A Cheeseburger Is Evergreen | The Big Deal

[00:00:00] Hey, it's your boy Dre Off The Top here. Gonna say thank you for the last couple months of you guys listening to this show. They are by far the best months we ever had on Fine Time, as far as listens go and downloads. Like, we don't really count numbers around here. That's not really what we're about. Since this isn't our job, it's not something we really have to worry about. We just like the people who listen, or appreciate the people who listen, rather. Well, like and appreciate, I guess. But these last two months have been through the roof.

[00:00:30] So thank you. Please keep rating and reviewing us. We've been seeing some more of those on Apple Podcasts, where I think it matters the most. That's where most of our listener base is anyway. So it's as it seems by looking at said numbers. So definitely keep doing that. Spotify is doing weird shit with like, here are some counts for how many people listen to your shit, which is like weird, like it's YouTube now. So it's kind of embarrassing. So help us, help us get those numbers up. Okay, we don't want to be embarrassed in front of our peers.

[00:01:00] Steve. Yeah, you know, Giant Bomb's back now. We don't want to be slacking against them. I mean, come on, man. Isn't that right, Kevin? Kevin? Where is he? God damn it. It's just you and me, I guess. Let's start the show. Step into video game land. Welcome to Fine Time.

[00:01:43] Hello, party people. It's your boy, Dre. And it's my boy, Steve. Happy to be here. It is not my boy, Kevin, because, well, he is not happy to be here. I'm sure he's happy to be somewhere else, though. Based on what he was telling us, I don't think he's happy to be where he is. No, he's not, actually. I think he'd much rather be here. I can assure you of that. But yeah, that's okay. Just the Americans today.

[00:02:12] Rah, rah, USA. Don't really feel like saying that these days or any other days, really, but especially not these days. But hey, it is what it is. A cheeseburger is evergreen. Well, they're not usually green, but you know what I mean. There will be a green cheeseburger. Oh, didn't your fabled Burger King have a red bun before? Right? Like they tried to do the Angry Whopper again, but it had a red bun.

[00:02:40] The last time they did the Angry Whopper, it had a red bun and it was ill-advised. Did it taste bad or was it like stale or just? It was a stale bun. It had a hot sauce thing going on in there, but maybe if the rolls were fresher, it might have been okay. But they're like, yep, red buns. But that's always, you know this, this is always my problem with Burger King is that I hate their buns. Doesn't matter if they're fresh or not.

[00:03:08] Then again, I mean, I've rarely had a stale bun from a fast food place. But even if I have like, man, I just can't get down with the Burger King buns. So like maybe, I don't know, maybe the red color will give me some life. Those potato rolls they had for the Addams Family ones were real, real good, but they're gone now, obviously. Can you tell me what the deal was with like, I guess maybe what the deal is if they still have them with chicken fries?

[00:03:35] Are they like, quote unquote, chicken in the shape of a like, french fry? Like, what is the deal? I think it might have seen a chicken like on a farm passing by on a road trip once. Because somehow they even taste less like chicken than a chicken nugget does. Wow. They are not very good and they are like pricey for what that is. Kids like them, I guess, huh? That has to be the reason.

[00:04:04] I don't know if kids like them either because it's not like they come with the kids meal. The kids meals still come with those crown shaped nuggets. I don't know if you've ever seen those. I don't think so. Well, you know, McDonald's has those distinct shaped nuggets. The Burger King nuggets, they all just look like crowns or a mole. They're like, oh, okay. You get it? Because it's the Burger King. I remember when I was a kid, we'd go to Carl's Jr.

[00:04:34] And they had star shaped nuggets, like the famous star. Yeah. But that's the only like particularly shaped nuggets. Like, obviously, McDonald's ones have shapes just because that's how they roll. There is something I saw on History Show when my folks were flipping through and they were talking about how they made the nugget. And they have four shapes and they all have names. Really? Yeah. And I forgot them all right now.

[00:05:03] I would love to know what the nugget names, McNugget names, real or fake. That would be. Well, there's four of them. That wouldn't be a very long game. I don't know. I mean, look, if I have four fake ones, like that's eight. That's eight guests. That's eight things. That's a healthy size game. All right, fine. We'll talk video game shit. Sick of my bullshit. Let's just stick with what we know. Are you sure we know video games?

[00:05:33] Because I'm not so sure. People shouldn't ask us about video games, Andre. No, they shouldn't. Well, maybe they should, because I would love to tell them about Slitterhead. More like Shitterhead. Oh, wait, I made that jump last week. Wow. Shut up while the music's playing. OK, shush.

[00:06:01] So Slitterhead, Steve, this came out last fall. I want to say October, November, like spoopy season, right? Did it? Yeah. I feel like it was about then. I'll take your word for it. I feel like it was roughly six months ago anyway. Because I feel like it was one of those things where I'm like, I'm keeping an eye out for this. And then I had no idea. Yeah. It's been out for a while.

[00:06:25] And it's a weird, creepy little action game with a possession mechanic. That's the hook. You do not control a single main character. You are a spiritual entity that can possess humans. So you possess them and you control the person that is convenient at that moment to do what you need to do. Can't wait to play Geist on Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo Selects, Andre. That should.

[00:06:53] Did you say Nintendo Selects instead of Nintendo Classics? Are you really out here saying Selects? I guess I did. Oops. What was Nintendo Selects? Was that Wii? Or was that? I think that's what they changed it to on GameCube. And then they kept it there for a while. See, I thought GameCube was still. I think maybe they did change it to Selects on Wii. Yeah. I feel like it was Selects on Wii. Anyway. Anyway.

[00:07:19] You remember a couple of years ago where they first showed this. It could have been like a summer game. So I don't fucking remember where. It could have even been TGS. Yes. But I remember we both looked at it, Steve. Kevin was not interested. We both looked at this and we saw the combat. We were like, oh, this looks like Jank City. But it looks fun. This looks like the right kind of jank.

[00:07:46] Well, I don't think you would go to a game where you possess everything for the fight and you go in there for the possessing. You definitely do go in there for the possessing. And that's really what I don't want to say saves the game because that makes it sound like it'd be trash without it. But it'd be very, very much less interesting without it. But yeah, I was interested. It looked like, you know, everyone's like, what in the name of PS2 is this?

[00:08:11] But like, I don't know that jank ass combat animation kind of got me interested. It seemed kind of different. We knew it wasn't going to be cookie cutter triple A bullshit at the very least. So I was like, sure, let's try it. And now here I am six months later trying it. So Slitterhead is directed by Keiichiro Toyama, who was the director and writer of the original Silent Hill for anyone who doesn't know. Then he made the PS2 horror game Siren.

[00:08:40] Steve, you remember that one? Siren? No. Yeah, it was. It wasn't like super obscure. I remember seeing it on the shelves. It wasn't as obscure as like Rule of Rose or something, but like, you know, it was around. What was Siren for? PS2. Okay. I don't remember that at all. Okay. Yeah. And then after that, he went on to do the Gravity Rush games. Never heard of those. No, I'm just kidding. I know what those are.

[00:09:07] Kevin is like voodoo doll stabbing you right now listening to this episode. So might I if I weren't on here because Gravity Rush is great. But anyway, I think it was also the only thing Vita kiosks had forever besides the welcome pack. I mean, to be quite honest, like it might be the best game on the system. So it kind of good for them to do that. I guess probably should have been a launch game, but got to have that uncharted. Right. I guess more like unfarted. Oh, wait. I'll do that.

[00:09:38] Is that even an inch? This guy is so unfarted. Yeah, that makes it sound like he needs to see a doctor. He's stopped up back there. But yeah, so Slitterhead remarks this director's return to I wouldn't call it horror, but definitely something much more dark, something much more akin to Silent Hill than Gravity Rush, shall we say. Okay.

[00:10:04] So I think the coolest thing, as you as you surmise, Steve, the coolest thing about the game is that they put you in the perspective of this unknown spirit possessing someone, you know, because like think about how many games there are where you're a person and there's something or some spirit is talking to you and your characters freak out. And it's like, whoa, what the fuck's going on now? You are that spirit. You're the one freaking everyone out. So that's that's fun.

