Episode 200: 33 Immortals - Death Spin

[00:00:09] Welcome to Gaming Together A Cooperative Podcast, I'm your host Phillip and I'm here with my co-op partner Nave. Each pod we play through a cooperative experience and relate to you the listener. If this game is a crème de la crème of a co-op or something better off playing solo. Hey Nave, what's poppin'? Not much. I'm tired. My uh, so I got pretty schwacked last night. Yeah I can tell. On some yinglings. Yeah I was sad posting in the group chat.

[00:00:34] Um, and I probably went to bet, I just stayed up all night playing chess, you know? So that makes you, that makes you sad. That makes you really tumultuous. Yeah, it seems like you're worse as time goes on and then it just gets sadder. Well the bet, the thing is, is that um, there, so I, I could see all the games I played last night. It's like League of Legends, you know, you can see your match history. Yeah. And I actually went 10, 10 wins, 7 losses. So I positive. And I was very drunk towards the end.

[00:01:03] And the last three games I won. So I'm like, I don't know, I might be like some kind of drunk savant. Because I feel like if I'm playing pool or darts, I get better as I get more drunk. Until I can't stand anymore. Obviously I can't play darts anymore if I can't, if I'm unable to stand. Yeah. But like, there's a phenomenon like that, right? Um, yeah. I, I don't know. I think there is a little bit to it, but also, no.

[00:01:33] I don't know. Well, I, I bet I was emo post cause I had three losses back to back and I bet that's whenever I was like, Oh, I'm sad guys. Okay. I'm worthless. Yeah. You post a sad message in the group chat. And then I just reply, you know, stop drinking nerd, go to sleep. Yeah. I probably did go to sleep pretty soon after that. Yeah. Uh, well this is the thing. So I probably went to bed at like four or five. Right. And then at 10 AM, I wake up to, I think my dog's fighting.

[00:02:03] I don't know what the sound was, but like Molly was freaking the fuck out and Luna was under the table. Like as soon as I came in, like I woke up screaming, like stop.

[00:02:14] I ran into the living room and Molly's just in the middle of the room, like whining, like making loud, scared noises. And Luna's already preemptively hiding from me. And so I was like, at first I was like, man, I think they fought that sucks. But then I'm like, I don't know, because Molly doesn't have any like wetness on her. Like, it's not like they were like biting each other or anything.

[00:02:38] And Luna didn't seem angry. Molly didn't seem angry. Cause you know, when dogs are like angry, right? Like Molly wasn't like angry. So I'm like, I think she was probably like laying on the dog bed. And then Luna was up on the couch, which is directly above the dog bed. And I think Luna just got up and dropped down on top of her. She Mario stomped him. Yeah. And did the fucking stone cold backbreaker or whatever. Um, but that horrified me. And so I'm running off of that adrenaline, which is to say two hours of

[00:03:07] sleep and I'm hung over. So not much has changed. This is a normal, normal recording day. Well, we're actually recording a little bit early cause we weren't supposed to meet until like 6 PM in like five hours. But I messaged you yesterday to get you on the game to be like, I will, I'm ready to game when you are. And you then reply this morning with I'm ready. And I'm like, Oh, I guess, I guess he's referring to the pod. And that wasn't this morning. I guess it's morning for you, but okay. So what it, it says 1239 AM.

[00:03:37] And I thought it was PM. I just saw 12 and I was like, Oh, I guess he wants to play again, whatever. And then you interpreted that as, I guess he wants to do the pod. So I, so I'm over here, I'm over here fucking learning the Ponziani and like, Philip's like sending me links to shit. And I'm like, what the fuck is going on over here? I'll do it after I'll look at that whenever I'm done with these drills. And then I look at it. I'm like, Oh, it's the podcast notes. Okay. Well, the sneak attack podcast notes.

[00:04:07] Yeah. You never know when they're coming. All right. But we are a video game podcast and we're going to be talking about 33 immortals. But before we get there, Nate, let's just check in with the games that we have been playing. What have you been playing? I mean, besides chess, cause that's all I did last night was just a fuckload of that. I didn't even mean to like, it just, I just ended up getting hyper fixated on like learning drills and stuff. There's something about like just doing like homework kind of, you know what

[00:04:36] I mean? That just makes me feel better. I don't know what the fuck that's about. Cause I hated school. I hated, I never did homework, but here I am with my little fucking Japanese workbooks and shit, like listening to people talk about theory. Um, well, I don't know. I think I played, I think I did like the fucking, the best thing I'm ever going to do in chess. Uh, it was like this crazy fucking, like this real wild game. Like, cause you could play matches over days. Right.

[00:05:04] And so I'm playing this one game over a day and he hasn't put, it's a three day timer per move. So he hasn't responded. Yeah. He hasn't responded. And, uh, at first we were just playing back to back, you know what I mean? But as soon as I did this crazy shit, so like he was fucking with me with this queen in the center of the board and, and I had this crazy like attack, I've been trying to take this one pawn all game, all game. And so I eventually I'm like, Oh, I can take the pawn

[00:05:33] with my rook and it will be check and it's protected by my Bishop. But what I didn't know, because I was like, he's just going to take my rook probably. And then I could just kill it with a Bishop. I didn't realize that my queen was pinning his queen to his King on the other side of the board. And so he couldn't even take my rook. So not only could he not take my rook, he was forced to move the King and I got his keep queen for free. And he just stopped there. Like he hasn't

[00:06:00] responded yet. So I think I've got to wait. Yeah. Fucking mastered. But I was like, as soon as that came to that realization, I was like, that's, I'm never doing that again. And that wasn't even my intention was to win the queen that way. But, uh, I, I think that's what, because I've been playing that game for like, well, that game specifically, I've only been playing for a few days, but there was another like game I've been playing for like a week. Right. And I ended up winning that game. So I think I'm just like, I'm getting back into the chess arc is what I'm trying to say.

[00:06:30] Very nice. Very nice. Like I said, I threw out the Ponziani. I really literally am learning the Ponziani as white because I, my first opening I ever learned was the King's Indian with black. And, and, and really I play the modern opening, which is basically the King's Indian anyway, but like just the moves are moved around a little bit, but like, um, that's every fucking opening. I just described every opening, but, um, yeah. And so the Ponziani is a white opening. So I was

[00:06:57] just doing the London, but I didn't really ever study it. I just knew like generally what my pieces were supposed to, where my pieces were supposed to go. Dude, the Ponziani is cool. Cause it has like all these crazy fucking opening traps and shit like that. But I'm literally just memorizing lions at this point. And I'm just like, it's the only way it's just like, it is, it's the same as Japanese, like learning kanji. You just have to memorize it. Like there's no other way.

[00:07:22] Well, step one, you have to learn the notation or is it something else that you actually like memorize? No, you don't, you don't need to learn notation. It's like, I'm using this thing called Chessly and it's basically Duolingo for chess. And it's made by the, the Gotham chess guy, like the most popular, like chess YouTuber or whatever. You've probably, I've probably shown you some of his videos. Um, so that's where I'm learning, uh, all of this stuff from. And, uh, apparently the Ponziani is just a good opening for beginners because there's just

[00:07:52] so many sneaky, slimy traps inside of it that people will fall for. But that's the thing. It's like some of the things that you have to do and it just seem unintuitive. And so when I'm drilling, I'm just staring at the board and I have to just be like, I just, I just literally, I'm like, okay, move five Ponziani push Ponziani retreat. Like I'm literally like making up nicknames for the moves so that I can just fucking remember what I need to do.

[00:08:21] I'm like, whenever this, when this pawn moves punish the diagonal, like I'm just fucking talking to myself, like I'm playing Yu-Gi-Oh in the anime. Dude, that's literally what I do to solve a Rubik's cube. I'm over there going like, you got to open the garage door, send it to the back of the garage, bring it back out of the garage, send it to the other back of the garage. And then you see the prey, the alligator comes out of the water, grabs

[00:08:46] the prey, drags it back under the water. And that's how I like move the pieces. Yeah. Or it's like, this is the eagle. The eagle swoops, picks up the prey and then carries it over to the other side of the cube. Because it's all about like bringing pieces together and then placing them where you need them. And it's just shit like that. Just imagining a caveman hearing us talk. Like just hearing these words being talked to.

[00:09:13] No, it's funny because like that is literally almost like, I don't know, war tactics or caveman strategy of just like, this is a abstract like puzzle we're solving, but we're trying to put real world terms on it so we can understand it better. I think I understand. I don't know what the fuck's going on. Luna stalking Molly. That's great. Good. Ready to pounce. Yeah. Just swallow Molly whole. Nope. Nope. Anyways.

[00:09:43] The Yoshi sound. Wow. Yeah, there you go. It sounded like that. Yeah. So I'm playing, I played a fuckload of chess. I'm also replaying Signalis, which is sad. No wonder I'm sad. Like I just played, I just beat Conscript, which I don't know if you've listened to that episode, Phillip. I actually reviewed the game like for real. Like I didn't, I didn't just read the wiki.

[00:10:10] Like I was like, I remember this happening and this is how it made me feel. And then that was like for 20 minutes, a whole review. So incredible. No, I haven't listened to it. I've been very busy lately. You've got to play that game Conscript. I think it's very good. Unfortunately, it's expensive. So wait, wait for it to not be expensive. You don't got to tell me twice.

[00:10:33] But Signalis, I'm replaying that. I'm like almost to the halfway point. And that's obviously just going to get slid up into S tier. Everybody already knows. So it's no surprise. Oh, Conscript, I put in B right under Yakuza. So Signalis, one scene that I keep thinking about a lot anytime I do think about it is the beach scene.

[00:10:56] Probably like the first time you go to the beach. Yeah, I feel like I spent a lot of time on the beach, but there's really not much to do there. Yeah, I think that one spoke to me the most. I think those scenes are timed. So no matter what you do, there's a time limit. And so they put like pieces of paper for you to read. I'm sure you've seen those. But like, you can just like, there's this cool, there's this cool like little hole that I never noticed.

[00:11:26] I've been in this game like seven times and I never noticed there's a hole in one of the rocks. And if you look under there, the king and yellow is in there, like the book that you find at the beginning of the game. I was like, oh, that's fucking cool. Oh, dude. Okay, so I'm playing this. I'm playing this for somebody. They're watching me play. And I found a room I had never seen before. And I'm like, I don't think this was here before. Like, yeah, like there's an update that like so there's this dark room and a bunch of fuckers are in there.

[00:11:54] And there's really nothing in there. And I always just kind of avoided it. But at the back of the room on the ground, there is like a fucking trap door that goes into the vents. And there is an Android in there like looking at the computer and there's a piece of paper that explains like a lot of shit. And I'm just like, holy fuck. I'm like, this is the first time I've ever seen this because you could just run past it every time. So really cool. Very cool. But Signalos is great.

[00:12:25] What I decided to start playing today, I don't know. I just my sadness was calling me to play something that was meaningful. You know what I mean? But I don't. So I know a lot of people really hold Death Stranding. I don't know if I've said the name yet. It's Death Stranding. PlayStation podcast. So we I've heard a lot of people talk about Death Stranding in high regards. Like people either are like, this is really stupid or they are. It's a complete work of art. And there's like no real in between.

[00:12:54] And I'm unfortunately going to inform everyone that I think I'm leaning towards the this is art. Because I'm so captivated by whatever the fuck is happening. I don't know what's happening. I've only gotten to the end of the I did the prologue and I'm doing like the first mission in the first chapter where you take like a body to the. Do you know anything about Death Stranding? You've played this, right? No, I haven't played it.

[00:13:22] But that's the one where you drink Monster Energy Drink and then you can see your dong in the shower. They they patched out the Monster Energy Drink, unfortunately. Oh, no. Yeah. Now it's like Genero Drink or whatever. I don't know. But I yeah. So I haven't done a whole lot. But there's this really weird thing. This isn't really a spoiler. But one of the big plot points of the game is that dead bodies like basically nuclear explode.

