Hey everyone and welcome to episode 3 of the Nerd Federation Podcast. I am your host, will Hernandez, and I got the music right this week. I actually played the song as I was coming in to talk and I noticed there's a bit of a pause before the recording started. So hopefully hopefully it doesn't come in too bad I can move some things around in the final edit of this podcast. Alright, as I mentioned, this is a weekly podcast about pro-wrestling and video games. Just wanted to get that out there because I've noticed, as I'm doing this podcast, I tend to forget to put out there what the podcast is about. And, man, let me tell you something it has been. It's only Tuesday. I'm recording this podcast on a Tuesday night. Gonna get this out tomorrow, hopefully Knock on the wood there on the desk, but it is just out of the deep breath there. It's been a few days, man. It really has been. It's only Tuesday and just the things that have happened in the past 48 hours in both areas have been somewhat exhausting. And this week is just bonkers. We've got, obviously, halo trailer I'm gonna talk about that a little bit. That dropped on, that dropped yesterday. Then the whole shit hit the fan with the Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer that leaked last night, and then Rockstar decided to put out the release, put out the trailer on YouTube late last night, and I'm gonna get into that as well at some point.
Speaker 1:Thursday is the game awards, which I am going to watch and I will be xing along, I guess. Is that what we're saying now? What exactly are we saying for Twitter? But I'm gonna have that Thursday, and then the funny thing is earlier today on Instagram. I'm just looking at Instagram and I noticed that there's a TNA pay-per-view on Saturday Impact TNA, I think it's. Are they dubbing it the last time that they're gonna be going as Impact? I don't know, but took a look at the match card. Looks pretty good, some pretty solid matches on that card that I would like to watch, and the good thing about TNA Impact pay-per-view is that they don't cost a lot, so it really is a good bargain for the quality of wrestling that they put on usually every month, and I watched a couple of their shows earlier this year and I would love to get back into it. It's difficult. I tell you what, though Will Ospreay is going to be wrestling for them next month, and I think it's really interesting that it's happening a week and a half after Wrestle Kingdom and basically I don't know. Yeah, he's gonna have this time period before he goes officially to AEW. So, man Will Ospreay, right now that guy is riding high and he deserves it because I think he is awesome and I love watching him in the ring, whether it's on the mic or just his wrestling skills overall. So gonna talk about the Wrestle Kingdom card as well, because I think most of it is out now. I'm gonna be curious to see how the winner of the Continental Classic plays into that whole thing, considering the finals of that is December 30th and then you've got four days later, five days later, wrestle Kingdom in Tokyo. So that's gonna be interesting to see if they integrate that champion into Wrestle Kingdom. But anyway, gonna get to all that.
Speaker 1:But I wanted to start this week with a story, a personal story, the monologue. This week with a personal story because there was a lot of Halo stuff that came out this week and, honestly, the Halo trailer that came out on Monday I wasn't jazzed about and I wasn't gonna get into this in the video game portion because I was gonna start off with the video games this week. But I think it makes sense to talk about the trailer a little bit now because, as of today, the new modes launched and that was what the trailer on Monday was about talking about the new modes and honestly, it doesn't do it for me. That listen, I haven't been into Halo multiplayer in a big way since Halo 5. And that's not too, that's not that long ago. I'm just not good at multiplayer to begin with anymore. Getting into those types of matches, they just fucking destroy me.
Speaker 1:I don't have the skills that I used to have back in the day Not that I had these great skills to begin with when it came to these Twitch shooters like Halo and Call of Duty, but I was better 10, 15, 20 years ago than I am now. I mean, that's just the reality of the situation. Your skills atrophy over a while. It's just. That's just the reality and that's okay. I thought that maybe when they drop that teaser about a new trailer coming out, that maybe, just maybe, we were gonna have some campaign DLC to get excited about next year. But that's that did not happen, obviously, and it's disappointing because Halo is always going to have a special place in my heart and I think it's the reason why at the end of the day, while I own all three systems, I defer to my Xbox Most of the time. I'll play my third party games on Xbox because I have a thing for achievements. I don't achievement hunt like I'm used to. I've got some really weird stories about that that I'll probably share one day, maybe once they overhaul the achievement system.
Speaker 1:But you know, xbox has a special place in my heart because it was really the first time I became more aware of games and the gaming industry. Even though I had Nintendo and read Nintendo Power, and even though I had a Genesis and had a Super Nintendo, had a Sega CD, read some of those magazines, I don't think it was really until I got that first Xbox that I really started understanding the industry a little bit more. And I think that is pertinent to what I talk about here, and I have said in the past how I have definitely you know how they say you got to be an expert in something and do it for 10,000 hours. I have definitely watched more than 10,000 hours of wrestling. There is no and I mentioned that in previous episodes, there is no doubt about that have I played 10,000 hours in games? I don't know. That's probably not because I have huge gaps in my video game history, though I did play a lot of Commodore 64. Damn, I think about that now. Anyway, going back to Xbox, halo is special to me because it was the first time I played a first person shooter bottom line.
Speaker 1:Believe it or not, I was never into PC gaming, despite being on the Commodore 64. And then at some point I think it was late in high school I got a Compact Prazario. Remember that? Remember those things, my God? I remember going to get that bulky monitor and bulky hard drive. It's funny because I still have dreams about that fucking computer. It's pretty insane. I spent a lot of time on that computer but I never played Doom, I never played Wolfenstein. I'm ashamed to admit that, but I just wasn't really aware of those games and I wasn't around anybody that was into those types of games. So again, there are gaps. But going back to Halo, I'll never forget and the story that I have told in my mind a thousand times and I think I might have shared a little bit on episode zero. Honestly, I cannot even remember at this point, but I think it's worth repeating.
