I Parried Once And My Bluetooth Laughed

New year, same chaos—plus a heavy dose of heart. We kick off 2026 by riding the emotional afterglow of the Stranger Things finale and pivot straight into game talk that actually matters: finishing Baldur’s Gate 3 live, redefining what “challenge” means, and building smarter paths through Expedition 33’s tight parry windows and tricksy bosses. The result is a conversation that blends celebration, strategy, and the real-life tweaks that keep our hobby fun when time and tech don’t cooperate.

That BG3 finale stream stretched to 4.5 hours and proved how momentum multiplies once chat is rolling. We compare notes on difficulty philosophy—why some of us choose Grandmaster later and story first now, how Elden Ring’s world and aura outshine its pain, and when to drop the mods to chase trophies. Expedition 33 gets the deep-dive treatment: Lune, Ciel, and Mael synergy; Picto and Lumina progression; a late Act Two farming loop that accelerates builds; and the practical realities of parry timing across wired vs Bluetooth controllers. We also talk Steam Deck performance in dark zones, the surprising power of a bright-green mouse cursor, and why a solid cosmetic pack can be the nudge that keeps a game in rotation.

There’s plenty of joy in the margins too: Steam sale hauls (Doomblade, Journey, FFX/X-2, Kingdom Come, Pathfinder, Blasphemous), a new GPU saga with too many cables, and the pull of SWTOR nostalgia powered by Twitch drops and old raid friends. Our goals for 2026 stay grounded—consistent streams, six hours of weekly play, and making space for the games that spark energy, not obligation. If you’re juggling story-first runs, min-max builds, or just carving out time to play, you’ll feel right at home.

Enjoy the ride, then jump into the conversation: follow, subscribe, and leave a review to tell us whether you chase difficulty or chase vibes—and what you’re booting up next.

Chapters

• 0:00 New Year Banter And Seasons
• 1:43 Stranger Things Finale Reactions
• 3:10 Baldur’s Gate 3 Completion On Stream
• 7:40 Steam Sale Haul And Free Codes
• 10:30 Jedi Survivor And Difficulty Philosophy
• 12:30 Expedition 33: Parry Windows And Tech Issues
• 17:20 Party Builds, Pictos, And Farming Tips
• 22:10 Steam Deck Performance And Small Wins
• 24:50 2026 Gaming Goals And Hardware Woes
• 29:30 Streaming Plans And Too Many Options
• 33:05 SWTOR Nostalgia, Raids, And Twitch Drops
• 39:10 Stealth vs Fireball And Star Wars Talk
• 42:10 Villain Psychology Book And Sign-Off

Transcript

SPEAKER_04: 0:00

You can't come at me in the new year with that the Bruins suck. What are you gonna do about that? No, he he said my hat. And I'm wearing a Bruins. Yeah, right. The team's fine. So if the hat sucks, that's representative of the team. No, it's representative of your fashion sense.

SPEAKER_01: 0:23

Oh, I don't have any sense. Marcus has no fashion sense anyway.

SPEAKER_04: 0:27

Well I'm a hoodie or t-shirt guy.

SPEAKER_02: 0:32

I'm so bad at like throwing shade at people when they're my friends. I'm so happy to see both of you actually.

SPEAKER_03: 0:40

He's happy to see us. And everybody.

SPEAKER_06: 0:44

Happy New Year. Yeah, it's 2026.

SPEAKER_02: 0:52

That's true. It is. When I was putting the new episode of our show out for this morning, because Thursday 3 a.m. Eastern is when the new episodes hit, I realized that the way that I've been doing the episodes for years, that episode of what we played in 2025 is season six, episode one. How cool is that? Yeah. I don't get the seasons. Whatever game for compared to the beginning of the show, this is the sixth calendar year to have the gaming persona in it.

SPEAKER_04: 1:27

No, I understand that. I just am saying I'm I'm just a numbers guy.

SPEAKER_02: 1:32

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_04: 1:33

I don't instead of saying, hey, go back to season six, episode one, you can say, hey, go to episode 326.

SPEAKER_02: 1:43

But do you know what did not make it to season six, everybody? Stranger Things ended last night. Season five, the show is over. It was amazing. I'm on such a high. All the emotions, all the storytelling, the hero's journey was there in everybody's face, whether they know it or not. And the internet is like just giving itself a nice cozy hug, except for the people whose parents never love them and they're wrestling with that and hating the show.

SPEAKER_06: 2:16

Okay. Either of you watch Stranger Things?

SPEAKER_04: 2:20

So I've seen episodes one, two, and three.

SPEAKER_02: 2:24

So you did not see Stranger Things.

SPEAKER_04: 2:26

The final season. I've seen everything up to episode, was it four, five, and six? I think it's there's eight.

SPEAKER_02: 2:36

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04: 2:36

Well, I've seen the first three of the final season.

SPEAKER_02: 2:39

Alright. Well, you're working on it. You'll get there eventually.

SPEAKER_04: 2:42

I enjoyed it thoroughly. Yeah, the big reveal, Doritos. Do you watch the show? Not really. The big reveal for me that I'm at the cliffhanger of is Max comes back, baby.