[00:10:34] You know, I love that bit of turnabout sisters. Well, what was that other game I was playing on this show around Halloween that you recommended that I got on PlayStation four for about five dollars and was good. But had issues. Murdered soul suspect. Yes. Yeah, that was fun. Yeah. See, it's murdered. Soul suspect is better than Slitterhead. So take that as you will. No.

[00:11:06] No. Hey, hey, hey. I like murdered soul suspect suspect for what it is, but I'll put it this way. That's actually a very good comparison because it's relatively the same kind of double a budget or at least it feels like it. I don't know why. Did you think like soul suspect suspect was a piece of shit? I mean, I feel like we like it. I like soul suspect, but I'm like, we could do better than this. Well, here we are years later and you're telling me we're not doing better than this. No, I don't think Slitterhead is better than it.

[00:11:35] No, but like it's still OK. Spoiler alert. It's worth buying. Pick it up for cheap. Just like murdered soul suspect. Yeah. OK, that's my recommendation. But I'll talk more about the game, I guess. So I really like the dialogue scenes, too. Like, because they play up the motif really well of like this, you know, you're possessing someone and listening in. I mean, they are talking to you. You're not just spying on them.

[00:12:00] But it's presented in this like very weird style of like overlapping camera angles and shit. And like, I don't know, like other effects overlaid, like weird, like almost like you're looking through a tube TV. Like, you know how in the old days where you put a camera up to a tube TV and it's like freaky looking, like kind of like that almost. That's the best way I could describe it. And it's really cool. And they have interesting stuff to say.

[00:12:25] You're possessed humans, you know, because there are some humans that are much more attuned to the other side than other humans, which is just like real life. And, you know, those people really can hear you and you can really communicate with them. Most of the people you possess, they just kind of get dazed. It's like, oh, what was I doing? There's some people, though, when you possess them, they're like, oh, who the fuck are you? And those are the quote unquote main characters, I guess. Are you the Slitterhead?

[00:12:55] Yes, you are the indeed the Slitterhead. Is that the Slitterhead? Wait, am I the sole suspect? Ooh. You fucking ass. So I really love the aesthetic here of Slitterhead. It's totally for me. It takes place in Hong Kong and it's always nighttime. There's neon signs, busy streets and filthy back alleys, all that type of shit that I love. Right.

[00:13:25] And you love to, quite frankly. And you're, you know, you're infiltrating prostitute dens and you're, you know, weird cults. I would never infiltrate a prostitute den. You should tell me where those are. So we don't infiltrate those. Not even as a sole suspect? No, you got to tell me exactly where they are. So we never infiltrate those.

[00:13:47] There was one part where like you had to, in order to get into this one room, you had to like possess one of their like top Johns or whatever and goes like sleep with her. And then she leaves or something goes, has a smoke break. And then you can do what you need to do. And then later on, one of your main humans like asks you about it. And you're just kind of like, well, you know, I just did what I had to do.

[00:14:10] I mean, I wasn't really, you know, I didn't enjoy it or anything, which is like, you know, I, oh yeah, I did not inhale. Please. What are you dead down there? Technically. Technically, I mean, that is a weird thought, right? If you are a spirit and you possess some dude's body to go bang some chick and then like how you're just renting a dick, I guess, at that point. I mean, it's a very strange thing to think about, I guess.

[00:14:40] But they didn't really go into it that much. Yeah. I guess all the philosophical ramifications of that really weren't the point of Slitterhead. I, I guess. But, you know, they did. They didn't not touch on it. They did mention it for a second, which is something, I guess. But yeah, Steve, I know about a year ago, maybe you played Ghostwire Tokyo. Yeah, I played it when it came out. So we have both played the game.

[00:15:06] And I don't think Slitterhead is too far off from Ghostwire Tokyo in terms of like aesthetic. It's not raining all the time. Like Ghostwire is where everything's wet and it's like Ray Trace City, which is why that game runs like crap. But it's like maybe if it wasn't fucking raining. Yeah. Just clean up that rain, everybody. I get it. You're trying to show off the, you know, the graphics on PlayStation 5. And boy, they did. But it came at a cost.

[00:15:33] You know, they did not fix that shit when it came to Series X. It just runs exactly the same. They didn't even try to clean it up. That game is like version 1.0 forever. Whatever. Well, big shakings and doings were going on with the studio. So yeah, Tango was probably like, we just have to get this shit out. So I guess now that now we know what we know. Right. But let's get to that combat, that jank ass combat. The thing that stuck out to us when we first saw it.

[00:16:02] Yes, the combat is jank as hell. There's a dodge system and a parry system. But quite frankly, there's almost no need to engage with it because what's a lot more effective is you possessing a different person every 10 seconds or so. Because like, here's a big monster. Oh, and you're frail too. You can only take a few hits because you're just a regular basic bitch human. It's not like you're, you know, daunting or something. Empowering them when you possess them. Yeah, exactly. You're still, you still have that frailty.

[00:16:31] So you really do need to switch humans frequently because, you know, the monsters coming after that one get a possessed one behind him. And then like you're whacking on him while he's still whacking that other one. I don't know how the monsters know which one you're possessing instead of just going after all the humans. But video game, right? Let's not think too much about it. But yeah, it's fun. It's messy.

[00:16:56] It's weird and it's sloppy, but not in a usually sloppy as a pejorative. I don't even necessarily mean it that it just feels like a big old melee. Here's a bunch of people. Oh, I'm going to zip here and there. Oh, I'm going to whack them a few times and possess someone else. It's strange, but I also can't say it's very super satisfying. Either. It's fine. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. It's not. It doesn't control bad.

[00:17:25] It doesn't control nearly as stiff and jank as it looked in that initial trailer. But it's it's weird, man. I don't know. I wish I could describe it better than just coming on the air here and saying, well, guys, it's kind of fucky. But yeah, it's just a big old brawl free for all until they die. That's kind of it. You just talk from person to person until you run out of persons and then the game ends. Yeah.

[00:17:50] You just kind of like, well, OK, so like the possession isn't just for combat. It's also for just traversal and stuff. And this is where the game lets me down the most, which is why murdered soul suspect is better. I can't believe that's a touchstone for this fucking episode now, but it is structurally. Structurally, Slitterhead just ain't it. Because like, OK, Slitterhead is mission based, right? You pick a mission on the map.

[00:18:20] You go to that one. So, yeah, it's a big world. This is like one big level. But when you pick that mission, you're just kind of doing that thing. You're not running all over the entire place like you would in a gravity rush or a murdered soul suspect or a Yakuza even. Right. Like you're just you kind of just pick that mission and you're in that section almost like what's a good example? Astral chain, maybe. OK. You know what I mean?

[00:18:50] Kind of like that. So which that's that's not bad. It's not a bad way to do it. However, it doesn't work for Slitterhead because the possession mechanic is using a number of puzzles and traversal stuff. So like if you're stuck in a jail cell, right, you're going to obviously what are you going to do? You're going to possess the guard outside. So he'll unlock the jail cell. Right. Or something like that.

[00:19:16] Or if you're trying to get across a rooftop, obviously you can't jump. You need to possess someone on the other side. Boom. You're over there. Right. Stuff like that. Or again, I said the thing with the prostitute. Right. Possess the right John. Get in the room. Do your business that you did not enjoy at all. Absolutely not. And then go on your way. Which would make them the wrong John.

[00:19:45] I don't I don't have a sound effect here to to tell you to fuck off. All I have is lock it in, which is you don't deserve that. So is does the does the hockey penalty box make a sound when you slam that door? Does the arena do it's been a long time? So I've been to a hockey game. Oh, I haven't been to one in ages either. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I have no idea why you haven't you haven't. When's the last time you've been to Islanders? College. That was 20 years, years ago. Wow, dude.

[00:20:15] They probably didn't even play at the place they do now, do they? They do not. Oh, OK. Yeah, I was going to say that place. I think that place is toast anyway, Slitterhead video games, everybody. Yeah. So you solve the puzzles with the guy you you know, you possess different people to do the things that you need to do. Here's the problem. They hold your fucking hand every single step of the way.

