Almost Gamers

Episode Two: Settings

• Matt Firek and Andrew Wilds • Season 1 • Episode 2

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Welcome back for some more random talk about games. This time Matt can't seem to play games the right way while Andrew falls into a Minecraft hole. The duo discuss "old" games that were impossible to beat, reminisce about all night gaming marathons, and huge upcoming games they don't really care about. And Michael McCann, who they REALLY care about.

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SPEAKER_00:

No pretzels. No pretzels. We're an anti-pretzel

SPEAKER_01:

community. That's where the cheese out. The cheese is quiet. The cheese board. Yes, cheese doesn't make noises in your mouth. Is that what she said? All right, folks. Welcome back to episode two of our podcast, which we are now officially calling Almost Gamers. That's a name. Don't know if we like it or not. We don't care. That's what it's going to be. I am Matt Feerick, a.k.a. Dr. Fire K, a.k.a. Matty Flames, and sitting across from me is the amazing man that loves his voice in the microphone almost too much, the end man, Andrew Wilds.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

So here we are, episode two. Two. I mean, can you believe we're trying this again for some reason? Yeah, no, I can't. I mean, so far our- I can imagine. Our test audiences are just, we're scoring through the roof. Really? Who's our test audience? Your wife. My wife. And that's it. I've told other people about

SPEAKER_00:

it. Who did you tell? I was curious.

SPEAKER_01:

So James and Scott from the band and Frizzy. So the band. Yeah, basically the band. Anybody else? I think I might have mentioned it to some coworkers who were very, very much so disinterested. Disinterested. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I

SPEAKER_01:

mean.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, they have time to get on board. That's right. Before it becomes like Game of Thrones and takes off. That's right. We liked it before it was famous. Well, hopefully our

SPEAKER_01:

season six doesn't take ten years. It's true. And, you know what, I realized we should start off this podcast maybe talking a little bit about how we... advanced how our night progressed after the last podcast oh yeah because remember our idea was usually so those of you who don't know which is everybody yes we get together talk about games and game related stuff or just stuff in general

SPEAKER_00:

yeah

SPEAKER_01:

and then we go and game And last time, we didn't do so well in that department.

SPEAKER_00:

Our gaming was– well, my gaming was terrible. In fact, I quit a game probably the quickest I've ever quit a game. Do you even remember the

SPEAKER_01:

name of that game? No. I'll have to admit I didn't either. I had to look it up here. It was Echo Point Nova. Echo Point Nova. Echo Point Nova. It was– No, you don't remember at all. No. But it was kind of... You liked it. I remember that much. It was neat. It had some neat components to it, but it's... I realized you were lost the entire time. Yes. We tried to record the thing, screen capture it, whatever, broadcast it, but... That didn't work so well, which is probably for the best. Although I would love to have watched your gameplay just to see. Yeah, I remember you had to run on walls a little bit. Yeah, there was some wall running. Yep, yep. You know, it's got like a little skateboard, surfboard sort of a thing. So Versa was really cool, but a little tough. So not for the... Not for the drunk. The drunk at heart, yes. And then we eventually went to Warhammer. Yeah. But never got past the tutorial level. It was an intricate tutorial. It is, but we played a little bit of that. Tonight, before playing this, I mean, sorry, recording this, and we're going to go back to that right after. But today, let's get into it. Let's get into the show. Again, thank you, everyone. Really appreciate you. I got into a game since we've last talked that I did not think was going to happen at all. It was out of nowhere in my mind. Avowed. Yeah, see, but look, I know you're like, wait, I know that name, but you know about it? Yeah,

SPEAKER_00:

the game from our buddies.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, the Obsidian. Yeah, Obsidian. Obsidian.

SPEAKER_00:

Wait, I thought Assassin's Creed

SPEAKER_01:

was

SPEAKER_00:

coming.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, no. Well, so here's the thing. I had, for a very long two weeks, I had a couple days free. And I needed to do something, kind of kill the time, and Avowed is on Game Pass. All right, I'll sign back up for Game Pass, give Avowed a thing before I can come up with$70 to play Assassin's Creed. So it was just meant to be like a one-night thing, test the waters, see what. Kind of like your mom. Yeah. Wait, does that mean that I– no, I can't even parse that.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So, I fell in love with it, dude. I know. I may have gotten more obsessed with that game than I've gotten obsessed with any other game in a long time. Yeah, I know. It's crazy because one of those games that kind of came and went and I forgot almost about it, the initial reviews were okay. People seemed very lukewarm on it. And for those of you who don't know, it's Obsidian... take on Skyrim, kind of. That's what everyone says about

SPEAKER_00:

it. Pretty much, yeah. And they hated that comparison, to be honest. Yes,

SPEAKER_01:

and I agree by, not the hatred. All right, so here's my thing. It is like, again, I don't want to say Skyrim Lite, but it definitely has a lot of feel of Skyrim. Like, really early on, in the tutorial level, if you will. I picked up an axe and a shield and it kind of had that awkward first person jumping. You had that shield and axe right there in front of your face and you're swinging. I'm like, this is awesome. You gave it a Skyrim feels to it. But in general, it's just very different. You have to judge it on its own merits. It is really cool. I know there's a lot of going around saying that it's only about a 20-hour campaign or whatnot, which I love. We always say there needs to be short RPGs. Yeah, right. I don't understand how anyone could beat that in 20 hours unless you're just like mainlining.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, most of those things.

SPEAKER_01:

No, that is not possible in my mind at all. I think I'm already at like 40 hours and I'm like barely through any of the game. But it's just delightful.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

fair.

SPEAKER_01:

I like, um, the world's not too big. It rewards exploration very well. There's a lot of verticality to it. So all you always want to get as high as you can go. And for once at these kinds of first person games, jumping isn't that bad, but you're always, it is such a simplified, upgraded crafting leveling system. Um, uh, You don't have to spend hours in the menu. So every time you're finding a chest which has random shit in it, it's all very useful.

SPEAKER_00:

That's nice.

SPEAKER_01:

So it's not amazing graphics. Yeah. But it's nice. It's nice. It's pleasant. The story is fine. Yeah. The side, your main companions are okay. One thing I do love, and I know you appreciate this, the voice actor for one of your main companions is the same voice actor that does Garrus from Mass Effect.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, Garrus is my buddy. Yes. I love Garrus. It's

SPEAKER_01:

almost the same voice. Ah, kind of. Yes. It's nice to be back. Yeah. Yeah. Does he do much? I have no idea. Garrus is my favorite. A lot of those voice actors will do, you know, have like their main voice, but they'll do unrecognizable voices a lot. And I don't know if he's in other stuff, but it definitely sounds just like him. Oh,

SPEAKER_00:

man. And this. Bringing back memories.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And it's... Yeah, the game, there's a lot of things that some people might not like because it makes it too simple, but I think it just makes it more fun. Like when you run, it doesn't use up your stamina.