Speaker 1:I got an Xbox the year that it came out for Christmas and there were several games that I got with it. I think there was two or three. I think there was three games. If I'm not mistaken, it was Madden. Whatever Madden was that year, there was NFL Fever, the Peyton Manning football game. If you don't remember that one, I believe Project Gotham Racing was the other one, which to this day is still my favorite racing game that I've ever played. I'm not really a racing game guy, even though I love Forza. What's the one that's more arcadey? Is it Forza? I can't remember right now I'm not even going to try, but you have the two football games. And I was just like, okay.
Speaker 1:My mom gives me the receipts and says here, go to KB Toy Stores. Remember those places. If you're in the Northeast, like I am, you're going to have a very fond memories of KB toys. There was one in Astoria that we went to. It was on Steinway Street because I lived in Brooklyn. That's very typical Brooklyn and Green Point. Before Green Point was a thing, we would take the G-Train over to Steinway and did the majority of our shopping on Steinway Street. That was just the thing to do back then.
Speaker 1:Anyway, my mom tells me here, go to KB and go exchange one of these football games. So I go and I decided to keep the NFL fever because I had already played Madden. I think I played Madden on PlayStation if I'm not mistaken, I think my brother had a PlayStation 1, obviously. So I go and I get to the counter and I'm like, hey, listen, I need to make an exchange here for another Xbox game. And the games are behind the counter. So I'm standing there I don't really know what I'm looking at, to be honest at all and I'm standing there and I'm never going to forget just seeing that cover with this green guy in the armor with the machine gun pointing out, and I was like that looks interesting to me. I think I want to play that.
Speaker 1:So I got Halo, really not knowing anything about it, and I'm on the train back home and I'm reading the back of the box, because back then, in the prime of physical games, you read the back of the box and you got an idea, a pretty good idea, about what you were getting yourself into by reading the back of that box. So I read the back of the box and I'm like, oh, this seems pretty fucking cool Aliens, and it was very sci-fi. I'm very into sci-fi Not very. It was. It is. Halo is very. Halo is like to me, peak sci-fi.
Speaker 1:In many ways it might have its tire tropes, sci-fi tropes, but I still love it and I remember popping that into the Xbox and for anybody that's played Halo, combat Evolved, you know the opening kind of scene is you wake up as Master Chief and you're doing the kind of like the check with the sensors and looking around the room and making sure that you have all your senses with you and that was something new to me, like that movement and then using that controller that offset controller, which I still love to this day, was pretty cool and then kind of going through it like, oh shit, there you're being attacked by these aliens, by the Covenant. You gotta get to a spot where you gotta get off the ship. And I don't think it hit me until when you land on Halo. When you land on that first Halo and you kind of take in all of that, the vista and the way it looks, and I thought to myself, oh shit, this game is very different than anything I've ever played in my life, because I was somebody who was used to playing 2D Mario games and sports games. Really, that was really it. That was really all I played for the most part. I mean, I played a lot of Ms Pac-Man, a lot of Galica in the arcades On my Commodore 64, I was playing a lot of Dig Dug.
Speaker 1:Believe it or not, there was a sporting news baseball game that I played a lot, but it was a very small circle of games that I played during that time. And to play this first person shooter that was in this sci-fi setting, it was an eye opener. Now, don't get me wrong, my gaming preferences and taste didn't change that day, but they were open to other possibilities at that time and it still took a while for me to realize that there were different types of games out there, especially games with stories, because Halo I mean that had to have the most complicated story that I had ever encountered in a game until that point. So that's kind of like my thing. But Halo, I love them all. I still occasionally play through them.
Speaker 1:If you look at the bookcase on my living room, I have I've got six games on display. Obviously have more games everywhere here, but I have six games on display that I kind of have as books that I just kind of like to look at. I like to look at the covers. It's the Halo trilogy and it's the Gears of War trilogy, so that kind of shows you my especially my taste in games way back then. So again, halo is always gonna have this special place in my heart and I thought that I would share that story to begin this week, considering we saw the Halo Infinite multiplayer trailer hit on Monday and now that update is out now.
Speaker 1:And then there's season two of the Halo show, which, my God, I haven't seen season one and God, I cannot wait to go through that and then have my opinions on that to share on this podcast. That's gonna be. That should be. That should be good. So that's it for the monologue. I'm gonna take a quick break on my end. Then we're gonna come back and then we're gonna talk about the big news this week, and it was that GTA 6 trailer. Be right back. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. And welcome back to episode three of the Nerd Federation podcast with your host.
Speaker 1:That's me, wilher Nandes. It's funny when I come back from break and I get this like announcer voice. I think that comes from being on stage at conferences and having some moderate panels. That's something that I do. I was just. I just did that.
Speaker 1:Last month I was in Hilton Head in South Carolina. I was there for like 24 hours. It was crazy. So a week before Thanksgiving, that was a crazy. Those two weeks, that was a crazy, two weeks in the life of Wilher Nandes.
Speaker 1:But it's a Tuesday night, it's December 5th, we've got a lot going on. We are what are we? 20 days from Christmas, which is insane. I have done a little bit of Christmas shopping not a lot, but a little bit. My girlfriend's gift is on the way. It's gonna get here tomorrow, which is good because she's not here right now. She spends one night a week down in the city for job purposes. It's the amount that they charge for wasn't about to burp here. That they charge from Metro North Tickets during peak hours is ridiculous. Especially if you live up where we live in Hudson Valley. It could be a little expensive to get down to the city, so, which is why I don't like going to the city much anymore, for various reasons, but anyway.