[00:13:49] And you and you have to cremate them within like 48 hours or they blow up. And like that's like one of the first things that happens in the game is that a fucking body blows up and destroys the city that you're in or whatever. Or like a little village that you live outside of. And you're of course you're Norman Reedus carrying a Norman fetus around. And it's it's interesting. I literally just got the baby and then my my subway sandwich got door dashed. And so I was like, oh, yes. Delicious. Baby would be far in the game, but I guess not.

[00:14:18] No, I mean, it's like two hours in. But so you do some you do some wandering around. And then I got the I got the little baby. I don't know. I don't know what's going on. I was going to ask. So I assume there's something metaphysical going on with something about the dead bodies when they die. The souls go nuclear or something. Right. Yeah. Well, so there's this thing called the death.

[00:14:43] It's like Mass Effect where the, you know, it's like, yeah, it's the death stranding is what is like the thing that. Like life and death have merged together. And so and so it's like the I guess they used to be separate. What are you doing? She's trying to get to the toquitos. Oh, by the way. So, you know, my dogs, you know, they fought or whatever. So if they did fight, they fought over those taquitos because I left the taquito. I got drunk.

[00:15:11] I cooked an entire box of taquitos, only ate about half of them and left the other half sitting on the ottoman in the middle of my living room. And when I came in, when I came in, they're all still there. Or I cooked all of them, didn't eat any, and they ate half of them and then started fighting over the rest. I'm not sure. But I choose to. You'll find them later when they're shitting themselves. I gave them some, though. I was like, you know, as a reward for not eating them all. Gave them a couple of them each.

[00:15:40] Oh, and it was so adorable because I gave one to Molly and she put her paws together and like the stick, it was like sticking straight up perpendicular from the ground. And she was just like eating on it with her paws. Yeah, I was like, oh. And then as soon as I got my phone and my camera turned on, she dropped it and just started eating it normally. So I don't know. My dogs just know when the camera is on them about to take a picture because they just fuck it up. They're like, no. No good picture for you.

[00:16:11] All right. So what do you think Death Stranding is trying to teach you so far or explain about the human condition and what it means to be connected to others? So Norman Reedus has a phobia of being touched. And so I think he's going to want to be touched by the end of the game. You know what I mean? He's going to be like, I like the embrace of people. You know what I mean? Stuff like that.

[00:16:39] But it's kind of like so like in Pirate Yakuza, when you meet the kid, he tells you the story. He's like, my grandpa fought a giant squid. And this is the remains of it's like a little sucker of its of its city. And I'm like, oh, I'm going to fight a giant squid at the end of this game. And then, yeah, that is what happens. It's like that. So I'm like, OK, Norman Reedus is probably going to start opening up. He's like he's like a hermit at the beginning of the game.

[00:17:03] So now, now, now, Nate, that's like saying that, oh, when you're playing near like near is about killing the bad guys, right? The bad robots, because you're a good robot. It's hard to it's hard because like I don't know what's a spoiler in that game anymore, because you know what I mean? All this really game is so in like there's so much going on that I don't want to spoil it for people.

[00:17:29] And I don't even want to accidentally start talking and then not know I spoiled something to people need to play near. He's God. Oh, well, yes, I was referring to near out of tomorrow, not near near. But for games I've been playing, I'm still been playing dot hack slash slash G last recode the collection of the PS2 games.

[00:17:53] I finished the first one, Rebirth, which I thought was funny, is that I didn't know the word Rebirth until I played Rebirth. And then maybe you send me the stupid God's Wrath card in Japanese. Oh, yeah. Wrath of God. Yeah. And in it, it has the word Rebirth or like live again or like second life. It's like, oh, I know this one now. Did you see that video? I sent a real, real Japan reel.

[00:18:22] God damn, I hate them so much. Real, real Japan reel to the group chat. Did you see that one? Yeah, I watched it. The happiness and pain. Yeah, looking the same. But it's like when they drew the face around it and he's just like, you know, that's kind of deep. And then he just kept drawing on it. It just made it look worse. Like buck teeth and everything. Yeah. Anyway. Anyway, that's a good. Everyone go look at that real, real Japan shit. I think we've mentioned that like every episode. We're funny guys.

[00:18:53] Which so I'm on the second game in the four that are in the collection. And I don't remember what it's called. It's re something whatever it. I didn't realize the first one was going to end on a cliffhanger, but it did. And I was like, oh, man, they really were leaning into the this is a series thing. Like Mass Effect or whatever. Well, Mass Effect is early on. Your save transfers over and you're the same exact level of the same inventory.

[00:19:23] I assume it's basically the same game. They just added more vocal lines and everything to it. Because you there are new areas, but you still go through the old areas. Okay. So it feels more like a Final Fantasy seven disc two situation than a different game. I miss when games had multiple discs. Like that's probably one of the best feelings getting to disc two in Final Fantasy and like being like, oh, my God.

[00:19:52] Like at the end of the first game of Recode or whatever, like I'm like, oh, you know, things are popping off. Like things are bursting in flames. We have basically just been dicking around for like 15 hours and things are just now like happening because like the whole premise is like, you know, we're playing a video game in a video game. And we got a point where literally no one could log out. And it was like all the players were like trapped in the game.

[00:20:21] And that was like, you know, the big shit's hitting the fan moment. Yeah, they're all sort are online now. Yeah, we you got sort of online. Which is kind of resolve it and things are back to normal. And in the next next disc or whatever, next game, the developers even put out, hey, there's a card game now so you can play triple triad. Only it's called Crimson Versus. And I'm like, I'm not playing this. Yeah, you're right.

[00:20:50] But it was all it was hinted at in the first game. They were like, hey, Crimson Versus, it's coming out soon. Get ready. And I'm like, yeah, OK. And the weird thing about it is it all the cards are based on literally your characters in the game and then characters from the TV show. And I'm like, oh, no one's going to know who these people are if they didn't watch the show or play this game. Yeah, that's kind of the thing with triple triad and Final Fantasy 14. We're like a lot of the shit.

[00:21:18] I'm just like, I've never I've played every Final Fantasy game. I've never seen this person in my life. Who is this guy? Do you ever play the Final Fantasy mobile gacha game? No. Dude, it's weird because they have so many characters. Oh, wait, with a bunch of characters. And yeah, I actually have. I played it a little bit. You're like, oh, man, look, it's lightning and squall. That's badass. And then it's. White Mage Gregory.

[00:21:47] I can hate White Mage Gregory. Yeah, the guy's always on the sidelines. And then you look at it and he has a sprite. He's from Final Fantasy three or something like that. And be like, who? What game? That's kind of did you see the Mario Kart? Nine or ten. I don't know. Mario Kart World. Have you seen like the roster? It's fucking enormous. It's got a cow on it. I saw the cow one. The cow driving the little scooter. And I was like. I'm not getting a switch to it's. It's dead to me.

[00:22:17] I guess we could. The Donkey Kong game looks so cool, though. Does it? It looks it just looks like, you know, how like tears of the kingdom is just breath of the wild. But up. And this game is just Mario Odyssey. But down. Oh, yeah. Because you can you can do the down beat from smash and go through the ground like that. It's like red faction, dude. It looks like red faction. Legit. I didn't even watch the whole thing. I just watched like I've watched coverage of it.

[00:22:44] I didn't watch the actual release of Nintendo Switch 2 thing. It's very controversial. Oh, yeah. I mean, the eye toy that comes with it or that you buy separate. I think you have to buy it separate. Yeah, the little the little it looks like how from fucking Space Odyssey or an eyeball on a stick. Yeah, he's buying that for their kid.

[00:23:09] It looked like it naturally cut you out of your background, though, like on the little thing. Yeah, it's kind of neat. You like green screens your background or whatever. Um. I don't know. I think I think I want one. But but I bought a Switch twice. I've never owned more than like seven games at once on the Switch. I barely play it. I don't like why do I keep buying these fucking things? I don't want. All right. Like I clearly don't want the most controversial thing about it, though, is the death of physical games.

[00:23:40] What is it like they are in physical games? Some. But games like, for instance, they're like a Elden Ring is coming to Switch 2, but it's going to be a key card, not a cartridge. Yeah. So it's like DRM. They did that for the earliest example I could think of for that is Final Fantasy 10 and Final Fantasy 10 2 on the Vita. And where Final Fantasy 10 2 was a download, like because it couldn't fit it all on the cartridge.

[00:24:10] What's wild is that Cyberpunk is all on the on the on the cartridge. Oh, is it really? Yeah. Like, I think it's like and it's going to have like fucking I think it's going to have like ray tracing and shit. I don't understand how the fuck some companies do what they do, honestly. I don't know. It's wild because it's like a weird cut. Resident Evil Revelations 2. The first like two episodes in the in the game or whatever, the two campaigns are on the cartridge.

[00:24:36] But then you have to download the second half. That's really weird. On Switch. Do you need the cartridge to play? To play both. Yeah. Oh. And see, that's what everyone's argument is like. Why would I not just buy the digital version of Elden Ring? That's supposedly cheaper. Ten dollars cheaper at seventy dollars instead of eighty dollars or whatever it is. Oh, wait. That's misinformation. What? I did some research.

[00:25:07] Yeah. So there is a story going around that games were ten dollars more expensive if they were physical. But the the whole thing apparently came from somebody thinking that ninety pounds was the same as ninety dollars. So they were like, oh, my God. God, we got a scoop here and then went off and started saying that to everybody. I retract that information in light of this new development.

[00:25:32] But yeah, so supposedly it's like, why would I spend, you know, just was it seventy dollars in and get a game on a cartridge? That's basically just a key doesn't actually have anything on it. So I still need the Nintendo servers to download to actually play the game. Oh, my cats me out when I could just get a digital and then just download it off. To the servers without having to deal with a physical card that I may lose at some point.

[00:25:58] Welcome to my life from the Xbox 360 to Xbox one where I was like, I specifically remember downloading Fallout three on the Xbox 360 because they made a patch where you could do that. Yeah. And it's supposed to help with loading times. But I thought I could just not play with the disc in. And I was like, why would I ever, ever do this? And then as soon as the Xbox one was like and the PlayStation four were like, you have to download the games off the discs. Like there's no option to not do that.

[00:26:26] I'm like, why would I ever buy a physical disc again? This is stupid. And then that's what I did. I never did it. I never bought a physical disc again. Well, now Nintendo is basically following that trend. And why do they even have cartridge slots anymore? Why don't they just drop that and then drop the price by ten pucks or something? They should. I guess for backwards compatibility. Oh, yeah.

[00:26:56] That too. Because it. Thank God that it's backwards compatible because I would have put money on it not being backwards compatible. Like Nintendo would do this. I thought it was going to be like that too. I thought they were just going to be like, sorry guys. What do you not own Switch ones? Yeah. That's fucking hysterical. I think so. The family sharing thing is pretty cool. And I don't know because I didn't do enough research on it.

[00:27:21] But can you family share from a Switch 2 onto a Switch 1 if the game is a Switch 1 game? See, that would be worth doing if it was a thing. That would be a good consumer plus. I don't know. I don't have enough information. Yeah, we need more info. All right. So next up, which. Okay. One more thing. We were talking about the remote play feature where you can like join into another person's game.

[00:27:49] I don't think they've clarified on what that gameplay actually looks like. Like say we are playing Mario Kart. Does that mean that I am then just wirelessly going into yours? So I'm using my controls and I still see the same screen as you? Or do I actually. Am I doing like a full version of my own game? Oh, like down. Like fucking downloading it? Yeah, like am I downloading a full copy of the game and then sharing your screen and we're doing split screen next to each other?

[00:28:22] That would be interesting because you could do that with the TV, right? And then just have your second Switch playing like that. And then the other person if it's on the split screen thing. It could let you use the Switch as a controller pretty much in case you don't have extra controllers. Hmm. That does sound pretty cool. No, it doesn't sound cool. See, I think the whole attractive look is that basically like, hey, I got this game. You guys want to play Smash Bros with me or whatever? And we each have our own. Well, Smash Bros is already local.