SPEAKER_00:

That is. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, that's a choice, and

SPEAKER_00:

I respect it. You got it.

SPEAKER_01:

You can just steal shit left and right. There's no crime. You can't kill NPCs. Yeah, I

SPEAKER_00:

saw. I saw like a... whatever, real, whatever they're called on whatever social media. But some people are like, oh, look at me. And then they show it to Skyrim and you kill somebody and then everybody attacks you. So how many games can't you kill people that are in the world? That's just how a game works. They decide whether or not you accept it. Yeah, and it's fine. That's the rules within the game.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. And I think it just makes it very– Just, yeah, I don't have to think about this game a whole lot. I just do what I do. I don't have to worry about this or that. I just kind of go through the world. Yeah,

SPEAKER_00:

that's perfect.

SPEAKER_01:

And I say, like, ingredients, no weight.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh,

SPEAKER_01:

that's

SPEAKER_00:

nice. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01:

I'll barely have to worry about my inventory in this game at all.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, inventory sometimes.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, there's not a whole lot. You can always just hit X to send an item to camp,

SPEAKER_00:

and it goes into your stash. That's like Baldur's Gate 3. I was really appreciative of

SPEAKER_01:

just sending stuff back. Yep, you don't have to run back constantly. There's none of anything like that. It's just an enjoyable game. The only thing I will say... There's an ability point system. So that's how you go through your skill tree. And it used to be every level up, you'd get one ability point. Max level is 30. There's three trees. Each tree, I think, takes like 50 skills. points to max out so you kind of see the problem there they did change it recently to you get a couple more every five levels you get one extra point I have to admit I used a mod which gives you more ability points and I yeah yeah I went because it was the game really once it seems like it really wants you to do some crazy builds like this so there's fighter ranger wizard that's it But you can freely go between them all. And you can pick up– you can have two weapon sets at a time. So hit wide swaps between two sets of one hand each. In other words, so I have my main one is a gun in my right hand and a spellcasting book on my left. And my other one is a shield and a mace I think I've been doing. So– and it's– This game does that very well. You can play like a spellcasting fighter like no other game ever. Usually it's harder to do a spell sword, as they call it. This game, it's just... It's so much fun. And the combat is very... I almost say it's almost like an action-adventure game where you have to move around and dodge and jump. You can't just swing and block. You have to go and try to hit them in the back if they're blocking and stuff. It's very engaging. It's not just sit back and butt mashing.

SPEAKER_00:

I like that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's like you got to move and use your different things and swap out between the two. And that's why I felt I needed more ability points. You can always respec. But I didn't want to respec every time I wanted to switch from the sword and shield to heavy two-handed. Okay. You know what I mean? Because there are different ability things.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

So, yeah. Some people might call that cheating. I call it having fun.

SPEAKER_00:

There it is.

SPEAKER_01:

So, but, yeah. I mean, it's... It's a good game. It is. It is a lot of fun. And I'm just enjoying it. The music's very good. The music is very Jeremy Soleil. Don't talk about that. Did we not talk about him last time, I think, personally? Yeah, well. It's a hot-button topic. Especially

SPEAKER_00:

for nerds.

SPEAKER_01:

Those in the know. I mean, I played some more. It's odd. I needed a break from Baldur's Gate.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, you're still playing that? I

SPEAKER_01:

am. Where are you at, by the way? I still haven't finished Act 2. Yeah, I'm very close, I think. How do you know? What are you at? What are you doing? I think I have to beat up the dude in the Moonrise Tower, maybe. I think that's what I'm about to do.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, yeah, then you're close. Oh, jeez, that's...

SPEAKER_01:

Good luck. If we haven't already... established a very slow at games.

SPEAKER_00:

And I realize I... That's why you're an almost gamer.

SPEAKER_01:

I do them the wrong way. Like, I'm pretty sure that whole Underdark, or not Underdark, Dark Shadow, Shadow Realm, I think I went backwards through it.

SPEAKER_00:

How'd you end up doing that? I don't know. Same with

SPEAKER_01:

Avowed. Like, I was supposed to go into this big city, was like this, you know, big thing of like Chapter 2. And... I kept walking around this huge walled city and every entrance was like, the entrance is closed, you have to go through the main gate. And it turned out, so basically I started at one o'clock, if you're looking at a clock, and the entrance was noon. But I went clockwise around the... Yeah, it was like three hours.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I don't do things the right way. Well, Matt gets his money's worth.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Regardless.

SPEAKER_01:

I explored the shit on the outside of that city, man. I knew every wall and every entrance you're not allowed to go through.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. That makes

SPEAKER_01:

sense. What do you got over there, Mr. Andrew?

SPEAKER_00:

What did I do? Well... I guess the last time we talked, the only thing I played so far is Minecraft. Believe it or not.

SPEAKER_01:

So was that solo or with your daughter? I

SPEAKER_00:

wish it was my daughter. I wish I could use that as an excuse at this point.

SPEAKER_01:

Right, but...

SPEAKER_00:

I got obsessive with Minecraft.

SPEAKER_01:

How... How did that happen? I should say, it's not that I'm... Minecraft is a great game. It is. It is very addictive, but you've played it before. This isn't, like, your first

SPEAKER_00:

time. No. I guess, like, my day started, like, with her. I wanted to build a castle.

SPEAKER_01:

But you had to walk around? And

SPEAKER_00:

you have to... Well, I'm in survival mode. Okay. If you're hardcore, you're survival. Any... So, I just... You know, I started with a little obsession with that, and I just jokingly thought I'd build a castle. And little do I know, you can really build a castle in Minecraft. So then I got down the weeds with that, and that was, what, four years ago. But we've been off and on, and she likes the game a lot, but for different reasons. And then I guess recently I decided I'd finally finished my castle, and And now I've decided that I'm going to build a medieval fantasy renaissance village or city.

SPEAKER_01:

Like outside of the castle?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So I wanted a surrounding city.

SPEAKER_01:

Which is a reasonable add-on. Those people, oh, I had a moat, a drawbridge. You're like, no, I'll just add an entire city.

SPEAKER_00:

This

SPEAKER_01:

feels like this was very– motivated by your playing Kingdom Come 2.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, which is sad because I've given up. Okay, so rather than playing Kingdom Come 2. I decided to build my own medieval town, which is sad because I played, I think last time we talked, I played maybe five minutes. I actually played it, played it for a couple minutes, started a mission. And then I left. And then I decided I'd go back to Minecraft. And so, yeah, I'm playing it quite extensively to the point where actually Liana one time came in. Liana's my daughter and six years old. And she came into the room and she said, Dada, all you do is play Minecraft. Oh! Yeah. And so that kind of stung. And to be honest... She meant, because she plays a lot of games. She's a gamer girl. She kind of just meant like... She

SPEAKER_01:

meant that in a good

SPEAKER_00:

way. Well, that, but also like she plays servers, which is their version of Fortnite. They have all these weird games. She just meant I play survival mode, and I just build stuff all the time. By yourself. But as a dad, it felt like a sting. Like, Dada, I see you're... Chest is full of cobblestone, but I'm missing out on my applesauce squeezes, you know? Like, get on being a dada. Anyway, I just, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Is your city done?

