The Gaming Persona

Digital Journeys That Changed Us Forever

• Daniel Kaufmann Ph.D. | Dr. Gameology • Season 5 • Episode 26

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MarcusB814 and Dr. Gameology discuss how certain video games can profoundly impact players psychologically, creating lasting emotional impressions and sometimes even changing how we view the world.

• Hollow Knight: Silksong release briefly crashed Steam, sparking a discussion about "2D Dark Souls" games and gaming settings
• Marcus unpacks his journey with Expedition 33, initially skipping cutscenes but eventually becoming captivated by its stunning visuals and emotional storyline
• The hosts explore games that genuinely frightened them, including PT (Silent Hills demo) and Dead Space
• Doritos shares his new family D&D campaign, bringing tabletop RPG experiences to his household on Tuesday nights
• Discussion of raid completions in MMOs and the unique joy of accomplishing difficult gaming feats with friends
• Examination of how video game perseverance creates resilience in real life challenges

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Thanks for Listening, and Continue The Journey!

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Gaming Persona Podcast. I'm MarcusB814. I'm joined by my esteemed best friend, dr Gameology, and we're here to talk about video games and sidebars. Why? Because that's what I do I'm here for the sidebar, he's here to drop psychology on you, and this is our show right now. Right now, did you guys hear today that Steam was like destroyed for 20 or 30 minutes? No, so Hollow Knight Silksong was released today and it basically broke Steam.

Speaker 3:

Good for Steam, good for Steam, good for Hollow Knight. That's actually amazing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, it's just years in the making, I guess. Have you guys ever played Hollow Knight? No, the first one. So, excuse me, I tried it and I'm going to try something new today and see if my add will work. But anyway, so I tried. I tried it once and it didn't. It's a 2d, but, like I didn't realize, it's basically like dark souls kind of a game and I was getting obliterated wait, wait.

Speaker 3:

I need to understand. How do you 2d dark souls?

Speaker 2:

it's google it. It's a size.

Speaker 3:

It's like ori no, you're my podcast co-host, marcus, you just tell me. So it's part of the episode. Come on, help me out. So it's basically hades I never played hades.

Speaker 2:

Hades. I never played Hades, okay, no, it's. It's like said, it's more like Ori. It's a 2d, it's a Castlevania game. Yeah, it's Castlevania Metroid style game. Yeah, so it's.

Speaker 1:

It's definitely it's a side scroller. It's like Castlevania you go into like rooms and their save points, blah, blah, blah, but it's just like a Dark Souls. I don't like the camera here. I tried it. I quit.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's even worse, I know.

Speaker 3:

I don't even understand what we're doing, but right now Marcus is hitting his eighth webcam position of the podcast. It's actually the second smartass, but that's we're doing.

Speaker 1:

But right now marcus is hitting his eighth webcam position of the podcast. It's actually the second smart ass, but that's we're gonna.

Speaker 3:

Just you know I'm counting all the tilts left and right as additional oh, all right, the motion sickness that you're getting.

Speaker 1:

That's why when in video games, you turn off the motion blur and turn off the film grain I've never messed with any of those options in my life.

Speaker 3:

Is that a thing?

Speaker 1:

yeah, dude yeah, turn off it next time you play claire, shut off motion blur and shut off film grain, and you're gonna be like, wow, this game is unbelievable why would they make default options that lower the quality of the game? Cause there's weirdos out there that think it makes it look better, but I don't.

Speaker 3:

Well, maybe they think you're a weirdo and well, we already know that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, duh, they're in.

Speaker 3:

Oh, in our own groups.

Speaker 1:

I hope it doesn't fall. Hold on.

Speaker 3:

Oh my gosh, you got Rani, ooh.

Speaker 2:

Oh, the hat comes off too.

Speaker 3:

You guys, this is a great segue. Hang on, Just like. Let me grab something.

Speaker 2:

Huh, diggity, oh that's, we haven't become that kind of podcast.

Speaker 3:

Yet, marcus, we never will. We said yet we might, you never know, look at my box again. No, giggity, look at my box.

Speaker 1:

The door is open. What? A box it looks like it says farfanoogan something. It came from somewhere far away, marcus. What a box. It looks like it says Farfanoogan something.

Speaker 3:

It came from somewhere far away, Marcus.

Speaker 1:

Oh, Funky Butlovin. Did he say Funky Butlovin?

Speaker 3:

No, somewhere far away.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's what you read.

Speaker 3:

I'm not opening it because I have a content creator goal that I've never gone after, but I finally have a thousand followers on TikTok, and so I'm planning to add vertical streaming to what I do, or YouTube shorts to have my live feed and TikTok. I already have it set up in OBS, but I need a stream key for TikTok and in order to get that, as far as the research I've done, it seems like you need a thousand followers. I have a thousand followers, but I also need to stream for 25 minutes in TikTok studio before I can get a stream key. That does not change every single time.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's easy.

Speaker 3:

It is because I love talking for 25 minutes at a time. So one of those three times I'm going to unbox my box, which is a statue, a 30 inch statue or a 30 centimeter statue, so one foot right, one foot. Statue of the monolith from clear, obscure.

