Press B 284: Sisyphean Games 2026

As is tradition, each year we select a video game we feel we should have beaten. Whether it's for nostalgia, guilt, or a personal challenge; we're here this week to pick our sisyphean game to play this year. Oh and the great motivator? The Wheel of Pain of course! Who will spin it this year?

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00:00 --> 00:23 The immortal words of Kate Bush, keep running up that road, running up that hill, pushing the rock, letting it fall. Just like Sisyphus. Which is our topic today. Sisyphean game discussion from 2025 today on 2026. Well, it's 2026 now.
00:24 --> 00:26 Don't. Don't get the year wrong over.
00:46 --> 00:48 No, but it's 2026 picks.
00:48 --> 00:52 Did we do Sisyphean games of 2026, Ed? No, we didn't.
00:52 --> 00:52 No.
00:52 --> 00:53 But that's what we're doing now.
00:53 --> 00:54 We're about to.
00:55 --> 01:37 You wanted me to host, Guys, welcome in to another fine episode of Press Me to Cancel today. I'm your host, Chard Monk, and I am brought together with three more stone rollers that we're here to talk about our Sisyphean games that we did in 2025. And we'll then probably discuss the games we're going to play in 2026 if we pick the idea because the. It was real. A challenge. Honestly, we all had a big challenge. I'm trying to figure it out. But I'm not here to pick my games alone. No, of course not. I am here with these wonderful gentlemen. Wolf, not only is it pressed be to cancel day, but it's also a special day for you, Wolf.
01:38 --> 01:45 Yeah, it is. It is my birthday today, and my wife was off by a year.
01:47 --> 01:50 Nothing wrong with that. Hopefully behind. Hopefully a year back.
01:50 --> 01:56 That's all right. A minute ago, Jake made me feel real fucking old. So you're fine again.
01:56 --> 01:58 Again. You have a Commodore 64 behind you.
01:58 --> 02:00 I think you do it yourself, Big head.
02:02 --> 02:03 Anyway, sorry, Wolf.
02:04 --> 02:33 She thought I was turning 42, so she was going to do a whole Hitchhiker's Guide thing. And then like two weeks ago, I was talking to her about it, and I was like. She was like, are you excited for your birthday? And I'm like, well, not super, because I'm going to not be 42 anymore, and 43 isn't as fun a number. And she was like, what? She had just gotten done talking to the kiddo, telling him how I'm gonna be 42. And she had this whole plan.
02:34 --> 02:38 Wow, numbers suck. You'd be 42 for one more day, for one more year. It's fine.
02:38 --> 02:39 One more year.
02:39 --> 02:40 Nothing wrong with that.
02:40 --> 02:43 That's all right. She. She made it work with the card. It was fun.
02:43 --> 02:47 Living in the future of. Of being 43 for the last year. It's not too bad.
02:48 --> 02:51 The Sisyphean Challenge for Wolf this year is to be 42 all year.
02:51 --> 02:58 Long is to age. Yeah, quickly. Speaking of aging. Quickly. Sinistar.
02:58 --> 03:05 Oh, wow. You're not talking about my head anymore. That's fine.
03:05 --> 03:11 No, of course not. Well, the head keeps growing as you get older, right? It's the ears, the head and the nose.
03:11 --> 03:11 That's how it works.
03:12 --> 03:12 Yeah.
03:12 --> 03:13 Such ego.
03:14 --> 03:14 Well, I'll just.
03:14 --> 03:15 You'll get taller.
03:15 --> 03:18 I'll just say this then. Hey.
03:20 --> 03:21 I'll give you a hug.
03:22 --> 03:22 I love you.
03:23 --> 03:31 Make sure you take your bone medication. Speaking of boners, Jake, I don't know how we transition to that, but we're going with it. Jake, how are you?
03:31 --> 03:34 That's why I have three kids, Chard. It's a problem.
03:34 --> 03:35 That's why. That's why.
03:37 --> 03:41 I'm going. Great. Happy New Year.
03:41 --> 03:42 Happy New Year.
03:43 --> 03:44 Happy second week of the new year.
03:44 --> 03:45 Yeah.
03:45 --> 03:48 Happy, happy first full week of work year.
03:49 --> 03:50 Yeah. There you go.
03:50 --> 03:50 Oh, God.
03:50 --> 03:51 It was.
03:51 --> 06:24 And we can all agree to that. But that's fine. You know what? We're here to talk about something positive, something fun, something and entertaining. This is a. Well, I'd like to think that it's fun and entertaining, depending on what you're doing. So this is a. A press B, exclusive that we all kind of came together. This was suggested by our wonderful and lovely viewer, Sinistress, to Sar, in which he then brought it to us. And we were like, yeah, this is a cool thing. Sorry, YouTube, but I was excited about it at the time. And we had. We created these rules of finding a game, any game. It doesn't have to be current. It could be retro, it could be Tetris, it could be whatever that you bounced off of for some reason or another. Maybe, you know, you didn't have the time to play it, or, you know, you got into a difficult section and you were like, yeah, I don't have time to put into this. Or, you know, just. It didn't catch you at the time, but it still has left that itch in the back of your brain that you just never were able to put down or not think about. So we decided to challenge each one of ourselves, and only in challenge, in playing said game, to try and complete that game for the year. You have, you know, from the start of this episode to the end of the know, December 31, 2026, which will be this year, to complete this game. And in doing so, you get to say, wow, I'm really happy I did that. That game was actually spectacular. Or, you know, that was really difficult, but I. I overcome and I achieved and I achieved anyway. I was like Jeffrey Lebowski saying, I lost my legs, but I achieved. Anyways, go watch the movie. It's a great movie. Or you could say there's a reason I never played Bugsy 3D again, because it's awful and I can't get away from it. But the problem is, is that, of course, you can't just not finish a game. There has to be some kind of repercussions to it. So Jake, being the loving and wonderful person that he is, designed the Wheel of Pain, which will be brought down during an incompleted playthrough of said Sisyphean game. It is not just shtick. It's supposed to be something that motivates you to finish the game because there are awful goddamn games on that board. I, for one, have not had the pleasure of playing any of those games because I have completed every single game that I've played, including this year. Ass has. Sinistar. He's.
06:24 --> 06:27 No, no, I. I had to do the first wheel.
06:27 --> 06:28 You did. You did.
06:28 --> 06:28 You had.
06:28 --> 06:28 You did.
06:28 --> 06:33 We. That's when we had squad goals and none of us played Dragon Slayer with you. We just laughed at you.
06:34 --> 06:37 Hey, I have. I have one chivo in.
06:37 --> 07:14 He does have one chivo. That's more than me. That's more than me, which isn't saying much, but. Yeah, so. So today we will discuss. We will go around Robin as we normally do. We will discuss the games that we had selected for the year, whether we completed them and what we thought about it upon completion, and then we will go and decide. Well, we'll probably do Wheel of Pain first, if that is necessary. Then we'll decide what this year's excitements are going to be full of. Jake, at any time, if there's a direction that you would rather me go, please steer the car, because I'm either going to drive this thing into a ditch or we're going to get to our location.
07:14 --> 07:26 We'll do. We'll do our retrospective of the games from last year that we beat or not. And then we'll do the Wheel of Pain because we have something else with that. Because of a bet that three of us made, two of us made foolishly, I guess.
07:26 --> 07:27 And you never bet against a chard.
07:29 --> 07:31 That's true. But yeah, let's go through our picks and then that's cool.
07:31 --> 07:50 Cool. So, yeah, so we'll go round robin and we'll. We'll call out what we played. If we liked it, would we play it again? And would we recommend it to anybody who wants to play it, then we will. We'll discuss further about what's going to happen this year. So who would like to go first in our. In our meet?
07:52 --> 07:52 I'll go first.
07:54 --> 07:55 Yeah, okay. Fuck.
07:55 --> 09:58 Half Life 2 Half Life 2 sucks. That was my pick last year. Look, we've been doing this for a few years now and some of my previous picks were Battletoads because that's a walk in the park somehow picking Street Fighter 6. Not just Street Fighter 6, but deciding to become a Diamond Rank master of Street Fighter 6. Needless to say, I didn't do either of those goals. So last year I decided to pick a game that guys I thought I would like. I thought might be a little bit easier to do. Maybe a bit of a break of a game for fucking once. Because I seem to like make things worse for myself when I do the CPN challenges. So I picked a neat. I picked a game that I thought I would actually like in Half Life 2. I played it when it first came out, bounced off it several times. It's been 20 years. I figured now's the time to go back. And also because like, I mean much like silksong, Half Life 3 has been a persistent rumor for years. Steam machines coming out this year. I have a feeling. I don't know, but I have a feeling that Half Life 3 might get announced this year. I think anyway. And if that happens, I can't play until I play Half Life 2. So I'm like I'm going to play Half Life 2. And I played through it and the graphics still hold up. Still some of the best PC graphics. And it's been 20 years. And this is before the light remasters they've done over the years. Like the texture work was always solid in this game. Music. Pretty decent story. Okay, sure, I mean cliffhanger, we all know how it ends by now. But the gameplay is so dated and just so boring and so drawn out and just one long ass chase sequence. And I was so tired of it by the end. Anytime I was in an area where it had to, you were like funneled into like a defensive area and you're fighting endless waves of enemies for 20 minutes or 10 minutes. Where the fuck it is. I hated it. I didn't like any of the gunplay. The only item that felt good to use was the gravity gun. That was the only thing I like to use. Especially in Ravenholm where you can pick up saw blades and signs and shoot them at the zombies. That was fun.
09:58 --> 09:59 Nobody goes to Ravenholm.
10:00 --> 10:04 Nobody goes to Ravenholm. But if you happen to be there, take gravity gun and saw blades.
10:04 --> 10:04 Right.
10:04 --> 10:07 That was cool, right? And I give it credit for.
10:07 --> 10:08 In your back pocket.
10:08 --> 10:49 Like, in your back pocket. Yeah, of course. Pocket blades. And it's like, I get the tech for the time especially. There's. There's special tech in the source engine that came with Half Life 2, where there's like a drawing of wires and cables, and those look really cool. And the physics, I get it. This was like the game that brought physics to a 3D shooter. I appreciate what it did. But to play the game now, 20 years later, the gameplay feels so dated and just so one note all the way through. And I did not like this game. So I'm glad I beat it. I did beat it. I had so much time left, but I beat it. What? December, end of November. And I did beat it, but I'll never play it again. And I don't think I'm going to Touch Half Life 3.
10:49 --> 11:09 I think it's interesting because, like, this game is. Is kind of relatively universally loved. I mean, I get. I get that, like, not everyone is going to love every game. Right? Like, there are people. There are people that beyond my understanding dislike Earthbound. There are.
11:09 --> 11:10 It's.
11:10 --> 11:12 But, yeah.
11:12 --> 11:16 Who would dare dislike Earthbound? Me. I can eat that game, too.
11:16 --> 11:19 There's at least two people in the podcast that I know of.
11:19 --> 11:22 I don't hate it. I just never got into it.
11:23 --> 11:40 So here. So on Jake, to Jake's point, let's. Let's just say this. And. And we can relate this to, like, I don't know, games you played growing up that you just have, like, Mario rpg. Let's just go ahead and throw that one out there because there are people that absolutely freaking love Mario rpg.
11:40 --> 11:40 Yeah.
11:40 --> 12:17 And there's two people. Two at least. At least two people, probably three people that. That do not care for this game whatsoever. And I know that people played it when it first came out. It was a big deal when it hit. I can. For my stance. I played Half Life 2 when it first came out, and I was so excited to see facial recognition and, you know, mouths moving. And it's not just blah, blah, blah. It's actually people, like, they look like they were actually phonetically saying things and. And the technology that was brought and the fact that most the environments were destroyable, but everything could move in the environment. You can pick up any box or. Any can.
12:17 --> 12:18 Yeah.
12:18 --> 12:20 Or anything that was just lying around. It just.
12:20 --> 12:20 It.
12:20 --> 12:24 It brought a whole new game at.
12:24 --> 12:27 The end of the game, you're ripping panels off of walls. Yeah.