[00:20:43] So the reason why the puzzle solving is not fun is because they do not let you puzzle solve any time. Every single time you're presented with an obstacle, they stop you and it's like, hmm, how do you suppose we get in there? Maybe we could do this instead of just letting you like figure it the fuck out, like giving you a little puzzle box to solve. And that sucks. Like what? What? There's like a little Omo Chow ghost going, I don't know how we should solve the puzzle.

[00:21:12] Maybe if we do exactly how to solve the puzzle, we could solve the puzzle. You went Omo Chow on my ass. Yeah, it's it's you know what? No, it's worse than Omo Chow because Omo Chow doesn't stop the game and talk to you. He just floats around and tells you stuff. This stops the game, which is my least favorite way of doing anything. So, yeah. Yeah.

[00:21:37] And it's like, again, compared to his previous project, Gravity Rush, that was kind of a I obviously very hesitate to call it an open world game. It's a very small open world game. It's a very small world. But in Gravity Rush, you have a mission. You know what you're supposed to do. You just have to go out there and do it. And I think that he could have stood to reprise that structure for Slitterhead instead of making this very push forward.

[00:22:06] Do this thing. OK, now do this thing. They don't let you play and explore with the possession stuff, really, because they want you to do these very specific things with it. And I full disclosure, I haven't beat the game yet. But like I played a good 10 hours and they haven't let me do it yet. So I don't think they're going to let me. And even if they did, but like three, five hours in, that's still too late. Just let people explore the cool thing that you set up with the game. I get it.

[00:22:36] It's very hard to make like a again. I'm not talking like Skyrim open world. I'm talking a very small, but even smaller than Yakuza map, even smaller than that. Just sandbox to play in. And they don't let you do it, Steve. Ghostwire Tokyo wasn't especially big. That was but that was still OK to play around in. Yeah, that was OK to play around in. And I think like, again, it could have been even smaller than that.

[00:23:01] I think Ghostwire Tokyo surface area is much larger than what Slitterhead offers. And the handholding to me kind of betrays the concept a little bit because it's like, I think from this you would expect something weirder. Like a like Killer7 kind of weird or like something more out there, something more avant garde.

[00:23:26] But no, it's a very like basic bitch kind of game structure with thing with a lot of aesthetics that are not basic at all. So it's very strange that he chose to do this anyway. Like I said, it's not a bad game at all. I'm glad I'm playing it. I will beat it. I'm enjoying myself. I just I just see the potential for this to have been much better than it is.

[00:23:53] But hey, for like I said, for cheap, maybe not murder soul suspect dollars, because we all played that for like five bucks or less. In fact, I paid nothing. Someone sent me theirs because I got it for $2.99 at Best Buy or something. But yeah, I'm not saying that. But if you see it, if it comes on like PlayStation Plus Royale with cheese, definitely play it. If you see it on Steam for 20 bucks, absolutely give it a go. For sure. Yeah, you sold it to me.

[00:24:19] But on the waiting game, I'm not going to exactly be rushing for Slitterhead. I'll send I'll send you mine. You can play mine. How about that? Wait, you own a Slitterhead? I own a Slitterhead on a Blu-ray disc for PlayStation 5. Oh, dear.

[00:24:59] Guys, I've been all over the fucking place the past few weeks. I'm trying to cue things up for other projects I'm doing. Hope you look forward to those whenever I do them. Blah, blah, blah. But otherwise, there's been a fairly common thread in other things I've been playing. People, robots, anything else are getting shot in the fucking face. You're shooting everything in the face? Or, you know, they're just getting shot everywhere.

[00:25:28] That's unpleasant. Well, who wants to get shot? But, you know, things are getting shot in the face. This is the Steve Shoot Stuff in the Face special. If we had music for that, it would go here. But I guess we'll just have to live with that. No, no, no, no. You know I got something. Okay, give me more announcer-y. It's the Steve Shoots in the Face special. Oh, come on. Please, energy, bitch. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da. No! Never mind. You don't get anything.

[00:25:58] So I've been playing. I played through RoboCop, finally. You don't need to tell me about RoboCop. I don't need to tell you people about RoboCop. Andre did that a while ago. You should be playing that already. I didn't pay a dollar. It's worth more than a dollar. But tell me a little bit, though. I mean, yeah, I did talk about it, but I want to hear your take. It's the best RoboCop game ever. I mean, not that there was a tremendous bar in the first place. You ever played the NES version by Ocean?

[00:26:26] The only one I ever played was the Data East Arcade game. That's it. Which was cool. The sound effects were insane. I was going to say, that has to be at least okay. It was great. I mean, look, it was great for the time. I mean, I don't know if it's actually great, but like I said, the sounds were crazy. It's like they pulled them directly from the movie. But I mean, after playing a lot of bad RoboCop games, including RoboCop versus Terminator on Super NES,

[00:26:54] which should be the best idea ever, and it wasn't. Holy crap. Everything is just so great about the game. The way he just deliberately moves and everything just reacts around him or doesn't react around him. It's just great. Yeah. You think you'd get sick of hearing him walk around by the end of the game? You don't. It's great. Yeah. You know what? I got to be real. I did not sprint in that game. It's weird if you hear his footsteps go too fast. I don't like it. You just got to walk.

[00:27:24] It's so good. It's really good. I talked about this when we did that episode, but the police station, man, that's like straight up walking around a movie set, practically. Like now in Unreal Engine 5, that shit is crazy. The fact, I mean, it really helps that they got the police chief, his likeness. Yeah. I thought it was wild that they made you do so much stuff in the police station. Like there's that very early quest where they're like,

[00:27:52] Hey, we need you to get rid of these people at the desk. And then you really check people out at the desk. Yeah. I guess you don't sleep. Like, I guess you don't have to do those things. They just sort of like raise or lower his reputation, I guess. But like it, obviously the fact that they want you to do those things is very, you know, do real deal serving the people stuff, not just like Robo cop shoots bad guys. It's fun. I mean,

[00:28:22] it would have been fine if it was just Robo cop shoots bad guys, but Robo cop protects and serves as, you know, in the spirit of the movie, I feel. Yeah. Which again, nothing else has really done before. Well, you know, there was the first movie, but you know, we've seen Robo cop two and three. We don't like them, but we've seen. Hey, hey, hey, I like Robo cop two. I think Robo cop two is really good. Three can fucking jump off a cliff and die. Two is I'm, I'm with it.

[00:28:52] And the less we talk about the TV show, the better. Oh, that was terrible. I remember that shit when it was on, that was really bad. I mean, I thought Robo cop three was already bad because it was PG 13. And then you have the TV show. Yikes. And did you know that that was also one of the many cartoons for, you know, about a, you know, a decidedly R rated movie that got a children's cartoon from that. If this were back in the day,

[00:29:21] we'd have a John wick cartoon. You know that? Like, yeah, that would be crazy, but it would be true. Anyway, I'm glad you liked Robo cop. What else you'd, what else did you shoot in the face? I played some more hammer bowl gun. It's one of the PS other PlayStation games we got for free this month. I won't tell you why we'll, I'm sure you'll figure out why soon enough, but it's my first real interaction with a war hammer thing. It's neat. It's a boomer shooter. You, you shoot possessed Marines and monsters,

[00:29:51] I guess. And, and the real war hammer fans can yell at me, but it's fun to play. I'm sure it's nothing representative of actual war hammer, but I'm having fun with it. Well, sneak preview for the people out there. Sometime this summer, we are going to air our episode where we watched all 15 episodes of the Amazon prime show secret level. And there was a war hammer episode of secret level was the game you played better. Within the secret level episode.

[00:30:21] By tremendous bounds. Yes. Okay, good. Not that that again, not that that's a high bar, but still. But anyway, the real meat of Steve shoots and stuff in the face is, well, one of the games here is vanquished. Now I could already read Andre's thoughts from here because I've been recording things with him for a while. Steve, why are you playing this now? And not in 2010 or 2020 when the good version dropped. That's because a while ago after appearing on the center square.