Speaker 1:So GTA 6, man, that you know. It's crazy because it's been so long since GTA 5, and GTA 5 was the only GTA game that I finished from beginning to end. Obviously, there are so many things you can do within that game, but I finished a story. I didn't do that for GTA 4, despite putting a good number of hours into it, and I didn't do that for San Andreas, and I don't even think I played Vice City, if I'm not mistaken I don't know, I don't have my phone next to me because I can look at my achievements quick on Xbox. But, man, this has been. It's.
Speaker 1:I think, in this age of social media and clickbait, shit and influencer type of marketing not marketing, but clout. And man, if you watch that trailer, this GTA is going to shit on those influencers big time and I just cannot wait to see how that all plays out. They're coming for you, bros and ladies. They're coming for you big time. If you were paying attention to that trailer with some of the stuff that they were making fun of, they are gonna go hard, hard in that direction and I'm here for you. So here's the crazy shit. By the way, 94 million YouTube views in 24 hours. I went to go check before I went to record tonight and I think this morning I have to go back. I would have to go back and check the text that I sent my brother. I think they had like 30 something million views in maybe half a day. It's insane.
Speaker 1:People are so hungry for this game that people are probably watching trailer over and over again. I've watched it at least three times already. I mean, how can you not? It's and that's kind of the thing that kind of struck me. It looks gorgeous. I mean it just I don't know what engine. I think they have a proprietary engine that they're working on with this game. I mean, the game looks gorgeous and people were mentioning on Twitter about the density of the people that are in the streets and on the beach and they show that one segment, that one view of the beach and there were a lot of people on that beach and it's like, ah, listen, it's a big deal to have the density of people in areas like that, because when you go back, I just remember playing GT hell, if you go back and play fucking Spider-Man even though they were Spider-Man too, even though the city, new York City, was more alive and more happening, this looks like it's really gonna have a lot going on.
Speaker 1:I can't even imagine the side quests that are gonna come out of this, I hope, and I haven't thought about this until now. The one thing and I'm sure Starfield is not the first game that that has done this it can't be. I've got a short-term memory, but the one thing I did like about Starfield was that you're walking through a lot of these cities and settlements and as you're walking you hear something right to check out and it gets added to your game log, your adventure log. I wonder if we're gonna see something similar with this game to where you're walking down the beach and you hear something crazy and it turns into a side quest. I mean, that's kind of the type of immersion that I think people want from this type of game. But man, the way it looks, it looks great.
Speaker 1:You know the whole thing with the female protagonist. Fine, I just don't listen. We're past that. We're past that shit, man, we really are. And I suppose there was some crazy shit out there and I don't wanna I'm debating whether I even wanna bring it up and talk about it, but fuck it, I'm gonna talk about it.
Speaker 1:There was a tweet going around about something that was saying how the woman right was transgender, and it's just like people say shit like that because they're and this is not even a thing to say about the things that are going on with that right now has nothing to do with that but people put out lies right on Twitter to increase their engagement numbers and there is nothing in that trailer that says anything that that's the case. Okay, people are just making shit up to make shit up for clicks and for controversy. What did they say? What did Eric Breschoff say? Controversy creates cash and that's what these people are doing. So just God, and then some of the.
Speaker 1:I love that this is already causing controversy to the game itself and the trailer itself. You know, because you've got like half-naked women in the trailer. You've got the chick and the bikini right. Then you've got the chick that's twerking on top of the car. But if you look at that image of the woman twerking, that actually happened on social media Like somebody's done a thing, go look for it. They've done a thing of where they got the inspiration for the woman with the two hammers, which is actually a thing that happened the girl twerking on the car, they gotta. It looks like he's like the poor man's joker that gets arrested. It looks like Takashi right In some ways, like that's actually based on an actual mugshot.
Speaker 1:So so far it looks like that rock star is gonna go down this route, that I'm hoping it goes down the tone, because I think that we're gonna get the over-the-top ridiculousness that rock star and Grand Theft Auto is known for and it's gonna get the South Park treatment. Man, nothing is gonna be off limits for comedy, which is good. We need that, my God. We take everything so fucking seriously right now in this society that if you joke around about anything, people are coming for you and it's so ridiculous. Now there's a difference between that and like malice, like actual malice and actual violence In those situations. That's not cool and that goes for anybody and that goes for anybody on either side. You're gonna learn in this podcast and I don't give a fuck about your politics, I really don't Right sucks and the left sucks. They're both to me, both sides of the same coin with their ridiculousness and I'm really getting tired of it and I really hope that this game attacks both sides of that, because they should, because we're living in this society that people have fucking lost their minds really in a lot of different ways and I think I hope a game like Grand Theft Auto VI kind of turns a mirror on everybody to show them how ridiculous a lot of this stuff has become. So I really do hope that we get that over the top embellishment of American society and we saw it in a trailer. I mean, we saw it in the trailer, so I hope that that's what the tone is going to be.
Speaker 1:I know some people were worried about that. I was a little like eh, eh, I don't really care about that shit. Honestly, this whole here's the thing when you talk about this whole term of woke is so fucking overused and the funny thing about that is that term used to mean something completely different and it got sabotaged by certain groups of people. Go look up what that word used to mean. Ok, then come back and talk to me. But I really do hope that it kind of turns a mirror. I kind of forget what I was saying there. I really do hope that it kind of turns a mirror on the tone, because I think we really need that right now.
Speaker 1:I think we really need to take a look in the mirror and look and just kind of see how ridiculous a lot of this stuff is and I think it's going to piss off a lot of people. I mean, it's already pissing off a lot of people, which I find funny, because there are certain parts of the political spectrum that are all about free speech, but they see a game that is tackling the themes that it's tackling and it's like, oh, this can't come out. They need to banji to get the stop. We're not doing this shit again. We're not. And this is coming from the right, by the way. Ok, it's the same ones. I'm sure the left is going to find something wrong.
