When Challenge Meets Mind: Finding Flow In Expedition 33 And Elden Ring

A great game can feel like a new friendship—instant chemistry, shared language, late‑night rabbit holes—until the credits roll and something just doesn’t land. We start with that feeling: Mass Effect Andromeda’s highs in worldbuilding and system exploration, and the lows of a rushed epilogue and a final encounter that denies closure. From there, we get honest about review scales, why “a seven” shouldn’t mean “bad,” and how a “solid six” can still be worth the hours if the journey resonates.

That opens a bigger door: how MMOs quietly steal years of single‑player discovery. We trade stories about living inside gear treadmills and weekly resets, missing legendary campaigns like the Batman Arkham series and Hollow Knight. Reclaiming that time leads to better nights with games that truly fit our mood. We unpack streaming choices, Elden Ring memories, and the tug‑of‑war between magic builds, melee pride, and the notorious panic roll.

Then we dive into the science of psychological flow. Not a vibe—an alignment. We break down how challenge, skill, and instant feedback sync in games like Elden Ring, Tetris, and, surprisingly, Expedition 33. Turn‑based battles shouldn’t enable flow, yet precise parry and dodge windows create a rhythmic loop where time fades and control feels effortless. We contrast that with Elden Ring’s relentless pressure: sublime when mastered, overwhelming when you can’t find your footing. Finally, we tackle famous finales—Mass Effect 3’s polarizing choice, Arkham Asylum’s underwhelming last fight, and KOTOR II’s publisher‑rushed conclusion later rescued by mods—showing how expectations, production realities, and player agency collide at the finish line.

If you’ve ever adored a game and sighed at the credits, this conversation is for you. Listen, share your most disappointing ending, and tell us where you hit true flow—boss fights or exploration. Subscribe, leave a review, and send this to a gamer who needs to reclaim their playtime.

Chapters

• 0:00 Instant Work Bond Over Mass Effect
• 1:36 Andromeda’s Ending Letdown
• 4:30 Systems, Exploration, And Dialogue Deep Dive
• 8:20 Review Scores And “Middle Of The Road”
• 10:50 What To Play Next
• 13:28 How MMOs Steal Single‑Player Time
• 16:40 Streaming Choices And Elden Ring Memories
• 20:55 Style Debates: Magic, Melee, And Panic Rolls
• 24:40 Expedition 33’s Beauty And Turn‑Based Tactics
• 28:20 Defining Psychological Flow In Games
• 33:12 Flow In Turn‑Based vs Real‑Time Combat
• 37:20 Exploration, Control, And The Nine Elements
• 41:55 Great Games, Disappointing Endings
• 46:08 Mass Effect 3, Expectations, And Choice

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:00

A lot to say. It's gonna start with Once Upon a Time or No, I was thinking once this one time at Bandcamp.

SPEAKER_03: 0:09

A long time ago.

SPEAKER_02: 0:16

So you know when you instantly have a connection with somebody? Right? Yeah. It's instant. Right, sure. So my new job, I went to the office in Boston this week for a meeting with the team, and I met a bunch of the team members. Come to find out, one of the guys, guess what his favorite game is? Mass Effect 2. Boom.

SPEAKER_03: 0:43

I thought it was gonna say Destiny. I was gonna say Star Wars, the old Republic.

SPEAKER_02: 0:49

This is why we all have different personality types. But when I found that out, like the whole world opened up for me and this guy. And then like I like I've never had a corporate job before, like a real like kind of one where they're like talk corporate speak. And this guy messages me today with yo, what's good, brother? And I'm like, all right, this guy's my guy. Like, this is the guy I'm gonna talk to all the time. You know what I mean? Kind of a thing. But it made me think because Doritos sent a message earlier this week that he beat a game. I did. I'll say that this afternoon. No, last night? Last night. Oh, wow. See, I don't even know what day it is anymore.

SPEAKER_03: 1:30

Well, today is the I don't know what day it is either, but please tell us all about it, Doritos.