[00:30:50] So I'm told I don't watch the video versions of these things on the super pod super show. So I was finally cajoled into joining the super pod discord, you know, where Thrak is and everyone else, you know, you might remember Thrak from our Bioshock series. Anyway, he and Sonic superstars. He was on with me. He was on for that one. I didn't listen to that one yet. I, cause I didn't play the game yet. Sorry, Thrak. And these days I'm trying to be something of a team player. I didn't just join the discord.

[00:31:20] I'm, I'm, I'm posting the pet pics. I'm turning ice cream on the food page. And now I joined their little game book club where this was the choice this month. I was also first to finish this game this month among the other people playing. So I also have to set up the poll for next month's game. I don't know what that game is yet for everyone listening out there, but I'm sure to be inclined to make some super choices. Oh boy. Oh Lord. Hey guys,

[00:31:47] you want to play soul blazer or might and magic five. I've I'm, I'm, I'm going to, they're going to be shorter run times than that. Okay. I will. I will be nice. Sky blazer. You should pick a Sony image soft. I'm going to pick something a bit more accessible. Any things that are more accessible. Anyway, here's, here's the thing about vanquish though. It's a very early platinum game. It's a lot of fucking fun.

[00:32:16] You're a guy in a metal suit that smokes cigarettes following around a bigger guy in a metal suit, you're chomping cigars and you're shooting the fuck out of robots and Russians and metal suits. And you're doing this for five big fucking levels, watching a lot of fucking shit blow up until the game is over. And it's a lot of fun firing all these guns and trying to figure out how not to die, but it's also not pushing the envelope in 2025. The game is not bad at all. And I had a lot of fun playing it, but it doesn't make for a good podcast segment.

[00:32:46] So, I mean, I don't know, man. I, I feel like I could talk about vanquish for a solid hour. If you'd, if you had warned me, I mean, I could have, so I'm going to move on to something more recent care. He doesn't want to talk about the vanquish with me at all. You hear that? Everybody, you just blew me the fuck off. Well, a good chunk of the time. I didn't even, there was a small chunk of the time. I wasn't even sure how I died. So yeah, that's Shinji Mikami for you. But anyway,

[00:33:15] I'm going to talk about another game where I was shooting things in the face and stabbing things in the face and just lots of things going in the face. Mullet magic. It's a fairly recent game on game pass. And it might be the most Steven Andre coded games aesthetically I've ever played. What? Wow. It's an eighties, nineties, anime boomer shooter with a twist. You have 10 seconds to live.

[00:33:43] Did you say anime? Yeah, it has a look and it just feeds into it big time. You have 10 seconds to live. Yeah. There's a threadbare plot about needing to rescue an influencer. Princess from robot billionaires or something. Doesn't really matter. You're a guy in a mullet, mullet magic, because that's what we do around here. You know that when we don't have a real name, we just call them the name of the game. He's mullet magic.

[00:34:11] And you got a clear boomer shooter esque floors real super fast or you die, but I need more time than that. Well, good fucking news. You get more time by killing the robot billionaires and you get more time on top of that by killing them real stylishly by knocking him into the giant fans or the generators or powering them up or blowing them into a thing that just appeared in the room or jamming a knife in their face. So do you get like a score when you do that?

[00:34:40] Is it like bullet storm where it's like you kick this guy off the bridge, you get like a thousand points, but it's like time. I think they are keeping a separate score on the bottom left for the three people that might care about that, but there's like seconds that are ticking up. Also, when you reach the ends of levels, which again, aren't especially long, you get a choice of three bonuses that, you know, sounds rogue like enough. You have a selection of, you know, things that could be guns or things that might happen in levels or can even

[00:35:09] slightly extend your time ever so slightly. But that's the thing. It's the game knows what it is. It sounds like it's super easy to die and you do, but you know, it's a, it's a satisfying loop. The levels are very linear more than maze. Like you're not going to get lost here. It's definitely more. It's very, it's a very boomer, boomer shooter and everything exploding a lot. And you know, I, you know, I've already been around the perks and again, one of the perks is like, Hey,

[00:35:38] more explodey things around the level. The game knows what it's fucking doing. It's very dumb and it's very compelling. It's a lot of fun. I've got it installed in the computer and that's kind of the thing. I'm kind of hoping there's a switch to version coming because right now it's only on PC and Xbox. And I kind of want a portable version because it feels like the right kind of thing where like, I always want to go in and die a few times. I'm like, okay. And then try again later. Like I don't want to be, I don't want this tethered to the computer.

[00:36:07] Someone's getting a steam deck for Christmas. I don't need a steam deck that bad. I mean, you say that, but not for mullet magic. Come on. Well, I mean, it, you gotta be better than me where the first thing I launched was like Hoony pop or something. So you gotta, I'm sure. Is that really the first game you launched? I know. No, no one's going to believe me when I say this, but I swear to God, it was by accident. I was right.

[00:36:37] It was. It was by accident. I swear to Christ. I remember. Yeah. Yeah. I was just downloading a bunch of stuff to the steam deck. Like, and I just so happened to, it's like, Oh, I need to install that one. Oh, I already installed it. Oh shit. It's launching. I guess the first game I'm playing is Hoony pop. You gotta believe me. It's the truth. I remember this now. That's right. It supposedly launched on its own. Yeah.

[00:37:06] So God, I'm telling you fine. Don't believe me. Okay. I know. I'm sure you didn't probably pay enough attention or maybe the game doesn't tell you in what magic, but how did the robots become billionaires? It's something that might come up later on, but I'm pretty sure it's one of those desolate future type things. It might be, you know, a few hundred miles away from bubble gum crisis where there's these robot billionaires, you know,

[00:37:35] I guess where it's going. Going on where the influencers are taking it. Like this, the whole thing here, the, the other part is like, okay, they're all watching you online and they have this sicko thing injected in your arm. And if, and it's going to keep pumping you up with adrenaline, and if you don't keep shooting these guys, you're going to die in 10 seconds. Okay. How much, how much time do you get when you kill one of them? Like a second or. Attacks on a second. But again,

[00:38:05] if you knock them into like the environment, like, oh no, there's a big fan right there or whatever. It's, it's more time. Or if you knock them into a vending machine and you kick and you get a soda and you'd pop it right there. Like, okay, the sponsors love that shit. Here's a, there's a, that's a whole 10 seconds. Oh, it's a blood sport thing. Yeah. Okay. So you're, you're, you're doing this for the robot billionaires amusement. Yeah. Okay. Gotcha. That's how, that does sound.

[00:38:33] That is very me coded for sure. You know, I love that shit. Yeah. I mean, I'm having fun with it. It's included. It's on game pass, but if you don't want game pass, it's 20 bucks. It's not, it's not going to break the bag. Okay. I might have to look that up on steam. All right. We're going to take a break and then we'll be right back for our Mountain Dew mango rush taste test. Sit tight.

[00:38:56] All right,

[00:39:48] we're back. Mountain Dew mango rush in hand. So I guess we should set this up a little bit. Our friend of the show, Mr. Quest 64 official on blue sky. And I guess still on Twitter. He's a big little Caesar's. Aficionado. And he tipped us off to this new flavor. They have that is exclusive to little Caesars. This Mountain Dew mango rush only there.

[00:40:16] Just like Taco Bell only has Baja blast, right? Or KFC. What's the KFC one hunting something? Oh, I don't know what the KFC one is now, but yeah, I always see it. And I, cause I don't, I don't really drink Mountain Dew. That's the thing. That's the whole reason why I wanted to do this. I don't typically like Mountain Dew. At least like the original basic bitch flavor. I've had a couple of other flavors, Steve, but I've never been much of a Mountain Dew drinker. Have you been? Uh,

[00:40:47] for a time, but I remember it just being a little much after a while and backing off. I know I wasn't a big fan of the variants. Like, uh, I know a lot of people here love Baja blast and we're ready. Just treated it coming to stores as the second coming of Christ. But I'm like, no, I have never tried Baja blast. Never. Is that weird? I know it's been there for like 20 years. I have never tried it. I don't know if that's weird or not. You never had it. Yeah.