12:27 --> 13:47 I mean like you're trying through stuff and, and, and at the time in 2005, that was freaking awesome because you never got to do that. I mean, you've been playing Doom forever. And I was a boomer shooter growing up quite a bit. Played all the Dooms and the Serious Sams and the, you know, Duke Nukem's and stuff. But to be able to like interact with your environment in that way was just really, really cool. And I, and I will admit that going back and playing it on my Steam deck not too long ago, just to kind of futz around with it because jokingly, some Sinistar and I would start playing Half Life 2 because we're like, oh, we'll probably beat it for Jake because we do that every year. Oh, we'll just beat the game before Jake because it's not like he doesn't have family he takes care of and a full time job that he works, you know, so it's not like he's busy doing anything important. But you know, we were just messing around with it. And, and I will say that some of the, like the puzzle stuff that's in the game I still think holds up pretty well because you got to move stuff around to get around and all that. I love the puzzles, but I think to the level of saying playing like a, like a boomer shooter now or a first person shooter now, there's more action now than there was back then and there. And it does feel kind of stale and empty in certain locations. That and all. And I love the hover jet for a little bit, but after a while you're like, I'm tired of driving this son of a. Please get me on solid goddamn land so I can like face down some stuff.
13:47 --> 13:52 I love that whole sequence. I can play that hovercraft. Oh yeah. I could play it over.
13:53 --> 13:57 And then beyond that, I was like, I got to do this again. I'm kind of done.
13:57 --> 13:58 I could do it over and over.
13:58 --> 13:59 I could.
13:59 --> 14:00 Yeah.
14:00 --> 14:35 So I, I, to Jake's point, I get it if you played it now in 2025 and, and you know that it has, it has merit and it's got importance, but right now it just, it probably doesn't hold as well as it would if you had just fired it up and you were trying to remember this analogy because I, I did play it, I, I was messing around with a VR mod for it, which was really cool, but it does still. It feels kind of empty, like There could be more, but at the time there wasn't. That was more. That was what you got. So I, I can, I can understand that. You know, I went. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to go on a tirade.
14:35 --> 14:36 The ending is like a total cliffhanger.
14:36 --> 14:37 Right? So.
14:37 --> 14:37 And like, there's.
14:40 --> 14:40 For those.
14:40 --> 14:42 Happy 42nd birthday.
14:42 --> 14:55 Yeah, happy 42nd again. For those of you who are listening to this again, it is Wolf's birthday. Happy birthday. His family has bursted into his room and has thrown confetti everywhere.
14:55 --> 14:56 Scared the shit out of me.
14:57 --> 15:18 Scared the shit out of him. And he is now wearing a Christmas hat or a birthday hat and he's got pink balloons all over the place and confetti and wife wolf and, and wolf pup have effectively destroyed Wolf's room. I'm not cleaning that up, just FYI.
15:19 --> 15:21 Yeah, looking forward to it.
15:23 --> 15:27 I know what he's doing this weekend anyway. Sorry, I didn't mean to go to tirade back then, but.
15:27 --> 15:28 No, no, I'm sorry.
15:29 --> 15:31 No, I love it.
15:32 --> 15:33 The ambush is great.
15:34 --> 15:35 The ambush was great.
15:35 --> 15:59 I'll say. Like, I am not a fan of the Boomer shooters. Like, I didn't grow up with them, right. Like, I did play Quake 3 Arena and I loved, I played a lot of Quake 3 Arena and I did play like Turok. I love Turok and Golden Eye, but I never really grew up with Doom or Quake 2 or any of those games. So I was very specific in the shooters I did like. And, and I know that Half Life 1, which I have not played, I know Half Life 1 was almost, universally, universally loved as well. And Then Half Life 2 being an amazing follow up to it.
15:59 --> 16:00 Right? Sure, yeah.
16:00 --> 16:15 So I, on paper, I thought I would really like this, this game, but like the physics, as cool as they are, the physic puzzles, like there's one sequence where you're on. You're on the hovercraft and you have to park and there's a gate or a gate or a ramp you have to raise.
16:15 --> 16:16 Yeah, yeah.
16:16 --> 16:21 And there's like a dumb waiter or some kind of bobby elevator thing and you got to put stuff into it.
16:21 --> 16:22 I love that puzzle.
16:22 --> 16:52 So I'm like, I'm dropping like bricks into it and cinder blocks and, and anything I can find and nothing is working. And I, I spend 15 minutes trying to figure it out. Eventually I realized it doesn't matter what you put in it, it's not enough to do it. You have to find your way above it and drop a fridge or something. Or dishwasher down into it. So even though it feels like an open physics puzzle, it's really not. You're really hammered into the one solution. It's so much more different than, say, Portal 2, which. Portal 2 is fantastic. And you can see the bones of Portal 2 based on stuff that they learn with Half Life 2.
16:52 --> 16:53 Right, right, right.
16:53 --> 16:59 Portal 2. I feel like there's more chances of being creative with the puzzle solving than there was in Half Life 2.
16:59 --> 17:00 Very different games.
17:00 --> 17:02 And. I know, but I don't know, to.
17:02 --> 17:27 Play devil's advocate on the other side, Portal 2 is specifically like a puzzle game. Right. It's. It is getting out of rooms and stuff. Well, this has more action built into it. I really like the, like, fighting off the weird. The walrus machine planes that fly at you and you got to use the tracking missile to blow them out of the sky. That was so cool.
17:27 --> 17:34 I hated it. I spent. I spent 45 minutes on the one stage where you're ambushed by, like, three of them at once. That took me forever to get through.
17:34 --> 17:40 Oh, my God, I love that. Sitting there with my mouse watching, aiming the missile to get at it. So cool.
17:40 --> 17:46 And I can still hear. I can still hear the sound effect in my head of their gun spinning up.
17:46 --> 17:46 Yeah.
17:46 --> 17:49 And then, like, you know. Oh, yeah.
17:50 --> 18:06 I am. I am sad. I'll let Wolf talk here in a minute. I'm sad that you did not care for this. And I. And I. That makes. It does make me sad. But I do understand your. Your point to it, but it. It's. It's such a. It's such a huge game for gaming in general.
18:06 --> 18:26 I know. Like, it's. It's a milestone game for PC gaming. And like, I. I really am curious what they would do with the Half Life 3, because I think at this point, Valve wouldn't just do, like, a. More of the same. I think they feel like they have to do something new and unique with the shooting genre. So I'm sure whatever Half Life 3 does will be new and interesting. I don't think I want to touch it.
18:26 --> 18:30 It's going to be on the frame. The goddamn frame.
18:30 --> 18:36 There's also a fantastically high chance that there will never be A Half Life 3. Let's be honest.
18:37 --> 18:42 Yeah, I mean, we kind of already got Half Life 3, but you have to have a VR headset to play it, so.
18:42 --> 18:43 Half Life, Alex.
18:43 --> 18:49 Well, there's rumors that it's supposed to be coming out alongside the Steam Machine or the frame or something.
18:51 --> 18:56 There was also rumors about Episode nine of Stranger Things season five, you know.
18:56 --> 18:57 Yeah, I saw that too.
18:57 --> 19:01 And spin off that are apparently not happening at all.
19:01 --> 19:04 The Internet likes nothing more than spreading rumors.
19:04 --> 19:10 Yeah, yeah, that's its favorite. It's its favorite pastime, Half Life two.
19:11 --> 19:42 I think that's one of those games I kind of missed the train on. I was playing PC games, but I was never really a first person shooter player. So when I was playing PC games, it was stuff like Warcraft, Morrowind, you know, Star Wars, Knights of the Old Republic. It was tended to lean RPG or RTS or sim. And I think the only first person shooter I ever kind of got into on PC was Will Rock of all games.
19:42 --> 19:43 Nice.
19:43 --> 19:44 And I didn't even finish that.
19:45 --> 19:46 Yeah, I remember that one.
19:47 --> 19:52 I see a Sisyphean Will Rock. Yeah, yeah.
19:52 --> 19:54 Never heard of that one. Okay.
19:54 --> 19:58 It's think like Serious Sam merged with Turok kind of thing.
19:59 --> 20:00 Yeah, okay.
20:04 --> 20:04 Like, yeah.
20:06 --> 20:07 It really is.
20:09 --> 20:36 It wasn't anything spectacular game or, you know, cutting edge or anything like that, but it was fun for a little while. But yeah, when I finally got around to trying Half Life because Half Life 2 was on the way and like people had been talking about Half Life for a few years. So I was finally like, all right, I'll check this out. And the first two hours, I hated it. I couldn't do it. I was just uninterested. I didn't care.
20:37 --> 20:38 Half Life is awesome.
20:38 --> 21:02 And then Half Life 2 came along and I. When. And I didn't play that for a few years because I was like, well, I didn't care for Half Life 1. And then I picked up the orange box on 360 because I was interested in Portal 2. I loved the first Portal, so I played that. And then I went and tried Half Life 2 on the orange box and I was like, no, I still am not. It ain't doing it for me.
21:03 --> 21:04 I gave that one about an hour.
21:04 --> 21:07 And a half and I was just like, nope, not for me.
21:08 --> 21:11 Sitting on this boat alone. Sitting in this Half Life boat alone.
21:11 --> 21:20 Yep. No, I loved Half Life one, but Half Life one in comparison to Half Life two, Half Life two is. Is hard.
21:20 --> 21:21 Yeah.
21:21 --> 21:31 Half Life one in comparison is hard. There are some parts, some of the squishy inner parts that are just hard as hell.
21:31 --> 21:31 Yeah.
21:31 --> 21:31 Yep.
21:31 --> 21:32 So.
21:34 --> 21:38 Was it Black Mesa? Like the. Is it the fan made remaster that.
21:38 --> 21:38 They did or whatever.
21:39 --> 21:49 It's cool. Blue Shift and all that stuff. That's. That's some cool stuff that came out with Half Life one. And I I remember just falling in love with Half Life and the crowbar and the head crabs and the whole nine.
21:49 --> 21:49 Yep.
21:49 --> 22:06 And then I was like, they're making a two. And this thing looks like. I mean, for its time. You're like these. These are real people talking to me. Like, this is huge. And the physics is insane. I just. I was so, like, enthralled by what they had done with the game and its tech and everything that came along with it.
22:06 --> 22:10 Yeah, the source engine was. Was a hell of a thing. It really was amazing.
22:10 --> 22:17 And, like, the opening city 17 with the. The narration was awesome. Right. The hearing the guy and the speaker talk to you about how they're sterilizing.
22:17 --> 22:19 Humanity and then the G Man.
22:19 --> 22:23 Yeah, like, that whole intro was. I thought I'd be all in on this game.
22:23 --> 22:25 Sorry, Wolf, what were you saying, Wolf?
22:25 --> 22:45 I. I do remember seeing just the rack full of various Half Life releases at GameStop. You'd have, like, it was two or three shelves of just Half Life boxes because they had different, like. Yeah, I still iterations like Blue Shift, like you were saying, and two or three others or something. And it was just.
22:46 --> 22:52 I still see Half Life bumper stickers. I've seen Half Life tattoos. I've seen.
22:52 --> 22:54 Gordon Freeman is still everywhere.
22:54 --> 23:00 Yeah, he's in. Gordon Freeman's cutout is in Warframe as a joke. They actually have the cutout in Warframe.
23:00 --> 23:01 Nice.
23:01 --> 23:03 It's still relevant to, like, you know.
23:03 --> 23:11 It is a you. It is like. It is genuinely a love game, but that doesn't mean everybody's gonna love it. That doesn't mean everybody's gonna love it.
23:12 --> 23:24 Yeah, I'm not gonna it, but I'm not gonna shit on it because I know how much people like it and I know. I recognize it's not for me. I just never found what drew everybody to it because it didn't do it to me. It's that simple.
23:25 --> 24:00 Me is the tech. The tech that they did and adding real. At the time felt like real game physics, like, reality physics. And being able to do all that stuff. And the interaction with the NPCs with Alex and the doctor and. And seeing upgraded versions of, like, Barney talking to you and stuff is kind of neat to have, like, because I. I read the magazines, man. Is this. This in, like, dead space were the two games that I like followed from, you know, conception out. And seeing them. Seeing the. Them doing the green screen and the actual. What is it called?
24:00 --> 24:01 The mo.