SPEAKER_01: 1:36

No, I I I finished off Mass Effect Andromeda. Um like I said in our little group message, it it's you know, I'm I I've got it done, check the box, it's it's finished, but it was unsatisfactory. I didn't get a lot of conclusion because you you don't actually kill the final encounter. You know that the antagonist organization still exists, and they've set it up for sequels, and you your your personal story isn't well concluded. Now they did put an epilogue in there, but even then it's it was felt rushed, so it's like and let's hurry up. It's the whole the okay production, you're here. We need to sh get this game wrapped up and shipped by X date. Hurry up and conclude just this thing so we can put a bow on it, test it, and get it out the door. And that's what it felt like.

SPEAKER_02: 2:53

Did the game feel like I have so many questions? Did the game feel like Mass Effect to you?

SPEAKER_01: 3:02

Sort of they put a lot of energy into the system exploration. Now, you don't like in Mass Effect one and two, where you actually go onto the planet and and look for resources. Well, and one you do that, two, you just scan the planet. Right, two, two, that's right, two, you scan. It had that sort of mechanic, but you didn't do that kind of scan. That that kind of scanning was actually on the handful of planets you actually had uh quest lines on. But the scanning of the systems, I mean, again, the it was good concept art of okay, if you had to create what the Andromeda Galaxy looked like in the various systems, it was good, and how you were able to travel through was okay. But again, it that that was that was definitely part of where they put a lot of energy in was some of the world creation and system creations.

SPEAKER_02: 4:02

What about the dialogue? See, I like I said, I got through 20 minutes of it and I shut it off.

SPEAKER_01: 4:09

The dialogue for the game was good conceptually, it's a good way to take it, but you know, it's not the whole you're you're trying to do two things. You're trying to establish the the human colonies and stuff, and and another race colonies from Mass Effect. So you got the Asari, the Krogan, the the Solarian, and everybody's trying to establish the their home world, but you have this imagine this an ancient technology race that is scattered throughout the galaxy that you have to go uncover and determine how they were doing stuff. Then you have this other clandestine antagonist group that is trying to overthrow and control that technology. Oh wow. So again, it's very similar to what you've played already in all your Mass Effects, just there's not as it's very heavy in the system, the the more geopolitical system building than the terraforming.

SPEAKER_03: 5:25

Okay. So the way you're describing that, Doritos, is like when someone says, Hey, you know this person at work, they're really fun to hang out with. So you hang out with them and they're just weird the whole night, and you just know the whole time you're not hanging out with them ever again. Right also has ruined your friendship with the first person because it's like, why the heck would you recommend that to me?

SPEAKER_01: 5:51

Yeah, kinda sorta, yeah. It was similar to that.

SPEAKER_02: 5:56

That's an interesting way to put it. I was just thinking that it sounds to me that this is so the way I grade games is different, right? Like I think a mid-game, like middle of the road game is a five and a half or a six, right? But in the world of reviews, you get a five or a six, it's a terrible game. Right, exactly. Right. Where like they're like seven is the base. If you get a seven, you're doing okay, it's not great. But like it sounds to me you're a the Andromeda's a middle of the road game.

SPEAKER_01: 6:34

I give it a solid six, maybe six and a half from on on our on our grading scale. Yes, you ducks ducks. I'm giving it a three. I'm giving it to play. Doc saying he wants to play Mass Effect three. He's holding three fingers, he wants to play Mass Effect 3. Doc's never play Mass Effect 3. So, I mean, I I'm glad I played through it. And you know, I may go back and do another playthrough later, but it's not gonna be anytime soon.

SPEAKER_02: 7:03

I'm gonna throw it out there that you're never playing that game again, and that's A-O-K. Yeah, it's possible.

SPEAKER_01: 7:09

Yeah, I've moved it over into the games I've completed at least once pile. Yeah. So what's the next venture? I have no idea. Ooh, Claire Obscure Expedition 33. It's on the list. I just have to download it. Uh, it's so I might try to go through the throw go through Hollow Knight one because I know my son started playing it because I've already got it and got it downloaded. I got the Batman Arkham series to go through. I haven't ever I didn't even download those yet. So good.

SPEAKER_03: 7:39

I Platinum Trophied the first two. Like Arkham City is one of my favorite games of all time. I've never played them.

SPEAKER_04: 7:51

So I've got the Do you like Batman, Marcus?

SPEAKER_03: 7:54

I'm Batman. Well, you gotta play him.