SPEAKER_02: 2:57

Yeah, she's a great character. But the whole show is great characters, honestly. That's why it works so well. You know what else has a lot of great characters? Claire Obscure Expedition. No, Baldur's 3. No, I finished Baldur's Gate 3 today on stream. And I'm, by the way, on a four-day streak of streaming on Twitch. So that's pretty cool because mentally I'm in a really good spot, and I decided as long as I can get to one hour, I'm gonna do it. And it's actually flipped the script on how I see my schedule in my day, and I've been a lot more productive with work stuff as well because doing Twitch first and getting out there and having that socialization with chat really just fills me with the energy I need to keep doing really badass stuff. But I was at the point of no return at the very beginning of my stream, and I thought, I'll just put in the title, let's finish Baldur's Gate 3. And I did. What I didn't know is I was signing up to stream four and a half hours because that's how long it took me to complete the end area with boss fights and watch the do all the epilogue conversations and wrap up everybody's story. Almost a five-hour stream for me.

SPEAKER_04: 4:27

But that's good because it's it's wholesome because you don't expect the game to go that long, right? Like you're like, oh, let's finish this thing, and oh, I've been streaming three hours. Oh, we're not done yet. And then you finish it and you're like, Well, that was great. Thank God today is a paid holiday off.

SPEAKER_02: 4:50

All right. Yeah, that would have not gone over well. I would have missed so many work things if that was a regular Thursday. I would have had to cut it with virtually nothing accomplished and broken it into four to five regular streams. Sunday I can sometimes get to three hours before I run out of time. So probably would have finished it on Sunday in a normal week. I loved it. I want to go back through and do a playthrough that is a character just belonging to the stream community and no mods, because I made the game super easy on myself with mods so that I would get back into it. But I think now that I know what's coming, I can deal with the frustration of how difficult the game is for me. I just like throwing fireballs at everything, and that's not a good strategy. You know who else likes fireball? Mario? Pitbull. Who's that? Different different fireballs. I'm kidding. I know where Miami, Florida is. I got you.

SPEAKER_04: 6:00

I'm glad you finished Baldur's Gate. I purchased it, so I have been on a tear on the Steam holiday sale. Oh. I wish I could see, like, where does it show by recent per oh, it would be under my library. Okay, so uh I gotta scroll back.

SPEAKER_02: 6:27

Community, if you have your gaming persona bingo card, you can officially check off Marcus. Makes us listen to him shop on Steam.

SPEAKER_04: 6:37

The Steam holiday sale is still going on for another four days. So, yes, I did it. So, anyways, do you remember last week or the last episode? I mentioned a game called Doomblade. Anyway, you probably don't, but that's okay. It's a Metroidvania, and I mentioned it somewhere, and Atrax was like, Hey Marcus, you have a free copy of that sitting in an email somewhere. I do. Yeah, we met the devs at PAX. Oh. So I found the email and it was like, request a code. So I emailed the woman and it was from 2023, and she's first off, yes, you can have a code. I definitely have to hear what you think of the game, but the fact that you still have this email from 2023 is impressive. And here's a little extra stuff for the game.

SPEAKER_02: 7:26

That's funny.

SPEAKER_04: 7:27

Yeah. So anyway, so I got Doomblade, I bought Final Fantasy X in 10-2 because as I'm getting closer to the end of Claire, they say Final Fantasy X is probably one of the best. I bought Baldur's Gate 3, I got Kingdom Come Deliverance 1, I got two Pathfinder games, I got Blasphemous, which I'm excited for, and the final drum roll, please. I bought Journey.

SPEAKER_02: 7:57

Oh my gosh, that's so cool. You have two hours of life-changing video game experiences in there. Oh, by the way, Final Fantasy XI, I have not played, but one of the things that is really making me feel like I'm gonna jump in and play that game is I loved K-pop demon hunters, and I saw an Instagram post that basically was saying that Final Fantasy XII walks so that K-pop demon hunters could fly. And that just intrigues me. Yeah, yeah. So I'm excited for that.

SPEAKER_04: 8:36

So I I've made quite I think I pulled a Doritos though. I did a Doritos. Oh, I put I put everything in the cart, and then I saw the total, and I was like, nope, I'm not spending that much. Started deleting the things I didn't want or I wanted, but not right now. And I made a purchase, and then again I did a second round of purchases today because I did it again. There was like 15 things in my cart, and I was like, I don't really need this one, I don't really need this one. And then I get a bunch of stuff. Right, and I get a bunch of stuff for$27. It was great. Exactly. So our dear friend has started finally playing Claire Obscure Expedition 33, and I'm dying to hear about it. You have a dear friend?

SPEAKER_01: 9:19

You have a deer?

SPEAKER_02: 9:21

Deer. I think he affectionately goes by a potato chip name.

SPEAKER_04: 9:25

Could he be like Brotato's like cousin? Mr. Pringles.