SPEAKER_00:

No.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

But I thought for the podcast, if we have listeners, and maybe if there's a way to do it without destroying it, they could come and visit it. Oh, yeah, that's a thing, right? Maybe make it worth some time, because I'm... Very deep into it.

SPEAKER_01:

That could be a way for all of our fan to gather. It might be a fan thing. Yeah, in the town square. In the town square, yeah. We have a gathering of

SPEAKER_00:

folk. Yeah, so Minecraft is all I've been doing. And I feel really guilty because, like, there's a guy at work who wants to talk video games with me, and he's playing Kingdom Come, and he regularly asks me, like, hey, did you get to this part? And I was like, oh, God.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, that's kind of like you and me in Baldur's Gate.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Oh, yeah, it's very much like that. Every couple months. In fact, I've been kind of avoiding him because I'm like, I really don't want to talk about it because I'm playing Minecraft, which is funny because I thought about it, too. I was like, yes, I have a wife, I have a kid, and I'm playing Minecraft. 40 and I'm still playing Minecraft so all those things go together somehow you gotta find the right woman right so that's it I did oh I did try to it's the it was a free game on PlayStation well free as far as with their their package deal of like you're a member but the Dragon Age Oh, Veilguard. Veilguard. Okay. Yeah, I did install it and start it and make a character. And then I played through a little bit of the tutorial without any interest of actually doing much. I just said I was bored, so I wanted to try it. And definitely they changed Dragon

SPEAKER_01:

Age. Yeah. So you've played all of them, haven't you? Yeah. Okay, I've

SPEAKER_00:

only played the first one. I didn't beat them all. I beat the first two.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, I've only played the first one, Origin.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I could see getting into it, but it's more action-oriented versus like the first one was like a turn-based but real-time, I think. Or whatever that's called. I forget

SPEAKER_01:

what it is. Well, it was different on PC and console. That was the thing. Yes. I think I forget what I played on. Yeah, PC I think was just straight-up turn-based and console was a weird hybrid thing. Okay. And that's why the second game was– totally different because they went with just whatever they did with the console on the first one is what the second one was and I know nothing about I

SPEAKER_00:

just remember the one where like you push a button and then it would happen eventually in the turn of combat but combat felt real time so like you would hit a spell and it would take a couple seconds because everybody had to take a turn I forget but anyway it's just it's different I don't think I'll play it anytime soon because I got to, I mean, well, I'm playing Minecraft, so. And I got to play Kingdom

SPEAKER_01:

Come. Yeah, yeah. Next up, we're going to do, I guess, what we're calling a segment. They're all segments, but the difference here, we're going to do something a little bit different, is we've thought about it ahead of time a little bit. If you can't tell, the rest of this entire podcast is made up on the spot. I have

SPEAKER_00:

some... Been all scripted.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I have some incomprehensible notes in front of me, and that's about it. So... Matt found the world's littlest notebook. I do. Yeah, it's whatever. You know, it's... College rule, though. College rule it is not. so this time we're going to talk about we're going old school we're going retro now me and you have been gaming for longer than we care to admit definitely since 8-bit days so we're going to We're going to talk about a different era, a different world, mainly a world before even game facts. We're talking pre-internet. Games you need style. Yeah, we're talking about games that you couldn't beat, either because they were bugged. Broken or just so obscure, and this is pre-internet, so you couldn't look it up and figure out how in the world to beat it. So do you want to start us off on there? Hey, man.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, when you told me this, I was troubled because you named the number one. Yeah, yeah. Matt has the best ones, but I just was thinking back in Nintendo... For sure, because Nintendo was ruthless. And some of the hardest games, I don't know if they were impossible. I guess people have probably beat them. But some of the ones I looked at were Ghosts and Goblins. Oh, that was like the OG

SPEAKER_01:

Dark Souls, if you will. God, it was... I never played that, but I've heard.

SPEAKER_00:

You know... Like, my family was okay with Nintendo, so, like, we got some Nintendo games, but I had probably, like, eight games to choose from, and one of them was Ghosts and Goblins. And, you know, when you're bored, you're like, which one should I play of these eight games? And sometimes you throw Ghosts and Goblins in, and that's... It wasn't fun.

SPEAKER_01:

It wasn't broken or glitter, I think. It was just brutally hard.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean, like, you were a knight. And you fought goblin-type creatures. They were very random from what I remember. And it was funny because, like, he started as a full knight. He had the plate armor or whatever you want to say. And he had a javelin, I think, and he threw it. But if you got hit once, you turned into, like– at night in kind of his underwear, I guess, and you were basically vulnerable, and then one more hit and you were dead. So it was like you got two hits, and there was all this shit flying. It was old Nintendo, like shit flying from everywhere, goblins and random stuff. So it was just annoyingly hard. Like, you know, like a lot of games had balance where you could get power-ups and you'd... There was, like, really no power-ups. It was, like... Just hard. Hard. For a hard sake. Right. You know, but that was one of

SPEAKER_01:

the early... So that made sense in the arcade era, because the whole point is you die, so you pop in another quarters. Yeah. But there was the weird... time frame where they thought they had to do that with consoles just because that's what they did. Yeah. And I feel like that was a reason for that. Probably. They just didn't know better.

SPEAKER_00:

No. Yeah. So that

SPEAKER_01:

was hard for hard's sake.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that was just a difficult game. Whether people can beat it, I don't know. You know, and I've... As I'm older... And I've gone on YouTube. I've actually watched people beat old games. I'm like, I'm curious. How does that end? Oh, and? I don't know if I've ever watched that one, but that's a good one. Well, you mentioned this segment, and I was like, let's look up. I just did a Google search. Like, hey, let's look up old games for Nintendo that are really difficult. And that was on a lot of people's lists. And I was like, yeah, that was a very difficult game. And not fun. And I don't know. Like I said, when you have eight games to choose from. Like nowadays, kids have like a thousand games to choose from.

SPEAKER_01:

Right,

SPEAKER_00:

yeah. And they're all amazing. And then yet they complain. Right? Go ahead, Matt.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm going to start with the one that always kills me. So... This would also have been Nintendo days. So I didn't have a Nintendo. My neighbor, TJ, did have a Nintendo. So it was even... more precious the time I had with playing games because I couldn't just play on my own. I could only play when I could be with my buddy and we'd play. So the fact that Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

SPEAKER_00:

Damn, you know what? I just literally thought of that while we were just talking. Oh, really? Yeah, I was just like, oh, that game. That would be a good game.