SPEAKER_02: 7:57

Like they're just Marcus nothing. Okay, so I'm gonna talk. I'm gonna going sidebar. This is why MMOs ruin gamers. Greed. Okay, so what I mean by that is not the social side of it or like going outside and touching grass. I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is I was stuck in the Star Wars old, the old republic warp for so long that I didn't play all of these games that were so good because I was playing Star Wars. And and I was at a like a mindset that if I stopped to play any other game, I I I could be doing flashpoints, I could be grinding levels, I could be getting gear. I need gear, gear, gear. And I never I never played, I've missed out on so many games because of MMOs. Like I think about it now. I'm playing maybe single, well, probably like top five game top four games for me of all time. And I would have never played this if I was in an MMO.

SPEAKER_03: 9:18

That's a real thing. And on that topic, I chose to stream Final Fantasy XIV this morning. Yeah, I broke the Fortnite streak.

SPEAKER_02: 9:31

Is it because you're not interested in Fortnite? Is it because you're like burnt out on it? Is it because that you just needed a change?

SPEAKER_03: 9:41

What was the reason? There's story content that is now old and I haven't done it on my main character. And I had a couple different plans in my head, and Dream Labs has a really funky system for going live when you're streaming to multiple places, and YouTube would not take my stream title for multiple tries, so every time I just tried a different game, and the time that went through was Final Fantasy XIV. I actually typed a stream title this morning for Fortnite, and I typed one for Persona 3, and then I typed one for Final Fantasy XIV and it went through. Just quirky stuff, but I had this other thing in my head that I thought would be fun. I've only ever completed Elden Ring on the PC version, and as people who listened to the show over a hundred episodes ago, I started Elden Ring originally as a PS5 game, and I switched because I wanted to have the extra monitor right there and be able to look things up and play mostly in solitude, not in my living room, and be kind of game that I need to be able to look stuff up while I'm playing it. But as a result, some of my best Elden Ring memories have no video footage, nothing I can edit together for YouTube stuff, and it's it doesn't feel like it's part of my Twitch journey. So I downloaded Elden Ring on the PS5, it's right there, and I almost went live playing that, but I know that I'll spend about an hour trying to get the face right because everybody's ugly in Elden Ring, and I will fight, fight, fight, fight to be gorgeous in every video game I ever play. Yeah, yeah. And I was just like, I'm not even gonna get to rune level five on this character because I have 90 minutes to stream. So can I just throw this out there?

SPEAKER_02: 11:57

A, why don't you one not customize the character because you're gonna be covered in armor? One, two, I challenge you to not be a magic character on your playthrough.

SPEAKER_03: 12:14

I can't be hideous anime lay character. You gotta choose. Those are two ridiculous things to ask me to do, Marcus. By the way, I saw you finish Elden Ring. I saw what you were doing with that Moon Veil Katana, and your idea that you were not a magic user is a lie that lets you go to sleep at night. You are so heavy into that wisdom life.

SPEAKER_02: 12:34

Yes, I am. No, no, no, I don't know. Wisdom intelligence, but my second playthrough that I'm doing on the PS5 is a sword and board.

SPEAKER_03: 12:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 12:45

Well, I just can't do a range thing, can you? Mm-mm. Yeah. I kind of did though, because the moon veil did give me range because I would get hit. I I panic roll. I'm a panic roller. Yes, you are. Yes, I am. Like, I'm not calm when I play video games. You guys should see me trying to parry in Expedition 33.

SPEAKER_03: 13:07

It's I was just gonna segue into that.

SPEAKER_02: 13:09

So, how's that boss with the parrying mechanic going, Marcus? I died like nine times before you parry once. Huh? But you know, but what I'm circling back now to the point, I'm so thankful. Like, I'm thankful for the MMOs that I've played and I've done, but the fact that I don't play them anymore makes my journey through video games so much better. Because I don't have that weight on my shoulder to go back and be like have to grind. And I can play Expedition 33 and only play that game or go to Into Elden Ring and not feel like I'm missing out on something else.

unknown: 13:56

Hmm.

SPEAKER_02: 13:57

You know, because my time is super limited.

SPEAKER_01: 14:00

But the thing is, you still have to grind in in single player games. You you grind for runes, you grind for gear. Well, yes, in any of the games. So the grind part is always there.