24:01 --> 24:29 The mocap stuff that they were starting to get into was just like, it Floored me. And watching, watching videos on what it was going to look like. Man, the day that game came out, I quit my job. I locked myself in my room and I played that thing until, until people were calling me because I was in Germany, so people were awake calling me when I should have been asleep, asking me how the game was. And it's like 12 in the morning, so I couldn't, I couldn't get enough of that one. I'm a big half life.
24:29 --> 24:39 For me, it was, it was. I love the hovercraft. I really did. I genuinely love the hovercraft. I even loved that it was even kind of on rails when you're going through the tunnel systems.
24:39 --> 24:40 Yeah.
24:40 --> 25:16 I love the puzzles. I love that puzzle where you're trying to raise the ramp. I love that puzzle. And, and even for me, the. I don't know, I mean, the story, yeah, it's a bit like the progression of the story is a lot of fun. Like, especially when like all of a sudden you're in a horror game, you're in Ravenholm and they give an explanation, explanation for why you're in. You know, why, why you're there. And then, and then part of it I think maybe is also that aspect of like, what the hell's next? And we're still waiting for it, right?
25:16 --> 25:20 We're still waiting 20, 21 years later. Crazy.
25:20 --> 25:21 Yeah.
25:21 --> 25:28 And you get, you get the gmaz, like, you know, I can't remember his lines, but you know, like, Gordon, Gordon Free.
25:28 --> 25:34 You know, like he's got that weird speech thing. It's funny when he talks. Gordon Free Men.
25:34 --> 25:35 Yeah.
25:35 --> 25:36 What the hell?
25:36 --> 26:19 I looked up the wiki for Half Life 2. Like, the plot details. I got more enjoyment about reading the plot details from Alex and, and the DLCs and the, the leak script from. Because one of the designers of the game, or maybe it's not the game, but one of the guys who used to work at Valve had written a script for A Half Life 3. It never got done, it never got used, and it probably won't be ever used. They're probably doing something else at this point. He's left Valve years ago, but that scrub got leaked out and there's details on the plot of where it would have gone. And that was cool as crap too. Like, it was really neat. And like the lore with the aliens you meet in two versus what they. How they were in the first game. Yeah, that stuff was really, really cool. Like, it was up there in terms of like, I love Deus Ex for that kind of world building stuff. And that's what I felt. Half Life two of like. As well.
26:19 --> 26:21 I just didn't translate.
26:21 --> 26:24 Couldn't get into the gameplay. It sucks.
26:24 --> 26:25 Like, I appreciate.
26:25 --> 26:26 It's well loved. I do.
26:26 --> 26:26 Yeah.
26:26 --> 26:29 Just not again, not for me there.
26:29 --> 26:29 Yeah.
26:29 --> 26:30 Okay.
26:30 --> 26:33 Well, I'm glad you finished it so you don't have to spin the wheel.
26:33 --> 26:36 For this is an hour long episode about Half Life 2.
26:36 --> 26:37 Yeah, sorry.
26:40 --> 26:40 Man.
26:40 --> 26:44 We should have turned this into an episode. We should have thought about that. Okay. All right.
26:44 --> 26:45 My segment will be concise.
26:46 --> 26:47 Mine will too. Mine will.
26:47 --> 26:52 Mine probably will as well, but. So who wants to go next and who wants to follow up?
26:52 --> 27:40 You said round robin. I think I'm next. I think I'm next in the. Okay, we've already done an episode on mine, so I'm going to be concise. The only thing that I'm going to say though is I bounced off Cyberpunk again in 2025. I did. I genuinely tried to play it. I tried to find time. I wanted to. I wanted to say this. Part of the reason that we have the Wheel of Pain is because the final boss, in my opinion, is life getting in the way of you doing what you want to enjoy. Right? And so, like, that's why we have the Wheel of Pain is just to have a reason to. To. To. To sit down and force yourself to have fun. Right? You're gonna have fun, God damn it. You're gonna have fun.
27:41 --> 27:42 Mandatory fun.
27:42 --> 27:44 Smile and laugh.
27:44 --> 28:12 Yeah, no, but I bounced off of. I bounced off of my game. I did. In fact, we had a couple of conversations in the middle of the year where I was like, guys, I'm not going to be able to get into this. And I went. And I was like, yeah. I tried to change. I was like, I have made it 3/4 through Bard's Tale 4. Because I was like, you know what? Fuck it. I'm turning this into my Sisyphean because it's Sinistar and he needs a fucking Bard's Tale game.
28:14 --> 28:16 Bard's Table of Contents, you know, we.
28:16 --> 28:22 Make the joke, but, like, the world loves Final Fantasy more than I love Bard's Tales, so I'm just going to go with it.
28:22 --> 28:25 But Chrono Trigger, you ever play that one?
28:25 --> 28:37 Yeah, yeah. No, I've never heard of that one. But then I finally. I finally in December, be down. I beared down.
28:37 --> 28:38 I thought I was late.
28:38 --> 28:39 Yeah, no kidding.
28:39 --> 28:56 And I barreled through. But you know what? I'm going to be honest with you. If I'D spread it out through the whole year. I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it as much, honestly, because I would have come back to it and been like, I don't remember what the fuck's going on. Come back to it. I don't know what the fuck's going on.
28:56 --> 29:02 There's a lot of instantaneous reaction that happens after you complete something. It's hard to put down.
29:02 --> 29:02 Yeah.
29:02 --> 29:05 Like when you really get reeled in, you get like really real.
29:05 --> 29:22 Yeah. And the minute that I finally kind of dialed in on the quest lines and the side quests that I was enjoying it, it just rolled. And you guys remember I beat that thing in like two weeks. And that was with like.
29:22 --> 29:27 Yeah, it was done. Yeah, you were done with it real fast. So that's cool.
29:27 --> 29:31 And yeah, we have an entire episode. In fact, it was the previous episode to this one.
29:31 --> 29:31 Yep.
29:32 --> 29:32 Last week.
29:33 --> 29:45 Yeah, but I loved it. I loved it. I feel, I feel very glad. It's. I, as I said in that episode, I think I need to realize that I actually like open world games instead of hate open world games.
29:45 --> 29:47 Phantom Liberty baby.
29:47 --> 29:50 When it's on my list, it's on my list.
29:50 --> 30:12 But I would encourage you because you're right. Like I agree with 100%. It's the type of game where if you, you wait several months to play that dlc, you're never going to play it. Right. You're going to want to start over or just pass on it because that kind of game is best enjoyed back to back for sure. So I hope you finished the DLC or at least give it a go to see what's different because it's, it's a great DLC from. Again, I have not finished either.
30:12 --> 30:12 Yeah, for sure.
30:12 --> 30:25 But I am glad you beat cyberpunk. Cyberpunk is one of my favorite games in the last. Last while is definitely a great one. Like I said last week and I'm glad you did beat it. It's. It's a good one. But it is so easy to bounce off those open world games. I totally right there with you.
30:25 --> 30:27 It's no half life, but you have to.
30:28 --> 30:32 It's, it's, it's analysis paralysis because it's too big.
30:32 --> 30:33 Yeah.
30:33 --> 30:33 Yeah.
30:33 --> 30:38 Until you hone it in and you figure out what the path is. That's what it is.
30:39 --> 30:57 Now I Cyberpunk 2077, when I played through it, I was streaming it and outside of Stream I was going out and just doing random world exploration. I think I explored maybe 95% of that world Before I finished the game.
30:58 --> 30:58 Nice.
30:59 --> 31:08 Like I was going out to the stupid places in the desert and just disarming bombs for the experience and finding loot. Like I did all the stupid shit.
31:09 --> 31:13 You'Re teen up and down the desert to see if there's anything you missed back and forth.
31:13 --> 31:16 Did I miss any bombs? Did I miss any mines?
31:16 --> 31:19 And now. And now Werewolf hates that game forever.
31:20 --> 31:27 Well, no, I loved that game and I played it in the super broken state where.
31:27 --> 31:28 Yes.
31:28 --> 31:29 Like, I still love it.
31:29 --> 31:58 I love that you have an installer for like 1.0. Someday I'm going to collect that from you and I'm going to play it again. And just. I also want to understand because I had enough gap from when I did the episode, talking with the team before I was a member until finishing it that I had a gap that they did a fuck ton of updates. And so I basically had the joy of like. I forgot just how weird that game was.
31:58 --> 32:11 Yep. I remember playing it on release day and then playing it just a couple days ago going, I don't remember any of this. This is like way new. So this has definitely been an upgrade from what I played it before. It's really cool.
32:11 --> 32:17 It's a much better game now than it was when it first came out. But I also was one of the few people who had no technical issues really when it first came out.
32:18 --> 32:23 Technical issues, but none that like locked me out of moving forward.
32:23 --> 32:26 Except like the Jackie in the elevator.
32:26 --> 32:35 I had one game breaking bug. Mine wasn't Jackie in the elevator. It was the guard in front of the elevator. I shot him. And he went through the wall.
32:35 --> 32:35 That's right.
32:35 --> 32:36 And.
32:36 --> 32:48 And like outside the building. Like I could see him through the window. And he's just standing there and I'm like. And it's like, get the key card from the. From the, you know, the guy. And I'm like, but he's.
32:48 --> 32:55 But he's there. I can't reach him. Can please tell me there's another format for this?
32:56 --> 33:35 Yeah, I think I hit a few soft lock moments where I'd be playing and then something would happen where I'd have that invincibility glitch. And so then you can't actually progress anything because you have no health bar. People won't die either. Like, it's just stuck. So that would happen. And I think the first time that happened to me, I had to roll back about a half hour. And after that I started saving quick saving pretty regularly. So that way, if it ever happened, wasn't a huge issue. And then sometimes when it would happen, I'd just go on a tangent and just be a maniac around town. Because it was ridiculous, Right?
33:35 --> 33:50 Yeah. I did have one game breaking bug in my latest playthrough. My save game. Four iterations of my save games. Well, one of them corrupted and then they kept corrupting as I saved, so I had to roll back. I lost 45 minutes.
33:52 --> 33:52 Yeah.
33:52 --> 33:54 In genuine progression.
33:54 --> 33:55 Yeah.
33:55 --> 33:59 It wasn't me just driving around. It was like I was doing progression. Yeah.
34:01 --> 34:01 That sucks.
34:04 --> 34:11 Still really glad you beat it, though. Yeah, I'm really glad to be. That was. That and Witcher 3 were like the two games where I'm like, guys, you need all. You need to all play these two games.
34:11 --> 34:14 I'm like, the last one to play Witcher 3. I still haven't played that one.
34:14 --> 34:15 I still haven't either.
34:15 --> 34:20 Yeah. Okay, good. Wolf and I can just. We can be curmudgeons about it together. I love it.
34:20 --> 34:21 Yeah.
34:23 --> 34:26 For this year is Witcher 3. God damn it.
34:28 --> 34:29 It's so good.
34:29 --> 34:33 I don't doubt it is time. Time is my. Not my friend.
34:33 --> 34:36 That's. That's the. That's the squad goal.
34:36 --> 34:40 Speaking of my friend Wolf. All right, what are we doing?
34:40 --> 34:47 So my I. My Sisyphean game this last year was Final Fantasy 12, and I have been aching to talk about this game, and.
34:47 --> 34:50 I will definitely chime in with you. Yeah.
34:50 --> 35:22 So ultimately, I liked the game. I will never play it again. My. It's funny because the. The mo. The majority of complaints I ever heard about this game were two. One, that the Gambit system was too cumbersome and that the story was too political. Now for the second one, I want to jump into that right now. It's Final Fantasy. What were you expecting?
35:23 --> 35:29 Well, it's final. It's Final Fantasy, but it has a Star wars core in it. There's definitely a Star Wars.
35:30 --> 35:54 I'm going to talk about that in a minute because I'm all the way through. I saw that parallel. It was ridiculous. Really bad, really obvious Gambit system. I actually kind of liked the Gambit system and wish it was more elaborate. I wish you could actually, like, if Then. Else instead of just if this, then this and, like, you know, priority order.
35:55 --> 35:55 Right.
35:55 --> 36:13 Because there was stuff that I was like, I want to tell them to do certain things in combat to where I can just let them do what they're gonna do. But no, you. You'd run into a wall with something that you came up with to where they're like, I'm just gonna be stupid and we're gonna take three minutes to kill this thing. That should take four seconds, right?