Speaker 2:

Expedition 33 which was what you found today yeah, I found it well.

Speaker 3:

so I got to the end of the game today and I'm not going to spoil anything, but we got a really cool view of the monolith from where we were at. It's just such a beautiful game, marcus, you've been playing all week, right, okay?

Speaker 1:

so now I see what it is. I didn't know what it was.

Speaker 3:

Oh yeah, it's the tower that has the number painted on it, and this statue has the paintress in her crouched position at the base in the tunnel of the tower.

Speaker 1:

She's in her crouched position in the box.

Speaker 3:

Yes, okay, got it yes.

Speaker 1:

All right, so maybe that's the parts that I missed, as I was just space barring through the story to get through the entrance area.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, through the story to get through the entrance area, yeah, well, I'm glad you realize about an hour into the game that it's worth paying attention and it's beautiful and heartbreaking and everything that humanity is existing so we can feel is bottled up in that game. Life-changing stuff stuff well then, yeah, yeah, I.

Speaker 1:

What I'll say is yes, I, I don't know when did I start playing it? Last week, last week? Yeah, last week after last week, after the podcast, I was chatting with doritos and doc, like we usually do in the Discord, which join the Dr, dr, dr, dr, dr, dr, dr, dr, dr, dr, dr, dr, dr, dr, dr, dr, dr, dr, dr, dr, dr, dr, dr, dr, dr, dr, dr, dr. So I just pulled it up. Doc got so excited and I started playing it and there was a couple people in the Discord and I was I call it space barring, but I was just forwarding the story, not really listening, and I was about an hour and a half into the game, about 85 minutes, so into the game, and I stopped for the night and I was talking to doc the next day. I was like, man, I should probably really start this over. And he's like, yes, you should. And I was like, okay, I'm going to start it over. But then I remembered that there's something called YouTube and I decided that those two hours that I've already done, I can't double that for game time, for my play, because I only get a few hours a week to game. So I was like you know what? I'm going to go back and watch all the cut scenes the entrance area, the opening area, cut scenes again and listen to, like, the dialogue so that I can continue the journey of the game. And I did that and I started playing it. And two days in a row I'm in and I fought all day yesterday to get home and be able to play and I did. I don't know how many hours I played, I played for a while.

Speaker 1:

The game is incredible. I really love the turn-based combat in this game because my ADD, as you guys, if you ever see me on video, like I'm always moving and my legs are always shaking. Legs are always shaking. I can't sit still. And the Dodge Perry actions really keep me engaged in the game because it's like, even though it's not your turn to attack, you better watch out because this guy's going to mess you up, kind of a thing you know. And, as you guys saw I'm going to use my own words I am a graphical whore and this game it may not be the most beautiful game I've ever seen, but man, is it close. And so I play on a 4K monitor at 120 hertz, on a 4k monitor at 120 Hertz. And when I put the graphic settings on Epic, I'm getting like 58 to 60 frames and I was like, oh no, it's time for a new graphics card. I can't play a game on ultra. And I turned it down to high and it was much better. I was getting like 80 frames.

Speaker 2:

I was a little cried.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes, it did so. Last night I was shopping for new video cards and uh, yeah, so I'm done.

Speaker 3:

I gotta ask Doritos something really quick, Marcus, because it directly ties into what you said. Doritos, what is space-barring? A game?

Speaker 2:

That is where you so space-barring a game primarily comes from those of us from the who've played sotor for long enough, where you will space bar through a conversation, one that you've seen or heard dozens of times. So, in order to get through it faster, you'll hit the space bar.

Speaker 1:

Other games have similar mechanics yeah, we're some like hold Q hit our escape to skip. You know what I mean. On an Xbox controller greatest controller ever you hit start and it'll kind of just skip through the cutscenes, but that's what I did. Anyway, once I started playing the game, I can't get over how beautiful the game is and I think the most messed up thing about the game so far is that all the dead people that came before them are still there. They're just like frozen in time, looks like they looked at Medusa and they're like turned to stone.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

That's fucked up, messes with my head big time. It's like you're climbing Mount Everest and you die on Mount Everest. They can't bring your body down, so it's just lives forever frozen.

Speaker 2:

There's only about 150, some odd people up there.

Speaker 1:

Oh rest in peace, all you crazy people.

Speaker 3:

Well, the other. You know, one of my favorite games ever. That's definitely an inspiration to me and Claire Obscure. Expedition 33 is going to be one of these games. Just time has to keep passing. But Journey has those tombstones. From the very beginning of the game you start seeing the stones of people who gave up on their journey and did not go after the mountain.

Speaker 3:

In Expedition 33, it's a monolith, not a mountain, but you have the same symbolism and, just like the hero's journey is echoes of the same story, over and over, with a new coat of paint. That coat of paint is the world, the characters, the central conflict. It has the same motion. It has the three-act structure that we're so used to in our movies and other stories that we enjoy.

