The Gaming Persona

The Sacrifice of Play

• Daniel Kaufmann Ph.D. | Dr. Gameology • Season 5 • Episode 22

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Gaming becomes a reflection of who we are as we explore the digital personas we adopt in different games. We dive into the games currently captivating us and why they hold such personal significance.

• The Nintendo Wii as possibly the most revolutionary gaming system ever created
• How the Wii changed the way people interact with games and inspired competitors
• Gaming's therapeutic potential, as seen in group therapy settings
• The profound philosophical messages hidden in games like Expeditions: A MudRunner Game
• Fortnite as a tool for parent-child bonding and connection
• How different difficulty levels reflect personal gaming philosophies
• The power of meaningful quotes from games that shape our worldviews
• Ori and the Blind Forest offering a relaxing, visually stunning gaming experience
• The excitement of Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree expansion
• Finding your own pace and approach to games based on personal preferences

Join us for our next episode as we continue exploring the fascinating intersection of gaming and personal identity!


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Thanks for Listening, and Continue The Journey!

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Gaming Persona podcast. This is the show that explores who we become when we play games, whether you're saving kingdoms, leading epic raids or just vibing in cozy indie worlds. Join me, dr Gamology and my good friend Marcus as we search for all the ways gaming and personal growth collide. Grab your controllers and let's continue the journey. Now. This has been a crazy week, everybody.

Speaker 2:

Yes, it has.

Speaker 1:

Indeed, indeed, all right, that's the show. Glad we covered that. All right Good.

Speaker 3:

Now next topic right.

Speaker 2:

Well, I would say there's levels of crazy, right. So there's crazy because your kids are really busy and your life is just spending driving them around. There's crazy because you're buried with work and there's piles and piles and piles of work to do and then you have to come home and still do the dishes, cook dinner and make sure everybody in your house is happy. That's crazy, or crazy because you're just crazy and you put it?

Speaker 1:

all in a blender and see what happens or d all of the above yeah, I mean, what's the kind of crazy where you just like end up subscribing to world of warcraft out of nowhere?

Speaker 2:

well for you. I don't think that's that crazy, really no.

Speaker 1:

After all these years, 20 years of not playing this game, and then it's like let's do this now.

Speaker 2:

Well, I think for you, I believe everything you do is calculated in the sense that you look at everything. Okay, what kind of content am I going to get out of this? Either for work, or your personal life, or dr gamology life. And you, you've been talking about playing world of warcraft as long as I've known you, and so is it shocking that you did it? Maybe shocking that you actually pulled the trigger, but is it shocking that you did it?

Speaker 1:

no, yeah, yeah, I decided to create. Was it a mage? Oh, I was going to say a barbarian.

Speaker 2:

No way. Whatever reminded me Swing the swords Right.

Speaker 3:

Oh man.

Speaker 1:

I hate swinging swords so much. Yeah, it just reminded me of a Sith sorcerer and it reminds me a lot of it, except the Old Republic looks like a much better game.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I could see it.

Speaker 2:

But I'm just going to go back. I love swinging my sword like a helicopter.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I know you do. That's not my style. I love magic, magic. I love range. I don't even want to acknowledge your innuendo, marcus you don't need to.

Speaker 2:

It was there and doritos got it, so we're in, but no, um, so, but no. So here comes the graphical guy. So I do agree, world of Warcraft is as cartoony as it can be, and I mean SWTOR is cartoony too, but it has more of like a realism to it, where World of Warcraft is like you're playing an old Warner Brothers Looney Tunes cartoon game.

Speaker 1:

Or like the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone PS2 game.

Speaker 2:

I never played that, but sure.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's like very blocky, very cartoony. What's a PlayStation 2? It's the second PlayStation, Marcus, Obviously duh.

Speaker 2:

I don't think I ever owned one really that's um.

Speaker 1:

That's where I switched over from nintendo into playstation and I bought it so that I could play smackdown oh see, I had playstation 1 and then from that I don't think I got anything until Xbox 360.

Speaker 2:

Or was Xbox 360 the same time as the PS2?

Speaker 1:

No, that was Xbox, xbox and PS2.