36:14 --> 36:40 Yeah. The game was a weird programming layout. I. I understood it and. And when I finally figured it out and I. Because I'm not a smart man. So it took me a while to get the. If, then thou. Then this is. It sounded like I was talking to Frog. It was real rough. And I finally got it to do what I wanted it to do, and I was like, oh, this streamlines everything pretty nicely. As a matter of fact. Yeah, maybe I should have used this sooner.
36:41 --> 36:54 I liked it. I just. Like I said, I wish it were more elaborate and less limited. And I know it was a PS2 game, but I feel like at that time we could have had something more elaborate. It's not like it was on NES or something, so.
36:54 --> 36:55 No. Right.
36:55 --> 36:59 Anyway, the Star wars version, because, like.
36:59 --> 37:01 I played a little bit of Final Fantasy 12 Zodiac.
37:01 --> 37:10 I tried to play it and I. I enjoyed some of it, but I didn't realize there's a. A way to program your party member. So is it like attacking for you and. And you can tell what spells to use and whatnot?
37:10 --> 37:19 Yeah, you can tell them that, like, if you're. If. If you're. If an ally is down to like, less than 50. Health, throw this healing spell.
37:19 --> 37:21 Yep. Yeah. Or potion.
37:21 --> 37:25 If they don't have this buff, cast that buff.
37:25 --> 37:26 I would have liked.
37:26 --> 37:31 If the enemy is flying, use this type of attack. So that way you're not gonna just whiff, you know?
37:31 --> 37:32 Is that in the original?
37:32 --> 37:33 A lot of them.
37:33 --> 37:33 Was that.
37:33 --> 37:33 Yeah.
37:33 --> 37:38 Or was that Zodiac? I thought that was in the original. Yeah. Okay. Because it's not a Zodiac buff. It's. It's in the original.
37:38 --> 37:42 I missed that entirely. I would have really liked that kind of system, for sure.
37:42 --> 37:46 Yeah. I thought it was really cool. Just would have it underd. Delivered.
37:47 --> 37:52 It would have felt like. It would have felt like to work to me fair.
37:52 --> 37:55 And it can. Until you get it programmed right. Then you're like, oh, I'm like, no.
37:55 --> 37:58 I'd be like, I program all day if.
37:58 --> 38:01 When then do then thou.
38:02 --> 38:07 Yeah, there's bunny girls if then else. There's bunny bunny girls.
38:07 --> 38:10 If bunny girl, then swoon.
38:12 --> 38:19 So the Star Warsness of this game is just ridiculous. It's basically plagiarism.
38:21 --> 38:22 Are you blowing up the Death Star?
38:23 --> 38:28 Well, you're basically kinda. You're fighting the Empire. Yeah.
38:28 --> 38:45 You're fighting the Empire. You're running around with the princess of the Former kingdom. There's. You get the. The sky pirates Balthier and Fran, who are essentially Han Solo and a hypersexualized Chewbacca.
38:45 --> 38:48 Very. Yes, Chewbacca very.
38:49 --> 38:53 I always felt a little attraction to Chewbacca. I need to play.
38:53 --> 38:56 There's, there's even force ghosts.
38:56 --> 38:57 Yep.
39:00 --> 39:07 She sees her dead. Her dead husband repeatedly as a force ghost around the world.
39:07 --> 39:12 Is it later. Is she later replaced by Hayden Christensen?
39:12 --> 39:19 Yes, that happened in the Zodiac age. Okay. I'm Captain Boss.
39:19 --> 39:36 Yeah, it's, it's. It was. I wish it were a better story as far as being political. I didn't care because It's, I mean one, it's a Final Fantasy 2. It was set in Ivalice so if you knew anything about Final Fantasy tactics, you knew where you were getting.
39:36 --> 39:38 Yeah, it's all based in that. That world.
39:39 --> 39:59 But yeah, it was, it was essentially just like Star wars and ivalice. That's all it was at the end. There's a giant kingdom destroying airship that you destroy. It's. It's essentially a Death Star. It's Bahamut Baham, but it's essentially the Death Star.
39:59 --> 40:00 Yeah.
40:00 --> 40:06 Honestly, I just wish that the endgame content were more rewarding. Go ahead.
40:06 --> 40:19 I was going to say, I, I actually some of my favorite games you could, you could argue are political games. BioShock Infinite is very political and I love that game. I absolutely adore that game.
40:20 --> 40:32 It's. It's less, it's less of a political thing and more of a. This is fucking Star wars with Final Fantasy slapped on the front of it. I mean, it's, it's like when Wolf says it's blatant. It's, it's so obvious.
40:32 --> 40:32 It's.
40:32 --> 40:33 It's surprising.
40:34 --> 40:37 You've got, you've got the Gungans representing themselves.
40:40 --> 41:01 Door been like, stop using my sounds and music. Except I don't think he did this down for this one. I think the last one he did was nine. So that's not a good reference. But you get what I'm saying. It's just like holy. Like it's bad because you're like, that's Han Solo, dude. And that's a very attractive Chewbacca. But that's, that's what that is. That's at least exactly who you are.
41:01 --> 41:03 At least. I assume you don't get Jar Jar Binks.
41:04 --> 41:09 No, that's kind of Van and Penelope. She's in the wide guy. Oh, good.
41:10 --> 41:13 Okay. All the stars are here.
41:13 --> 41:42 Yeah. Yeah. I, I like, I like. There was A lot of extra you can do in that game. Yeah, I loved the combat for the most part. Yeah, the hunts were cool and, and getting the call. Monsters were really neat. Some of them were really, really cool. And. And then the Tiamat or the Yasmat. Yasmat is like the ultimate. It's the, it's the penance of Final Fantasy 12. I did not get a chance to fight that one. But that thing is a beast.
41:43 --> 41:56 I'm gonna be honest. The end game content, I was trying to do a lot of it and with each successive thing I did, I felt like it was less and less worth the time investment.
41:56 --> 41:58 And that is very, very true.
41:58 --> 42:11 And so, you know, at the point I was. I could have probably taken on the final hunt that I read that can take anywhere from one to eight hours, depending on your stats, tactics, gear, all that.
42:11 --> 42:11 Yeah.
42:12 --> 42:20 And in order to be better prepared for it, you should go farm this other gear. That'll probably take you a few hours to get one piece of.
42:21 --> 42:23 It was like, that's pennants. Yep.
42:23 --> 42:36 So I was, I was like, nah, this ain't worth it. And so I just went to beat the game at that point. And the final boss, he spent more time talking than fighting because I just destroyed him so quickly.
42:36 --> 42:48 See, I had the opposite effect. I went in grossly under leveled and took me about three or four tries and I finally beat him. And there's a very ecstatic clip of me freaking out about beating him.
42:48 --> 42:51 Yeah, you can see it on your, on your intro clip.
42:51 --> 43:02 Yep, that was, that was an insane fight. If you are under leveled, it's definitely more rewarding when you beat it when you're under leveled and you know, just going in and stopping because I literally.
43:02 --> 43:08 I didn't do anything. I just let my gambits do their thing. And he just lasted like 15 seconds per segment.
43:08 --> 43:13 Yeah, he's brutal when you're not overpowered. He's real brutal when you're not overpowered.
43:13 --> 43:16 I was like, how many times is this guy gonna not die?
43:17 --> 43:25 I mean, he is the. His name is the Undying. So like seven phases or some. It was ridiculous.
43:26 --> 43:28 Yeah. How many times did Lavos not die?
43:29 --> 43:32 Well, that's time. That's a time continuum thing. That's.
43:34 --> 43:54 I know, but different windows. Overall, I, I think the game just was a little too long. Like I, I think I've said before, I did half the game at 2x, at least half the game at 2x and I did a bunch of it at 4x and it. I still put in like, 140 hours into this game over the course of the year. It's stupid.
43:54 --> 43:56 So much game, bro.
43:56 --> 43:59 This is a strategy guide for this thing.
43:59 --> 44:04 Yeah, I have it down here. No, I have. Do I? Yeah, I have it in this trunk right here.
44:04 --> 44:05 Jesus Christ.
44:05 --> 44:09 It doesn't apply to Zodiac Age so much. They changed a lot of things.
44:09 --> 44:12 Yeah, this is the original. This is not the Zodiac Age 1. This is the original.
44:12 --> 44:14 Yeah, I have that too.
44:14 --> 44:25 Yeah, this. There's so much in this game. It's a beefy game. He's not wrong. It is easily the longest Final Fantasy I think I've ever played, and I was very excited.
44:27 --> 44:33 I really wish Final Fantasy 8 didn't ruin that franchise for me. Just. I just didn't want to touch another one afterwards.
44:33 --> 44:34 I don't blame you.
44:34 --> 45:06 Like, I've played other ones since then, but. Yeah, I. I always want to because I heard out of all the. Of that generation, like. Like 10 and 11, or not 11, but 10 and 13, 12 was always like, the better of that kind of block. And I got like, I like Ivelisse. I like tactics. I like the world that was there. I love. I love that quite a bit. So. And I saw they added a raid inspired by Ivelisse in Final Fantasy 14 a couple years ago. So I always want to go back to play 12, but I just. 140 hours and you're playing on fast forward. That's. That's too much for me. I would love to check it out, but.
45:06 --> 45:13 So what you're telling me is when I. When I finally get back to JRPGs, don't pick this one, because you know how I do.
45:13 --> 45:14 Just play it on.
45:14 --> 45:26 You know, I played it in two major chunks because I started it in January and dropped it in March, and then I picked it back up in July and finished it in August or September.
45:26 --> 46:30 Yeah, it's. It is a chunk of change, this game. Definitely. The fact you got to think about it, the game added a fast forward feature to it in the later installment of the Zodiac Age. What does that tell you guys? This game might be a little long. Might need to add a fast speed at the up feature so people will finish it because it's so goddamn long. It is long. This game is a. It's a slog, but it's not. It's not terrible. I beat it and I didn't and gripe about it like I do 8 and 13, but it just like Wolf says, when you're done with it, you feel like you've. You've accomplished everything. Even though in game has a ton of extra stuff to do in it, it's almost unnecessary. Like even doing tenants, even doing penance, I still felt like I was accomplishing stuff. This I'm just like, just you could make another fucking game out of this or at least a DLC or something with how much extra shit is in that game. It's insane. How much is it?
46:30 --> 46:46 Yeah, it was, it was a bunch of end game content that was not, not rewarding enough for the time you had to put in and the effort required. And so anytime you got a new thing, the, the power increase was like 0.01%.
46:47 --> 46:48 Yeah.
46:48 --> 46:52 And you got like 2% stronger just getting to it.
46:52 --> 46:56 Right. It almost set you back when you finally got it.
46:56 --> 47:05 Yeah. So it just, it. Glad I finally played it. I'll never touch it again. I'll move on to other things.
47:06 --> 47:06 All right.
47:06 --> 47:07 Yeah, good.
47:08 --> 47:09 All right, well, Chard.
47:10 --> 47:20 Okay, I'll, I'll make mine relatively quick. And to be honest with you, I finished mine so early in the year that I, I completely forgotten what I picked. Think about it. Because I was like, didn't I do that last year?
47:20 --> 47:23 Yeah, you beat it in like the third week of the year.
47:23 --> 47:23 Yeah.
47:23 --> 47:52 I have three, I have a three segment video on YouTube of us playing it. I, I, I. The year before I had done Doom 3 and I thought, you know what? I, I'd like to, I mean I, I, I, I thought Doom 3 was okay. I wanted to play the new Dooms. So I jumped into Doom 2016, which is a game that I bounced off numerous times just for one reason or another. And I blasted through that game. You know exactly how you're supposed to. You just rock and roll. It just ripped.
47:52 --> 47:56 Terror and shred has the Doom feel. That game has the Doom feel.
47:56 --> 47:57 Yeah.