Speaker 3:

Video games do that and Expedition 33 is tapping into such a primal story that, even if you're playing it for the first time, I swear some of what you're feeling, marcus, and some of what I've been feeling this year, is that I'm not playing this game for the first time. I'm playing something inside of me that not only wants to be awake but it wants to be what my entire day is about. It's hope, it's overcoming death, it's overcoming loss and being okay and it's trying to create a future that's better for people behind me than it was for the people in front of me, and those are really powerful dreams for people to have, and we relive those every single cut scene of this game in one way or another yeah, the game really messes with my head and I think that I'm getting I don't know how it always comes back to mass effect, but it messes my with my head the way mass effect messed with my head and it and since yesterday I've watched a bunch of the 15 tips.

Speaker 1:

I wish I knew about Claire before I played kind of videos. You know what I mean.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

You know the the before you get started watch these tips things yes.

Speaker 1:

And it actually has helped me a lot to understand the game because, again, I've kind of fast forwarded through the whole like, hey, these are the different things that you can do in the game. There's a couple of things that I have no idea what I'm doing. Like they say that once you, once you use an item, like your picto things, for so many times other players can use it. I don't know how to equip that on them. You know what I mean. There's certain things that I don't know what to do. But that brings us to our topic of today, and Doc brought it into it. But I'm going to ask you both what games you played this week. But just to kind of give our listeners something to think about while we talk about the games that we've played, the topic of today is what game messed with your mind playing it that impacted you in a positive way or a negative way. So, doritos, what have you gamed this week? Week?

Speaker 2:

well, likely. I'm on holiday this week, so I've done a fair bit of gaming that's right, you are you.

Speaker 2:

This, this lucky man has been on vacation and not going to work all week and using some time off much needed off. So I've been playing Surtur. No great surprise there Been dabbling in Lotro Lord of the Rings Online. Wow, so, with New Republic Outriders that they've got a clan in there. So I'm just kind of just what's it like? Beginning quests, that kind of stuff? Been starting to dabble in Final Fantasy 14 doing a lot of the opening fetch quests and learn the skills and whatnot.

Speaker 1:

Let's see hey, uh, just kidding, just to interject your Final Fantasy 14. The first thousand quests are fetch quests, oh yeah.

Speaker 3:

I know the last thousand are fetch quests also.

Speaker 2:

So which ones aren't, though? Alright, playing a couple mobile games just to accept to the galaxy heroes online mobile game and just a word puzzle game, because it entertains me and my family started D&D campaign oh, how did I get to dm?

Speaker 2:

it went good for the so. So first session. So it's just the four of us and we're just kind of it's. It's entertaining and comical. So it's everybody kind of learning how do you do the role play as your character, with your alignment and this and that, and the kids are cracking up and my wife's just rolling her eyes and shaking her head who's more into it your son, your daughter or your wife?

Speaker 2:

it's all kind of. Even right now there's there's kind of a we don't know what to do. So what does this really look like? Type of thing.

Speaker 1:

Sure, and so what nights are you going to play that Tuesdays.

Speaker 2:

Tuesday nights. Yeah. So with, with, since we homeschool, we've got a lot of uh a couple out of home activities scheduled for uh Tuesday evening. So those will count kind of as a PE credit for the kids. And so they'll come home and it'll be my turn to cook dinner tonight and then we'll game after dinner, kind of do more of a finger food snacky dinner night and you know game for a couple hours.

Speaker 1:

That's so awesome. How long do you guys go for? Or how long did you guys game for?

Speaker 2:

a couple hours. That's so awesome. How long do you guys go for? How long did you guys go for? First of all, about an hour and a half ish.

Speaker 1:

That's a good amount yeah, not too long, not too short, and correct us, correct me if I'm wrong. You used pre-made characters for this.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so we bought one of the starter campaign sets. It's called Dragons of Stormwreck Isle and that is one of their. It's got six pre-made characters are really good. I've done did some similar thing like you did. How do you do it? What's it like this and that? Because my daughter originally wanted to DM it, but she was getting behind in school and kind of wanted we all kind of wanted to play it, but nobody was um able to dm. So we decided let me go ahead and read up on it. So it's good. It it's a. It's a good starter campaign to learn. How does it work? How do you role play it? What are your characters like this and that, and so we're we're learning and making fun of each other as we go along.

Speaker 1:

It's great oh yeah, I'm reading about it. Adventure for characters, levels one through three.

Speaker 2:

So it's a yeah, it's the very beginning, yep individual character quests.

Speaker 1:

Oh, this is awesome. So it comes with a rule book, adventure booklet, character sheets and dice everything that you would need. Awesome, wow, that's pretty cool man.

Speaker 3:

Wow, yeah, I mean that's awesome. I really wish I would have had a younger introduction to any of the tabletop RPG kind of games. I think I mean I turned out okay, but I just have so much fun with the concepts in those games, like just the idea of what I do for my work and how you can simulate that in games by having things like persuasion and skill and perception and you roll checks on those Right.

Speaker 3:

Right, you roll checks on those Right, right, like one of the things I talk about in my streams with choice-based games. Now that I know how tabletop games work, is you know in correct me if I'm wrong. I mean, I know, with slow tour I'd be right. I think mass effect works the same way. If you make a certain dialogue choice and you make all those choices based on the guide, you're going to get the same result as the next person who makes all those same choices using that guide.