[00:28:51] Like no need to split the screen. But if we're saying like Mario Kart or whatever, in Mario Kart it's nice having a full size screen. Oh, I mean, I guess I was thinking of Split Fiction because that's the game I've been playing lately. I've been playing Split Fiction also. I don't know why I didn't write that down. But that game always, it's like Lego Star Wars where it's always split screen. You know what I mean? Even if you're playing online. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know.

[00:29:20] There's not a lot of games in like in Mario console. What the fuck is it called? There's not the Switch. Yeah. And like there's not a lot of games that are like that on it. Like I think most games that are multiplayer are same screen multiplayer on the Switch. They tend to try to do that, I think. Yeah. All right. So other games I've been playing, get away from Stinky Switch 2. Zero Escape, not only games. I'm still playing Virtue's Last Reward.

[00:29:48] I think I'm approaching my first ending. See, it did the thing, Nave, where I could see the whole web in front of me. And I thought I was coming up on the ending. And then it said, pa-chow, second web. And then it like shot out of the bottom of the one. And I'm like, oh no. It goes so much longer than I thought. But so it's like playing on your expectation that like, oh, I remember the first game. Oh my god, Split Fiction did this. All right. It's amazing. So you know that part in A Way Out? This isn't really a spoiler.

[00:30:16] But you know that part in A Way Out where you jump to the other side and then the guy's sliding down. And then you have to reach your hands out in slow motion and grab each other. You have to hold the button. That part happens again in Split Fiction. But it takes into consideration if you don't do it. Because there's a grabby point on the bottom so they can save themselves. And it's so funny. Because I'm like, hee hee hee hee. Like, just not. Of course, I'm just like letting them fall. But I don't know. So stupid.

[00:30:46] Yeah. So once I saw that, I progressed to another point. And now I'm going back and choosing a different option. So hopefully I can get a bad ending before I follow this ending all the way through. But I'm I think I'm like nine hours in or something like that. And it's it's long. I feel like this game is very long. Like all together. Like if I check my steam time. It's all reading. I'm 31 hours through both games right now.

[00:31:17] So that's a lot of time to spend on one game. Or two games, I guess. I agree. I think that's how much time I've played in Signalis in total. And I've beaten it multiple times now. Now the games I've been playing. I got this one, I think, in a bundle for like two bucks. Death Must Die. It is literally 33 Immortals, but pixel style. And I think it's better. Whoa. Spoiler alert. Yeah. All right. But it's just another survivor-like.

[00:31:47] But also roguelike. You know. It's simple. But good. You know. It's the better bro-tato. Oh. Yeah, I'm looking at it now. Oh, so it's like vampire survivors. Yeah, it's a survivor-like. Roguelike. I understand what you said now. Yeah. Because you said survivor-like. And it just like went. Immediately fucking recycle bin. Like I didn't know what you said. I didn't know you meant by that. Survivor is a genre now.

[00:32:16] After vampire survivor and the rest of them came out. Yeah. I think it's wild just to see a new genre erupt in popularity. I mean, these games are sick. There's a lot of them. There's a lot of them. Dude, there's too many of them. Every flavor you want, too. You want ugly-ass potatoes? We got bro-tato. You want pixel art? We got death must die. Sure, there's a bunch of horny anime ones, too. Gotta be.

[00:32:47] The other game I'm playing, speaking of horny anime games, this one is unfortunate. It's Pseudo Regalia. Great. So, I once again got this in a bundle. And for some reason, the main character is a sheep. And they gave her some serious proportions. But the game is really good. It's like a Mario 64. Oh, whoa! Oh, ho, ho! This bitch is thick, dude. What the fuck? I know.

[00:33:17] It's one of those fucking furry games. It's so annoying. It's not a furry game. It is. It's completely kosher. Everything is safe. It looks like a furry game. Hold on. I'm going into the artwork. Let's see what's going on in here. All right. You can't blame the game on the artist. Okay. This looks tame. Oh! What is this? Oh, don't go in there, guys. This looks like Chris Chan. Hold on. There's a... Okay. So, it's a...

[00:33:46] Phillip. I think I have to show you this. I can't put this... I can't put this in the thumbnail. But I have to show you this. Oh, God. There's a story. I don't know if you can see the story, too. But it says, I love you more. Sybil deeply in love. She's an amazing waifu. Sybil spending a nice day with her lover in a hot tub. I kind of messed up on this one. But there's always next time. Honestly, he's humble. You know? All right.

[00:34:16] But if you scroll down two more, it is a discussion thread calling. It says, It's really unfortunate that Sybil is being sexualized. There's so much love about this game. And the main character steals the spotlight with loot art. Yeah. There is a lot of loot art. This game does look pretty cool, though. Like, it's got that... Oh, my God. It's really good. Nintendo 64 aesthetic. Like, I played it with my kids. Like, it's a completely kosher game. But just based on the character's thickness in the beginning,

[00:34:44] I think it's attracting the degenerates. They must have known. You know what I mean? When you're making the character model, and then they're just like, Make it bigger. You know? Make the butt bigger. But, sir! Do it! Oh, unfortunate. Very unfortunate. God, there's so many funny things. Like, why? Is this playable for not-

[00:35:13] Is this safe, or am I gonna turn gay? It really does kind of just look like a... What is it? I was gonna say, this level- I'm watching a video, and the level is reminding me of, like, the clock tower in Mario 64, except it's mixed with that grimy, like, underground area, too, where the rabbit is. You know what I mean? Like, you look in the game, by the way, and it is, like, almost borderline retro ugly.

[00:35:42] Like, the only thing, like, could be attracting the degenerates is the cover art for the game. That is it. Yeah. I don't even see anymore. Yeah, you can't have an anthropomorphic animal and give them a big bust size. You can't do that. It's not okay. But it plays, like, Super Mario Odyssey, because you have, like, a sword that you, like, can, like, throw and jump with, and you do tons of jumping and platforming.

[00:36:11] It's very well-tuned. And it's just a little indie game, and I definitely wanted to share it, despite its trappings. Well, the good thing is, when you go into a more like this, like, the things that people are buying when they buy this as well, it's not horny games. It's, like- Well, it came in a bundle with, um, oh, what was it called? What's the, uh, where it's, like, war, famine. Um, This War of Ours? No.

[00:36:41] Uh, it's the Four Horses of the Apocalypse. What was that game? Oh! Darksiders. Oh! Darksiders, yeah. It was bundled with Darksiders 3. What? Interesting. Interesting, uh, combination. Yeah. But the How Long to Beat has this game at, like, two hours, but I'm, like, three hours in, because I guess I'm an idiot, because- Oh, yeah. It is severely limited on map. This is mostly a figure-it-out loser type game. Yeah. I'm just watching- I'm so- I'm watching the other video.

[00:37:11] Yeah, I mean, I think people should check this out. This looks like something I would enjoy, too. Yeah. Very nice. Very nice game. And that goes right into our next section. News and updates. Nave, did you buy anything you want to show off? Uh, no. I mean, concert tickets. I bought more concert tickets. Oh, you. I think for- When you could be buying a Switch 2? Oh, you're right. I should be fucking financing that, because that's going to be $900 or something. No. Yeah.

[00:37:41] Depends on the games you want. Uh, I- The band's called Strawberry Girls, the one that I'm going to next, I'm pretty sure. And then- So these are the three bands I'm going to. It's Strawberry Girls, uh, Fit for an Autopsy, and Bear Ghost. Like, yeah. So it's like, there's a fucking real spectrum of, uh, of, uh, people I'm going to be seeing over the next week. Oh, no.

[00:38:11] I think we fucking lagged. We lagged out there for a moment, but now we're back. Uh, so Nave, that rock show sounded great. Hey, hell yeah. It will be fun. Um, while we're in this part, uh, I did- I think I already- I already pimped this last episode, but, um, it's out now. The Super Pod Network quarter one update, uh, for the Metacritic draft. It went really well. It was super fun. Uh, it's very funny. We talk all about,

[00:38:41] like, statistics and stuff. We really go into the Switch 2, get into arguments about that. We're very divided amongst the- the Super Pod Network with the Switch 2. It's- it's- incredibly controversial, it turns out. It really is. Philip, what is this thing over here on the left, the notes? You see, like, the- I updated the notes. Yeah, that thing on the left is, instead of having, like, a thousand different note files, hopefully we can just have one. Oh my god.

[00:39:11] And then- I know. And we can just add a new page every time we have a new thing. Listener, we have- we have- in our Google Doc, it is, like, literally a thousand different text files, like, just documents. It's kind of cool to look at, actually. Like, look- going back. It is. I'll probably just slowly add them in here, just so, like, if we ever need them, we're gonna be like, oh, what did I talk about last week? You can just be like, click. Oh, we talked about Pirate Hawaii Spyro 2 Ripto's Rage.

[00:39:40] Hate that game. Good. Now, for my updates, Snave, I became a military conservation agent. I passed the interview. They had about 50 applicants and they chose 25 of us, so that means I was at least in the top 50%. That is such a large- We had 50 applicants and I expected you to be like, and then they chose three. Oh, dude, I wish. I'm so badass. Can you see a list?

[00:40:10] Was it like a- you know in Spy Family, whenever Anya got like- Like a big list on the board? Yeah, there's a big list. Is that a thing? Is that a thing? And you see some people crying in the background? Yeah. No, it's more like I can see the email they sent out and all the names in the top and then I can see the next email they sent out congratulating the winners that got selected and I could count like who got selected in that and be like, oh, so these other guys did not make it. That's-

[00:40:40] It's funny because I'm trying to think, I'm like, did anything like that happen in our high school? And, I remember sophomore year in algebra, right? When we did the end of the year test, I remember walking in there and my name being on the board. There were two names on there, both Asian. So, me and Jennifer Chang were the top scorers of the whole school in algebra on the end of the year test and I didn't hear the end of it from this kid, Garrett,

[00:41:09] who was very racist towards me. Oh, no. You know, Oklahoma, no. He would hit me, he would hit, so, you know, high school boys hitting each other in the nuts and stuff. He would sack tap me and be like, that was for Pearl Harbor and I'd be like, that's fucking, and then I'd get him for Nagasaki or something. I don't know. Yeah. That was for Iwo Jima. Nagasaki'd him. Yeah. Nagasaki'd these nuts. Okay.

[00:41:39] But I don't even know why I'm talking about that. Oh, yeah, the board. All right. Then next up, Nate, my mushrooms are fruiting. I don't remember if I mentioned on the pod that I started growing mushrooms or not. No. Were you even doing it whenever you, it was two weeks ago last time you were on, right? Yeah, those have been growing for like three to four weeks at this point. Oh, yeah. You've been posting daily updates and I hate mushrooms. I hate how they look. I don't like to think

[00:42:08] about them. They disgust me and then I get graced with a, I get a notification like, ooh, what's Phillip talking about? I see these fucking mushrooms again. I'm like, oh, I hate this. I see my sprouts. But mushrooms, what's going on with these? Are they illegal? No, these are very legal. They are blue oyster mushrooms actually. Is that what blue oyster cult comes from? Well, they're probably referencing magic mushrooms with their name, but yeah.

[00:42:39] So they're not magic mushrooms. No, these ones aren't. They are food mushrooms. They're growing out of a coffee can. They are. They're growing them out of a coffee can. Why? Why is this? I mean, spring is coming. I'm like, you know what? We need to grow something. You can't really grow much in Alaska. Oh, that's true. So you made a mushroom. You know, that's a thing in Metro, Metro 2033. And it's like, you know, it's super cold. Yeah.

[00:43:09] They, they grow tons and tons of mushrooms. They make mushroom tea. I don't know if that's in the video game, but it is in the books. It's all, it's in a lot of the book. A lot of it, the books talk about like the mushroom trade and stuff like that because, you know, there's, that would be interesting to see because it's like, you can't just grow mushrooms from nothing. Of course, like it, they have to have some kind of nutrition source for them to devour so the mushrooms can grow. So it's like, they, they do have animals down there. Like they have farms,

[00:43:39] like they have pigs and cows and stuff. I don't know. I'm not an expert on, on Redshirt 23, 23 lore, but because it's like the mushrooms I'm growing, they grew in a grain jar. So just like grains, like rice, they ate that. And then I spread that out through like coconut fluff. And so it then like, it eats some of the coconut fluff too, but then it just kind of like uses it as like a growth medium or network like the earth. And then it fruits out of the coconut fluff.

