the most part the game is pretty tongue-in-cheek like the story is tongue-in-cheek the humor is tongue-in-cheek and in Red Dead Redemption like Arthur's dealing with the heavy like a lot

[00:43:21] of heavy thoughts and feelings that I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't played it's all keep it spoiler free just in case but you know the big plot twist as to like what

[00:43:30] happens to him uh that I'm sure you know about you know what I'm talking about yeah like that deal that's it's not something I can relate to in the sense that I don't I did not

[00:43:40] go through the same thing he did but it's one of those things where it's a very human emotion to be afraid of what he's afraid of um and I still look back at the scene there's a scene on a train

[00:43:53] station with him talking to the nun uh to this month like this uh this nun that he's helped out at some of the side missions and it's this really heartfelt conversation where

[00:44:04] she's like trying to tell him like that he's lived a good life depending if you choose to be a good like a good Arthur Morgan versus a bad Arthur Morgan but um she'll like she'll say that you

[00:44:16] I maybe it's the same dialogue for both I don't know but she says like I know you like I've seen how you interact you're a good person and obviously Arthur has done awful heinous things and he's just so remorseful of everything and he's just he's he's afraid

[00:44:30] and he's scared and he has like he's been so pent up with it he doesn't know how to relay it so he has to talk about it to a complete stranger because he can't say it to his friends

[00:44:40] because they're in it with him type of thing it's it's a really heartfelt moment and I just I I think it's easier to relate to the characters in Red Dead because the stuff their reactions are more human as opposed to more parody right right and yeah no

[00:44:59] definitely I can relate the biggest part that I can relate from Arthur is when he decides I'm gonna make everything right because everybody has gone through that point where they're like

[00:45:10] I really need to make things right with whatever be it a family member or friend or whatever you know I actually gotta you know do better and be better and that segment of the story where

[00:45:22] Arthur is struggling so hard to do good because he wants to do good but he doesn't know how or if it's working when he does that was just incredible it was perfect it's it's great and that

[00:45:36] that's what I loved so much about Red Dead 2 and then thinking back on Red Dead 1 John went through a lot of the same stuff too. It's definitely rough around the edges in Red Dead

[00:45:50] 1 so I totally get why like I'm not a huge fan of it either. It's the first time I tried to play it I kind of bounced off it as well similar to you so I feel what you're talking about where

[00:46:00] it's you can appreciate it more now but it's still like like take out the gameplay enhancements of Red Dead 2 I think just storytelling wise Red Dead 2 just blows it out of the water. Oh yeah yeah no definitely and you get attached to the side characters too and then

[00:46:17] it just it hits you harder when stuff happens though Red Dead 2 is great. I'm surprised to consider it my favorite game of the time in fact the episode I did on it with

[00:46:34] my friend Justine she was the one that kind of got me to try it and I got I remember I ordered the game from like Best Buy like online or something like that and shipped to me it was

[00:46:45] during the pandemic that I played it because you know we had all this extra free time so I actually played through that I forget I might have played through one and I I binged through all

[00:46:55] of it and I absolutely adored it and it's just funny because I was texting her just whining about all the random stuff like why does Arthur control this way this is dumb why

[00:47:07] do I have to mash X just completing the whole way and then there's probably if I can scroll back far enough I bet you like you know what this game's turning around I bet you there's like a set

[00:47:17] of text where you can see the change happen in my opinion and I like the story in that game has stuck with me even though it's been four years oh almost four years since I first played it

[00:47:28] and I still like get emotional thinking about that journey and there's very few like there's other games that I think about and I get emotional somewhat more on the nostalgic level as opposed

[00:47:38] to like an actual like this affected me personally or this affected me emotionally and there are some games that do both but like this one I think it really has done the most like red dead redemption

[00:47:51] to also maybe bio shock infinite that's not more of an emotional thing I just love bio shock infinite I have the bio shock chain tattoos on my wrist oh nice original game right so I I get it

[00:48:07] that when bio shock infinite ended I was just sitting there with the control and I was like what the fuck happened what did I miss and I started looking up theories and everything and

[00:48:20] I was like what I need I need answers this isn't enough and oh my god like and then the dlc came out and made the entire series like a full circle just yeah I covered it for the like I covered it for

[00:48:37] the show not to keep plugging my own bullshit but like I covered it last last summer and I replayed it for the for those episodes and I finally it took me like a decade but I finally

[00:48:51] understood the story of the of just the base game I understand how it all connects together but I finally understood the story of the base game and uh I think I might have packed it up

[00:49:03] I'll double check but I don't think I packed it up oh no it's there I see it after we're done recording I will show you because on camera I have a statue of the

[00:49:12] strong bird nice I have the Funkos of Booker Elizabeth and a songbird I never could get the big daddy oh that'd be cool to get a big daddy one too but yeah no those are the hands down

[00:49:28] bio shock infinite still sticks with me just because I think partially I that's a whole another story but I already ranted enough about red dead two but red dead two I think

[00:49:37] is arguably still my favorite game of all time even though I don't really give any game that moniker red dead would be the red dead two would be the closest right and even though it's a it's a

[00:49:50] relatively newer game compared to what most people our age would say is their favorite game of all time I can still respect that and then you know see why uh you would say that it's your

[00:50:04] favorite game of all time unofficially because it is a fucking hell of a game I cannot remember a game apart from Cyberpunk 2077 where I just couldn't wait to get back into it and just keep

[00:50:21] plugging at it and seeing what else there was to do and what else happened and just living in the world because there was days where I just lived in the world I would just

[00:50:30] ride around go mug people get into poker games just live as a cowboy for hours an hour some end there's a really funny uh like he's a streamer I think is I don't know what his real name is

[00:50:44] I think he's like swole gaming like swol he's like a super jack dude so hence the name but he plays red dead two on like a mod like on pc so he mods it and so he has a whole bunch of sort

[00:50:58] shorts on like on youtube and shit I'll try to send you one after we're done recording where he I get I don't know exactly how he does it but he modded the game so that way

[00:51:09] I guess him and a friend could be Arthur and Dutch and they they're on top of a bridge and he does a really good like Arthur Morgan impression and it's a blonde dude yeah and he

[00:51:23] goes hi I'm Arthur Morgan and welcome to jackass and we're gonna do the bungee jump great and he lassos the he lassos Dutch and he just dangling from top of this bridge like oh no Dutch I'm

[00:51:38] coming for you Dutch and he he shoots the rope and Dutch falls down into the river and if you pay attention you this is how you can tell it's a mod even if you know nothing

[00:51:49] about the game there's fucking sharks jumping out of the waterfall and no one notices it there's literally sharks like in the ocean in the creek it's nuts I think I saw one of his there

[00:52:01] he just stacked a whole bunch of horses it goes like 20 or 30 horses and like a train track and just waited for the trains to hit the horses I love it great his channel is awesome yeah

[00:52:17] yeah it's very funny so dude I have never met anybody ever that actually likes Bioshock Infinite I thought I was the only person that likes that yeah it's so good yeah because the thing is it came

[00:52:31] out the same year as as the last of us and people were all over last of us and everybody forgot Bioshock so I don't know if people didn't play it or they didn't like it or what but I

[00:52:42] well so no people played it Bioshock Infinite's interesting because it was commercially and critically successful but it cost so much money to make that it bankrupted the developer who made it irrational games isn't around anymore because of that now it's funny Ken Levine who designed

[00:53:01] the game is making another game it's come it was just like not announced but they showed a elongated trailer of it at the state of play recently for Judas and it looks fucking awesome

[00:53:11] I can't wait oh yeah I'm right I'm all for it I think one of the reasons the game kind of gets overlooked so much is because kind of like what your criticism of GTA was where you think it's a

[00:53:22] little bit like what does it I forget what you said it's the exact same thing that people say about Bioshock Infinite where it's pretentious that's the word okay a lot of especially because that story is so convoluted and complex and you could make the argument it's unnecessarily so

[00:53:45] and it might just be Ken Levine wanting to be like look how smart I am so some people kind of like I think I think a criticism of it is that people considered a little bit too pretentious

[00:53:56] and I can see where they come from with that because of all the thematic stuff talking about you know like the obviously the critiques on racism and sexism and the horrific stuff that

[00:54:08] happened in the 1920s or night well forever for people of color and with but specifically in that era then also like the whole religious stuff and like the anti-religion messages and

[00:54:23] like listen and I'm not going to shove this down any list or certain I'm a Christian it doesn't bother me that he like really shits on religion in that because honestly religion deserves to be

[00:54:32] shitting on a lot so I even as a Christian I will I hate you I almost feel weird calling myself that because I I won't go into it it's a whole thing I'm very disillusioned with the religious side of

[00:54:48] Christianity if that makes sense and I'll just leave it at that so with Bioshock Infinite it's very on the nose but I could understand how that could rub some people the wrong way even if