Speaker 2:

Oh, yeah, I never had the original box.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yep, so my lineage was Nintendo, super Nintendo and 64, and then PS2, 3, 4, 5. But I have had the Switch and the Wii U and the Wii also, and I have an Xbox 360 somewhere.

Speaker 2:

I'm going to ask you guys a question about the Wii. Do you think there'll ever in our lifetimes be a system that is such a generational innovation as the Wii? Still to this day? The Wii is the greatest system ever created, in my opinion, because it changed the way. Forget about the quality of stuff, but it changed the way you think about games. There was no system that ever did that, or even the wii u right. Go to, even go to the wii u, where that was the first time you could be playing on your tv and have a handheld and all that, the whole wii function itself. It was took the controller, like I don't know how to explain it. It was so innovative that it changed gaming forever yeah, because it took.

Speaker 3:

It took it from the standard, you know, two hands on a single controller, and gave you two independent controlling devices that were one had a gyroscope in it to keep it stable so it knew which way was up, down, right, left. I can understand that, but it seemed like it was almost too far ahead of its time and didn't survive because it couldn't keep up, because it was limited, and it's a Nintendo thing that it gets limited on, and it's a nintendo thing that it gets limited on its hardware capabilities, whereas sony and microsoft can keep their stuff more current. No, nintendo didn't chose not to go that route. They wanted to be stay on more of the innovative side.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, I guess I let me try it again, but forget about the hardware. I'm talking about the system, like the whole functionality of the system, you know, because because of the wii xbox did that, what was that?

Speaker 1:

Connect.

Speaker 2:

The Connect.

Speaker 1:

You know what I?

Speaker 2:

mean oh yeah, we can track you while you're doing the robot to Just Dance.

Speaker 1:

I loved doing the Star Wars Just Dance in Star Wars Connect. That was the most dance coordination I ever had in my life was just because I had to be Han Solo, right. In the song I'm Han Solo, han Solo.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, you know yes, but then what Didn't Sony have? What the wand?

Speaker 1:

Oh, yeah, yeah, they did the move. Playstation move.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the PlayStation move reminded me of a vibrator.

Speaker 1:

Marcus, your head space is just amazing tonight. What?

Speaker 2:

do you mean it did?

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

But you know, I guess what I'm saying is that we changed the game, Because you know what I mean. Now you can't just have a handheld system, does it like? Can you dock it to your TV? Because if you have a handheld system and you can't dock it to your TV, it's a waste, yeah.

Speaker 1:

You know the one thing about the Wii that. I definitely can agree with you on is my first counseling job. This was in the late approaching 2010. So my first counseling job was group therapy.

Speaker 2:

Can I stop you real quick? When you said in the late, I'm thinking he wasn't teaching in the 90s and you're like, oh, in the 2010s, Like that was like yesterday.

Speaker 1:

No, it was approaching 2010, right, Sure yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so the Wii was the Nintendo system at the time and the program went and got a couple of them so they could set them up on the social day, which was Friday. So you do regular group therapy Monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday and Friday is more of like relax, like we've processed a lot of stuff, let's do something fun together for the majority of today. And one of the rooms they'd set up is a Wii room and so the clients would have people like me in there to moderate and they would just be doing the tennis and the bowling and the baseball. And I have a lot of fun memories of getting to see how therapeutic video games could be with those clients. Of course I was not a doc student yet, I was not Dr Gamology yet, but the Wii was planting seeds for me to start seeing. Well, if the Wii can do this and the clients can experience this kind of social benefit from a video game, what else can someone like me who understands video games be able to talk about?

Speaker 2:

Okay, just for the record, wii Sports might be still the greatest party game ever created.

Speaker 1:

It's certainly better than Mario Party.

Speaker 2:

Well, and even like Rock Band, Like I had fun playing Rock. Band and stuff Like Rock Band was fun, but I'm saying like I don't know, wii Bowling, when you got a group of people together, there's nothing like that and your scream is D-RIGHT. You know what I mean? I don't know.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you ever bowl 300 in Wii Bowling. No, I did no.

Speaker 2:

Of course you did. But you know what else you did, what you wrote a book and you won an award about it.

