Episode 301: "There's Copper Chum in Them There Chinese Wires"

We're finally back! And there's a lot of catching up to do!

Resident Evil Requiem DLC Story Expansion Announced, More Updates Planned

Overwatch co-creator Jeff Kaplan on his exit from Activision Blizzard: 'It was the biggest f**k you moment I've had in my career'

Xbox Quietly Erases The Worst Marketing Campaign It Ever Launched

Nathan Fillion Says ‘Firefly’ Animated Series In Development With Co-Stars Set To Reprise Roles; Concept Art Revealed

All games with loot boxes in them will be rated minimum PEGI 16, starting this summer

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman’s EGDC firm has acquired 5% of Capcom

Judge Orders Subnautica 2 Studio CEO Fired By Krafton To Be Reinstated And Gives Him Full Control Over Early Access Steam Launch

Nvidia's new DLSS 5 Brings Photo-Realistic Lighting To RTX 50-Series

Highguard Players Get Surprise Refunds On PS5 As Studio Shuts Its Doors For Good

MST3K: The RiffTrax Experiments Kickstarter Breaks Past $2.7 Million

Transcript

SPEAKER_13 0:20

This is The Gorge. It's a podcast of my friends and I gorge ourselves and what's happening in the world of video games and entertainment.

SPEAKER_09 0:26

The Gorge is brought to you by Patreon. It's been a minute since I've done this intro. The Gorge is brought to you by Patreon. That's Patreon.com slash TheGorge, where for just$3 a month, you gain access to all of our bonus content that we have ever done. We are coming up on the 10-year anniversary of this podcast. There's a lot of bonus content. And three bucks will get you all of it to your heart's content. Patreon.com slash thegorge. It also gets you early access to our TTRPG series, the reboot, uh, which is very good and we like it a lot. Um and yeah, oh, also pictures of Peanut. The most important thing is that it gets you pictures of the podcast mascot, Peanut the Dog.

SPEAKER_05 1:05

And you know, if for that upcoming 10th anniversary, uh the fans have been clamoring for it. So I'm pleased to announce that the other three will be putting me in Salacious Cosplays. Uh those photographs will be going up on the dis on the Patreon and nowhere else.

SPEAKER_09 1:18

And nowhere else. Congratulations. We're gonna we're just gonna make Saturn show some leg. They're 6'3, there's a lot of leg to show.

SPEAKER_05 1:25

That's right.

SPEAKER_09 1:26

So, you know.

SPEAKER_05 1:27

Um I I had the realization while we were doing of the devil thing. It's like, wait a minute. I not only do I have that beauty market on the same side of on the same part of my face, exactly where Susuke's is, I'm also literally within a centimeter the same height as Susque's.

SPEAKER_09 1:42

That's right. So you too can also charm adorable robot girls, Saturn. That's right.

SPEAKER_05 1:48

Look, look, I'm I'm all I'm saying is if is if you are someone Mireille, I know you're out there. My DMs are open for you and for no one else.

SPEAKER_09 2:03

If you are a 30 to 40-year-old mother um who's kind of cool and ice cold as well, two different things. Uh Saturn is available and their DMs are open.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

She's like a mother figure to my best friend, and also like a sister figure to me.

SPEAKER_09 2:20

That's right.

SPEAKER_04 2:21

That's right.

SPEAKER_09 2:22

Uh uh, Ben, what are we doing? What is this episode?

SPEAKER_13 2:25

Uh, this is just uh a regular regular good ol' roundup. We're just talking about stuff that's been happening to us.

SPEAKER_05 2:32

Wow. So I I did check because I was deathly curious. We haven't done one of these in about three months.

SPEAKER_13 2:44

Right. Uh January was dominated entirely by the Gorgies. True. Our last real episode was proximal to Christmas. Yeah, we did the Christmas chill cast before that.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_09 2:56

And so, yeah, it's been a it has been a hot minute since we uh video game news got kind of depressing for a while there, and it's still kind of depressing, but hopefully we found good stories. The Crafton story is the big one that I want to laugh about.

SPEAKER_13 3:09

Don't worry, there's there's a uh there's a good mix of some some good shit, some bad shit, and some funny shit.

SPEAKER_09 3:18

Oh good. Ah, we're bad. Um but first we gotta talk about what we've been doing, and I've been sitting on this for a while, and this is also gonna be a full episode, so I don't intend to spend three and a half hours of this roundup talking about it. But I beat Fallout New Vegas. Yay! In the time! In the time since we did our last roundup, and I'll be real, I condensed all of it into like a month and a half. It's been crazy. Um, but since the Christmas episode, we watched all of the Fallout show and uh it lit a fire in my soul that could not be quenched, and um Fallout 4 is still a nightmare to mod most days, so I was like, fuck it, we're playing New Vegas, um, which is what happened. I played New Vegas, I have never played all of New Vegas to completion. Like I like I played New Vegas when it came out. I did not play a lot of New Vegas, right? Um I did functionally everything in Fallout New Vegas save for like clearing out Vault 19 and like a handful of little baby side quests, and that is truly it. I think I did everything you can do in Fallout New Vegas.

SPEAKER_05 4:34

I was gonna say, like, I think you I think you mentioned you didn't get Boone's quests. I did not get Boons quest. I'm gonna be so real with you, it's nothing. It's it's basically nothing.

SPEAKER_09 4:43

Because the thing is, I I like Fallout New Vegas a lot. Its system of leveling affection with your companions is fucking whack, dawg.

SPEAKER_05 4:52

Um we talked a little bit about this in the Discord, but it has this kind of baffling thing where like it has a normal, like like the its system is very normal for like a classic mode of C RPG, right? Where it's like you have this party member here for this scene or this environment, and they they comment on it and advances their things. But that works in CRPGs because they're fairly linear traditionally, like like yeah, you'll have sandbox environments, but you go through them in a specific order. Uh Vegas doesn't have that. Yeah, no. It's very it was uh honestly very funny to me for you to bring this up because I'm I I was thinking about it. It's like, oh man, Elden Ring just literally reinvented this problem from first principles 12 years later. Because it similarly has flag-based like NPC side quests, but those games are like their areas proceed in fairly linear order, and in Elden Ring, because it's mostly open, it is insanely easy to permanently miss like 50-hour game-long side quests just because you did you like did one thing slightly earlier than you should have.

SPEAKER_09 5:57

Yes, I that is literally what happened to me with Boone. I was somehow able to squeak it out with uh with Veronica and Arcade. Um specifically because Veronica's is just location-based. You just need to take her places, right? Um, Arcade's is a little of location based and it's a little bit of dialogue choice based, right? Um Boone's is entirely either um killing people or saying the right thing. You so if you did what I did and were like, oh, I should probably get Boone's uh personal quest before the end of the game, I had literally done everything that would get me points with Boone in order to unlock his personal quest. It was I checked, it was literally impossible for me to get it at this point in the game. Um completely crazy companion system. I respect it, but also the like because the crazy the cra Okay I don't want to be here for three hours. But the craziest part to me is that one of the ways to get affection points with arcade and boon both involve going to Cottonwood Cove and then to the fort to deal with Caesar, right? So if you want to do this right, you have to go to Cottonwood Cove with Boone, kill everyone there, right? Right, then go swap to Arcade, take him to the fort, proc his dialogue, go get Boone again, and then take him and go kill Caesar. That's the way.

SPEAKER_05 7:48

Treating arcade like that one video of like showing my cat all the places in the house he can't normally see. Just holding him up by under the under the arms like the seeders legion, and it's just a big pile of corpses.

SPEAKER_09 8:00

Yeah, like dead bodies, yeah. Um, so it's completely crazy. Uh other than that, this may surprise you. Fallout New Vegas is fucking great. Shocker.

SPEAKER_13 8:11

Wow, who knew?

SPEAKER_09 8:12

Who knew? Who knew? The game that everybody's crazy about. Everybody's crazy about it for a fucking reason. Stunning.

SPEAKER_05 8:20

It it's crazy. Like still the enduring thing is like the only reason there would ever be any question about whether or not Fallout New Vegas is the best like computer RPG to come out in the 2010s is because Disco Elysium also came out in the 2010s just barely.

SPEAKER_09 8:35

Correct. Literally at the tail end of the 2010s, yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

So now they get to fight forever over who deserves that right. Which is so funny, because I I don't think they should fight it out because they are literally the bookends because New Vegas came out in 2010. Yeah, that's the crazy thing. They're literally the book, they they hold that decade together. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Which is just fucking insane to me.

SPEAKER_13 8:56

I mean, well, well, yeah, well, you see, the thing is the uh the the same guys who played uh Fallout New Vegas uh back in 2010 are the same women who play uh Disco Elysium in that game.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

Ben right here.

SPEAKER_05 9:13

Ben, I don't know if you're allowed to make that joke, but I think I think the referees are. No, they say it's okay. They say it's okay.

SPEAKER_08 9:21

I'm checking with the reps right now.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

I'm just saying, Ben. Don't hog my clown nose boy.

SPEAKER_13 9:28

Let me let me just let me just reach across the table here and get that for you out.

SPEAKER_09 9:38

Uh it's it's really good. We're gonna do an episode on it because I have a I got a lot. I got a lot.

SPEAKER_13 9:46

Oh, you have a lot to say about a fallout game?

SPEAKER_05 9:49

Shocker, I know. We should start a podcast about that.

SPEAKER_02 9:54

I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Sarah, you and I should start a- We love we love Fallout so much. We should talk about it on a podcast. I'm sorry, Sarah. You got a lot to say about the the video game that is an almost perfect 7 out of 10.

SPEAKER_09 10:05

Yeah, I know, right? Me and my beloved seven out of tens. Fallout New Vegas, my big thing about Fallout New Vegas is that for years and years I have always like gently, well, mostly gently. It's hard to be a Fallout 4 fan when you're in the same room with Fallout New Vegas fans. That'll never change. Yeah. Um, because Fallout New Vegas fans themselves are kind of insufferable sometimes. That's right. Um, no offense. I mean, you're you're I we adore you, Oates, but yeah, you go on the subreddit, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I'll I'll leave the I'll leave the podcast.

SPEAKER_09 10:37

No, you have to stay. Um so you know, I would always like to like kind of riff on New Vegas, but the the joke I always made is that you know Fall of New Vegas is an ugly video game. I'm still right about that one. Um I'm still the the thing, I don't know if we talked, I've talked about it on this podcast before. I don't care, I'm gonna talk about it again. I have always thought that they got Armin Shimmerman to play Andrew Ryan because New Vegas came out first, right? Because there's no possible way the game that came out before looks worse. I'm wrong.

SPEAKER_05 11:20

Unfortunately, you forget that Bioshock was made in like Unreal Engine 3 or at least Unreal Engine 2.5. Uh and Fallout New Vegas was made in in the same version of Game Brio they made Oblivion in.

SPEAKER_09 11:35

Yeah. Which is also an ugly video game. Um, despite my love of it as well. Um, yeah, no, it's that there is, you know, I have such I have such mixed feelings about like remasters and remakes and stuff like that, but I think I would like to just see a Fallout New Vegas remaster, right? Where they just make it, like don't touch anything about it. You can even leave the whack ass got like shooting in, it's fine, I guess. Um that shooting is so fucking whack though. Um you can leave it all in, it's fine. But like I would like to see it look a little nicer, right?

SPEAKER_05 12:16

Um I mean Viva New Vegas does a lot of heavy lifting to make it look better. I mean my thing is mostly like I feel like if they ever do it, it will probably have the better gunplay from the later games because unlike unlike the Elder Scrolls 4 remake, the problem with not being able to just put it in Skyrim's engine is that Skyrim is also from 2011 and barely runs right natively on modern consoles. So you just doing this weird emulation thing with UE5 is like a a reasonable, if not a kind of lazy uh middle step. But like they have the Fallout engine working well on modern consoles and it looks acceptable, which is the best you can possibly say for a Bethesda game.

SPEAKER_09 13:03

All I ever want is a Fallout game that looks acceptable. I mean, really, I'm I got a tiny, I got a teeny tiny brain and a love of Fallout games that can't be uh measured in normal words.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Listen, folks, one of these days we'll we'll do the road trip from San Diego to Las Vegas, and you'll get to see uh you'll get to see New Vegas remake, which is exactly as brown and piss-colored as you think it is.

SPEAKER_09 13:28

Yes, it is, it actually is. Uh, I look forward to it. That game, I really like it. I really I know Ben's currently playing it because um he, you know, we're all susceptible to social contagions. Yeah, such as such as watching one of us play a fallout game.

SPEAKER_13 13:47

Um so I That's lit that's literally all it takes, is just like, hey, I'm gonna play a fallout a fallout game. Okay, well, I better clear my schedule in about three weeks, is I'm gonna play that fallout game.

SPEAKER_09 13:57

It's gonna happen to me next. Yeah, exactly. Um so there's gonna be an episode about it sooner than later, because I got I gotta get it out. And then by episode, I mean episodes uh plural, because also there's the DLC, which is its whole bag of cats.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

Um I feel like the only way to really properly do it is New Vegas and then the DLC cadre.

SPEAKER_09 14:19

Yeah, that's kind of the only way you have to do you have to do them separately because like they are they are big enough on their own as two separate things, because they kind of are two separate things, which is really interesting. Um to justify two episodes, and so uh look forward to that because I I'm like I'm like transfixed by it. It's so good, it's so good, and it's it really pisses me off because that franchise is dead. Um so you know, it's fine. Um that's literally all I've done.

SPEAKER_05 14:58

I'm sure the person responsible for its current internment will come up in the news later.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Oh words There is more we have done actually since December. Sarah and I have finished Well, we basically started Batman the Animated Series about a month before we started talking about in December. We're already finished. We have picked up and now finished Superman the Animated Series, significantly better, by the way, don't fight me. Um and then we have now started and are like about halfway through the first season of Batman Beyond.

SPEAKER_09 15:29

Yeah, we have done a lot of DCAU, that's true. Um that shit's also good. Again, stunner. Um but like all of Batman was really, really good. Um Superman was way better than I expected it to be. I mean, like saying Batman was good is like, you know, water is wet, right? Yeah, right, yeah, for sure. Um but I I watched Batman as a kid, and so like I knew it was good. I never either because of just like personal interest or like time slot shit, I never watched the Superman animated series. I mean, I've literally never seen a single episode of it. Right. Um that show is way better than I expected it to be.

SPEAKER_13 16:13

They were they were banging on all cylinders, they really were.

SPEAKER_09 16:17

That show has really great. I think Batman, like the like OG Batman, has more interesting episode hooks and like story ideas.

SPEAKER_13 16:27

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_09 16:28

Um but Superman is like really bizarrely beautiful. Like it's so like for what you can tell, like you see the literal uh animation studio credits for that show, and it's just it's like a huge list of Japanese animators, and so you and you can like really see it, like how much they're pulling from like anime guys to make Superman. And you can just really see it. It has really gorgeous like uh action sequences and just cool beam fights at one point. Yeah, it's really good. Um more than I expected it to be. I liked there were granted, there's also way less Superman than Batman. Um so like just by ratios, there are less stinker episodes of Superman than there are stinker episodes of Batman. Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

So I never I never brought this up because like we were so hyped and got excited about how it ended. Um it got the the horrible thing that networks do where they're just about halfway through, they renage on their deal and go, you know, we just want syndication, get to 52 and we cut an end off there. Sure. Which is why the the series kind of ends on the note that it does. Um they were originally the the original plan was gonna be 64 and those last 12 episodes were going to be the buildup for Justice League that didn't end up getting that it didn't end up happening until they actually got Justice League moved, like they moved networks onto Cartoon Network. But uh it's it's just really funny to me that like you can kind of you obviously can see it, like season three builds up to it, right? Yeah, but also that finale is so good. It's so good. And they didn't write it until they learned after the fact that they were like, oh, we're getting cut short by like 12 episodes. Let's give them this as a as a way to end Superman.

SPEAKER_09 18:30

So the the way Superman ends is like it basically establishes like retroactively establishes that the entire show building up to this was almost like prequel because the show ends on the absolutely crazy note that everybody hates Superman. Like because the show, so like the premise of the final two episodes is that Superman is captured by Darkseid and brainwashed into attacking the Earth, right? Right, and yeah, they stop Darkseid, um, and they stop like you know, the destruction of the planet, but not like not before the invasion, yeah. No, he does invade Earth, and so like it doesn't resolve cleanly because like he can't prove to anybody that he was brainwashed, right?

SPEAKER_13 19:28

Right, right.

SPEAKER_09 19:29

So it doesn't resolve neatly, it ends on the fact that everybody's scared of Superman because they're all realizing, hey, this alien is stronger than literally anybody on the planet, and if he ever goes rogue, we're all fucked. And that's how they end the show. It's so it's awesome. I was just like, I was just completely gobsmacked by it because it's not how you expect the the Superman cartoon, which has been a very light and enjoyable affair, except for the time they killed Jack Kirby um on screen.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

Anytime Dark Side shows up, there's a literal like on-screen casualty.

SPEAKER_09 20:13

It's a great tone shift, it's really good. Um yeah. I didn't expect it. It's really good. Um, and then we started Batman Beyond, which is also so funny. Batman Beyond is crazy.

SPEAKER_13 20:28

You really are you really are just fucking hitting the the 90s cartoons equivalent of TNG D Space Nine and Voyager. Really, literally.

SPEAKER_08 20:36

Yes, it's so good.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Which makes sense. Justice Lake Before Unlimited is kind of the discovery of the group where it like it fumbles quite a bit, but it has it's got heart, you know?

SPEAKER_09 20:49

Sure. Um Batman Beyond, what are we, like 10 episodes into Batman Beyond, I would say. Um it's also just awesome. And it's gonna break my little baby heart when it transitioned. Because right now it is being animated on cells, just like uh Batman and Superman, right? And about halfway through the show, they switched to digital, and I'm gonna cry.

SPEAKER_05 21:15

I'm gonna cry Does it have that early Digi Paint color scheme?

SPEAKER_09 21:19

I'm going to assume it does. We haven't gotten there yet because like we're only two.

SPEAKER_13 21:23

I don't remember, I don't remember the colors taking a hit during the transfer. I might be wrong because I was like 10 when it aired, but like I don't remember being like because even back then I could be like, hey, this episode looks worse than this episode.

SPEAKER_09 21:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 21:39

I don't remember that happening with Batman Beyond.

SPEAKER_09 21:42

But they do, I mean, there is a certain texture and beauty to to cell painting that you literally can't get with digi paint, even you know, even if you were like keep the quality of color, right?

SPEAKER_11 21:56

Right.

SPEAKER_09 21:57

Um and I'm gonna cry because it is really Really beautifully animated. It just has, I don't know, it just has a like incredibly cool color palette and um atmosphere, and it's stealing really hard from Blade Runner. Um which is fine.

SPEAKER_13 22:15

Best Spider-Man cartoon out there.

SPEAKER_09 22:17

It is the best Spider-Man cartoon, yeah. Um, because it's a story about how a teenage guy, uh his dad gets killed, and it's kind of his fault, so he feels bad about it and becomes a superhero about it, right? Um and he's got a steady girlfriend who he can't seem to keep a relationship going because he's busy being a superhero. That's Spider-Man. That's Spider-Man.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

He's fighting a villainous like type. CEO who's green, who's green themed, um, who is assembling a crew of a guy who has sound slash quake powers. Um girl who uh turns into an amorphous blob slash sandy thing. Uh there's a guy who gets mutated into some kind of reptilian. Like the list goes on and on. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_13 23:05

He's got a he's got a he's got a black cat as well.

SPEAKER_09 23:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 23:08

Oh my god, he does. Yeah, he's got a whole thing with a with a with a villainous chick for a little bit.