Speaker 3:

But when you're playing Baldur's Gate 3, which is basically D&D as a video game it is not. Basically it is D&D as a video game. I can make the same choices as you, doritos, except I might roll a one on something or I might fail a check. Right, I said the thing I wanted, but the person in the game now gets to reject the idea because I wasn't persuasive enough. And that's what life is like. And so there's something about D and D that simulates life in a way that video games usually are just like. Oh, you're the main character, let me bow to your will.

Speaker 2:

Well, it's scripted interactions and programmed interactions versus freeform kind of chance-based decision making. Because I say chance-based mainly because you have the dice to help direct some of the decision bases yeah, yeah, for me.

Speaker 1:

I had terrible luck. Every time I roll the dice I was always a five or less. My barbarian was not too strong, but you know, what's cool about that too Is if you decide, you guys love it. Once you finish this campaign I'm looking at like the next One is called Tyranny of Dragons and like that Is a little bit more. It's pre-scripted but it has. You know, it's 1 to 15 level characters, 19 different maps, there's 31 monsters and you can do more with it. Yeah, and if that becomes your Tuesday night routine, it's endless hours of fun.

Speaker 2:

Right. So we're just again trying to trying to dabble it with see what it's like play through this campaign, have fun with it and give us a way just to kind of hang out with the kids and let them just interact with us in a game night without necessarily having to play a board game.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, oh, dreaded non-technology games.

Speaker 2:

Oh, we love board games. We usually end up getting like Monopoly or the ones that we like. That we got several years. A couple years ago when we were down in tallahassee it was called trek. It's one. They've got a couple of different versions of that out where it's a national parks also all the united states national parks and you have to go around and collect certain tokens and not test your knowledge about parks and stuff like that. So we really like that one. But they can. That one's actually about a two hour game, so we could replace them, but we've played a couple times. We enjoy it, but this is something that that everybody's kind of would like someone to get involved with, so we're going to give it a go I love it.

Speaker 1:

That's such a great family game night and everybody gets to be their own person and, at the end of the day, the fact that you're in charge of it it makes it even better well.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, I get to play dm and then, just because we only have a few or few people, I'm actually playing one of the regular characters too. So it's, you got to change your voice to be in character. That through everybody else off. I started laughing. It's like I can't break characters. It's just, oh, that's so cool, the whole nine yards. So, but to answer your question that you asked, other than, what have I gamed with this week? Say, not say messed me up, but uh, kind of had me thinking or or really kind of got to me. Originally I'll probably have to say coat the original kotor, because I mean, it's not like you, there wasn't any foreshadowing coming through. But when you get to the end of that game and you get that reveal, it's like wow, okay, that's not quite what we expected, and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, kotor, definitely messed with your mind. It was yeah, go ahead. Oh, I was just going to say I'll never forget when that happened. All these years later, never knew Revan was Revan, mm-hmm.

Speaker 3:

You know. But the real question is which gender is Revan?

Speaker 2:

Yes is the answer.

Speaker 1:

Mine was a male, my like four of my friends. They were all female.

Speaker 3:

Mm-hmm, yeah, my like four of my friends that were all female. Yeah, you know, that's an interesting thing too, because knights of the republic eventually ties into the old republic, where they had to make a choice. They chose to make definitively. Revan is a male character, and then also the novelization. Definitively he ends up marrying bastilla and, you know, definitively, ends up getting stuck in that temple for a very long time for a very long time oh yeah, but darth revan is male in official canon Darth.

Speaker 3:

Revan is male in official canon, right, but here's what I would say about that. Some of Star Wars' best stories is not in official canon. So if you enjoy a different version of that, then just continue enjoying it.

Speaker 1:

No, no, I'm not saying that. We were talking about what's canon, and I actually didn't know, but they said that he's canon because that led to Satele-Shan being born.

Speaker 3:

That's true. Yeah, you know it's interesting with these choice-based games. When you do sequels, you have to tiptoe around the agency of every player that played the previous one. You know the Witcher deals with this. Mass Effect dealt with this To some extent. The Old Republic just had to make choices like this is the way it's going to go. This is what Darth Revan is for our story.

Speaker 2:

Yep.

Speaker 3:

That's so interesting. The reason we don't deal with this in everyday life is we don't have time machines yet ha, that's awesome yeah it's coming. Yeah, totally, once we have them. Then you get stories like that stephen king book. That's all about going back in time and trying to figure out the assassination of john f kennedy. I don't remember what year was that, 1961 or something, 71, 61? I wasn't.

Speaker 1:

I wasn't around, so no, you weren't around then. So, doc, what have you been playing?

Speaker 3:

I've played a lot for me, a lot of balder's gate 3. I've made it into act 2. I'm playing with all the mods that remove the things from the game that make me upset, so I like to think I'm playing it with house rules, right. Like I explained on a stream in detail for like 20 minutes what it is that made me quit this game every single time and what was it but?