SPEAKER_02: 9:33

Before we do that, I just want to add one more thing. I bought one game since the last episode. I bought Jedi Survivor for PS5. It was on a really neat sale, and I was like, Five bucks. Can't run it. Yeah, five bucks, I think. My PC can't run it, so I decided to go this route. So I will eventually get to play Jedi Survivor. Very excited.

SPEAKER_04: 9:55

Now, just speaking of that, Doc, will you play that game on Grandmaster because you're a Souls guy?

SPEAKER_02: 10:03

Potentially, but my first playthrough, no, because I'm looking at it like it's a story that I want to experience more than it's a way to measure my gravitas as a gamer. I think I I didn't play Fall in Order on a high difficulty. Okay. So you know, like I don't here's the thing. I love Elden Ring, obviously. It's done a lot of things for my career too, but I don't like it because of the difficulty. I like it because of the world and the lore and the story and the aura of it. Because if I liked it because of the difficulty, I'd play Dark Souls 1 and 3, and I'd play Blies of P and I'd play Sekuro Shadows Die Twice. And I haven't played any of those because they're not really my thing. Elden Ring is special, and it's it just happens to be hard. But I have two Moon Veil katanas, and so it's fine. We got this. I'm like the most badass wizard in any video game I've ever played. Besides maybe a Kingdom Hearts game, like Thora can throw down with the magic stuff. But as far as like serious games, I I love Elden Ring, but not because it's hard.

SPEAKER_06: 11:26

Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 11:31

See, for me, I think after playing Elden Ring and these harder games, I think I would have to play it. I would want to play it on a harder difficulty. I wouldn't want to just run through it and be like, this is I don't know. I think like those games have changed me a little bit.

SPEAKER_02: 11:47

Going into Claire Obscure Expedition 33, I did do two streams on the highest difficulty. What happened that convinced me to change that is I was experienced some kind of weird Bluetooth interference because I suspect all the things that connect to my PC tower by Bluetooth are like right here. My left hand can touch that PC tower. My PS5 is about three and a half more feet that way. Holding the controller Bluetooth connected here, crossing through all those Bluetooth signals. The parrying was ridiculously hard for me to get right. And I do believe it's because of Bluetooth interference, and I could have been better at the game. So I lowered the difficulty there because at least I can get the parry windows relatively well. The windows in that game are actually really tight for parrying. So, especially on the highest difficulty. I know it sounds like I'm making a lot of excuses, but I truly believe from a technology analysis of what is in my office right now, there's gotta be something going on there because when I'm sitting on my living room couch, I'm much better at that game on the PS5 in my living room because there's no other Bluetooth signals to cross through for those controllers.

SPEAKER_06: 13:10

Have you tried to get good?

SPEAKER_02: 13:14

I have.

SPEAKER_04: 13:19

So I'm gonna be honest. Anytime I use my controller, I play on my computer, right? But even if I was playing on my Xbox and I was streaming, I or making YouTube video, I would always be wired. I would never not be wired into my controller.

SPEAKER_00: 13:41

True, just for that reason.

SPEAKER_02: 13:44

Because I play both ways, my brain has to remember there's two different windows to work with. Sure. Okay, and so Doritos probably has seen this on the stream where I'm having a really bad time with parrying, and then I plug in and wire, and then for five minutes I'm parrying really well, and then my brain like loses the timing completely because it's so much faster when you're wired than it is when you're not wired, and so I'll run into an enemy that I was doing fine unwired, but as wired now I can't do it because my brain is reacting to a different speed. This is such a weird technical conversation about that game, but parrying is always hard for me in video games. I don't know why. It's like playing an MLB game. You see the ball coming, you hit the button, and you swing the bat. That's all it is, really. And for some reason, when it sorts and fireballs and stuff, and like people doing acrobatic stuff where they think they're gonna swing. Also, let me just say the DLC and Expedition 33, those enemies are all trolls, okay? There is no way any enemy would actually fight you that way, but they're faking you out so that you'll hit the button at the wrong time. It's just it's hard. I am not I'm not getting good.

SPEAKER_04: 15:11

So to so to be on the same page as you, because I really want to get to Doritos talking about Claire because it's gonna get me excited for Claire, because I'm in a place in Claire that I don't there's like gold swords everywhere, but like I'm above ground, and anyways, and I'm in a maze and I don't know what the hell it is, and I'll get to that. But I too, but I'm not a panic parrier, I'm a panic roller. Like when I was playing Elden Ring and all those types of games, I panic rolled like crazy. Still do, even though I know movesets, I panic roll. Have you tried not doing that? I can't. He can't help it though. Yeah, it's like my it's like my tick or something. Like I twitched, Carrie says I make the funniest faces when I play video games. I got oh yeah, we've seen it plenty of times.

SPEAKER_02: 16:07

Does she play video games, Marcus?

SPEAKER_04: 16:09

She plays Mario, like when the new Mario games come out, she'll play it. Like when Super Mario Wonder came out, she played it, and and then it lost its aura, and she hasn't played a game since.