SPEAKER_09 23:13

It's great.

SPEAKER_13 23:14

Oh my god. I completely forgot about that subplot.

SPEAKER_09 23:17

It's a super it's literally a Spider-Man cartoon. It's a Spider-Man cartoon. Um yeah. It's it's really good. I know I keep saying it, but really enjoying it.

SPEAKER_05 23:28

I think I think it it's I think it's fine to rip off Spider-Man. He doesn't need any more money.

SPEAKER_09 23:32

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Like I was bad enough walking around money as it is.

SPEAKER_13 23:37

I wanted to uh I wanted to see like if there was like someone like had like a contrast between the hand-painted cells and the digital cells for Batman Beyond. So I but like I'm just looking at pictures of Terry's bathsuit and god, what a fucking slam donk of a design.

SPEAKER_09 23:52

Impossible to adapt, right?

SPEAKER_13 23:54

Oh yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

How do you do the mouth? How do you do the mouth?

SPEAKER_09 23:57

You can't do the mouth, no.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

So my favorite other thing is they redesigned him such that he gets to have like little high heels, which is incredible. Like a fantastic like change to the Batman like look. Um, but also he consistently and constantly does the thing where since he has magnetic heels, he does the Spider-Man thing of hanging upside down, but since he's a bat, he just stands there menacingly instead of hanging off of a rope. And isn't the coolest thing.

SPEAKER_06 24:25

It still works. It's so it's so good.

SPEAKER_09 24:28

Um it's it's really a shame that that Batman Beyond movie that got pitched didn't happen. The animated Batman Beyond movie that got pitched and uh never happened because we live in hell.

SPEAKER_13 24:45

Yeah. Um because now, granted, Return of the Joker is one of the best Batman movies, period. But like a real theatrical release would have been fucking awesome.

SPEAKER_09 24:58

Well, because they were trying to coast off the the Spider-Ver popularity, and so that the literal pitch was, yeah, we want to do our own, like, not multiverse story, but Spider-Verse as in let's do a young Batman story, right? And we literally have because like the DNA of like going from Batman to Spider-Man, right? Is really interesting because we were talking about this. It's this idea that Batman Beyond is what if Batman was Spider-Man, and then this all comes back around years later when they make Miles Morales, who is a young Batman or a young Spider-Man with a dead dad in a black and red costume and camouflage powers.

SPEAKER_13 25:46

Who is who inherited the roles?

SPEAKER_09 25:48

Who's inheriting the rules, yeah, from the previous guy.

SPEAKER_05 25:51

And who has a who has a friend who like makes him gadgets and shit?

SPEAKER_08 25:54

Yeah, it's um yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_09 26:01

It's it's real the the DNA there is very interesting to to follow.

SPEAKER_13 26:06

It's it's a lot, it's a lot like how every Western is a samurai movie and every samurai movie is a Western.

SPEAKER_09 26:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 26:11

It's just DC and Marvel trading ideas.

SPEAKER_09 26:14

Yeah, yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_13 26:16

That's the magnificent Batman.

SPEAKER_09 26:19

Also, shout out to Darwin Cook, like the Darwin Cook, because that awesome title sequence was literally done by just him. Like the entire kick at that insanely kick-ass intro, all of the animation was just one guy.

SPEAKER_05 26:36

If if they're not going to ever give us a weird modern recreation or adaptation of the 1960s Japanese Spider-Man, could we at least get a Japanese Batman in that style?

SPEAKER_09 26:49

God, please.

SPEAKER_05 26:50

Like just a Batman that's nakedly ripping off Common Writer? I think that would be great.

SPEAKER_13 26:55

That is actually a thing. That's a manga. He had a like there was a Batman manga in the 60s. There's a live-action TV show.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

There's a really you want a live-action common writer, I say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, you know, like Japanese Spider-Man.

SPEAKER_09 27:08

Uh there is a really gorgeous common writer inspired, speaking of Batman Beyond Batsuit figure that I love. Um it's super cool looking. It doesn't, it doesn't do the full solid, because again, it's impossible to adapt to like a 3D space. Right. Um, but it looks really good. And I I love it. Um and I love D it's so weird to care at all about superheroes, but the DCAU is it really is that bitch, right? Oh yeah, 100%. Like it's the thing that can make you care at all about any kind of superhero media because that design. Yuck!

SPEAKER_06 27:54

It's it whips.

SPEAKER_12 27:56

Oh god, that's so cool.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

Wait, you haven't you haven't seen Robin yet?

SPEAKER_05 28:01

I I feel like someone in BGN linked this design to me when I was trying to do redesigns of for Pippa post-time screen.

SPEAKER_09 28:08

Oh yes. I think it was probably John X, right? Because John X actually, you know, pays attention to DC, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:14

Yeah. Um thank God for John X. Somebody's got to.

SPEAKER_09 28:17

Somebody's got to. Um yeah, no, DCAU is just really because it's it's kind of the promise that like the Marvel movies were supposed to have of like, you know, we take these old, like, these comic stories, we've condensed them, we've made them, you know, we kind of stuck it in its own universe, and this way you can kind of enjoy these characters without needing any like background information, truly, right? Um, but it does it way better.

SPEAKER_05 28:45

Yeah, I I know I don't technically have a dog in this race as someone who doesn't like really pay attention to either Marvel or DC, but honestly, gun to my head, if I had to be like, which side of this war are you standing on? It I would not have to think for more than three seconds before I uh took up the shield of Batman.

SPEAKER_09 29:04

Yeah, no, understandable.

SPEAKER_05 29:06

Understandable he's Batman. Like if I if I think of well, like if I like not even like Batman is my favorite, but it's more like if I think of superheroes, I think of the Justice League first.

SPEAKER_09 29:14

Yeah. Absolutely, totally. Um, and and I don't know, it just does a lot of really smart. I mean, the thing is, Bruce Tim, sorry, I've taken up 30 minutes of this podcast already just talking about shit we've done. But we've got to be. Perverts living their best lives. Um, it's the it's it's Rick Berman, sexual harassment, Paul Deanie and Bruce Tim flirting, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_11 29:49

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_09 29:50

Um, because they're just kind of making beautiful women, like original characters, beautiful women, to be like, we think they're sexy. We want to stick them into more things. And then like half the time it pays off, so good for them. Um, and they gave Batman high heels. So they're, like I said, they're enlightened perverts.

SPEAKER_05 30:09

Um at the office, put this beautiful woman in a full-body spandeck suit. Oh, yo you Rick Bourbon put this beautiful woman in a full-body spandeck suit. Hello, human resources.

SPEAKER_09 30:23

Yeah, absolutely. Um and uh yeah, no, he keeps, you know, he he turns Superman into a damsel every other episode. It's great. Um, enlightened pervert just doing his best and like really solidifying what like the cultural perception of these DC characters is, um just effortlessly. It's amazing. I mean, so much of like what Batman is today is because of the DCA user. It's true. Like the the way his rogues gallery looks and acts is because of Batman the Animated Series, right?

SPEAKER_05 31:08

The existence of Harley Quinn, period.

SPEAKER_13 31:10

Yeah, exactly. Mr. Freeze, like the entirety of his like Mr. Freeze's entire deal. Yeah. Renee Montoya.

SPEAKER_00 31:18

Oh god, he rocket.

SPEAKER_09 31:20

Yes, all of these.

SPEAKER_00 31:21

The list is going to get longer if we actually decide to like pull it out.

SPEAKER_09 31:25

He has so many like original characters and like smart adaptational decisions for pre-existing characters, right? That and then you take a step back and you're just like, wow, this is all just him and Paul Deanie. Uh just like vibing and having a good time and writing the DC stories they've always wanted to write.

SPEAKER_00 31:44

For example, prior to Superman the Animated Series, nobody thought to tie Brainiac into Superman as part of his backstory.

SPEAKER_08 31:57

There's which is crazy.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

They're linked to like in everybody's brain now, because everybody knows that. It's that that that's that's that's from the cartoon buddy.

SPEAKER_13 32:10

Yeah. No, I think I think the DCAU, the more I think about the DCAU is the equivalent of like Ultimate Spider-Man for the Marvel side, which is if you're gonna adapt this thing, you're going back to this as your source material.

SPEAKER_09 32:24

Right.

SPEAKER_13 32:24

Like you're referencing this one thing.

SPEAKER_09 32:26

Yeah, totally. Um, and it's it's phenomenal. I'm really looking forward to more. I try like with Superman, I was trying not to binge it because there's so little of it. Um, and like I said, the the plot writing is a little bit lighter. It's more it's more of an action show versus what like Batman was. Um, so you could do about two episodes every time we kind of sat in front of the TV, and that was fine. I find myself laying around just kind of idly thinking, fuck, I wish I was watching Batman Beyond right now.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

Um we might do that after we're done.

SPEAKER_09 33:02

We literally might watch an episode after we're done because I am enjoying it so much.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

Um the thing is, is I really want to get through this as quickly as possible because I I want to get to Justice League. Because I miss Green Arrow so goddamn much.

SPEAKER_09 33:18

Yeah, I'm really I'm really looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_00 33:21

I miss coming across a character who DC Comics at large and the animated um universe referred to as a cross between Robin Hood and Abby Hoffman of the Chicago 7. Like the guys who started the guys who started like the riots in Chicago.

SPEAKER_05 33:41

The the character I always miss from Justice League, and this is like me calling back to my child brain, right? Uh I really I remember really liking the Martian Manhunter, uh, because I as a child I had no idea what it is he actually did. He was very strange looking, and I could never really uh entirely intuit what his power set was supposed to be.

SPEAKER_13 34:06

He's a shapeshifter, he's got telekinesis, um, and he can turn transparent.

SPEAKER_00 34:09

I have I have two incredibly important things for you to know, Saturn. This is it. This is it. I'm I guess it's just two things. One, he's kind of a boring guy. He just likes to, you know, solve mysteries because other people expect it of him, right? That's kind of like the be all end all. Somebody asks him to do something. He's very Nick Valentine-y. He's like everyone just kind of expects the telepath guy to know what to do. Sure. And he has a crippling heroin-ass addiction to Oreos. I see. Yep.

SPEAKER_08 34:41

Great.

SPEAKER_13 34:42

Um I for to to kind of uh cap my my knowledge of DC at the time, I thought Martian Man Tunter was created for the cartoon. Ah I was like, oh, like Harley Quinn, right?

SPEAKER_06 34:56

No.

SPEAKER_13 34:57

They just made up a new superhero to join the Justice League.

SPEAKER_00 35:00

No, I th he's kind of one of those, like, we had to pick one of the weirder outlier ones. Because otherwise, their Justice League would feel like anytime you saw like a commercial for hostess fruit pie, like, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_13 35:16

Yeah, they didn't want to be super friends. They wanted to get away from super friends. Yeah. They needed a roster that would deviate from that.

SPEAKER_09 35:22

Yeah, because like that's why they went with like Hawk Girl instead of Hawk Man, because like they took a step, and that's why it's Jon Stewart instead of like Hal Jordan, because they took a step back and went, oh, this is all just a bunch of white guys and also Wonder Woman. Um we should probably do something about that. So they were like, well, we'll use Jon Stewart, we'll use Hawk Girl, and I'll kind of and then when they get into Unlimited, of course, you can just go. It's also crazy how much the final season of Superman is setting up, is just like testing the waters for Justice League. Because so much of the last season of Superman is like, here's the Flash, here's um, like all these just kind of random side characters, like like like C and D tier DC superheroes, right? That just kind of feel like Bruce Tim and Paul Deeney just really wanted to put like their niche favorites into their cartoon and nobody was gonna stop them.

SPEAKER_00 36:16

Yeah, respect. Yeah, it's a huge it's why later on in Batman and Beyond we're gonna get a bunch of episodes in a row that is just like, oh, that's a testing ground. They're trying to see how well they can choreograph multiple people in the same fight.

SPEAKER_09 36:29

Yeah. Um but I think that's it. Those are the two, that's the big things is is DCAU, Fallout New Vegas. They're both massive, so you know, 35 minutes of yapping about it. Right. Um But I do I do think if you need like a like I know a lot of people in the Discord right now are watching, like, you know, Star Trek on our recommendation. I do think DCAU is a really good project to do after that because it is just as fun and like just as enjoyable to watch, but way more digestible and way shorter.

SPEAKER_13 37:03

You'll hear a lot of familiar voices. That's correct. Michael Dori is all over that bitch, just as 90s, too.

SPEAKER_09 37:10

It's just as 90s, um, but a lot shorter, a lot more digestible, um, a good kind of like follow-up, right?

SPEAKER_13 37:18

So I might I might do DCAU after I finish lower decks, but what I'm actually thinking I want to do is I want to watch Samurai Jack.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

Ooh, good choice.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

I think Ben should pivot actually. Personally, this is just me personally. I think I think Ben should pivot and continue going down the Star Trek route and just watching Gargoyles.

SPEAKER_08 37:41

Oh, we're gonna do gargoyles, we're gonna do gargoyles soon.

SPEAKER_05 37:45

My only thing with against Samurai Jack, and I also really like Samurai Jack, is I remember even contemporaneously thinking that like what ended up being the last episode of Samurai Jack going, damn, I wonder what's gonna happen in next episode. I wonder how the story of Samurai Jack is going to continue.

SPEAKER_11 38:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 38:08

Yeah, no, it is it is an extraordinarily abrupt ending uh for for that show in a way that uh like I know they I know they did that like kind of like gritty adult animation like like sequel reboot, whatever, later on. And I was like, I never made time for it. Uh not even at a Saturn. You weren't missing much, honestly. Yeah, I was gonna say, I was just like, I I'm just still mad about how you ended the first one. I don't really want to know. I it I'm mad at you, Gendi Tartakovsky.

SPEAKER_00 38:38

Saturn, you are better off for not knowing. It they give it a proper conclusion, and it's not a good one.

SPEAKER_13 38:45

Yeah, no, it kind of it kind of missed the mark. Like I liked it at when I was watching it, but but the power of hindsight is me going, that was not nearly as good as any given episode of the original five seasons.

SPEAKER_06 38:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

You know how like Futurama, every time it gets renewed, gets a little bit worse, and it wants to end on a satisfying conclusion because they're like, Well, listen, we don't know if we're gonna get another season, and we're just gonna treat it like this is the last one. This is our la final hurrah, and each time gets a little more lukewarm. Yeah, because it has stopped being true, right? Imagine the third time that they did that is the the true full conclusion for Samurai Jack, and it's their first time doing it.

SPEAKER_09 39:32

The only one show has ever been able to dance that line, and it's the fucking Venture Brothers. Yeah, right? That's true. Mm-hmm. Um that's us though. I mean, Oates have you done anything that doesn't that like because I know like my playing Fallout New Vegas was literally spurred on because you started playing Fallout New Vegas. It's a chain reaction thing.

SPEAKER_00 39:53

Hey, you know, this is just how it goes. I play Fallout, she plays Fallout, then I play Fallout again.

SPEAKER_09 39:59

And then Ben plays Fallout, and it's just it's just a whole circle.

SPEAKER_13 40:03

You know how like when when you like uh when you live with your parents and one of you got sick, and then it would kind of spread to the rest of the family, and then like if you were unlucky, it would circle back and infect you again. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 40:17

Hey, but Ben, you know what you know what's great about that? Uh someone who still lives with uh one of their parents? Uh that parents works in in healthcare. Oh no! Yeah. Uh so you know, it it's just a it's just a perpetual, it's like a perpetual stew of packages.

SPEAKER_13 40:33

I mean, my my sister has three children.

SPEAKER_08 40:37

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_13 40:38

Uh so you know, it's uh it's a it's a loop. It's not a spiral, it's uh it's not a loop, it's a spiral.

SPEAKER_05 40:46

She hasn't been like rated by the CIA for producing bioweapons yet.

SPEAKER_00 40:51

So I've only done one other thing. And that is I've watched the first episode of the second season of One Piece live action. Oh nice! We gotta do that. Um I have I got to the very end of that episode and immediately closed it and went, I cannot watch anymore. I want Saturn to see this.

SPEAKER_05 41:11

Yeah, I I've been I haven't touched it yet, mostly because I was like, yeah, we did that all I like I don't know if we want to do that as like a gorge stream or like a just a us stream, but I was like literally saw that like I need to watch that, but like I don't want to not watch it with other people.

SPEAKER_00 41:26

It's got all of the it's got all of the vibes of you watch it with a group, but I think it I think this time around it might be funner to do it just like a little four-man thing. Who knows? Like we might like we already have Hunter Hunter, you know? It's hard enough to like and it's hard enough to schedule a podcast episode with me, let alone with like adding eight other people.

SPEAKER_05 41:47

Sure. Yeah. Well the nice part about it just all being out is that like we can just do it whenever we want. Yeah, at whatever pace we feel is appropriate.

SPEAKER_00 41:59

Uh um, yeah, that's it. It's really good. So banger. Absolutely. I want to keep watching.

unknown 42:05

Cool.

SPEAKER_05 42:05

Uh I'll go next because mine's pretty short. I imagine Ben will have uh more to say than I. So a little nice little pacing uh bookend there. Um in the last three months, it's been pretty quiet for me, uh, just to go over stuff I've been streaming over at Mystery Systems. Uh we've been doing Of the Devil episode 2 uh with everybody. Uh I think I probably talked about a little bit in the last roundup uh for my having played it. Uh, but we are now most of the way through that case in our live read. Uh, and that's been fun. We'll do that probable last episode soon. Um I also played uh uh Malviolence, which is a sort of Zero Escape like uh NDVN. Uh I feel like after I'm done with OTD, I might stream uh the prequel Proto-Violence.

SPEAKER_09 42:54

Yeah. Um I would watch that because I really enjoyed that little that little baby stream. That was fun.

SPEAKER_05 42:59

Yeah, and that's like just a strictly linear visual novel, is my understanding, like no uh puzzle game component or whatever. Uh in part also because there was announced uh after I streamed this, uh they're making a third one, which is an RPG maker game called Interviolence, and that's supposed to be coming out in the summer.

SPEAKER_07 43:17

I think that was an RPG maker game.

SPEAKER_05 43:20

That sounds great. That's a thing. Um so that's that's been the stream stuff. I honestly really haven't played too much uh just because I've been busy with creative work and then other things uh coming up. Um big one, uh probably the one I spent the most time of as far as new things. Well, actually, I don't know how to how to compare how to compare time use. So I'll start with the old one, which I've been playing a lot of Terraria again with uh Discord uh Discord uh regular sev. Uh that has been I haven't played that game really in like 10 years. Uh it's been it's been a lot of fun revisiting it. It's very time kind of illustrates the difference. Between the Minecraft and Terraria formulas a lot, right? Because like Minecraft's Minecraft is like an exploration building game that has like kind of shit-ass combat bolted onto it. And Terraria is like, what if we made a Castlevania Minecraft? Basically. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 44:16

Oh.

SPEAKER_05 44:18

Where like it has like, you know, like, oh, it's side scrolling, right? But obviously, like, oh, you have dungeons and you have like kind of more involved 2D combat and RPG mechanics and things like that. And it's been interesting revisiting that. Um I'm trying to think. There was something else I wanted. Alright, uh, the other game that I uh played quite a lot of in the last uh couple months is uh I've been playing a lot of uh Arknight's End Field. Oh the uh the kind of far future sequel to Arknights, uh that is sort of a Genshin-like with a little bit of like uh uh satisfactory/slash factorio stuff going on there. Uh I will say of the Gens like it's a Genshin-like, right? It has it has a lot of what I would say are the same trappings of the Genshin-like, for better or for worse. Um where it's saved is that much is like like Honkai, uh, Star Rail, uh, it is most interested in being a kind of low budget JRPG instead of a actual like Zelda clone. So there's not like it don't give you as many like traversal mechanics, but that also means like the world design's a lot tighter. And like uh so I'd say the the expectations of like investment of time are a lot more measured, uh shall we say. Um there's a lot of quality of life updates in that that kind of put it as like my favorite of that model of gotcha. Okay. Um the negative is that boy howdy, if the thing that introduced to you that that interested you about Arknights is that it's a tower defense game, uh, there's basically none of it.