[00:41:17] Not a single time. Cause you know me, I'm a Pepsi. Okay. Okay. Well, two things. One, I'm a Pepsi guy to Taco Bell. Pepsi is amazing. It's like McDonald's Spray. Taco Bell, Pepsi. There's something to it. It's so fucking good. They haven't switched over to the pretend freestyle Pepsi thing at Taco Bell yet. No, ours still has. I don't go to Taco Bell too much these days. No, ours still has the regular ass fountain. But they have the one where it's like, you know,

[00:41:46] from the two thousands where it's like, if you want one of these four sodas, it comes out of this one. If you want one of these four, it comes out of the, you know what I mean? Like the buttons. Yeah. Those are the ones we got too. But yeah, but the Pepsi there, the Pepsi at Taco Bell is godlike. So I just can't, you know, I don't want to get away from it, but we are here to try this Mountain Dew mango rush because look, I love mango flavored soda and I like little Caesars. I mean, you know, so it's like no big deal for me to order a pizza and a couple sodas.

[00:42:14] So it's been sitting here in the fridge getting cold for a while now. Okay. Here in New York, it was significantly more difficult to get to a little Caesars and find the mango Mountain Dew. I need to tell you. Here, here in New York folks, you hear that here in New York? He says there was, I, I'm, I'm trying to be a team player and I'm looking up the locations and there was exactly one within an hour of here.

[00:42:45] That's kind of obnoxious actually. Jeez. I got it and I made two trips for it because unbeknownst to me when I was informed about it a month ago, they, they, this wasn't available yet. So this is the second time was my second, was my second attempt to get this where I finally got it. All right. Well, um, I ordered my usual deep dish and I got the sodas and the breadsticks. By the way, don't feel bad that Kevin isn't here. He could not find mango rush in Canada. He tried.

[00:43:15] So he's not missing out. So this segment would have just been him sitting there being mad while we drink soda. So the fact that he's not here, uh, don't, don't feel bad for him. Do not cry for him. Argentina. How many listeners we got in Argentina these days? You know, I don't, I'm not sure how much South America has ever shown up. I've seen some Chile every so often. That's about it. Maybe a couple of, uh, Perus will Peru here and there,

[00:43:45] but no Argentina, Argentina, if you're out there, let us know. All right. You ready to try this soda? I'm let's, let's pop this open. All right. Hmm. Smells all right. Yeah. It smells good. I hope that, Ooh, it does smell like mango. That's a good sign. All right. You ready? Let's go. Let's go.

[00:44:20] That's good. Yeah. It tastes like a, more like an orange soda with a mango aftertaste. I, I, I, I'm not sure. This is overly mango forward though. I wouldn't necessarily call this a mango rush. I don't know. I mean, yeah, I get it. There is other citrus in there. I feel a little lime and I think you're right. There's some orange there, but I don't know. I don't think, I wouldn't say this isn't mango forward. I'm going to have another sip.

[00:44:53] Hmm. This is good. Yeah. This might be the first soda I tried on here that I didn't pour down the toilet. I thought you finished the, uh, didn't we have some Oreo Coke? I thought you liked the Oreo Coke enough to finish. No, no. Okay. Maybe not. Didn't we have a bad Pepsi? We had the, Oh, Pete's Pepsi was terrible. I didn't finish. I need, I didn't even finish that. This is good, man.

[00:45:25] Yeah. I can get down with this. Like I said, I've never been a big, um, mountain dew person. Um, I've had code red a couple of times. You know, I know people swear by that. I think Aaron of super pod saga does. And, um, I've had one of the halo. Remember they had halo flavors. Remember that shit? Don't they still have halo flavors? I'm not sure, but I remember around halo three, they had like a halo flavor and it tasted like blue pixie sticks. But a soda.

[00:45:55] So it was good. I feel like every time I'm in seven 11, they, they got halo and Doritos and, and mountain dew right next to each other. They still do that. I thought that was so fucking passe by now. I would have figured, I don't know. No, here's the other problem I'm having. I'm, I'm reading the bottom here with a blast of natural and artificial mango, sweet heat flavor. I'm tasting heat.

[00:46:25] Now I'm tasting the sweet. I'm not denying that. I'm not tasting any heat. Was this supposed to be a spicy soda? I don't know what that's supposed to be like, but I'm not tasting any heat. Not that I really want heat from a soda, but. Maybe they just mean like, maybe, maybe they just mean like summer, like it's hot outside. It's good when it's during the heat. You're not buying it.

[00:46:55] No, I'm not. People are paid way more than us to come up with this shit. Andre. I don't know, man. I don't see anything on here that like denotes hot. I, by the way, I like that. The Caesar, the little Caesar is like inside of a boat of mango. He's inside of a mango boat and he's like chomping on a piece of pizza. Okay. Regardless of anything else, I got to,

[00:47:24] anything else I think about these chain pizza companies, I think the little Caesar's guy is a very solid mascot design. I got to say he's very good. He's very, very good. Have you ever seen the San Diego Padres swinging fryer? He's like swinging the bat. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of reminds me of that. Yeah. Yes. I've seen them. All right. Okay. I, I, I thumbs up from us. Thumbs up from me. Yeah. Kevin,

[00:47:54] if you ever get, yeah, if you ever get to try this, definitely try it. Anyone out there. Yeah. I don't know if it was, I was actually, okay. Full disclosure to the audience. I actually bought two of these cause I was expecting this to be good. I had a good feeling about it. So I got two from little Caesar. So now I can enjoy this one and have another one later. Go me, go me in the past. Oh, well, I don't think I'm going to rush back the very long distance to get another one,

[00:48:24] but good pun. I'm not a, Oh, I'm not going to mango rushed. Mango rush to little Caesars for more, but I'm not regretting the trip I made. It's fine. It's good. Yeah. Good stuff. Thank you. Little Caesars. I didn't think we'd be back to this so soon, but it's another segment of what the fuck is Microsoft doing?

[00:48:54] Tariff edition. Because all video game news is tariffs. Now, Microsoft figured they needed to bring some of that energy here, announcing on May 1st, that effective immediately consoles, games, and accessories will all be receiving price increases with console prices in particular grazing. 25% bumps, upcoming Xbox published games, getting 79,

[00:49:19] 99 MSRPs and the Xbox elite controller hitting $200. What are we doing? What are they doing? Steve? I think you need to say the big one in actual numbers. The Xbox series X is going to be $600, $600 for a series X.

[00:49:48] I can't believe the words I just said into this microphone, but Andre, the switch to with Mario cart bundle is only $500. No shit. You don't say everybody, huh? Maybe. Okay. Do you want to start there with the Nintendo shit or actually? No, I don't. Okay. Let me say this. Let me address you first, Microsoft, because this is Steve. This has been the strangest console generation of all time. Hasn't it?

[00:50:19] It's been weird. Easily. And that's for a lot of reasons, right? That y'all know, but I don't think I ever had on my bingo card, Microsoft raising the price of series X by a hundred bucks, a system. Nobody is buying a system. Nobody is buying a system that they themselves devalued the hell out of with game pass and putting everything on PC.

[00:50:46] You made your own system. You made your own system worthless. You made your system have nothing to itself by design, and now you're going to jack it up for, for who? Who's going to buy this? I can't imagine. Because, you know, when I'm shopping game consoles, I'm thinking, man, I love the idea of an Xbox, but it needs to cost more. I just,

[00:51:20] I'm going to have another sip of mango rush. You say something. I'm sorry. There were a handful of takes online saying Nintendo did this to us. They charged $500 for the switch to an $80 for the Mario cart world game. And they made this. Okay. Ah, Oh, please. But Andre just pointed out all this shits on the shelves already. It's,

[00:51:47] it's lining this shit at Walmarts and targets across the country. And we're all eyeballing switch to, right? Everyone's looking at that. I would think before they look at why, why, why would you think that's going to move the needle when I don't, don't you want to get this stuff out of here? They, they're not, they're already losing shelf. Didn't like Walmart kick out Xbox essentially. Didn't that happen like a year ago?