Speaker 1:The minute, the minute some, the minute there is some kind of joke or something against a trans person in that game, forget it, people are going to flip the fuck out. I can't wait. I can't wait to see that. I just, I really, I really can't wait. This game is going to piss off people on both sides and I am fucking here for it. I am here front row seat, and I will be talking about that on this podcast. Not even a shadow of a doubt.
Speaker 1:So that's it for the GTA VI trailer. You know what the funny thing is? There was another trailer that came out this week that nobody was really talking about and it was a little preview into the last of us, part two remake, remaster, whatever the fuck they're calling it and there was a video about the rogue-like mode that they're going to have in this game, and let me tell you something I thought that that looked incredible. I really did. I'm not somebody who is really great at these types of rogue-likes I'm pretty suck but the way it looks like it's going to be a combination of go watch the trailer if you haven't had a chance to. It's going to be a combination of you going up against human enemies and the clickers and I don't know you're going to have upgrades along the way. It looks like there's going to be random drops of weapons and you'll get to upgrade the weapons along the way Because at some point they show whatever character you choose. They're on a bench, like a workbench, upgrading the weapon, so that part of it looks really cool. The graphics look fucking amazing.
Speaker 1:I mean, listen, for all the shit that this is getting about PlayStation dipping its hand back into the cookie jar again and again for the same IP in the Last of Us, the game looks amazing, man. I mean I'm going to play it. I don't see why I wouldn't. I think what I want to do is play them both back to back, and play the Last of Us part one remastered, the PS5 edition, and then go win and play Actually now that I'm thinking about it because I never finished watching the HBO show, because I got completely sidetracked. So I think what I might do is I'll play part one, then go watch the HBO show and then play part two, because that's all coming out and I'm taking that week in January off, so that might be the perfect thing to do that week when I'm off. And yeah, I'll definitely report back. But the one thing and I wrote this out of my notes in preparation for the show I wonder how that is going to look and play on the portal, because there seems to be this thought that you cannot play those type of games on the portal because it's kind of fast switch and maybe there might be some screen tearing or maybe the frames might drop while you're playing that, and it's something you don't want to happen when you're playing a game like that, I would imagine. So I'll be curious to see how things play out with the portal when it comes to the roguelike for Last of Us Part Two Remaster. So that's going to do it for looking at the trailers that came out this week.
Speaker 1:I know there were others and people are smart. Let's talk about the marketing a little bit. I didn't even write this down and, as somebody who is in marketing right now, you have to use these tentpole events to your advantage. And as soon as Rockstar put out the teaser thing for the trailer that was supposed to drop today but didn't because of the leaks which sucked, by the way, I haven't even talked about that, those sucked. Anyway, when they did that, when Rockstar did that, you saw Halo come in and put out something with the same kind of imagery, right. You saw Fall Guys come out and do something, and there were a couple of others that did the same as well. I even saw other brands getting into that and doing that. They're not stupid. People was like, oh, this is lazy, this is dumb. Listen, this happens all the time. This happens all the time where one major brand does something, they see that it's going popular and then they go ahead and try to copycat, to try to ride that momentum. I don't understand what there is not to understand about that thing. You're trying to cash in on the momentum that is out there. So I didn't see a problem with it.
Speaker 1:I see people are obviously this week taking advantage of the fact that the game awards are this week, thursday at 7.30 PM, eastern streaming on multiple platforms and I will be watching that and tweeting along. And I know there are some companies that have trailers in and around the game awards, which, again, is smart. It's a 10-pole event. It's the same thing. This time of the year now is becoming very similar to what we see in June. There's no E3 anymore, but it still hasn't stopped. There's a summer showcase, but it still hasn't stopped companies from putting out trailers and talking about their plans for the year in June. It's like the not E3 shows, if you want to put them that way. But again, mention game awards are Thursday. I will be watching and tweeting along so you could follow me on the Nerd Federation podcast on Twitter and I shouldn't have mentioned this at the top.
Speaker 1:I didn't make a TikTok account specifically for the podcast. I have my personal one, but I may or may not be making behind the scenes videos of something on Thursday, I don't know. There's this thing now where I basically have to load one video every day to start and it's like listen, I work a full-time job. This is not easy to do and I'm doing this podcast by myself, so we'll see how engaged I'm at least going to be tweeting along on Thursday. I'm debating if it makes sense for me to record a show. With my quick thoughts, it wouldn't be anything long, maybe 30 minutes if that. So I'm debating about how I'm going to tackle that. I might be able to record something on Friday and then publish it that day. So who knows, I don't know. I'll you know, tbd on that.
Speaker 1:But the biggest thing, I'm really looking forward to what Xbox is going to announce at the show. This is really their time to shine, and I know there have been a lot of false starts on the Xbox side again and again and again. I mean we've been waiting since 2018, when they bought those studios those remember that first batch of studios that they bought. We haven't seen, I don't think we've seen anything from them, and we're supposed to finally start seeing some of that stuff in 2024. And I have a feeling that I think Xbox is going to go big for the show because they had no presence last year and we know kind of why because they had that developer showcase, developer direct in January. Whether they have another one this year, I'm sorry next month, in 2024, remains to be seen. But right now that company has so much in its quiver not quiver, quiver bag, arrow bag Wow I'm really getting the references from there that they can come and they can show some cool shit on Thursday night and then turn right back around six weeks later and show off more cool shit at the developer direct.