SPEAKER_01 45:56

So wait, what kind of game is it then?

SPEAKER_05 45:59

It's it's like uh it's kind of like a like I would say like a real-time JRPG, like you run around an environment. Uh there's like a little bit of like God, like I don't know, it controls like Genshin, but you don't have like Breath of the Wild like wall climbing and shit. Like it's just kind of like JRPG.

SPEAKER_09 46:15

Okay, so so it's just kind of like an action RPG, right? Yeah, it's just kind of like an action RPG. Okay, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_05 46:21

Like I like the the the unique thing for the open world is that because there's a bit of like, hey, we want to do factorio stuff here, A, you have zones where there's like factory sim, right? And that's kind of their way of like this is how you're doing your like the instead of having you do a bunch of like gathering and shit, you're you're effectively you're you're getting yourself into the upgrades economy by building stuff to make your materials, right?

SPEAKER_06 46:48

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_05 46:48

Um, so it's like it you you create an auto farm, but actually creating the farm is like the time investment process, right?

SPEAKER_11 46:56

Okay, got it.

SPEAKER_05 46:57

And the other thing is that there's like a little bit, there's the tiniest little bit of death stranding touch in there where like when you're not in the factory zone, you can still place like permanent structures in the overworld. And these can be things like, yeah, I made a I made an entire zip line network so I can zip around this environment uh faster, or like uh thing, or like there's a a place here where I can spawn an event to like get upgrade materials like like uh like weapon gems or whatever. Uh but because I have leftover power and materials, I made turret emplacements to kill the enemies faster so that it's easier for me to do this and things like that. It's interesting. It's still a gotcha. Uh I would not say it's like I would not place and I know this is an impossible standard, I would not place the quality of writing as like a fate tier gotcha. Sure. I would say I would say it's more interesting so far than most, but it's still like, you know, like I think like the FGO is broadly written better, uh, Limbus Company is definitely written better. There's plenty of narrative-centric gotchas that I think are written better if that's what you're coming to them for. Um but as far as like a Genshin like, I think it's uh a pretty interesting one, and I've been having quite a lot of fun with it.

unknown 48:16

Cool. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 48:18

Uh that's basically me. That's basically it for me. I really haven't done that much because I've been too busy uh working on horsies, and then also uh getting sidetracked in the brain mines for a possible upcoming uh BGN game and a new little OCLIT I'm making for that. Yes, yeah. Fun, fun, fun. Uh so that's been me.

SPEAKER_13 48:38

Okay. Um I've done a couple of of things. Um I finally wrapped up Hundred Line Last Defense Academy. That you did. So I can't go into that into detail yet because Sarah and Oates are not are not done with it.

SPEAKER_01 48:52

Right.

SPEAKER_05 48:53

Um But I was you you encountered the things that I was like, this would be my contender for WTF moment. Yeah. For for for the for the Gorgies, but no one else but me knew what it was yet. Yeah, that would have won.

SPEAKER_12 49:09

That was me going, that was me sitting there like, what the fuck are you talking about, game? Well, you you fucking you're you're putting this on me now. I've been got 120 hours into the kids bring this on me now.

SPEAKER_05 49:25

What are you fucking crazy? It is just straight up the the the thing of like, uh well, yeah. I mean, I know where this is gonna go. It's just like I have these elements that we're working with from the first loop, and like it's gonna extrapolate from there. And it's like you thought you saw all the elements. That's funny. That's cute.

SPEAKER_13 49:41

Like, I okay, I think I I think I'm getting all of these sci-fi tropes you're going with, what? Excuse me?

SPEAKER_08 49:49

Great.

SPEAKER_13 49:52

It would be the equivalent of like if you were playing like Fallout New Vegas, and then in the very last DLC, uh fucking what's his name? Um uh not who is it uh Ulysses was like, by the way, I'm an actual wizard. And he started casting spells at you.

SPEAKER_08 50:16

Okay, okay, I see.

SPEAKER_03 50:19

I mean, and as he dies, he's like, and you never knew you encountered 15 other wizards over the course of your journey. I know. And then he dies. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 50:30

There there are 19, there are 17 people on Rokanjima Island. I understand independently.

SPEAKER_05 50:36

And then you're like, he could be full of shit, but I did see Arcade teleport that one time, so what the fuck?

SPEAKER_09 50:45

Oh boy, okay. Yeah, no, it's is that Route Zero?

SPEAKER_03 50:50

No, funnily enough.

SPEAKER_01 50:52

Are you fucking kidding me? God damn it.

SPEAKER_05 50:55

Funnily, none of none of the thing that I recommended is in Route Zero at all, despite the fact, and this is my my teaser for continuing with Route Zero, Route Zero is the one that they bill as the quote unquote truth route because it reveals so much of the truth of the story.

SPEAKER_09 51:11

Oh my god.

unknown 51:13

Get me off this wrong!

SPEAKER_13 51:16

I wanna say. That I can't.

SPEAKER_09 51:22

Well, I'm getting back to it. I'm I am after now that I have like mostly purged my I mean, I wanna play Fallout 1, but that is a thing I'm gonna have to play on my laptop because just you cannot play Fallout 1 on a 55-inch TV.

SPEAKER_08 51:40

No.

SPEAKER_13 51:42

Um, there you know what? I will say, I will say one thing, Sarah. You and I were talking a little while ago where you were like, I hate Gaku, and I was like, Yeah, I mean, he's kind of a dick, but he's alright. No, you were right. Gaku doesn't get any better.

SPEAKER_06 51:55

That's right, baby.

SPEAKER_05 51:56

Gaku is Gaku is a Kodaka character, uh, which is a Kodaka, and God love him. It's a smart decision if you're writing Dongan Rampa games. Is a guy who just loved to make a character and goes, No, the your first impression was right. This guy just sucks. Fuck him.

SPEAKER_09 52:12

This guy sucks ass. Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 52:13

I've had, I've like, because I had I had done a lot more routes than you at that point, where I so I was like, yeah, you know, every character like has their shining moments in one route or another, where like they're definitely a better character in this route compared to this, the other routes. And it's like, I'm sure Gaku will find his adventure. Oh.

SPEAKER_08 52:29

No.

SPEAKER_05 52:29

Gaku's shining moment is in the comedy route, which I I have to insist that neither of you ever seek out unless you're getting really in your head about doing a hundred out of a hundred ending completion. Uh, because comedy route sucks ass. Sure. Uh, there's there's no single good part about it except for Gaku's Shining Moment, where Takumi has to ask has to ask Nazomi something, right? Uh, I I don't even remember what, because it's that it's the fucking comedy route plot line, it doesn't matter. Um so he goes to find Nazomi, and Nazomi's out in the courtyard having like a conversation with Sibasa, and they're like smiling and laughing, sitting on a bench or whatever. And he's like, Oh, Nazomi, oh, Sebasa's here, great, I'll just go up and all and then Gaku grabs him by the shoulder and he's like, dude, there's a Yuri moment happening over there. We need to back the fuck off. And then instead of allowing you to eventually go talk to the Zomi, he drags you by the shoulders to his filthy student housing and spends literally 10 days explaining Yuri to you.

unknown 53:31

Great.

SPEAKER_00 53:32

Never mind, he's the best character in the entire period. To go into the wood chipper. I love the latest contrast between me and Ben.

SPEAKER_05 53:45

But that's the thing with it's like that's the scene, Sarah, that like the old like there's only two other routes that the killing game writer like worked in, and one of them is comedy. And it's like because comedy had a had like like three or four writers on it because it was just people contributing bits, and that's the thing where you get that bit and you go, that's the killing game writer. I know who you are. No one else has the clarity of vision to write Himedanshi Gaku. No one. Only Killing Game Writer, my brother, who I would die for.

SPEAKER_08 54:19

Killing Game Writer is is the realest guy writing uh 100 line Last Defense Academy.

SPEAKER_09 54:26

He's my hero. Uh he there's it's so good. So much of killing game is just like, yeah, we want Yowie and we want Yuri, and we want murder polyamory, and you're just like, fuck dog, yes, you're so smart.

SPEAKER_05 54:43

Smartest guy, and they need they need to give him his own game.

SPEAKER_08 54:46

Let him write a route in FGO. Have you ever thought about that?

SPEAKER_05 54:49

Uh yeah, I would say that he is at least on par with like anyone else in the main writing retinue.

SPEAKER_08 54:56

Yeah, so I mean, let him, it's fine. What's the worst that can happen?

SPEAKER_13 54:59

I like to paraphrase to paraphrase like one final thing I'll say about Hundred Line for now, because Sarah's done at least one or two routes where where you've seen the the the enemy commander.

SPEAKER_07 55:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 55:11

So like to paraphrase what what uh the Gigabots said about Hundred Line and about about uh uh the enemy commander's like whole deal in every route is that it's like if at the end of every chapter of Umineko, Perfect Cell showed up.

SPEAKER_05 55:29

She just doesn't give a shit about what the tone or events of any routes are. She just shows up to be Perfect Cell.

SPEAKER_08 55:37

She's here just to kick everyone's ass.

SPEAKER_13 55:39

Yeah, every every month or so she needs to show up to kick your ass. And then you can get back to your fucking you know, killing game or murder mystery or more shit you're Yaoi visual novel bullshit you're getting wrapped up in. Who cares? When I said hashtag Cell Games, I fucking meant it.

SPEAKER_09 56:00

Oh, that owns. Okay. I'm getting back to it.

SPEAKER_05 56:03

I don't think Ben saw it because Ben uh for the Kodaka half literally just did Route Zero, right? And none of the other like side ones.

SPEAKER_13 56:12

Uh I did I did one other one.

SPEAKER_05 56:15

I know you had to do one of them for uh for uh oh no that no, I remember the other one you did. I I remember it was TME. Yeah. I remember that one. Yeah, I did that one. Um there's one in there though that's very Veshness-centric, uh, that's very good, and I think Sarah, you especially would like it quite a lot.

SPEAKER_06 56:32

Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_13 56:33

If if that DLC ever comes out, I'll probably go back and do a couple more base game routes too. But like, I the the only reason I did not do any extras is because I was like, I need to be done. I need to do something else with my life. I need to do I need to be done with this game.

SPEAKER_05 56:52

And I will say, like, like, I I think pretty much all the good ones are on like the document uh in some capacity or another. Uh like there's other ones, but a lot the thing is, a lot of them are really short uh because they're all they're like offshoots of Route Zero that some of them just don't start until like after day 50 or 60 or whatever, so there's just not really a lot of room to work with.

SPEAKER_07 57:15

Right.

SPEAKER_05 57:16

And it's really only the ones that split uh earlier in the timeline that end up being like really full extra routes. Yeah. So but like most of those are in the document. So it's like you'll you'll still get a pretty you will get a more full picture of the game, despite that only being maybe like, I don't know, like 40 of the endings. Well, Ben, what was your final ending count?

SPEAKER_13 57:43

Oh god.

SPEAKER_05 57:45

Like 40 or 50, I have to be a few.

SPEAKER_13 57:47

Over 50, I think.

unknown 57:48

Wow.

SPEAKER_05 57:49

Yeah, so like even though it's only half the endings, I would like it is half the endings, but it's still like a minority of the routes. But I would say like it's the better half of the game.

unknown 57:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_13 57:59

Yeah, no, I mean there's the I mean, I yeah, I didn't do some of the Kodaka stuff, but I did a lot of Uchikoshi stuff that was not on this list. I see. As it got like later into the into the calendar, where like, okay, well, this route clearly can't take me 30 hours. There's only 15 days left in the in the lo in the route.

unknown 58:22

Sure.

SPEAKER_13 58:22

So I can branch off from here and explore these paths.

SPEAKER_09 58:26

I see. Okay. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_13 58:28

But like when it's like here's a here's a branch on day three, I'm like, I'm not fucking doing that.

SPEAKER_08 58:32

I don't have time for that, man.

SPEAKER_13 58:34

I gotta I gotta do that.

SPEAKER_08 58:35

I have to play other video games that aren't 100 line lasts, but that's time for that, Goku.

SPEAKER_05 58:40

I I will say it's the funniest thing. Um sometimes that that's broadly a really good metric for how long a route's gonna be. Except there's some cases, like the one that splits off from KG, even though they split at like day 20, it is a significantly shorter route than KG is.

SPEAKER_13 59:00

There's there are some routes where it's like, oh, Takumi's gonna go nappy times.

unknown 59:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 59:05

It it is very funny because they said in an interview after it's like we really tried to avoid that as much as possible. And if there's ever a part where like the game, like because we wanted it to be that you play all hundred days of whatever route you choose, and if you ever get a route where like Takumi is unconscious for this many days or whatever, it's because like we were just running out of time and we had to finalize the script, right? Right, and so it's very funny that you'll get certain ones like the alternate to KG, where it's like, uh Takumi just uh in like three different occasions in this route, goes to bed for like literally 20 days at a time. You know, and then wakes up for one day and then immediately goes the fuck back to bed.

SPEAKER_07 59:45

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_13 59:47

It's very funny, very, very uh humor. Like you can clearly tell that we're like they went when they're when they're like, no, we're literally out of ideas on how to stretch this plot line any further.

SPEAKER_08 59:58

We're out of ideas, we're out of time.

SPEAKER_13 1:00:00

We've got to do something. Takumi needs to go to Coma Town.

SPEAKER_09 1:00:04

Hit him with a pipe and move on. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:08

Like extremely funny, just for anybody who is listening to the podcast currently. The 100 Line Last Defense Academy currently is not on sale.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:19

Tragic.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:20

However, its digital deluxe edition is on such a steep sale that it is cheaper than to actually just buy the vanilla game.

SPEAKER_09 1:00:26

That's hilarious!

SPEAKER_00 1:00:27

I love when that happens.

SPEAKER_13 1:00:30

Uh yeah, so 100 line is is a really fucking good game.

SPEAKER_09 1:00:34

Shocker.

SPEAKER_13 1:00:35

Um I also Saturn and I streamed uh our quick look at Romeo is a dead man.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:42

Oh right, we did that. I forgot completely because I still haven't booted it myself yet. Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 1:00:46

Um it's a good game.

unknown 1:00:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_13 1:00:51

I'm I'm uh So I the I I did the thing where I'm like, okay, well I can I can finish this game in once in one more session, you know, like one more afternoon, I can crack, I can uh hit cred- I wanted to hit credits before this before this recording, but like I'm like, okay, I'm clearly in the last the last area. I can finish this and be ready in time for the podcast. And then I wasn't in the last area. Oh no. I see. There was there was another area, which is fine, because it's a good game and I like playing it, but I'm also like I wanted to talk about this game. You needed to be done.

SPEAKER_08 1:01:29

Right.

SPEAKER_13 1:01:31

Um it's good. I don't think I like it more than no more heroes, but it's still pretty good to play.

SPEAKER_11 1:01:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:43

I I feel like it would be very hard to find it. Like I'm not even like the biggest No More Heroes fan in the world. Like, I really like No More Heroes. I feel like it is going like there's just not going to be a sudo game that clears uh uh it's a seven out of ten, for sure.

SPEAKER_13 1:02:02

It's a hundred percent a seven out of ten.

SPEAKER_09 1:02:03

Sure.

SPEAKER_13 1:02:04

But it's also a pseudo game. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:05

So like that tracks.

SPEAKER_09 1:02:07

Yeah, no, absolutely. That's just that's his bread and butter, baby.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:09

Yeah No More Heroes, one of the iconic and best games of 7th gen is very firmly a 7 out of 10.

SPEAKER_13 1:02:18

Uh it's it's also clearly a game that is about uh Suda being frustrated that this game is not cut working out the way he wanted it to. Sure.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:28

Um you're telling you're telling me Suda made a game that due to uh say, I don't know, for instance, like budget cuts from Netties, uh, for instance, or maybe the interference of an EA president at the time uh didn't come out the way he wanted it to.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:45

What? What?

SPEAKER_05 1:02:47

I think the only like putting putting like nationality and sex aside, I think really the only difference between Suda and A and Amy Hennig is that Suda's games come out.

SPEAKER_08 1:02:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 1:02:58

That's mean, but accurate.

SPEAKER_08 1:03:00

Oh, you're right.

SPEAKER_13 1:03:02

Saturn's right, but they shouldn't say it.

SPEAKER_08 1:03:04

You shouldn't say it.

SPEAKER_13 1:03:06

Everyone disliked that.

SPEAKER_08 1:03:08

Everybody got real sad all of a sudden. Like, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:14

I was looking for something really important uh while we were uh as a capstone to our uh hundred-line conversation, and I finally found it, so I'm gonna put it in the group chat really.

SPEAKER_13 1:03:24

I will say a few things about Romeo as a dead man. Um, you have to click through this link. I'm sorry. Sorry, hold on. Suda.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:31

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_11 1:03:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:38

I might have to actually get to engineering the thumbnail hole and thinking about it. Please continue with Romeo as a dead man. Okay.

SPEAKER_13 1:03:45

Uh once again, Suda uh creating some of the best named characters of all time.

SPEAKER_09 1:03:52

Sure.

SPEAKER_13 1:03:52

Romeo Stargazer, fucking stellar of name.

SPEAKER_09 1:03:58

It's a great name.

SPEAKER_13 1:03:59

Amazing, fantastic. Right up there with like Travis touchdown. Sure. In terms of like, oh, you fucking nailed it. Uh Benjamin Stargazer, his uncle, who is the uh uh uh patch on the back of his jacket. He is an uncle Ben who died? Yes, his grandpa. I forgot his name was Benjamin. That's so funny.

SPEAKER_09 1:04:22

Oh, it's Spider-Man's all the way down.

SPEAKER_13 1:04:24

So it's very funny because like he's very clearly a send-up to Rick Sanchez from Rick and Morty. Uh and in this game, they have Rick Sanchez as a new voice actor playing a different character.

SPEAKER_09 1:04:38

Oh, that's funny.

SPEAKER_13 1:04:39

Great. Um but like in c in true pseudo fan fashion, um, your mad scientist grandpa, after because you've you've seen the original trailer where where Romeo gets attacked by a zombie and and uh his grandpa injects him with the with the uh dead drive to bring him back to life.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:56

Does that like really insane-looking rotoscope animation play anywhere in the real game? No, but here's the thing, Saturn. Here's the crazy thing.

SPEAKER_13 1:05:07

That version is how the events actually played out. The the thing that we that you and I played where it was him on the road and he they see a zombie on the side of the road and they get out of the cop car and go look at it. That's a dream Romeo had. Caused by the trauma of getting attacked in his house by a zombie. I I need I need to kill this game is fucking insane and nothing is explained at all. Shit just happens. And I'm not even saying that in a way of like, oh, the the wacky Japanese game, like things are arbitrary, like, no, shit just occurs, and like there I I looked, there's no follow up. God. It's awesome. Uh so for Oates and Sarah who don't know, yeah. Your mad scientist grandpa, after you after, like shortly after he saves you with it with the dead man drive and you become a half dead man, uh, he dies.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:10

It's not explained how he dies, he just dies. Oh, so like it's like the mystery of Deadman, the DC comic character.

SPEAKER_13 1:06:18

Uh, but then uh he does manage to save himself by uh digitizing his brain, and he uh transports himself uh as a patch on the back of Romeo's jacket.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:37

Which is of his face, which uh goes through keyframed talking animations whenever he talks.