SPEAKER_01:

So this is one of the games. It was very weird. I mean, really, that movie was weird. Yeah, I mean, Jessica Rabbit, yes, which that's not a move that would never get made. today for real for real but the game was also very odd but more importantly it shipped bugged so this is a time where there were no patches if a game didn't work because of a coding error it just didn't work but again this is the era of nintendo and no internet We just thought we were fucking it up every single time. 100%. I forget the exact bug, but it was a progress-related bug. It was like a portal, a tunnel between Toontown and Humantown or whatever. I don't remember. But you just couldn't progress beyond a certain point. But it didn't freeze or anything like that. You just couldn't do anything else. So we'd spend hours roaming around trying to figure out what to do next, not knowing for 20 years that it was just impossible

SPEAKER_00:

to beat. It just wasn't beatable. By the way, that was one of the eight games I owned.

SPEAKER_01:

And I will just throw in as a bonus, in a lesser-known game, there was a Ghostbusters game in that same era on Commodore 64. Same deal. It was bugged. You couldn't beat it.

SPEAKER_00:

I think the ultimate bug, and you brought it up, and I think this is– I don't know. Maybe somebody else will talk about it. And maybe say something. But I think the hardest one was that X-Men game. So you can talk about that.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

That wasn't a bug. That was a... Wasn't a bug. I'm sorry. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

It was a

SPEAKER_00:

design

SPEAKER_01:

decision.

SPEAKER_00:

It messed me up because you told me this probably like 10 years ago.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And I was blown away because I did not

SPEAKER_00:

realize.

SPEAKER_01:

So X-Men on the... Sega Genesis.

SPEAKER_00:

Was that all it was for? I was wondering.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm pretty sure it was only on the Sega Genesis. Because that's all I played. It was a good game. This part ruined me. It's one of my favorite soundtracks of all time, by the way. The theme song. Slaps. Slaps, as the kids say. And the X-Men look good. And they're good, and it was neat. First of all, it was hard as shit. It was one of those games where you could pick a character, and you could pick a bonus character, but you had to use the exact Yeah, you had to do everything just right just to get to the stage. So you get to a point late in the game. Again, this is a game where there's no saves. You know, you have to play every time you run out of lives.

SPEAKER_00:

You're done.

SPEAKER_01:

You have to start over back from the beginning.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, each X-Men

SPEAKER_01:

because you had

SPEAKER_00:

to use them up. It's like Turtles in that

SPEAKER_01:

way. Yeah. So, yeah, if you use Cyclops in level two, you're done because you need him on level five to beat it. So you get to the part with, oh, man, what is his name? The guy, the TV head dude.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, what was his name? I just rewatched all of them. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01:

I know.

SPEAKER_00:

Six months ago. Oh,

SPEAKER_01:

we are so good at this. Yeah. Anyways. We're not looking at our phones. Yeah, yeah. We're keeping it real. Yeah. So it was his stage. You get to the end of it, he's the final boss. Yeah. And he's basically invincible. You can't hurt him. Right. And it keeps saying, you must reset the computer in order to beat him. And it just keeps saying that. You must reset the computer. And at this point, we're... So already frustrated. We know a little bit of health. We know if we die, we die. That's it. It's game over. Fast forward 10, 15 years later, what you had to do was literally hit the reset button

SPEAKER_00:

on the Sega Genesis. Mind you, kids, games used to have a reset button, which was like not

SPEAKER_01:

a hard... Right, right, not a power button. No. It was just a reset button. And also a reminder, there's no save, like we said. Yeah. So if you hit the reset button at any other point in any other game in all of existence, you would lose your progress if you start over at the beginning.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, exactly. So you're taking a huge gamble that you would lose all your progress. Nobody would do it

SPEAKER_01:

in their right mind. No. And again, I don't even know exactly what happens. Apparently, though, you go back to the start menu. I never got past that point. But there's like a different start, and then you go back, and then you can beat him, and then you finish off the last level.

SPEAKER_00:

I think I got to that point maybe one time, because it was

SPEAKER_01:

such a tough

SPEAKER_00:

game up until that point. Yeah, that's the other thing. It's not like it was easy up until that point. No. That ruined me a little bit. It ruined so many childhoods. Yeah.

UNKNOWN:

God.

SPEAKER_00:

Games are such a... You know, they complain about...

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, in a way, it's brilliant and neat, but no, fuck you. Who's thinking

SPEAKER_00:

about it? It would be beautiful and neat if your progress saved and it would load up from your last checkpoint. Right, right. If it was a puzzle game and you're like, oh, yeah, I didn't... Yeah, it was out of nowhere. It was out of

SPEAKER_01:

nowhere. No one would have been...

SPEAKER_00:

It was a platformer action

SPEAKER_01:

game. It kind of reminds me, I guess this is similar, Metal Gear Solid. Psycho Mantis is the famous fight where he reads your mind and you have to actually unplug the controller and plug it into controller number two so he can't understand what you're doing. But at least that was in the kind of pseudo... They had guidebooks. Really? If not internet. Well, yeah, yeah. And there was a lot of word of mouth at the time. And that was an obscure, weird puzzle game. So it wasn't out of nowhere. That's still pretty funny. Yeah, and that's PS1 era. That's, again, not Nintendo era where most people were just collecting mushrooms and trying to not– Hit spiky shell. Okay. All right. You got any others? I got a lot.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean, we don't have to go crazy on all these. I just, one of them was Kung Fu.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, also known as Yi Ar Kung Fu. What? The one where you... All right, he's giving me a weird look. He's doing something with his arms. Are you talking about the arcade game that was in, like, the arcade games that were, like, in the dentist's office back in the day? I don't even know what you're talking about. Yeah, I can't even describe this game. Yeah, okay, we're not talking about that. No. Okay,

SPEAKER_00:

well, Kung

SPEAKER_01:

Fu.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, Kung Fu was a Nintendo game. Does that... Was that on a Nintendo? No, it was definitely arcade only. No, this was a Nintendo game. Just another... But it was beatable, but it was difficult. That was another, like, you could beat it. Was this like you one-on-one against other... Yeah, you were like... It was a side action game, and you basically went up against bosses. And it was just like you had a couple moves. You could do the classic duck and do the leg sweep.

SPEAKER_01:

That might be the same game.