Speaker 3:

they well, yeah, so I don't like having to choose only three people to walk around with my created character. I feel like when you walk into a mob and they have like 15 enemies and you have four, it's the game punishing you for being stupid. But I feel like if I have six friends at camp just lounging around in their underwear and all of them can throw fireballs just like me, then why wouldn't they be walking around with me so that we can destroy this mob all together and have a good time being murder hobos? So larian added the mod manager to the console versions of the game and that allows you without breaking the game at all. It just works so perfect like an extra options menu. You download whatever mods you want and it puts them into your, injects them into your game, perfectly unlike on pc where you have to start and restart the game over and over until it works and you didn't break it. So it's like mods for dummies and I really love that. So every member of my party can be in my party while we're walking around the world.

Speaker 3:

Okay, I like that right, and I have the ability to roll a extra dice that automatically 20s out my role if something that really kills my motivation happens, but I've only used that in two situations.

Speaker 3:

One was an instant death situation, so I rolled bad and I knew from my previous playthrough oh I haven't saved in like two hours and I just got wasted. So I used inspiration and then use the cheat dice to make sure that I didn't fail that instant death roll. You know. So like I have a lot of logic to like take away my blame for for this, but I'm enjoying it, right, like it's a video game, and I found a way to enjoy it. And there's other things too with the cheat ring where you can just summon money into your inventory. And one of the things that I did not like in the natural the four times I tried to naturally play Baldur's Gate 3 is how broke you are all the time and how bad your outfits are the time and how bad your outfits are and I want to look like next level glam while I'm destroying all my enemies.

Speaker 3:

Like it's from it's from my mmo background. Like you just want to look fantastic and I felt like the clothing that you can actually afford to have early in that game. This makes you look like Renaissance fair trash. I don't want to look like Ren fair trash. I'm so right now but like I've gotten the game to a place where I'm enjoying every second of it and I think that's all that matters.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so that's it Just just polish.

Speaker 3:

Oh well, I've. I've played my stream games. I finished clear, obscure exposition 33 today for the second time and I got the better ending, where people end up where they're supposed to. There's still lots of deep feelings in that, but it's nice that I got to see both endings. And I've also played oh jeez, what else have I played? Persona 3. I'm still working on Persona 3. But Expedition 33 got into a spot where I just had to keep going like a snowball effect. Also, how crazy is it that in the three games I'm playing there are a total of four threes expedition 33, persona 3, reload and balder's gate 3. That's funny, isn't that wild?

Speaker 3:

that's actually kind of really funny yeah, I think the universe had a glitch and none of this is real. We're in the Matrix and I'm stuck with the number three, when my rows are supposed to be zeros and ones yeah, yeah, it's possible wow, all right. So what? What have you been playing, though? Did like. Is there anything besides expedition 33?

Speaker 1:

I will, but I want you to answer this. Okay, what game really messed with you in a positive way or a negative way?

Speaker 3:

okay, this is good timing. I'm gonna be going to halloween horror nights for my rip tour on sunday. I'm like I'm getting ready. I'm getting ready for it. I love it so much. I don't have fear anymore. I just love the psychology of figuring out where the scare actors are and noticing how they do their job. It like completely removes and I hate it.

Speaker 3:

I love it. So there was a demo on the PS3 for a game that was going to be called Silent Hills and the demo was titled PT Okay. Demo was titled pt okay and it was basically a first person view of walking through a a looping, endless hallway in a scary house and there was this tall robed nightgown woman, very scary looking face like, in the distance and there was a bathroom with a fetus in the sink and it was just, it was gross, it was scary, it was creaky, it was terrifying, it was evil.

Speaker 3:

The radio and the the like answering machine. It was just meant to creep you out, like walking through a haunted house, but it's virtual and there's a jump scare. That happens if you walk up to a door but don't go through and then turn around where the rogue lady is in your face and strangles you to death and you go to the ground and fade to black and then you wake up on the floor of the bathroom and you know, the first time that happens, heaven opens and and just says you're welcome, come here now You're done, and and so, like I'm not scared of Halloween Horror Nights, now, I love Silent Hills, I love Resident Evil games Sure, bioshocks, my jam. Resident evil games sure, bioshocks, my jam like I.

Speaker 3:

I I just look at games that are scary and it's like if I have time I'm down, right, I love it. But that moment of being in my living room and like my whole body spasming and dropping the controller and feeling like I just died, and then of course you know how to trigger it. So then you bring people over and they're like having pizza and stuff and talking, we're just talking, and then you know it's about to happen. So, like, you make it happen and you don't tell them.

Speaker 3:

And then they're like and they like like I swear like one person like threw their plate of pizza on the ground and ran to the bathroom and slammed the door.

Speaker 3:

When it happened I was like I'm so sorry, I felt bad on that one yeah yeah, but so that's a game where it created ptsd for me for for a very like. I don't like first person horror games very much unless, like, if it's photorealistic, because that's that that can get me like the jumps are real for me in that. But like third person, I'm good. Give me a gun, give me a flamethrower, give me a knife, we're good sure.