[00:44:09] So it's like, it's already got all its nutrients or all it's like energy that it needs to grow at this point. So it's just sprouting. So were these mushrooms just growing in the house and you just decided, I'm actually not going to kill you or were you like, I am going to consciously make from Amazon, like a pack of the grain that's been already being inoculated. Is it like a seed? Like seeds? No. How do you make mushrooms? It looks like,

[00:44:39] okay, so the grain, so well, first off to make mushrooms, usually you take some of the spores, you then take it into a growth medium they call like auger, which is really tiny and you can use that and you grow them like bacteria style, like in a petri dish. You then collect that in like a syringe that you inject into like a bunch of grain. Like, they call the poor boy tech the Uncle Ben's method where you get those, you know, three minute instant rice Uncle Ben's packs

[00:45:08] that are like already moist or whatever. Those are sterile. So you can just take a syringe, stab the side of the bag, inject the spores in there and then just put it in the closet for a little bit and it will grow like bacteria inside the bag. And then you, in the end you get a cake that you can then put in your medium like your coconut fluff that then grows out and sprouts mushrooms. I don't know what you just said, but. There's so many people that go into this. Like there's like,

[00:45:38] there's a huge, community. But yeah. Yeah, there's a community for everything. There shouldn't be, you know, like the community around pseudo gorilla or whatever. Oh, that community. Yeah. There's a community for everything. Speaking of communities in the Japanese corner, Nave, there's a, there's some large communities in the Japanese learning environment. I've already explained to you the differences between the learning Japanese subreddit and the Japanese learning subreddit that are perpetually at war.

[00:46:08] classical. It's like magic, the magic, the gathering subreddit and free magic, I think is the other one, which is, there's obvious dichotomy between those two guys. But in the learning Japanese subreddit, which is my choice, they have another group that they kind of vilify, which is Japanese, the Moe way, which is a, yeah, it's a discord community. They actually have

[00:46:38] a lot of good materials and resources on their website. And I've gotten a lot from them. Like, I don't know what the issue is. I think it's probably because they, they are kind of elitist and they, I don't know, I guess they, there's a snobby. I don't know if the other groups don't like them. I'm not a part of the group specifically because they won't let me in. Oh, awesome. So anyways, I saw somebody post on learning Japanese. They're like, Hey,

[00:47:07] if you need sources for some resources, just go into the Moe way discord. And I was like, easy. And they're like, you have to pass a little student test and then they can let you in. And I'm like, say you have to pass the test. Yeah, it's a, they take the 1000 most common Japanese words in kanji and they ask you to provide the reading for them. All of them? No, for 25 of them. But do you get

[00:47:37] to choose what 25? No, it's completely random every time. Of the 1000. They also, you cannot miss more than 10 or you can't miss 10 at all. So that means you need to get was like 16. Correct. Yeah. Out of the 25. Yeah. All right. But anyways, I've taken this test like 10 times and I cannot pass it. Really? Yeah. Like it is not even close. That's great. I mean,

[00:48:06] a thousand's a lot of huge. That's a large pool of words that you could potentially get. But the thing is, like, I feel like, by the way, one of the things I just really don't study into is how to actually read the Japanese. I kind of read for meaning more than I do to like, oh, this is pronounced Ryu Gaksai or something like that and then trying to spell it out. Oh, by the way, each of the questions, they only give you five seconds. So you're like immediately, no,

[00:48:36] five seconds to type in the answer. Otherwise, you know, it goes to the next question. And then you forget a U. So it's like, dude, that was it. The thing is like, you can put in as many responses as you want, though. So it's like, if I see a word, I'm like, oh, that's a Q sigh. You know, is it Q sigh? Or is it Q say? Q say that's it. I put in like five answers in five seconds before I finally spell it right because my spelling is terrible. And you gotta be careful too because your phone

[00:49:05] will also try to because I was just doing my phone will try to automatically select the kanji as you type it in, you know, and you're like, yeah, do not do that for do not. It needs to be written in. So it's very stressful and I'm very angry that I can't get into this discord. I mean, I could probably cheat if I wanted to just get in, but that's on the spirit. Yeah, I think a lot of people probably cheated to get in like, no, everyone is honorable and would not.

[00:49:34] Oh yeah, they're the stuck up ones or whatever you said. Yeah, these guys, they fight with honor, I'm sure. Yeah, so it's my only Japanese news is that I'm not smart enough. Apparently, it's hard to not just read because that's an issue that I have with when I'm doing my Duolingo thing is that like I will read the sentence and I or it's even worse than on key because Duolingo usually it's like the same sentence over and over and over again, just with a couple things switched out,

[00:50:05] you know what I mean? So it's like, it's like, oh, my hobby is basketball. Now my hobby is watching dramas. And so, you know what I mean? It's like you just keep reading. But when I do on key, I'm like, I know what this fucking sentence says in English. I just, I have no fucking idea what this congee is. I just keep forgetting. But I don't know. I've fallen behind on on key. I need to start doing it again. I did finish my book. Nice. You had gone a book? Oh, I have something about books. So the other

[00:50:34] day at work, I had to collect like 80 different serial numbers on three different objects on every desk. And so I went through every desk in our office. And while I was going through all the desk, I found three different people that had Japanese textbooks at their desk. So there's three other people studying Japanese just in my office that I did not know about. Did you make notes? About who they were, where they were sitting? Yeah, side quest unlocked. I'm on like night shift.

[00:51:04] So no one is there but me and my partner. So we're just literally going desk to desk seeing what everyone has. Some people got some pretty nice knickknacks. That's really funny. I probably would too. I mean, I bet like you've got to know that someone's going to go through your shit. One time, so I went to like as a postal worker, you have like a little case thing, like this little, it's like a little, it's hard, you know, like cubicles with a desk. Like it's kind of like that, but it's for like sorting the mail, right?

[00:51:34] And someone put these tiny little ducks in random spots on my, and so I have no idea who did that. But like now I'm thinking about like, man, what if I just hid shit around the office? Like just to see who finds, you know what I mean? Would I get in trouble? I don't know. Well, it's funny because it's like when you play a game like, I don't know, fear or something like that. And a lot of the game takes place in an office building. And you see some weird things in the office. You're playing like Half-Life and you're like, this office is weird.

[00:52:03] Why do they have this in the over by the cupboards? Like, I don't know, some weird object. Like, why is there a tea set in the corner? But then now that I actually work in an office and I see the tea set in the corner and I'm like, I don't know. I don't know why it's there. I don't know who's using it. It just is. Yeah, that's fucking hilarious. It's like that, you know, that Annie Austin YouTube channel where he pointed out like in one of the Call of Duties that the doors are like 12

[00:52:32] feet tall, like the doorways in this random house. He's like, look at this person compared to the doorway. Go stand in your own doorway. Just compare. It's like, oh my God, there are a lot of things that or in some games, it's like some games you're really short because like that's what it Yeah. I fucking love shit like that. Well, I mean, headlight like the whole world has to look different depending on your height. Like even if it's just a foot difference, like if you're a foot

[00:53:01] shorter, you're in a completely different world. Dude, that's that is literally in what is it? Vermintide when you're the dwarf and you go into the field and you can't see. You literally can't see anything. Oh my God. So good. I think about, um, I don't know. This isn't about your perspective, but anyways, uh, Japanese anything else? Uh, nope, I guess. Yeah. Same old same. Well, I mean, I, I, I now know what my

[00:53:31] favorite here, like hit a Ghana is to write. It is, it is after getting through the whole book, it is still, oh, like the third one I learned. I still. Crisp. Yeah. Oh, and, uh, wah, like not ha, the actual wah. Yeah, wah, wah. And, uh, and also the one that looks like it. So, ne, which is just curly at the bottom. Ne is good. Yeah, dude, those ones are fucking awesome. And so I got the Katakana book, which

[00:53:59] is a lot smaller for some reason. But, um, I'm looking at it and they're so thin. I'm in the writing, which is different from the Hiragana one where they're like very thick. I don't know why that is, but it's got me brushwork. Like if you use a brush to write a Hiragana, but you just write in pin for Katakana. Dude, have you seen people like draw like Kanji and shit with like an actual brush? Like it looks so

[00:54:29] fucking nice. Just watching people do that. Holy fuck. They go pretty extreme. They're doing like marks that I'm like, I don't even see that mark in the, in the Hiragana or Kanji, you know, just doing a little swoosh on the side or something. Yeah. Oh, it's like your stupid picture. You sent us, uh, of pirates in Hawaii. You just sent some guy with a shirt that had the most eligible of Kanji on it. You're like, what this? And I'm like, oh,

[00:55:00] yeah, it's fucking tough. So, uh, there was this guy, uh, one of the clerks, his name is also Austin. Um, he had a shirt on with Bugs Bunny on it and it had Katakana on it. And, uh, it said Bugs Bunny or something like that. Yeah. But I was staring at him because I was trying to read it because he kept moving around and shit. And then, cause I was hoping it didn't say Bugs Bunny. I was hoping it said something completely random, but, uh, no. And then he noticed, he's like, what? He's like, what's up, man?

[00:55:29] And I was just like, oh, I was reading your shirt. And he was just like, oh, it's I think he said Chinese. I don't remember, but it was an awkward conversation because I don't, I never talked to this person. You know, you just get caught staring. You ever like you're sitting at a fucking stoplight and like you're staring forward right into the eyes of like the person, you know? I get, I catch myself doing that all the time where I'm just like staring right in front of you or something. Yeah. Yeah. That happens. Fuck.

[00:56:01] Anyway, awkward, awkward eye contact. Fun car stuff. All right. Time to move right into our Patreon section. Here at Gaming Together, we work hard to provide excellent call content for you, the listener. If you have any means, please consider supporting us on Patreon. Link in the description. Here's our current supporters. Jose Martinez, Berserker This, Mr. Quang, Insane Cracker, and Nick and Knight. Thank you for all your support. All right, Nave, it's time for us to go online. Oh, we got to take a break. I forgot. The music plays. Boom, boom, boom, boom.

[00:56:31] And we're back. Now it's time for us to go online and help some assholes in need. So, Nave, I'll take this first one. Let's see. Let's see if there's a switch one. Here we go. Number 21. 21? Yeah. Ah, yes. This is from a main account.

[00:57:03] Riley Oden. Am I the bad apple? Yeah. The bad apple is a new subreddit? No, it's around from am I the bad apple is people submit stories here where they aren't sure if they acted properly or not. We read them and decide if they were a good apple, bad apple, or a crab apple. Sometimes we agree. And sometimes we don't. That's okay. We all have slightly different experiences. It'd be silly to yell at someone for just not experiencing something you did.

[00:57:35] Okay, so this is just like the softer version of am I the asshole? So, am I am I the bad apple? for taking my switch back from my brother? So, is this just for like children? Yeah, I think so. Like it's like YouTube kids? It is. Okay, so I, 17 female, got a

[00:58:04] Nintendo switch a few years ago for Christmas and I've been cherishing it and being very gentle with it. I do know it can take a bit of pressure, but I really don't want to take any chances. When my brother, 16 male, asked to play with my switch, I let him, but he's been really rough with it. He's been making me uncomfortable for a while. I asked to be more gentle with it. He said he would, but nothing really changed. Then when he dropped it on the ground from standing height, he's

[00:58:33] like 5'9". I flipped out. I yelled at him, telling him that was a $300 electronic and I wasn't replacing it if he broke it. Thankfully, the switch is fine. But when he dropped it, I took it and hid it in my room, but he got really mad at me. My mom says I should just let him play with it and dad says I'm justified. I'm so torn. So, am I the bad apple? I hate am I the bad apple. I hate it.