SPEAKER_00:

And then you could do the jump and a kick.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we might be talking

SPEAKER_00:

about the same game. And then a kick and a punch. And that was like your four moves.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, it might be. Yeah, all right. Yeah, I think it was a different arcade. I think Nintendo version was the fancy version. Yeah. Sophisticated. But you're right. Yeah, it's the same deal. There was a very specific way to beat every enemy. If you didn't do the exact moveset, you were done.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. It was kind of a thing, too. You just had limited life. Everything with Nintendo was limited life. You had three tries, and then you were dead, and then you just started over. And that's pretty much all Nintendo was. Yeah. And then I'll just go through the rest. Echo the Dolphin, which is a Sega game. Oh, another Sega game. Echo the Dolphin was one of the most beautiful games I've ever played, but I never got past swimming around in the opening area. Barely. And I watched somebody beat the whole game on YouTube, and I was like, wow, it's surprisingly in-depth. And I never... Ever experienced that and never will.

SPEAKER_01:

That was a weird game. And there's a weird story behind why you're a dolphin. And as particular for this podcast, we don't know. But you know what? Look it up. Expand your mind. Right. We give you the hints. Yes. To inspire you to go out and explore the world for yourself. Grow. Yeah. Almost Gamers podcast. We have almost some of the answers. Ninja Turtles.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, yes.

SPEAKER_01:

That and Battletoads. Same deal.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I never played Battletoads, and I saw that on a lot of people's lists. And I can't talk about it much. But Turtles, I played religiously. And I always get to the same part. And I beat it. Maybe three or four times, but then after that, it doesn't matter. It gets more difficult. But everybody will always talk about the reefs in the water and you're swimming to disarm the bombs. Did you ever play that,

SPEAKER_01:

man? No, I haven't got that far

SPEAKER_00:

even. Yeah, there's a part where, like, it's basically, you know, like that game where you can't touch the sides. And so... You can play at Kennywood or any theme park or also like Operation game. But yeah, it's just a game where you swim and you have to get to each bomb and then you have to disarm it. But there's these little plants that are growing on the sides of the cave that you're swimming through. And if you touch them, you get shocked and lose health. And you have to beat a clock because the bombs will blow up. So it's just–

SPEAKER_01:

I will say the Ninja Turtles arcade game. Good games. I beat for the first time last summer with my buddy Ryan Pugliese's son. Oh. Is he going to be on the pod yet, Stark? He should be. He's smart. How old is he now? Rory, he's...

SPEAKER_00:

He's

SPEAKER_01:

got to be like 20, bro. 10-ish. 10? Yeah. I feel like they've had... I was so happy because it was one of those games that was like, I think it... at the bowling alley.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, that's a way to play. Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

And, you know, we'd always run out of quarters. That was the reason I never did that. So it was down at a pins mechanical and it's free and, but the screen was all, it wasn't, it wasn't a pretty game, but. Damn it, we beat it, and I was definitely more even excited than he was.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, there's that X-Men game, which is another classic. Oh, yeah, yeah. And then we went down, and somebody, I guess, decided to, like, I guess there was some way to increase the lives. I forget. Oh, you keep hitting maybe, like, player one or something, you get more lives. Somebody had, like, 99 lives. That's a way to beat it. But, like, you were stuck. playing as whoever they played as. And you had to die 99 times if you wanted to play as anybody else. And I was like, I want to play as Cyclops. But they were like... Nightcrawler or something. And I was like, I got to die 99 times to get to be able to play a new game. Plus, I mean, they're free there. That's what I mean. Somebody just took advantage of the free, and I guess they kept hitting the button. Oh, yeah, yeah. And I guess they were messing around. And I was like, oh, this is annoying. I have to play as Nightcrawler. I like Nightcrawler. Nothing against Nightcrawler. I want to be Cyclops. Cyclops is my favorite.

SPEAKER_01:

Poor Kurt.

SPEAKER_00:

Kurt likes Nightcrawler.

SPEAKER_01:

No, his name is Kurt.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, we know a Kurt. Backstory. Yes. He's a drummer. He doesn't... He can't

SPEAKER_01:

teleport

SPEAKER_00:

that

SPEAKER_01:

we know of. I mean, we don't actually know. We never asked. Yeah,

SPEAKER_00:

we've never specifically asked Kurt, your brother-in-law, if he can teleport. Maybe. I'm going to write that down. Ask Kurt if he can teleport. All right. We'll let you know next podcast. Next podcast, we'll find out. We'll get to the bottom of Kurt. All right. You got any more oldie hardie games? All right. So this is on a list of people's toughest games, which I– because I went through NES, Sega, because those are the systems I owned growing up. And then I was like PlayStation. PlayStation. Cause we're going old. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously. I mean, a lot of these games are really, really old by today's generation, but somebody said driver game. Oh, Oh,

SPEAKER_01:

I don't, I have never played it, but you know, I watch a lot of YouTube countdown lists and whatnot, you know, a lot of game ranks and, uh, PlayStation Access, and they talk about that game a lot. Yeah. Yes. Did you ever play it? I never

SPEAKER_00:

played Driver 1. Yeah, I

SPEAKER_01:

think I did. What was the awful one? Driver, where the 3 was an E. Oh. Yes. I don't think I ever played 3. It was Driver 3, but it was awful.

SPEAKER_00:

Oddly, like Driver 2 was on the list. I guess all the drivers are... difficult games and Driver 2 was on the list and I laughed because I'll never forget I don't know if it was for my birthday but I used to have like like everybody young sleepover parties with your friends and we Me and Steve. Oh,

SPEAKER_01:

was it you and Steve Hutch beat a game in a night?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Oh, no way. And we decided to get a group of people, and we decided we're going to try to beat a game in one night. And we said, ah, Driver 2. We knew Driver 1 got, like, you know, good reviews. So we're like, let's do Driver 2 in a night. And we were like, oh, shit, we rented the game. Back then you could rent. You

SPEAKER_01:

used to be able to rent games. And they got a disc. I can't even describe that now to people.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And we're like, oh, shit, it has two discs. We knew right then we were probably dumb for trying it. But we were going to do it. And our group of friends, anyway, we decided we were going to do that. And that was the first night we were like, all right, anybody who falls asleep, I'm going to pee on you. I decided to decide to make that rule.

UNKNOWN:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

A role

SPEAKER_01:

that you've tried to implement to this day at parties. To be honest, it worked because everybody was in the fear. Wait, wait, I need to clarify that he has never actually done that. Yeah, no. And we know he won't, but just the like 0.01% chance that it might happen creates enough fear. Yes,

SPEAKER_00:

and everybody was on fear that night. And I didn't really think much of it because I knew I wouldn't pee on anybody. But I also knew I could stay up all night. I've always been a late-night guy, so I didn't really have any fear of it. But everybody was, like, tired, and people wanted to fucking sleep. And they were scared. They were scared somebody would pee on them. Not on the box when you rented that game. No. But we didn't beat them one night. And we barely– I think we topped out. We– Beat the first disc. Okay. And that was it. But I remember it being difficult, and I remember it being a lot longer, and you would never beat it in one night. So that's it. That's my list.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow. All right. Do you know why Driver 1, though, is on everybody's list? No, honestly, no. The unskippable tutorial level was apparently– hard as shit. Like sounds about right. Yeah. You were like in a garage and you had to do all these things. You had to do like a one 80, a break, a burnout, a slalom, a figure eight and within a time limit. And if you didn't finish it, You couldn't play the rest of the game. You were locked out. You had to do this stupid tutorial. Oh, wow. Can you imagine?