Speaker 1:So Thursday is going to be really interesting for for Xbox and I'm going to be unapologetic about what Xbox does. I really am Again. It's my preferred platform, but I'm not going to be here and be a complete stand about it because they've made mistakes and they continue in some ways to make mistakes. As I said in last week's episode, playstation is the dominant, dominant force right now in video games. There's no if ands or buts about that at the moment. I think anybody who has a little bit of common sense when it comes to this industry knows how behind the eight ball Microsoft is in many ways and even though they kind of measure things differently than the way they used to, I think it kind of like it kind of matters in some ways. So you know, I think they're behind the eight ball and I think that they are going to do some good things on on on Thursday.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I kind of lost my train of thought there because the TV in my living room went on. I had it paused. I was watching collision from Saturday and I, once they go, I paused it to come here and record my girlfriend's out here today. As I said, she's staying overnight in the city, so I heard the TV going on like shit. I don't want that getting picked up in the background here. Anyway, like I said, looking forward to what Xbox has to say, I'm hoping PlayStation has something to say. Who the hell knows? Tbd I guess we're going to find out on that, anyway. So what am I playing right now? I finally, finally on Sunday, got a chance as my chair squeaks, got a chance to sit down and play some games finally, and I am now one chapter away from finishing Alan Wake remastered.
Speaker 1:And it was a bit drawing to go back into that game after not playing it for two and a half weeks. And I was running when I stopped it. I was, and this is the thing I love about about this game I was near the end of chapter four and I finished chapter four, but when I had jumped in at the point that I did almost the end there. If you remember the game you're running into, I would say it's a farmhouse situation, that's all I'm going to say. You got to get to somebody's house so I jumped back in. I'm like I don't know what is what is happening. I don't know what is happening here, but I love how. So I finished chapter four and then when you go into the next chapter, chapter five, they do a recap of chapter four, which is great. They do that forever for all the chapters, which is awesome. Like I love the fact that it does that, because I'm like, oh shit, I forgot kind of forgot what I was doing here when I stopped this game, but you know, I'm still enjoying it.
Speaker 1:I got through chapter five and enjoyed that, which is, I feel like it's like you're, you're the climax. You finally realize, at least for me, what exactly is going on here in Brighton Falls. And the combat still sucks, like that hasn't gotten better. And it's funny listening to people talk about Alan Wake too, and the combat is not great in that either. But listen, this is one of those games where the combat it just it's not a focal point. It really isn't as frustrating as it is, and I hate, hate, hate when I feel like I'm fighting with the controller and fighting with the buttons and like mashing them to do simple things, and I feel like I'm doing that with Alan Wake, especially when you try to dodge enemies and it goes into that slow motion type of thing. I just do not like that, do like, do not like that at all. So but I love the story. The dialogue is cheesy as hell, you know. It's kind of like that 90s and early 2000s kind of cheesy dialogue like from a sitcom in some ways. I don't know if that was intentional or not, it probably was. But so I'm in the chapter six. I'm just going to finish it this weekend. Saturday I've got nothing I'm doing on Saturday, so I'm going to finish that and I'm going to try to finish Firewatch as well. Got a little bit more into that as well on Sunday.
Speaker 1:I don't really have a lot to say about, about, about that game. I like the story. I kind of understood where I was in the story, even though I hadn't played since the middle of October, which is like what. I didn't play that for that long, but in the game. Simple enough. I'm, I'm, I know I'm getting to the end, because they say it's only a six, six hour game and according to my clock, I'm at four hours now. So I'm almost, I'm almost at the end of the game and I just like the story. I like the story and it's being told. I think it's fun, I think it's. It's it's starting to get mysterious now, which I like. Um, you don't really know where it's heading. In some ways, you're doing it, don't? I don't know. It's very it's getting a little weird. It's almost getting a little like sci-fi in some ways At least I think so. But, um, but yeah, that's what I'm, that's what I'm playing.
Speaker 1:I should finish those games this weekend and then I'm out, I'm out, I'm going to be at a crossroads, as to, no pun intended there. As to what I'm going to play next, I think that I am going to start the Starfield run and run that back from the beginning again. And then I think, as we roll into Christmas, I mentioned last week that I'm getting Final Fantasy 16. So I think that might be my Christmas a week game, because there's not going to be a lot going on at work. So I think I will be heavily playing that game during my during that week, during it's going to be a lot of downtime during that week, and this is I don't know if my boss is listening, but he knows he tells us all you got to be doing is really check an email that week. Just check your email. Just make sure you're checking your email, just to make sure you need anything, if any of the clients need anything. So, but, yeah, that's going to do it for the video game portion of the show and man, I'm going to be on fire. I can tell for the pro wrestling part of the show and I will talk about that right after this.
Speaker 1:And welcome back to episode number three of the Nerd Federation podcast, which your host, well Hernandez. You got to wonder what happens when I hit that stop button. When I'm recording, all I'm doing is really taking a sip of water, getting up, stretching my legs, taking a walk around the apartment, because I think it's important to be active. Let's see 9100 steps today, not quite to 10,000, but I've been doing pretty good with that, with that lately. Listen, I'm trying to try to lose 20 pounds. Is not easy, but you got to start small. You got to start like five pounds, get that five pounds and you go for another five pounds, and another five pounds, and another five pounds. So hopefully we're going to get there before the spring, before we get back into the beach weather. So we are in the pro wrestling portion of the podcast and, my God, you know, it's I.
Speaker 1:It's hard not to sit there and scroll and just see the ridiculous takes on social media in both genres that I talk about here. It's happening, it happens to video games and it happens in the pro wrestling sphere, and it's actually tired, tiresome, and people really do say some really dumb shit out there, like and it's, it's. At some point there is going to be a segment of this podcast, and I'm not going to say what I'm going to call it, but it is going to highlight some of the stuff Not people by name, though I'm not going to do that, but I am trying to rise above the hate, so to speak, when it comes to that stuff, because we just we're just negative, negative, negative. We see it all the time, whether it's your, an Xbox fanboy or a PlayStation fanboy, or a WWE fanboy, or a WWE fanboy or an impact fanboy, and you it's fucking tiresome, man, it really is, and again, I've said this, I've said this before and I'll say it again I don't understand how we shit on something that we were made fun of, and maybe are still made fun of, for liking, for enjoying, for these two entities that I love dearly, from the bottom of my heart. Sometimes I don't know which one I love more.