Speaker 1:

Gasp. No one who listens to this show has ever heard about this. You wrote a book, oh my gosh. But wait, Wait, wait. This is part of the show now. All right, everybody On the webcam. I am holding up officially the trophy that says International Impact Book Awards. Daniel Kaufman, the Gamer's Journey. I have hardware, now people.

Speaker 2:

Hey, take that, hey, doritos. Yeah, kaufman, the gamer's journey. I have hardware now people. Hey, take that.

Speaker 3:

Hey, doritos yeah you know what that trophy looks like?

Speaker 2:

a lot of things the reaper ship kind of yeah yeah, it does look like a, so yeah no, it would have to be facing up, but but yes, it looks like the Reaper ship.

Speaker 3:

Actually it looks more like a mass relay.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's true too. Yeah, but he doesn't know what that is. Yeah, he didn't play that game called Mass Effect.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'll get there someday, Everyone. I'm just telling you. Book 2 took a massive step forward yesterday towards existing so, now, yeah, so I don't know how much I want to talk about that. I don't know if I've ever said what the name of the book is probably going to be on this show. That's coming up in a future episode. We got to keep people engaged, right.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely what, marcus. Can I just make a suggestion? Absolutely what? What marcus can? No, can I just make a suggestion? It has to be like the journey strikes back or something like that, like it's gotta, you know you can't, and then the final one can, instead of return of the, it can be revenge of the, or actually your second book could be revenge of the journey, and then your final could be return of the journey, like something like the last one could be the rise of the journey oh, come on.

Speaker 2:

Why would you do that? The?

Speaker 1:

last journey could be the the, the one right before the end of right, the journey awakens oh, my god um the journey lorian um on journey on journey.

Speaker 3:

Journey, lorian On Journey.

Speaker 2:

On.

Speaker 1:

Journey, I was thinking about naming it. Your Move is a Vibrator. Memoirs of Marcus Bouchard on the Game of Persona.

Speaker 2:

That's okay, all right. Seeing that you guys are just fucking around tonight, I'd like to talk about this topic. What topic? So? The topic would be what are you? What's the one thing that you're playing right now that has you captivated, and why?

Speaker 2:

claire obscure expedition 33 okay, let's get into that. Because, uh, my first question is I've never like okay, the game I've played probably the most in repeat is other than an MMO. Like I'm taking MMO out of the box. Okay, because I've done the class stories in SWTOR so many times to get the different avenues. But I'm just talking games. I think I've played Mass Effect 2 probably six times because it's that good to me. But what makes you want to play Claire Obscure 33 so much when there's so many more games that you can play that, to give you that story and the psychology behind them, to drive you to make new decisions instead of replay the other decisions?

Speaker 1:

I've seen. I played the first time through so fast that things that I'm doing now in this playthrough I'm absorbing it and enjoying it and I don't remember it and I just played it like a month ago. And so there's this area probably about 60% through the story that to me just feels inspired by Journey, the game. It's sand, it's stone temples, it's just. Every enemy is wearing robes and floating through the desert winds. It's beautiful and the conversations in that area had some really philosophical points to them able to enjoy them, because I'm in there a second time and I can notice things differently and I also have the context of what I think happens in the end of the game. I don't know the good ending, but I know how the game ends, so I'm seeing the characters differently.

Speaker 1:

And one of the things that's really sticking out to me this playthrough that's an example of all this is in every boss fight, the five party members four of them are incapacitated by whatever that boss does to kill people and there's one person who steps up and saves the day and has their big shining moment, their game-winning shot, their apotheosis, and I did not notice that every character gets their moment the first time through the game, and that's so beautiful for someone who does the kind of work that I do, you know mental health, encouraging people to find their path through life, be the best version of their self, the hero of their story that, even if you're not one of the characters that determines the end of the game, you still get your moment where everyone alive is there because of you, and that's a really powerful message about what our agency in life actually can be is. We just have to be ready for our moment. You never know when it's going to be, but there will be a time where you being there is going to matter to everyone around you.

Speaker 1:

If you're ready for it.