SPEAKER_02: 16:22

For me, Super Mario Wonder lost its aura after two days. I never went back to it after that. It was a good game. I just didn't prioritize it.

SPEAKER_04: 16:35

So, Doritos. Questions Where are you in the game? What is your main party right now?

SPEAKER_01: 16:43

Where am I in the game? Just to see. SK swam me over to I'm horrible with names in the game or where I'm at. It's a place I'm probably I feel underleveled for. So you're in act two. Yeah, I'm in act two. Just start at Act Two for the most part. So I'm just having fun playing around. Let's see. Right now, my party consists of what Lune, C L, and May L. Yes. Do you have Minoco yet?

SPEAKER_04: 17:20

Nope, I haven't got to Minoco yet. Yeah, but eh. My my party is Lune, C L and May L.

SPEAKER_02: 17:29

Yeah, we talked about this. You don't have completionist tendencies inside.

SPEAKER_01: 17:35

No. So I'm just I'm playing just because it's an enjoying the different play styles. Going, okay, how does you know C L play compared to the others so I can understand their movesets? So now then I can be able to swap them in and out as I need.

SPEAKER_04: 17:55

Yeah, I agree with you. I in the at first, like Ciel was like, I was like, meh. And then like I started playing around with her, and you would like your basically your first two moves are dedicated moves. You gotta do this and then this, and then that gets you this, right? You do sun, twilight, dark, and then you get your twilight, right? That's what you have to do to get maximum damage. But as I've played with her more and more, I've learned how to like combo things to get and then you combo it, and then you when you get to twilight, it does even more damage because you did three sun moves and then the one dark move.

SPEAKER_01: 18:37

She's really fun. Yeah, I'm gonna get that. I'm just working through them. And right now, also just kind of make sure I use the pictos so I can unlock them for everybody, that kind of stuff. I'm terrible at that.

SPEAKER_02: 18:48

I put those on at least one of my two party members that are not male immediately, even no matter how dumb I think the picto is. Yep, that's kind of I need it to be available as Illumina. Right again, just like Minoko needs to collect all of his feet for his fetish. I need to unlock all of my luminas from my pictos.

SPEAKER_04: 19:13

Speaking of unlocking in the Steam sale, going back to the bingo card, Claire Obscures Digital Deluxe upgrade. You can get it for eight bucks. I want to tell you it's worth it because you get a bunch of outfits. I think you get six outfits and a bunch of hairstyles and a bunch of other stuff. It's actually worth it for eight bucks if you like the game.

SPEAKER_02: 19:37

Yeah, cosmetics make the game for me almost anything.

SPEAKER_04: 19:42

Like Yeah, I switched to the Gobaj outfits and they're dope.

SPEAKER_02: 19:49

One of the things that I'm really worried about if I do start Baldur's Gate 3 over is how stupid looking the outfits are in Act 1 and 2 and how I'll be stuck with those. If I don't use the mods. The reason I wouldn't use the mods is because I want to unlock trophies as I make it through the game. I have no trophies unlocked because the playthrough I just finished, everything I did had mods activated. Mull and void. In the mod manager. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 20:16

Doritos, how do you feel as if you're doing your combat? Do you find yourself, are you like you get into a fight? Do you like roll? I saved like dodge. Sorry. Do you dodge first to like kind of learn when actions happen, or do you try to parry right away and take the hit? I try to parry right away. Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 20:36

I've I've stopped dodging. I did. I yeah, I'll go with parry.

SPEAKER_02: 20:41

The only time that I have dodged since getting through the game the second time is against Simon because his combos are very hard, and getting a like a counterattack on him is not going to be the difference between winning and losing that match. The difference is going to be how many times can Mael turn into a nuclear bomb and drop the biggest hit in the game on him. If that's the strategy, the dodge window is significantly bigger for him to miss you than it is for you to parry all of the all his combos. It's just his combos are insane.

SPEAKER_01: 21:24

Yeah, I haven't quite got that far. I also haven't got to the gotten to the pick to where I can unlock the damage.

SPEAKER_02: 21:30

That's an act three pick too. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04: 21:33

So I got to I got a hot bit to go. Yeah, but I think too unlocking the damage thing helps, but when you don't have it, like when it's still capped at 9999, I think you can still like learn your movesets and learn a rotation of what works and what doesn't and keep unlocking the moves. Because I think I've never done the what is it called when you like reskin them? Like when you reset the abilities. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. What did you say, Doritos? Recat. That's what it is. So I need to do it because my build is not ready for Simon. You know what I mean? I very rarely do a million damage. So I need to do a build. I think I've got Lune in a good place, but I think I still need more like Lumina or Pictos going.

SPEAKER_02: 22:31

There's a place in the area where the tower is, the end of Act Two, the very top of the map. The very last teleport location there, there's an enemy set where you jump across a little ridge, go up a little set of stairs, and then it's a fight that you can win in one hit on easy difficulty first time through the game. Probably two moves in New Game Plus, and it gives you five additional points for that what is it? Lumina paint or whatever. And so you can farm, you go back to the flag, rest, all the enemies come back, and you just run that in a circle, and you can get five of those paints every I don't know, 45 seconds to 55 seconds. And that is how you build, for me at least, how you build up teams that have all the luminas on them that they need to build lethal damage.