[00:59:05] I don't know. But, uh, this, I would fucking choke. I would choke my brother out. Like, I would put him in a fucking full Nelson and then throw him into the ground where he became embedded in the dirt if he dropped my switch. What's funny is that we never had to do with this growing up really because No, we just had each other. Well, no. Well, what I was thinking, I meant like literally when we were kids because like you could probably kick a

[00:59:34] Nintendo 64 into the sun and it would still work. Yeah, you're right. Right? So, but a switch, you cough on it and it's got stick drift now. So, I mean, like I, it's, it's a, it's a weird thing because now things are so fragile, you know? Yeah. I mean, especially without a case or anything. Do they have switch cases? I mean, they must. I mean, I have a Steam Deck case. I'm an adult. They just, they usually don't.

[01:00:04] Well, that sounds all I have to take it out of the case every time. Yeah, my Wii U, I had a case for it. It had like a Pokemon case thing for the little tablet part. I don't know. Maybe it's just really thin on the, because there's a little bit of wiggle room. I'm not sure. They might be, have a way to get it to fit in the dock. Just have it be real. Well, I mean, I guess Otter, like I have an Otterbox on my phone and I mean, I guess it, I was going to say it's thin, but I'm pretty sure it's like 50% thicker than it used to be now. You know what I mean? I don't know if

[01:00:34] you can tell, but all right. So I, this is tough because if these are my kids, I would probably side with her and say like, yeah, just don't let them borrow it anymore. But also if we are living in an age of grace, as we can see by our political climate, sometimes people make mistakes and you can give them a chance to learn and change their ways. It's never too late to save someone, right?

[01:01:03] Give them a chance. Like if the switch gets broken, how does it get replaced is the problem. Cause he's younger. So he's not, he's not going to replace it. So to probably be one of the parents, I mean like I, it would be weird if, so the mom is like probably just doesn't want to deal with it, I assume. And the dad's probably who paid for it because he's like, don't let him play with it. He's going to drop it. Don't let him play. I assuming that means the dad bought the switch, right? I mean, you could ask for assurances

[01:01:32] and be like, all right, mom, I'm I'll let him play with it. But if he breaks it, you're going to buy me a new one, right? Yeah. Like this is on you. Like you need her as a cosign on the switch before you let him play with it anymore. This is one year ago. I was going to say you could, you could get a new switch to you with this. You could like Brady be like, oh, my brother broke it. Hey, can I get a switch to you? Just a couple, couple more dollars. Just 10 more dollars.

[01:02:02] Yeah. Don't treat people's shit nicely. Like I don't I had this beaten into me at a young age. You don't fucking break something of someone else's. That's not that's not good. We and Philip have this story of us breaking each other's headsets. best one where we were at we're playing like Halo or something like that. And of course, we'd always just leave our controllers on the floor because that's what you did. Yeah. There wasn't any tables in there. And so like we would just have

[01:02:32] those crappy Xbox 360 pack in headsets that are just terrible. Yeah. Little pieces of plastic. Vietnam. I think you did you do it to me first. Maybe I think I think I got up and stepped on your headset and it broke. And then you broke. That's how it was. I did it to you and I'm like, oh, no, he's going to think I did this on purpose. And I think

[01:03:02] what we did was we taped them on the baseball caps. Fucking just put a lot of tape on it. It's like pulling your hair. Like this sucks. Hey, it looks like she posted like two other comments. One on is this picture the same picture? And then this one. I want you to take a look at this. She replied for real for real. Where'd you send it? Right here. Okay. Ah, what is this? I saw the words first before the image loaded in. What is this? This is like Mike

[01:03:32] Wazowski. What is Danny Gonzalez? The Danny Gonzalez subreddit. Danny Gonzalez foot creature. And with cheese, the only comment. Oh, no, there's more. But her comment on his ROP just said for real, for real. Seeing a head mounted to two feet. Hold on. Let me get this. Let me put this in the notes so I can find it later. All right.

[01:04:02] For real, for real. Yeah. For real, for real. All right. Do you have an asshole you want to help? Um, let me see. I will just scroll to 48. That sounds good. Oh, 48. Yeah. Deleted by user. Oh, no. Did we catch it? Let me see. No, but there's an auto mod. I already found it. It's not that far down.

[01:04:35] Let me duplicate this so I can go to the top. You all right, Molly? You throwing up? No, she's fine. I love the thing. This auto mod copy is a post so readers can see the original text of your post is edited or removed. This comment is not accusing you of copying anything. Must have been an epidemic. Yeah. One guy's like, oh, why are they copying me?

[01:05:05] All right. So the original link, so we don't have is deleted by user. So we don't have like the title anymore. But the title in the original link says, am I the asshole for not hanging out with my wife? Oh, God. All right. And it's pretty long. All right. Quotations because I don't know how else to describe the issue correctly or succinctly. Okay. So my 29 male

[01:05:34] wife, 27 female have had a repeat discussion going on a few months now that I'm going insane over. Oh, shit. Hold on. I maximized it and moved. Okay. My hobby slash socializing with many of my friends is playing some games on my PC in the evenings. Many of us live a good distance from each other and work busy jobs. So our only real form of socialization is jumping into discord and chatting with the boys while we play some games. Uh, my wife, my

[01:06:04] wife's in school currently, but if she's not doing homework, she likes to watch TV, color slash draw or play board games slash cards slash et cetera. We do this. We do this things together pretty much every day. Usually when she gets home, I work from home. We go to the gym, make dinner together and watch TV while we eat together. After we might, after we might take showers and then usually I'll hang out with my friends as described. She tells me it's

[01:06:34] fine at the time and I usually ask, but then a couple of days later, she'll start making allusions to being lonely and having to hang out with her imaginary friend. That's a, that's a flag. You should, when people start, well, I mean like when people start telling you about imaginary friends, you should listen to them. That's not normal. Okay. I always tell her that if she wants to be with me, all she has to do is walk into my office

[01:07:03] and tell me so literally 10 feet from the living room, but she never does. Her excuse for not doing is, uh, her excuse for not doing is always something to the effect of, well, you're having fun with your friends and I don't want to bother you. But then she proceeds to guilt trip me and make me feel like a bad partner for not ignoring my hobby to sit in front of the TV with her. I told her time and time again that I have no problems telling my friends, Hey guys, can't play tonight.

[01:07:33] Gonna watch a movie with the wife and they're all in relationships to total understanding, but she never does this. She just lets me do my thing. I assume she's doing her thing and then she makes it a problem for me three or four days later. I have to assume that the issue is that she perceived me not wanting to watch TV with her every night as some kind of personal attack. It's aggressive. That I like my friends more than her or something to that effect. The reality is that I don't really like watching TV and I'm 10 feet away.

[01:08:03] Always make it explicitly clear that she is welcome to come pull me away at any time and I even have a TV in my office that she can play games on or watch TV on if she wants to hang out in the same room, but she refuses to do any of those things. I told her that she needs to just communicate if she wants me to not be on my computer, but she basically always just defends not doing it by saying I don't want to bother you. Am I the asshole? All right. So is he the

[01:08:32] asshole for just gaming with his boys? I don't know. There's a random mod post in here says your post has been removed for violating the rule 11. No partings, relationships, sex, reproductive autonomy posts. What? We do not allow posts where the central conflict is about romantic relationships.

[01:09:02] Okay. So I guess that's why this one got deleted. Why don't they do that? What? What? I feel like we've read a lot of them that are just like this. I don't know. It's so weird. Well, anyway, because like this is supposedly a pure promotion, romantic issue opposed to a gaming issue. Am I the asshole for gaming? No, it's just for non-romantic things. If you want romantic asshole issues, you have to go to our slash relationships or

[01:09:32] whatever. God, I hate Reddit. I hate Reddit. I hate Redditors. Yeah, I don't, he is, something's got to change. Obviously. I think that he definitely, it's hard to make this funny. There's nothing really funny about this. This is just a normal thing. But you, you, you're thinking about a lot of this the wrong way. I think that it's not

[01:10:01] that she doesn't want, I don't think she thinks that you don't like her. I think she wants you to go out of your way to hang out with her and it be your idea. You know what I mean? Like, I think that she wants him to make it a point to hang out with her rather than be told to hang out with her. And it's also a thing of like, a lot of, a lot of girlfriends don't want to be the one, like the excuse that you're not, you're not around. Right?

[01:10:30] Like, because it feels like you are taking something away from the friend group and then the friend group's going to not like you because of that. Right? I get what you're saying. I think that might just be it is that she doesn't want to be the one. I don't know, to actively call it out and said she's just doing the passive thing. You're like, I'm only hanging out with my imaginary friends because you aren't here or whatever. Yeah. I mean, it's a little passive aggressive, but

[01:10:58] it's also like, it's probably been going on for a while if it's to this point. Yeah. I don't know. I think just set aside some days to hang out with your, with your wife, brother. Like, I don't think it's that easy. Like, don't wait for her to tell you that she wants you to hang out with her. Um, it sucks that you guys don't have like the same exact hobbies because that's usually like the, the cheat code.

[01:11:31] Um, but I don't know. Like, what do you do with Jana? Like, like, I mean, I assume that you hang out with Jana, right? Like you do things with her. Yeah. I don't know. We'll see. Well, usually like she has her own wants and things she wants to do is such as like, she really likes to play TFT or read or something like that. And like, for instance, like yesterday, uh, I was like, Hey, uh, she's like, Oh, I'm going to play some TFT or whatever. And I'm like, cool, I'm going to get an A and we're going to play 33 immortals or whatever.

[01:12:01] And so I started playing with you. And then she was, she did not hesitate. She was like, Hey, one of the neighbors is throwing out a sewing machine. Can you go pick it up down the street? And I was like, yeah, after we lose against Satan or whatever. And that's when I was like, Nate, I'll be right back. And then she's like, Hey, it's okay if you can't go or whatever, you know, if you're hanging out with Nate. And so she was like understanding, which this lady does not seem very understanding. So that might be a bit of a difference there. Uh, so I went out and sadly, first off maps

[01:12:31] took me to the wrong place. Uh, so that was annoying. So eventually I found the address, uh, and all the sewing stuff was already gone. Someone else had snagged it. And then I came back and I'm like, all right, Nate, let's play. And you were gone. I was playing chess. And then I never saw you for the rest of the night. And then Jana even went and apologized after that. She's like, Hey, I'm sorry you lost Dave. And I'm like, it does not matter. Like, yeah, we got

[01:13:00] all we need out of 33 mortals technically. I'm sad because I did want to play with a different weapon and I forgot to change weapons before I joined you. Cause that's, that was my plan was like, when I play with Philip, I'll just use a different thing, but it doesn't matter. So I, obviously she's not understanding to what you actually want because even though you specifically state, Hey, come tell me when you want to do something. Otherwise I'm going to be doing this. She is not going to do

[01:13:30] that probably ever. Instead, she's going to passive aggressively, just say random things about like, wow, it's, it's getting really dusty and your, your seat on the couch that you never use or something like that. Yeah. I mean, so one thing I would say is like, look back to the beginning of your relationship and like, you probably put a lot more effort into doing things with her. I mean, it's because you were in a brand new relationship and it's like exciting and shit, you know, honeymoon period and stuff, but like she wants a little bit of that,

[01:14:00] like not all the time, just a little bit, just give her like one day, like every other week, like just surprise her and just be like, Hey, let's watch a movie like without being prompted. And I'm sure this will go away. I promise. If it doesn't, then yeah, she might, maybe you guys have to sit down and have a discussion about this, but it depends also because we only have really just this one perspective. He doesn't really, he tried, he does this attempt at the end that like, this is what I think she does. None of these things are correct.