Speaker 3:

Well, also, you know I haven't played Journey, but the way you have described it it seems like as you go through Expedition 33 and you see the other expedition flags, that it is very akin to progressing through Journey.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, because you see the tombstones in Journey all throughout and it's the markings of people who ended in those spots. Yeah, absolutely, the markings of people who ended in those spots. Yeah, absolutely, marcus. Also, one of the characters on my stream yesterday had a quote, and quotes are important to me because you usually, with my publisher, you need quotes to go on the main page for the chapters. It's just a stylistic thing and this game is full of them. We hold the brushes that paint our own prison or something like that is what the character said yesterday. I was just like, ah, you know, like when the rock comes out and you just start smacking the goosebumps I had that during the stream. Those words, they just echoed through the room. I didn't notice them the first time because it's new and everything's going on and now that I can really just focus in on the dialogue, there's so much in this game that you could base your life on if you're present enough to notice it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you know you're thinking of quotes, and you're right, because I have a quote that's been with me for a long time and I live by it. It's a Japanese proverb and it's fall seven times, stand up eight. Hmm.

Speaker 1:

I get knocked down but I get up again. You're never going to keep me, me down. I thought it was like they said they fixed it yeah, these proverbs echo throughout societies. That's actually the whole point of mythology, or music, or fables, uh, religions, anything that we base our life on. It's these ideas of how we lift ourselves up that get translated into different mediums and influence people. For me, we could dark timeline this I have been on the fence about. If we do the Dark Timeline today, what?

Speaker 1:

would mine be, but there is a quote that really, in a heartbreaking way, connects with a key point of who I am, and it comes from our favorite emperor Valkorion. It's from the trailer. He says a man can have anything if he will only sacrifice. And because I thought I was going to be a cool professor that does all this research on MMORPGs and Star Wars, I based incredible percentages of my personality on believing that sentence is true.

Speaker 2:

Well, it's true, it's 100% true. How do billionaires become billionaires? Sacrifice.

Speaker 1:

Breaking the backs of uneducated workers and barely paying them.

Speaker 2:

But they okay.

Speaker 3:

Yes, didn't say they do sacrifice, yeah, but again Doritos.

Speaker 1:

That's so true.

Speaker 2:

Go ahead, marcus but they still sacrifice something. There's long hours that they're not around. They're giving up something to bake it to that point. Whether they there have employees that they pay $7 an hour, it doesn't matter. It's the fact that they're still working nonstop. To get to the point, everything has a sacrifice. You want a brand new car. You have to work your ass off, to sacrifice hours of your day to be able to afford that really nice car you want. Everything is sacrifice. You don't just get ahead by doing nothing. You have to work for it, and that's sacrifice, or you're an Epo baby baby.

Speaker 1:

I don't know what that means. Oh um, like when your parents did all the hard work and you're just born and you inherit.

Speaker 2:

Yes but they sacrificed somebody at some point. Sacrificed to get you. I look at these houses. There's a place in rhode island called watch hill taylor. Swift has her 19 million dollar house right on the water, right there's we're not doxing taylor swift on the gaming persona yeah, but I'm putting in perspective the location.

Speaker 2:

Every house is that big right. So you drive by and my kids will say to me how do you get that house? And I say all the time sacrifice. And they say what does that mean? You never see your dad. Your dad is never at one of your hockey games, gymnastics meets, anything. Your dad is gone all the time. But that is how you get to that point. You don't just get it, you have somebody at some point in a timeline sacrificed.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

In anime.

Speaker 1:

there's Fullmetal Alchemist, there's the law of equivalent exchange is you can turn anything into anything else. You just have to trade equal components.

Speaker 2:

Same thing. It's sacrifice. All right, Doritos. What game are you captivated with right now?

Speaker 3:

and why right now? Uh, right now it's ori in the blind forest. Um, mainly because it's uh, it's more relaxing for me. It is a metroidvania style game, but it's simplistic, it's um it's music's beautiful the music's beautiful, the background is gorgeous.