SPEAKER_13 1:06:42

Yes, so he talks to you and he chats with you, uh and uh like gives you advice and lets you know when you're stu when your abilities are on cooldown and like tells you where to go and whatnot. Uh and then also when you're in downtime back on the spaceship, um he he you see him in a human body, and he's like, Oh yeah, I'm the Benjamin Stargazer from another dimension. Uh I'm just hanging out here uh so that I can have tea with my grandson. And then he goes, and then he leaves, and then you go back to being a uh a 2D patch on his back. Bizarre. Great fucking character, great game. The other the other highlight of this game is uh so you have a thing, you have a system where you can um create your own zombies, like recruit or grow your own zombies out of seeds, uh-huh. And these become kind of like your strike, like you can call down a striker, like a summon, to like shoot energy beams, or to like fire an electric ball that like when it hits one enemy, it'll it'll connect to other enemies, or like lay down a field where you can recover your HP. Um these things are called bastards.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:51

Oh word?

SPEAKER_13 1:07:52

Like the sword, or like no, just they're just called bastards. Like you grow bastard you find bastard seeds and you plant the bastards, and then in ten minutes you can prol the bastard out of the ground and give them a name and a little quirk, and then they get an ability. And when uh the bastards come off cooldown, your grandpa says, Bastards are charged up! Bring on the bastards! I see. It's amazing. I love it. It's it's fucking amazing. I love it.

SPEAKER_08 1:08:25

How fitting.

SPEAKER_13 1:08:26

Uh, Romeo does feel like the spiritual Nero to Travis's Dante.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:32

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_13 1:08:32

Because he's kind of like a young, he's kind of like nicer, you know, but he's like a young, hot-headed guy, but he's kind of like cool and like uh a little bit more chill than his predecessor, and he's got a robot arm, and he's got a canonical girlfriend. But they have like the similar style of like weaponry they use because uh Romeo has a beam sword, but his beam sword is a chainsaw sword.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:54

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_13 1:08:56

Um, and you can also get like uh gauntlets uh and um spear a spear that can break off into two short spears.

SPEAKER_11 1:09:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_13 1:09:05

Um and it's it's good, it feels good to play. It's the the combat is interesting. It's just, you know, they d they just don't have a lot going for it.

SPEAKER_09 1:09:19

Sure. You know, like it feels a little lighter.

SPEAKER_13 1:09:22

It's a little, it's a little, it's a little lean. Sure.

SPEAKER_09 1:09:28

As your no more heroes and whatnot.

SPEAKER_13 1:09:30

Yeah, you know, that doesn't have like the the the the quirky minigames or the weird like uh genre shifting that no more heroes does, but it's still good. It's still okay, sure. Uh then I played uh played and beat Resident Evil Requiem.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:44

Oh good! Wow.

SPEAKER_13 1:09:45

And uh I haven't stopped thinking about Resident Evil Requiem. That they fucking crushed the split between action and horror in this.

SPEAKER_09 1:10:00

That is literally what everyone is saying, and um I am very interested. I'm gonna have to just like you're just gonna have to stream it at some point, dude.

SPEAKER_13 1:10:08

I you know what? You know, fucking twist my arm, why don't you? I know, right? Oh Ben, we need you to play Resident Evil Requiem again. Like I can't. Like, I haven't been like, oh my god, I just I if I didn't have other shit to play right now, I would just fucking non-stop playing Resident Evil Requiem. This this hasn't a game like this hasn't gripped me since the RE2 remake. Sure. Um no, they they absolutely crushed like like the the horror and action split because yeah, like you've seen the reviews. This is the most terrifying Resident Evil has been when you're playing his grace. Sure. Like fucking, but like I was like, I'm gonna play it. I got five minutes in and it was like nine o'clock at night, and I'm like, I'm gonna play this when the sun is out.

SPEAKER_08 1:10:56

Yeah, yeah. Like, nah, I think I'm good right now, Chief. Thanks so much.

SPEAKER_13 1:11:05

Like, like, house house Benefiento ain't got shit on what Grace is going through.

SPEAKER_08 1:11:11

Someone help my girl, Grace.

SPEAKER_13 1:11:13

Uh, this this poor child, uh, some of the best voice acting. This is her first role.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:18

Really? And she's amazing.

SPEAKER_13 1:11:23

Uh and then, of course, you get to play as Leon, who has been fighting bioweapons for 30 years.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:30

He doesn't give a shit. He keeps getting slowly bigger, and I'm kind of worried he might have gotten some gunk in his system. You know, like like microplastics, but with like like mushroom goo.

SPEAKER_13 1:11:42

Oh no, don't worry, the microplastics are just making him bulkier.

unknown 1:11:46

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_13 1:11:47

No, that this this man ate microplastics like it's like he's a fucking stretch arm strong and his muscles are just getting bigger. Yeah. They were like, you know, yeah, we we got a bunch of uh a bunch of our female artists to design Leon in this game. It's like, oh word? Oh really?

SPEAKER_08 1:12:03

Oh shit, for real?

SPEAKER_13 1:12:05

You're saying that? Like, yeah, I've seen I saw the animation where you like he uses his axe to pry open like like uh warped shut like cupboards and stuff.

SPEAKER_11 1:12:14

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_13 1:12:14

And I'm like, oh yeah, you got you got a bunch of female artists to design this. Yeah, really?

SPEAKER_08 1:12:18

Wow, shocking so him with his fucking rolled up sleeves, his giant muscles and big handsome body. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:25

Just John Capcom rounding up the artist. Like, alright. So Leon as a six as like a man in his late 50s, like late 60s, whatever. What do you want? And everyone just unanimously like, make him be bigger, please, please.

unknown 1:12:40

Please be ficker.

SPEAKER_13 1:12:42

There's a scene, and there's a cutscene where he picks up a sniper rifle and you just get that that low, his new voice actor's doing this like really low gruff voice, and he's like, he just go picks up a sniper rifle and goes, hello, gorgeous.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_13 1:12:52

And you're like, oh word? A bunch of female artists design this character. That's right.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:56

And somewhere Jessica Starling's like, it could be me! It's me! I you know, you know that story, because we were talking about No More Heroes. You know that story where it's like Suda had that clip of Johnny Knoxville getting his nipples bitten off by an alloc by a baby alligator, and he'd show them to a dev team like this as Travis. Yeah. I'm just imagining like whatever artist at Capcom was leading the charge on like buff older man Leon, just walking around uh with that gif of uh fucking Chris Evans splitting a log with his bare hands.

unknown 1:13:28

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:13:32

For sure.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:13:34

Like these are the vibes we're after people.

SPEAKER_13 1:13:37

But no, it's it's it's fucking incredible. Like they they perfectly like because like you know, Ethan Winners like didn't quite like seven and seven was terrifying, don't get me wrong. Seven was terrifying, sure, but like you know, once you started getting used to it, like it wasn't as scary anymore. Yeah, like Grace, you never get used to it. You're you're always like, what was that? Is there fucking something out there?

SPEAKER_05 1:14:09

And at least in part of that is I think, and like kudos to both like the voice actress and also uh the the acting direction. Uh she is a character who I would say has a realistic amount of stress-related hyperventilating, even when nothing's happening. Oh, yeah, for sure. Of just like, I I I exerted myself too much 15 minutes ago, and like I'm still breathing through my mouth and it hurts. Right? And it's like, fuck, it's so good.

SPEAKER_13 1:14:35

Because like you you you kind of get used to navigating the Baker house in seven, right? Like you got you like you kind of know like you got your landmarks, like you get used to the map and whatnot. Grace is getting thrown into new places all the time. Sure. So you're like, oh shit. There's no familiarity whatsoever.

SPEAKER_08 1:14:52

You don't know how any of this shit works. Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 1:14:54

And then when you do backtrack, it's the thing where like, okay, I pulled this lever and the lights turned on, and there's gonna be stuff in there now. Oh man, I'm gonna have to go back over there to put the thing in the thing, and I just know there's gonna be guys there now.

SPEAKER_09 1:15:08

Same feeling as turning off the lights in like your basement as a kid and just bolting for the door.

SPEAKER_08 1:15:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:15:17

Uh it's just like there's gonna be something here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 1:15:22

The state has changed. I know it. I cleared out that room a minute ago, but now there's gonna be guys in there again.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:31

I've I've been like following uh LP, I told Ben this, and I only have like one complaint as like the casual watcher, and it's not directed at Grace, it's directed at Grace's boss. I don't know if this if this is like important later, and I gotta stress, I'm not spoiling the game. This is literally like the first thing that happens in the game. Insane to go, all right, well, okay, we can we can have a little bit of like video game fiat, right? Grace works at the FBI, right? She's not a field agent, but like, you know, she's working for the FBI, and she has a tremendous amount of just like anxiety and not being like socially viable, like in general, just as a as a person in a normal situation, right? She can't make eye contact, everything is scary, uh, everything like that sort of thing. And never mind like whether or not someone who is like that at all times would actually pass like an FBI psychaval. Never mind that. Her boss goes, Look, Grace, I know you're not a field agent. And this mysterious bioterrorism-related mystery murder case is something that you have a deep personal connection with, as your mother was one of the victims. We have a lead, and I'm sending you alone to go investigate it. But I think the only way he could be happy with the ending of RE9 is, you know, everybody gets out and it's fine or whatever, in the way RE endings are, and there's a slide about how he's being court-martialed for his fucking negligence of sending a civilian to a definite abduction danger site to get stolen away by bioterrorists with no backup.

SPEAKER_13 1:17:21

And see, this so Sandra, you brought this up when we were talking about it on the Discord, and I have I kept thinking about it, and I'm like, this is another reason why the horror works so well with Grace and a little bit less so than Ethan, because Ethan is a fucking dumbass who went to Louisiana by himself with only like with like a pistol to investigate the deduction of his of his wife.

SPEAKER_08 1:17:44

Yeah, a pistol and a prayer, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_13 1:17:47

In his in his fucking uh khakis and work and like uh office shoes.

SPEAKER_08 1:17:52

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_13 1:17:53

Um so like he's a dumbass, but like he's doing this to himself.

SPEAKER_08 1:17:58

Right.

SPEAKER_13 1:17:59

Right? Grace is being put in a situation that she doesn't want to be in.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:05

Or she gets kidnapped for it. Grace has the thing of like, and this is like the classic horror writer uh like advice, right? Is the thing that that that Ethan doesn't have is he's just an average guy who ends up in a bad in like a wild situation and has to adapt. Grace has the effective horror writing thing of okay, think like you're having an anxiety spiral. Now that anxiety spiral is in fact just true in what's happening. He's also trying to kill you. Grace just like, well, I mean, like, I mean, I know I'm not a field agent, but my boss definitely wouldn't send me to a place where I'm in danger of getting like involved in bioterrorism murders by myself. Like, surely he would have just sent me assuming it would be fine and I'd be safe. And then sure enough, you get uh you like you get abducted in in things related to the to the bioterrorism murders. And it's like, oh geez. Oh Pete.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:03

Oh beans, Grace, we're really in it now.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:08

Wait a minute, did I leave my did I leave my oven on before I left for and it cuts back to a thing labeled Grace's house, and it's just a colossal fire.

SPEAKER_13 1:19:18

And then back to her, and then back to her, like, no, I'm sure, I'm sure it must be fine. It's it's like I posted on Blue Sky a little while ago, like, there's no ontological difference between Grace Ashcroft and Rona Valenti from Swan Boy. God. They're just the same person.

SPEAKER_11 1:19:35

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_13 1:19:36

Um no, it's it's it's fucking fan. And absolutely know what, absolutely, Sarah? I would I would be honored to replay Resident Evil Requiem on Stream.

SPEAKER_09 1:19:47

Because I don't even remotely have a computer that can run it, nor do I have the money to buy it. So um I will have to mooch off of you to enjoy Resident Evil Requiem.

SPEAKER_13 1:20:00

When we finish uh Of the Devil, maybe I'll make that a priority. Because I my mystery. It's not that long, right? I first played it was like 10 and a half hours, and that was me putzing around.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:09

I think we could crush that out in like two sessions. You know, two, three, three, eight. That's fine. Okay.

SPEAKER_13 1:20:14

Yeah, no, I can do that.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:15

Cool.

SPEAKER_13 1:20:16

Um and then I'm not gonna go into everything about it because that would take forever, but it's time for the Voyager book report.

SPEAKER_09 1:20:25

Voyager book report! You know, okay. We need I need I need to learn how to record things properly and not just fuck around on my computer and record podcasts. Um because you know the bit the video for Polygon where Brian David Gilbert read every single book in Skyrim and he goes, Skyrim book reports! Yes. We need that, but for Voyager, like really badly.

SPEAKER_13 1:20:54

We need that on the soundboard.

SPEAKER_09 1:20:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, anyways, yes, the Voyager book report.

SPEAKER_13 1:20:59

Oh god, I think when what did I do? Anyone remember what I talked about last time? No, fuck no.

SPEAKER_09 1:21:05

Fuck no, dude.

SPEAKER_13 1:21:06

It's been three months, man. I don't remember what I had for breakfast this morning. I don't even know if I had gotten to seven by the time like I don't think you'd gotten to seven, I'll say.

SPEAKER_09 1:21:16

I'm pretty confident.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:18

I want to say that you talked about the episode where George Costanza shows up.

unknown 1:21:24

No.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:24

That wasn't on the podcast, though. No, that wasn't on the podcast. So, okay, since the last time we were on the podcast, Ben hadn't gotten to seven yet, but Ben was on the cusp of reaching that season finale. Like you were talking about, oh I'm about to hit the the season finale, so I'm gonna meet Seven Sand.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:43

Okay. So literally, like, haven't like fucking that was season three.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:47

Yeah, it's been a while.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:49

You're you're like at the end of season five, right? I've on I'm on the start of season six.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:54

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_13 1:21:55

Uh so yeah, seven showed up and Kess left. Um it's for the better.

SPEAKER_09 1:22:03

Yeah, I mean they do cast they do Kess so dirty, but like the show improves so much with the addition of Seven of Nine.

SPEAKER_08 1:22:14

It's kind of crazy. Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:16

They unfortunately her actress both deserved better, but also in getting Kess off the cast, they along baby out with the bathwater managed to remove whatever foul demon was making them write her that way.

SPEAKER_08 1:22:33

Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:34

It's true. Until they brought her back later.

SPEAKER_08 1:22:36

Yeah, well, you'll see.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 1:22:38

Um season four was rock solid. Year of hell and the killing game. Two parters are both phenomenal.

SPEAKER_09 1:22:46

Oh, killing game is. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. I'm so normal. I'm they're good.

SPEAKER_13 1:22:53

I understand Sarah. Don't worry.

SPEAKER_09 1:22:56

For those listening at home, it's the episode, it's the two-part episode where they put Janeway in the white tuxedo and I turn into word? Yeah, and I turn into the craziest person like in the world, right? Oh, for good.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:07

I remember when I used fan art of her in the tuxedo in the icon, but I was like, well, this is kind of spoilers, but it's small, so Sarah won't notice it.

SPEAKER_09 1:23:14

Yeah, it's fine. Uh, and then it uh ate my brain a few months later. It's fine, don't worry about it.

SPEAKER_13 1:23:19

Yeah. Um, let's see, what other uh God, there's a there were a lot. There's so many. Was really good in season five.

SPEAKER_09 1:23:29

Okay, you're gonna have to give us because I don't know episode names very well.

SPEAKER_13 1:23:33

Night is the one where they they go into an area of space with nothing in it and uh generally goes insane.

SPEAKER_09 1:23:38

Yes, absolutely. Super good episode.

SPEAKER_13 1:23:41

Um let's see what else. Um uh the one where they go to uh uh uh what rate they go they go to the uh the fake uh Starfleet headquarters.

unknown 1:23:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_13 1:23:59

Aliens are all posing as as members of Starfleet.

SPEAKER_09 1:24:01

Uh-huh. I love that one.

SPEAKER_13 1:24:03

Um that was also phenomenal. Um a lot of Borg. The Borg were really utilized well in this.

SPEAKER_09 1:24:13

They finally realized what they wanted the show to be, and they were like, oh, this needs to also be like the Borg.

unknown 1:24:20

Yeah?

SPEAKER_00 1:24:21

We're in Borg space. Why aren't we doing more episodes about them?

SPEAKER_07 1:24:25

Exactly.

SPEAKER_13 1:24:26

Like oh, oh! Living Witness, the one where the backup doctor is reawokened a hundred years, like hundreds of years later. That's like that one's so good.

SPEAKER_09 1:24:35

That's like a top five episode of Voyager.

SPEAKER_13 1:24:37

The the fucking the fucking dramatic reenactments of the Warship Voyager. The warship voyager, yes. I love it. It really is one of my favorite drags in like anything where like you have like an in-universe like dramatic reenactment.

SPEAKER_08 1:24:56

And it's completely wrong.

SPEAKER_13 1:24:57

Yeah, it's like everything is fucked up and wrong about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 1:25:01

Uh I love it's great, gag. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:04

Um have you gotten to the episode with handsome young Daniel Daykim yet?

SPEAKER_02 1:25:10

I don't believe so.

SPEAKER_09 1:25:12

Where the timescale on the planet is different than the timescale on the planet. No, I haven't gotten that one yet. Okay, no, no. Uh great episode, just uh heads up.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:19

Yeah. Yeah, probably one of my top five. Yes.

SPEAKER_13 1:25:22

I had the really, really good one with um where uh Belana has a bit has a big bug attached to her, and so they use a Cardassian scientist's hologram.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_13 1:25:36

And then you have to grab with the with the with the ethical nature. Very DS9 of like grappling with like your immorality and whatnot. Yeah. Um trying to think.

SPEAKER_09 1:25:53

There's so much. I know. You watched a lot of Voyager is the thing.

SPEAKER_13 1:25:56

Yeah, the thing is I've been watching a lot of fucking Voyager.

SPEAKER_09 1:25:59

And the show has finally found its legs, so there's a lot of really good episodes.

SPEAKER_13 1:26:03

Uh the one I thought there's the one where um Janeway hangs out with Leonardo da Vinci and they get stuck on a different planet, and Da Vinci can't perceive that he's on another alien planet. Yes. That one was the mobsters. Yeah, that one rolled. Yeah. Um, oh, uh really good one where everyone is starting to get sick and melting at the same time, and the the twist, the twist is that uh they were from the demon class planet from like a season ago.

SPEAKER_09 1:26:35

The probably the stone cold bummer episode of Star Trek of all time, right?

SPEAKER_13 1:26:41

For sure.

SPEAKER_09 1:26:41

Like, there are a lot of episodes of 90s Star Trek that are stone cold bummers, but that one is like the stone coldest of them all. So good. So sad and so good. Oh man.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:56

Because I remember there's like we were watching it and Sarah managed to piece it together literally a second before Kim makes the reveal. It was so good.

SPEAKER_09 1:27:07

Uh great episode.

SPEAKER_13 1:27:08

Uh The Bride of Chaotica was another solid one. Listen, listen, you gotta love holodeck episodes. Okay.

SPEAKER_09 1:27:17

Holodeck episodes are are my favorite. I have such like you could make a whole, like, you know, what are your top five favorite episodes of Star Trek? Yes. You could make an entire subgenre of what are your favorite holodeck episodes of Star Trek, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:27:33

My favorite thing is going to be when you're done, when they're done doing Captain Proton and they move on to the next theme, then it has one of the best Jadeway moments in the entire series. I am excited.