[00:52:14] Target was moving things out of a lot of stores around Christmas time. So like, at least out here. God damn. Like, by the way, and you, you're obviously saying it sarcastically because we both feel the same on this, but can people cut it the fuck out with the Nintendo ruin video game prices type of bullshit? Like nobody made anybody do anything. except their own greedy ass selves. Like at the,

[00:52:43] at the risk of sounding like one of those Republicans right now, he keeps talking like, Hmm, maybe a little girl only needs three or four dolls instead of 17 or whatever they're saying about tariffs right now, all that bullshit that they can stuff up their own fucking ass. I am really sick of the attitude people have where they think they're allowed a certain price for video games. There are a million video games out there that are not $80. Go buy one of those.

[00:53:13] If you don't like the price, show them that you don't like the price by not buying it. And then they will fail. That's how all commerce works. Since the beginning of time, we wait for the price. We feel is fair. And then we buy it. $80 games. It's the same shit. Steve, if borderlands four comes out and it's $80, I'm not buying it. If, if grand turismo eight comes out and it's 80 bucks, I'm not buying it. Right? I am buying Mario cart world.

[00:53:43] Yes. I'm getting it as part of a bundle, but if I didn't, yes, I would buy that. That's one game. I'm not paying $80 for Mario party. I'm not, I mean, and I know this sounds ridiculous, but I'm, I'm not joking. I'm also not paying $80 for donkey Kong bonanza. And it's not, it's $70. Right? So I just don't, I just don't get it. I'm not sure why people can't just sit down and be like, well, I don't want to pay that. And then go among their, go among their merry way.

[00:54:12] They just feel entitled to like, this should be cheaper because I said, so that is not how any of these corporations learn their lesson. Well, we already know they're not learning their lesson because earlier today, and it was mostly sound bites. If we're being real, Sony came out and was like, Hmm, we better, we think we got to start learning about tariffs too. And maybe we'll start making Sony's PlayStation fives in the USA soon. Because, you know, those are things. Firstly, no one's doing that. No,

[00:54:42] no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, No. No. We're never going to do that. We haven't, Steve, we haven't done that our whole lives. I remember in the nineties when I was too young to understand why people were talking about China that way. Everyone was talking about overseas manufacturing back then. Even that was 30 years ago, man. It's never coming back. Not in our lifetime. No. Although at the same time, I'm for no particular reason at all.

[00:55:10] I'm remembering a very long time ago. Now, when the Wii U came out, you know, that system Andre doesn't like to remember exists. Nope. That Christmas. And even the next one where there were a bunch of PS three and three 60 bundles for all age groups that were just priced to fucking move. If you were the right person. And I'm remembering going to the store on occasion, like not even then, like just any old time where we're seeing a circular when they themselves just going, look, if you buy the system right fucking now,

[00:55:40] we'll give you last year's Madden and these other games. We can't fucking move to save our lives. Yeah. My point being is that a lot's changed in this fucking decade. Yeah. It feels like we're hoarding on to all this stuff that no one, no one's taken. Yeah. But they think like raising the price. They think like pricing us out of everything is going to fix it. Dude. It's just like the fast food industry the last few years,

[00:56:09] which we are very acquainted with because we're fat. Yeah. Like we, we've seen it the whole time. They rate everyone jacks all the prices to affinity. We stopped going. They're diehard fans. Basically, we stopped going and then they learn like, Hey guys, why don't you come back with these great deals? Yeah. The things we went to you for in the first place, because the diner is somehow cheaper than a big Mac. Yeah. I mean, good God,

[00:56:39] man. So the video games are going to learn their lesson too. There are going to be a lot of companies who are going to learn a hard lesson. I find out they are not Nintendo and they cannot charge $80 for their game. And Nintendo knows they're not Nintendo because they're only charging $80 for one game. That's it. You know what? That's what also pisses me off about this entire thing is that we know the prices of two Nintendo games, Mario Kart world and Donkey Kong bonanza.

[00:57:08] One's $80 and one $70. We don't know the price of anything else yet. We have no idea. And we're making all these assumptions about it. I think Kirby is going to be 70 bucks. And I think that's the other thing too. It's like, we sort of know what the upgrade path, the switch to edition ones are sort of looking like. And it's like, you can't base it on that either. Really? I don't know. Yeah. It's crazy.

[00:57:38] It's almost like they're going to do it on a game by game basis instead of a blanket price for everything, because that hasn't been viable in a while now. Guys, I fucking lied. Uh-oh. Video game news isn't all about tariffs. What?

[00:58:06] It's also about picking on the switch to for stuff. It didn't do yet. Basically the latest edition of the end user license agreement. We'll call it the EU LA for here out because you know, come on, I'm not, I'm not a machine. I would say EULA. Yeah, we'll do that. The EULA. Yeah. It includes phrasing that if they detect pirated, modified, altered, or, you know, just shit that shouldn't be there in terms of software from their end, while it's connected to the network,

[00:58:33] they reserve the right to render your system unusable from their end. Brick it. Yeah. Andre, I got a level with you. This doesn't feel too terribly different from the past where, you know, the back of the manual that no one ever read told you that pirating games is bad and against the intention of the machines and may have things not work right. Are the kids really out here hoping Nintendo goes, here you go, kids, please just modify our machine the way,

[00:59:00] however the fuck you want for only 450 us dollars. I, this is a weird one for me because what are you going to do with a switch to that you modified that you can't do with any other system you already have, including the basic bitch switch? Is it to play like put maim on there or something or emulators? Yeah, you can do that with the seam deck. You can do that with a switch already, right?

[00:59:31] Is it to play homebrew stuff? Well, you can like do that already, right? What's the thing? Tell me what the thing is. Oh, you want to play switch to games for free. That's what you want, isn't it? We all know it. That's the only reason why you would want to mod a switch to at this interval. I mean, look, you know, I mean, I, I always sound like a corporate slave or something when I say shit like this, but like,

[00:59:59] you just can't like, they're just not going to let you do that. I don't know. Like if you do that to your system and you connect online, they catch you. You deserve what you get. In my opinion, like if you get caught too fucking bad for you, you know, they don't like that shit. How about mod something that or, or run stuff that's, you know, sketchy on something where they don't care, like a steam deck. If you want to do it on switch too,

[01:00:29] you're playing fast and loose with it. So sorry. Don't really have any sympathy. I don't know. I think I'm just surrounded by children. This just, just feels like it anyway. How? Okay. You just gave me a rational response, but with all of them, it was like, no, I own this machine. They shouldn't be able to tell me what to do with it.

[01:00:55] I want to use this to create weapons of mass destruction and fire them at the white house. I don't know why people can't understand that running stuff like that on their network and connected to the network is kind of not cool. You just can't do stuff like that. If you don't, if you get, you can do whatever you want with your machine, but you can't connect to whoever's network you want unless you play by their rules. That's all there is to it.

[01:01:25] I think it was. Yeah. Friend of the show. Rodan was online the other day saying that's the number one rule of modding your thing. Don't conduct it to the fucking network. Yeah. Just don't do it. If you want to, if you want to download stuff from the e-shop, then guess what? Sorry. Like they're not just going to let you do that shit. I don't know what the big deal is. It doesn't sound like you were too interested in that anyway. If you're going to mod it, who said that?

[01:01:55] Well, you only want one thing. If you're going to mod a switch to right away, you only want one thing. So I, again, no, no sympathy for me. So Capcom had a financial report recently that said a whopping 90% of their video game sales are digital. Steve, 90%. Like even in this day and age, that's a crazy ass number.

[01:02:23] And even if you want to cut out the PC numbers, which are obviously entirely digital at this point, and obviously skewing this overall number, their console sales by themselves are 78% digital. That's nuts to me. So I guess here's the question. While understanding that Capcom sales are not necessarily reflective of the industry as a whole, right? That's just Capcom.

[01:02:48] You still have to wonder what's going to be the final number of this situation. Steve, like what, when it's all said and done, maybe in the next, I don't know, by the end of this generation where we're so well entrenched in the digital age where the people who are going to buy digital by digital, the people are only going to buy physical by physical. And then, and then there's people like me who occasionally have a disc year or there. So what, what do you, what do you think?