Speaker 3:

They do a good job with, while it is, um, okay, a puzzle style game, there's, there's a foreground, your action area and a background, so so you actually get a depth, uh of the game. It's beautiful, the soundtrack's awesome, um, and it's to me it's more relaxing. I'm not having to try to dodge something I'm not trying to watch, I'm trying to watch my health, bar Cause there is, you know, health, because you can die, you can get hit by spiders, you can get hit by something you haven't. I've gone on a couple areas where oh, look, I'm not supposed to be here yet that that killed me quickly, or I can't make that jump, and so for me it's, it's the ability to not have to take it seriously and relax yes, it gets a little stressful sometimes just to oh, I can't make this jump and I'll die, I'll see.

Speaker 3:

So far I've died what 430 something times in the game and I've only played it for about 10 hours. But still it's to me it's far more relaxing to be able to not have to worry about, well, where's the mission, Where's the quest, Where's the quest marker? Do I have access to that? Do I have the right year? All those other, all those concerns that come with a soul's life. Well, not just souls, life, but you know, even in.

Speaker 1:

MMOs, so you?

Speaker 3:

know, do you have the right gear level? Um, this one is okay. You have a small skill tree. You progress along. It's relatively linear. It does stories very simplistic but I'm enjoying it.

Speaker 2:

I'm actually. I'm actually watching the video because I wasn't sure at first what game you were talking about, but now that I see it, it's a game I always wanted to play and I just never did. It's like doc with mass effect.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm actually confirming that I have Ori and the Blind Forest on my wish list on Steam right now.

Speaker 3:

It was part of the summer sale. I think it was four bucks on summer sale. It's a four buck game.

Speaker 2:

I'm going to take Doritos mentality on the summer sale and I'm just just gonna buy the cheap three and four dollar games and play them I mean because I mean you know, I to me, that's my like said, my, my quick fix games.

Speaker 3:

I can sit down, I can play for 10, 15 minutes and okay, I'm good, I got from here to there, I got to my next safe point, or I created my own safe point. I'm good, I can put the controller down and walk off.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, that's a great. So in Ori do you have like a weapon to attack or?

Speaker 1:

is it?

Speaker 2:

all, just you got to run away from things.

Speaker 3:

You have a spirit friend, that becomes your method of attack.

Speaker 2:

Oh, okay.

Speaker 3:

It's part of the tree spirit and it's the part that shoots the fireballs for you. So you have one attack button, she shoots fireballs, and you level that up as you go, but then you have different, just like in Metroid. You go explore and you find new and different abilities. You know like the first thing you do in Metroid is you go find and you find new and different abilities. You know, like the first thing you do in Metroid is you go find the ability to turn into a ball. Alright, in Ori, I think, the first one you find is the ability to wall jump. So where you jump and you can start jumping into the wall and you can jump up walls, because that's how you gotta get out of where you were when you acquired that, when you found that up walls, because that's how you got to get out of where you were when you acquired that, when you found that ability. So it's very much like a Metroid game in that sense.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, there's actually two Ori games and I'm currently checking Xbox Game Pass just to see if it's in there.

Speaker 2:

That'd be a good stream game for you?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I know. I mean, like I said, the music I listen to in the car all the time, even though it's a set of games I've never played, and you can play them with Game Pass, so I don't even have to buy them. How freaking cool is the world we live in.

Speaker 3:

So-so, so-so.

Speaker 2:

All good.

Speaker 1:

So, Marcus, what game are you infatuated with these days?

Speaker 2:

who see that's a loaded question, because I I'm I have two and they're for two different reasons and I'm playing two games. So the first is fortnight. I'm playing that game with my son a lot, and so picture yourself like an over-the-top view of, like a blueprint of, a house. Okay, so my office is in the top right-hand corner of said house. The living room is right outside that wall to the left Right, so it's like right next door. The living room is right outside that wall to the left Right, so it's like right next door. So I open up my office door and my son is sitting on the couch right there and like so we don't need a headset, we're just playing together, and and he and I are playing together and you know he has definitely gotten better, but it's something that's connecting us together and like like you're, you're creating stuff together, but it's not the same as doing work together.

Speaker 2:

Right, like, ryan, this guy's on me, shoot him, shoot him, shoot him. Okay, dad, he, I took him down, I got your back. Or, dad, I'm down. Come res me. Okay, let me kill. Come res me, okay, let me kill, let me take down this guy. Try not to use the word kill. Like we take this guy down and you know I'll res him and then we just keep going.