[01:14:30] So it doesn't seem like a genuine, like it doesn't seem like a genuine attempt to see her perspective at the end. So I assume this person's kind of annoying about this as well. Like, I don't know. So I don't know who, I don't know because he's making the wife seem pretty annoying, but is it because she is, he is perceiving her as annoying. So that's how it comes off in the story. Or is she also like you were saying, like not being very good about all of this as well. So, I mean, I

[01:14:58] think I just, all this shit at the end is nonsense. I mean, you lost me there, brother. Like it's not, it's not because she thinks that it's a personal attack. She doesn't think that she just wants you to hang out with her sometimes. Like it's that easy. Yeah. Just make her a bit more of a priority and she needs a bit, a bit more understanding and forthcoming with her feelings and everyone will understand to communicate better. I'm looking at the

[01:15:28] comments and stuff and yeah, it's basically people just saying what I like. She wants you to want to spend time with her stuff like that. Yeah. Very nice. Very nice. All right. And with that, let's take a quick break and then we can hit the meat. Music, please. What? This stupid fucking feet creature. I forgot it was in the fucking notes. So when I closed the stupid thing. All right. And we're back. 33 Immortals, not on Steam currently, but on

[01:15:57] Windows developed by Thunder Lotus and published by Thunder Lotus released 10, 11, really? 2023? It was never released that early, did it? It literally just came out into early access. But maybe maybe like the alpha build was out. I mean, this feels like an alpha build. It does. I mean, it does exactly. 33 Immortals is a co-op action roguelike for 33 players.

[01:16:28] Play a damned soul and rebel against God's final judgment. Pick up and raid. Cooperate to survive hordes of monsters. Defeat massive bosses and face the wrath of God in a fight for your eternal life. Join the rebellion. Your mortal life has been judged sinful and your soul's fate is to be punished for all eternity. But an uprising is brewing among the damned. Press on as a renegade in the immortal rebellion against God's final judgment and fight for your eternal life.

[01:16:57] Well, they said that twice. All right. And there's one more part. Pick up and raid. Jumpstart your. OK, this is just repeating the same the same thing that whatever. OK. Preconceptions going to have to knock points off of the review score for that one. This game was listed in the Windows Direct or whatever they call it. The Xbox Direct as like 33 player co-op. This is insane. You've never seen anything like this before, guys. This is going to be insane co-op levels you've never even tasted

[01:17:27] before. Imagine 33 flavors of ice cream all at once. So it's just brown. I was like, dude, this is going to be wild. What's it going to be like? Turns out it's pretty simple. It's not a pretty simple game. What were your preconceptions? I didn't really know what this game was. I just remember the co-op thing. So, yeah, I mean, that's what started with me. Whenever I see something at one of these shows

[01:17:56] and I'm like, oh, you sold me already. I usually go radio silent on it. So I really had no idea. I just knew it was going to be 33 co-op and I had no idea what kind of game play it was going to be. I was shocked though. Whenever I first started playing, I was like, oh, this is Haiti. This looks like Hades. This plays like Hades kind of. Yeah. So this is a massive like an MMO raid roguelike would be the way to describe it, which honestly, I

[01:18:26] almost get like Lee legend vibes with how long the matches are, how it's almost like we're going to go farm the jungle for 20 minutes and then fight a boss. Yeah, it's weird. It makes me wonder if this is what the Elden Ring multiplayer game that night rain is going to be like. I could see it like it's weird because this almost feels like the evolution of a battle royale type game. Like what if we made a co-op battle royale and that is literally this. We all get drawn to eventually one point on the map to fight a

[01:18:56] boss at the end after you looted all the gear from all the buildings and fought all the little enemies around the map. If you survive that long. I mean, I guess because I died and then at the end I came back and so I was like, oh shit, I'm fucking playing again. A second chance. But then I died again. So because I was standing still for a prolonged period of time and then my controller vibrated. I was like, oh, the fuck? Yeah. And you can only get hit like three times. Yeah. Especially near the end.

[01:19:25] So first off, just with the style, this is based on divine comedy, much like the Dante's Infernos, because like we were talking about, I was like, oh, yeah, we're about to fight Lucifer. And you're like, Lucifer is not in the Greek Pantheon or whatever. And I'm like, we're doing Christian today, Nave. Like, keep up. Well, I literally I was drinking for I was pretty drunk at that point. But like, I do remember thinking like, oh, yeah, this isn't Hades. Like, I just thought we were playing Hades. Like it just it that's what this game is.

[01:19:55] Only I feel like Hades has some really good style, whereas this one, I hate how all the characters look. Yeah. I'm not interested in any of the characters every time they're like they have an exclamation point above their head to talk. I don't want to talk to I don't care. I really do not want to hear whatever you have to say, Beatrix or whatever your name is. And it's something just it's just less cool. Like the Greek pantheon is so much cooler than whatever this is. You know what I mean? Yeah.

[01:20:25] Like Hades is like sick. You know what I mean? It's edgy. It's bad. It was just like devil may cry monsters, you know, like it's cool. Or this one, the monster designs aren't bad, but they're also not great. They feel like watered down doom creatures. Yeah. Guy with shield. Yeah. Guy with shield. Guy with hatchet or club. The animation is kind of interesting, but it's like it reminds me a little bit of.

[01:20:55] What is the game? It's that. No, I've talked about this in the last last week's episode to a camera now that Norse game. You know what I'm talking about? It's like the banner saga. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. The 2D and a 3D environment, but the environment's not 3D in this one. It's almost like I don't starve as well. Yeah. Yeah. That's another one. The animation is very similar to those games. Yeah. So, I mean, the in-game animations are good. The art, I think, is the issue.

[01:21:25] Also, all the characters having the same everything. Oh, no. Different power swaps. It's like it's real gross. And there's like customization options you get later on, but they're not. This is still early alpha, I guess. So it's like there's nothing there. Yeah, there's not a this is definitely an early access game. There's no achievements or anything, which really deflated me. Like, I don't like to admit that I'm like this, but I really don't like not having achievements. I just it makes me not want to play the game a little bit.

[01:21:55] All right. So to discuss the game, I thought we would talk through basically the gameplay process and then each step along the way, we can kind of expand on it. So step one of the game, you drop into the little pre area, like your little zone is where you can form your party by your friends. And it's all cross platform, cross progression. Great. You can pick a weapon. Yeah, it's a destiny lobby. You can see all the other people run around and you pick your weapons. So the weapons they have, there's the

[01:22:24] daggers, the bow, the sword and the staff. I only use the staff. Yeah, the bow is pretty good. I feel like it's the safest option. It's cool. It does the thing like Rakan in League of Legends or not Rakan. Rakan's Zaya. Girlfriend. Yeah, Zaya. So Zaya is like, well, it doesn't matter. So you can shoot the arrows and then you pull them back like you retract them. And you can hit enemies twice that way.

[01:22:54] Yeah, it's pretty interesting. Yeah. And you can like charge it up. The sword, you have a block and if you do a block, you're able to parry. And so it just makes you invincible for a second and then you just reflect the damage back to them. Very cool. But with my 150 ping, that was pretty standard through most of the game. It was quite difficult to use. I didn't even think about how because it's all multiplayer. So yeah, I had

[01:23:23] I had some lag. I never complained because it never super stopped me. But I was rubber banding a bit. I wonder where the server is located. It's got to be sure. I can see my ping. So I gave it. It was about 150 average with the Starlink. The other ones are the daggers of greed. These you just kind of like infinitely combo like stab, stab, stab, stab, stab in front of you to build up a like execute. And then you press

[01:23:53] Y to the execute. The problem with the execute is it's a pounce and it always goes a set distance. So it's like if you want to execute the guy you're killing, you have to then dash away from him and then come back to stab him. It's really unintuitive to play that way unless you're just like running in circles, just kind of stabbing the crowd from the outside. Just swinging wildly. Yeah. While you're running around, which is basically what I had to do. Like hardcore dancers in a mosh pit.

[01:24:22] But just flinging your arms around. So and then apparently the staff, I don't know, you're able to slow down enemies or something. I don't know what it does. It's weird. It's weird. I can never tell when some like I don't think I saw too many people using the bow. I think almost everyone was using something else. Yeah. Yeah. I suppose not a couple people because the there's ultimate switch to each one

[01:24:52] and the bow one, she was like the golden bullets like up to the north. Yeah. I like that one. There's a lot of the powers and shit look really cool. Like they do. Like whenever you leave an area, I think I'd see there when you leave one of those like rooms. I think they're called torture chambers. Yeah. But when you leave a torture chamber, something happens like like fucking fireballs start falling and shit. And every time I'd just be like, oh my God, what the fuck? Like it's so that fucking terrified. I don't know if it's time based.

[01:25:23] I think it is, but because I think the gates are also time based. But as you clear the gates, you start progressing towards the final boss of the game and there's three different rounds and the rounds are separated by those like points where it'll be like meteor shower or lightning strikes or something just happens in the area around you. And after all three of them happen, then you need to run to basically certain points. And we'll get to that once we get there. So after you get your weapons, you

[01:25:52] then go and pick your zone that you're going to play in right now. There's only two zones available Inferno and Purgatory. To get into Purgatory, you have to get a key by defeating the boss and Inferno. I kind of like this because it gets a reason for higher level players to come back and play the poopy baby level again because they need to fight the next one, which they give you three keys. So it's not even like you have to do one at a time. You're good for three tries after

[01:26:22] that. OK. So did you get into the other zone? So, yeah, I got it, but I did not play it because I was trying to get you into it with me. Yeah. I don't know what the second zone looks like, but I have three keys waiting on me. So next up, once you get your zone, which we just pick Inferno, which looks like hell, you drop into the map and you just farm for levels and

[01:26:51] gear as you kill creatures. They drop like black energy that you can take to these little black orbs to increase your health attack points. Just like level up however you want. I wasn't really doing this, which is probably why I was dying. Yeah, probably. I didn't do it for a long time because usually you only level up like twice in a whole thing. So it's a very low amount of levels. And you don't have to fight for the resources either. Everyone gets their own. Yeah, I really like that. It inspires co-op. Another good co-op

[01:27:21] element is there are these like bone pyres where you can burn bone dust to get different rewards. And one of them is it heals you and people nearby to you for like, you know, 25 percent, 10 percent health or whatever. And so it benefits everyone to be like, hey, guys, group around me for a second. I'm about to heal. So if we were actually in columns with a big group, then this can be really beneficial. Yeah, the weird thing is that they're outside of the torture chambers and the torture chambers could only have like

[01:27:50] six people on the inside. Yeah, gross. So it's it's it's weird because it's like all 33 player co-op, but then everyone just scatters like right away. You know what I mean? It just kind of does their own thing, which makes me feel kind of weird because I would always like try and follow a group, but the group never stick around for that long. And then I'd walk to the they'd all go to a door and I'd be like the last guy. And I'm like, oh, fuck. Yeah. Go find a different group loser. The bouncer doesn't let me into the club and I'm like, all right, I guess I'll

[01:28:20] go to the fucking 7-11. So, yeah, you just run around and you fight monsters. You collect loot. There's little like items in kit. I forgot what they're called, like artifacts and you use them and they basically increase your stats in different ways or give your bonuses. There's some wild ones which are like, I got one rare drop that was like you and teammates around you take 20% less damage just permanently. And I'm like, this is an insane drop. This is fantastic.

[01:28:51] Is that the right one? Yeah, but I also only got one of that like it through my multiple playthroughs. The rest are just like gray items. That's like a stick. That's like plus one attack damage for holding a stick. Yeah, I never really read anything I picked up. Like I was just like, cool, give it to me. I don't know why I would not want it. Well, you can grind them up for bone dust if you really want like bone dust or something. I don't know why you would because bone dust is everywhere.

[01:29:20] Yeah, you drop from everything. So, yeah, there's the torture chambers in them. They always have the reliquaries. Uh, that you can then crack open to get items. So, uh, after round three happens in the meteor strike for the third time, they say go to the like, I forgot what they're called like ascension platforms, but there's three different spots on the map you have to run to because then the floor is lava. If you take too long and it forces everyone into these points, you then have, it's just like

[01:29:50] a, I don't know if you remember what it was called like the doldrums or something like that in ESO where they were just like circles where you could go and just fight with everyone in like the realm against critters. They're just funny. Anyways, they do that. It's a circle on the map. You have to fight like three bosses, little mini bosses while you're there. And then after that, whoever's left can then you get like an item and then you guys ascend. And it's wow, because the games usually start with a full 33 players. But then it's like when me and the one I

[01:30:19] beat, when we ascended, we ascended with like 23 players and we easily wiped Lucifer at the end. Whereas when I did it with nave and we ascended, we had 13 players who did the final ascension. And I gotta say it was immensely harder with only 13 players. Like, I don't know what glue eaters were in our group that they all died before we made it to that point. But it got really hard. I guess we could talk about death. You do get two lives in each area.