[01:03:16] What's the end game of these numbers? Is this about, have we plateaued already or is this going to keep going more and more digital? I think other things are getting more and more digital already. I know switch to is already forcing our hand a bit because all the initial third party offerings are offering the game key cards instead of actual game cards. I have mixed feelings about those. To be fair,

[01:03:43] I'm getting slightly increasingly digital on my own self. And what is myself, if not a Capcom liker who likes physical products? Do you have a physical miles edge worth? I do have a physical miles miles edge worth. Hmm. See, and that's the kind of thing I would like a physical for, but a good chunk of my other Capcom purchases are increasingly digital. And I'm not talking about just talking about,

[01:04:10] where Mega Man legacy sets had like halves of them on codes. Capcom gets generous with sales, you know, especially the ones coming up in a month where we're like, yeah, maybe that's why they're so digital though. Huh? Cause Capcom always has good sales. I mean, that's why I said they're not indicative of the industry as a whole, but it's not just those. I mean, monster hunter rise. That's a big fancy online game that I didn't really want to fumble with a card for.

[01:04:37] So I bought that digital at launch on my switch, all these fighting game collections. I already brought up street fighter six is launching on switch to on a pretend game card. But even if it had a real one with all the updates and things, it's still due to get, I'm going to get a digital copy of that at launch. But those are things with heavy, well, not heavy, but you know, at least somewhat online components that I'd rather just, you know, load on and not fumble around with game cards for things like,

[01:05:06] you know, the more prestigious sounding titles, like the resident evils and the ace attorneys. I still like getting a nice disc or game card for go figure. I, you know, I'm just going to be me like that, but, but something like animal crossing. And I bought that digitally because I knew, okay, I'm going to be playing this every day for a while. So, and we did, well, we didn't know we'd be stuck in our houses for months, but you know, we, we definitely did.

[01:05:37] I mean, we all know there's going to be a Neo new horizons coming to switch too. And I'm sure I'll buy that digitally too. If they just make it 60, 60 frames a second. I mean, I I'm there. I'll upgrade. Just give me 60, cure the pop in and give me 60. That's literally all I want, man. Now I don't know if I can do that. I feel like I put that played that game to death, but I mean, like, I'll, I, at least I'm not saying I'll get like fully back into it, but at least I'll beat, like,

[01:06:05] I'll do more like happy home designer or whatever it's called. I like doing that stuff. Oh yeah. Happy home designer. Maybe I'll go back in and finish that. I did a number of, oh man, I really enjoyed the ones where you, of course, because food where you have to make like a whole kitchen or dining room and shit. Oh baby. Sign me up. Good. Great shit. Anyway. Um, I get what you're saying. I was kind of like that at first too. Um, with early in the PS4 era,

[01:06:32] I would buy all my games physical because like, you know, the P of the original basic bitch, like launch PS4 only had like 500 gigs. Only I say, right. Which got filled up pretty quickly. So, you know, if this game's 50 and this game's 15, this is just like, I only have like some games on there and then I'm done. So then I started, I think with like destiny, I started, I got that digital. Then I just started really making the switch.

[01:07:02] You know, I just started buying everything digital after that mostly. Um, but here's what I would love to know. So like 78% digital for Capcom. So that's 22% physical. How many of those 22% of people are like the die hard, annoying, physical people. I will only buy things on a desk. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is that like 5%? Cause I don't think that's very many people. I don't think so either because I was die hard, physical blah, blah,

[01:07:32] blah, blah either. But even I was like, well, this game is only $5. If I get it digitally and I'm not made of money. So bye. Yeah. So I wonder like, I would imagine most people are like me. We're mostly digital. Nine times out of 10, but Hey, if I'm walking around Walmart and I see some game I want for 10 bucks, I'll get it. You know, like I'm not a, I don't need to have everything digital.

[01:08:03] So, and also I like getting gifts from people who send me games. So it's nice to have a physical way to do that. So really they should just bring back gifting. Cause like steam is like the only way you can give people stuff. Now I can't believe the original ass. We was the only system I had that lets you just send a digital gift to somebody on your friend list. You could send. So like before Sony got mad at Amazon,

[01:08:32] you could buy, or not just Amazon, but everyone, you could buy digital code for PS4 games on Amazon and other places. And then Sony cracked way down on it by like 2018, 19, you couldn't do it anymore. So like, if I wanted to give someone a digital gift of a game on PS4, you could do it that way. But obviously it's less convenient, right? Because like, at least on steam, you know, if they have the game already, so you're not getting them something, you already know what they have and you can see their wishlist. So get them something on their wishlist,

[01:09:02] right? It's just so much easier to make that process completely on the shop itself. Yeah. I was going to say, I can buy switch codes. I mean, I already went through my, another code story. However, a while ago where, you know, the guy was like, we got your codes here. Like, yeah, thanks. Right. But, you know, I guess just to cap this off, like it's what you were saying about the game key cards on switch too. And the fact that like, I don't know, you buy a game,

[01:09:31] like the division two or what just came out, doom of the dark ages. And like, you put it in and you have to download a whole other 50 to 70 gigs. So like how physical is that game? Really? You know, like we're just way past this stuff, I think. And guys switch was already kind of doing that anyway, but don't tell anyone. Yeah. Like, I mean, like I know square did it for rebirth for the novelty on two discs, right?

[01:10:00] Here's the data disc. And then here's the disc you play off of. Like, I get it, but they only did that just so that people can be like, Oh, remember back in the day, they can also afford to do that. Okay. Well, I also only paid like 23 bucks for my copy. So yeah, but you played it months and months after. So, Hey folks, Hey, doesn't that sound like a great idea to pay $23 for a game that you want to play instead of 80.

[01:10:29] So maybe stop bitching about it and wait till it gets to a price. You want to be done. All right, Steve, let's play a game before we get out of here. Huh? It's just the two of us. So typically I would, I've never played a game before in my life. Ever?

[01:10:59] No, dude. Okay. Well, you're going to have fun. This is really, I mean, I'm really popping your cherry here. So you typically, this is something we do with, with Kevin is here and you guys kind of collaborate on like a family feud style. Like he'll name all the things on the list, right? This is just a list for you. Okay. For me, just for you. All right. This is how I know you never played games before, but this is how it works. So let's populate the board.

[01:11:31] Here's what I want you to do. And there's no time limit here, but just like, uh, if you were watching that show called family feud, which is totally not based off of three strikes and you're out. Okay. Typically if you and Kevin are here, I give you two strikes each. And since it's just you, I'm just going to give you three. All right. And so I'm choosing this topic because switch to is almost here. And that means switch is going out the door. One of the best systems of all time.

[01:11:59] It's had a great run and it's hold a ton of software. And Nintendo had their probably their last financials before switch to comes out. And they updated their top sellers list as they usually do. So what I want you to do, Steve, I want to see how many of the top 20 best selling switch games of all time. You can name. Okay. Again, this is no, this is no, uh, time limit or anything. This is not the 45 second game. No need to sweat.

[01:12:30] So you can sit there and think, and I know you're going to get a number of these right away, obviously. So whenever you're ready to start naming them, let's get number one out of the way. Mario cart eight, the Lux market, eight, the Lux. That's number one. Of course. Okay. Now we're going to start having a hard time. The other 19 is you have nary a clue. I'm not nary a clue, but, uh, you know,

[01:13:00] now we have to think about it a little bit. Animal crossing new horizons. There we go. That's number two. Can you name them all in order? Can you keep doing that? You got probably market. Okay. Come on. Mario cart eight deluxe animal crossing new horizons. Number two. What's number three. Come on. Number three. Oh God. Come on. Uh, there's no fucking way it's Pokemon, Scarlet and Violet. That is not number three,

[01:13:29] but obviously it's on here. Scarlet and Violet is number six. No, number six, huh? Yep. Pokemon sword and shield. That is number seven. Oh, it beat it. Good for them. Yeah. Barely. They're just, wait, wait, wait, boycott that everybody. Wow. I know. Wait, great boycott. Great. Excellent. Boycott. Yeah. Yeah. Outsold the other one. Great. Great boycott on Harry Potter. Everybody.