SPEAKER_02: 14:12

Uh what I'm saying is I'm playing one of these top like this. Is Expedition 33 is like a game of my gener like decades for me. Yeah. You know, I I've said it forever, right? Since the beginning of me playing video games, I'm a graphical whore. Like graphics matter to me. And Expedition 33 is maybe one of the most beautiful games I've ever played, and it's heartbreaking, and you have no idea what's going on, and the combat is amazing. And every time I play that game, I go, we swimming forever. Yeah. So, but my point is, I did a fight, these Axum things, I don't even know if they are. They're like the super bosses. And this boss like sings, and this fight, there's like I don't know, I I want to say it was rose petals, but I don't actually know what's flying around. It is the most beautiful experience I've ever had in a video game in a boss fight. And what's nice about this game is you can enjoy the fight. Where in Elden Ring, there's no enjoying the fight. The fight sucks because the boss wants to just annihilate you and you, it's constant. Where at least in the turn-based combat, you can just sit there for a minute and go, okay, what am I gonna do? Where in Elden Ring, it's like, oh shit, he's attacking again and again and again and again, again, and again, again, again, again, like the crucible.

SPEAKER_03: 15:59

I don't I don't agree, Marcus. I have a lot of fun with Elden Ring boss fights.

SPEAKER_02: 16:06

But Elden Ring is fun in its own way, but what I'm saying is is you can't take a moment to appreciate how much detail is in the Elden Ring fights. Because you win what's the boss in Elden Ring? I can't remember the name, it'll probably come to me in a second, where they start off as the beast clergyman and then it turns into the black blade guy. Malacheth.

SPEAKER_01: 16:30

Malacheth, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 16:31

Like that room is incredible. It looks like the old like Italian, like Leonardo painted the ceilings, but you can't really look at it because you're being attacked in real time.

SPEAKER_03: 16:45

This is why you stream the game and then you can pause it and be like, wow, that's beautiful, and I was dodging so well. If I no, I don't need another person, I don't need another prison sentence. You are always going to prison in your video game life, Marcus. Where did this guilt come from? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01: 17:03

He's going to prison in his streaming life. He's not prison sentence. He he's but he he has an issue that he apparently does not have any love for Kefis anymore, so it's okay.

SPEAKER_03: 17:13

Yeah, we can do therapy on all of that. But there's a research alert here that you just walked into, Marcus. I don't know if you know this, but there's this games researcher named me that did a study on Final Fantasy XIV that looked at how different personality types of players experience psychological flow based on their preference for job classes and game mechanics and things like that. And the reason I think that you're not experiencing these wonderful fuzzy feelings inside when during the Elden Ring boss fights is because you're not in psychological flow. You are anxious and stressed and worried about the outcome, which is fine because Elden Ring was designed to do that to the majority of people. It is designed to be a highly difficult game.

SPEAKER_01: 18:06

But those of us listening, we're all nodding our heads.

SPEAKER_03: 18:10

Yeah, we're all, yeah, because it's all it's all science, it's all correct. None of this is my opinion. I just discovered the data to prove it. So the the situation with Elden Ring is it's designed to stress you out, but there is a level of performance you could get to where you balance your skill with the challenge of the game, and you stop panic rolling. I think that that's the key reason you're not feeling this, Marcus, is because that's you. I mean, I'm not no shade. It's your it's your number one move is the panic roll. So so you're not gonna experience psychological flow in an Elden Ring fight. But me standing 45 meters away from the boss and throwing meteor rocks at it, I can look at how pretty the stained glass windows are and stuff. So, you know, because time can slow down, your awareness merges with the game experience, you're concentrating on a task, but you have those little breathers in between spells because the casting of the spell is a certain number of seconds, so you get your brain into a groove of press the button, watch it happen, press the button, watch it happen. And so you can experience psychological flow in Elden Ring, but the way you engage the combat and the specific type of boss and how they plan to devastate you is going to affect those nine features of the flow state from being possible or impossible. And that was our research moment. We got a research moment on the show!

SPEAKER_01: 19:43

All right, well, so so let me ask you a follow-up question to that then. So you've been talking about the the flow state in a live game, not necessarily a turn-based game. So when you look at things like uh Expedition 33 or the Persona series, where you have that pause in action combat, does the flow state still mean the same?