SPEAKER_00:

Right now, I have anxiety just thinking that. Games are... Jesus. Kids have it lucky. I don't want to be that old guy, but boy, we were tough. All right, go ahead, Matt. Is your list done?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's all I had for... Old games that you just couldn't beat for one reason or another. I got a little something something for you. Okay. Since last time, it proved to be such a hit.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah,

SPEAKER_01:

really. We're assuming. Talking about peripherals. Peripherals. Peripherals. Because nothing makes for a good podcast like bringing out physical items to talk about and review.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

So you're thinking about getting a laptop. Yeah. And, you know, I have a laptop.

SPEAKER_00:

I do know that.

SPEAKER_01:

But a lot of times I hook up my– most of the time I hook my laptop up to the TV and I play with a controller. But some games you need a keyboard. Okay. Right. So it's kind of a little awkward the way I have my setup to use the laptop as a keyboard. So back when I was really getting into Baldur's Gate, I'm like, I'm going to get a separate keyboard setup, which is something you might think about doing. Are you aware of different sized keyboards, good sir?

SPEAKER_00:

I am to some extent, but probably nowhere near what you are.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so... The idea is you have your standard keyboard, which has everything, if you will. The number keys. Yes. A big one is a TKL, because gamers love acronyms, which means 10 key less, which is an insane way to say it doesn't have the number keys. Right. So it's just a little bit smaller.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. For a lot of things, you know, you don't need that. Yeah. But let me introduce you to a... Accounting you need it. Oh, that's right. I like it. Let me introduce you to a 60% keyboard.

SPEAKER_00:

Really? Matt's got a 60% keyboard. What? Bam! Wow. So this is... That is tight.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Yes. This is the Razor Huntsman. Feels wrong. Shout out to our hopefully one day sponsor. So... Give it a clicky. Let's do it. It's very clicky. It's very clicky, which all Razer products tend to be. Yes, I love it. I don't really care. It obviously lights up

SPEAKER_00:

RGB. I want to wake up my neighbors with my keyboard, by the way. But if you

SPEAKER_01:

see, it's super compact. Not only is there not the number pad, but there's not that thing next to it with all the home keys and whatnot. Yeah, nobody gives a shit about that. And there's no function keys either. Yeah, function keys. And everything else is just kind of squished together. But if you think about it, it's just for gaming, it's It's your left hand. So you think about you're doing all your stuff on your right hand. On your left hand, all you need are basically your WASD and the mason and other things. Now it has like a function thing. And if you look on there, there's under things. So it can still do the function keys. You just have to hold down another thing first. But for like Baldur's Gate, it's awesome. It's tiny. It's compact. I don't need all these superfluous. I've never hit them. Honestly, have you ever hit the home key in your entire life? I don't even know where the home key is. That would have been one of the ones in that weird section. Yeah, that weird section with the arrows. Yeah, exactly. It doesn't have those arrows either. But if you're using a mouse. Nobody gives a shit about those arrows. Yeah, so it's great. If you're looking for something just to game with. It looks nice. Yeah. I'm trying to think if there's anything I wouldn't. Yeah, that's what you got. So if you do use a lot of function keys a lot and you don't want to hit another button to get to the F function keys, that's the only downside. Yeah,

SPEAKER_00:

I

SPEAKER_01:

don't

SPEAKER_00:

know. I just can't see. I had

SPEAKER_01:

to think about it too. The same deal.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm like,

SPEAKER_01:

wait, well, if I don't. No, I don't need that. I don't need that.

SPEAKER_00:

Like I said, I like the number pad, but that's if I'm an Excel spreadsheet. Right, but for gaming. No, for gaming. That's all you need, just these little tiny buttons.

SPEAKER_01:

Look how little and cute it is. Ah, my goodness. It's horrible. All right, so that was our peripheral. That was...

SPEAKER_00:

It was very peripheral.

SPEAKER_01:

That was almost gaming's almost... Matt's

SPEAKER_00:

going to take

SPEAKER_01:

a picture of it

SPEAKER_00:

with him in a bed with it. Yes, cuddling it up next to my... Matt's going to lick the S key a couple times. Matt's going to blow his nose and not the keyboard that he just talked about. All right, looks like it was a good

SPEAKER_01:

blow. And now, time for the news. All right, the news. Andrew, why don't you start us off this time with some newsworthy news?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I got a lot of stories that I'm guessing you've heard. I don't really have all the details. But one of the big announcements was Silent Hill. F. So, all right,

SPEAKER_01:

all right, hold on. That's what I wanted to ask you. So it's a stylized F. Is that what

SPEAKER_00:

that means?

SPEAKER_01:

I don't know. To me, I read it as Silent Hill Forte. Didn't

SPEAKER_00:

it look like a Forte? It kind of does. Now that you're saying that, I didn't

SPEAKER_01:

think about it. I haven't heard anyone say it yet. I'm assuming it's not.

SPEAKER_00:

It's very loud. It's not. They didn't add any sort of compression. No, it's not. Silent Hill. It's the Loud Hill Forte. or would it be become the medium hill because of the silent

SPEAKER_01:

cancel out it's just medium

SPEAKER_00:

hill

SPEAKER_01:

silent hill

SPEAKER_00:

it is a sequel but it takes all in japan yes which is interesting the original games are all in this west virginia town

SPEAKER_01:

yes but it's a Japanese-made game.

SPEAKER_00:

So it's... Yeah, I'm for it. I watched... Did you watch?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Yeah, I saw the trailer. Yeah. It looks promising. Yes. It does that whole Silent Hill of I think it's normal, I think it's normal. Bam!

SPEAKER_00:

Weird. Yeah, weird. Weird. All of a sudden, weird. She obviously seems normal and the rest of the environment seems fucked up. So that's classic Silent Hill. So... I don't know. I like horror, but honestly, the only reason I love Silent Hill is because me and Steve, that was one of our picks for beating a game in one night. Yes. Oh, speaking of...