Speaker 1:

Well, to answer your question to me, what games have I played other than Claire? I did win some Battle Royale with Ryan, rhino and I. I've been waiting for John Cena's guy to skin be available. I bought him for me and Rhino, and so we were John Cena and we won as a team of Minecraft. We're working on a city.

Speaker 1:

So we did a blank slate and currently my job is cobblestone road. So you have, I'm taking out the first layer of grass and I'm making cobblestone everywhere and then slowly putting lines in the road and we're slowly building this. He calls it Roku world. I don't know why, but that's. He made the sign that says Roku world and that's what it is. So we're slowly creating a sustainable city, rural town, I'm not sure, but it's really fun to play that game with him, to watch a almost seven-year-old's mind create things and like cause that game. You just do whatever you want, like blank slate. Dad, what are your? What are you? What's your job? You tell me what my job is. You make the roads. Okay, how many roads? He said a hundred. I'm on it and it's going to take me a long time to make these roads, but then I'll finish, like the roads and he'll start building a house and then I'll have to add like a sidewalk to the house and he gets so excited and he's like Dad, now you got to make one for the garage, blah, blah, blah and he'll build the garage. So Minecraft with him and I has actually been a lot of fun, and I'll play on my computer, and right outside my office door is my PlayStation and the TV that's downstairs so he'll play there, so we don't even need headsets, we can just scream back and forth to each other, which is really fun. So a lot of Minecraft, a bunch of Fortnite and then Claire, that's been mine at night.

Speaker 1:

I think I am burnt out on Elden Ring. I haven't had the desire to play it since that day that I went into this Potts dungeon I think I talked about it last week and I played it for 45 minutes straight and I died and there's no save point except all the way up at the top, and now you gotta work your way all the way back down, which probably won't take 45 minutes to get back down there, it'll probably take 20. But I'm like I don't really want to do that again. So I think it's just time for a break for Meldon Ring, which is perfect because now I can play Claire. And realizing how big claire is is when I finally got to the open world and I zoomed way out and like it kept going and going and going and then I kind of scrolled all the way up and scrolled all the way down. I'm like I have to traverse this land by foot, like Like, oh my God, this is going to be crazy.

Speaker 1:

But something happened to me this week when I was driving home. It's been in my mind a lot lately and I was driving and where I'm working they're not mountains. I mean, I guess you could label them a mountain, but they're not really mountains. But you're driving on the highway and you see like the mountaintops and it's like rolling mountains, and I took a picture of it and posted in the Discord and said you know, all I can think about when I see those mountains is I can explore there from these open world games that I've been playing. And now, every time I see a view, I'm like man, I could get there if I wanted to, and that's what these open world games have done to me. But in typical Marcus factor fashion, yeah, that too.

Speaker 1:

I can't give you one answer on one game that messed me up. There's two, it has to always be two. So one that was scary, that took me a year to beat because literally the game scared me so much was the original dead space. My friends, uh, made fun of me because the game scared the living, ever living shit out of me. And I remember this one moment where you had to go outside and flip a switch to vac, put vacuum back in the ship. Isha Mora was the ship. I can't remember the name of the ship.

Speaker 3:

Anyway, yeah, that's it.

Speaker 1:

It is. That game is in my head forever and you went into zero G and all you hear is Darth Vader and you can't hear anything. All of a sudden my screen is turning red and I turned around and there's this necromorph thing like hitting me and I can't move because I'm in zero G and I'm like kind of jumping and flying. He killed me. That has to be my biggest fear in the world is being stuck in zero g after that game I have to tell you psychologically how you heal yourself from what we just both described how you ready?

Speaker 3:

okay, whatever game you're playing, the first thing you do when you see something big, bad and scary is you take your character and you take that controller and you run straight into that thing and make no effort to fight it. Okay, and what will usually happen? I did this in Resident Evil 7, which is a first-person game it's the first time Resident Evil had first-person and I was scared at the beginning. It was just a creep factor that I was not ready for. Actually, I did this by accident. But then I was reading research on horror games and psychology articles later in life and I was like, oh my gosh, I did that in Resident Evil. And here's what I did.

Speaker 3:

I got so lost in the hallways that I basically ran into Daddy Baker who is walking around and he can actually cut your leg off and like you have to go crawl to a health potion, pick up your severed leg and heal the heal the severance. Like you pour the health potion, it like fuses your leg back to the stump and that's like the worst ending to the opening of the game. Right, like, if that happens to you, it means you have completely failed the part where you're supposed to run away from him. If that happens to you, it means you have completely failed the part where you're supposed to run away from him. But because I did that none of the times running away from him, the rest of the game felt scary Because I was like, oh, I've seen the most gruesome, gory, devastating thing this game can show me. So now I can just play it like it's a video game. It's not a horror game anymore, it's just a game.

Speaker 1:

It's not a horror game anymore, it's just a game, yeah, well, either way, it took me a year because I could literally only play it once a month because the game would mess with me so much. And that was just, and eventually I beat it and then it was obviously less scary. But the other game that messed with me was Mass Effect 2. There's a part of one of the missions it was one of the I call it the point of no return mission when once you do this, there's no going back to do any side quests. You're not visiting any planets, you're in the end game. Most games have it. You know what I mean.