[01:30:49] So it's like when you're in the lower realm or whatever, you can die and come back with like a fourth of your health as like your max. So you're you're surviving. Then once you ascend, it gives you another life. But then, of course, you can still just die and then come back and die again. It's cool because like you have to get picked up whenever you die. But like sometimes the thing that killed you will eat you. That happened to me once carries your soul away. And I was like, I

[01:31:19] didn't even know I died. I was just like, oh, I'm I'm inside of something now. I guess I don't know the fuck. Yeah. So that's not like death is handled. You fight the boss Lucifer and it is a raid boss with big angry circles on the ground. Do not stand there type stuff. There are mechanics that happen. Like at one point he's charging up a super mega death beam and he drops like ice around the arena and you have to go and break all these ice crystals before he does the super mega death beam. We did not.

[01:31:49] And it wiped everyone. And that was just game over. And so that's kind of annoying because like you need people to know how to play the boss, but not everyone makes it to the boss if they're trash so they don't have a chance to learn the boss and you're dealing with a lot of new players. I feel like this game is probably going to be really cool in a year or something like that. But dealing with all these new dookie players and their low levels kind of sucks because game pass

[01:32:19] effect, the game pass effect. After you beat the boss, you get rewards and this is where you can get like permanent buffs. Like if you do the challenges, like I did all the bow challenges whenever I beat the boss or whatever, and it gave me plus one permanent damage for forever. And I'm like, oh my God, I'm like, I'm killing the sheep. Like I was in 60 before. Now I'm in 61. No way. That, that does a lot after a bunch of

[01:32:48] fucking bullets. It reminds me of a borderlands. You remember those like tokens you would get? Yeah. Like 0.01 increase. Yeah. Like fucking reload speed 0.01% increase. Like, oh yeah, this is going to, it's going to add up. Change my life. Yeah. But then you get like a thousand of those. And so you're like, oh man, things are getting crazy. Yeah. So that actually does happen. So there is a outside level.

[01:33:17] So you're not starting from zero if you're actually doing the challenges. But that one's one thing to note. Specialization, it seems to not be encouraged. It seems to be about being flexible, doing each weapon independently, going into different zones just to complete these like destiny style challenges of killing five murlocs in hell or whatever. And then it gives you fate points and then your fate points can be converted into fate levels. And then your fate level is where you get like the permanent buffs.

[01:33:47] So if you think about it, like if this guy's a level 20 fate or whatever, and he's trying to do like a product gerio instead of inferno, he comes back to inferno because he needs a key. That guy could actually carry some rooms based on how many like permanent upgrades he's gotten at this point. And that's where I was thinking like the beginner areas need to be a place for beginners to grow. But also if everyone seems to be a beginner in that beginner area,

[01:34:17] it's going to suck when we make it to the end and only 13 people made it. Yeah. Because nobody wants to sit around. It's like playing World of Tanks and dying and then watching your team. No one will sit around and do that. So yeah, you fight the boss, you collect your rewards, and then you do it again. And there's daily challenges to get your level ups or whatever. So then you do all your daily challenges, come back tomorrow. Toxic. Is that toxic?

[01:34:47] Not good. Yeah, it's like the sleep experience bonus in World of Warcraft. Oh yeah. Well they want you to go away. Just go away like you've played enough today. But it makes you think you're like, oh man, but I'm missing out on my experience bonus. I need to get on now. Oh yeah, I forgot like the inverse. Yeah, well I mean the whole point is you don't burn yourself out on the game or you don't burn through all the content. That's the goal. It's not to, but then the sub goal

[01:35:16] is that it makes you think you're missing out if you don't log in. Because you are. That is the scary side of it. I love FOMO. Yeah. So I like, I mean, the zero other me points you have, because I think our discussion could be better centered around our final words of this. Yeah. I mean, I think that that's pretty much it. Okay. So the game pretty straightforward. I'll take these first final words because I think we're going to talk about it a lot.

[01:35:48] This game is early access. It's very obvious. But even if there was more game here, I don't think it would be enough for me to want to log back in and keep playing. I played death must die, which in this one, you know, the premises for you to rebel against God and get revenge and kill God in heaven. Hardcore. I love that. In death must die. You are a person dead out of time or something like that. I don't remember. But your whole point is you're trying to

[01:36:17] kill death and the gods are helping you along the way. Love that shit. Good stuff. Keep it coming. I love gods. But in it, you're mowing down like hordes of enemies in death must die. In this one, you're fighting like six dudes slowly walking in a circle and they take a lot of damage. Like everyone. Everyone takes so much damage. Add a bunch of tiny mobs that die really fast and the game would just nothing really would change,

[01:36:46] but the game would feel more fun. Yeah. Like you feel like such a loser in this game at all points. Like when we're fighting an enemy, I'm like, this feels like RuneScape almost. I'm barely doing anything. Did you see that picture? The picture I put in the group troop? Oh no, which one? Yeah, it's RuneScape. Oh yeah, I see it. Get out of my way nerd. I want to pet that dog. He's about to die. He's on red health.

[01:37:18] Stupid. Yeah. So yeah, I say don't play it right now. Wait till they fix these bugs. But Nave, what do you think about this game? Have you heard of the Golub Go Gab Golub? No. No. Because that, I think the RuneScape is making me think about it. I see it. You see the Glove Go Gab Golub? Dude, this is literally the guy from Morrowind.

[01:37:48] The last dwarf. Oh my god, you're right! It is that. Holy shit, I forgot about that guy. That guy is shocking to the eyes. Are you watching the video? No. It's only like a minute long. All right. The official Glub Go Gab Galab. Delightful. Really delightful.

[01:38:17] I'm the Glove Glo Gab Galab. I love books. And this basement is a true treasure trove. I am the Glove Glo Gab Galab. The Schwabble Wabble Gabble Flibber Blah Blah Blah I'm full of Schwibble Glibber kind. I am the yeast of thoughts and minds. Schwabble Dabble Glibber Glab A Schwibble Schwab Glab Dibble Double Shribble Shribble Glibber Glab Schwab Schwab

[01:38:47] Dab Dab Dab Dab Dab Shribble Shribble Glibber Schwab Dab Glibber Glibber Glab

[01:39:20] Splendid But can you see why the RuneScape made me think about this? Like just how it looks. Yeah. It looks like it was rendered in RuneScape. Edit that in. The globe, globe, globe, globe, globe, globe. It's so stupid. It's so stupid.

[01:39:48] But I Googled him and he is in the the heroes wiki. The fan wiki. The hero fandom. He's one of the supporting characters in the critically panned 2012 Christian allegorical animated film Strzyswinski in the mysterious house. He's a blob like elf who lives in the basement in the mysterious house and eats the ideas out of books. That's a cool superpower.

[01:40:15] The glob, glob, globe, globe was once a handsome slender. You know, we're not going to read his dialogue. The Rat King. The Rat King's Temptations. Who's the Rat King? Oh, my. Oh, you reading it now? You're reading. Yeah, I'm looking at it. Yo, look at the Rat King. What is this movie? All right. If we get a, you know, three more, what's it called? Patreons. We'll watch this movie. We'll do a watch along. Mystery House or whatever.

[01:40:44] He's the, the, the Rat King is voiced by Eric Clayton, a member of the Christian metal band. Save your machine. Hell yeah. Heaven. You mean. The Rat King. Okay. Okay. What are we, what am I doing? I'm done. That was the globe go gab glob. And then we can talk about why you say the things you say.

[01:41:12] Um, this game is, uh, it's, it's early access. It's, I, I imagine this has a market, right? But I think the window is limited because I think that Elden Ring is probably going to be this and, but Elden Ring. And that's going to be a lot more popular than Hades, but this. Um, it really just depends on your play styles.

[01:41:35] If you like Hades and you want to have people running around, I don't even really know what they, like, I never really interacted with the people. Like, they might as well have just been NPCs. You know what I mean? I don't know if there's like proximity chat or anything like that. Maybe there is. And that would make the game more fun. I never really, because I played this game by myself without my headset on. And if there was proximity chat, I'd hear them through the TV, right? Like they would just be yapping. I don't think there's any chat. I don't think so either. That would be too chaotic.

[01:42:04] Like, but that would make it more fun. That was the issue. Have you played? That's the problem. In PUBG, uh, at the beginning of PUBG rounds, you used to be able to just scream at people. Yeah. No, no, no. No. At the beginning before the bucket, before whatever the bus, it's a plane in PUBG. But, uh, like before you run around this island and just thousands of people are talking all at once. And just like saying the most ridiculous shit. And you have no idea who said it.

[01:42:32] Because there's so many people talking at once. So it's like. It makes the thing, the stupid donkey switch to video review or whatever. They're like, they put a mic in the switch so that it can hear you whenever you're playing Mario. He's like, oh, hey guys, what's up? And you hear the kid. Oh, that's great. Back in the blunders going off. Yeah. It's a good video. Yeah. So good. Oh, yeah. But see, that's the other thing. He's like, I'm like, this is centered for three 33 player co-op.

[01:43:01] They're doing everything they can to make it not actually communicate related. Because like you can emoji at each other and be like over here, assholes. But besides that, I think there's a limit of like four players in your party. So. Oh, yeah. That's right. The possibility of you to queue up and be like, hey, me and my other 32 best bros, we're all going to go and we're just going to methodically destroy Lucifer. That sounds great, right? That cannot be done. Like a streamer would do that. But like, yeah, you can't do that.

[01:43:30] That sounds awesome. Like I'm going to do a Minecraft server with 30 of my best streamer bros or my podcast bros or whatever. That sounds awesome. You can't do it in here. Sorry. Because you just get you get matched up with randoms. That freaking sucks. The. The there needs to be more content, but obviously that's coming. It makes me wonder how long this game is going to be in early access. Do you think so? So this game was drafted by somebody and are in the Superbot draft.

[01:43:58] Do you think it comes out of early access before 2026 in this state? Like in the state it's in right now? Because I I'm leaning towards no. I mean, all they need to do to make this a releasable game is to unlock that third world because the third world is paradise. Paradise. And so the whole premise of the game is kill God. Hmm. So you could argue the game is complete if they can make it to paradise to fight God. Assuming he's there.

[01:44:26] You think it would just be like the same shit? Just more of the same game? Probably. Yeah. I mean, they could always like do a twist in and be like, hey, you know, the outside of paradise. Guess what's there? I don't know. Space. Like, I don't know. Cthulhu or something. The problem is they pinch themselves with the stupid divine comedy, you know, backbone. Yeah, because now they can't have Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle skins because where are those going to fit in?

[01:44:55] Not even think about the crossover potential. But yeah, so they they already have Inferno as a level. They have Purgatory as the mid level and then they have Paradise as the third level or the final level so far. So at least in what's called Dante's Inferno, if another gamified version of divine comedy, that one ends right as you get to paradise.

[01:45:25] And there was, you know, never a sequel or anything. Does it? I don't remember. I just remember the the nipple monster. OK, you remember that was just it is as you went through each level, they were the different circles of hell. Yeah, it was really cool. Yeah. So you started out in I don't even think it was Purgatory. I think it was called like Doldrums or something like that. The second time I said Doldrums, but it was like Turpor or something like that. It was like a place before Purgatory. These fucking words are nuts.

[01:45:53] I've never read divine comedy, but I played a couple games set in it at this point. I didn't think about the word Torpor Torpor because there's a magic card called Torpor Orb. But I never thought I just thought that was a magic the gathering word that was fake. But now I'm looking at it. Fucking trash English word. A state of physical or mental inactivity. Lethargy. Lethargy. Torpor.