SPEAKER_13 1:27:52

I'm glad to know that there will be more Captain Proton.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:56

Yeah, it's like um it's kind of like how you Like uh Bashir and O'Brien kind of have like every season they have a theme that they do. Um I think it's like for here, I think it's more like every season and a half. They uh that we they get tired and move on to a new setting. Um but the last one that they do, like for seasons six and seven, the best one. It's just so good.

SPEAKER_13 1:28:21

So good. I'm excited. Um one note that I wanted to point out was the disease where uh Kim falls in love with the the girl on the generation ship and like starts to glow. Like literally glow, like has an afterglow after they bang.

SPEAKER_09 1:28:42

Oh right.

SPEAKER_13 1:28:42

Because that has the dumbest thing in the world, which is oh, suddenly it's a problem for Starfleet officers to fuck aliens. Yeah, like it's Kim doing it.

SPEAKER_09 1:28:53

Yeah, because it's Harry Kim doing it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 1:28:56

It's like, oh now, oh now you're mad.

SPEAKER_09 1:28:58

It's cause it's because Kim has a cursed life. Not as cursed as Miles Edgeworth uh Edgeworth. God damn it! God damn it, I do it every time.

SPEAKER_13 1:29:05

I know, it's it's just instinct.

SPEAKER_09 1:29:08

It's it's instinct. Uh Miles Edward O'Brien. Kim has a cursed life, not that cursed, but still pretty fucking cursed.

SPEAKER_13 1:29:17

But like, like, oh, oh really that that's a problem. Did anyone tell Riker?

SPEAKER_00 1:29:21

Yeah. Anyone tell Kirk?

SPEAKER_13 1:29:24

Yeah, I think I think pretty much everyone on the Enterprise, not just Riker, I think everyone has an episode where they fuck an alien.

SPEAKER_09 1:29:31

Yes, they're all fucking alien. That's like I think that's the plot of Star Trek The Next Generation is how many aliens can you fuck?

SPEAKER_13 1:29:39

A good 25% of the episodes of TNG are some ambassador or guest comes onto the ship and fucking either Beverly or Deanna falls in love with them.

SPEAKER_09 1:29:51

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_13 1:29:53

But now it's a problem when Kim does it.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:55

Yes. It's always a problem when Kim does it, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:00

The other half of episodes are they beam down to a planet and there's like a uh lady of nefarious intent who is trying to fuck either Riker as is normal or Picard in more uncommon episodes. Yes.

SPEAKER_09 1:30:14

If she's trying to fuck Riker, normal. If she's trying to fuck Picard, she's up to something.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:30:19

Yeah. That's literally it.

SPEAKER_13 1:30:24

Um we all know Picard only attracts nefarious women.

SPEAKER_08 1:30:32

That's correct. What is Mag that's like her whole thing?

SPEAKER_13 1:30:36

Crusher just furrowing her brain at the camera.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 1:30:41

Um, what else was good? Uh 1159 was fun. The one where it's it's it's a flash, it's the flashback to the 90s where uh we just see Janeway's ancestor being uh complete trash fire.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:53

Oh god, yes, I really like that one. Yeah. Uh no, you know, no, no stakes, no drama, just like a simple story. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:31:01

Yeah, like just kind of a world building episode about like not just like like the Janeway family, but also about just kind of the origins of Star Trek's like space history, right? Like I think those are fun too. You gotta you gotta have like world building episodes every now and then.

unknown 1:31:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 1:31:21

Um, and then there was the uh the second Captain Braxton episode where they recruit seven to top around time to prevent a time bomb from going off.

SPEAKER_08 1:31:30

Yeah, really good.

SPEAKER_13 1:31:32

And you just get you just get seven like warped onto the onto the bridge of Voyager before it made its per first flight, and she's like, I gotta get the fuck out of here before Janeway sees me and asks me questions.

SPEAKER_08 1:31:44

It's gonna be so fucking awkward otherwise.

SPEAKER_13 1:31:46

Oh my god, she's and then and then it's great episode where they're like, okay, well now this is all done, um, we gotta send you back one more time so you can prevent all this from happening in the first place. So Janeway's like, wait, but if we go back and then but I remember doing that, so uh how did you when what? And then the time the uh time captain has to be like, just fucking don't think about it. Don't don't fucking no don't ask questions you don't want the answers to.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:19

You gotta give yourself a headache, otherwise, okay?

SPEAKER_05 1:32:22

I I love how much time travel narratives are always like, look, first rule, don't think about it. If you're thinking about it at all, is the path to insanity.

SPEAKER_09 1:32:30

Yeah, that's the cognito hazard, okay?

SPEAKER_13 1:32:33

Don't uh the the season five to season six finale with uh the equinox was uh I learned written by uh the head writer for DS9.

SPEAKER_09 1:32:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_13 1:32:50

Which explains a lot because it was really fucking good.

SPEAKER_09 1:32:54

This now that's the episode with Evil Doctor, right? We get Evil Doctor in that one.

SPEAKER_13 1:32:57

Yeah, you get Evil Doctor in that one.

SPEAKER_09 1:32:59

He's so good. Where they find Ricardo, y'all.

SPEAKER_13 1:33:01

Yeah, they find another uh Federation ship that has also been going on adventures in the Delta Quadrant, and they haven't been quite as uh good, jolly and uh you know wacky antics as our friends on Voyager have had.

SPEAKER_09 1:33:17

No, they're not having nearly as much fun.

SPEAKER_13 1:33:19

Yeah. This is also one of those episodes where I'm like, oh, oh word, uh um uh James Roberts watched a lot of Star Trek, really?

SPEAKER_08 1:33:29

Yeah, yeah, right. Oh shit, for real.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:31

Yeah, the the the funniest part of Sarah going through Voyager the first time was like, James Robert, it's a fucking hat!

SPEAKER_04 1:33:38

So funny.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:38

He literally stole all of this.

SPEAKER_08 1:33:41

He's going to plagiarism super jail forever!

SPEAKER_05 1:33:45

It's it's just so funny how every time it's like, oh well, he didn't take this bit, but you know, he has lots of other cool, unique ideas that you see a later episode of Voyager, it's like, fuck, this is stolen too!

SPEAKER_13 1:33:56

It's so good. Um The last one, uh or no, actually, there's um the last two I watched were really, really good for different for different reasons, but still really good. Uh Tinker 10 or Doctor Spy, where the doctor starts uh giving himself the ability to daydream, and the aliens spying on them think that his daydreams are real.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:19

Yes, trade.

SPEAKER_13 1:34:21

They're like, We need you to pretend to be the captain because otherwise I'm gonna lose my job.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_13 1:34:30

Um Ricardo looks good in red.

SPEAKER_09 1:34:33

He does, yes.

SPEAKER_13 1:34:34

He looked in red.

SPEAKER_09 1:34:35

I I love Robert Picardo. He like truly this show. I mean, like, Voyager is good, I like it a lot, but it is so now that you're deeper into it, you can understand what I'm always like. No, this show is carried on its back by the Dr. Seven and Janeway, right?

SPEAKER_13 1:34:51

It's it's true. Like, like it wasn't it wasn't necessarily bad, but getting through season five, I'm like, I kind of want this to just be over so that I can get to lower decks.

SPEAKER_09 1:35:06

Yeah. It's it's really good, and I really like it, but like, and I do like the rest of the cast. That's not saying like I like Tom Paris and I like Harry Kim and all that, right? Like I think everybody is really good. Harry Kim, I believe. Exactly. We all love Harry Kim, but like I don't know. The the most interesting character writing, I think, is what they do with like Janeway Seven and the Doctor, right? Like those are the three characters that they're that I think that the writers themselves are the most interested in as well, right?

SPEAKER_13 1:35:38

When we when we get to like say July and then dedicate the rest of the year to talking about Star Trek, right? Um, I can go more into this, but like, you know, comparing every every character between all three series and like their role on the ship, you know, it's like when I think about which ones I like more than the others, there's like I don't think there's any Voyager character that gets above second place for me.

SPEAKER_08 1:36:09

Bold. Like in terms of like the captain of the world's most deranged Catherine Janeway fan, but I like Cisco more than Janeway.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:17

You're insane. Cisco is fine.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:20

I remember I remember before we started um Voyager, Sarah was tell was saying this exact thing to my face, like, you're insane. How could I like uh Janeway more than Cisco? I don't know how the tables have turned.

SPEAKER_05 1:36:34

I've honestly I've I've radicalized from my position where I used to be like, okay, if I'm in Starfleet, I would rather be under Cisco.

SPEAKER_11 1:36:44

Fair.

SPEAKER_05 1:36:45

But if I'm watching the show Star Trek, I would rather see Janeway. I do now actually think I would rather be under Janeway also, because I thought about it a little more, and I realized Janeway's the one more likely to do something utterly psychopathic to save my life. That's literally true. That's true, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:37:08

That's literally true. That's her entire goal, is that like no one gets left behind, right? So, yeah.

SPEAKER_13 1:37:15

No, I just I think I just I just like Cisco a little bit, a little slightest bit more than Janeway.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:19

I mean, that's fair. That's fair. That's completely fair. But you know what?

SPEAKER_13 1:37:22

The more that I think about it like the more that I think about it, I the doctor is the best of the three medic chief medical officers.

SPEAKER_10 1:37:28

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_13 1:37:29

So that one, that one I'll get I'll give to the doctor, but like like engineering or like uh um security officer, or uh definitely uh uh first officer.

SPEAKER_08 1:37:43

Right.

SPEAKER_13 1:37:44

Like Chicote is such a nothing character. Chicote's way down there compared to Riker and Kira.

SPEAKER_09 1:37:52

Yeah, no, you're so right, is the thing. Like Chicote is like so nothing.

SPEAKER_13 1:37:59

Like, yeah, like I like all these characters. It's just that they they aren't given the pizzazz that like individually, like that like TNG and DS9 characters get. Right. Um It's funny, I keep watching this show and I keep thinking, like, God, they really should have just made Tuvok first officer and Chakote chief of security. Yeah. That would have been way better.

SPEAKER_09 1:38:24

I think so too.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:26

Because it also adds like the funner, like ripple of at any given point Jacote is in chief position to just mutiny, and he never does. But like the stakes are so much higher when you realize at any point that betrayal could happen.

SPEAKER_09 1:38:47

I yeah, there's just I don't know. I I have thought a lot since we finished Voyager about like how you can fix Dakota because he's just I mean, he's literally a nothing character to me.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:00

Like, first off, give him a sexy braid.

SPEAKER_09 1:39:03

Yeah, for one, do something about that hair dog. Um You're not in Star Like, you've got you're not in Starfleet.

SPEAKER_13 1:39:12

You know what, you know what they they they did do something, and I wish they would have done it from the beginning. They had the like one of the most recent Shakota episodes I watched where he's like, he's a he's a boxer.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:22

Yeah, he has a thing. He has a he has a thing that he likes to do. Yeah, no, that's him a hobby.

SPEAKER_09 1:39:27

He doesn't, that's a thing, right? He has no I he just doesn't feel like he has any interiority versus Riker, who is insane, and Kira, who's a terrorist, right? Like those two have so much personality.

SPEAKER_13 1:39:44

Yeah, like Riker, Riker is, you know, he's the suave, you know, charismatic first officer. But he plays the trombone, he likes music, he can talk about music, and he has like hobbies and interests, you know. And Kira has has not just like uh the terrorist, but she's also very religious, and you can lean into that to like to and like inform her character.

SPEAKER_05 1:40:04

I'm going to make a bold suggestion for how you can fix Jakota. We've established that TNG can get Whoopi Goldberg, right? It's not above reason to think that they can get an actor who is maybe outside of their normal budget range, but it would be down for like a kind of weird TV project like this, right? Right. So as long as you're casting Hispanic guys to play Native American dudes anyway, what if he was played by Danny Trejo? Yes!

SPEAKER_00 1:40:46

We've all got too much New Vegas in the fucking.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:49

Okay, Saturn.

SPEAKER_13 1:40:51

Saturn. I'm picturing Danny Trejo in a Starfleet uniform. Yeah, it looks great, right? Look at that Saturn. In my mind, in my mind's eye, I can't perceive of it as anything more than a bad Photoshop.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:10

Danny Trejo's head photoshopped onto like a background extra.

SPEAKER_13 1:41:14

Yeah, exactly. Where like you can see like a little bit of the outline of the photo you took his head from.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:20

The problem is that I'm looking at the only time I can remember him looking even like slightly like put together in that time frame is in Con Air. And even looking at him then, he looks like like a 75-year-old man.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:37

But that's the thing, he's from the Maquis. It's okay if he looks a little grumpy. It's true. That's true. Well, it's just his rugged, roguish edge. And imagine instead of getting Catherine Janeway being inexplicably romantic tensioned with Chicote's current actor, she has like a weird situation with this rough old guy. Uh I'm sorry. I'm just saying, when you when you like, you know, if y'all figure out how to go back and recast Star Trek Voyager, remember, remember my words. Instead of trying to actually fix, instead of telling them that their cultural sensitivity consultant for Native Americans is like a Ukrainian guy, uh, instead of doing that, just get them to spend the extra money casting Danny Treho.

SPEAKER_08 1:42:28

100%.

SPEAKER_13 1:42:29

Uh oh my god. Um and then the last episode I watched before before we wrap to wrap this up is uh is uh Alice. Which is uh just the the uh perfect Tom Paris episode. What if the what if the cool vintage hot rod you bought wanted to fuck you? And then also wanted to kill you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:50

I want to be one with you. Mostly your corpse.

SPEAKER_08 1:42:55

It's so good.

SPEAKER_13 1:42:57

I I the whole episode I just kept thinking of the one Futurama bit where the chips or the Plant Express ships AI, like it's a personality, and starts dating, wants to date Bender. And he's like, let's merge our personalities and we can become one. And Bender goes, I'd rather be two. That way we can still be a horse for Halloween.

SPEAKER_12 1:43:19

Yeah. That's exactly it. That's just the episode in a nutshell of the parents going, I'd rather be a horse for Halloween.

SPEAKER_13 1:43:32

Once again, Balana proving to be the most patient girlfriend when her stupid her stupid boyfriend keeps getting these projects.

SPEAKER_06 1:43:38

Yeah. Oh man.

SPEAKER_13 1:43:42

Naming a ship after a girl he had a crush on in college, and Balana's like, Yep, I still want to sleep with him.

SPEAKER_09 1:43:48

I still wanna fuck him. Honestly, the other than the fact that like this show is carried by like the three characters we've mentioned before, um the other like great work that Star Trek Voyager manages to accomplish is making Balana Torres and Tom Paris not like good, but at least palatable, right? Like you see it, you're like, okay, this works for sure. Like you don't hate it. Like when they first like set up this whole Balana and Tom thing, all the way back in like season two, right? You're just like, oh god, what are they doing?

SPEAKER_13 1:44:31

Well, because at that point you've seen so much of Star Trek that you're like, I know how Star Trek romances pair out, pay out, they never feel good, right?

SPEAKER_09 1:44:39

It never lasts either, because like it's you know, it's the nature of you know serialized TV, is that we have to reset the status quo. But like, no, they actually don't do that in Voyager, it is a relationship that sticks around and develops over the course of the whole show. And like, you're still like, well, Bolana Torres is clearly a lesbian and and Tom Paris is in love with Harry Kim. Um, but you come away from it being like, well, I mean, it's not the the worst heterosexual relationship in Star Trek Voyager. That's a secret that we will get to in season seven. In the last five episodes of season seven, they introduce a heterosexual relationship that is so interminable that were it not for the fact that that show ends so strongly, I would be like, fuck this show.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:30

Um oh, I'm gonna like if the show did not end so strongly, that would have made me go. The seven seasons I wasted with Voyager was a waste. And I would have never recommended it to anyone.

SPEAKER_09 1:45:41

100%. But no. Voyager manages to pull it off at the very, very end, despite probably the worst of all the four No, no, there's a heterosexual. That doesn't last that long in Deep Space Nine. Um, Garrick and uh, you know.

SPEAKER_13 1:45:59

Oh yeah, no, that one is that one was the worst. I was thinking, like, what's the worst? And I was like, was it Whorf and Troy?

SPEAKER_05 1:46:07

You had me at a heterosexual relationship in which Garrick is one of the participants.

SPEAKER_09 1:46:12

That's literally all I have to say.

SPEAKER_13 1:46:14

Um we're gonna we're gonna talk about a similar relationship in the news.

SPEAKER_09 1:46:20

Oh boy!

SPEAKER_13 1:46:22

Oh yeah! Capcom pulled some shit recently.

SPEAKER_06 1:46:27

Funny.

SPEAKER_09 1:46:29

Uh Ben, we've been doing this for two hours. I don't know if we're gonna get to the news. We might have to just get the fucking highlights, dog.

SPEAKER_13 1:46:37

Uh don't worry. No, we'll we'll we'll we'll we'll we'll get through this. Don't worry.

SPEAKER_08 1:46:40

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_13 1:46:41

We'll move quick.

SPEAKER_05 1:46:42

Not we can we can no not too much discussion.

SPEAKER_13 1:46:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:46:44

Cool.

SPEAKER_13 1:46:45

Um Resident Evil Requiem DLC story expansion announced, more updates planned. It sold five million copies. They're like, yeah, we're put we're putting a photo mode and mercenaries mode uh and some story DLC.

SPEAKER_09 1:46:57

Yeah, shocking no one. They're adding more stuff to the like one of the best-selling residents, like one of the fastest selling Resident Evil games. Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 1:47:04

Um mercenary mode with with having played as Leon, a mercenary mode in this game is going to fuck.

SPEAKER_09 1:47:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:47:14

Insane the degree to which Capcom mogs on like every single other fucking triple A dev right now. Crazy. Where it's like we put out a 10-hour single player game for$70. People bought it because it's good, because they like the thing we we put out. And we didn't it didn't have like a battle pass or like a 40-hour open world with tons of nonsense side content in it. It was just sort of a game that you play.

SPEAKER_09 1:47:40

And they're still they're like consistently putting things out every year, like not just like because they put out that Monster Hunter game that people are still mad about. Um, they're consistently putting out Resident Evil games. Pragmata is coming out, right? Like that game does exist, which is crazy. Um, like I it turns out when you keep your scope small and you reuse assets like it's going out of style, um, and everybody is intimately familiar with all of your systems because you're not constantly laying people off. Oh, yeah, you can make video games.

SPEAKER_05 1:48:18

Hey Microsoft, it turns out, and this might shock you guys, when you have proprietary software that you have your entire workforce trained to use over the course of five or ten or fifteen years, and you don't fire them to meet insane contractor quotas, it turns out it's really easy to make a game in like two or three years.

SPEAKER_08 1:48:44

What did you fucking know that?

SPEAKER_00 1:48:47

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_08 1:48:49

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:52

Um It's the consumers who are wrong.

SPEAKER_05 1:48:54

Yeah, for sure. You need to let us buy ActaBlizz for$80 billion because it's impossible to be competitive otherwise. Capcom has our balls on a vice script.

SPEAKER_09 1:49:08

Yeah, the big the biggest computer company in the world is somehow getting mogged by like one Japanese developer who's just like, we make zombie games. But what's right?

SPEAKER_13 1:49:20

What was their brilliant strategy to pull this off? And Capcom's like, we put Leon in the game.

SPEAKER_05 1:49:26

Capcom's just like looks at the camera, it's like, what if a mommy was eight and a half feet tall? Oh word, we made it. And then you sell like however many fucking million copies that one sold, even though that game's not that good.

SPEAKER_13 1:49:40

Uh speaking of Actabliss, Overwatch co-creator Jeff Kaplan on his exit from Activision Blizzard. It was the biggest fuck you moment I've had in my career.

SPEAKER_09 1:49:49

This is the craziest thing. So I mean, how do you not Okay, read the quote, and then I'll say my piece.