Speaker 1:

Elden Ring was, once you light the fire and start the burning of the Erd tree Like that's the point of no Return you can't go back to normal lands between after that point and you and you go to this mission and if your characters die, that's it, they're done. They won't move on to mass effect three. So you better save two files, because if you don't get what you you don't, if you don't get the decision or the outcome that you want, you're losing your characters. And the first time I did it I lost my favorite character because I didn't make the right decision. And when she died, I literally sat there with my hands on my head going, oh my God, how did I lose Tali? Like, how did that happen? Oh my God, I just killed my favorite character and I stopped, I reloaded and you know, and I fixed it, but save scum. I didn't care, like that was something that I could not give up.

Speaker 1:

Yeah and she and uh, hey, man, I'll tell you what it uh, it was definitely made me hurt on the inside, but most recently the, the, the intro to Claire, when everybody turns to flower petals oh my God, my heart was like melting, like, oh my God, this is real. And then I don't know if this is a spoiler or not, so if you don't want to know anything about the story, then don't listen to this next 30 seconds. When they go and they're and they say, oh my god, this is expedition 81, I'm like, holy fuck, they've been coming here all these for the last 50 years and every year somebody's dying. How long did they live before that?

Speaker 3:

because at 81, I'm pretty sure I ain't going on an expedition expedition zero was the number 100, so they've been doing it for 67 years, right? But if their logic is, you go on your final year. How effective could Expedition Zero even possibly have been? Because that's a bunch of 99-year-olds. So I think that Mael is a teenager and she goes early because she doesn't want to continue living on the island of Lumiere without her adoptive brother, slash mentor Gustav, who raised her.

Speaker 3:

Because you also don't get raised by your parents, because your parents get gommaged out of your life, which is the dust and rose petals where you evaporate dust and rose petals where you evaporate, right. So you have your parents only for a little while in this culture, especially when the number gets below 40, right? Like, so what age were you? Don't have to answer this, but, like, think about what age were all of us when our parents became 40? What age were all of us when our parents became 33? Actually, I'm a paradox now, because I think I was born when my parents were 32. Ha, so I could still exist in this game. I just wouldn't have been raised by them because they would. They would have been gommaged, like at some point. I mean if, if I'm the adult here, then I'm already gone. We're all already gone.

Speaker 1:

We're all over 33 no, well, over 33 yeah yeah, did you guys know that we're older than google? If you want to mess with your kids, tell them you're older than google and they're gonna be like you're old.

Speaker 2:

I'm older than the internet, so yeah, I well.

Speaker 3:

What year is the internet credited with being birthed? I'm older than the internet being in most homes for sure, for shizzle, I mean. I'm as old as the Legend of Zelda. I'm older than Final Fantasy, how's that?

Speaker 1:

Well, either way, I think that Games that mess with your head in a let's. Let's leave this with a positive note. One game that I played that left me really happy and positive Honestly note one game that I played that left me really happy and positive honestly was star wars, the old republic. When you finally cleared a raid boss. Like the pure joy when you beat a raid boss with your friends after making them die for the last four months is an incredible feeling and that game will always hold me in a really high regard because of how great I felt after those moments we talking about Darth Revan again?

Speaker 3:

No, no, talking about Kephis.

Speaker 1:

Nope, honestly what's a guy from Dread Palace? No the goodest the, the, not the Dread Council. He was the uh nope Starik, no, no, he was like a general After you, not after you. Kill the monster where she takes his toll in blood, not Corruptor Zero. Oh my god, draxus.

Speaker 1:

Gate Commander Draxus yes, when we beat that boss on hard mode. Now we're a bunch of noob raiders who have never done actual hard content and it took months to beat that guy on hard mode because we literally had no idea what we were doing. That was maybe what it has to be one of the top 10 moments in my gaming life.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I really do miss progression rating and I miss this is gonna sound really weird I miss how manageable Star Wars the Old Republic was when I was playing it. You know like I love Final Fantasy 14 and there are things I definitely love about both games, but one of the things about XIV is it's so massive, like the first M, the massive part. I can't wrap my head around caring about those deep goals because I know there's so many of them. That makes my actual goal feel impossible. With the old republic, my goal wasn't impossible.

Speaker 3:

I just never ended up on a team where the other seven people were all equally dedicated and also without ego and treated each other right. Yeah, and so like there were teams where we treat each other right but we didn't have the dedication to playing well. There were teams where we had the dedication to playing well for five or six of the eight people, you know, but when you're playing that level of intense content, you really do need all eight people to have that synergy that, like no matter what, we were going to be together until we've got this. That being said, you know some of my friends go into party finder and play with complete strangers and get their achievements that way. I have no idea how they make that work. That would not fit into my lifestyle, though, cause I think when you do that, you're committing yourself to like I'm going to stay in this group for five hours If that's what it takes, and three pool rule.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, oh, what's, what's that?

Speaker 2:

If, if, if, if, the if the group that you have doesn't clear something within three pools, it's perfectly acceptable to say, okay, I got say, okay, I gotta go. I don't have time to keep progging this whole time, even on like savage content or nightmare content.