[01:46:22] That's an awful word, dude. Oh, is this? Wait, I think this is what it's technically called when they hibernate. When who hibernates? The bears? I don't know. Yeah, I see bears and moles and shit. Why is this popping up? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know enough about Christian myth to fully explain where they could go.

[01:46:48] But I think just having two locations before the final zone is bad. Yeah. And having to replay the first one if you don't do the second one very well. I mean, it's cool on paper. Yeah, you're going to be the second one multiple times to get keys to attempt the final one. You know what they should do? What? Microtransaction the keys. Dude, see, that was the problem. I'm like, there is so much room for microtransactions. There are four different currencies.

[01:47:18] They use to upgrade different things. Not to mention the cosmetic store. Like this game. First of all, it seems primed for mobile. There's only what? Three buttons. Oh, yeah. You're in the whole game. The game is small. Four gigs. There is not a lot on screen. It already has like the large UI elements. Like that are just like icons. So it's not a big step for them to do. All right.

[01:47:47] Mobile gaming is OK to a point. But I'm just saying this has a lot of ability to grow like a fungus into mobile gaming just to try to get like, I don't know, those easy microtransaction clicks. Yeah, it's just like that brighter, brighter skies game. Brighter shores. Yeah. Right. It's designed for mobile, even though it's not there yet.

[01:48:09] They need to have the 33 player parties by then so that like Mr. Beast can have a video about, you know, having a bunch of, I don't know, just random school kids or whatever. If they kill Satan, they get four million dollars for their school. Dude, parents already hate Mr. Beast enough. Like if he's playing a game where you kill God. Oh, man. Yeah.

[01:48:34] So this game, it's unfinished, which we've said multiple times. But it also seems to have issues and a weird design philosophy. It almost feels like they are. They don't want to make a game. Dude, that's kind of how Death Stranding feels where I'm just watching it and I'm just like, this would be a sick movie. I'm like constantly thinking, man, this would be tight if it was not a video game.

[01:49:03] Like because all the video games is walking. You should really play Death Stranding. Dude, I think you. You and me are all the same wavelength with this like artsy shit because we both loved fucking. What is that game with all the orifices? Oh, no. What? You stick your fingers in a lot of holes. Scorn, that's it. Yeah, I'll never remember that game's name. But yeah, we both. This is the Scorn of. Kojima.

[01:49:32] Well, yeah, I mean, no, all the Kojima games are like this, actually. But it's so funny because like when you're walking, you get a bunch of packages and you can start slipping. You're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That happens all the time. It's like, oh, no, hold the left trigger and right trigger and like balance yourself. And you just fall on your face. I don't know. Odds are I'm probably going to play it on the Steam Deck, which I don't know how good it's going to look. And also, I don't know, it's going to be pretty clunky probably.

[01:50:03] Oh, that would be so sad. The game looks so good on the Xbox. Oh, God, it looks so good. The game station then. Like there's this part where so there's like these invisible people that walk on their hands and they leave like handprint footprints in the mud or whatever. And like there's this part where Norman Reedus is like one of the first cut scenes and he's like reaching for something. And then one of those things walks by and he gets goosebumps and you just see the goosebumps traveling up his arm and up his neck. And I'm like that. That was cool.

[01:50:32] That was a cool shot. That was a lot of budget. They used on that one. I bet that took a long time. But is this the final words? Sorry. I assumed. Yeah. It's like I wasn't really enjoying it. But yeah, there's no reason to play it right now. There's so many better games. The thing about this is like, OK, I liked Haiti.

[01:51:02] I'm like, OK, why did I like Hades much more than I like this? Besides the content thing, because that's almost that's a little unfair. But it's like there's so much more progression in Hades. You know what I mean? I think that's what I liked about it, that there was a lot more incremental progression than there was in this game. And they just need a lot more of that. Dude, it's like by the end of a Hades run when you're fighting Hades, you know, it's like you are a badass at that point. You are fully powered up.

[01:51:32] You have 900 blessings because you made it this far. Whereas this one, every time I made it to Satan, I'm like, here we go again. Like, you know, I'm the same me. Like, maybe I have a couple more sticks, but I didn't always read what they said or they are all they do not matter. So it's like, yeah, it it needs to be retuned to have more fun in the game, because this could be a fun game for the grinders.

[01:52:00] Like, if you look at in the mind of like, this is for the extraction shooter fans that are trying to get one piece of gear. This is for the Destiny fans. This is for the RuneScape players that are looking for tiny one one point increases after a 30 minute match. You know, what would be cool is if there was a pre lobby for the for the match. So like you joined a lobby with the 33 other people.

[01:52:23] And then I was thinking, like, if you if that did happen, what if you there were like buffs like that you had for each? What? Like if you had if you have like one of each? Well, there's 33 people. But like if you had like five of each thing, like everyone was spread out evenly. Like you got like this big bonus. Right. Or like if everyone was like if there were if there were like a third of you guys were all archers, you get like some kind of archery bonus. You know what I mean? Like some kind of pretty cool.

[01:52:52] So while the game was like loading, well, there's no loading. But like while you were matchmaking and getting new people, everyone could like switch their weapons and that because in this game now you switch weapons. Then you go into matchmaking and then you start the game. Right. Or am I forgetting something? Yeah. Yeah. That's it. That would have that would be like a fundamental change. But I'm like I'm just like there's so many different there needs to be more ways you could interact with the game. I feel like because the game feels very hollow right now.

[01:53:19] Like something has to like you had there's not enough feedback coming back to the player. You know what I mean? Like there's not enough fucking neurons activating when I'm playing the game. Right. Yeah. I hate something like that. Also, I think it's a speed thing too because you are so slow in this game. Yeah. Just knock it up a little bit. Just make everyone go faster. What is the downside? Yeah. You could even make the enemies faster so there's really no change.

[01:53:49] It's just you're the downside is the art team worked really hard on that background. No. I mean the other downside is then it's harder for mobile players to play because everything's faster then and you're doing touchscreen controls. Oh yeah. You got to give them aim bots. Give them aim assist. Dude, Jono complaining about fucking controllers and Call of Duty. It's so funny. He's like, oh, these fucking people, fucking easy mode. And I'm just like, dude. Dude, no one puts Call of Duty here.

[01:54:18] Oh my God. You're yelling at clouds. Meanwhile, I feel like that is a lot of it is just each of us have like something we're super into and we just come into the group chat and I'm like, just scream about it. And then everyone kind of like says like one thing or just ignores us. That's what the group chats are for. Like you just pop in and you're like, Yakuza. And they're like, yeah, Yakuza. Or someone says anything to Tendo and I just pop in.

[01:54:48] I'm like, stinky switch. I hate it. Yeah. I hate Nintendo. They ruined my life. It's so funny seeing everyone fucking suddenly come to the realization. They're like, Nintendo games never come on sale. And I'm like, where have you been? This has been. Why is this just now a criticism? It's been so long.

[01:55:15] I'm so conditioned to it that I don't think about it anymore. And then people are like, yo, did you realize that breath of that fucking breath of the wild? $60 right now? Like, yeah, I didn't realize that. The Mario Kart that was released on the Wii U is still $60. And so I, it's all so fucked up, man. Go listen to our fucking episode of the SuperPod network thing.

[01:55:44] Listener, go do that right now. Don't even listen to the end of our episode. Careful might be too political over there. Was it political? It got a little political. No, just my Nintendo being political. I doubt there's actual politics discussed. Oh my God. Did you see that thing I said? Are you referencing that? Yeah. I forgot what somebody said. It was something like. Hold on. I'll find it. I'm looking through the group chat right now. Oh, okay. Right here. Someone was like, okay, this was a long thread.

[01:56:13] But it was, it was about the tariffs because the Nintendo delayed the pre-order in America because of the tariffs. Right. And then someone was like, are you happy you voted for Trump? And then someone, the other guy that made the post was like, yes. And I was buying a switch too. Now that they made it a political thing, I'm out. Wait, who made it a political thing? Nintendo just did. Didn't you read the article? Nintendo's liberal, liberal cuck propaganda machine. I don't know what's happening in our politics anymore. And it's so funny.

[01:56:43] Every time someone posts something in the group chat, they're like, what's going on in America? And then usually Nick's like, I don't know, brother. Like things are just happening. Dude, me, Nick, me and Nick talk a lot. And he, cause he's always asking me, cause I, I don't know why I fucking pollute my brain with all this shit, but I am so locked into the political sphere. I don't know if that's like shocking to the listener or not, but like, I am so. You need to disconnect.

[01:57:10] I need to, but it's like, so it's like a game of Thrones. It's like really like game of Thrones. And so I'm watching it, but it's like, it's like game of Thrones. But if Tony Stark or whoever the characters are, I don't know the characters in game of the house, like Tony Stark killed somebody that like affects me. You're not too far off. You know what I mean? That does affect me. Like I do want to switch. I don't want to pay $900 for a switch. Please drop, please help. Please do something.

[01:57:38] But, um, yeah. Oh, what was I saying? Oh yeah. Nick, uh, Nick is constantly talking to me about this kind of stuff. Uh, it doesn't matter. Um, we need it in the episode. Go out and vote everyone. Anything else for, uh, 33 immortals? No. Either don't play it or wait. It's, it's a, how big is the game again? Like four gigs? Four gigs. Yeah.

[01:58:06] I mean, like you can play, like it's, it's the game pass problem where it's like, I mean, yeah, go try it. If it looks cool to you. I mean, most people have, but, uh, it, it isn't worth buying. Like not even, not even a little bit. It's not worth buying. Um, I'm pretty sure. I'd say like 30 bucks. I would assume. Um, the thing also is that there are like microtransactions in it. Isn't, aren't there? I didn't see you buy it. There was, I think, well, not micro.

[01:58:34] Well, I mean, it would be microtransactions, but like, I think you can buy cosmetics in the game that just make you purple or something. Oh, here's the guy posting 33 immortals is a hundred times better than I thought it would be. Really? Marvel rivals is out. 33. Yeah, this is the, this is the crowd you're going for. Yeah. There's a tutorials.

[01:59:04] I didn't do the tutorial. I didn't know there was a tutorial. They make a big deal about it. When you walk in the, like right after your like first death, you walk in and Beatrix is like, Hey, here's a big glowy right next to me. That will give you a tutorial on all advanced co-op maneuvers and stuff that you're going to need. You're going to need it. And then I run past her straight to the portal to go die. Yeah, me too. So there are, there are, uh, cosmetics you can buy for $9.

[01:59:33] It makes you purple. Hmm. And it gives you like a cape and an aura and a little, did you see there were pets? They were like dogs. Oh man. That that's how they get me, dude. I'm pretty, that was when we played a sea of thieves for four hours and I immediately bought the Shiba and you're like, Nave, why did you do that? You're not, you're not going to, you're not going to play this game anymore. But look at it.

[01:59:59] No, but if I do ever go back, I'm going to have that little Shiba, little orange Shiba. I forgot what I named him. Uh, croissant. I don't know. Oh, no. Oh, I called it Mandarin. Mandarin. Yeah. I called it Mandarin. I don't remember that. That's so weird. What a, what a useless fucking memory. All right. All right. That's 33 immortals. Nave, what are we doing next week? Uh, I swear to God, split fiction this time. I, I weird, I'm at the end.

[02:00:28] I'm like, I'm staring at the end. I'm looking at the end. It's gotta be, gotta be coming. All right. Thanks for joining us this week, co-partners. Maybe next time we can all queue up to rebel against God together with your 22 other friends all at one time so we can all die. See you next time. Goodbye. Bye. I am the glob, glob, glob, glob, glob.

[02:00:55] The shwabble, dabble, wabble, gabble, slibble, blah, blah, blah. I'm full of shwibble, glibber kind. I am the yeast of thoughts and mind. Shwabble, dabble, glibber, glab, a shwibble, shwap, glab. Dibble, dabble, shwibble, shwabble, glab, shwap. Shwabble, dabble, glibber, glab, a shwibble, shwap, dab. Dibble, dabble, shwibble, shwabble, glibber, shwap, glab. Ooh, ha, ha, ha. Mmm.