Speaker 2:

You know what I mean, and it's something to be said when I win with him versus when I play it alone and I win without him. It's almost like it's not as fun to me. And you know, and he loves it. He loves the, the fortnight store with v bucks, and you know he doesn't buy any, but he's waiting. He's counting the days until the wrestling characters come, because he's like dad. You're buying me that the days until the wrestling characters come, because he's like Dad, you're buying me that as soon as the wrestling characters come, and I'm like no, I'm not Little, does he know? I'm probably going to buy every one of them for myself, because there's going to be something to be said about Bianca Belair and her long hair whipping around while I'm shooting at people. You know what I mean. But it's really. It's a really fun game. It doesn't make you feel bad when you lose. You know what I mean.

Speaker 2:

Like what Like, another like yeah Like the call of duty, one like you lose and you just feel like shit because there's nothing like that, like I don't know For me, if you die, it tells you hey, you placed 56. You placed 20th. If you're the first person shout out, you placed 64th, but it's still saying like you placed. So it's almost like here's your participation trophy, pal. But then you don't have to sit there and watch the whole match, you could just, it says, find next game, click and you're out and it's. It's made it so streamlined where you can really enjoy yourself. And then they've integrated it with the Nvidia system.

Speaker 2:

that they have, and every time I have a big moment, it like saves it the video and or a picture. So now, like when I, we win something, it always saves it and then, after you're done playing the game, nvidia climbs up and says select which videos you would like to keep and it's already recorded. I don't have to do anything. It doesn't obviously, record camera, but it records my voice and you can hear us talking back and forth. And something that else it's done is and the reason why it's captivated me is seeing how excited my son is and this is a super. This is a super shameless plug, but not as much as doc plugs his book.

Speaker 1:

Um, I didn't realize that my book was like as annoying as your love of fortnight it's not as annoying.

Speaker 2:

I enjoy. Dude, you should be proud of yourself for writing a book.

Speaker 1:

I'm you should be proud for placing 64th in fortnight.

Speaker 2:

Marcus, I don't place in 64th when I play alone, pal. But anyway, 63rd yeah, exactly, thank you oh, it's your son's fault he's dragging you down.

Speaker 2:

What a scrub yeah, he's got to get good. Um, no, uh. Go to youtube and type in rhino b0814, r-y-n-o b0814 and subscribe to my my little guy's channel. So what I've been doing is I've been setting up streamlapse and I'll put him on my computer and he'll grab the controller and I'll put on fortnight and half the time he doesn't even know the cameras on and I'll record him playing and then I'll send it to the editing software and I'll make shorts of him or like little videos. And it's absolutely hilarious to see this six-year-old kid and how natural he is on the microphone. It's and I'm not just saying that because I'm like proud dad, because he's a little kid and there's just the things he says. It's actually dumb, but like to hear him like quote Jacob Fatu from wrestling. I don't know what I mean. Or he tells these kids to get good and he doesn't even think he's talking to somebody and all the voice chat is off, like nobody can do it, and I'm captivated by that to see his excitement play the game.

Speaker 2:

So I created him a youtube channel and we're going to see what happens with that he's gonna get partner and make you so much money and then you'll be like you'll be like the overbearing dad that controls the finances well, I'll control the finances, but like I would never tell him right like it's easier to keep their money if they don't know they have it well, I wouldn't.

Speaker 2:

I'll be really honest. If he ever did that, I would call my financial advisor and say create an account and put every dollar that this kid makes in this account, and I don't ever want to see it. Just let that account go, because I don't ever want anything to become like that. Right now he's just making videos, like I think the kid has like two followers and you know, nobody watches his videos. But eventually, as I tell my friends about it and they're like hey, they tell their friends, hey, look at my buddy's kid. He doesn't even know the camera's rolling and listen to what he's doing. You know what I mean? He's just a natural anyway. So that's, that's part A of my captivation in gaming. The other part is Elden Ring Shadow of the Earth Tree.

Speaker 1:

Boom, boom boom.