Speaker 3:

That seems unreasonable to me.

Speaker 1:

Like you're not gonna clear that content in three I've watched some really good raiders go into a nightmare raid and just do it, no problem, once you know the dance, and if you get eight people that know the dance, like there should be no reason why. Hey, what are you doing? I'm doing this, okay, great, I'll do this, you'll do this, and then everybody just makes it happen.

Speaker 3:

That's a chicken or the egg phenomenon, though, because in this scenario, I'm a person who wishes I was doing this. Therefore, I am not one of those eight people, meaning now we need seven people to carry my lame behind through a fight that I don't understand right, but if you work us all the time, yeah, but it's different doritos.

Speaker 1:

I knew you were going to say that, actually, so I was already ready for that answer it was.

Speaker 3:

I was loaded on that, yeah no, I knew he was.

Speaker 1:

But the difference is is you're on a prog team with me. If you're putting in a pug group that says looking for seven to clear X boss, when people come in and say, hey, I can come, you can say how many times have you cleared this? Oh, I've never cleared it. Well, then you're not coming. I'm looking for somebody to clear it with me, right, you can be specific in what you're asking for in a pug group. If you're joining a group, you could say, hey, I would love to join you fight Darth Vader, but I've never done the Darth Vader raid.

Speaker 3:

What is a pug group?

Speaker 1:

I don't know what the acronym stands for up group.

Speaker 3:

Oh, pick up, picking up randos that you don't know. Okay, awesome, thank you. So we're just trying to be educational here. We're the gaming persona educational yeah, so.

Speaker 1:

So, doc, what game did you shut off? And it left you overjoyed with happiness.

Speaker 3:

There are quite a few. Journey changed my life because of what it is and the time when I played it. The Persona games that I've finished Persona, persona 5, both have that. And then there's achievement based things, like any game that I've cleared on the highest difficulty, like that moment of being, like I, I did everything there is in this game. Usually there's a platinum trophy connected with that, but, like the force unleashed games had that for me. Devil may cry 4 had that for me. Bioshock and bioshock infinite had that for me. Sure. So you know the last of us also.

Speaker 3:

You know just games where you know, going all the way back, the moment where you have 150 Pokemon in your Pokedex and the last wild Pokemon you need to get to 151 attacks you in the grass and you're just like, oh my gosh, I have enough Pokeballs, I just have to make sure I don't kill their health bar. And then I catch it and then you get your little certificate that says you completed the Pokedex, and so I was able to do that in Pokemon. Yellow was the first one I ever finished the Pokedex, and so Red, yellow and Silver are the only ones where I ever accomplished that. And then you know, there's just so many Pokemon now I don't know that I ever will get it again.

Speaker 3:

But those completion moments where the difficult challenges in the rearview mirror, defending my dissertation, you know, like these things are not just video game things, and I think that that's one of the most important things I can say on this episode is my love of video games created the appetite to believe in myself and go after those things. But I have done my best to have that same drive elsewhere in my life, to have that same drive elsewhere in my life. You know, whether it's the wings of the architect and defeating Brontes, or getting to write book chapters or a book, or go stand on stage at a fan convention and talk about my love of video games and what I can do for all of us that have that same love. And that's what those video games have done for me and what I hope they do for everyone right.

Speaker 1:

What about you doritos?

Speaker 2:

oh, I would have to say elden ring oh yeah, finishing that was. I mean, that was something that was out of my comfort zone, not one of my my not what I would normally do, but, man, it was great to finish that. Both Horizon games, forbidden West and.

Speaker 1:

Zero Dawn. Oh man, I forgot I watched you play a bunch of that. Yeah, that game was beautiful too.

Speaker 2:

So so doing that and the DLCs for those was very satisfying. It had a good conclusion, good ending, and then it thoroughly enjoyed those.

Speaker 3:

Hmm, I feel so bad for not mentioning Elden ring right now.

Speaker 1:

Hey, you know I I could have said it, but I'm just thinking of pure happiness, like when I beat the Elden beast, I did go crazy and all of that, and Melania and all that, but man, there's nothing. No dopamine hit that I've ever gotten after progging Commander Gatekeeper whatever his name Draxus after six months on hard mode and we finally beat it. That feeling, I mean that ruined, I ruined video game friendships with that boss, right Like that, was the point where I realized not everybody can do this and not often can you get a group of people that are going to stick together for six months to beat a hard mode boss, not even the nightmare mode boss, and honestly, the nightmare mode boss is easier than the hard mode in my opinion.

Speaker 3:

You know what you just described, though, about groups breaking apart, friendships ending, groups breaking apart, friendships ending, and the challenge being too much stress on a relationship. That is why there are gravestones and failed expeditions all across the pathways, everywhere. It's because not everyone finishes their journey, it's so much easier to give up. Not everyone finishes their journey, it's so much easier to give up, but I think that, for me, video games taught me to press, continue, reload and continue the journey. Thank you,

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Daniel Kaufmann

Host
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Doritos

Co-host
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MarcusB814

Co-host