[00:55:00] you're not religious because sometimes when a message is just too on the nose it gets a little annoying it's like we get it you don't like this you don't have to keep telling us we don't you

[00:55:10] don't like this type of thing it never bothered me with Bioshock Infinite and more than anything what I liked about it I talked about it on my episode too both the original Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite the kind of sci-fi elements that that they involve all revolve around scientific

[00:55:29] discoveries that were occurring at the time period the game takes place in so in the 50s it was dealing with a lot of you know like the human the human genome was cracked people understood

[00:55:42] how DNA like they understood DNA was like a helix and shit like that so what was the powers in the original Bioshock literally splicing your genes literally inject changing your DNA so you could have superpowers so they took that real world science fiction the science concept of

[00:56:01] learning how DNA works and how DNA is sequenced and being like okay let's take this to a sci-fi extreme in the 1910s because I think Infinite takes place in what 1912 or something like that yeah everything that was going in there was like quantum mechanics and quantum theory and

[00:56:19] shit like that so they took that idea of like all the theoretical physics and bullshit and said what if we did the parallel theory parallel world theory into a game and that's where

[00:56:31] the big plot twists and other stuff of Bioshock Infinite comes in sorry spoiler alert for listeners but yeah it's sold enough I think that's a cool thing to do where they pick a historical time

[00:56:45] period and that or they pick they use the science that was being discovered at the time and take it and like let's make this science fiction I think that's kind of cool what are

[00:56:55] they going to do with Judas I don't know because that seems to take place in the future so I have no idea I feel like Judas might be the perfect marriage of system shock and bioshock

[00:57:08] because Ken Levine was one of the people involved in in system shock so yep if it means to play system shot too right like if it's that I'll I'll be perfectly happy with it I

[00:57:21] I think the man can create a great game so same I like his design philosophies I like his storytelling I like the stories in both in both bioshock one I never played two but I know that

[00:57:35] wasn't developed by him or his team it was a different team but I like great that's whatever it was definitely yeah you should I it's not one but it is a great game I do own it and I

[00:57:48] should really get around to playing so yeah I'm dude I'm there's not a lot of you're right not a lot of people give love to bioshock infinite the guest that I had on it was a Mick Arcade he's a huge fan

[00:57:59] of it so if you ever want to gush about it with someone as well someone else he's a huge fan of bioshock just talk to Mick okay yeah no because when it came out I remember I was talking with

[00:58:11] a buddy of mine and he was like a manager at GameStop and he had quit recently after the game came out and he was just getting off of gaming entirely after he quit GameStop

[00:58:22] and I kept telling us like dude you just need to play bioshock before you quit if this is the last video game you ever play make it bioshock infinite and I don't know if he ever did but

[00:58:34] you set up this story it's like and he's still playing games today but no I don't know if he ever played it I don't know what a let down right he to this day he hates video games and he curses

[00:58:49] the companies that make it he I think he works in border patrol and I think he just searches for for illegal games coming into the country so he can shoot them that's how he adds to his collection

[00:59:04] right just has like a bunch of game cases with bullet holes on his wall oh god I wasn't gonna go that far but yeah no no um so yeah so that's so you have like basically an interest

[00:59:24] from what I'm gathering uh you you love modern games like I love all I I actually do a lot of retro stuff too okay um so yeah sorry so whatever a few retro games that that you absolutely love

[00:59:42] so recently I actually beat donkey Kong country for the first time the original super nintendo dkc loved it I actually think it holds up better than I was expecting it to um obviously love Mario

[00:59:55] who I mean who doesn't love Mario uh one of the earliest gaming memories I have actually and I did an episode on it someone recently I gotta stop shouting at my own bullshit I'm so sorry

[01:00:05] I feel like I'm just clogged you're good dude um I one of my earliest gaming memories there is a obscure macintosh game called power Pete it is a top down shoot them up action game like

[01:00:22] it was later renamed mighty mic uh and actually you can legally download the entire game for free like you can you don't need to install anything you can just download the exe with all the files

[01:00:34] and you can play it but it came out in like the early 90s and it is this awesome action game where you play as this action figure named Pete or Mike I guess in later iterations um

[01:00:48] and you uh have to rescue the the new hot toy in the toy store these fuzzy bunny two are like scattered throughout the toy store and all the other toys are jealous and angry at them so

[01:00:59] you have to kill the other toys so you can save the bunnies um and you get like literally like dozens of weapons you have suction cup guns and job well jobbreakers are the collectible suction

[01:01:11] cup guns guns excuse me uh you have rocks you have uh rubber band shooters you have oh my goodness like toothpaste guns and stuff like that it's all like kind of toy store themed

[01:01:26] type of thing and it's a really fun shooter and I played it a ton as a kid and I know whatever talks about that game it's one of I really love that game it's one of my favorite

[01:01:37] childhood games and it holds up decently now the controls are a little floaty um but considering you can literally legally download it for free from the developer who I think has since shut down it was developed by a company called Pangea software uh they actually ended

[01:01:53] up making a bunch of games for iPhone and stuff like that before they shut down but they they have all their games out there now for a lot of their games out there now for free and

[01:02:03] it's it's really cool I power Pete was a really fun game and it's got a decent soundtrack it's got some pleasant visuals it's got a lot of weapons like my favorite weapon in the game

[01:02:14] there's like these exploding birthday cakes that do like AOE damage it's fucking great it's a great game that sounds like fun it looks a lot like uh is it a kari warriors for the mess it looks like one of

[01:02:27] those jungle I would say better graphics than that yeah it was definitely better graphics than the NES but maybe like the arcade version of it for sure um yeah but I'm actually a collector I mean you

[01:02:38] can see right a little bit of it behind me on camera here I actually have like a bunch of original Nintendo games a bunch of super Nintendo games Genesis um N64 what you can't I've been

[01:02:50] I'm actually in the process of tearing this game room down because my wife and I were trying to find a new house to move into and I don't know if I'll have a game room there so I'm having

[01:03:00] to put a lot of this stuff into storage which kind of sucks but it is what it is so um I mean the process of tearing it down but like I dude I have I have games for the Atari 2600 all

[01:03:11] the way up to the ps5 oh Jesus that is a collection that is a lot it's I mean I've been at it for a while I would say some of my favorite super nintendo's obviously Final Fantasy 6 which was three over

[01:03:25] here in North America I have Chrono Trigger uh what's another favorite like super nintendo that's not just some I have earthbound I do have earth I like earthbound I like earth mega man x

[01:03:39] is really good obviously um I also I would try to find like obscure weird games that I that I'm not saying these are good but I would go to my local game store and I would bring like

[01:03:51] ten dollars I'm like all right what can I get for ten dollars I don't care what it is it just has to look interesting um I found a super nintendo game called power pigs of the dark ages and

[01:04:01] I'm like I have no idea what this is but it's got a weird cartoon style on the on the art and it's this weird like action platformer it's super bizarre uh but there's a game for there's also

[01:04:14] one it's pink panther goes to hollywood but the side of the the on the cartridge itself where it has like the title on the side of the the cart it just says pink goes to hollywood I'm like what the

[01:04:25] hell does that mean what do you mean pink goes to hollywood and then when you look at it they just drop the word panther it's the pink panther but they just dropped the word panther

[01:04:34] so yeah I am I my friend Jala's gonna get a kick out of this uh kabuki quantum fighter for the NES I shout that out all the goddamn time that is a super underrated NES platformer that's awesome

[01:04:49] to check out so yeah dude I collect bits of everything I have game collectibles the games itself I have a bunch of the consoles are you looking at kabuki quantum fighter yeah I've

[01:05:02] seen this before I've been meaning to put this on the steam deck it's kind of awesome yeah I think I heard somebody talk about this recently but I don't remember who it was I might have actually

[01:05:11] been Jala but dude you should hold on I gotta the just for the listeners you gotta know what the premise of this game is so the plot I'm reading this off of wikipedia because I don't have it

[01:05:24] memorized but in the year 20 20 56 over you know only 22 years away from this right sorry 32 years away from this in the year 20 56 a virus has appeared in the main defense computer of the planet earth the origin and nature are unknown players adopt the persona of 25 year old colonel

[01:05:44] scott o'connor a military agent who has transferred his brain into raw binary code using experimental technology in order to combat a rogue program in the main defense computer that's a run on

[01:05:56] sentence so long when o'connor enters the system his body forms the self image of his great grandfather who was a kabuki actor so just so listeners can hear this scott o'connor has a japanese grandfather

[01:06:16] who is a kabuki actor the virus in the in the virtual world takes on properties of an actual virus it leaves behind debris mutant creatures and parasite environments of a bio biological

[01:06:30] nature at the and then it does deals with the final level so yeah that's what wikipedia has it as the plot so I I love plots of old NES games actually uh not to shout out another episode but