SPEAKER_01:

And Steve is a good friend of ours. He could be on this podcast. That actually kind of segues back to... impossible games but that was only impossible because you guys are idiots

SPEAKER_00:

well

SPEAKER_01:

that's very true explain to the audience what you guys spent several hours doing in that game

SPEAKER_00:

well there was a classic Silent Hill moment where you're in a boat and you have to just row your boat to a light and you're just supposed to get to this other area and I guess it's another area in the game and we're idiots by the way we decided to just we said you know what this looks like a spot we need to go to even though i guess everybody knew you're supposed to go towards the light we didn't go towards the light we just went another direction no and we were like i don't know why go toward the only marker we decided that that wasn't the way to go and also we were dumb I say that. I stress that. This is before

SPEAKER_01:

the era of drinking. I

SPEAKER_00:

mean, for you. Technically, we weren't drunk, but we were probably tired drunk, which is not too much far off from being drunk. But yeah, we just kept pushing it, and then we decided, well, the map didn't move. There's an overall map. Supposedly. Yeah, and it moved while we were going. So we said, we're on the right track. We just got to be persistent.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And so we actually did tie a gum band, or I'm sorry, that's a Pittsburghese, a rubber band. I love it. A rubber band around the joystick to keep the boat going. And we walked away, and we probably ate a hot dog because Tessie always had hot dogs for some reason. And

SPEAKER_01:

an apple.

SPEAKER_00:

But never buns. She always had bread, and you had to just fold the bread around it. Oh, yeah, that was my mom, too, yeah. Like, I don't know why. You can't just have buns. But she always had hot dogs. Never buns. Just bread. Which is fine.

SPEAKER_01:

Riveting podcast

SPEAKER_00:

right here. So we came back and nothing, nothing happened. And Matt never moved again. Hours. Probably hours. And then I guess we somehow figured out... Well, we never... Obviously beat the game.

SPEAKER_01:

You didn't have to go like hours back, right? What's that? You'd have to go row hours back.

SPEAKER_00:

No. I think actually all you had to do was aim towards that light. And that light was available wherever you were on the fucking lake. You were just rowing into an invisible wall. Yes. Okay. Pretty much. We thought we were moving because the map moved.

SPEAKER_01:

If the programmer of that map movement is a listener's podcast, you owe Andrew and Steve an apology. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

It's well-deserved.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. So there we go. Silent Hill.

SPEAKER_01:

Silent Hill, looking forward to the new game, but only if you can paddle into the darkness for eternity.

SPEAKER_00:

That sounds like a band name or an album name, Paddle in the Darkness. I like that. Actually, that is good. Getting deep. Okay. So Silent Hill, we both saw that.

SPEAKER_01:

Silent Hill, sorry. F. Or forte. Medium. We just had Silent Hill.

SPEAKER_00:

There it is. Yeah, it's very medium. I also wanted to just talk a little bit. Chrono Trigger turned 30 years old this year. I

SPEAKER_01:

don't agree.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, man. Jesus.

SPEAKER_01:

It's not possible. Okay, there it is. There

SPEAKER_00:

is. X that. Yep. Chrono Trigger is 10 years old. That's right. That's right. Okay. And also, have you any thoughts about the Oblivion remake? Oh,

SPEAKER_01:

wait. Has that officially, officially been officialed?

SPEAKER_00:

No. And that's what's amazing to me. Everybody has talked about it like it's coming out next month or whatever.

SPEAKER_01:

I know everyone says that, well, Todd Howard has been talking about a shadow drop forever. This is going to be the one. It's crazy. Everyone's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So are you aware of Sky Oblivion?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. I feel bad for those people. I don't. I

SPEAKER_00:

mean. You're doing this. You got to fuck you. So those. Work on a game that you own. I mean,

SPEAKER_01:

I can't argue. All right. For those of you who don't know, there's been a huge fan base have been working for free tirelessly for years on decade even, to remake Oblivion with the Skyrim engine. Yeah. And they're pretty close-ish from last I heard.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So if the Oblivion remake officially actually comes out, that might cause them some sadness. Yeah. But...

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. In the sense of the make your own game. I mean, I'm sorry. I mean, you're updating in a game that could be updated.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, at any time.

SPEAKER_00:

Although

SPEAKER_01:

I believe they're doing some other stuff that I don't...

SPEAKER_00:

And I'm sure they're going to get their fans, but they're not going to get any money from this. No. But what's nice is Bethesda has hired people who've worked on mods for their games, so maybe you get a job out of this. I mean, a job that pays. I'm sure they're working their asses off, and I don't know that. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01:

so they can exist as separate things. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And I'm sure some people will say it's better. But it's interesting, and I'm just curious, because this is a criticism for Bethesda, is like they have their own, what's the thing called? Mod store. Well, not the mod store, but like. Creation Engine? Yeah, Creation Engine.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, well, their engine.

SPEAKER_00:

They said it's going to be on Unreal Engine. The remake. That's the rumor. Oh, I

SPEAKER_01:

didn't hear that.

SPEAKER_00:

That was one of the rumors. I mean, not a rumor, but I guess that's some deep

SPEAKER_01:

dive. If a third party is making the remake, that kind of makes sense. But that's a wait. Wait, wait, hold on. Because that's not just going to be an update. That's going to be completely different.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that's what I mean. I'm interested to see how everybody always talks about Creation Engine sucks. And to some degree, I get it has its limits, but... It's Bethesda. It makes a

SPEAKER_01:

Bethesda game a Bethesda game.

SPEAKER_00:

But you also get, like, random cheese... Things rolling down a hill or whatever. You get these rings. Which

SPEAKER_01:

I think we talked about before. We both find endearing.

SPEAKER_00:

I love it. Yeah, we like it. Yeah, it's what makes Bethesda a game. It makes a Bethesda game. And I'm interested to see, like, and a lot of people say they should switch over to Unreal because Unreal is better. Everybody does Unreal. And that's what I feel like. Like, why would Bethesda switch to something that everybody else does when their system works fine for the games they make? But... I'm interested to see how an Unreal Engine treats an oblique.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, if that's

SPEAKER_00:

true. I had not heard that. Bethesda has not officially said this is a thing, but some guy, well, I assume it's a guy, but some person who is on top of things. Insider. Yeah, Insider says this is happening. Is it Jason Schreider? No, Stratham. He's the beekeeper. He's the beekeeper. So that was kind of big news. Well, it's not big news. I just wanted to talk to you about it. And then there's one little more news since we're talking about news. A little old news. Game Informer's back. Did you hear that? I have not! That's literally happened today.

SPEAKER_01:

No way! So I read Game Informer cover to cover from 2005 till... I don't know,

SPEAKER_00:

2019? I feel like that's true, yeah. Yeah. So I guess somebody else bought them up. It was actually, I didn't, this happened today and I didn't really research it for the podcast, but I guess somebody, like some game maker decided to buy them.

SPEAKER_01:

It wasn't Embracer Group, was

SPEAKER_00:

it? Oh, no, no. I did not see Embracer. But yeah, they bought them up. And they brought everybody back. Was it like Andrew Rayner? I think so, because it said everybody's back. And they're bringing physical. They're going to print the magazine again. That's

SPEAKER_01:

cool. I feel like there's enough. Just like vinyl's back now. I feel like there's enough of... Want for that kind of retro Oh yeah Thing that I feel like Like I'm on I'll subscribe right now

SPEAKER_00:

I think I might too Cause I Now that I know they got cancelled The crazy part is I

SPEAKER_01:

know as of Like a year before they were cancelled They were one of the biggest print magazines In publication Oh really Like of everything Wow Isn't that insane That is Like you know Yeah And yet they can't sustain. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm just happy to have them back.