Speaker 2:

I had no idea what I was walking into. I've only watched like one or two videos of like the things to do before you go into Shadow of the earth tree, kind of videos, right. And so I went into shadow of the earth tree and I show up into this place called gravesite planes and I look around and I know Eldon ring, as far as you can see, you can go Right. And I wandered. In the first 10 minutes I found this boss. He's in, like it's almost like when you're in like the ruins and you find like the stairs that go down to the treasure chest. So I found these stairs to this treasure chest and but it was a yellow door and I'm like wait a minute, it's a boss.

Speaker 2:

And I got humbled. The guy hit me three times and I was dead and I know in a friend of ours shout out to eight tracks. He was like Marcus, try rolling. And I'm like, listen, I did. Okay, I did try to roll, and this was a Saturday or Sunday morning, like the kids were doing their own things, and I just turned on YouTube and streamed it just so I could record it, and nobody was there. I did it for like an hour, but the fact of the size of this expansion is mind blowing to me.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's a full game Right. And I'm an hour into the game in fact, it's a better full game, arguably, than night rain.

Speaker 2:

Well, your face, marcus hey, hey, I returned it I know you did it on the show.

Speaker 1:

Everybody heard you return it yeah, I did that.

Speaker 2:

But they did just release their update where they released duo two player. Yeah, yes. And I thought about it again and I'm like should I buy it? And I said to myself I'm not, I'm not gonna play it like as much in the back of my like 13 year old self.

Speaker 1:

It's like just get it because you're gonna play it, I'm not gonna play it that voice is the reason I have so many games on steam that I've never played, and I I am getting to the point in my life too where that voice just doesn't have a compelling argument anymore.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

So sad.

Speaker 2:

No, it's not. I don't think it's sad. It's just the reality of you turn on your computer and you're like look, I have two hours to play a video game today. Do I want to play Ori and the Blind Forest, or do I want to play Shadow of the Earth Tree? Or do I want to play Shadow of the Earth Tree? Or do I want to play Fortnite with my son? Or do I want to play Claire Obscure 33 for the 90th time? It doesn't matter, it's twice Okay.

Speaker 2:

Yeah For now. Okay, okay, yeah For now. Or Final Fantasy VII Rebirth in every difficulty possible.

Speaker 1:

That's how I play games. You got to beat every difficulty if the game matters to you. That's just how I don't make the rules?

Speaker 2:

Or why not just go in the hardest difficulty from step one and just beat it and be done, get good.

Speaker 3:

Because the platinum trophies don't count. You have to go through and do all the other stuff.

Speaker 2:

That's not true?

Speaker 1:

I don't think marcus, marcus, it is is mathematically impossible to beat final fantasy 7 rebirth on hard as your first playthrough, because you have to be level 70 characters in order to hang with the boss fights Really.

Speaker 1:

Oh see, I didn't know that there is damage in that game that you cannot dodge and therefore if you're a level one or maybe they start you at level seven, because seven ha ha but like, if you're the lowest level character, your characters will just get hit by whatever like glancing chip damage the boss does. That cannot be missed.

Speaker 2:

Interesting. I didn't know that, so I was cause uh, what's the star Wars game? That's like a soul's like um, oh, my God, oh. Jedi fallen order fallen order or survivor right.

Speaker 3:

Either one.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you can go in and Grandmaster from the beginning and just be fine.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. No, I think that I did try hard mode of Rebirth as a stream game. I did complete Chapter 1, but the Chapter two boss I was doing perfect on the mechanics and still dying after taking out only 20% of their health bar, and that was like surviving 15 minutes.

Speaker 2:

So what you're saying is hard mode in those games is like new game plus and yeah and um the souls games yeah I I.

Speaker 1:

There are games where I have done the hardest difficulty as my first playthrough, but in general I use the lower difficulties as a way to like enjoy it differently. The hard difficulty is what I do when I'm just feeling like this game is going to be a badge of honor for me, like when I did Master Mode on all the Koted and Kotfi chapters in the Old Republic. You don't have to do those and they're all very easy to complete and relaxing, even on the story difficulty. It's an amazing story but I just really wanted to have something that was as difficult as a raid that I could do alone without having to. That I could do alone without having to convince seven friends to play with me.

Speaker 3:

Sure.

Speaker 1:

And that was a great challenge.