SPEAKER_13 1:49:57

Uh where is the exact Quote in here. Um, okay, here it is. Quote from Jeff Kaplan here talking about uh leaving. Quote What ultimately broke me in my Blizzard career was that I got called into the CFO's office, and he sits me down and says, he gives me a date and which the time was 2020, was going to slip into 2021, but at the time it was 2020, and he said, Overwatch has to make redacted in 2020, and then every year after that it needs a recurring revenue of redacted. And then he says to me, If it doesn't do redacted, we're going to lay off a thousand people, and that's going to be on you.

SPEAKER_09 1:50:33

How do you not immediately leap across that desk and just stab the guy in the throat with a pen?

SPEAKER_13 1:50:42

That's like No one would convict you.

SPEAKER_09 1:50:43

Nobody would convict you.

SPEAKER_13 1:50:45

Like that is that is you close the blinds and then you and then outside of the office you hear the sounds of bone bones cracking.

SPEAKER_09 1:50:52

You hear like cartoonish, like chainsaw ringing sounds, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:50:57

See, Jeff Kaplan, if you're ever in this situation again, there is a legal defense for this. I was preventing an act of terrorism. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:51:06

Like, I don't it I genuinely think if somebody put me in that situation, I would end up in jail.

SPEAKER_05 1:51:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:51:15

Because I I like struck my boss in a fit of rage, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:51:19

Yeah, no, it's like, no, I have a I have a much more effective way to prevent a thousand people being laid off, I say, taking off my belt and putting it around his neck.

SPEAKER_13 1:51:28

Have you ever seen the movie Office Space? You know how that movie ends?

SPEAKER_06 1:51:33

Yeah, like that. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:36

I can't believe Jeff Kaplan was in this situation, kind of the the unsung hero trying to protect everybody.

SPEAKER_09 1:51:45

Crazy that Jeff Tigglebiddy's Kaplan is the hero in this story.

SPEAKER_13 1:51:51

Like it like fucking fucking a brief moment of humanity and caring for for fellow human for fellow man broke free from the cynical crack in his heart in his chest. And he's like, I gotta go.

SPEAKER_09 1:52:08

I got man, this is a bad you you know it's a bad scene when Jeff Kaplan is like, this is a bad scene, dog.

SPEAKER_05 1:52:16

It's like getting a face turn for an antagonist in Baki.

SPEAKER_13 1:52:22

It's like if Hanma, like sudden like Yujiro Hanma, like rescued a grandma from a burning building. And he's like, well, I couldn't just leave her to suffer.

SPEAKER_06 1:52:34

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_09 1:52:35

It's so I it's such a crazy quote. It's such a crazy quote. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_13 1:52:42

We're going to lay off a thousand people, and that's going to be on you.

SPEAKER_09 1:52:47

Psychotic, deeply evil individual. How do you shit?

SPEAKER_13 1:52:51

How do you not just like put your palm on that guy's face and then just like obliterate him to his atoms?

SPEAKER_08 1:53:00

You just do you do to him with Dr. Manhattan at the end of the watchman.

unknown 1:53:07

You know?

SPEAKER_05 1:53:09

Jeff Kaplan just fingers outstretched. It's a shame. I heard you contracted Ligma. Who's Steve Jobs?

SPEAKER_06 1:53:21

Oh crazy.

SPEAKER_13 1:53:22

Oh my god. Uh more more crazy corporate bullshit. Uh Xbox quietly erases the worst marketing campaign it ever launched.

SPEAKER_08 1:53:33

Oh shit, for real?

SPEAKER_05 1:53:35

The turnaround on this is so crazy. So the the summary is that this is an Xbox thing. They deleted that webpage, it's just gone. All that ad copy that has that phraseology on it is just gone. Uh, it is insane to me that this also comes after, you know, Phil Spencer's like retirement announcement or whatever, and them at the same time as that trying to go, and this was all Sarah Bond's fault, by the way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_12 1:53:59

It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, you don't get to.

SPEAKER_09 1:54:03

Just literally hucking Sarah. I don't even like Sarah Bond that much, right? No. She wasn't the CEO of Xbox for like 10 plus years either.

SPEAKER_13 1:54:15

The thing is, the thing is, the Gorge prides itself on making sure our hate is focused at the right people for the right reasons. Absolutely. Okay? Like, I'm not gonna hate someone for something they didn't do when there's I'm gonna hate her for all the dumb shit she did.

SPEAKER_09 1:54:28

Exactly. But this but this is an Xbox, it's not on Sarah Bond.

SPEAKER_13 1:54:32

Yeah, no, no, no. We we not her. No, there's other we can spread that hate around.

SPEAKER_06 1:54:37

There's plenty of.

SPEAKER_05 1:54:38

Like you can't, like, you can't have Sarah Bond be the evil scheming vizier who tricked a king into into like raising the taxes or whatever. That's just simply not reality.

SPEAKER_13 1:54:51

That's not how this works.

SPEAKER_12 1:54:52

No.

SPEAKER_13 1:54:53

You don't get to you don't get you don't get to just use her as a scapegoat. We we know her crimes. She has plenty of other ones, don't worry.

SPEAKER_06 1:55:02

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_13 1:55:03

Uh speaking of crimes. Nathan Fillion says Firefly animated series in development with Co-Star set to reprise roles. Concept art revealed.

SPEAKER_09 1:55:14

So embarrassing. The concept art is embarrassing. Yeah. Literally just drawings of their characters.

SPEAKER_13 1:55:20

Yeah, this is this is just you put smoke. This is you you put a filter over some stock photos you took back in 2002.

SPEAKER_09 1:55:27

Yeah, this is um complete and total smoke. Like this does not, this is this is never gonna exist. Like, cause they like they don't even like this this is happening because Nathan Fillion is like, yeah, look forward to our Kickstarter or something, right? Right, yeah. Um so like this is all dependent on a Kickstarter that hasn't even launched yet doing well. Hey Peanut, can you not destroy my bed while I'm recording? Thanks. Um, I appreciate that, buddy. So this is all dependent on like a Kickstarter, and like it's crazy funny to be like, uh yeah, we're not associated with Joss Whedon because of like all of the negative publicity around him. You guys got back Alex Baldwin. Adam.

SPEAKER_13 1:56:14

Adam wrong Baldwin. Yeah, don't excuse me.

SPEAKER_09 1:56:16

That one should that one shot someone, excuse me.

SPEAKER_13 1:56:17

Yeah, we remember, remember, we hate for the right reasons. You're right, you're right.

SPEAKER_09 1:56:22

I apologize, I apologize. Adam Baldwin, of course.

SPEAKER_04 1:56:27

I forget, isn't Adam Baldwin like a MAGA guy?

SPEAKER_12 1:56:29

Yeah, oh yeah, he's he invented Gamergate.

SPEAKER_09 1:56:32

And he invented the term Gamergate, yeah, like he's that guy.

SPEAKER_13 1:56:35

Oh fuck, this was uh this was out of all the people you could have like bring back everyone else, sure, but you could uh not you can get someone else to do that voice if it's actually gonna be a real animated series.

SPEAKER_09 1:56:47

Yeah, like I'm sure plenty of people, what's that character's name? Jane? Tons of people know how to do a Jane impression.

SPEAKER_04 1:56:53

Oh, right.

SPEAKER_05 1:56:54

This guy, I forgot that that two of my favorite characters in video games from the seventh generation are retroactively ruined. I forgot.

SPEAKER_09 1:57:04

Yeah, wait.

SPEAKER_05 1:57:05

Dutch from ODST and uh Cal Rieger from Mass Effect 2. Oh, that's Cal Rieger! The the gung-ho Quarian Marine who's all like hoo-aw about shit. That was him also. And it's like Yeah, unfortunately Adam Baldwin.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:21

Um well between that and like replaying New Vegas and then coming to Arcade Ganon. Oh god.

SPEAKER_09 1:57:27

Right? Going to and you go to like meet fucking arcade Gannon and he's just so funny and charming, and you're like, oh, I love his voice actor, and then you remember it's Zachary Levy, and you're like, fuck! Shit, god damn it! Uh it's just it's rough out here, folks.

SPEAKER_08 1:57:43

Oh, no!

SPEAKER_09 1:57:44

No! I'm taking damage. I'm making I'm making tick damage sounds constantly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 1:57:52

Yeah, you're making you're making you're making Bethesda Bethesda uh damage sounds.

SPEAKER_08 1:57:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_13 1:57:59

Um side note, personal note, I was I I found an episode of um uh uh Brent Spiner and uh um Brent Spiner's podcast that he does with um uh Riker's actor. His name just escaped me for some reason. John and Frank's John Franks. Uh they do a podcast together and they were they had Alan Tudic and Nathan Filion on it.

SPEAKER_09 1:58:23

Oh, that's cute.

SPEAKER_13 1:58:24

And they were they were uh they they had like a little a little scuffle a bit because uh Nathan Filion and Alan Tudic stole the name of the podcast that they wanted to use, which is Once We Were Spacemen.

SPEAKER_09 1:58:39

Oh, that's great. That's cute. I will say that's pretty cute.

SPEAKER_13 1:58:42

Yeah, that is a good name. And their their podcast is um is uh uh dropping names with uh with Johnny and Brent.

SPEAKER_08 1:58:50

That's hilarious. That's so funny.

unknown 1:58:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_09 1:58:53

Um just to call Jonathan Frakes and Brent Spiner Johnny and Brent. That's why I was like, I was like, okay I love that.

SPEAKER_13 1:59:00

I I for a second I was like, oh, aren't did they get did they get Jonathan Frakes and Brent Spiner to like guest host this show?

SPEAKER_06 1:59:06

No, no, it's just their show.

SPEAKER_13 1:59:08

Stay our podcast, okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:59:09

That's great. That rule is. Uh, have they considered uh, you know, since they lost their their first one with the We Used to Be Spacemen, have they considered something like uh two best friends cast?

SPEAKER_08 1:59:20

Nobody else is using it right now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 1:59:23

Um yeah, that show is never coming out. Don't worry. That's that's not happening.

SPEAKER_09 1:59:26

No, it's smoke.

SPEAKER_13 1:59:28

Uh next, all games with loot boxes in them will be rated minimum Peggy 16 starting this summer.

SPEAKER_09 1:59:35

I love that.

SPEAKER_05 1:59:37

I'm shocked this is news because I know that uh the UK uh has been historically like the UK and the EU have historically been way more strict about the uh about that shit. So I'm surprised that's not already.

SPEAKER_09 1:59:49

Yeah, it's crazy that it's not already a thing. Yeah um but now that it's just like now it's just set in stone like law of like if it's got a loot box, it's Peggy 16 or more, yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_13 2:00:01

Uh this also says that any online game without a blocking or reporting feature has to be Peggy 18.

SPEAKER_09 2:00:08

Really? That's great. Yeah, great. I wish that were me.

SPEAKER_13 2:00:12

I'm sure I'm sure this was this hadn't been made law because of non-European influence. Like comparing with other with other countries like rating systems. But like they could finally at least make it make it legal for them to require this. Uh very cool. I wish they would wish it were me.

SPEAKER_09 2:00:36

Jesus, Jesus, I've seen what you've done for other people and I know I know you can make it happen for me.

SPEAKER_05 2:00:44

At the very least, the block list thing, because of like having to actually now do the technical work to implement that means that if there's any publisher who is considering that so they can get like a more appropriate age rating in the EU, it's going to carry over to other territories because they already did the work.

SPEAKER_09 2:01:03

It's like the California thing, right? Where if like if it's illegal in California, it's de facto illegal everywhere else, right? Right. Because it's such a huge market. That makes sense. That's nice.

SPEAKER_13 2:01:15

Uh next, oh fucking here we go. Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman's EGDC firm has required five percent of Capcom.

SPEAKER_09 2:01:28

It's it's it's not a controlling stake right now, but it bodes poorly for the future, right?

SPEAKER_05 2:01:35

Yes, because this is approximately their strategy for SNK of buying relatively small portions uh every year or two, and then eventually when they had like a larger like 20 to 30 percent stake, then sweeping in. It's quite literally a foot in the door.

SPEAKER_07 2:01:51

Right.

SPEAKER_05 2:01:52

There's some part of me that thinks, like, you know, SNK went through, A, because SNK is uh, and I don't mean this to disparage uh, you know, people who are like king of fighters or whatever. Uh SNK is basically culturally irrelevant to like the average person. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 2:02:09

Um and we've seen it. Unless you live in Mexico, right? Like that's yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:02:13

But like we've seen them do this before, like the specific strategy, the the I forget the the name of like the uh Saudi Arabian like investment arm, right? That's like the the a treasury. Um I could a hundred percent see if it's Capcom who is kind of like the shining jewel of the Japanese game market currently, if there is some consideration domestically of them going, no, we need to actually be protectionists about not letting our companies be bought out by a Florida festival.

SPEAKER_09 2:02:44

I I would hope so. Every now and then a little bit of protectionism uh is fine, actually. Yeah, because we I would prefer that uh Mohammed the Solomon not own a controlling stake in in Capcom. That would be nice. So we don't have to put your fucking racist football players.

SPEAKER_05 2:03:01

He's gonna be he's gonna be in the new mercenaries mode. Because part of my my thinking is also like the other thing the Japanese uh like game industry is to contend with recently is with you know companies like Netes and Nexon and Tencent like buying these like either controlling stakes in developers or like like poaching talent from developers to kickstart these new companies and then gutting them instantly. Is that like the Japanese game industry right now is kind of having a problem with like foreign industry just coming in and tearing it down. Yeah, right, no, for real.

SPEAKER_09 2:03:38

And like, yeah, like because there is the uh the I don't know if it's on the docket, but the the negoti thing, right?

SPEAKER_13 2:03:45

Um like a dragon game, the yeah, the game of dragon game.

SPEAKER_09 2:03:48

Yeah, that's not on the docket, but like yeah, it's all it's all related, right? It's this idea, and I you know, I do to a certain extent feel bad for Nagoshi, but also he left Sega to go do this thing at a time when you should see the writing on the wall. Like it's how like Isino left Capcom to go make a game with Neties, I think. Um I think he also went to Neti's, either Netties or Tencent. Um it's way too late in the timeline for you to have done that and not look like a massive fucking dumbass. Right? Like, I understand wanting more money to make a video game independently, I really do. But at where we are in the timeline of like getting stabbed in the back by Tencent Nexxon Netties, etc. etc. You should have known better. Um so like nobody I mean, like, I was not surprised when that news came out that that netties yanked funding from Gang of Dragon out of nowhere. Like, no shit that was gonna happen, dude. One, obviously, two, why were you making video games so fucking expensive in the first place? Have you lost your mind? Um it's you know, it's a weird time because like, yeah, Japanese developers are kind of the only people putting out, you know, it's Indian developers and Japanese developers are like the only guys making video games right now. And Korean. I guess I should say like Asian developers in general, because there's like a ton of Chinese games and a ton of Korean games coming out right now.

SPEAKER_13 2:05:23

Not Western devs is what you're gonna do.

SPEAKER_09 2:05:24

No, no, not big ticket Western devs, absolutely not. Um and so you know, I just kind of wonder what this whole space is gonna look like in five years, because like obviously, as Western game dev tears itself apart and and venture capital needs to find new resources to consume whole, um, obviously it's going to move into the Asian market, right? Because like that's where the that's where the blood is, I suppose.

SPEAKER_05 2:05:54

Yeah, yeah, they've run out of American companies to like strip for me.

SPEAKER_09 2:05:58

Right, exactly. So we'll see. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:06:01

There's copper chum and then they're Chinese wires.

SPEAKER_08 2:06:05

Exactly. Christ.

SPEAKER_13 2:06:07

It's just it's it's just very funny this article, this announcement coming off hot on the heels of Requiem selling five million copies because Capcom's like, we've been getting some good publicity lately. We need to stink up the joint.

SPEAKER_08 2:06:19

Yeah, we made things a little, we need to shit shit on things a little bit.

SPEAKER_13 2:06:22

Very, I don't know. I I don't believe, you know, obviously correlation ain't causation, baby, but it's very funny to point out that this article happens and then um like a week later it turns out that Alex from Street Fighter's been fucking his cousin. What else? Stellar transition, though.

SPEAKER_08 2:06:40

That's a great way to do that.

SPEAKER_13 2:06:42

Listen, I need I I I'm I'm not gonna make it an article, but I needed to talk about this.

SPEAKER_08 2:06:47

Yeah, Alex from Street Fighter's been fucking his cousin for sure.

SPEAKER_05 2:06:50

They're they're so fun.

SPEAKER_08 2:06:51

Like they're so funny.

SPEAKER_05 2:06:53

Uh it's normal for visual novels. You know?

SPEAKER_08 2:06:57

Totally.

SPEAKER_05 2:06:58

I kinda it's kind of surprising in Street Fighter when you have this elaborate canon that what placed them very clearly as second cousins. Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 2:07:09

And like people were like, okay, well, you know, maybe the translation's a little wonky, like, you know, maybe in like, you know, you mean like, oh, it's my cousin, or it's like, it's my my my parents have been friends forever, and we grew up as cousins. And they're like, no, the the Japanese word they used literally translates to like the child of my parents' sibling.

SPEAKER_09 2:07:32

That's so funny.

SPEAKER_13 2:07:33

Like they are blood related.

SPEAKER_09 2:07:35

That's so funny. I mean, you know. I mean, you what can you do but laugh? I mean, it's just kind of funny at that point. Like, sure. Why not? Alex is fucking his cousin. Sure, man.

SPEAKER_05 2:07:50

I guess had I guess Street Fighter has not yet had guy who is weirdly obsessed with his sister.

SPEAKER_09 2:07:58

That's right. So it's you gotta have that character trope somewhere. So, like, fucking, why not?

SPEAKER_13 2:08:05

Like, okay, I get that in the lore for Street Fighter VI, Alex has kind of like become a heel. Like an Indie Universe heel, but like, man, you could turn heel by doing anything else.

SPEAKER_03 2:08:19

Alex is like, I moved to Metro City because it's legal here.

SPEAKER_00 2:08:24

I'm some kind of devil, man.

SPEAKER_13 2:08:26

Oh, it was the the like the response I saw that got me was someone posting that one uh that one Twitter uh uh two tweet system where it's like uh the the the uh visual novel thing where it's like I love you as my sister, and then it's like oh I finally found the first visual novel without incense, and then the next post is but I love you as a woman born hands and going, no, Ben, that's the that's Tsukihime.

SPEAKER_10 2:08:55

Tsukihime baby.

SPEAKER_05 2:08:58

Uh but I mean I don't know why everyone's surprised. I mean his last name is canonically Habsburg.

SPEAKER_08 2:09:06

That's just in the blood at that point.

SPEAKER_13 2:09:08

That's just family tradition. Don't say in the blood in regards to this. Uh, man, do you uh like how do you you they have to roll this back?

SPEAKER_08 2:09:24

No!

SPEAKER_05 2:09:25

Not many there there's too many hard assets that have already been winning. That dude drive impacted his cousin. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_13 2:09:35

Do you how do you think Kenny Omega feels right now?

SPEAKER_08 2:09:40

Can he cosplay a cousin fucker?

SPEAKER_13 2:09:43

Hey, you know, not only that, but they based all of Alex's moves off of Kenny Omega's moves.

SPEAKER_09 2:09:49

It's just what they I mean, they that's probably just what they think, like, you know, like Kenny Omega, uh, you know, he's a Westerner, right? They fuck their cousins over there. It's fine.

SPEAKER_05 2:09:59

We watched Game of Thrones. It's normal.

SPEAKER_09 2:10:01

It's normal. Oh my god. I mean, it's better than his sister. It's just his second cousin. They're you know, it's they're not doing Lannister shit up in here. It's fine.