47:57 --> 48:52 Soundtrack's amazing. Action packed every 10 seconds. If you are idle, then you're getting a snack because that game never idles unless you're not moving. It's, it is insane and intense throughout the entire playthrough. I loved it. I thought it was a lot of fun and I, I could see why I got the praise it got. I tried to do a stretch goal and play Doom Eternal, but I just was kind of over Doom by the time I was done with doom 2016. And it's not long. I mean we played it pretty quick. I think like nine, ten hours maybe, Maybe. I don't remember. It was, it was two or three streams that we did it in and I was actually kind of Shocked at how short it was. I expected to be quite a bit longer, but my youthful brain was like the Dooms that I played in the past were so. And they're not. I just was really bad at them and could not get very far in them. So. But no, Doom was badass. You know, chainsawing and glory killing and ripping arms off.
48:52 --> 48:53 Yeah.
48:53 --> 48:58 Bethesda and really took ID software stuff and. And made it. Made it what it should have been for now.
48:58 --> 49:02 And I have to call out that Mick Gordon soundtrack.
49:02 --> 49:38 Oh, Mick Gordon soundtrack is metal to. It's. It's like listening to two saw blades play on a violin. It is incredibly cool. Yeah. No, it's. It just those memes of when the doom sound kicks in and it's usually some guy like kicking a door in and you know, beating the out of somebody. That's. It's exactly how it feels. You put Mick Gordon's on. I was doing it at work. I was listening to it at work and I sudden suddenly my production picked up by at least 5% whenever I put a McDorgen soundtrack on. So you know, I had to drop back into The Silent Hill 2 soundtrack to mellow me out again because you get too hyped up and tired of yourself.
49:38 --> 49:39 I'm getting too much work done.
49:39 --> 49:58 Too jacked. I'm too jacked. No, I doom 2016 fantastic do eternal is also good. But you know, when you just over inundate yourself into something, you just gotta kind of stop. I didn't have any problems. So Doom Doom Eternal may one day become a Sisyphean. Because I didn't not like it. I just was like I'm tired of playing doom games. I walked away.
49:58 --> 50:12 So I had heard that doom 2016 out of the the three modern dooms, 2016 eternal and dark Ages that just came out last year. Of the three Doom 2016 I heard was like by far the best one so far. I can agree in terms of look and feel and music and everything.
50:12 --> 50:13 I've heard the same.
50:14 --> 51:21 I can agree with that one. I played, I played both Dark Ages and eternal after doom 2016 and I would, I would go back and play 2016 probably sooner than Eternal. I think Eternal is. It's kind of a beefed up version of. Of 2016 and I think it has the, the closest relation. But I don't think Dark Ages. I think Dark Ages missed a. Missed a mark. I I as cool as it was, it's not bad. It just, it's not, it's. It's like you take 2016. You peak at 2016 and eternal was like, it's more of the same. It's good. I like, this is cool. And then it kind of tapered off because Doom Age, Doom Dark Ages felt like it was. To be honest, it was too easy. It felt very easy. I was progressing in that game and there's no reason that I should have been progressing as well as I was because it didn't have that constant, I guess it's the ADHD in me, I guess. Right. It didn't have that constant stimulation going on that doom 2016 gives you. While this one was kind of like, okay, where is everything? There's nothing here. All right, I'm going to walk and find something to attack me. You didn't have to do that. Doom 2016, you're like, wake up. Murder, kill, kill, crush, destroy.
51:22 --> 51:24 Where's a goddamn brute when I need one?
51:24 --> 51:35 Yeah, exactly. You know, you're here to slash things up, not bebop around hell, you know, so. Good game though, 2016. Fantastic. Had a lot of fun playing it.
51:36 --> 51:37 I've heard good things about it.
51:37 --> 51:52 It's good. It's worth it and it's, and it's, it's a 40 year old game. It's definitely worth your time, you know, like it's, it's very, it plays with your time and you, you could do it quickly and do it in segments and you don't feel like you're missing much. I mean, it's a doom story, right?
51:52 --> 51:53 Yeah.
51:53 --> 52:10 They're harnessing the energy of hell to power the lights down on Earth and everything goes wrong. What could possibly go wrong? You know, PG&E suddenly gets a gate to open hell and now we're paying the energy bill for producing Hell energy. You know, it's a silly thing, but it's, it's fun. It's a fun game.
52:10 --> 52:13 Somehow on Mars, they're harvesting on Mars.
52:13 --> 52:20 And Hell as you do, because everybody knows the portal to hell is on Mars. Yeah, well, that's just.
52:20 --> 52:21 You don't open it on Earth.
52:22 --> 52:25 Well, yeah, don't open your backyard.
52:25 --> 52:30 But why are you in this planet? Yeah, go another planet out.
52:30 --> 52:35 We learned that with Halo 3. You don't ever bring it home. Don't bring, don't bring it home.
52:35 --> 52:38 Don't bring your work home with you. Keep your work there.
52:40 --> 52:40 Awesome.
52:41 --> 52:50 Yeah. Pretty quick. Just like the game. Pretty quick and easy. I enjoyed it. Had a good time. So, Jake, do we do, do we do Wheel of Pain stuff now or are we going to talk about our future of 2026.
52:51 --> 52:56 So I guess let's talk about. Real quick about the Wheel of Pain. So the Wheel of Pain is our great motivator. Like, like you guys said, the Great motivator.
52:57 --> 53:00 We should stop calling it the Wheel of Pain and just call it the Great Motivator.
53:01 --> 53:13 The Great. The God of our digital creation. The Great Motivator. Great Motivator. What do I play for penance? Buck Bumble.
53:13 --> 53:16 Punish me. You shall play Buck Bumble.
53:17 --> 53:30 So it has been said. So it shall be. Play Buck Bumble. Fuck you, Motivator. So this is. I think this is the first year where none of us, like, we all beat our Sisyphean Games, which is. Good job, guys. That's awesome.
53:30 --> 53:34 I slid underneath that. That door as it was closing.
53:36 --> 53:39 You were going to do it with Chrono Trigger too, but you. You liked it too much.
53:39 --> 53:40 Yeah, I did.
53:41 --> 53:51 I thought I was gonna miss it. And then I'm like, no, I have to do it. I can't. I can't be only one who spins that wheel. And then I say, are you still working on it? I'm like, well, maybe I won't be the only one. Spin that wheel.
53:51 --> 53:57 I. I love that. The whole time you're like, dude, you got plenty of time. It's like, December 29th. You're like, you got plenty of time.
53:57 --> 53:58 Plenty of time.
53:58 --> 54:01 Lots of time. Oh, that's a mess.
54:01 --> 54:01 Wolf on your floor.
54:02 --> 54:04 I am not looking forward to cleaning that up.
54:04 --> 54:10 For those who are listening, he just showed the. The streamers and the confetti on his floor.
54:10 --> 54:11 And the balloon.
54:11 --> 54:11 And the balloon.
54:12 --> 54:13 Yeah, that apparently.
54:14 --> 54:16 Happy birthday. It's a mess.
54:16 --> 54:17 That's awesome.
54:17 --> 55:03 Happy birthday. Speaking of birthday gifts, so, you know, not to be content with, you know, wasting the Wheel of Pain or the Great Motivator. Wolf, Chard and I place a little wager with the Game Awards. The nominees came out earlier this year, and we sat down and we each picked our. What we thought would be the winners, and then we would score it, and then the loser would have to spin the Wheel of Pain and only do a mini Wheel of Pain only an hour instead of the typical two. And so we did that. And I think Wolf and I kind of had the same idea of, like, well, let's not. Let's not be boring. Let's not be cowards and pick Claire Obscure for every goddamn category. Let's spread our picks around a little bit and gamble a little bit. And that backfired spectacularly because Clarem Skier sweeped the damn awards and chart Picked all those.
55:03 --> 55:17 So in the immortal words of physic, never go against a Chard when death is on the line or the Great Motivator is on the line. Never have a land and never go against the Chard when the Wheel of Pain is on the line.
55:18 --> 55:32 It's so bad. So I think I. I think technically I'm the one who lost. But I think Wolf, you said that was so close that you're going to do one with. Because Chard slaughtered us in terms of points on that wager. So we did lose that wager. So we do have the Wheel of Pain.
55:32 --> 55:34 Guys, pick with your heart, not with your brains.
55:35 --> 55:39 We do this again next year. I know what to do. Just. Just follow chart on his picks.
55:39 --> 55:39 Be boring.
55:40 --> 55:41 Be boring.
55:41 --> 55:42 Be boring.
55:43 --> 55:46 All three of you lose. Because it's all the same picks, right?
55:47 --> 55:49 Boring. Got me very far in life, gentlemen.
55:50 --> 55:53 So I give you the great motivator. The Wheel of Pain.
55:53 --> 55:54 The Great Motivator.
55:55 --> 56:02 There's so many bad games on that list. So we're gonna spin the wheel. Me and Wolf. Right?
56:03 --> 56:06 I hope it falls on Super Super Man 64.
56:07 --> 56:17 So for the audio listeners, this is the kitten branded Wheel of cuteness where 95% is Super Mario Bros. 3 and 5% was Superman 64.
56:17 --> 56:19 It better land on fucking Superman.
56:20 --> 56:25 No, I'm not. I'm not even gonna spin it. We're gonna bring out the real wheel. The real wheel. Give me one sec.
56:25 --> 56:26 Jesus.
56:27 --> 56:27 Have to make the gag.
56:27 --> 56:30 I have. This is Jake Shtick that he wanted to do.
56:30 --> 56:30 Okay.
56:31 --> 56:34 Sofa the guy. Oh, yeah.
56:34 --> 56:37 The Great Motivator. Waffles the kitten.
56:38 --> 56:39 Jesus.
56:40 --> 56:50 The Great Wheel of Pain with such great wheel items as Hybrid Heaven, vip. What else? They put ice climbers. That's Sinister's favorite.
56:50 --> 56:52 Aquaman on the Gamecube.
56:52 --> 56:56 Let's go, Rascal. The PS1 is. I watched Giant Bomb play through that.
56:57 --> 57:00 That's such a bad game. Mortal Kombat Mythologies. Oof.
57:01 --> 57:07 I low key want to play that one, but it's awful. It's awful. So, Wolf, me or you first? Who. Who's gonna go first?
57:08 --> 57:15 I'll go first. I'm actually. I'm not gonna lie. I'm kind of curious about Mortal Kombat Mythologies, so I wouldn't mind getting that.
57:16 --> 57:18 I've played it, guys. I've played it.
57:18 --> 57:24 That's four. Supposed to be like a Mario ripoff on the master system.
57:25 --> 57:34 It is. Yes. I played that. Oh, you get another PS1. Classic wolf rascal. You're gonna love Rascal. You're gonna love it.
57:34 --> 57:35 Happy birthday, buddy.
57:35 --> 57:37 What the hell is Rascal?
57:37 --> 57:43 It's a 3D platformer. I'll say. It's. Well, no, it's not better than Bubsy 3D.
57:44 --> 57:45 It's pretty God awful.
57:46 --> 57:48 Who is this kid? Chameleon wannabe.
57:48 --> 57:52 He's cool. He's got the hat and the black. It's. It's something.
57:52 --> 57:55 He's a rascal. That rascally kid.
57:56 --> 58:07 I'm actually looking forward to you playing that because that. That game is so bad. All right, me next. Spinning the wheel for myself. Please not Ice Climbers. Please not Ice Climbers.
58:07 --> 58:09 Please Ice Climbers. Please Ice Climbers.
58:10 --> 58:12 Mario the Lost Level.
58:15 --> 58:16 Over lunch.
58:17 --> 58:18 Over lunch?
58:19 --> 58:19 Yeah.
58:19 --> 58:24 You can beat the original Super Mario Brothers on my lunch break.
58:24 --> 58:28 You have a two hour lunch break to beat lost levels.
58:30 --> 58:36 Well, that was fun. That was a great motivator. My ass.
58:36 --> 58:38 I was also curious about Sword of so Dan.
58:39 --> 58:45 Oh, that's so bad. It's like. Well, technically cool because the sprite of the character is massive on the screen.
58:45 --> 58:46 But it's so bad.
58:47 --> 59:07 I like playing bad games as long as I know I don't have to beat them. And that's the thing. So I guess it's. This is the mini Wheel of Pain. So you're playing Rascal for an hour. I'll play Mario. Lost levels. It's funny, I. I've tried lost levels recently. I can't get anywhere in that game. I can beat the original Super Mars flat, but I can't get anywhere in it.
59:07 --> 59:07 So.
59:07 --> 59:10 So I. I think you also still owe Buck Bumble.