[01:13:58] That's only sold 30 million copies. Oh, Oh my God. What's come on? Basic bitch. Nintendo. Yeah, I know. Super Mario Odyssey. Number five. Legends of Zelda. Breath of the Wild. Number four. Legend of Zelda. Tears of the Kingdom. Number eight.

[01:14:29] You still haven't got number three. I'm probably not gonna. Yeah, we have, we have one through eight except for three. I'm trying to remember the subtitle of, of what, what it is. It's a, Oh God. We'll just, we'll just move on. New Super Mario Brothers. You. I was, I was going to be an asshole. I hesitated there. So it's going to be an asshole and make you say deluxe, but yes, new Super Mario Brothers.

[01:14:58] You deluxe. That's number 10. Number 10. Jesus Christ. Yeah. Oh boy. How many do I have so far? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. You have eight. Eight. You have like eight of the top 10 here, except for three and nine. Then you got a bottom 10. Pokemon legends. Arceus.

[01:15:28] That is on here somewhere. Let me find it. That is number 16. All right. At 14.8 million sold. Arceus. I met, I was actually kind of surprised to see it on here. I didn't think it sold that much. It was real hot for our time. I'm sure this Pokemon. Let's go with Pikachu and Navy.

[01:15:55] That's number 14 at 15 million sold. Yeah. That just moves. Yeah, that did. I mean, even I bought that. Like I bought that one. So I think they're still selling that somehow. Yeah. I even had the Pokeball and everything. It was fun. Yeah. You didn't like it? It was fine. Okay. Oh boy. Number three. Number three.

[01:16:25] Number three. On the list is what Steve? Yeah. I want to say it's Mario party. Super Mario party. Super Mario party is number nine. Okay. So that's it. So you do have the top 10 now, except for three. Except for three. Yep. It's don't think too. Um, the third best selling switch game.

[01:16:56] I mean, you don't have to focus on it too hard. I'm sure you'll, I'm sure you'll get around to it. I mean, there's plenty of other things to name on here. Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. Uh, we want number three. We want number three. Super smash brothers. Ultimate.

[01:17:26] That's number three, buddy. Finally. Yeah. Yeah. We got the top 10. Yeah. We logged in a bazillion hours into it. That's all. That's all. So you got what? Let me count here. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12. Here. You have eight more to go. Eight more. You know, you're doing it. You don't have any misses yet. You know, you got 12 of them. That's pretty scary. I don't think that's more scary than not having them.

[01:17:55] I mean, come on, man. I'm sure. I think, I think this finally got, I think this finally got bumped off. Pokemon, brilliant, diamond, shining, pearl. Why? That's number. Made it to 20. Yeah. That's all 15, buddy. 15. I thought that got bumped off. Nah, it's here. If you get all 20 of these without missing, I'm going to shit myself. I'm going to shit my pants on the air. Oh my fucking God. Come on. You're doing great. Come on.

[01:18:27] Switch sports. What? That's number, that's number 11. That high. Yeah. It's 16.2 million, dude. That's great. I mean, like much to Kevin surprise every time we talk about it, but. Oh, come on, dude. You get your, you're killing it right now. Everyone's rooting for you. All, all one of you. Oh, we have more than one listener. Well, I mean, they're not,

[01:18:57] they're not listening to me do this right now. Splatoon two. 19 on the list, buddy. So still hanging in there. Splatoon two. How many is that now? Well, let's see how many you have left. One, two, three, four, five. You have, you've named 15 of them. What? Okay. Fuck. Uh, you have five more. Come on, dude. Super Mario 3d land plus Bowser's fury.

[01:19:28] What? That's number 20. It's, Hey, it's at the bottom of the list. Come on. You can do. I, I believe, I believe you could name these all. Dude. I was like, okay. Full disclosure before we started. I was like, if you get 15, I'm like, okay, that's pretty goddamn good. I swear to God, I wasn't looking up any of this. No, I, I believe, I mean, come on, man, you, you got, I mean, I'm going by things I heard in the past, but I wasn't even looking at these.

[01:19:59] Oh, fuck. Four more, man. Four more, four more. I mean, looking at the ones that are left, I, I don't think any of them are out of reach for you. It's just a matter of man. Okay. I mean, I guess I'll just say this. There's no, there's no third party games here. Obviously there's no, it's, this is all.

[01:20:29] I figured it wasn't going to be. Yeah. This is all basic Nintendo bitch shit. Fuck it. I, I, what am I going to, how much of a loss can I really have at this point? Legend of Zelda links awakening. Yep. That is not on here. I know that sold pretty damn good, but not, not quite enough to make. Yeah. Not, not top 20. So, I mean, I'll give you this a 3d world plus Boucher's Fury sold 13.4 million. That's number 20. So I got, I got, I got to think high. Yeah. Think high.

[01:20:59] Cause there's already a bunch of things I'm saying that aren't that high. Yeah. So, yeah. So no, I mean, obviously, you know, no Mario maker two or no, like no fire emblem, three houses. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing that sold in the five to 10 million range is going to be here. Yeah. So I believe in you. I don't. Come on. You only got one miss and you got what? Four more to go. Come on.

[01:21:32] What else came out? Too many games. The Nintendo switch has games. They sure do. They sure does. Splatoon three. Yeah. It was like number 21 or two. It was like barely, like barely. I know it's like pushing. Yeah. I was barely not there. You're that, but that was a really good guess though. Honestly, like, so,

[01:22:02] Hey, all right. You got, you got, you got, you look, man, you got four and you still have one miss left. You got, may as well go for broke. Are you okay? Buster Wolf. Mario tennis superstores. Mario tennis aces. Aces. Yeah. Mario tennis aces. I think only sold a couple million. Okay. That's the end of the game. Let me get out the red pin.

[01:22:32] Let me, let me mark off the four that, Hey man, you got 16 out of 20. I, I, that's again, I thought if you had gotten 15, that would have been fucking excellent, but you did better than that. So here's the four that you were missing at number 12. It's a 2d platformer. Very, very, very celebrated 2d platformer in the Nintendo library. That's not Mario. You deluxe,

[01:23:00] but maybe the evolution of that. Cause everyone was tired of that. We want a new 2d Mario baby. You mean wonder sold that much. Yeah. Wonder sold. Uh, what is it here? 16 million copies sold for wonder. Good for them. Yeah. I thought that I figured that was going to be like 21 or some shit. Right below that is a Rona classic. At number 13. It wasn't just animal crossing.

[01:23:28] It was something else that caught on during the Rona for switch. And everyone started buying it to get in shape. Ring fit adventure. Oh, right. Yeah. Ring fit adventure. Number 13. And then, um, number 17 for me, probably the biggest surprise hit of the whole switch time period. It's one of the first things we talked about on our creative, previous creative endeavor. Cause it just came out at that time.

[01:23:57] On October 19. That had been like 10 years since the second one. That was, what was it? I am. Uh, so it was, it was Luigi's mansion three, Luigi's mansion three. Oh, right. Fuck. Yeah. Yeah. Then that's right. That, that, that keeps selling too. It's like, that's like, let's go. It just keeps. Yep. That just keeps bumping up too. You named one Mario party. What's the other one?

[01:24:28] It's not jamboree. That's what they're calling the new one. That's too new. Obviously Mario party superstars. That's that's that's that number 18 with 14 million dude. You fucking killed it. That's really good. 16 out of 20. Can't fuck with it. Honestly, I keep forgetting. I keep forgetting. Luigi's mansion three is like the popular one now. Yeah. Isn't that crazy? I just never thought. Anyway, thanks for playing our game.

[01:24:58] All right. I want to get out of here. You done? You done with the video games? Yeah. Might as well. All right. All right. Thanks guys for joining us. Thanks. Thank you. Little Caesars for providing us with the Mountain Dew mango rush. Isn't that what people say when they have sponsors? Right? Yeah, but we had to buy our own. Oh, we had to buy our own. So thank you. Little Caesars for letting us buy our own Mountain Dew mango rush. And check the description of this podcast. To find our links on social media.

[01:25:28] And we'll see you next time. Bye. You've been listening to. Bye. Bye. Bye.