SPEAKER_04: 23:39

Can you send me a screenshot of that location?

SPEAKER_02: 23:43

Of course, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 23:44

I would love to do that because I need to farm.

SPEAKER_02: 23:47

And when I say 45 to 55 seconds, that's probably a lie. It's probably like 90 seconds. Well, whatever. It's still you're getting five every time you reload it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 23:59

And Doritos, did you have you fought the chief? Or no, did you do the tournament yet? The gestural tournament? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 24:10

That's act one.

SPEAKER_04: 24:11

It is?

SPEAKER_02: 24:13

That's how you get C L.

SPEAKER_04: 24:14

Oh, that's right. And did you so you did you do it with Mael and get her uh Magellum or whatever it's called? Her sword. Yeah, that's it. The purple virtuous sword?

SPEAKER_02: 24:23

No. Who did you pick to fight C L? Not Mael. I didn't think a bigger I think I picked Gustav. I had to go fight the chief and learn that fight with man. It is so the Golgra fight? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you have to fight Golgra later in the game too.

SPEAKER_01: 24:45

I'm still trying to figure, I'm still trying to figure the game out. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 24:48

I my still my favorite is the what was the place? I think it's called Flying Waters, where the you're like underwater, but you're not under like the yeah, the act one spy is the sent y'all a screenshot of that one. Yeah, like that area is graphically incredible.

SPEAKER_02: 25:08

They really did do a good job of front loading the first half of the game with stuff that's really going to be memorable. I think that helps the game get carried through to the end as well because you're so deeply bought in by all the things you've already experienced. It is just a beautiful game.

SPEAKER_01: 25:31

Again, I haven't made it. I just started act two, so I've not got the I still have the flog of war, so I haven't been able to explore a whole lot outside of the first section of that on the map. I really don't have a favorite area just yet. Right now I'm going through fighting things, doing some of the some of the beach challenges, unlocking outfits and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02: 25:55

For those beach challenges, as soon as I find one, I can't leave until I complete it. It is a problem.

SPEAKER_04: 26:04

I've never done one. You just suck. I've only my I was trying one and my buddy came over and he's Marcus, you're terrible at platforming. And I just started laughing. I was like, Yeah, just ask all my friends. They know. We know that, but so what? And he's like, give me the controller, I'll do it. So he did it, and I did get a bikini. I don't know who's bikini.

SPEAKER_01: 26:26

So you didn't do it. No, not I didn't.

SPEAKER_04: 26:28

No, I didn't. I'm telling I I'm very open about that. Give it back.

SPEAKER_02: 26:33

So that's the one where you run on the logs in the water and then the spinning platforms. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04: 26:40

You don't remember the hardest part for the hardest. I think it was the first one. The first one you get to.

unknown: 26:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 26:47

It was the first one. And then I still need to do, I think I've only done one of the painteress workshops.

SPEAKER_02: 26:58

Where it's like black and white.

SPEAKER_04: 27:00

Huh?

SPEAKER_02: 27:00

No, I haven't even seen that. I don't know how many I've done, but I know I'm missing some.

SPEAKER_04: 27:04

Because if you do them all, you can fight the boss. Common thing.

SPEAKER_02: 27:13

I don't remember if I fought that boss or not. I took out Clea, I took out Simon. I took out that one boss that gives you the second the cheater. Yeah, the I took out the thing that flies around in the air.

SPEAKER_04: 27:28

I did not do that.

SPEAKER_02: 27:30

I don't know.

SPEAKER_04: 27:32

No, this one is so once you do all the paint so all the paint workshops end at the same point at a door. And then once you've completed them all, that door now is open and you can fight a boss.

SPEAKER_00: 27:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 27:47

I don't know if the boss is hard or not, but really I'll have to just turn on Expedition 33 for my stream in the morning.

SPEAKER_01: 27:59

But I again I've been having fun with it. I appreciate the gift of it. It has been I paid it for pal.

SPEAKER_04: 28:06

Doc bought it for me and I passed it on and bought it for you because I feel like once us all of us do that, we've all done it in like a confined time where we've all beaten Elden Ring just in different ways and at different times. But so I've been playing Claire on my PC. I'm sorry, Steam Deck. It's really bad. In when in lighted areas, like daytime areas, is it? It's really bad. So in lighted areas, it's great. But as soon as you go into like dark areas, the Steam Deck cannot handle it. It's so dark. And even if you turn up the brightness, it's still terrible. It's actually, I don't want to say it's not playable, but it's pretty rough.

SPEAKER_02: 29:01

They should make Expedition 33 D make. So that it like purposefully looks like a PS3 game and you can play that.

SPEAKER_05: 29:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: 29:17

I don't know.