[01:06:45] I did this is like four years ago I did an episode called still loading story time where me and a bunch of friends did dramatic readings of old NES manuals and it was all shit like that just like

[01:06:56] wild wonky stories I gotta check that out because that that sounds like a lot of fun I love dramatic readings of stuff I mean that was before I really knew what I was doing with the

[01:07:09] show um it was a fun experimental idea I it's one of those things where I don't know I tried listening to it back to it again and I was just embarrassed but I think that's more just because of

[01:07:21] like myself as opposed to like what I I don't know if the episode is good or not is what I'm trying to say it might still be good okay it might either way whether it's good or not I'm happy

[01:07:31] I tried it because that's a I had a lot of fun doing it so yeah yeah no that's what counts so uh I got a couple more questions for you um go first one have you ever tried the yakuza

[01:07:44] series actually I have a friend of the show Matt Storm I asked them if they wanted to come on the show sometime and I asked for a bunch of games and they suggested yakuza zero I started it

[01:07:59] have not beaten it I've probably logged about 15 to 20 hours into the first uh into yakuza zero and that's about all I've really touched of the series okay so oh man 15 to 20 hours you

[01:08:12] probably haven't seen much of the story I mean I get the gist of it with Kiryu uh getting framed for a murder he did not commit while right the uh what's the other character steam who runs the

[01:08:27] nightclub Majima Majima uh with him not wanting to run the nightclub with him kind of kind of relegated that I did find out why I forget why but I do remember the there was a story

[01:08:40] beat where he was too zealous over something and then it because of that he got relegated to um running the nightclub at some point I'm assuming their two paths are going to cross in some way

[01:08:54] I don't know how just yet but yeah I'm right now I'm still going back and forth between Kiryu's story and Majima's Majima's story okay well I'm very happy that Matt got you to start with zero

[01:09:08] zero is fantastic um and if zero doesn't grab you then like a dragon definitely will because you have to play like a dragon it's such a good jrpg it's I'm enjoying it so far I

[01:09:23] I like all I do like all the the I understand when people say why the side quests are what makes the series because they're all just fun and goofy and silly and the side characters are

[01:09:32] really like the one side quest that really just made me laugh was there's the one where it's this girl who wanted to learn to be a more assertive so she became a dominatrix and she doesn't know how

[01:09:45] to be a dominatrix so you have to help her become a dominatrix and like basically boss around this this dude who likes being like trampled on pretty much it's a really funny kind of bizarrely heartwarming side story considering that she wants to be a dominatrix

[01:10:05] but still you know what teach their own I guess right right oh man that that is a good sub story oh it's stuck with me you want to talk about like Arthur Morgan's thematic journey and now

[01:10:21] we're going with uh dominatrix girl wanting to like what are the themes of that no I it was it was memorable it was funny yeah um I I remember playing zero and I had played played one and four before I played zero

[01:10:44] and I really liked it but it took me a long time to finish it because I kept bouncing off for some reason but then there was like a story moment where I was like oh fuck this is this is

[01:10:59] what I want to keep seeing I want to see if the game has more of this and I just took off in that game at a buddy of mine Thrac he hosts 3DO with Bill. Bill yeah I've I've guessed it before Thrac was

[01:11:15] the permanent co-host or that I was the second guest on that podcast oh nice so he he loves like a dragon but he has never gotten to that part in zero where it's like okay now you're in you got to

[01:11:30] finish because every time he stops playing and he stops like immediately right before that scene happens um what once you see the scene you'll be like okay yeah this is definitely stakes are definitely high this and it just goes from there it just keeps getting crazier and crazier

[01:11:49] so what once you finish the game and you do the episode I'm definitely gonna be locked in because I want to know your full thoughts on the whole thing especially if you're doing the episode with

[01:11:57] Matt yeah I mean I gotta get back to it maybe after so I'm currently playing Horizon Zero Dawn like I said kind of actually so I finally got a ps5 I did not I was not able to buy a ps5

[01:12:09] for years finally got one because of my wonderful patrons they uh like that money's going back into the show because the first game I get for I still don't own a game just put a perspective I saved

[01:12:19] up enough money through patreon to buy the system and I did get Astros playroom but that's not really big enough of a game for me to cover on the show um that might be like a bonus episode

[01:12:31] for patreon or something like that I don't know but um the first game I the I'm gonna my birthday is coming up and I'm still a grown ass man who asked for video games from his parents

[01:12:42] so I'm gonna be asking for some ps5 games and we'll see what I get I'll probably cover one of them on the show but in preparation for that I because I do want to play Forbidden West

[01:12:51] I'm replaying Zero Dawn um maybe I'll read I did an episode on Zero Dawn back in 2020 but I kind of want to redo it for various reasons so who knows maybe I'll do both um after

[01:13:02] that though I have to play Tojay Mineral uh for the Genesis or Mega Drive depending on where you are in the world um and then I have to play Durg of Cerberus for the ps2 because what I did

[01:13:16] in January for on patreon I did a back lock month poll where I put 16 games up on a poll and the the four games with them or my patrons could vote for as many of those games as they

[01:13:29] want it wasn't just a one and done they could vote for eight of the 16 if they wanted to they could vote for all 16 if they wanted to but whichever game ended up at whichever four games ended up

[01:13:40] with the most votes would are the winners and those were the ones I would play during back lock month so the four games that ended up winning the order 1886 for the ps4 great game already

[01:13:53] beat that I actually had that one scheduled and we had a post-ponce I actually got to reach back out to the guest for that um to record it while it's still fresh in my mind second game

[01:14:02] Donkey Kong Country that's why I beat that somewhat recently so I've already two out of the four down which is fantastic next one is Tojay Mineral and then the last one's going to be Durg of Cerberus

[01:14:13] which I have to play on original hardware which is cool but then I it's it's I find it if I can stream it I hold myself accountable for it a little bit more um so I might have to

[01:14:25] stop streaming for a little bit just so that way I can force myself to during my normal streaming hours play on my off stream consoles and stuff like that so once all that is done I could probably get back

[01:14:37] into yeah I say all that too once all that is done I can get back into Yakuza zero right right now I totally get it the uh my patrons voted for uh what's it called star ocean the second story

[01:14:51] oh you poor soul and I was playing it and absolutely fucking loving the shit out of it it is a fantastic game it's long that's why I was saying poor soul not that I've never played it I can't

[01:15:02] say it's bad it just I know they're a block I mean it's like 50 hours with each character so you have like 100 hours that you have to play through which whatever I'll get it done um but

[01:15:15] the new yakuza game came out and that has just sucked my entire life it is so fucking good so I get it I I get it and today it's all about balance oh yeah today uh Persona 3 reload came out

[01:15:30] and that's something else that I want to go through entirely because that is my favorite Persona game but dude talk about it I started that uh Persona 3 I got very far into it and I got stuck on a

[01:15:41] boss and I have not been able to beat the like I was I don't want to say I was over leveled or anything but like I was doing fine on all the bosses I didn't struggle that much like there was it was

[01:15:53] a challenge but never too challenging and there's this boss where it just hits like a goddamn train and has a it it takes a boatload of damage it has a high defense it's like three I forget

[01:16:06] what they are I forget what level of the what's the what's the school it's not the TARDIS it's the that's doctor who what's the thing that you're TARDIS TARDIS thank you uh I forget what level of the

[01:16:18] TARDIS that it's in but I'm stuck on it and I'm pissed off because I loved the story it had been setting up and I kind of vaguely remember everything with like the whole uh what's the it's not

[01:16:31] the midnight hour it is it what is that what it's called yeah I think so I think it's the minute hour yeah the midnight hour the hour that stands still and everyone can like there's

[01:16:41] like demons that walk around and shit like that except for you and you can use your personas to fight them and uh you're trying to get rid of the midnight hour and you meet a group of people

[01:16:51] who are trying to keep it because they want to feel powerful and uh june pay has uh it has like uh I think it's june pay june pay is interested in one of the one of the girls

[01:17:03] in that evil group so now there's some intrigue as to like whose side is going to join whom and whatnot so I think the last thing I did we just finished up a vacation like everyone went

[01:17:13] on vacation together like some beach resort thing um and we came back and there's a boss in the TARDIS that I'm stuck on you you got pretty far into it I I'd say that's almost halfway

[01:17:28] through I was a little bit more than half I was pretty far dude but that boss like I don't and every strategy guy that I look up they're like you just got to brute force it I'm like

[01:17:38] god damn it like there's gotta be something that I'm missing here there's nothing wrong with kicking it down to easy and just abusing it that's how I'm gonna play the game I'm gonna

[01:17:47] play it all over again you know what I might I might just do that I because I can't fucking beat it on normal I still have my memory card in my ps2 with I'm guarantee you the disk is