SPEAKER_03: 20:10

I don't think I experience flow state in persona because it is straight up turn-based, but Expedition 33 does have it because of Perry and Dodge mechanics, and so really the key thing is your performance have has to match the rhythm of the action. So that way you merge mentally with the activity, the awareness of time fades into the background of your consciousness, not the foreground. And you just are the action. It's called an autotelic experience. Is it's not about pressure, it's not about wanting a reward, it's not about avoiding punishment, it's just I am this right now. Like your purpose in that moment, it's not even a conscious awareness, it's just you have merged with the battle itself. Maybe maybe I love this. I love this thinking look that I've given you, Marcus. It's like my own.

SPEAKER_02: 21:23

It's maybe because like when I Elden Ring is a game for me that I set out a goal because not me. For me to beat that game, that was a milestone, and I got okay at it and I started to understand the mechanics, but what I'm saying is Elden Ring didn't let me like the parts of Elden Ring I enjoyed the graphics, is when I got to the top of Mount Gilmere, and you're looking around, going, Whoa, this game is huge! Or when you went to Learnia of the Lakes for the first time and you're like, Holy shit, I'm a far way away from the end of this game. You know what I mean? And that was for me, the exploration was the completion of my flow state. Because in the exploration, that's when you're free, and you I don't want to say you don't have any stress because you can roll up on a boss and go, uh-oh. Like the first time you roll up on a rune bear and you're like, oh shit, what just happened? But in Expedition 33, when you're in the exploration phase, you choose when you want to fight something, it just doesn't come to you and attack. So you can truly just swim through the car continent or run the lands and not have to fight anybody because you can avoid most of the enemies if you want to. And when you get in a fight, you can enjoy the visuals because you do have that break, like you mentioned. Because the boss, I hit the boss, and now it's the time. Yes, I can dodge and parry, but then after the boss is turns over, I could sit there for 20 minutes and plot and scheme on what I want to do. Like, I don't think there's a time limit. They just let you sit there as long as you need. And for me, it's it's a calming effect because you get hit seven times because you're terrible at parrying or whatever, or you get one shot by a boss. And even though you get one shot and you do the fight again, you still get that break, like, oh shit, I just lost one of my characters. Okay, what do I have to do now? And you have that that moment to think about it versus in Elden Ring, there's zero, like your reaction, it's they turn on, it's all gas, no breaks.

SPEAKER_03: 23:55

I want to just I want to preface what you're describing as flow, you know, linking it to the exploration state. This is a challenge for me because, in terms of gaming motivation, exploration does very little for me. You've seen my chart, it's not on my radar. I could care less about exploring things, I care about other things, and that's fine. You like looking at the world because that's where the graphics draw you in and show you what the game devs have given you to work with. The games that actually generate psychological flow the easiest are games like Dance Dance Revolution, Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Tetris, games where it's not necessarily slow, it's just the challenge is constant, and your mind has to mentally rise to the challenge, merge with the existence in the game, your concentration fades into lower awareness of time, and you have a sense of control. So when you get to those fights in Expedition 33 where you have to parry eight things in a row, and the rhythm is like duh duh duh rest, rest, rest, duh, duh duh, and that's eight, and then you finally get your counterattack. If you can slow your mind down enough to just feel that with a little bit of input in your eyes with the game, but also knowing every little twitch of the animation in that enemy character without thinking about it, that's control, that's loss of consciousness, that's the feedback of that little sound effect that your parry was successful. It can take your brain from struggle to this Nirvana-esque experience. And without the parry mechanic, Expedition 33 is not that great of a psychological flow example. But with it, that's one of the biggest reasons it's a near perfect turn-based RPG, because it gives you the chance to have a total flow state, despite the game genre being a genre that usually doesn't approach flow at all, because it is highly challenging, but it delivers the challenge in a way that all nine of those flow state experiences are present in every encounter. Can't my flow state be different than your flow state? No, that's not how science works, Marcus. What you're describing is relaxation or mindfulness or some kind of something else.

SPEAKER_02: 26:42

Maybe that's science again. No, I don't pretend to know, but I feel like as I'm playing the game and as I'm in the fight, I get into the flow and the rhythm of the fight, and it brings me to peace.