SPEAKER_04: 29:20

Uh for me, it's it plays great. Like when I'm just farming bosses or like fun stuff, it's fine. But going to like the Endless Tower and trying to do it on my Steam Deck, it's really hard because the graphics and like the timing and all that stuff is not there. And it actually makes it harder than it should be. And it's like the like I said, it's really dark. I'm in this area for a maze, and I started to do it, and I was like, I can't even tell where I've been. But when I'm flying around like the continent and I go to a lighted area and find a boss, it's fine because you can see. That's interesting. Yeah. Excuse me. Now this is gonna sound stupid because I've been playing on a PC for a long time. I just changed my mouse cursor color. It is the greatest thing that I've ever done in my life.

SPEAKER_02: 30:20

What color did you pick?

SPEAKER_04: 30:21

Green.

SPEAKER_02: 30:24

Why is it the best thing you've ever done?

SPEAKER_04: 30:27

I just sometimes it gets lost in the sc multiple screens and it's like I can't find it because my mouse sensitivity is going too fast and I can't find it. So I made it green and now I can see it. Exactly. Yeah. I was gonna do it pink, but I love green's my color.

SPEAKER_00: 30:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 30:51

That's good. In a gaming note, what's one goal you have set for yourself, if any, for 2026?

SPEAKER_06: 31:03

Let you go for sturidos.

SPEAKER_01: 31:08

I don't know if I have set a goal at all for 2026, other than have fun and enjoy it and just not take it all serious. Which is fine. Yeah, I really haven't set any goals for this year. I'm a bum.

SPEAKER_02: 31:24

Do no. Do c do content creation goals count for this, or you mean like specifically being a person playing game? It can be anything that's tied to a video game. I want to make sure that I keep my schedule consistent and keep putting chances to interact with me out there into my channels and things. So what I'm doing this week with Twitch, I've really enjoyed it. It's revived a lot of enthusiasm in me for things, and I want to keep that going. I know it's really hard to keep New Year's resolutions going because once 2026 just becomes normal and it has no novelty anymore, then the goal loses its novelty too. But I would just like to point out, I started doing this at the end of 2025. It's not necessarily a New Year's resolution. But Resident Evil 9 comes out, and I'm gonna really enjoy that because Resident Evil is one of my top three franchises of games that I love. Sure. That will be fun too. Definitely will stream it, get people the story, get my thoughts about Leon and other things that will pop up that I don't know yet. But I'm just really looking forward to that as a fan, too.

SPEAKER_06: 32:52

When does that come out? It's either January or February. Let me look up while we're talking.

SPEAKER_04: 33:00

Sure. And I don't believe in a New Year's resolution, I believe in goals for the year. Because if you set a goal for the year, you're accepting that as your goal yearly goal, where and you're like you said, it just the novelty goes away and you're like, I don't need to do anymore. My goal for 26 is to play six hours of video games a week. No matter what, because I find myself with how busy I am with hockey, the hockey job, the life, kids, my own job. I games get put on a back burner and it's not acceptable to me because I love them so much. And that's why I went crazy with uh the Steam sale this year, because there's a lot of games I want to play, and I feel like if I buy them, I'm holding myself accountable, and I don't need to beat them in order to have fun. Cause I am really looking forward to Baldur's Gate 3, but the only reason why I haven't played it yet is because I went to install my 5080, and little did I know that this thing uses so much power that you need three separate cables to connect to it. Where the old ones, it was just like, here's just you just need one. My old card only needed one cord, and now this one needs three. And so I ordered cables, but of course I was in a rush, and I just saw, oh, nice braided, clean cables. And when it came in, it was for an EVGA power supply, not a Corsair power supply. And I was trying to plug it in, and it was like square peg round hole. And I was like, oh, and then I looked on Amazon, I was like, oh yeah, I'm an idiot. 100%. Oh, I can get this other thing perfect. I ordered the correct cables and they got delivered, and I stayed up really late last night fixing my computer because I couldn't have it not work anymore.

SPEAKER_02: 35:03

Oh, good. So it's done. Yeah, I'm on it now. Great, awesome.

SPEAKER_04: 35:08

Yeah, and I immediately did a bench benchmark test and I uh do it okay. So on in the benchmark software, I cut I think it's called 3D Mark, I get 115 frames a second and 4K with this card. Oh yeah, it's wow. But like you guys said, so I'm gonna I'm gonna sell my 3090. I was gonna build Rhino a computer, but I'm waiting for the steam machine. When the steam machine gets announced, I'm just gonna buy that.

SPEAKER_02: 35:44

Because when you're listening to you talk about this cable thing makes me want to just buy a pre-made computer.

SPEAKER_04: 35:50

Oh, Doc, it's bet you're it's more economical for you to buy a pre-built right now because of the way RAM prices and everything are.

SPEAKER_02: 35:58

Yeah. Good point. The Resident Evil game is February 27th.

SPEAKER_04: 36:06

So two months. Two months. So what's on the agenda now for the next two months?