Speaker 1:To be honest with you, I think it might be the pro wrestling only because at one point I thought and I still maybe kind of feel this way that I miss my calling, that Maybe I could have gotten into it. I don't know. It's something I think about often, and I'm too listen, I'm 44 man, going on 45 in About five weeks. There is no way I'm jumping into a ring to learn how to wrestle. I thought about it, though, who knows, I would love to know how to do it. I think like get in the ring and hit the ropes and take a bump and Learn how to put a match together. I would, I would love. There's more of a chance of me doing that than creating a video game. So I think, I think I could probably be a decent writer when it comes to video games.
Speaker 1:I don't know, there's a. I've had this idea in my head for a game for a while, for a very, very long time, and it's actually based on an existing IP, but it's something that's never been explored in video game form, at least I'm not aware that it has been. I'm not gonna say what it is, just in case it does, for whatever reason, come to fruition. But you know, it's something I think about because I I love the writing aspect of stories and, sorry, I keep on playing with my scratching my dry hand and it's probably Making its way into the microphone. But so I wanted to start the segment today talking about something briefly, and I I Think it's important when you do something like this and I speak from experience I Spent five, six years covering a very Specific aspect of the financial services industry, with banking, and if you took up a step further into the niche, it was Mobile payments, it was the Apple pays, it was PayPal and anything you can do to pay with your phone.
Speaker 1:By default, you become an expert in that because you consume yourself with Material, you read press releases, you read other articles, you interview people in the industry, so you become. It's almost by osmosis that you become an expert, and it kind of got to the point Well, not kind of it, did it? Got to the point when I was doing that that I was actually someone who was interviewed Because of my knowledge About that specific industry. It's something I miss and it's something I am, I guess, in some ways Trying to recapture with this podcast in some way. So when I'm talking about some of these topics, I try to be as as educated as possible For somebody who's not in these industries, and I debated whether I was going to start this podcast for that very reason. Because I don't have a hand in pro wrestling, I don't have a hand in the video game industry, but as someone who can take a critical eye at things and I think I do a pretty good job breaking down why I like or dislike something that you know it's the reason why I had the confidence that the start to start the podcast.
Speaker 1:So why do I bring this up? Yesterday? Kevin Sullivan, no, not the wrestler, which, right, there's a point of contention the fact I'm sorry Okay, this is already breaking down. I'm not saying that you need to know who the histories of people who are behind the scenes at these companies, I'm not saying that but the fact that people did not realize that there are two Kevin Sullivan's in professional wrestling, and this is from people who supposedly are fans, like big fans. Marks, if you even want to go that far blows my fucking mind. It does. It really does. And here's the thing if you're not consuming this material on a Regular basis Maybe, like I am, I don't know listen I spent a lot of hmm, I'm trying to think.
Speaker 1:When I really started listening to pro wrestling podcast, it was. It was Coco Banner's podcast to start, and Then it was Austin's right. Listen to a lot of Austin, listen to a lot of cult, listen to a shit ton of art Bischoff and and listen to our shit ton of Jim Ross. Kevin Sullivan is somebody not the wrestler who came up a Lot with Eric Bischoff, because Kevin Sullivan spent a lot of time at impact. He spent time in WCW. If I'm honest again, this guy was 14 years behind the scenes at Impact. He was there for a long fucking time. Okay, his hire was a huge deal For a W. It was huge because of the track record that this guy had in In the industry of being up behind the scenes Force in pro wrestling.
Speaker 1:So I saw one person today on Twitter Saying that they didn't know who Kevin Sullivan was until yesterday, and this was somebody who supposedly follows pro wrestling Very closely. So if you're, if you're paying, if you're saying that you're paying attention to what's going on in the industry and you don't know who Kelvin Sullivan is, the, not the rest, not the taskmaster, not the Booker man, right? Remember that promo, brian Pellman, paul bro, that's who Brian Pellman was referring to was the Booker man Kevin Sullivan. If you don't know who, that Kevin Sullivan is, somebody who has been an industry staller for I don't know a couple of decades now, maybe even more than that. Come on, man, paint a fuck attention, listen, read, do yourself a favor. But then don't go on on Twitter and Then say 99% of people didn't know who Kevin Sullivan was. Come on, that's bullshit.
Speaker 1:Now, the other part of the problem with this whole thing With him getting released was that I don't think people really understood what he was doing at AEW Because they just assumed that he was Calling the shots in the truck. But that wasn't the case. Basically he was editing rampage and doing promotional Video packages. Doing video packages in Nashville, the studio Nashville. Okay, he had built the company's post-production team.
Speaker 1:Somebody was saying I saw quite a few people were saying, oh, maybe AW will not be shot better and they will not miss shots, which is still a problem, by the way, and I wholeheartedly agree with the concept of we've been doing this for how long now? And we're still not shooting the matches the right way and we're missing things. That's gotta stop. But Kevin Sullivan wasn't in charge of that and apparently the decision to let him go came from the guy who was in charge of that. So that's all I'm gonna say about that, because I don't know the ins and outs of what's going on there, but I felt the need to comment on that aspect of that tweet. Again, if you're going to pay attention to these industries or this industry or whatever, you kinda have to know a little bit what the fuck you're talking about. Anyway, as I'm starting to get, my nose is starting to get a little stuffed up here, so I might go through this somewhat quickly, but I'm enjoying the continental classic man.