SPEAKER_01: 26:59

Right, but that but the but you're in a fight. There, there is, and that's exactly what Doc's saying. But when you're out exploring the world, that not that's not necessarily a flow state. It is a mindfulness, it's calming, it's it's a relaxing state of I'm appreciating all this, but you're not necessarily having to do reaction time-based interactions where now all of a sudden you're just subconsciously doing you, you you just see it, feel it, and you're just doing the thing. That's that's the whole point of the flow state.

SPEAKER_03: 27:32

It takes a lot of practice and struggle on these things in order to even experience a true total flow state. What I'm describing is taking the concept of flow, but actually breaking it into nine different elements, you need all those elements in order to assemble flow, like like a megazord, right? Like you can have pieces of it and you can be like, I'm almost there, almost there, almost there. But if you're consciously thinking about how close you are to feeling this, you're not there. You know, in in a lot of the video games that I enjoy that are hack and slash games, the Batman Arkham games, the original God of War games, Kingdom Hearts, when you're swarmed by hundreds and hundreds of Heartless in all different directions, you get to a point where no matter what enemies are on that battlefield, the battlefield is your home, right? When you're really, really good, you just are reacting without thought. It's just instinct. That's what the flow state is. If you're if you're doing an exploration kind of thing and there's a climbing mechanic or a parkour mechanic or platforming, you can totally have this too, because you're reacting without thought to the challenge of the environment. But you know, Breath of the Wild is you can definitely see it when you're looking at Instagram reels or TikToks of people that have mastered what you can do in Tears of the Kingdom, where they just create all these different machines, they swap in and out of weapons, they do bullet time on their bow and arrow and have bombs that are just going 500 feet in an arc into the air and falling down 12 seconds later and blowing up something, and then they just are right there to capitalize on that punish attack, right? Like all those, all those little things combining into one 10-second sequence of perfected combat. That's what psychological flow is. It takes a lot of struggle and tinkering and getting it wrong in order to become good enough to actually experience that. What I'm describing in my own gameplay is just pieces of that, like getting closer to it. It's hard to Explain because even if you've never experienced that, you've experienced something that feels close.

SPEAKER_00: 30:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 30:12

I just don't know the words on how I feel. Enlightened. No, no. Con uh conflict conflict. There is no conflict. But you know, coming to this, right? Have you guys ever loved a game? The whole game. And then it just got ruined because the ending was terrible. Doesn't mean you didn't love the game, but the ending was just like I did all this for this.

SPEAKER_01: 30:50

Yeah. It happens. I I mean that's why I mean I just it did Andromeda, and so that's the way I feel about that one. I think other games that I've gone through that have had the same Star Wars The Old Republic?

SPEAKER_02: 31:06

The first time because it's an MMO. Well, so a non-MMO player playing it for the first time, Jada Sith Marauder story, greatest story in the game. Darth Barris is a jerk. True. When I finish the story for the first time and it just ended, and you end up on the ship, and it's like, okay, now what? Kind of a thing. And I didn't understand MMO logic. Like, hey, go do the thing now. I was lost. I was like, all right, this is stupid. And Elden Ring, same thing. I played a hundred and something hours, and I got my moon, my moon ring, and I married my moon lady. And it was like thir six seconds, and the story was over, and I was like, wait, that's it? I just did all this, and I just got to hold her hand and say, I do.

SPEAKER_04: 32:10

That's the best ending, Marcus.

SPEAKER_03: 32:12

I will not have you slander our lady Rani on our show. That is ridiculous.

SPEAKER_02: 32:18

Dude, I will never slander Rani. She just hangs out here with me.

SPEAKER_03: 32:24

She's so beautiful. Okay. Oddly enough, I've been thinking about this all day, and I had to Google worst.

SPEAKER_02: 32:36

When you thought about it, didn't involve did it involve a book named The Gamer's Journey?

SPEAKER_03: 32:42

No, because I didn't talk about bad games in The Gamer's Journey. I had to Google just now the worst video game endings of all time. Ooh. And and I wanted to see if any of the games I've finished are on there because I don't categorize games in my mind this way. But we've already talked about one of them on this episode, and I'm gonna go back to it. Batman, Arkham Asylum, and I totally agree, the game itself is a masterpiece. The final boss is the dumbest thing they could have possibly come up with. It sounds like because of that, yeah. I mean, because of that, beating the final boss, it does directly set up for Arkham City to happen, and I like Arkham City, so that's okay. It's just it's got such a vibe the whole game, and then the final boss is like, really, that's gonna be how Batman solves this problem is defeating that. I I just I agree that that's it. They also on this list put Mass Effect 3, but I wouldn't know anything about that. I do.