SPEAKER_13 2:10:11

There's there's the uh the fo the the like the montage image from his like his ending cards where it's him holding her as an infant.

SPEAKER_11 2:10:20

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_13 2:10:21

And you're like, oh you know it.

SPEAKER_05 2:10:25

No, wait, guys, I I understand now. Because I did open I I'm doing the uh reading Wikipedia article for food while eating food thing, right? Of course. Uh I did pull up the Alex page on the Street Fighter wiki, and I'm in like the concept section for him, right? It's like how this character is conceptualized. Yeah. Uh here's the start of a of the second paragraph. Many of Alex's character traits allude to the famous professional wrestler Hulk Hogan. And he's based based specifically on Hulk Hogan's brief stint in NJPW in the 80s.

SPEAKER_11 2:11:00

Oh no. That explains a lot.

SPEAKER_05 2:11:04

I'm so the I can't believe Bubble the Love Sponge had footage of Alex fucking his cousin. That's so crazy.

SPEAKER_00 2:11:12

Oh, okay. So, okay. So Patricia is like technically his like second cousin once removed.

SPEAKER_08 2:11:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 2:11:24

Like their parents were cousins.

SPEAKER_08 2:11:28

Right.

SPEAKER_05 2:11:29

But that's I think that's still out of bounds. That family tree is not long enough for you to go, it's probably fine.

SPEAKER_00 2:11:39

I genuinely came in there going like, okay, so like they they sh like they don't just share a grandfather, like their their their dads were besties and brothers. No, it is they they share a great grandfather.

SPEAKER_13 2:11:55

Also that's also Patricia's dad basically adopted Alex.

SPEAKER_05 2:12:00

I was gonna say, okay, I'm sure there's some degree of post-facto fuckery here to make this sound as damning as possible. Really funny to scroll down to his relationships. Uh, Patricia, I'm going to read the first sentence of this uh paragraph to you and nothing else, because the first sentence is one of the most powerful sentences written in the English language. Patricia is Alex's second cousin, comma, adoptive younger sister, comma, wife, comma, and mother of his child.

SPEAKER_08 2:12:37

Art. Perfect. Chef's kiss.

SPEAKER_05 2:12:39

I never even attempted to throw away the thumbnail I made because I feel like we do need to represent this saga in the thumbnail.

SPEAKER_00 2:12:47

So good. No, please don't, because I know you worked hard on that.

SPEAKER_05 2:12:52

I'll share the one that I posted. Like I've I've had it in GIMP open the entire time.

SPEAKER_13 2:12:57

I saw the post that made me think about this where it's like, Sarah, you had this guy, you and I had this discussion a while ago when uh the uh the Jojo uh fighting game was getting its first DLC and the new character was was fucking Stroheim.

SPEAKER_08 2:13:09

Right.

SPEAKER_13 2:13:10

And it was like the first character uh to uh where you have to frown and shake your head whenever you pick them.

SPEAKER_08 2:13:19

Frowning and shaking my head at the local to make sure everybody knows I disapprove of Alex's life choices.

SPEAKER_13 2:13:28

Listen, I'm listening I made Alex in third strike. I don't have a choice. I have to keep playing as him.

SPEAKER_06 2:13:34

It's the it's the the most literal.

SPEAKER_09 2:13:39

It's like the most literal interpretation of that one Twitter post that's like me when I lose at a local like zero to thirty. Good game, good game. I still got a lot to learn.

SPEAKER_08 2:13:50

Me when I lose a really close match online. Wow, I didn't know they let illiterate pedophiles play this game.

SPEAKER_12 2:14:01

It's just like oh my Capcom needs to save face and roll this back so.

SPEAKER_08 2:14:10

No, I don't want him to change it at all. Cause it's so funny. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 2:14:15

Yeah, I'm sorry, Deb Weird. He was suffering from this. This is so much funnier.

SPEAKER_13 2:14:19

We're never gonna see Alex again.

SPEAKER_00 2:14:25

We're going to see him in increasingly shittier and shittier Hulk Hogan cosplay.

SPEAKER_13 2:14:30

Man, you know, man, you thought Street Fighter VI did Ken dirty.

SPEAKER_08 2:14:36

Oh fuck. Okay.

SPEAKER_13 2:14:39

Oh my god. Judge orders Subnautica 2 studio CEO fired by Crafton to be reinstated and gives him full control over early access steam launch.

SPEAKER_09 2:14:48

This is the Okay, so like the small thing is I uh my family has a legal background, right? My mom was a court reporter for 25 years, and my my ex-stepdad was a lawyer for 25 years, right? Um so I love I I do kind of have like a weird love of le reading legal briefs, especially when they're uh when they cook. And this one cooks super hard for being written, like for being written by a judge. There's so many times where he functionally just says, like, no, fuck you. I see what you're doing. You're not allowed to do this, dumbass. Like, do you think I'm stupid? Um it owns, it's so good. Judges hate chat GPT so much, and this dipshit used chat GPT to like help him cook up a reason to fire this guy, right?

SPEAKER_05 2:15:41

Explicitly just to get out of a contract and to get out of a contract a$250 million bonus specifically, right?

SPEAKER_09 2:15:50

Um, and I mean like you I mean, it's incredible. You if you are going to fire somebody in order to keep from paying a$250 million bonus, you gotta work really, really hard to make sure it doesn't look like you fired them to keep from paying that bonus, right? And this guy did not do that work even a little bit.

SPEAKER_13 2:16:19

This is this is like if he took someone into his office and shot them, and the only thing he did to cover up the crime is throw the gun into his trash bin.

SPEAKER_11 2:16:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 2:16:33

And then he's like, How did I get caught?

SPEAKER_09 2:16:36

I don't know how I got caught.

SPEAKER_05 2:16:38

This story owns um I'm I'm really interested to see the ongoing drama because now we get to see will Crafton actually comply with the. Because also because like because like I mean, like Sumana the Sonaka devs are like one of their subsidiaries that they bought or whatever. Crafton's a South Korean company.

SPEAKER_08 2:17:00

Right.

SPEAKER_05 2:17:01

And they're being told to do this by an American state court, right? Right. So I'm like kind of like, are they actually going to?

SPEAKER_09 2:17:10

I mean, if I mean, like, obviously you can you can still sanction Krafton because Crafton is a like it's a big South Korean company, they still want to do business in the United States. So as a result, they are going to have to at some point comply with this court order, right? Like, they don't I mean I just don't know what this looks like. Like, I don't know what this looks like going forward. It's a really interesting story.

SPEAKER_05 2:17:38

It will be very interesting to see what future compliance and or attempts to avoid compliance look like in this case.

SPEAKER_13 2:17:46

I mean, in this case, he's probably I mean, considering he did it once, he's probably just gonna keep asking ChatGPT how to get out of this.

SPEAKER_05 2:17:54

Well, realistically, I think what's going to happen, uh, more likely than that, is that his board is going to fire him.

SPEAKER_09 2:18:01

Yeah, that actually is extremely possible.

SPEAKER_05 2:18:03

Because he has effectively uh cost them not only$250 million, but also a shitload of bad PR. Yeah, bad presentation.

SPEAKER_09 2:18:09

And all of and I mean at this point, like uh this is costing them legal fees, right? Like you're you're just running up the bill to basically not pay something that was contractually obligate, right? Um so yeah, no, I really I really want to see how this Crafton story turns out because um it's been a while since you get like one a really good uh briefing from a judge, and two like having a big company like Crafton, who and they're kind of another um like an excellent netties type of thing, right? Um have another company like that just kind of get swatted down in court and be like, no, you're not allowed to and like the the the suit was filed in Delaware, and Delaware is not a place people live, it's a place where companies say their head offices are so they can get tax breaks. Like nobody actually lives in Delaware, it's just like a Potemkin town, if it was the whole state.

SPEAKER_05 2:19:17

It it is assumed that if you are a state representative or governor or senator uh former, or say, I don't know, former president of the United States of America, yeah, uh from Delaware that you are on the take from Visa and MasterCard.

SPEAKER_09 2:19:32

Yeah, 100%, right? Um so to get a judgment like this in the state of Delaware is a sign that you fucked up super hard. It's kind of it's a very much like you like, yeah, Delaware is a very business friendly state, but also by being a very business friendly state, that means they're very they're very stringent about like contracts and shit, right? Because that's how businesses fucking work. Um and so this is such like a blatant and like not even very clever defiance of a contract that of course it would piss off even a judge in Delaware, right? Um it's great, it rules uh an extremely fun story to wake up and read that morning.

SPEAKER_13 2:20:19

You you you love a feel-good story in this day and age.

SPEAKER_09 2:20:23

It's good, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_13 2:20:25

It's it's so satisfying when a judge is like, wow, you did it worse than anyone I've ever seen.

SPEAKER_06 2:20:31

Terrible at this, yeah.

SPEAKER_13 2:20:33

You have to have like not even one layer of difference, distance between these two things. Like you just you just did it.

SPEAKER_09 2:20:43

You just didn't even try, yeah.

SPEAKER_13 2:20:46

Uh speaking of not trying.

SPEAKER_09 2:20:49

Nice.

SPEAKER_13 2:20:50

Nvidia's new DLSS 5 brings total realistic lighting to RTX 50 series.

SPEAKER_09 2:20:56

You're right. This has been a good episode. It's been cracker after cracker, huh? Dang.

SPEAKER_05 2:21:01

I love this bit. A, um, this really blew up because of the coverage by Digital Foundry, which is I think the important thing to note. Uh, because these guys who purport themselves to be like the foremost experts on this sort of thing, who have been uh conspicuously doing a lot more, uh, shall we say, uh, literal paid promotion for Nvidia since going independent from IGN, uh, put out a video that just sort of credulously uh fluffed Nvidia's hog on this technology. A, um, notably, uh, then this is like the the the the the softer ball here, um not really commenting on the fact that uh this demo, this like kind of shitty looking demo that uh was running in really controlled scenarios, uh took two 5090s! Two! Two! One to run to game and an entire separate one to run the DLSS5, quote unquote.

SPEAKER_09 2:21:55

Right.

SPEAKER_05 2:21:56

Um, the other one is that they also uh purported that this is like entirely uh like lighting engine techniques and shading engine techniques and things like that, and nothing that filters the game's presentation at all. Uh saying this over what is very obviously footage of Grace in Resident Evil 9, who has different facial features because her facial features have been made like to look 10% more like fucking uh perks and rec-era Aubrey Plata.

SPEAKER_09 2:22:27

Yeah, like a fucking porn star, because like this is like this the uh the the CEO of NVIDIA swears this is not being run through AI, but like every AI diet data set is so poisoned by scraping like porn, right? Because like there's like this whole thing, like a massive study about how like every single input you put into like all of these different like AI models, um, with terms like like Latina, right? Comeback having clearly pulled from like porn data sets that they scraped, right? And like fucking Grace has like her fucking porn star makeup on and her like big pouty lips and her big thick eyelashes and shit. And like it's so blatant. It's it's the most don't piss on my head and tell me it's raining, right? Like you they used to try a little bit harder before they just lied to our faces, right?

SPEAKER_13 2:23:34

Okay, so in on NVIDIA on uh the site, they have a a comparison thing where they have it uh side-by-side comparison images, but you can also do an overlay thing where you slightly forth.

SPEAKER_12 2:23:49

You can clearly see it's a different model.

SPEAKER_09 2:23:53

It's a completely different face. No, it's it's just because it's AI. Look at like the shape of her eyes and her mouth and shit. Like I'm how much poutier her fucking lips are. Like, it's literally hallucinating new facial features because that's what AI does, it just hallucinates shit. It's not actually intelligent, it can't produce like stuff based off of context. That's not how this works. So, yeah, of course, Grace looks completely different compared to what she actually looks like in-game because it's being run through a fucking AI filter, obviously.

SPEAKER_05 2:24:25

And then also they had the gall to go like, well, you know, the developers have full control over what it looks like, and everyone was was clear with this. And then you you like literally get the reports from Capcom developers thing like, we found out about this when everybody else did.

SPEAKER_09 2:24:40

Yeah, like Capcom and Ubisoft both were like, we didn't know anything about this. I mean, and the thing is, no, this is not even remotely consumer viable. It had to run on two 50-90s, right?

SPEAKER_02 2:24:53

Yeah, um, not a fucking chance.

SPEAKER_09 2:24:55

It this does not actually exist for the consumer grade market, but it's just so like indicative of of this dumbass pursuit of trying to find um like a use case for AI, right? Like nobody wants it, everybody just hates it.

SPEAKER_13 2:25:14

It's it it like it's so blatant that like the only things they showed off were uh camera people camera facing human beings, you know, no real motion, no real motion. Like there's a shot in the in the video where like it's a scene of Leon getting out of his car, and like he gets out of the car, and as he stops moving and looks up, that's when the filter turns on.

SPEAKER_07 2:25:41

Right.

SPEAKER_13 2:25:42

Like, very clearly, like Resident Evil, it's just Grace looking at the camera, Leon looking up, nothing about you know the other thing Resident Evil Requiem is known for, like the big scary monster.

SPEAKER_08 2:25:54

Right.

SPEAKER_13 2:25:55

Because the filter would completely break if it had to show something that wasn't a beautiful woman.

SPEAKER_05 2:26:00

Also thinking about how like uh there's a bit in that screenshot in that thing where it's like they go to the the Oblivion remake, right? And like they're like, oh, it looks so perfect, you can't, and then it's like the they they'll say, like, oh you know, it just looks so great, you can't even really like you know, it looks so authentic and and real and like whatever. And then a character blinks and you can see the telltale, like fucking gen AI hallucination of are their eyes still open or not. I don't know. Uh just kind of like throw some noise here, right? Uh also also, still real quick, still thinking about the way uh they had to do they try to do the same shit for uh the fucking Half-Life 2, like we'll have the AI dynamically retexture, and you need like a 4090 to run that, and it makes Half-Life 2 run at about 35 frames a second.

SPEAKER_09 2:26:45

Yeah, a game that has been like so optimized that you could run it on like a like a fucking think pad from 10 years ago, right?

SPEAKER_05 2:26:52

Yeah, a game that is uh 22 years old.

SPEAKER_09 2:26:55

Right. Um, and then like other things they showed that screenshot, the one that I think about a lot of is the screenshot from the opening of Starfield where the two like the two mining guys are talking to you, and the one guy has like heterochromia and fetal alcohol syndrome because his eyes are so fucking wonky. Um it's amazing. Like, no, definitely.

SPEAKER_05 2:27:19

Looks a little bit like Charlie Kirk. It's kind of strange.

SPEAKER_09 2:27:22

Yeah, there's so many, there's again, there's so many fucking uh Jeffrey Epstein and Charlie Kirk memes just in this AI company's data set.

SPEAKER_08 2:27:31

So everybody just looks like Charlie Kirk.

SPEAKER_13 2:27:35

Me when I'm playing RE9 for one second, Leon looks like Charlie Kirk.

SPEAKER_06 2:27:42

Oh my god. Uh yeah, but it's definitely not AI.

SPEAKER_13 2:27:47

Yeah, no. Don't worry. No, absolutely. No, the reason they didn't they clearly the reason that they didn't show it in motion is not because if they showed the camera moving it at any speed at all, like it would just completely turn into Vaseline.

SPEAKER_09 2:27:59

No, yeah, it would turn into mush.

SPEAKER_05 2:28:01

It's it was actually really funny with the the other thing from that uh like well two other things actually from that specific gray shot. Uh A, uh the one that was that tickled me most is that they're like, you know, it's for enhancing lighting realism. And there's one visible light source in that scene, and the DLSS5 makes it look like it's not even turned on.

SPEAKER_08 2:28:21

Yeah, it rules. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:28:22

Um the other one being, you know, rain's already kind of a tricky thing in modern games because like between RE Engine and UE5, like the the graphic technology de jour is stochastic rendering, right? Right. So everything's kinda blurry now because it's not actually rendering a single place on screen, it's like approximating places where it will render, right? And boy howdy, they somehow found a way to make stochastically rendered rain look even more like Vaseline than it already does.

SPEAKER_09 2:28:52

Yeah, God, it rules. Uh, technology is so cool these days.

SPEAKER_05 2:28:58

We used to know how to make convincing looking rain in a video game, and now all we can do is make bad-looking heat haze.

SPEAKER_06 2:29:07

Oh god. Alright, what else we got, Ben?

SPEAKER_13 2:29:10

Two more. These will go quick. High guard players get surprise refunds on PS5 as studio shuts its doors for good.

SPEAKER_06 2:29:18

That's so funny.

SPEAKER_05 2:29:21

Uh did we mention that we found out that they were secretly funded by netties? No.

SPEAKER_09 2:29:28

No, that hasn't come up here, but yeah, they were funded by netties. Whoops, bump bump, but uh um.

SPEAKER_05 2:29:33

Shocker, uh, turns out that when you're funded by netties, uh, being a free-to-play game that has 100,000 players on day one is just simply not enough.

SPEAKER_09 2:29:38

It's just not gonna be enough. Sorry, no. Um I did we talk about how they put out an update for that game, like two days before it went down?

SPEAKER_13 2:29:50

In the announcement of them shutting it down, they're like, we got one final update, so enjoy your last two weeks.

SPEAKER_09 2:29:56

And you're just like, cool, I guess.

SPEAKER_05 2:29:59

Because you know they were working, you like that is a situation like they were working on that, and then like they got the notification that game was going.

SPEAKER_04 2:30:07

And they're like, guys, we already have the next update. Come on. Are you kidding me?

SPEAKER_13 2:30:12

Yeah, it's crazy. What was the one that just got announced? Like time killers or something?

SPEAKER_09 2:30:19

Oh, that game that looks like like fucking even cheaper Concord.

SPEAKER_13 2:30:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 2:30:26

Yeah, that game's not even that game's not gonna last for 24 hours. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_13 2:30:31

How many times do we have to teach you this lesson, old man?

SPEAKER_09 2:30:35

I feel like the joke in of uh of Pacific Rim, where it's like hero shooters uh went out of bit, you know, shut down service uh once every two weeks, but at the rate they're going, we'll have a hero shooter uh shuttering its servers once every five minutes.

SPEAKER_00 2:30:55

I was thinking I was thinking of the real-time Sonic Dub version where Eggman's like, listen, listen, kid. Listen, kid. You've escaped like 18 or 19 times, and I just keep bringing you back. How many times do we are we gonna have to do this? And she looks at him and goes, I think it's gonna be at least one.

SPEAKER_05 2:31:21

It's just so because like there's so few companies that can put out a live service game and expect that the track, and it's like, I don't know, are graders from last year's doing pretty good? Helldivers 2 from the year before, that's doing okay still. Like, Bungie knows how to run a live service game, and Marathon is surviving, but it's already has less players than Helldivers 2, despite being a game that has the same cost and price point.

SPEAKER_06 2:31:46

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 2:31:47

And it's like that's like Marathon is kind of the minimum viable, and like that's Bungie.

SPEAKER_08 2:31:55

Right.

SPEAKER_05 2:31:55

They've been running Destiny 2 or like a Destiny game of some stripe or another for 12 years, and that's like what they can manage. Like, who are you fooling?

SPEAKER_02 2:32:08

It's like I've said this time and time again. Eventually, you have to get the picture.