Speaker 1:I wanna tell you something because I love the G1. I love the concept of the G1 and I still, to this day and I tweeted this out a week or so ago WWE could have done something, I believe, similar because of the power of the WWE Network and even now a Peacock, to where you could have held these matches throughout the week at house shows and stuff and televised some of these house shows. And I'm not saying that you could have done this in-depth G1 like ah, tournament, cause that shit's long, like G1's like six weeks. You know, continental classic doesn't have so many matches, but WWE could have done this. And it's so funny. By the way, you don't think that the competition watches each other and they don't consider themselves competition. The fact that they're doing a tournament for the number one contender for the US title, give me a fucking break. Like I laughed when I heard that. I really did. Like, come on, you gotta be kidding me.
Speaker 1:Anyway, going back to the continental classic, listen this I think this has been a good thing in the sense of you're getting that wrestling action that AEW is becoming known for. Somebody put out a tweet and I wish I would have saved it, but AEW programming is far in the league when it comes to pro wrestling. The amount of action in each show I think it's like close to 60 minutes. So when a two hour episode of Dynamite? Actually no, what is that? It's 22 minutes really per half an hour. So it's over an 88 minute, 88 minute episode of Dynamite, not counting the commercials. Well, actually you have to count the commercials because they show the picture and picture. So scratch that, let's just say 60 minutes, two hours, 120 minutes. Half of that is spent. There's actually something happening in the ring. That's great. It's the same thing that's almost happening on collision and on a rampage. Of the 60 minutes that it's on the air, 30 minutes to spend wrestling, far and beyond what you see on Raw and SmackDown.
Speaker 1:I forget if they did an analysis for NXT. Yeah, I can't remember. That's what I like about AEW and that's how you differentiate yourself from WWE, with the focus in the ring, the action in the ring. That being said, you still have to have story for this American audience, and I mentioned last week how New Japan does things differently and there was this whole idea that New Japan, that AEW, is gonna be more New Japan-like. We shall see. But the thing is they're doing a good job of telling stories with each of these wrestlers for the most part in this tournament, and I like that they're doing that. It's been great so far. I mean, I think people have been enjoying it.
Speaker 1:I thought it was funny that people were having a hard time with the concept of this round robin thing, because it's not something we traditionally see here in the US. I think the last company to do it was TNA, when they had the BFG series. What they did? It out on a point system and it was a round robin-based thing. But honestly, there's a problem. Internet has short-term memory, right. And how many people? Well, let's be fair, there were more people watching TNA back then than there are watching both AEW and RAW sometimes. That's a fucking fact. Go look up the numbers. That's just the fact. And that again just shows you how the TV audience has changed over the years. Anyway, but I think the continental classic has been great.
Speaker 1:I am trying. I wanna go to World's End. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna be there. Gotta talk to my brother. So I'll be curious to see how this all plays out. Who's gonna be in the final at World's End, and that kind of transitions into the Russell Kingdom, because New Japan put out a tweet, a post, social media post the other day talking about the card for Russell Kingdom and I have that up somewhere here and you know here it is and you know what it is looking. It's looking pretty good and I don't know if this is the set Probably not. But I'll be curious to see if the winner of the continental classic goes to Russell Kingdom.
Speaker 1:Because here's the thing, russell Kingdom I'm opening up the calendar right now. The World's End is on December 30th, right? So that's one, three weeks from this Saturday. Russell Kingdom is one, two, three, four, five days later. So that means you're hopping on a. You're probably hopping on a plane from JFK that day to get to Japan, because I have to imagine that they're gonna want that New Japan strong title being defended at Russell Kingdom. We'll see, I don't know, that seems like a lot but we'll see. So here's the card as it stands right now for Russell Kingdom. So you get the Never Open Weight Championship match. It's Shingo Tagaji. He's defending against Tomatanga. I know Tom is more of a double tag team guy, but you know we'll see how that goes.
Speaker 1:This is gonna be an interesting match for the World TV Championship and it's only 15 minute limit, which is maybe a good thing. You got my boy, zach Saber Jr, going up against Tanahashi Again, 15 minutes. I gotta imagine this is Tanahashi's almost swan song. Let's be real. I was at Forbidden Door. I love Tanahashi, but he did not look good in that match against MJF. That's just my eyes, and I've seen Tanahashi at his best, and to see him now, I mean it doesn't. Father. What does JR like to say? Father, time doesn't do any jobs. That's just a reality in the situation. But I think 15 minutes for this it's good. You know it'll get the showcase Zach. It'll get the showcase Tanahashi. Zach will win and maybe it's Tanahashi's last wrestle king, who knows.
Speaker 1:Anyway, iwgp Jr have to weigh championship match. We're gonna see my boy, hiromu Takahashi. He's gonna be going up against Eldespirado. That's true, those matches are always fun. Then you've got the IWGP Jr have to weigh tag team championship match and there's some I don't know. It's funny how the challengers are Francesco Akira and TJ Perkins, which I think is kind of funny. I always find that funny. And then they're going up against champions who are Drilla Maloney and Clark Connors, not very familiar with Drilla. So that'll be interesting.
Speaker 1:Then you've got this is probably I mean, how's the potential to be the match of the night for the IWGP US parentheses UK heavyweight championship match. It's a three way. It's the champion, my boy, will Osprey, going up against Moxley and David Finley. I mean it's. I'm pretty sure that Osprey is gonna lose this match. So it'll be interesting to see who. I mean I'm assuming it's gonna be Finley, but we'll see how that, how that, plays out.