SPEAKER_02: 34:00

Doritos, I I got a lot to say on that one. I agree for it. Go ahead. So you it's really hard. Did you guys ever watch the show The Sopranos? I did not. Okay, Doritos? A little bit. Okay, so you didn't watch the whole series. When you have a series, a TV show, or the most epic trilogy ever, it's really hard to end it in a positive way. Or what's that show, that medieval show that everybody was crazy about on HBO? Game of Game of Dogs. Game of Dogs. Game of Thrones. Do you guys watch that? No.

SPEAKER_03: 34:43

Game of Thrones? Yeah. Yes, that's like my entire personality.

SPEAKER_02: 34:47

Okay, that whole last season was terrible. No way. I loved it. Okay, you're just a positive, positive Pete over here. But no, so the point is you had this epic first game, and it was like leaning towards the bad guy, and you like heard in the background like the Reapers. The Reapers.

unknown: 35:11

Shh.

SPEAKER_02: 35:12

In the second game, you start to see and understand what the Reapers are. So like it's building. Then in Mass Effect 3, fuck the Reapers are here. Oh my god. I remember when they landed for the first time, I screamed at the top of my lungs because I was like, oh shit, it's going down. We're yelling timber, and it's like, you better move, right?

SPEAKER_04: 35:38

Did you just do a catch up reference? I love this episode.

SPEAKER_02: 35:42

So my point is, and then you get to the end of the game and it ends, and I was like, okay, it's over. Ugh. But I think it's one of those things where when it's around, you you when they you have a trilogy of games, and then you have books and coming out, and if you're reading those and comic books, you're expect you like in your head, you plan out the ending the way you would see it, and then you get the ending the way Bioware saw it, and you're like, okay, that was okay. So my point is, it's really hard to end something so epic and have it be loved by all. I should play it again. Believe it or not, maybe after I finish Claire Obscure, I will go back and play the whole series because it's that good, but I it's been so long since I finished Mass Effect 3. But I do remember being disappointed.

SPEAKER_03: 36:56

The comment I read is actually that an entire series where your choices matter ends in a way that your choices don't. Is that true?

SPEAKER_01: 37:07

I mean, I mean it's the the ending is still your choice to make.

unknown: 37:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 37:13

You have an A or B option, so you still have a choice to make. Now, the decisions you've made through the the first two games and up to you know through the climax of the third game don't seem as relevant to the gameplay, but it is more relevant to your character's personality. Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 37:44

Well, because we love Bioware so much on this show, I think we need to give them a hard time again because there's another game that I completely agree. I love playing it, but the ending was just like uh Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2 was one of those games.

SPEAKER_02: 38:06

Actually, I know a lot about this. That is corporate greed. So that is not Bioware's fault, it's EA's fault. So when they made the game, that the first one, Knights of the Old Republic one, was such a hit they said make number two. So they did, and they were halfway through development, or they were done with developing the game, but it needed to be fixed, and it wasn't completed. And EA said, send it. We need to make money, print it, and it's over. And now with technology the way it is, and mods and everything, people have modded an actual ending to the game. So if you have that game, you can actually mod your game and get a re the real ending as it was tended to intended to be.

SPEAKER_03: 38:54

Yeah, I mean, I just remember as a college student, I went and got that game. I beat it a couple days after it came out, and I just remember I loved it. It had so many upgrades to different things compared to the first quality of life game. Quality of life was amazing. And then the ending just didn't hit right. And I don't think it was because of the characters, I just think it was because the final battle was like this this mediocre, like it didn't imply anything that was as epic as the rest of the story felt.

SPEAKER_01: 39:32

Nope.