SPEAKER_02: 36:14

Not finished Persona 3 reload ever in my life, not just on stream, like I've never finished it. So I have that to play. I could also start a trophy-enabled run through Baldur's Gate and maybe play the normal difficulty so that I can have my characters multi-class instead of just having them be single class through the whole game. And I've never gotten to do that because I've only played on Explorer difficulty. So that's something I'm thinking about. There's always Final Fantasy XIV, there's always Expedition 33. So when I wake up in the morning, I have options, and sometimes that's a problem.

SPEAKER_04: 36:52

You should buy Final Fantasy X and X2 remaster, it's$12.

SPEAKER_02: 36:58

I already have all the Final Fantasy games.

SPEAKER_04: 37:01

Oh, I'm saying the you have the remaster one? Oh, yeah, it says three friends own it. Yeah, you should play that.

SPEAKER_02: 37:10

Yeah, it is an amazing story and the characters. Or the X2. I've never played X2.

SPEAKER_04: 37:17

Yeah, you should. That'd be a great stream game for you. And that'll carry over for the couple months until uh Resident Evil.

SPEAKER_06: 37:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 37:28

Yeah, I have not streamed in a way where I have one dedicated game in a very long time. Clear Obscure Expedition 33 took over my entire schedule, but there were still streams in there where I did Final Fantasy XIV randomly or things like that. And I intend to continue doing it that way. Oh, by the way, just I want to shout out to a friend who streams and has done a lot of content stuff with me. I was able to raid my viewers today into Chill's room on Twitch, and that's Chill from Uttini Cast. And before I got there, he was at like 80 viewers and just playing SWOTOR. He's one of those very faithful SWOTOR players, and it's really cool to me seeing the old republic streamers having such good viewership numbers right now.

SPEAKER_04: 38:24

Question Is there twitch drops going on for SWATOR?

SPEAKER_02: 38:28

Yes, that's why now is the Acklay. The current you can that is a reason, yes, and I know that happens because when I was playing Fortnite and there was a Twitch drop, I have 1600 people watching me randomly, and that never happens. So I understand that, but it's the old republic, like right. The broadsword people really should have twitch drops going every single week and help their game be like that. It's really nice to see. I love it. There's little parts of me that miss it, but like how Darth Vader probably had little parts of him that missed being a Jedi. So not enough to be a Jedi, but and if you ask me, there is no conflict. I see the game. I raided Sotorista the other day, too. I'm just really enjoying the friendships I have in that game, even though I'm not currently playing it. I want to shout out the people that have mattered to me on my journey in a game that like I miss the people, I miss having a raid team, Marcus, but I I can't do it right now. I had a dinner conversation with some friends recently, and I was talking about raiding because there's someone I know who does Savage Raiding in Final Fantasy who's in Orlando, and like she plays six plus hours every single day, and they are not. Taking the bosses down on a regular basis. So I look at that and I'm just like, yeah, I can't do that lifestyle right now. I just can't. But I miss it a lot.

SPEAKER_04: 40:14

Yeah. I do too. I miss killing Doritos weekly. Like 90 polls a night. Like I miss it.

SPEAKER_02: 40:24

Don't lie to yourself. Intellectually, you kill both of us weekly, every single week on Thursday night.

SPEAKER_04: 40:32

I don't understand.

SPEAKER_02: 40:34

Doritos does. He's laughing. Yep.

SPEAKER_04: 40:39

Yeah, I don't understand what you're saying.

SPEAKER_02: 40:42

You wouldn't. You're half wearing a stocking cat that's cap that says Bruins on it.

SPEAKER_04: 40:47

Okay. But I still don't get it. But that's okay.

SPEAKER_02: 40:50

It was a joke, Marcus, and now I have to explain it. It's gonna ruin it.

SPEAKER_04: 40:54

It's not ruining anything. I just don't know. It's okay. That's what I'm that's what I'm here for.

SPEAKER_02: 41:00

I your ideas on the show. I was just giving you a hard time as your friend, but you do get me killed more as a tank than you do as my my partner in crime on this show.

SPEAKER_04: 41:12

But what I was gonna say is the best advice I can give you, and shout out to Intasar.

SPEAKER_00: 41:20

Oh yeah, I miss him too.

SPEAKER_04: 41:21

Yeah, but I'm gonna tell you, Doc, what you should do one day or night, like tonight. I'm not saying anybody's playing, but like you should just log into the game with no expectation. I do it randomly. Like I'll go and I'll start my stronghold and be like, oh, let's see where I was in the story, and then I'll go peruse around wherever I'm going in the next part of the story. And 99% of the time, somebody pings me. It's like, all right, we're going to do this. Let's go. And they drag you into something.

SPEAKER_02: 41:55

That's really nice.

SPEAKER_04: 41:56

You know what I mean? And it's usually that does it, but Doritos influence in the background. Oh, we need an extra person. Marcus just logged in. Why don't you ping him? And then all of a sudden I show up. Oh, Doritos, oh Marcus, you're here. How did that happen? And everybody's laughing. We all know it happened. But what I'm saying, Doc, is you should because I think if you go into it with zero expectations, the nostalgia alone, and especially if there's a group that you can do a couple flashpoints with, or they're doing a story mode something, it's really fun. It is really fun. And just to hear everybody's voice in a Discord call.