59:10 --> 59:12 You do still Buck Bumble.
59:12 --> 59:12 Yeah.
59:12 --> 59:19 I feel bad not beating it by the end of the year, but I will finish it. I'm planning to do it this weekend because I have some free time. But like, life has been brutal this past year.
59:19 --> 59:27 Free time has not been free. You definitely have had to make payments to get any kind of free time and. And I understand that more than anybody.
59:27 --> 59:29 So. Perfect.
59:29 --> 59:33 All right, well, now we talk about our picks for 2026.
59:33 --> 01:00:22 I'm super glad that I made that bet with you guys and was right. So that's fun being right. Maybe being second place, first place loser in the Fantasy Critic isn't always bad. Then you get to avoid the great motivator. All right, now that we've talked about what has been, it's time to talk about what will be. And we'll go ahead and do our round robins again and discuss the games that we have selected for 2026. And I don't think a single one of us knows a single one of us is going to play. And this is kind of exciting because usually we're. We're like, you know, parents on Christmas that are, like, too excited to not tell their kids what they're getting, and they open presents last night. Oh, yeah. They're like White wolf celebrating Wolf's second 42nd birthday.
01:00:23 --> 01:00:27 Dude, those enamel pins. I'm jealous of those enamel pins, man.
01:00:28 --> 01:00:33 I'll post the pins I got in the the newest episode chat after the episode so that everybody.
01:00:33 --> 01:00:35 The Dark Wing Duck pin is badass.
01:00:35 --> 01:00:39 I love it. I think. I think, yeah.
01:00:39 --> 01:00:42 The Gadget Hack wrench one from Rescue Rangers.
01:00:42 --> 01:00:44 I absolutely love the Xenomorph.
01:00:45 --> 01:00:48 And I didn't know that was one. And it was so cool. I loved it.
01:00:48 --> 01:00:51 Yeah, that one's cool as hell. Anyway.
01:00:52 --> 01:01:02 All right, are we doing the same thing? We'll start with Jake and then loop around to me. Fantastic. All right, what do you got, Jake? What do we got? What are you going to regain us with for 202016 again this year?
01:01:02 --> 01:01:17 I really do want to pick a game that I think I might actually want to finish a game that I feel like I should beat. And that's also going to be fun for once. So I'm really committed to that. I did. The other goal I had, like, this is gaming goals, right? It's not necessarily to be a goal that's going to beat yourself over the head over it.
01:01:17 --> 01:01:18 No, it's for you.
01:01:18 --> 01:02:11 Although I do like. I do. Yeah, it's for me, I do like hard challenges from time to time. That's why I play a lot of shitty games. Somehow it's fun. But I do want to pick a game this year that I actually want to beat. And the other part of my gaming goal this year was I want to make more videos on. On YouTube and I really want to do one that's ranking Mario games, but I haven't played or beaten all of them. I played a lot of Mario games and I'm pretty decent at platforming games, but I have not beaten all of them. So my goal is to make a ranking of Mario games this year. But the one game that I feel like I really should have beaten when it first came out was Mario Galaxy 2. I played Galaxy 1, thought it was pretty good, and I started Galaxy 2, but I, for whatever reason, I just never finished it. I bounced off it within a couple hours, and I've heard that's probably the better of the two. I mean, it's hard to say that any Mario game is bad, but I've heard Galaxy 2 is considered one of the best ones. So I'm.
01:02:12 --> 01:02:13 Oh, God, no.
01:02:14 --> 01:02:23 Sunshine is. I. I have not played much Sunshine. I do want to play it, but I'm not going to commit to beating it. So I'm not going to play all the Mario games this year. That's crazy. But I am going to play Galaxy 2.
01:02:23 --> 01:02:54 We're taking the quick segue because somebody said Sunshine. I bought the physical 3D Mario release on the switch because they told us it was limited edition. So I fucking bought it because I'm a sucker. And I was like, I've never beaten. I've never beaten Sunshine. I'm going to sit down and play Sunshine. I love Galaxy. I love Galaxy 2. I've never played Sunshine or I've never beaten Sunshine. I sat down and. God, that game's trash anyway. That's fine.
01:02:55 --> 01:02:56 I've seen some things why I'm not playing it.
01:02:57 --> 01:03:23 I was seriously for a hot minute saying I could, you know, I'm going to beat every single Mario platforming game because there's like 30 of them and like. But a lot of them are like five, 10 minutes long. They're not very long. And I was very committed to doing that as my Sisyphean goal this year until I tried playing the original Mario Brothers, not Super Mario Brothers, the single screen arcade game, Mario Brothers. And I tried playing that. And I think after three hours, the farthest I could get was stage 10. And I'm like, I can't do this.
01:03:23 --> 01:03:25 That game is hard.
01:03:25 --> 01:03:27 And so when you had on your.
01:03:27 --> 01:03:27 I feel like.
01:03:29 --> 01:03:29 Yes.
01:03:29 --> 01:03:34 And that style, if you put three hours into it, you kind of know what the game is.
01:03:34 --> 01:03:35 Yeah.
01:03:36 --> 01:03:37 I think you can rank it at that point.
01:03:39 --> 01:03:45 Yeah. And that's the thing. Do I rank it after beating them or do I just play them for 30 minutes to an hour and say, I know enough to rank it. I have to figure it out.
01:03:45 --> 01:03:46 Your. Your pick.
01:03:47 --> 01:04:10 Yeah. And then that's the thing. And I'm not. I'm not going to be crazy with it. I don't have time this year, especially because, like Witcher 3 DLC is very heavily rumored to come this year and I kind of want to play that again too. So that will be a lot of my time this year. And Galaxy 2, I think is a good one. I love Odyssey a lot, you know, and I did like, the original Galaxy one was, was excellent. I'm kind of in a platforming kick lately. I really wouldn't Mind playing through Galaxy 2.
01:04:10 --> 01:04:12 You're on a roll. Go with the roll.
01:04:12 --> 01:04:23 Yeah. So that's my, that's my pick this year. And I think. I think despite having plenty of time, I don't think I'm going to wait till the end of the year to do this one. But we'll. We'll see.
01:04:24 --> 01:04:24 Get.
01:04:24 --> 01:04:27 Get started in January. Dude. Follow me works great.
01:04:29 --> 01:04:30 You forget what you did.
01:04:30 --> 01:04:32 Get started in January and then like.
01:04:32 --> 01:04:35 Oh, God, I didn't finish it because I was bored.
01:04:35 --> 01:04:39 And then fall off until December 29th and then you'll have plenty of time.
01:04:39 --> 01:04:40 I'll do that this year.
01:04:41 --> 01:04:42 That's what I do. Yeah.
01:04:42 --> 01:04:45 Mine actually might be physically exerting, so we'll see what happens.
01:04:45 --> 01:04:46 Uninstall it 16 times.
01:04:47 --> 01:04:52 Yeah. Star rank it. You're gonna. Star rank. Galaxy Diamond Rank. Star Rank.
01:04:52 --> 01:04:53 That's right.
01:04:53 --> 01:04:56 Don't, don't. Don't tempt me because I'm. I'm tempted to make it harder myself.
01:04:58 --> 01:05:01 400 stars. The 400 star run.
01:05:01 --> 01:05:02 Whatever. Whatever it is. Yeah.
01:05:02 --> 01:05:02 Yeah.
01:05:03 --> 01:05:05 Nice. No, I think that's a good pick.
01:05:06 --> 01:05:11 So, Star, what do you. What do you got on the docket this year? You've been holding out on us like, all.
01:05:12 --> 01:05:12 Yeah.
01:05:12 --> 01:05:13 Months.
01:05:13 --> 01:05:14 Let's. Let's hear it.
01:05:15 --> 01:05:42 So I'm gonna. I've told this in previous episodes, but I. Commodore was purchased by a YouTuber who loves Commodore. And part of his purchase of Commodore was he decided to release a. A, a Commodore 64 with modern hardware. And it is. It is essentially frame accurate hardware accurate. People can plug in drives into this thing. I got one. It's sitting right here behind me.
01:05:43 --> 01:05:44 Say it's doing something. Keyboard's doing.
01:05:45 --> 01:05:50 That's right. I have all the RGB I have to. You know, it makes it faster.
01:05:50 --> 01:05:51 It does, yeah.
01:05:51 --> 01:06:33 Lots of frames, but no. So I was looking through the list, I was like, you know what? I want to do something this year. I've done modern games the past few years. I know I did Chrono and I know I did Super Mario, but I also did Witcher and I did Cyberpunk. Right. And so I said, you know what? I want to go retro and I've got this hardware that I can play it on that is original, accurate, etc. And so I started looking through the list and there was a game I never played, but I always wanted to play E.T. we determined that E.T. was not released on the COVID We.
01:06:33 --> 01:06:35 Did do some extensive research into that.
01:06:36 --> 01:07:01 Yeah. No, this game. There is an entire series that Stemmed out of this game. My pick for my Sisyphean game terrifies me because it is old school ass hard. It terrifies me. Okay, Wasteland original. The original Wasteland, which stemmed Fallout.
01:07:01 --> 01:07:01 Yeah.
01:07:01 --> 01:07:24 Yeah. There. There is rumor that after the last episode of the season two comes out again, rumor, heavy rumor that a remaster Fallout 3 maybe scene or Re. Yeah, remaster that. So that'd be kind of cool if you finished Wasteland and you're like, yo. And then the best Fallout in my opinion drops as a remaster, which be spectacular. So that. That'd be kind of cool for me.
01:07:25 --> 01:07:38 I love Fallout 3. I love Fallout 1. I absolutely adore Fallout 1. I love Fallout 3. But of the modern ones, Fallout New Vegas was just. Vegas is just a little above Fallout 3.
01:07:38 --> 01:07:44 I hear that a lot. That's when I got to get done. I played all of them except for New Vegas. That's the only one I haven't touched yet.
01:07:44 --> 01:07:48 But anyway, got a remake, didn't it? Or remake something.
01:07:48 --> 01:07:50 But I want to play it on original hardware and I want to play.
01:07:50 --> 01:07:50 Yeah, no fair.
01:07:52 --> 01:07:54 Is not rated well on Steam, by the way.
01:07:54 --> 01:08:08 Okay. And. And what's funny is I looked at like review and review and review and modern reviews on. On the original and everybody is like this felt like the first RPG I fell in love with.
01:08:08 --> 01:08:09 Nice.
01:08:09 --> 01:08:31 And so yeah, so I'm. I'm gonna be playing it. And then on top of that, I actually backed Wasteland 2 when it was Kickstarter and I never played it. So my stretch goal is on modern systems because this came out in like 2016 or 2017. Wasteland 2, if I beat Wasteland 1.
01:08:31 --> 01:08:33 Okay. So I have a question.
01:08:33 --> 01:08:54 Really interesting to see how they adapted the old school game versus making a little bit. No, for new. Because like Wasteland 2, when that was Kickstarter, that was around the time we had Pillars of Eternity Kickstarter. We had a bit of a CRPG renaissance. Yeah. Because of Kickstarter. So I'm curious to see what they change to adapt it.
01:08:54 --> 01:08:54 Right.
01:08:54 --> 01:09:01 That sounds really interesting. Wasteland is a very cool pick. That's awesome pick. I didn't realize I was on C64. Was it also on like DOS, Apple.
01:09:01 --> 01:09:06 2, Apple II, IBM PC, Amiga, Commodore 64?
01:09:06 --> 01:09:07 Interesting.
01:09:09 --> 01:09:17 Is there going to be opportunity of watching or seeing you play this in some form, say video, outside of a Discord call? Just out of curiosity?
01:09:17 --> 01:09:20 Yes. My plan is actually to record my playthrough.
01:09:20 --> 01:09:21 Sweet.
01:09:21 --> 01:09:30 And either put up the entirety. Now I looked up how long to Beat and it said on the Commodore, 25ish hours. Wow.
01:09:31 --> 01:09:33 That's a chunk of change for the Commodore. Damn.
01:09:33 --> 01:09:34 Oh, yeah.
01:09:34 --> 01:09:34 Okay.
01:09:34 --> 01:09:39 This thing is on four. This thing's on four. Four sides of it. It's two discs, double sided.