[01:17:59] still in there so I might get around to actually beating it this year are you playing fes or the original persona 3 it's fes fes okay so you're playing the good version of the game

[01:18:10] that's what I people keep telling me I don't think I want to play like because there's like the original and then there's like a like a like a second post story post story I don't

[01:18:19] think I want to do the post story the first game is long enough I've never played the post story I am definitely interested in it hopefully they turn it into a DLC for the remake because

[01:18:30] it tackles a lot of stuff from the ending of the base game and the ending of the base game is one of those endings that sticks with you for a long time that's what I want to I like it

[01:18:43] I don't remember a lot of the care it's been two years since I last played it so it's been it's been a bit of time but you remember all that from two years ago yeah that's how much it stuck

[01:18:53] with me I was hooked on it on my Instagram if you go to my Instagram that's the loading pod over on Instagram um on my Instagram there's like you know how you can have like those story reels

[01:19:04] like or you can save reels whatnot I have a persona 3 set of from when I was playing it and let me double check how long ago was it it was February of 2022 is when I started playing again

[01:19:19] February 5th and I forgot I named my character Reginald so every Reginald Flurfbin was his character's name I don't know and so every time they say Reginald Coon I'm like Reginald Coon that's very Rick and Morty name that's funny yeah so it's all just like

[01:19:42] yeah I have I have a whole bunch of like how far does it say where I'm at I don't know the last update I had was March 4th which doesn't mean much I was fighting tanks like these like enemies

[01:19:56] that are tanks I don't think those are the bosses though but now those are just regular enemies just tanks would face this yeah so yeah um I've been meaning to get around to it and I will

[01:20:07] at some point just not just yet that man that that is a very very good game that was I don't even know how I managed to get a hold of that game when I when I bought it and I bought the FES version

[01:20:22] I went through all of it and then when it came out on PSP I played all of the PSP the P3P version and had an amazing time just the same I it really is my personal personal

[01:20:36] favorite persona game I know that it's Rick Firestone's favorite too so that's something that we bonded over and yeah well not not bills bills is for when I have inevitably do my persona

[01:20:50] three episode when I finally fucking beat that game I'm gonna just knock it down to easy I don't care anymore I think at this point if I haven't touched it in two years because I'm too

[01:20:59] mad at this goddamn boss then I think I'm playing on normal I think that's what I was doing so I'll knock it down but I the way I actually got my copy was I remember my friend Andrew who's been

[01:21:10] on the show a few times he loves persona three and four loves them and was telling me all about him so I tracked them down at GameStop back when they were still selling PS2 games and I actually

[01:21:24] got my persona three copy is has one of the shitty like GameStop printed labels but the disc is FES and then persona four it's complete it's got all the original artwork got the original manual on

[01:21:36] the game so it's somewhere back there I have it in one on one of those shelves so eventually I'll get around to actually playing both finishing three and playing four yeah no definitely they are

[01:21:51] I don't even want to say there okay so I'm not gonna say that they're games that a gamer must play they are games that a weeb must play if you want to call yourself a weeb you gotta finish

[01:22:03] there's no other reason why you would play them they're they're fucking fantastic games unless so good unless you wanted to be call yourself Reginald Coon and that's again that's a way to play or just be called Coon or something like that your first name in Coon

[01:22:17] Reginald Coon right right I think the first time this is the second time I've tried playing it I named my character something weird both times this time like I said Reginald Flurffbin I don't

[01:22:28] it's a dumb you know I don't know it's dumb name the first one was boom gun stick boom gun stick first name boom last name gun stick gun stick son sent by gun stick Coon

[01:22:47] that's funny so let's see what what else so you're giving Yakuza a try you got to play station five recently which is fantastic oh I remembered Ratchet and Clank apparently you're Ratchet and Clank fan according to your Twitter yes huge Ratchet and Clank fan I've been a fan

[01:23:08] what's are you gonna play the new one the 100% in time oh absolutely I have been like the rift in time was the only reason I wanted a ps5 for years now I actually want to play

[01:23:20] Final Fantasy 16 as well though I know that's a bit more polarizing of an entry in the franchise but like we said with 13 wait 10 years we're going to see what people think about 16 we'll see

[01:23:30] but no huge huge huge Ratchet and Clank fan it's one of the few game series that like I just adore every entry even the weird obscure ones where they did one called oh my god what's it called it's not into the nexus it's

[01:23:49] fuck I forget what it's called now but basically it's like their version of a tower defense game it was full frontal assault that's what it was like full frontal assault and it was like a

[01:24:02] combination of a ratchet and clank game with a tower defense game and it's it's filled with ratcheting clank humor and meme humor like to put in perspective that game came out when

[01:24:12] Gungnam Style came out and you can tell for better or worse that was 2012 on the ps3 2012 yep oh man so I love the ratchet and clank games man specifically everything like the first game

[01:24:31] is really good but ratchet and clank 2 going commando and go and onward um all fantastic like they all kind of have like the similar gameplay style and then they kind of reinvented it slightly with into the nexus in like 2012 or something like maybe 2013 when that came out

[01:24:51] and then there's only been two games since it's been the ratchet and clank remake from 2016 or 15 or whatever and then into the nexus in 2021 or two whatever year so I really really liked

[01:25:04] Rift Apart I did everything I didn't get to plan them but I did pretty much everything there is to do and it was it felt like one of those games that while you're playing it you know you're that

[01:25:17] you're getting close to the end and you're kind of delaying finishing it because you don't want it to be over it looked great it played great and it made me want to try out the previous ones

[01:25:30] because I had only just played the first one so I decided to start all over again with the first one and finished it and then started the second one and I was like I need a break and I never

[01:25:40] went back to it but you can see because they're great which version of the first one did you play like the original ps2 version or the remat the remake from 2016 I know that I've played a lot of the

[01:25:55] remake but I haven't gotten very far into it I did play all of the first one okay the ps3 version that they released on Vita the HD remake the HD remat yeah the the first one is so interesting

[01:26:09] because you can see the foundations of everything that was going to come but it wasn't quite like it wasn't quite refined just yet like when you are switching weapons it doesn't pause so you

[01:26:22] have to like really like plan out your weapons ahead of time you can only put eight weapons on your weapon wheel you can't cycle through weapon wheels like you can in later games there's no

[01:26:33] leveling up to your weapons there's you know the a lot of the other mechanics are a little bit floatier and stuff like that the controls are a little bit different but it's still like a really

[01:26:44] solid game even despite those flaws like this despite I mean at the time I would say it wasn't a flaw that was what it was but now you know those controls don't hold up to what we're used

[01:26:56] to but I love the series dude it's my it's it is my favorite series I it's weird because I said I said you know red did too is my favorite game but like as much as I love ratcheting

[01:27:07] clank none of the games are my favorite games but the series as a whole is my favorite series I can understand that I definitely can that I really need to play them because I feel

[01:27:22] like there's something there that I can latch on to and enjoy a lot because I do like you know like I think it's on the first one there's those grenades that you throw and it just almost

[01:27:34] like a little robot that just eats the enemy and then it gets to the point where you have like a bunch of those little robots just running around in the second game you get a weapon called the

[01:27:45] sheepinator and you just turn all your enemies into sheep so if there's a bunch and the bigger the enemy the longer it takes to turn them into a sheep so you kind of have to be careful

[01:27:54] with it but um it's fun because if you get a lot of small enemies and you you'll just have a whole flock of sheep just bang in the middle of a battlefield just man and if you upgrade it

[01:28:09] you'll get the black sheepinator which after a little bit they explode oh what the fuck it's great it's I dude I love that game series there's so so much oh man I I know you're definitely gonna love rift apart then because there there are some

[01:28:28] some great humor in that one as well in all honesty that might be uh that might be the first like what i'm hoping to do is that when like I said i'm grown ass man ask my parents to buy

[01:28:38] me video games for my birthday whatever game they get one of them I have to do for the show this year I'm gonna make it a goal because I feel like if my patrons helped get me that

[01:28:49] like get me the ps5 in the first place I have to put it back into the show otherwise it's just me right like like I don't know I I understand that they're doing it to support me but at the

[01:28:59] same time I at least want to make it so it's not just like here I went on vacation with your money or something like that but I guess you know once you get patron it's like whatever

[01:29:07] you want to do with it I don't know I'm weird about it no I definitely get it um our we don't have a lot of patrons but we have enough that whatever they pay for monthly

[01:29:23] covers the hosting site so that on its own it's more than enough for me if there were any left over we would do like we did at the beginning where we would just pull it until we have

[01:29:34] enough to buy a game or a book and then just give it out to the community so if I guess that point where we have like leftovers then we will just go back to doing

[01:29:44] that just pulling that idea actually yeah because a patreon does say you can't host giveaways but it doesn't say that you can't host giveaway somewhere else if they're subscribed to your