SPEAKER_02: 42:43

Yeah, you're absolutely right. I don't have it installed right now, but that's easy. You just go click on it on Steam. I still have the security key on my phone, so that headache I won't have to deal with because if you ever don't have the security key on my phone, it's actually easy now.

SPEAKER_04: 42:59

No, it's actually easy. You just click don't have key. You go through three two-factor authentications through the website, and then you just remove it. That's what I did.

SPEAKER_02: 43:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 43:12

Yeah, you don't have anything to worry about that, but you should. You should do it.

SPEAKER_02: 43:18

I got to talk about Sotor a little bit a couple streams ago because in my BRB screen for Be Right Back, whenever I'm refilling my coffee or something, I have the highlights that are marked a certain way on my Twitch channel go into this list and they'll randomly play while I'm on Be Right Back. And there's so many really cool moments from like eight, seven, six years ago when I was playing Sotor. And so I'll come back with my coffee and I'll get to see the tail end of them. Oh, by the way, like I can hear the highlights while I'm walking across my house too. So it it reminds me of where I've been and what I've become. I miss putting affliction and crushing darkness on things, and then putting a lightning blast, and then five autocasts of lightning strike, and then watching the tick damage because of affliction when you do the like vertical lightning strike that I forgot the name of. Like I just want to parse the shit out of some Jedi. That's what I want to do.

SPEAKER_04: 44:25

Man, this is really making me want to log in tonight. Come on back. Missed a little bit. Oh, I do, and I will poke around.

SPEAKER_01: 44:38

You're talking about doc.

SPEAKER_04: 44:39

Oh, yeah, doc should. You should, dude. I think you would, I think enough time has gone by.

SPEAKER_02: 44:45

I can give you I have codes. I'm still on their content career team. I still show up to the meetings. I still do, I still include them when I talk about my research on Instagram. I have a pinned post that is like the collection of all my MMO research of 10 slides. So it has the SWOTOR stuff and it has the Final Fantasy stuff. And I'm gonna keep making stuff like that. SWOTOR is a really important part of my professional identity, and I never dodge the opportunity to include it in what I'm doing. I haven't been playing it. Bless you. I just haven't been playing it.

SPEAKER_03: 45:24

Okay. Either way, I think you should download it and come just.

SPEAKER_04: 45:28

I'm telling you, if especially on a stream day, just log in because you talk about it so much about all your research. You do a stream day of just you playing Swotor, go do Hammer Station.

SPEAKER_02: 45:46

I'll do hammer station because I'll queue up and that's all I'll get, but I will never do hammer station on purpose.

SPEAKER_04: 45:54

See, you gotta. Like the nostalgia of it, I'm telling you, but you gotta do it right. You gotta use the little cheats that lift yourself up on the elevators and stuff. You gotta just do it.

SPEAKER_02: 46:06

That's the thing that's very different about Swotor compared to Final Fantasy XIV. Is Swotor's good? No, it's not, it's different. You the there's no stealth in Final Fantasy XIV. So every mob, you have to fight them. And in by the way, I didn't mean to say Sotor's not good. I was trying to shut down the way you said that, putting words in my mouth. SOTOR is a good game, but the attitude of people who like to stealth and cheese the game if you're in a group with them, I do not care for that at all.

SPEAKER_04: 46:43

That's why you have friends.

SPEAKER_02: 46:44

I logged in to kill Jedi, not sneak by them. And by the way, I tried to stealth one thing in Baldur's Gate today, and I did it for 12 seconds, and I was like, no, I'm gonna just walk in here and fight them. Stealth is not my thing. Fireball is my thing. Fireball.

SPEAKER_01: 47:08

I know, I thought so too.

SPEAKER_02: 47:10

Yeah, okay. So in fantasy worlds, it's fire. In Star Wars, it's lightning because George Lucas did not give any Sith the ability to throw fireballs for some reason. Maybe Kathleen Kennedy will. Oh, because I've been throwing rocks. If you will not cast fireball, then perhaps she will. I want to watch Return of the Jedi now. Oh, by the way, the uh The Psychology of Villains by Ley Line Publishing is locked. My chapter is completely done with copy editing. That book will come out later this year. It doesn't support me the way that the gamer's journey does, but I am in the book, and my chapter is all about the psychology of Darth Vader. Lord Vader.

SPEAKER_06: 48:01

Okay. Really proud of it. Wait. Did you write a book? Of course I did, Marcus.

SPEAKER_02: 48:13

I wrote a book. It's called The Gamer's Journey.

SPEAKER_06: 48:16

And good book.

SPEAKER_02: 48:19

Yeah, it is. It won an award and it's about video games being the modern mythology. And if you're here on the 163rd episode and you don't know about the book, what have you been listening to? But you know what they have been listening to? If they've heard any other episodes of our show, Marcus and Doritos, either of you, would you care to guess what they've heard?

SPEAKER_04: 48:41

I have no idea.

SPEAKER_02: 48:42

They've heard me say 162 other times, continue the journey.