01:09:39 --> 01:09:43 So King's Quest 4 was on like 12 discs. And that game was 30 minutes if you played it right.
01:09:43 --> 01:09:45 Yeah, that's true.
01:09:47 --> 01:09:50 The reason I took 30 is because you had to keep changing the dang disk.
01:09:51 --> 01:10:01 Yeah, well, and there's a little bit of that on this because I've spun it up and like at the beginning, because they don't ever want you. This was back during the day when they sent you write protected disks.
01:10:02 --> 01:10:02 Right, Right.
01:10:02 --> 01:10:15 So that you. It said, you know, you have to copy your disks, your originals. And it goes through a disk check every time you start it. It's like insert disk one, insert disk two, insert. And it makes sure that you're not using the original disks.
01:10:15 --> 01:10:16 So that's funny.
01:10:17 --> 01:10:46 No, I. I'm going to record it either. I will just put it all up on YouTube. I may or may not stream it on YouTube. We'll see. But I'll at least put it up on YouTube. And, oh, the other fun thing is, is is your starting party. So you can have up to seven players in your party, but only four you get to design. And the other three you hire. The four will be Sinistar, Sick Jake, Chard, and Werewolf.
01:10:48 --> 01:10:48 Nice.
01:10:48 --> 01:10:50 Please don't let me be a horse to the end.
01:10:50 --> 01:10:52 Yeah, and I don't want to be a red shirt, so.
01:10:53 --> 01:10:58 Well, as long as I'm not a pirate. Slackie. I know you guys don't understand the reference, but.
01:10:59 --> 01:11:21 Well, and if. And if one of you dies? Because in the manual it's not. This is not a fantasy rpg. In the manual, it's like if your character dies, they're dead. There is no church to res them. There's no cleric to res them. There's no whatever to res them. If somebody dies, GP will enter the party.
01:11:24 --> 01:11:25 Perfect.
01:11:25 --> 01:11:29 Or if I get to name the people I hire, GP will. Will join the party.
01:11:29 --> 01:11:30 Will join the party.
01:11:30 --> 01:11:31 Perfect.
01:11:31 --> 01:11:31 Beautiful.
01:11:31 --> 01:11:32 Yeah.
01:11:32 --> 01:11:46 All right. That's cool, man. I'll be excited to watch that. Actually. I'll be eagerly looking forward to your uploads when those do. When those days come. Because that sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun. I've never seen those ones played, so. And with your commentary, it's gonna be.
01:11:46 --> 01:11:47 For a long time.
01:11:47 --> 01:11:51 Yeah, that's gonna be dope. Sweet. Dude, that's. I'm excited for you.
01:11:51 --> 01:11:54 Yeah, me too. I'm a little terrified because it's old ass school hard.
01:11:54 --> 01:12:04 Yeah, no, it's gonna be rough and perma death and all that fun. That's gonna be. Gonna be a good time. All right, Wolf, what have you. What have you settled on? What have you fallen on?
01:12:04 --> 01:12:33 So I was torn between three for you, and I will tell you my logic behind those three and reveal them and then tell you which I decided on. So initially I was thinking Star Ocean 2, the remaster, Star Ocean Second Departure R, or whatever they call it, Second Story R. Because I loved the first game on the PlayStation. I just didn't finish it. I don't remember why. I'm sure it was another game came out and I was like, ooh, piece of candy. And just never picked it.
01:12:33 --> 01:12:40 Yeah, I think we played that, didn't we, Sinistar? I streamed that not too long ago and I just played the entire game.
01:12:41 --> 01:12:41 Yeah.
01:12:41 --> 01:12:44 Star Ocean should be in space. This is horseshit.
01:12:45 --> 01:12:49 Yeah, well, this is either a star nor an ocean.
01:12:49 --> 01:12:49 Yes.
01:12:50 --> 01:13:02 I fired it up earlier to see what it played like again to sort of help my decision. And I didn't realize that the dad was the main character of the first game. So the second game you're playing is the main character's son.
01:13:03 --> 01:13:06 Okay, that's cool, though. Continuation. Yeah.
01:13:06 --> 01:13:06 Yeah.
01:13:08 --> 01:13:36 And I didn't know they were that closely connected. I thought it was more like an anthology thing or something. The next game I was considering is Sonic Frontiers, because I've had that for a couple years. Oh, yeah. I put a few hours into it on the PS4 and I loved it. I just didn't finish it, partly because it's on the PS4. I just never have it hooked up to play anything. I want to play that now. I have it on Steam, so I'm like, yeah, I could play it is fine. You know, I can play it at computer. I can play it on the Steam deck.
01:13:36 --> 01:13:36 Yeah.
01:13:37 --> 01:13:38 Very accessible.
01:13:38 --> 01:13:38 Hell, yeah.
01:13:39 --> 01:13:46 The third option was Metroid Other M, because it's the only mainline Metroid game I haven't played through yet.
01:13:47 --> 01:13:48 Okay.
01:13:48 --> 01:14:00 As far as Story goes, because I didn't play the DS one, but as far as, like, canonical story entries, so not remakes. That's the only one I haven't played, aside from Prime Formal.
01:14:00 --> 01:14:05 Wasn't Other M the first one redone in a way? No, no.
01:14:06 --> 01:14:09 It takes place after Super. Like, directly after Super Metroid.
01:14:09 --> 01:14:10 Okay.
01:14:10 --> 01:14:10 Yeah.
01:14:10 --> 01:14:13 Which one was the remake of one or the.
01:14:15 --> 01:14:16 Fantastic.
01:14:16 --> 01:14:17 Yeah.
01:14:17 --> 01:14:27 Yeah. Other M is the 2D one, but it has like 3D moments where you have to use the. Not the Joy Con, the. The Wii Remote to point out the screen to shoot the stylus, I think dsr.
01:14:28 --> 01:14:29 Yeah.
01:14:29 --> 01:14:30 Okay.
01:14:30 --> 01:14:36 So, all right. I think ultimately I've settled on Star Ocean after all.
01:14:36 --> 01:14:37 Oh, okay.
01:14:37 --> 01:14:41 It's like, I don't know if I'm gonna pick another JRPG or not, because.
01:14:41 --> 01:14:42 What.
01:14:42 --> 01:14:51 I played Final Fantasy 6 and then I played Okami the next year, which is not really a JRPG, but it was very Japanese and rather RPG.
01:14:51 --> 01:14:51 Right.
01:14:52 --> 01:14:54 And then Final Fantasy 12.
01:14:54 --> 01:14:59 Yeah. So no reprieve from the JRPGs is taking my title, guys.
01:15:00 --> 01:15:00 That's right.
01:15:00 --> 01:15:14 You know, though, like, it's. It's good in a way because, like, this is, like, it's the motivator. Right. It can be hard to sit down and actually commit the time to play a jrpg, even if you have a whole year when these games are like 60 hours to 100 hours, they're long. It's a big commitment.
01:15:14 --> 01:15:14 Yeah.
01:15:14 --> 01:15:14 That is.
01:15:14 --> 01:15:24 It's easy to bounce off of. So if you're. If this makes it so you'll get through it and you want to play it, then more power to you. And it'd be neat because you played the first one and it does have that story connection, so I think that's pretty cool.
01:15:24 --> 01:15:31 I have not played the first one, actually. If I beat the second one, I might play the first one because I have that on the switch.
01:15:32 --> 01:15:33 Okay.
01:15:33 --> 01:15:37 It was not released on PC for some stupid reason, but I have it on the switch, so.
01:15:38 --> 01:15:38 All right.
01:15:41 --> 01:15:42 Okay.
01:15:42 --> 01:15:42 Good pick.
01:15:43 --> 01:15:43 But I.
01:15:43 --> 01:15:44 Good pick.
01:15:44 --> 01:16:00 I still quote the stupid Come here bunny from Star Ocean 2. So, yeah, I. I gotta finally beat it. I remember really liking it. I put in like 20 minutes or maybe like an hour earlier. And the amount of voice acting. I couldn't believe how voice acted.
01:16:00 --> 01:16:00 It was.
01:16:00 --> 01:16:06 That was pretty impressive. The acting itself is not always great, but I'm glad it's mostly voice acted.
01:16:06 --> 01:16:09 So it's not Silent Hill for the room, but, you know.
01:16:11 --> 01:16:14 The best. The best Silent Hill game.
01:16:16 --> 01:16:21 I want to do an episode on that one of these days. So we'll talk about that later. I actually want to discuss that.
01:16:22 --> 01:16:23 Awesome.
01:16:23 --> 01:16:24 All right, cool. Fantastic.
01:16:25 --> 01:16:25 Sure.
01:16:25 --> 01:18:15 I guess I'm next. I'm the last to go. Guys. I'm going to do something. I had an idea and I told you guys I'm just going to do this because I just. I have. I can't pick anything. Like, I've had. I had a rough time thinking about stuff. Work was a pain, so I didn't have a time to really like mull over any ideas. And Christmas just ended and I was trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do with my life essentially. And I thought about it and I was talking to a co worker and we were talking about rigs because I had, you know, my new rig, my new PC and stuff. And he was talking about a racing rig that he had. And I was like, well, you know, I do have this VR set that, that I really like using, but I didn't. I don't touch it anymore. And it's not because I don't want to. It's just because I don't have the time, like to kind of factor it in. And with this specifically, it's. I'm literally tethered to my room like any other game I could play on my Steam deck. I could play downstairs, I could play it somewhere, I can play it on the go. I'm going to challenge myself to not only get into my room and play some stuff in here during the winter when it's cooler, I'm also going to challenge myself to physically exert myself a little bit and play. I wouldn't say it's super physically demanding, but it is a stand up, it is a duck, it is a squat. And I have played it numerous times and I have not finished it because either I get motion sickness or I want to get out of my room or it's summer and it's hot as hell and I'm on the second story and it's hard to wear a VR set when it's 110 degrees outside. So I have decided for the cooler months before summer hits. And if I don't make it before summer, then I will just wait until fall comes around. But I'm gonna play the unadulterated sequel to Jake's favorite game of all time. I'm gonna finish Half Life. Alex.
01:18:15 --> 01:18:19 Oh, I thought it was. I thought it was every level of Beat Saber.
01:18:20 --> 01:18:22 That's what I was thinking. Beat Saber, Yes.
01:18:22 --> 01:18:23 No, not gonna lie.
01:18:24 --> 01:18:26 This point, it's not Warframe. But I mean, you do you.
01:18:26 --> 01:18:29 I guess the amount of DLC for Beat Saber, that's a lot of levels now.
01:18:29 --> 01:18:30 That's a lot of levels.
01:18:30 --> 01:18:31 Yeah.
01:18:31 --> 01:18:34 What is it? 15 and you're basically done. Is that how Mario works?
01:18:34 --> 01:18:39 Yeah, that's how Mario works. No, I think Alex is a great, is a great pick.
01:18:39 --> 01:18:53 It's a fun. I love playing it And I keep getting to the same spot, and then I just put my headset down, and I just don't. I don't know. I was gonna. I was gonna put it on and be like, I'm gonna play Half Life Alex and put this on, but my cords are all tangled up, so. Hey, so much for that stick.
01:18:54 --> 01:19:00 If the Steam frame comes out this year, which it's supposed to when I. If it comes when I could just.
01:19:00 --> 01:19:01 Pull $1 out of my.
01:19:03 --> 01:19:16 Saving up, I'm already saving up. I may be joining you in this Half Life Alex game. I may be. I could spin up my vibe, but honestly, with the. With the frame. I'm waiting for the frame at this point.
01:19:16 --> 01:19:40 No, I don't blame you. I don't blame you at all. And it's. And it's a Steam game, so it's a Steam product on Steam. And basically, that's what Half Life Alex was like. Here's what our ste. Our valve frame can do to your game. And I'll tell you. When I first played Halflife, Alex and I first got my. My VR set, and I sat in my room, and I walked out on the balcony of Alex, and you see the big tripod monsters walking through hell.
01:19:40 --> 01:19:41 Yeah.
01:19:41 --> 01:20:00 I stood there for 15 minutes just crushing cans with my hand because I was so fascinated by the physics of what was happening. Because you hear VR, you're like, yeah. And then you buy, like, the 299VR, but it's just a thing for your phone in your eyes, it's like, the dumbest ever.