SPEAKER_03: 39:33

You know, it's really hard to follow a story that gives us Darth Revan. You know, that's that's a thing that changed Star Wars, and it's not even part of the movies. So you know, it's really weird. You know, the two games I contributed to this conversation are games that I still love, despite the ending giving me really powerful meh feelings. What other ones? Well, they also listed some Halo games in there. They listed you know, I I just lists like this are all come down to opinion. I I I have one that's personally for me, but it's not really the ending, it's just a choice the devs made. And Mortal Kombat is on the front of my mind this week because the legacy collection came out. It's out, and what it is, yeah. And one of the games that's included is Mortal Kombat Mythology Sub-Zero. I love that game. It gives a story to one of my favorite combatants. And when I was 12 or whatever age I was when it came out, I played on the easiest difficulty, and you got halfway No, not free. You I played on the lowest difficulty, and halfway through the game, the game just ends. And if you want the second half of the game and also the real ending, you have to play on a harder difficulty. And that just felt kind of cheap to me. So I did. I played, I played on the harder difficulty, and I was able to get the ending, and everything was right with the world. So that was that was an interesting life lesson for me that was given to me by Mortal Kombat.

SPEAKER_02: 41:24

I can't find it. It's weird.

SPEAKER_03: 41:30

I bought it on PS5. A lot of people are upset with the online connectivity right now, so PlayStation's actually issuing refunds.

SPEAKER_02: 41:43

Like, yeah, I can't even find it. Like, Mortal Kombat's not even on Steam. Like, I can't, like, find it. That's weird. Anyway. That's interesting. Have you guys played Arc Raiders? Nope. That just came out of the what is it? Yeah, it's like uh extraction shooter game. Supposedly it's crazy.

SPEAKER_01: 42:12

Yeah, they tried, I think they tried to add some more mechanics where you're more of a android, so in addition to your weapons, you can mod out your android with different arms, legs, torso, head. So it's like customization. Trait trait customization. Okay. I think it's what they're going for. I haven't even looked into it, so I'm going on an presumption.

SPEAKER_03: 42:48

There's just so many games to play. It's it is crazy.

SPEAKER_02: 42:55

Legit. Did Mortal Kombat get taken off of Steam? I don't know.

SPEAKER_03: 43:05

Streaming It was having a lot of problems and people were getting No, I just typed in Mortal Mortal, and it shows up number one in my search results, Marcus.

SPEAKER_02: 43:16

Do I have like Yeah, not mine? Foolish mortals is the first thing that pops up.

SPEAKER_03: 43:25

I'm in the app right now. See?

SPEAKER_02: 43:28

Right there. I don't know. It's fine.

SPEAKER_03: 43:30

$50.

SPEAKER_02: 43:33

That's really weird, dude. Do I have like setting on? Either way. Sorry. Well, you know, I believe that, yes, I'm gonna go back to what you said about games. You have people have opinions. It's an opinion-based thing if you're disappointed in a game. But when there's a mass amount of people that feel the same way, it's hard to not justify that that said game has a bad ending or a disappointing ending. I shouldn't say it's a bad ending, it's it's disappointing.

SPEAKER_03: 44:06

When a mass amount of people have a shared perspective, it has a powerful effect. Hence a mass effect. Oh god.

SPEAKER_04: 44:17

You're welcome, everybody.

SPEAKER_03: 44:19

Oi, oi, oi. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 44:23

Yep. I I I I got nothing.

SPEAKER_03: 44:29

Well, you don't have Mortal Kombat. No, I'm trying to I found my store page.

SPEAKER_02: 44:36

Okay, I found the store page for Mortal Kombat 1.

SPEAKER_03: 44:42

I really don't understand why you can't find it. That's so weird.

SPEAKER_02: 44:47

Yeah, like I it's literally I'm in E. What is it? WB Games, Warner Brother Games, and I there is no Mortal Kombat game showing on my list. What if you just search from the main store? It's no no no. There's no Mortal Kombat on my Steam.

SPEAKER_01: 45:16

I have Mortal Kombat. I just Googled it on my mobile and I got Mortal Kombat Legacy Collection, 50 bucks. That's it.

SPEAKER_02: 45:22

No, no, no. I'm not I'm not I'm just telling you, I can't. That's really weird. Is there like how do I check to see if I have it right? Yeah. Where's my settings? Store. Mature content.

SPEAKER_03: 45:56

This whole store thing completely ruins the psychological flow. That's all right.

SPEAKER_01: 46:05

This was giving Marcus an awesome challenge to figure out why he can't find the thing.

SPEAKER_03: 46:10

But it's always about a balance between challenge and skill.

SPEAKER_02: 46:20

Continue the journey.