[01:29:57] baby discord baby I mean what right sorry I cut you off though you're in the middle of another like sentence or question before I brought that up I don't remember so it must have not been important

[01:30:16] oh I remember I remembered um the new character that they introduced uh was voiced by by Jennifer Hale that oh yeah great she is fantastic I think you're definitely gonna like her as well

[01:30:29] I just love ratcheting client man I'm in almost every incarnation and Jennifer Hale is fantastic I love her I love her performances and almost any game she's in um I'm excited I just I'm genuinely

[01:30:42] excited to try it out because I've heard nothing but good things about it I know it didn't ratcheting client games don't sell as well as they used to like they're not the marquee

[01:30:51] titles that they used to be um you know I joke around on the what is it I should say joke around back in 2020 I did a series called the summer of ps2 in honor of the of ps2's 20th anniversary

[01:31:05] and I kicked it off by covering the first games in each of like the big three platformers series for the ps2 jack one jack and daxter one ratcheting client one and sly cooper one I feel

[01:31:16] like those three had this like war of the platformers on the ps2 era and everyone has their favorite mine ended up mine was jack and daxter now it's ratcheting client but everyone has their favorite

[01:31:29] yeah I I was I didn't have a playstation 2 while that was happening while they were relevant I got it later on um but I do remember thinking why does sony need three mascots and it's that they

[01:31:44] were all trying to try to be D mascot the only one still around is ratchet I'm just saying I'm just saying right and and ratcheting client but I mean not ratcheting client jack and daxter they

[01:31:58] haven't gone anywhere since that last jack x game well at least like cooper got a game on on playstation 3 you're right it got a new game he got a fourth entry into the series I jack jack

[01:32:10] and daxter is interesting because the first game is a straight up 3d platformer and then games two and three are gta clone and it's just right it's very with gta clone was actually a really damn

[01:32:21] good story I'm not gonna lie I actually think the story in in uh jack two and three is really good but it's mired in some of the most aggressively difficult gameplay you will ever

[01:32:32] experience because the controls are just eventually I'm going to cover the cover that game on the show though like I I have the ps3 I actually have ps4 versions of the jack and daxter games as well

[01:32:45] so I should cover it at some point oh the the jack collection that came out on ps4 yeah yeah from limited run I actually have the collector's edition of jack one I couldn't justify spending it for

[01:32:56] jack two and three because it was like 150 a piece so I just bought the first one I'm like I like the first the first one's my favorites I'll I'll splurge on that all right um I

[01:33:09] I wanted to like jack two and three but again it's that naughty dog thing where where the shooting is awful yeah the platforming can be very tedious and the checkpoint system doesn't exist so it's

[01:33:24] either do it in one go or fuck you uh and I I couldn't do it dude jack one I think is legitimately good as a 3d platformer it's got lots of fun like it's it's got a lot of fun elements it's got

[01:33:37] really cool varied worlds the the world itself is actually really fun and interesting the storyline is not great it's just there's nothing crazy it's fine but jack two like I said jack

[01:33:50] two and three has I think a fantastic story but it the you can really tell them trying to figure out shooter mechanics in those first two games and it is not working it's it's not working like there's

[01:34:04] yeah it is rough dude it is rough to play that game now I love that game I have a lot of nostalgia for nostalgia for it but it is it's rough see versus like the Uncharted games I know we

[01:34:18] mentioned before like it's not it's one of your favorites it's not a favorite of yours but like I still enjoy going back and playing those like the thing is like the gameplay in those everyone talks about how the first one is really janky I've never experienced that I've

[01:34:32] never felt that game was janky at all I don't know what people are doing to cause it to be janky because I've heard it from more than one person but I I've never had an issue with it

[01:34:43] but I think just the the reason I like those Uncharted games like the kinetic feeling of the actions like every time like the the the way you the way the it sounds so fucking dark the way you

[01:34:59] shoot an enemy in the way the bullet it sounds it's just satisfying and like the the hand hand combat was always kind of amusing like not great but like I said before the game

[01:35:13] play mechanics were always at least serviceable except for jack two and three those are rough but um there was always these serviceable so I always enjoyed it and then plus the the the

[01:35:24] story around it like the character of Nathan Drake I always found fun but I can also understand why people get tired of him he's a little smarmy so I could I could understand if people don't

[01:35:33] like the character of that that's like the biggest thing but I've never played one I played two and I can't say that I I I can see how arguably it could be considered good personally

[01:35:52] the platforming feels not right and the shooting feels not right and then the enemies later on get incredibly tough like whenever you get to the the the yetis or whatever the fuck they are yep

[01:36:09] I I didn't finish that game I struggled so hard with it and I just dropped it so three I actually liked three really and then yes I feel like three was a massive improvement over two in terms of

[01:36:25] yeah sorry I'll let you finish I keep cutting you off sorry no no no you're good I was just going to go on to four we'll talk four afterwards what were you gonna say I was going to say so one

[01:36:34] is them solidifying like learning getting their footing in the mechanics in the genre two I think is the best not the best pace I think how can I put this so two really redefined like cinematic

[01:36:49] platforming in action and stuff like that like there's a lot of really cool moments in that game that like you had not seen prior in games just yet especially in that cinematic sense three I think has some of the better gameplay like they refined hand-to-hand combat really well

[01:37:05] on that game there is a lot of cool shooting mechanics like the shooting mechanics are a lot better but the structure of the story is absolutely bullshit like there like there's a section they have cool moments they have some of the coolest set pieces but it

[01:37:22] that game very much reeks of the problems with Naughty Dog design philosophy where Naughty Dog design philosophy I don't know if it's true or not this is just kind of how I've

[01:37:32] quantified it in my head is where they will design a space and then figure out how to put the gameplay into it versus something like Insomniac they will design a gameplay mechanic and then design the space around the mechanics so that way it works best for the gameplay

[01:37:51] that's why in Naughty Dog there's moments where it's like why is there this hallway that doesn't have anything down it there's nothing here it's because they designed the space first and then they designed the gameplay second likewise when they're designing the story

[01:38:06] of ratchet I'm sorry of Uncharted they design they come up with set pieces and then figure out how to piece the story together using those set pieces it can work but in three specifically they have this one of the coolest set pieces in the entire series that capsized

[01:38:26] ocean liner where you're having to platform on it and like open up doors it's a really fantastic section in terms of game design yeah in terms of plot you can literally rip that

[01:38:37] whole section out and it doesn't it does fuck all to the plot it doesn't it means nothing there is no point for Drake to be on there because he gets captured and they're like we're going to

[01:38:49] give you these pirates because well because story reasons he escapes from the capsized ocean liner and washes up on the beach where he started and he goes oh that was convenient and moves on

[01:39:00] like they try to write it off as a joke and I actually kind of admire them for trying to almost like noticing like hey this is kind of dumb but well if we recognize it it's okay right

[01:39:13] and it's it's fine it actually that game actually has some of the best character moments between Drake and Elena until Uncharted 4 and I like the gameplay stuff but in terms of story it's all

[01:39:26] over the place and part of it is behind the scenes the character the voice actor who played Cutter didn't realize he was contractually obligated for some other thing I forget it was like a movie or a show or another game but that's why Cutter suddenly disappears like

[01:39:40] 30 minutes into the game because he the actor who was portraying him couldn't continue on with production so they had to write him out of the script abruptly um so I think it's why Uncharted

[01:39:52] 3 doesn't sit well with me because Uncharted 2 I think the reason it like I'm sorry I'm all over the place Uncharted 1 and 3 the way they end those games is with the final like

[01:40:05] did you finish three yes so you know how in the end of three it's basically just all quick time events that's the final boss it's just all quick time events the whole thing is like there's a

[01:40:16] gauntlet of enemies you have to fight but the final confrontation with the villain is just quick time events in Uncharted 1 it's very similar to that as well it's you fight a small gauntlet and then it's quick time events in Uncharted 2 you fight a gauntlet of enemies

[01:40:30] and then you actually fight the boss you have to fight um I forget the dude's name but he's like a war he's like a private military warlord type of dude um that's bothering me I can't remember the

[01:40:42] character's name but you have to he's like roided out on this like supernatural substance which I won't spoil for the listeners what it is and um he chases you so the way you have to defeat him is

[01:40:57] run like you can shoot him like running from behind and kind of spray but there are like environmental objects I don't want to say what they are because it'll spoil some of the story

[01:41:07] there are environmental objects that will explode when you shoot them and they will they can come back like the environmental objects can come back so you can you kind of have to maneuver

[01:41:17] around this small space with him chasing you and try to lure him past these traps so that way you can shoot these explosive things and that's how you take him out and so it actually takes the

[01:41:29] mechanics that you've learned from the game of running shooting dodging shooting like aiming down the site or like aiming me and actually takes all the mechanics that they've taught you throughout the whole game and then it applies them to the final boss which in my opinion is