01:20:00 --> 01:20:01 You know?
01:20:01 --> 01:20:02 This is insane.
01:20:03 --> 01:20:08 With the vibe, with the vive, when I. I was playing. I was playing Elite Dangerous at the time.
01:20:08 --> 01:20:09 Yeah.
01:20:09 --> 01:20:21 And I. I tried the other VIVE stuff, and it was really cool. But the minute I played Elite Dangerous, and, like, all of a sudden, the cockpit had the correct depth.
01:20:21 --> 01:20:22 Yeah.
01:20:22 --> 01:20:28 And on top of that, no man's sky's. For the first time ever, I could turn around and look behind my chair.
01:20:28 --> 01:20:29 Yep. That was no man's sky.
01:20:30 --> 01:20:35 And seriously, I'm just like, I'm just gonna sit here and enjoy the hell out of this for a while.
01:20:35 --> 01:20:36 Yeah.
01:20:36 --> 01:20:38 Once I was puking what's behind my chair.
01:20:39 --> 01:21:08 Yeah. Once I was done vomiting in. In Rogue Squadron, I was pretty impressed with the whole flying an X wing, but as soon as I flipped that thing upside down, my stomach was like, oh, no, you didn't. So vehicles and I. Tough time. Not a good time. But Aflife, Alex, I got. I got my VR legs. It's been. It's been a long time since I played this and I had gotten so good to the point. So good. Like I'm so awesome at it that I could actually walk in the game without using the Snap feature, without getting sick.
01:21:08 --> 01:21:09 Right.
01:21:09 --> 01:21:22 I don't think I could do that now. So I'll probably have to use the Snap feature at least for Snap Turning. If I, if I turn and I'm not turning, forget it. You're going to. All you're going to hear 15 minutes of me voiding my lunch instead of, you know, actually getting somewhere in the game.
01:21:22 --> 01:21:35 But if there's, there's. The one option for accessibility for those games is usually the vignettes where the. Where there's a circle of darkness around your vision as you're moving. I found that for me helps a ton with most. I use that.
01:21:36 --> 01:22:26 There's. There's so many cool accessibility traits with the VR and I really love playing it and it's just. It gets so goddamn hot up here and I even have an exhaust on the front of it and it works pretty well, but it just makes my eyes cold. But my face is still hot. It's silly stupid stuff and I really, I really want to beat Halflife. Alex. I've streamed it in the past. I'll probably record this. I don't think I'm going to stream this for everybody on Twitch. I'll just record it on my own time because this is going to be something where I have to force myself to get in here and do it, make sure that the time's right and all this other stuff. So my biggest challenge will be life in general to come up here and do this stuff. So for those of you who watch me on Twitch, please forgive me if I'm like, I'm not going to stream today, but I am going to record my Sisyphean playthrough for some stuff this weekend and just, you know, don't come and burn my house down like Sinistar was going to do last week.
01:22:27 --> 01:22:30 Look at this half gas can halfway out.
01:22:31 --> 01:22:43 I don't know, I don't know how many chapters it is. I. I keep thinking like I'm almost to the end and then it keeps going like I should be done. Nope, there's like 12 more hours of this. I think it's gotta be 10.
01:22:43 --> 01:22:45 It's about a 12 hour game. Apparently.
01:22:45 --> 01:22:47 That's what I. It's got to be 10 or 12.
01:22:47 --> 01:22:57 I was going to say. Honestly, that's kind of. I love, I love Half Life and Half Life too. But there are moments where you're like, I'm coming to the end and then an entire new area opens up.
01:22:57 --> 01:23:24 Yep, whole new area. Yeah. No, it's definitely, definitely kept me guessing on a lot of stuff. And I, I loved the, I love the interaction with the environments. I liked picking up the bombs out of the weird alien things that you had to get real quick. You had to like, grab it real fast or they'd move them away and, and looking down and thinking that you're actually going to fall down the hole that you're walking on the beam. Like, it's really neat. I know. My wife has laughed. It snickered up one, one or more times, me wearing this stupid headset, being like, oh, dude.
01:23:24 --> 01:23:38 There were some. I had some. I had a couple software applications for my, for my vive that. Yeah, there were cliffs that you want and there's. Your brain is like back the away. Back the away.
01:23:38 --> 01:24:20 Yeah. Yeah, it's good stuff. So. Yeah. So I'm, I'm giving myself a. A physical and technical challenge of finishing a VR game in its entirety before the end of this year. So I will not finish it in January, so maybe I'll be looking at December being like, well, it's my two week break. I guess I'm gonna try and finish Half Life for the next two weeks, so we'll see how that goes. But that's my challenge. I'm hosting all good picks. Those are good picks. These are fun and I like that nobody knew what we were doing, so that's fun. I think next year I should also shut my mouth and not tell you guys what I'm doing because it's actually a lot more exciting to hear. Oh, you're going to do that? That's cool as hell. So that's fun.
01:24:22 --> 01:24:43 I also went, I told, I told the team this in our, in our private chat, but for the listeners and viewers, I went. And because I've got the sickness now of collecting the physical releases for the retro games, I went and looked. And the cheapest option for Wasteland on ebay, at least it was 150 bucks.
01:24:45 --> 01:24:52 That's not bad considering it's a computer game and the shape of those discs and the boxes and stuff.
01:24:52 --> 01:25:00 Yeah, this was the old interplay where it was like, it was like the vinyl fold. Right?
01:25:00 --> 01:25:00 Right.
01:25:00 --> 01:25:01 Yeah.
01:25:01 --> 01:25:24 Yeah. All right, so the recap for Sisyphean 2026 will be sick. Jake Mario Galaxy 2 Sinistar Wasteland on the Commodore 64 Werewolf will be playing the remake of Star Ocean 1 departure R2. Sorry. Star Ocean 2 departure arrival.
01:25:24 --> 01:25:28 Second departure of Star Ocean. Second story R. Yeah.
01:25:28 --> 01:25:37 Alaskan Air Lines, Gate 44. And I will be challenging myself to finish Half Life Alex on VR.
01:25:38 --> 01:25:39 Cool.
01:25:39 --> 01:25:52 This will be a fun year, guys. Yeah. All right, so with all of that said and done, sounds like the great. What the hell. The Great Motivator has.
01:25:52 --> 01:25:53 Great Motivator.
01:25:54 --> 01:26:06 The Great Motivator has spoken. Jake and Wolf will be playing an hour of their. Their both motivated games of Rascal and Mario Lost levels. Have fun with that.
01:26:07 --> 01:26:09 I'll probably do that before the end of the month.
01:26:09 --> 01:26:12 Please record. Please record loss levels at least.
01:26:12 --> 01:26:13 I will record it.
01:26:13 --> 01:26:16 And I want to see Rascal too. So. Yeah, perfect.
01:26:16 --> 01:26:22 Rascal. I want to see. Yeah, because I've seen that before. That game is. That game is fun to watch, not to play.
01:26:23 --> 01:26:31 All right, is there. Is there anything else that we would like to add? Jake, do you have anything you want to bring up? Anything you got coming up this time around?
01:26:32 --> 01:26:39 No, no, just that I got to do Buck Bumble and I. And I mean it this time. I'm going to do Buck Bumble this weekend. I got some free time. But we should shout out our Patreon members.
01:26:40 --> 01:26:55 Yes, Patreon. So that's a thing that. We do have a Patreon page. You can tell I've hosted since we've had the Patreon. We do have a Patreon page. I am. I'm not good enough to remember, but Wolf remembers the. The links to get to them. What is it wolf again?
01:26:55 --> 01:26:59 Patreon.com Press B to cancel.
01:26:59 --> 01:27:36 Also, I just like to hear Wolf talk because he has that sultry voice that really. It's like drinking warm tea. So I'm excited to hear that. Come and check out Patreon. We have. We have a couple people that are of our Circus Charles and our press B Terrian Tears. If you join those tiers, you do get a name call out and I'd like to shout out our two members of those tiers, Cathusius, Jeff and Von Beardley. We love the both of you guys. Thank you so much for your patronage. That's how they got that name and, and the continued support of the channel and, and all the things we do here. You guys are awesome. So thanks for being here.
01:27:36 --> 01:27:54 Thank you to all our members who subscribe. Regardless, we definitely appreciate the support. If you do. If you do join our Patreon, get access to the occasional behind the scenes video of us talking about random topics for Example, today or this weekend, hopefully we'll put up the video where I ran to Switch 2 and Metroid Prime 4 for five minutes.
01:27:54 --> 01:28:03 And you also generally get at least a day ish or maybe even more of a sneak peek for what's coming this week.
01:28:03 --> 01:28:10 Yeah, we have a tendency to tell people what we're doing and then pivot at the last minute. It's fun, it's a good time.
01:28:11 --> 01:28:14 That's just life, you know, the press fee way.
01:28:14 --> 01:29:17 So. So, yes, thank you everybody. And again, Patreon is not required. It is not necessary. If you don't want to or don't care to do it, please don't. You don't have to. We just. We appreciate it in either form, whether you're here listening because it's free and it's fun. We love that too. So just be here and support us and hit that like. And subscribe on. On the youtubes and hit that follow button over on Twitch. So you can follow us on any one of these platforms. You can find us on Spotify, itunes. Well, it's not itunes anymore. It's Apple music and all kinds of other different YouTube music. YouTube music. You can find us all over the place. We usually release those episodes on Monday mornings so you can hear the audio or you can come back and just watch us here on YouTube anytime after we air. I think that's it. Is there anything else that I need to cover? Jake, you're better at this than I am, but hopefully we have done it correctly. Fantastic. So, guys, thank you everybody for coming to listen. I also want to go back around again because we didn't hear what Sinistar was going to do or have Wolf had anything to do. And you can find me on Twitch. So come find me there. What do you guys got?
01:29:17 --> 01:29:46 I was going to say, if you want to participate in the Sisyphean, we have a channel in our discord. And we love to have community participation for the Sisyphean. We love to hear what you want to play. We love to hear your success or your failure stories, preferably successful. Yeah, yeah. I'm doing the DJ thing tomorrow, which will be Saturday over on Soularchaic on Twitch. But I do my own DJ spin a star on most Mondays. Well, some Mondays. Well, kind of Monday.
01:29:47 --> 01:29:50 Well, Mondays, ish.
01:29:51 --> 01:29:52 Sometimes.
01:29:52 --> 01:30:12 Yeah, there's hours. It's there, it happens. And birthday boy Wolf, Happy birthday, brother. Thank you so much for spending your birthday with us. Even though it was digitally and not physically. Would obviously been a lot more fun to hang out and throw balloons and confetti at you with your family. But do you have anything else that's going on other than celebrating another year around this Earth?
01:30:14 --> 01:30:28 No, not really. But I do want to mention if for some reason people don't like to jump into the Discord, leave a comment on the video or on YouTube and let us know what you're going to play for sure. Or, you know, make fun of our picks. Do something.
01:30:28 --> 01:31:58 Yeah, you get to watch me wear a big old goggle on my face. That's going to be fun. And then sweat bullets because it's hot as balls. Also, to piggyback on what Sinistar said about joining the Sisyphean stuff, we have an artist that works with us pretty exclusively. His name's November and he likes to do a mural, as it were, at the end of each episode or each Sisyphean run that if you were successful and you choose to be a part of it, he will draw your moniker or your avatar or you, if that's what you want, in a picture with the rest of us as we have completed our game. So if you have any interest in being, well, having your face drawn by one of the best artists I know, let us know in the Discord or here on YouTube, whichever you want to do. And then we'll talk about how we would put your avatar out there. We'll figure it out, but it'll be a good time. And then, yeah, you could find me over at Twitch Chardmonk Twitch tv. Playing mostly horror games these days. Be taking a couple days off because the family is coming into town for the month of January, but I will be back for the triumphant return of Resident Evil 9. But I'm going to play some stuff before that, so I cannot wait to get spooked out by weird nanny monster chasing people around a house. It's going to be a good time. So thank you Capcom, for more Nightmares. Appreciate it. All right, well, if that's all we got, get that rate up there, Jake, if you want. Perfect. And this has been press B to cancel. Have a wonderful, wonderful weekend.
01:31:59 --> 01:32:00 That's no moon.
01:32:14 --> 01:32:14 It.