SPEAKER_01:

I did not hear that. That's awesome. So shout out.

SPEAKER_00:

Game Informer, if you want to sponsor us.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

We're

SPEAKER_01:

available. You know, let them take hold of it, man, before they start throwing out some money.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, fuck you then.

SPEAKER_01:

All right. I got one news thing. And again, this might, in the next week, be completely useless.

SPEAKER_00:

Depends on when Matt's released this.

SPEAKER_01:

And this is also, this will segue into what we're looking forward to. Right. GTA 6. Ugh. Yeah. I was thinking that. I'm just, meh. I don't

SPEAKER_00:

give a shit

SPEAKER_01:

anymore. Yeah, I mean, yeah. Not that... All right, hold on. We need to back up a little here. All right,

SPEAKER_00:

back it

SPEAKER_01:

up. Back

SPEAKER_00:

it up. Beep, beep, beep. George Costanza. That's very good.

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Very, very good. We're GTA fans. Like, we've loved the games. We've spent countless hours of enjoyment over the past many decades.

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Yeah.

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I agree. But... It's fine. I

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could live the rest of my life without a GTA. I'll be honest.

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Yeah.

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But I do enjoy the games.

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Yeah. I mean, we'll play GTA 6 at some point.

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I think so.

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Yeah.

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Unless for some reason we can't.

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Yeah.

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But it's just we're not chomping at the bit.

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No. Yeah.

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I could live the rest of my life without another GTA. But I will enjoy

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it. We are alone in the universe. The rest of the gaming industry... is basically deciding their entire lives over when that game will come out. Because no one wants to come out at the same time GTA 6 comes

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out. Oh, I did hear about that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, because I remember, well, not even GTA, but I remember Red Dead Redemption came out the same day as Alan Wake, and that is one of the things that unfortunately made Alan Wake struggle for years and years and years. So it became the amazing cult hit that we Don't know and love today. Shout out. Bye on week two. So a lot of they've said third quarter. I'm sorry. Fourth quarter. Fourth quarter. 2025, which is like everything in September. So if you look at September, there's not a lot of games coming out. But a lot of companies are like, let's avoid that. But what if they don't come out then? They won't. They won't. And they come out. You know, February, then we're fucked. So it's interesting to see like a lot. There's so many companies are like worried. But an interesting tidbit. I had to think about this. Borderlands 4... I

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was just thinking that.

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...does have a release date. In September? In September. And they're the same parent company.

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I saw a lot of

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headlines about that. Yeah, so everyone's like, yeah, GTA 6 ain't coming out in September.

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No.

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Because why would you compete with yourself? Yeah. What we care about is Borderlands has a release date, and we will be playing it. Goddamn,

SPEAKER_00:

man. And I think by that time, Matt will figure out the internet. And you guys can watch us... and maybe we'll be able to you know watch it online yeah you guys will be able to watch you can watch us swear a little bit more and maybe Matt look at a gun or two in the menu

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oh my god you guys will be able to watch me carefully select between two options

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in the menu Matt if you ever thought if you ever thought somebody cared about a white weapon so much oh no no

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no

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no no man he's a he's a

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blues blues all the

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way Matt will take a Blue weapon. Blue over any white

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weapon any day. Goddamn. All right, Andrew, do we have any other games we're looking forward to?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, looking forward to. We didn't get there yet. That was

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the news. That was the news.

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Segwayed into the looking forward to. Looking forward

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to. And

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the only game I know that is coming out is Doom. Doom. Oh. I don't even know what it's called. Doom. Dark Ages? Dark Ages. Yeah, because it's a prequel, technically. So it's like a medieval game. I know people are going to be like, what about his, what's his name?

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Mick

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Gordon. Mick Gordon. I was going to say, I had it

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queued up. I was ready to talk about it. Yeah, you're looking at your fucking phone. I was. I was. Just

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make sure I got all the facts straight. Yeah, Mick Gordon is my boy, and I love Mick Gordon, and I love his music. I don't know i don't know what happened and maybe mick will come on our podcast and talk and tell us the truth and we'll feel it out but uh he i wish he was part of and i wish it was all sweet and happy No,

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never happens. But it's not. It's not. They never paid him for the last game, so he's not...

SPEAKER_00:

No, and he's not happy. And if they didn't, and if things are as the way he said they are, I am sad. I wish he got compensated properly, and I wish everybody was happy. But, you know, we live in a world where people are always trying to take advantage somehow of other people. But... I'm excited. Anything about the game. Not about Mick getting

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fucked. But you know who is doing the soundtrack? Finishing Move. For those of you who don't know, Borderlands 3 had three different composers.

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Yeah.

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Oh,

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I love

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Finishing Move. Yes, for kid. Our favorite, next to Mike McCann.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, Mike McCann is my super favorite.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, and then finishing move was the other group. So that's where I'm like drawn. Do yourself

SPEAKER_00:

a favor. If you see Mike McCann on anything, listen to it. Yes. He is, and I'm sorry, man, I don't want to hijack your little thing. No, that's exactly what I was going to talk about. I just want to say like... Every mix I've listened to, like Spotify, will try to do fun shit for you. But Michael McCann, undoubtedly, always gets a like from me. He is phenomenal. I wish I could meet Michael McCann.

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Also, just so people don't know, he did the reboot of Deus Ex. Yeah, phenomenal, phenomenal soundtracks.

SPEAKER_00:

Go ahead. Sorry, man. I didn't mean to hijack

SPEAKER_01:

it. That was it. That was what I was trying to say. Oh, okay.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Like when we can. Badass. Keep it up. Anything else, man?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, that was the news and the newies that we're looking forward to. This podcast is probably way longer than any normal person would listen to. Yeah,

SPEAKER_00:

I guess that's it.

SPEAKER_01:

But, I mean, that's what we do here. We ramble on for a couple hours. We did ramble. But apparently y'all love it. I love you. If you're in Pittsburgh, yins love it. So I guess we're... This is Matty Flames.

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I don't know what you're pointing at me

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for. So now you're supposed to say, and this is Andrew Wilds.

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I just didn't know what my... Okay,

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so this is how you sign off. Have you ever

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listened to a radio podcast? Yeah, but I didn't know... Should I use my

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nickname? This is Matty Flames.

SPEAKER_00:

Andrew Wilds.

SPEAKER_01:

And we are... The Almost Gamers. Almost. Thank you and good night.

UNKNOWN:

Good night.