[01:41:45] good game design when Uncharted 1 and 3 doesn't matter what you do it's like doesn't matter what you've learned throughout the game the final boss the way you take out the final villain is

[01:41:57] of the quick time event Uncharted 4 bridges the two kind of nicely it makes the quick time events a little bit more cinematic and I don't hate the final boss of Uncharted 4 excuse me I don't

[01:42:09] know if I said to Uncharted 4 bridges the bridges them kind of nicely where it's a little bit of like some quick time events a little bit of some fighting mechanics and this

[01:42:19] and that so I kind of like I like 4's ending the most or not the most I like I like 2's ending the most because of the boss but I think 4 has the better story by far like it's not even a

[01:42:31] question you know that I really really liked 4 I always say that Uncharted 4 is the game that Naughty Dog actually did where they deserve everything that people say about them it's the game that they first the first game they've ever released this actually a great game

[01:42:51] in my opinion oh that's fighting words considering they may crash bandicoot and Uncharted I think Uncharted 2 is legitimately a great game but I can understand not liking it like I get it like especially I also think like in general PS3 era like shooters are rough till

[01:43:09] it gets to like late stage PS3 and Uncharted 2 kind of suffers from that a little bit so that not only did they put Nathan Drake and his brother together for the adventure and they are

[01:43:26] Nolan North and Troy Baker as brothers which is fucking perfect they fixed all of the issues that I had with the shooting and a lot of the issues they didn't fix all of them but a lot

[01:43:38] of the issues that I had with the platforming I thought the game was great from start to finish to the point there as soon as I finished it I bought the the one with Nadine and Chloe

[01:43:52] to continue playing that's a good game that's a game that no one talks about it's really good yeah I thought it was a bit too short but it was still pretty great they only charge you 40

[01:44:03] bucks for that one too though like I think I think I got it was two years afterwards so like I think I like that I wish that game devs would do shit like that more often like don't

[01:44:16] give us just the gigantic 70 dollar experience give us like smaller experiences and charge a little bit less like you don't have to constantly like like I don't know I'm conflicted with the whole like cost to length ratio that people always talk about like oh if this game's only

[01:44:37] eight hours and I paid 70 dollars how dare you like I should be you know I shouldn't have to pay this much for an eight hour experience and blah blah blah I don't know if I agree with that

[01:44:47] but I do think there's an element where like if a game is shorter like a three to six hour experience charge 40 bucks for it it's a little bit less and usually it's high quality

[01:44:57] I I wish big developers would do more double a development if that makes sense like you don't need these big triple a budget games do these smaller double a experiences to help subsidize

[01:45:11] you you don't cost as much the games don't cost as much so you don't have to sell but jillions of copies you can sell just right a healthy handful and you'll be fine

[01:45:21] right they did that with like a dragon guy then they released that a few months ago digital only I think it was 40 to 50 bucks somewhere along those lines and it's a whole last entry in the

[01:45:39] yakuza series and it it was fucking great it people are saying that it has one of the best endings in the entire series and I agree it is one of it's not the best ending but it's one of

[01:45:51] the best endings in the series but the whole game was fucking fantastic and it's what a lot of people wanted to take control of Kiryu again and have the brawler style back and just go through a story

[01:46:05] with him it's it's probably his last hurrah and it was a budget title of sorts to say I it's great I like that other developers are starting to do six Japanese developers specifically seem to

[01:46:19] be kind of taking this approach of doing like smaller less expensive titles like look at like games like Octopath Traveler and like Triangle Strategy I'm not saying they were like inexpensive to make

[01:46:31] or anything like that not saying they were cheap but like you don't have like you clearly don't have to spend as much money when you're doing that HG2D as you would on a full 3d Final Fantasy

[01:46:42] 16 rendered type of game and you can have these amazing experiences in small in like cheaper packages and be able to save money that way they sell like Octopath Traveler sold well so much so they made

[01:46:57] a sequel which I still need to get because it's I'm currently playing through the first Octopath Traveler excuse me and really liking it. You should check out also Live Alive. I actually own it. I was looking forward but I actually own it somewhere here in my game room.

[01:47:17] That that is a very good game that's one that never came out here they did the HD2D brought it over and it fucking sold like crazy got to the point where people couldn't find copies

[01:47:26] because of how good it was selling. I actually bought a I pre-ordered a copy off Amazon so it's somewhere in my game room somewhere over there but I had been meaning to get the curse

[01:47:36] of a collector man you buy a shitload of games and you never play any of them. Right right I look at my game eye and it says you have 572 games so I'm like holy fuck I'm

[01:47:47] never gonna play any of these. Probably not. I mean that's why I do in all honesty that's why I stream and do podcasting I think I think secretly I started a podcast just to work

[01:47:58] through my backlog and I didn't realize that until like seven years in I'm like oh this is why I podcast. Games I gotta finish. See I just I like to tell my wife the stories of the

[01:48:13] fucking bat shit crazy shit that happens in games and I like for her to tell me the story of the books she reads because sometimes those fucking books she reads are just as crazy as whatever

[01:48:25] I'm playing and that's basically what we do. I'm trying to lean more into that when we record but I also don't want to spoil everything but you know games are great. I need to quit my job

[01:48:42] and just play games. I need to like hit the lot or some shit and just play games for the rest of my life. Dude I fucking it's funny. I didn't realize how much I liked games until

[01:48:54] like even before the podcast like what really kind of solidified it was actually Angry Video Game Nerd believe it or not. I always had like a passing interest in games and I

[01:49:04] think I liked games a lot more than I realized. I liked them until I started getting into PC gaming and also into retro gaming and then in like college all of a sudden like no I like video

[01:49:15] games. I just I like games and I think one of the reasons I started the show like I said Tongue and Cheek it was for the backlog but that is partially true but genuinely it's because I like

[01:49:27] having conversations around games that would be weird to have outside of a podcast. Like I can't imagine going up to like meeting a stranger in a bar and being like hey so what do you think

[01:49:39] of you know Squall from Final Fantasy VIII? Pretty emo right? Like I can't imagine like a conversation like that just happening naturally and even so like it would be almost weird but once you get involved in content creation then you're around like-minded people who start

[01:49:57] who kind of treat the medium the same way that you do. Like in our group are in our little circle of podcast you know Dave from Tales From The Backlog and Bill from Gaming and Collecting and 3DO and I've been interacting with Thrac but obviously I've listened to

[01:50:13] him on 3DO. The retro Chris and Shane from Retro Hangover and Rick from Pixel Project Radio and Eric from Unlockables and Keith from Main Quest like I'm sure I'm leaving a bunch of people out but

[01:50:27] what I love about this community that we've kind of discovered amongst each other amongst ourselves is that we all like video games and not just in a way that like oh games are fun to play but

[01:50:39] you treat the medium as the art it is. Like you talk about them and you dissect them about the art they are and it's funny like I was giving you a little bit of shit about your

[01:50:49] opinions on like Uncharted and whatnot and also I know that you're not a huge fan of Halo which I've been afraid to listen to that episode because I don't want one of my favorite series to

[01:50:59] get torn apart but I value that you have-that you don't just take your opinion on it like oh shit and then move on. You have thought out reasoning for why you don't like a specific game

[01:51:13] and you don't back down from your criticisms of it, you just you relay them in an articulate and thought out way and that's what art's supposed to do that you're supposed to have those thoughts

[01:51:25] aren't supposed to make you feel something whether good or bad like I haven't listened to the episode but from my understanding you don't like Halo at all and that's fine that in a weird sense that means it's good art doesn't mean that you like the game and that

[01:51:37] to you it's a good game but it's good art in the sense that it elicited an emotion out of you it was a negative one but it elicited emotion out of you. And that's what art is supposed to do

[01:51:49] and I like our community for having such varied opinions and for the way that we kind of treat it like I was listening to Rick's Final Fantasy 9 episodes that just came out like a day or two ago

[01:52:04] and on Pixel Project Radio shout out to Rick and his-shout out to Rick over at Pixel Project Radio and his Final Fantasy 9 well all of his episodes but his recent Final Fantasy 9 run and just

[01:52:17] hearing how passionate he is about that game and like how articulate and how well spoken and how much he has thought about that game it just I love it and it's not enough just to say

[01:52:29] you like a game I like our community because we'd say we spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out why we like or why we don't like a game. I've spent literal months of my life

[01:52:42] trying to understand why Dark Souls doesn't connect with me I don't understand why Dark Souls doesn't connect with me and I wanted to but I can't seem to like wrap my head

[01:52:51] entirely around what works me the wrong way with that series and that's why I love doing this because podcasting is a medium that these conversations are built for and it people and I like listening

[01:53:09] to them just as much as I like making them you know I just it's it's a lot of fun. Right no it definitely is I've got a couple of things that you just that you said that I want

[01:53:20] to touch on first we are pretty probably having this conversation right now because I've recorded an episode with Rick about To The Moon and it was like 20 minutes of To The Moon and then

[01:53:34] 60 minutes of us just talking shit about old video games and JRPGs and it was fucking great and it's thanks to Rick that we're doing this right now so thank you Rick you're amazing.