Speaker 1:Then the special singles match, okada versus Danielson too, and I'm gonna get into Okada here in a bit. You know why. I mean, I don't know man, I thought that their match at Wrestle Kingdom I'm not forbidden doors pretty fucking good. I don't think it was better than Omega Osprey, but it was up there, it really it really was. So I'm looking forward to the rematch it's gonna be out. It's probably not Danielson's first time in New Japan and in New Japan ring, because I'm pretty sure he went over there as part of Ring of Honor. It could be his first Wrestle Kingdom. I have to look it up, but we shall see.
Speaker 1:Main event is gonna be Sonata the champion versus my boy, naito, and I'm thinking Naito is going to win this one to kind of complete the circle of this storyline One of the few storylines in New Japan right now. That's been going on, I think, for like a couple of years. So yeah, I think this will be a pretty good show. The regular tag teams probably will know soon because they're going through World Tag League right now. That's their kind of G1 for tag teams. So yeah, I mean, listen, january 4th I think the show starts at like three o'clock in the morning and I always get up to watch it and I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward, man.
Speaker 1:Is this gonna be? Is this going to be Okada's last match in New Japan? Because, as you've probably heard the rumors whether I don't know if they're true, but his contract's almost up in New Japan and, for those who don't know, usually those contracts won't run January to January. They only sign one year contracts in New Japan, as far as I'm aware, and that's still the case. So the rumor mill is that Okada has not signed an extension. His contract expires at the end of January.
Speaker 1:He's supposed to be at the US show in January at Jinsan Hosei. So we know we're going to see him at least two more times because he usually comes in Russell's New Year's Dash, right. That's the show after New Japan, traditionally after Russell Kingdom. That doesn't have a card we don't know the card until that day and that's usually a bunch of tag team matches. So you have that and you've got the US show in San Jose but it's gonna come down to.
Speaker 1:Is he gonna stay? Is he gonna go to WWE? And is he gonna or is he gonna go to AEW? And apparently, supposedly reportedly, the reason why he had that tag team match in AEW that was the show that they had Daniel Sim with the playing off the broken, the broken over the bone thing was that he wanted to see what AEW was all about, to get a feel for things there. So that's kind of one aspect of the story.
Speaker 1:The other aspect of the story is that the reason why WWE has been putting Nakamura in a more prominent role is because they wanna show Okada that WWE treats their Japanese wrestlers better now than they ever did under the old regime. Because, let's face it, Vince McMahon did not know what the fuck to do with Nakamura when he got to the main roster, triple H does. He knows what to do with these wrestlers. He knows what to do with Nakamura. He knows what to do with Asuka and Kari and Iyo. He's proven that again and again, that he knows what to do with these wrestlers. Put them in situations where they're gonna be successful. So I think, well, again, nobody knows if this is true or not, but the whole idea is that they're putting Nakamura in this position because Okada and Nakamura are boys still and they still talk.
Speaker 1:So is that gonna be enough to get Okada to go to the US and basically move to the US, when apparently his wife is more famous than he is and they just have a child, I think a one year old? My gut is that Okada sent her to AEW because he'll get the Ibushi deal, where Ibushi is still living in Japan and comes over to the US for special occasions. If Okada signs with AEW, he can still do New Japan on occasion, because I think that's really important to him, because he knows what New Japan has done for him and he's been there through some dark times in New Japan. So I think I can't see a scenario where he goes to WWE because it was the same thing with Osprey. He wanted to be able to still live in the UK and he gets to do that with AEW. Not only does he get to do that with AEW, he still gets to occasionally wrestle in New Japan on those special occasions. So I have to think that Okada is going to stay. I'm sorry that he's going to. Either he stays or he goes to the AEW. I don't think WWE is going to be an option for him at this time.
Speaker 1:So that is going to do it for episode 3, and I can't believe I've been talking for an hour and almost 15 minutes. So I know when you're starting a new podcast, listen. I've done this a few times already, believe it or not. I know it takes time to build momentum and that's what I'm trying to do now. It's a bit disheartening because I don't really see downloads on the show and the show's on YouTube now. So if you want to go back and release, good to episode 0, I'm going to put up the rest of the episodes this week because I finally figure out how to kind of overlay the audio with the video in iMovie. So that's happening right.
Speaker 1:So, again, the podcast is on Spotify and Apple Podcast. I'm going to look into adding it to more venues because, hey, it could not hurt. So that's that. I am on TikTok, right, and the username on TikTok let's look at that right now is lookfornerdfedpodcast. That's what it comes out to. The little dot thing is thenerdfederati, which I kind of like. It's almost like paparazzi. So there, and Nerd Federation Podcast is now on YouTube and hopefully I don't know.
Speaker 1:I've been thinking about maybe I'll do some streaming at some points. You know, I don't know. I've got ideas for the podcast. It's just a matter of, like, executing them and the fact that I'm three technically four episodes down now. It's pretty good. Got to get to that 10th episode, right, and then I'm going to start looking into doing interviews.
Speaker 1:I have one person in mind that I do want to bring on. I mentioned that in episode zero. So hopefully I'm going to talk to him and see if he wants to be on the show and I think it would be a very interesting conversation from a gaming perspective because he is somebody that is very well. I'm not going to say it, I want to. I'm going to actually talk to him and see if he would come on the show. So that's going to do it for episode number three.
Speaker 1:Thanks for hanging with me. There was a lot to talk about this week in this episode. There is going to be a lot to talk about next week, considering you're going to have game awards are going to be done. You got a TNA pay-per-view this weekend, ongoing continental classic stuff. Who knows what's going on WWE. I need to pay attention to that more Going to be double down weight by that time. It's going to be done with the fire watch by that time and maybe, just maybe, I'm going to get into getting on Starfield again. So, all right, thanks for joining me. I'm Will Hernandez and I will see you next week.