Speaker 3:

Mm-hmm and sometimes I mean I know, like when I did what was it Horizon series? Yeah, I'll play through those on usually normal mode, not story but normal mode, because I like to see what do developers intend for the mechanics? How do they teach you how to learn? How do they teach those mechanics to folks Knowing full well? Yeah, I can easily go into hard mode or serious mode or ultra mode, but I enjoy going in and mode either, you know, but it's I enjoy going in and saying, okay, what was their thought process? How did they think that this game, somebody would be playing this game? Would they expect someone who's you know, been nightmare Raider or completed, you know, elden ring or another top tier, uh, hard mode game, to come in and just crank the doll up to 10, like Jean would do, and just power through it and go ah, I've got it. I like to go through the story of the, the normal mode, and go, hmm, interesting. Well, why did they make it? Do this?

Speaker 1:

Okay, yeah, for me silent Hill because you mentioned gene. Um, you know silent hill is a game that I always wanted to play because of my friendship with him. When the came out, I did start it off on normal. I moved it down to easy because the fear and the jumps were enough. Uh, where, like, I had to get desensitized to the aura of the game and I didn't want to be dying as often as I was, because that makes you have to go into that hallway again, right? So, um, I enjoyed my first playthrough on easy very much because I was, I was just absorbing the story, I was figuring out the puzzles and, um, silent hill 2, by the way, has a fun way of doing difficulty, where gameplay has a difficulty and the puzzles have a separate difficulty. So you can play easy difficulty for your damage and the enemy health, but you can still have the extreme versions of the puzzles. And that's such a cool concept for what video games can do to build your own challenge for the player.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, mm-hmm yeah.

Speaker 1:

Marcus, don't make fun of me for playing games. I like you, jerk.

Speaker 2:

We're gonna fight on this show wait, I didn't make fun of you at all. I'm thinking about what?

Speaker 1:

you're saying yeah, but whenever we talk about expedition 33 or final 7, you take jabs at me.

Speaker 2:

Well, of course.

Speaker 1:

We're not going to take it anymore, Marcus.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm sorry that it's. You know, are you going to wear the mask and stick out your tongue and it's going to be red, but like I don't get your reference.

Speaker 1:

I think you're old, ok, I am old.

Speaker 2:

Well, you know, I poke fun, it's just what I do. Well, yeah, you know I, I poke fun.

Speaker 1:

It's just what I do. Well, yeah, but the people listening aren't going to know that you're poking fun. They're just going to think that I don't play enough video games oh my god, you guys so I I just.

Speaker 2:

I just came to the fortnight store, undertaker c Rhodes, bianca Belair and Becky Lynch are available in fortnight, and that's not good, because tomorrow my son is going to be calling me and go, dad, I want Cody Rhodes you're going to wake up with the bell.

Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh Marcus, oh my gosh Doritos. I have an RIP tour at Universal for Halloween Horror Nights. I've done it before, but you know what I've never done at Halloween Horror Nights? What a house themed after the Fiend and WWE. It's gonna be amazing. The Wyatt Six has a house.

Speaker 2:

Nice.

Speaker 1:

I've never been to Universal.

Speaker 2:

You should come do the RIP tour, the closest I've ever been, I went to this restaurant.

Speaker 1:

It's right outside Universal, the studio's Cowfish. Yes, we had sushi.

Speaker 2:

Yes, cowfish, it's a american sushi restaurant or something. I don't know what it's called, but yeah, it's like fusion.

Speaker 1:

It was so good, yeah, so we did that in person. Doritos, we gotta, we gotta have a gaming persona meet up, get both of you down here, except he's like 14 hours away from Orlando now.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I'll figure it out. There's 24 hours every single day. Just pick one so.

Speaker 2:

I'll drive from Sacrifice. So I'll drive from Massachusetts, you drive north from Orlando, we can meet in Georgia.

Speaker 1:

But then we're in Georgia and we can't go to Cowfish.

Speaker 2:

But Savannah is pretty dope and the food there is amazing.

Speaker 1:

It is, but if we had cowfish with Doritos, then we could actually say that we've continued the journey. Thank you,

People on this episode

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Daniel Kaufmann

Host
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Doritos

Co-host
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MarcusB814

Co-host