[01:53:46] The other one I get it about Dark Souls I like Souls like I hate when they get sweaty but I it's a genre that I enjoy I'm never gonna finish one because sweaty because they get yeah

[01:54:03] yeah they get way too sweaty for me and I am not gonna finish one because of that ever. I started Lysa P got pretty deep into it dropped it without a second thought

[01:54:14] um so I get it it it that was the thing that happened to me with Elder Elden Ring I put a bunch of hours into the beginning of it and it didn't click so I just dropped it I'm not gonna I like

[01:54:27] I wanted to like it but I wasn't gonna force myself to to like it right same thing with farming games real star do valley. I haven't tried Star Do but I did try I gotta try it I

[01:54:42] do have it on switch so I gotta try it I did play the uh two point campus two point hospital I thought that would be fine doesn't click with me anything that has to do with with

[01:54:56] building and setting up and designing and you know creating production does not click with me for some reason like I don't have the brain for it. That's fair that's fair I could

[01:55:06] so you're not a fan of like RTS games then you know like Starcraft or Warcraft or uh I have never played one of those I have never played one of those I but I do love Pikmin.

[01:55:18] Pikmin is one of my favorite series of all time oh yeah I think Pikmin 4 was one of your favorite games last year right it was Pikmin 4 was my favorite game of the year last year

[01:55:29] Pikmin I played the original Pikmin for the first time um like a two years ago and I loved it I was hooked on it it was so good I have not played two three or four I played the demo of four

[01:55:45] if you ever want to try out an RTS game I would play with you I'm not saying play against you I don't I actually think like like versus into like figure out if you like a genre or not

[01:55:57] is one of the worst ways to figure out if you like a genre unless it's like a fighting game where that's kind of like the thing the point yeah the point um but like uh RTS games are very much you

[01:56:10] know like kind of like Pikmin is a Nintendo is Nintendo's version of an RTS game but you know it's very much like you get workers you build more workers so you can harvest more resources

[01:56:21] which then you can then build your base to build an army to go send out you don't necessarily have to design the base but you should a little bit once in high level games because the way you

[01:56:31] lay out a base can determine like the reason why I say that is in high level play players will lay out their bases specific ways so that way an invading army has to move around in a certain

[01:56:43] path which is advantageous to the people defending it and shit like right but that's like high level play that I don't even fucking know how to do because I don't do enough research on that shit but anyway I'm sorry I'm going off on a tangent but I understand

[01:56:55] what you're saying about like games that you want to get into and you just you try and you can't I I like to if I can't figure out why a game's not clicking with me I'll go back to it because I almost

[01:57:06] have like an obsessive issue where I'm like I gotta figure out why this doesn't click with me I actually to be fair I have figured out why I don't like Soulsborns and well Dark Souls

[01:57:15] specifically I'm not going to be I'm going to try other Soulsborns I want to try Bloodborne like Ernest but I think I think Bloodborne would be the best entry for somebody that's

[01:57:28] trying to get into the series that's what a lot of people were telling me but the like the reason the reason I came the conclusion I came to with Dark Souls is that when you beat a boss

[01:57:39] the thing that from my understanding most players get is that when you when you finally beat one of the bosses which you when you finally learn the pattern and you you know you you've bashed

[01:57:48] your head against a wall a whole bunch of times and you beat the boss and you you have that sense of satisfaction like I fucking did it I this game through this challenge at me and I did it

[01:57:58] I don't feel any of that I beat a boss and like I wasted my time I spent 40 hours not that long I spent hours of my life doing something that I was not having fun with and I'm not

[01:58:12] saying that games shouldn't have like a certain amount of unfun moments I actually think by having that juxtaposition it makes the bigger moments better it's weird like I actually think you need to get frustrated with games in order for a game to

[01:58:25] really resonate with you in some way shape or form because if you don't have any challenge or frustration it usually doesn't hit you unless the story is picking up the slack for that not saying it's entirely the case but uh

[01:58:42] you know I think I just threw out my own point Stardew Valley has like no challenge in that game is one of my favorite games of all time but anyway the point I'm trying to make is I don't

[01:58:49] feel that with Dark Souls at all I don't feel any happiness after I beat the boss so when it's done I'm like if this is what you're supposed to be like enjoying like this is the joy you're supposed

[01:58:59] to experience when you beat the enemy uh beat the boss and I'm not getting it I just it's probably not for me right no that that's definitely how I feel I don't feel any sort

[01:59:12] of accomplishment or catharsis or anything like that after I beat a boss in in any of the souls games that I've played um to the point where I played Bloodborne and I felt that it was very

[01:59:25] easy because I beat the first two bosses without dying once I just went straight through the second boss and I was like this isn't for me this is it didn't feel like a challenge it

[01:59:36] didn't feel too easy just felt like I I didn't care for it so I dropped it um but then again I played Resid and Evil 4 and I played on EC mode and I am a villager murdering machine

[01:59:53] and that is the most fun I'm ever gonna have because it's giving my lizard brain happy the entire time I think right I I think my the point I was trying to make with like the uh

[02:00:08] like most good games have a level of frustration that's required I think I've already kind of disproved I think that's wrong but I think like there are some games that I think there are

[02:00:17] some games where a level of frustration is required as part of the experience I recently replayed not replayed I recently beat Riven the point and click adventure Riven for the first

[02:00:28] time and the reason it was funny I I was talking about it with Try from My Life in Gaming and I think like you almost need the frustration of the of those puzzles of not understanding what

[02:00:42] the fuck to do because by clicking around the world and exploring more of the world trying to figure out what you need to do to beat the puzzle you get more world building and more

[02:00:52] story told to you where if you figured out the puzzle right away you would lose all the context the game was supposed that the game was trying to give you by struggling by struggling

[02:01:03] through the game and having to explore to figure it out and being frustrated and upset that you don't know what to do it forces you to explore more of the world and figure out more of the

[02:01:12] lore that you never would have otherwise and so if the puzzle was apparent you would miss out on a lot of context as to why that puzzle is interesting or what it means to the greater

[02:01:24] story now with that said that's very hyper specific to Riven I don't think it's necessary for all games like like I was alluding to before I kind of taking kind of reversing my opinion there a little bit

[02:01:37] or modify it's on a game game by game basis yeah yeah no I totally got it but um one of my favorite games that I've played in the past five years that just stuck with me from beginning to end

[02:01:52] was eastward okay I the first episode that I ever guessed it on was on Tales of the Backlog with Dave and we talked eastward and he he didn't like it I get why he didn't like it

[02:02:06] once he explained it to me I was like okay I get it the stuff that you like is actual bullshit on the game's part that I overlook because I really like everything else about

[02:02:19] the game but he's right to dislike that stuff exactly yeah I I've replayed that game twice and the DLC came out for it I think yesterday but the DLC is farming building a community I'm not gonna fucking play that shit that's not for me

[02:02:39] I you give me a plot of land and you tell me go crazy it is going to be the most uneven uh nonsensical plot of land design that you will ever see I cannot design shit to save my life I am

[02:02:55] fucking awful at it and I don't have fun when I'm doing it um you might not like starting Valley then I mean I think I saw like a hyper fast gameplay video from peanut butter gamer that he did once

[02:03:10] and it seemed pretty interesting but you know I I haven't played it because I haven't had the inkling or the urge or the challenge to to play it yeah yeah um so going back to

[02:03:24] to the things that I wanted to touch upon that you have said um one of the reasons why I like this community that we're in is that everybody plays everything and they all know what they

[02:03:37] like and they will all talk about what they like with passion they they're not just gonna be like oh I love Final Fantasy 9 because it's Final Fantasy 9 you know they will make a whole essay

[02:03:54] and then bring on a guest to talk about the entire story like when Rick did Final Fantasy 6 with Chris Copeland that is a fucking fantastic series that I cannot recommend enough that people

[02:04:08] need to listen to on pixel project radio um it's great because growing up I obviously had friends that played video games and I knew people that play video games and even when I had my old

[02:04:21] podcast back home most of what we covered was Call of Duty or Medal of Honor or Battlefield or uh NBA or FIFA or shit that I don't care about right because that's the only thing that they played

[02:04:40] and whenever you found somebody that they're like oh I play Final Fantasy it's just one person so you can only just talk to one person you don't have like a community of people that are like

[02:04:50] oh the new Final Fantasy is coming all this all go by it or or you know it it it tended to be be just the one type of game or that wasn't like we have a community that gets excited for other