SPEAKER_09 2:32:15

No, right, no, because the problem is that CEOs and venture capital are very, very dumb. And the problem is that like they have functionally limitless money, right? So you, I mean, like, if you went to a casino with no spending limit, of course you're just gonna keep putting everything on black, right? Because eventually that roulette wheel is gonna land on black, and you're gonna get a huge payout. Because if you get one single like live service shooter that does well, you have an infinite money machine that is going to run for the next 15 years. Like, fucking look at 76, a game we both we all like, and is honestly not like that great, but like we all like it. You know what I mean? It's a perfect seven out of 10. They found a way to crawl out of the hole and make it work, and it's been running this entire time, and that game makes money because as long as you make it, even once you have a game that people will keep playing forever, and is a money printer, right? Um, and so that's why I mean these companies all have there's no spending limit. Like, okay, sure, you spent a hundred million dollars on high card or however much they spent to make high card, probably not even that much money. Um and it flopped. Okay, who cares? Uh just do it again and Do it again and do it again until one of them hits the jackpot. And then you've got 15 years of reliable income from now, you know, until you get sick of it.

SPEAKER_02 2:34:12

That's it.

SPEAKER_13 2:34:13

It's not even it's not even a reliable income thing because, like you said, 76 has a reliable income, and that game clearly doesn't cost 160 million dollars to make.

SPEAKER_05 2:34:23

Well, I think also the thing is, too, and this is like what uh what 76 has going for it in part, is that they actually have the slightly alternate thing of their capital investors have infinite money pit uh in the form of Microsoft, right? And Microsoft, who hates making new things, just goes, just keep putting money into Fallout 76 until eventually enough people are playing for it to make sense, because that's basically how the Xbox brand became profitable. Um, and it's like there's still a thing where it's like a lot of these uh companies will be like, well, we want to chase this dream of infinite profit, but we do also hate spending money. So if it doesn't work out immediately, we're going to pull the plug, which is a problem because, like, like 76 and like I don't know, Final Fantasy XIV or Destiny 2 or any of these other games, a lot of these good ones don't start that good or with a huge attacher, and people complain about them and they don't make any fucking money, and you have to fix it.

SPEAKER_01 2:35:27

And that's because investment. Exactly, that's because, like I said at the very beginning, these companies are very dumb. Like, no, this is not paying off, but eventually it might.

SPEAKER_09 2:35:38

It's the fucking it's the fucking arrested development joke again and again until like the the we all finally die or free, right? Like that's it. Like it's all it didn't work for them, but maybe it'll work for us.

SPEAKER_13 2:35:52

Oh, it's you you can't expect these investors to invest in something.

unknown 2:35:58

No.

SPEAKER_05 2:36:00

Like, to to go back to the the gambling hole analogy again. Imagine if you were like, I'm gonna sit down to play blackjack and I'm gonna bid a hundred dollars on this hand of blackjack, and you go at that table until you lose once. You take all your tokens with you, move to the next table, and then try again.

SPEAKER_11 2:36:22

That's right.

SPEAKER_05 2:36:23

Instead of like trying, instead of like, and like like that's just not like that's not how luck works.

SPEAKER_13 2:36:29

But and then when you switch to a new tail, by the way, you have to fire a hundred people.

SPEAKER_08 2:36:33

That's correct.

SPEAKER_05 2:36:34

Yeah, you have to cash out completely and then like get new chips from somewhere. Yeah. And it's like, that's not going to actually help your odds at all. It's just going to waste a whole bunch of time and effort for nothing.

SPEAKER_09 2:36:47

But they're all very, very stupid.

SPEAKER_13 2:36:50

But I'm but I might get an ace and a king on this first hand.

SPEAKER_07 2:36:57

That's right.

SPEAKER_05 2:36:58

And if I And if I don't, billions must die.

SPEAKER_07 2:37:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:37:03

I hate I hate the rich. I hate the people. I hate, yeah, we hate rich folk.

SPEAKER_09 2:37:06

We hate rich people so fucking much. Oh my god, oh my god.

SPEAKER_13 2:37:10

Um, at least they're getting refunds. Good, good fun. At least some of it's getting refunds, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:37:14

There's this little visual novel by the name of Umineko Nanakukoromi.

SPEAKER_09 2:37:18

Yeah, for sure, for sure.

SPEAKER_05 2:37:19

It's about how and of the devil, honestly.

SPEAKER_09 2:37:22

Yeah, it's about how you should hate rich people with all your heart and soul, 100%, yeah. No worry, Ryukishi O7. I know.

SPEAKER_05 2:37:30

I understand your spirit entirely, Ryukishi's like, that's not entirely what I No, don't worry, Ryukishi. I understand the will of the boss!

SPEAKER_13 2:37:37

Don't worry, Ryukishi O7, I will kill Jeff Bezos. As as was foretold in Umineko. Explicitly.

SPEAKER_08 2:37:46

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_13 2:37:48

That's what Batwece is trying to get across this whole time.

SPEAKER_08 2:37:51

Yeah, that's that's the actual uh riddle of the Golden Witch, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:37:55

Don't worry, Ryukishi. I will, I will uh FBI this is a parody. I will kill Elon Musk on account of the fact that he beats his children.

SPEAKER_08 2:38:03

Ryukishi's like, that's not I mean, yeah, that's okay, sure.

SPEAKER_05 2:38:08

I'll give you that one. Not what I intended, but you go ahead and do what you want. Look, your work doesn't check out, but the answer's right, so it's fine.

SPEAKER_08 2:38:18

He's got spirit. He's a little confused, but he's got spirit, you know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 2:38:22

Uh, one final thing, speaking of rich people.

SPEAKER_08 2:38:25

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_02 2:38:26

MST3K, the Rift Trax Experiments Kickstarter, breaks past 2.7 million.

SPEAKER_05 2:38:32

Yay! People people really throwing in for four episodes of Mystery Science.

SPEAKER_13 2:38:39

They asked for$20,000.

SPEAKER_09 2:38:42

That's so funny.

SPEAKER_13 2:38:43

And they're so funny. By the time I saw the Kickstarter announcement as it was being posted, and made my pledge, it had already succeeded that goal.

SPEAKER_09 2:38:56

People be circulating those tapes, folks. It's just important.

SPEAKER_05 2:39:00

Ben, Ben, your numbers are off, by the way.

SPEAKER_09 2:39:02

Uh huh.

SPEAKER_05 2:39:03

Oh, wait, no, never mind. This is the old one. I pulled up the old one. Uh, the old MST3K Kickstarter for the original revival series, uh caught capped off at 5.7 million. Yeah.

SPEAKER_13 2:39:14

Uh so good. This is for those who may who may not know, um, this is a uh uh to go back a little bit, around the start of February, um, Joel Hodgson sold his majority ownership of MST3K as a as a brand to uh Shout Factory, which is the company that produces the DVDs. Uh so he backed off as like the prep uh primary owner of it. Within weeks, Michael J. Nelson, Bill uh Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy of Rift announced that they are doing four episodes of MST3K.

SPEAKER_08 2:39:50

That's funny.

SPEAKER_13 2:39:51

This is very clearly something they have wanted to do for a while, right? But haven't been able to because Joel Hodgson owned the license. Um their Kickstarter is four episodes being produced, uh all locally in Minnesota.

SPEAKER_08 2:40:07

Um my god, are we actually going to get the true revival of just some fucking Midwestern dads making fun of movies?

SPEAKER_13 2:40:16

So they've already got Mary Joe Peel back because she works for Rift Tracks as well.

SPEAKER_08 2:40:20

Right.

SPEAKER_13 2:40:21

Uh and coincidentally, maybe maybe they had this in the works already, but coincidentally, Trace Boliew and Frank Coniath also live in Minnesota.

SPEAKER_08 2:40:30

Great.

SPEAKER_13 2:40:31

So they're coming back for one episode too. Um they contacted the original prop maker who provided the parts for the uh Tom and Crowbots. Um also found a bunch of old Tom and Crow puppets in storage that can be repaired.

SPEAKER_09 2:40:55

I feel like if you get two million bucks, you gotta do more than four episodes.

SPEAKER_13 2:40:59

So here's the thing is they they like I said, like we're we're building all the sets, it's all gonna be, you know, real sets in on location, you know, we're just we're just making as if we're doing like season 10. We're just doing more season 10.

SPEAKER_11 2:41:14

Right.

SPEAKER_13 2:41:14

Kind of thing. With this setup and with everyone from the cast already being doing rift tracks already, I feel like they're gonna be like, well, now we can just make episodes whenever we want. Right. Like if we just want to do an MSC3K, we can just do it because they they did a thing like, why are we doing this now? Why are we, you know, why is this happening? You know, what made us decide to go do this? And they just said, it was fun. It was fun doing MSC3K and we want to do MSD 3K again.

SPEAKER_07 2:41:41

Sure.

SPEAKER_05 2:41:42

Well, I think Joel Joel Hawkson is like the only one of them who aside from like the the kid who was in like the first season. Like he's like the only one of them who hasn't just been continuing to do this for the last like 20, 30 years.

SPEAKER_13 2:41:56

Yeah, Joel Joel did um Cinematic Titanic with uh some of the older members. Um but that was back in the early 2000s, and then he did the he did the revival seasons.

SPEAKER_05 2:42:09

He was like the And also he was uh funnily enough, I remember uh this is my favorite weird Joel Hodgsonism. He's a recurring uh character in Steven Universe. Yes.

SPEAKER_09 2:42:19

Oh right!

SPEAKER_05 2:42:20

Yeah, he was the mayor.

SPEAKER_09 2:42:21

He's the mayor, and he just looks like himself. I forgot.

SPEAKER_13 2:42:25

But yeah, so like but like yeah, Mary Joe Peel and obviously Mike uh Kevin and Bill were doing riff tracks together. Uh Trace Boley and Frank Coniff were doing uh The Mads Are Back. So they were just doing more riffing on movies every so often. And uh Joel had the reboot season. It's like these guys are just like making fun of bad movies.

SPEAKER_01 2:42:47

I mean, it's if you can if you can make money off of it, it's not a bad scene.

SPEAKER_13 2:42:52

Yeah, no. Nope, there's there's nothing wrong with it. And there's a lot of shitty old movies. There's so many shitty old movies to make fun of.

SPEAKER_00 2:43:02

They were just pumping Turkish Star Wars.

SPEAKER_13 2:43:04

They were just pumping out. I think Rift Rex did a Turkish Star Wars comedy. We should look into that. Um But no, like I feel like this is just gonna be like um with$2.7 million. Yeah, you can just make them whenever you want now. Just get the gang together. Like this so to compare, season Joel Hodgson did a another uh fundraiser for season 14 on Netflix. He he did not clear that goal because he asked for$4 million. Oh, a word. And he they so they both Kickstarters raised about the same amount of money to give you an idea of uh what Joel's standards were versus what Mike's standards were.

SPEAKER_07 2:43:48

Right, right, right. Yeah, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_13 2:43:50

Now, so like now we've just got a bunch of Midwestern, middle-aged men who are going to a cabin to fix a deck.

SPEAKER_08 2:43:59

That's the way it should be.

SPEAKER_13 2:44:00

And that's what MST3K should be.

SPEAKER_08 2:44:03

That's correct. I see. Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_13 2:44:07

I feel like, you know, let them let them do these four. They're probably gonna have a ton of fun doing it, and like you don't you don't contact the original puppet maker if you're not thinking about doing more than four.

SPEAKER_09 2:44:21

Two and more, right, yeah.

SPEAKER_13 2:44:23

You're all you all already live in the same area. You might as well just call your friends over to hang out and watch a dumb movie again, like the good old days.

SPEAKER_08 2:44:31

Exactly.

SPEAKER_13 2:44:33

Uh you know, I I was just like, I was because this is what I've wanted like my whole my ever since the show ended, like, man, I really just want to get Mike Nelson back in the theater. He was always my favorite, and like I love the sci-fi ser seasons. And like, so they're like, yeah, we're just we're just we're just doing exactly what we did back in the day.

SPEAKER_09 2:44:53

That's right.

SPEAKER_13 2:44:54

That's that's all it takes. Um there's there's like uh uh behind the scenes footage for backers that you can, you know, videos are posting and whatnot. And there's one of of Bill and Kevin getting the puppets out, like, you know, picking up the the the puppets before like they're fully ready, but like they're they're in enough ready state to west with. And like Kevin's got Tom and he's like making Tom talk, and I'm like, it's it's like watching Jim Henson.

SPEAKER_09 2:45:19

Right.

SPEAKER_13 2:45:20

Where you're just like, I don't even see the man. That's it's just magic. Yeah, it's just the guy. There's just the puppet there. There's just the character that I like, and there's just some guy like holding him up. That's all. Oh man, I'm so fucking excited. This is gonna be great. Ah but that's it. That's all the news we got.

SPEAKER_01 2:45:39

Hey, you know what?

SPEAKER_09 2:45:40

I am actually considering how long it took us to get through what we've been doing. Um, I'm amazed we came in under three hours. Good job, team. Well done.

SPEAKER_05 2:45:49

Everybody, if you think uh listening at home, if you think this episode was long in the tooth at all, I need you to remember it has been literally three months since we went around.

SPEAKER_02 2:45:58

Very quick, thank you.

SPEAKER_13 2:45:59

Like, I was I was thinking, like, how far back do I grab news? Because like we didn't do the Sony state of play. Oh, yeah. Well, there's nothing there.

SPEAKER_08 2:46:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_13 2:46:09

There was like other stuff where I'm like, how do I want to go that far back? And I'm like, no, we'll be here for four hours.

SPEAKER_05 2:46:14

Yeah, say you uh I I will say, and this is not an update nor a declaration of intent, but it is relevant. Uh Pacopia came out, and I do gotta stress, uh, I'm really glad uh to be in an unfortunate bad position where I actually shouldn't be wasting any money at all because that same unfortunate bad position has me knowing in it for a fact I am in the mental headspace to be sucked into the Pacopia universe for dozens of hours at a time, and I'm valiantly resisting the game.

SPEAKER_09 2:46:42

You're very brave and very strong.

SPEAKER_05 2:46:45

I've heard that game is good. I've also heard that, you know, Dragon Quest II, Dragon Quest Builders 2 is on Steam, and I gotta say, I love Akira Torioma's artwork. I don't like those little fucking freaks. I don't want to play that game. I want Pokisman and a little Ditto guy.

SPEAKER_11 2:46:58

That's right.

SPEAKER_13 2:46:58

My my uh my copy's set to arrive on the 25th.

SPEAKER_05 2:47:04

When you play your little slangy ditto Ditto thing, think of me. I will.

SPEAKER_00 2:47:07

It is very much a a matter of time for me because I have so much overtime that I'm like, I deserve a treat.

SPEAKER_09 2:47:13

That's right!

SPEAKER_00 2:47:15

You deserve a snack, and then what I'm going to do is I'm going to buy Pokopia for myself, play it for an hour, and then go, hey Sarah, do you want to play?

SPEAKER_09 2:47:26

Oh fuck.

SPEAKER_05 2:47:27

I know no matter what else comes out between now and then when they finally do an OLED model switch to, and I finally get a Switch 2, that is going to be the first game I buy.

SPEAKER_13 2:47:37

Did you know that in Japan in Pokopia, the Bulbasaur talks like a Gyaru and the Venusaur talks like an Araara?

SPEAKER_00 2:47:43

What? Yeah, it's really funny. They're so cute.

SPEAKER_05 2:47:47

Yeah. I love that. I saw a screen. People were upset about it because they thought, based on some other existing dialogue, that like Slowpoke was going to talk like a Gyaru, like from earlier screenshots, and then Slowpoke just talks like a guy. Right. Right. Um, but then everyone was happy because then you run into Bulbasaur and Bulbasaur uses Uchi as as it as her personal pronoun.

SPEAKER_13 2:48:09

And everyone's like, that's right. And there's there's a really great screenshot where the bulbasaur was like, oh, this is a little bed for sleeping on. And the comment is, this is a workbench.

unknown 2:48:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:48:22

Great.

SPEAKER_13 2:48:24

Oh, I'm so excited.

SPEAKER_06 2:48:25

Oh, God. Okay.

SPEAKER_13 2:48:27

All right. Uh that's gonna do it for us. Thank you to DJ Cutman for use of our background music. You can email us at thegorgepodcast at gmail.com. Follow us on our social medias and our blue skies and whatnot. Watch us stream of the devil over at Saturn's channel. That's right.

SPEAKER_09 2:48:44

Mystery systems.

SPEAKER_13 2:48:45

Which that's Mystery Systems.

SPEAKER_05 2:48:46

Yes. Uh and then you can that that last episode is going to be uh whatever uh probably Friday that we have time for it, and or uh figuring out something else depending on availability. Uh you'll know the day of, as has been the case for the last couple.

SPEAKER_13 2:49:01

Yeah. Uh and then you can watch us stream Ace 30 investigations too, eventually, when we get back to that.

SPEAKER_06 2:49:06

Someday.

SPEAKER_13 2:49:07

Um, which will probably be uh uh subverted by me going through Requiem for Sarah.

SPEAKER_09 2:49:14

You know, I you know, it's fine.

SPEAKER_05 2:49:16

Of the Devil Episode 2 is going to be my last uh group live read on my channel for a while, so we will have more flexibility in setting that time.

SPEAKER_00 2:49:25

Yeah, that's cham.

SPEAKER_13 2:49:26

Uh yeah, but yeah, Requiem will take me like maybe two, three sessions.

SPEAKER_00 2:49:30

It won't take long at all. No.

SPEAKER_13 2:49:32

Uh but yeah, thank uh go check that out. Twitch TV slash the Gorge Podcast or just The Gorge. Or no. I think it's The Gorge Podcast. It's the Gorge Podcast on Twitch. It's patreon.com slash thegorge.

SPEAKER_09 2:49:44

Yes, and that's where you can get early episodes of uh our TTRPG pro podcast, The Reboot, a thing we love and is very, very fun. Um and again, for$3 a month, all back content that we've ever done and pictures of my dog Peanut, the dog who is perfect and destroying my bed as we speak. Thanks, buddy.

SPEAKER_00 2:50:03

I'm going to scramble.

SPEAKER_13 2:50:05

Yeah. Uh that'll do it for us. Um, there's so many good cats right. It's been it's it's so powerful.

SPEAKER_09 2:50:13

It's a there's so many good ones. I mean, we could I, you know, shit.

SPEAKER_00 2:50:17

Can I um can can I can I make a small suggestion? Um, fuck you, Todd Howard, for thinking you could roll back saying pretend it's not. Oh shit!

SPEAKER_13 2:50:29

Even talk about that one. Todd Howard being like, could you please forget that we announced the Elder Scrolls sex? No. No, I can't.

SPEAKER_09 2:50:38

No, idiot. What's wrong with you? Why are you updating Starfield, a game nobody cares about? Just pretend we didn't announce it. Doesn't exist.

SPEAKER_00 2:50:48

Shut up, Todd.

SPEAKER_13 2:50:48

Todd, no takesy back seems.

SPEAKER_09 2:50:50

You can't take that back. You can't. No. Oh my god, that's so funny. And then they and they announced an update for Starfield that literally nobody asked for. Um, so.

SPEAKER_00 2:51:00

I I hope Starfield crashes and burns such that they finally put him uh ML Pegather out to uh the Keatane. Please. Oh, we can only hold it.

SPEAKER_09 2:51:09

Send him, send him out to die. It's it's all I could ever dream of.

SPEAKER_00 2:51:12

We can't give him a golden parachute.

SPEAKER_13 2:51:14

He has to die. He's gotta go. He's gonna go. He's gotta get a parachute that has Bethesda physics so it doesn't open correctly. That's right.

SPEAKER_06 2:51:23

Oh god.

SPEAKER_13 2:51:26

Just the Meal Peg the hero being thrown off the Uber to Ham by Yes.

SPEAKER_09 2:51:39

Oh, please. Oh, please. Oh God, good night, everyone.

SPEAKER_05 2:51:45

Good night, everyone. Good night, you guys.