[02:05:05] people when they when a game they're looking forward to comes out like you bet your ass if like if Kingdom Hearts 5 gets announced or 4 excuse me come well I think that was announced actually when Kingdom Hearts 4 never really comes out everyone's I'm excited to see what

[02:05:22] Eric thinks of it I'm excited to hear his thoughts because he's a genuine fan of the series obviously guiding keys shout out to unlockables but uh it right it it's interesting like it's cool to see

[02:05:34] that like what is it when the bluey video game another take another shot Jala I mentioned bluey when the bluey video game came out you have no idea how many messages were sent to me like

[02:05:46] hey did you see this I'm like yeah like they are excited to see me try it which I have since played it and there will be an episode on just not recorded yet but see and I know that whenever

[02:05:59] the new star fox game gets announced they're gonna blow up my phone being like new star fox out did you see star fox 99 right uh star fox 99 I am going to be getting first place on

[02:06:13] every single fucking match that would honestly star fox star fox 99 would actually work for the format oh yeah it would it would I would love a star fox 99 um but I like that that you know

[02:06:28] a game comes out and everybody's just like tagging the same person over and over again to see this to see this to see this yep it's it's a great community that we have like I I'm glad that

[02:06:41] I don't feel like I'm the only person that likes every single game that comes out anymore granted there are some that I don't like but you know it doesn't mean that you know I feel like it

[02:06:52] like when we recorded yeah go ahead I was just gonna say you know it's a good community that you can express your dislike of a game like like I like I said like I've been we were talking about with

[02:07:03] Uncharted and like Halo and stuff like that I'm not trying to change your opinion I think it's awesome yeah I actually think it's cool you don't like it I'm actually building up to I want

[02:07:12] to listen to your episode on Halo just to hear your criticisms of it just because it's gonna be different from my own and it's it's it's it should be like that type of shit like should be celebrated

[02:07:25] in a community like the difference is like especially we do it all the time with when talking Final Fantasy because Final Fantasy is like a perfect microcosm of like if of like the games world you have people who love specific entries and loathe other entries in vice versa

[02:07:43] and it's all over the place you will find people who like Final Fantasy perfect example Final Fantasy 15 most people aren't a fan of Final Fantasy 15 when I did my Final Fantasy fantasy draft last

[02:07:56] year two of my guests Aiden Moer and Mick Arcade are Final Fantasy 15 defenders and they used a lot of 15 in their drafted Final Fantasy which was bonkers to me I was not expecting anyone to go

[02:08:12] for that but they went for it and so when I inevitably do that and do an episode on it I know to reach out to Aiden and Mick because there you will find you can find people who

[02:08:24] like just about anything and that's what I don't know it's cool I'm sorry I cut you off but it's just it I love this community that we've built I was just gonna say that the halo episode is

[02:08:35] basically just me saying I fucking hate this game and Thrake being like it's not that bad but there are reasons why I I disliked it and I do recognize that it was a very influential

[02:08:51] game and it did you know very amazing things for the first person shooter genre that nobody can take that away from halo I can say that you still shit game as much as I want but nobody's gonna

[02:09:05] take that away from it same like we have Dark Souls it was one of the most influential games of all time doesn't matter what I think of what I think what if I enjoy the gameplay or not

[02:09:15] it's it's one of the most influential games of all time right like to you you had even influenced what's it called the Tales of series like the new tales of game the combat the combat button placement is Dark Souls button placement oh interesting okay it's yeah yeah like

[02:09:34] they move the attacks to like the the shoulder buttons it's kind of weird but it works I mean it definitely works it's not bad um but yeah I think we are a bit over two hours so let's go ahead

[02:09:51] and call it yeah about old games and shit but no we're good this was a very fun time Josh thank you for coming on I really appreciate it man this will be out in the next two weeks let me see

[02:10:08] so I leave for New York on the 13th so the 19th it'll be out wait no okay no the 12th it'll be out the 12th it'll be out this will be out on the 12th okay real quick yeah so uh anything else you

[02:10:24] want to say anything else you want to plug uh anything at all um well I guess since I know I feel like I kind of defeated the purpose of this series you're doing of to talk about

[02:10:37] gaming nostalgia and I guess we did touch on that but we went all over the place I guess um just one last thing and I promise this won't be a tangent um

[02:10:49] super nostalgic for the n64 too I should have brought that up as well um the n64 is my first system that I own it was it's super important to me and I just I should have gushed more about it on

[02:11:02] this episode but uh got lost in the weeds of like uh just fun conversation in general I really enjoyed my time thank you for having me on um well you take a sip of water that just means uh

[02:11:15] that you didn't touch the n64 that just means that you just you can come back on and we can talk to nintendo 64 how you want uh oh I will if you haven't if you haven't listened to an episode

[02:11:26] about me and thrac just not uh uh keeping ourselves straight we will start talking about I don't know fucking gears of war and end up talking about jr pge's or or games that are coming out or like a

[02:11:42] state of play and it has nothing to do with the so topic so tangents is the name of the game here well you got me on a tangent king type of day I was all over the place um if this episode you

[02:11:55] said this episode is coming out on the 12th uh the most recent episode of my show that would have come out is on ribbon and it would have actually come out the day prior on the 11th so if you want to

[02:12:05] check out that I had did a little two episode mini series on mist in ribbon missed with Doug leaf from the nostalgia marcanum podcast and uh ribbon was with try from my life in gaming

[02:12:17] the youtube channel my life in gaming uh the next week I guess in six days after this episode comes out will be my 300th episode of the show yes uh just I know you got something special planned

[02:12:32] it's the it's already announced so I can say it it is the super mario fantasy draft uh I have a bunch of awesome guests lined up which at the time this episode comes out none of the guests

[02:12:43] will have been announced so I'm not going to announce them here but they will be announced in actually on social media days after this episode comes out leading up to uh the launch the release of the 300th episode so yes episode 300 is a super mario fantasy draft

[02:13:01] and I can't wait it's already been recorded I just have to edit it um and that kicks off mario mania so starting on the 18th of February going to the end of March it's a bunch of mario

[02:13:12] related content because I usually do nice excuse me in march is mario month because you know what is it march 10th is mario day yep uh and so I do all mario related stuff so it's going to be

[02:13:25] episode 300 is mario fantasy draft the episode after that I'm starting a series with my friend dexter where we're rewatching the entirety of the super mario brother super show one episode at a time

[02:13:36] and we're doing one episode of the podcast for each one episode of the show it's going to take probably take five years because it's like 60 episodes of the super show but we only do it

[02:13:47] once a month so it's not like we're going to be inundating the feed with like super show shenanigans um so that's gonna that's going to be uh coming out uh the week after and then

[02:13:59] for march it's all mario kart games mario kart uh 64 all the way up to mario kart ds recovering we're doing an episode per game so that's what I have coming up after this episode comes out

[02:14:11] lots of mario stuff mario mania everywhere and uh that can be found on still loading podcast or all good podcast or on whatever podcasters i'm losing the thread here you know spotify

[02:14:23] google podcast apple podcasts all that good stuff still loading podcast dot com and if any of that interests you and you didn't get tired of my random bullshit opinions uh at still loading pod on

[02:14:33] pretty much all social media except for youtube which is at still loading podcast right i will put the uh link to the show and to the website on uh on the show notes so everybody can just

[02:14:45] click on it and it'll take you directly to uh josh's feed that way you can enjoy all of this content and do that mario kart stuff that should is going to be crazy i i am definitely

[02:14:56] going to be tuning in for all that i'm hoping i can do a good job at it because it's i i'm kind of taking it as a challenge because realistically there's not a whole lot of

[02:15:04] mechanic changes between mario kart games so how do you really like fill an hour and 20 hour like hour 10 to hour and a half on each game uh so far two have been recorded and

[02:15:16] they're both like over an hour or so so i'm pretty content with that but i still have to record i still have to finish the other three so there's three more episodes still to record

[02:15:26] and we'll see how it goes so i'm guessing you're doing double dash two yes yes double dash is on on the docket as well it's a mario kart 64 mario kart super circuit mario kart double

[02:15:39] dash mario kart ds and mario kart we yeah double dash is definitely going to be a beefy episode and i feel like yes can get can get pretty deep too especially with all the online play and all

[02:15:51] that stuff that the game had well we'll see where it goes we'll see where it goes so all right and yeah you i know that i have a few mario kart fans so they're definitely gonna head

[02:16:03] on over to listen once those are out so yeah thank you for being on man um check out still loading podcast wherever you get your podcast and uh don't forget tell your friends about the show

[02:16:19] it helps a lot like spotify wrapped said a bunch of you told your friends and that's how we got a bunch of listens so keep doing that and uh that's it for this week's episode you want to say goodbye to everyone josh bye goodbye everyone