Hulk (2003)/Alpha Protocol

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
2456 stay to the same is back. It's holiday season, everybody.
I hope everyone's out there having a wonderful Christmas or
holiday season. Whatever you celebrate, I'm

(00:21):
hoping you are enjoying. Happy post Thanksgiving Blues.
You're probably still recoveringfrom that giant no you had.
Yeah, everybody's coming down off of the big meal,
uncomfortable family conversations, you know, just yo
shopping wet, spending money youdon't have on Cyber Monday.

(00:43):
But you know, it's it's a good time of year.
I'm actually, I'm actually in the holiday spirit this year.
It's been a hell of a year. It's been a hell of a year,
Michael, we talked about that when the show came back, but
it's been it's been really nice.I'm enjoying this time of the
year. It's getting cold outside.
It's getting, you know, all the seasonal signs are coming.

(01:04):
We're here with our eggnog and Bacardi having a good time.
Both my trees are up. I put up the second one last
night. Got it all decorated.
I've got a tree up, too. It's not lit up.
It's not lit up right now, but Igot a tree too, you know?
Yeah, it's, you know, it's a good time of year.
It's a good time to sit inside and play some video games and

(01:25):
just enjoy the holiday season with loved ones.
Michael. Yes.
Yo, this is our last normal episode of the year.
We'll talk about what's going tohappen at the end of.
The show, yeah, we'll do like a rundown on how the season's
going to end and all that fun stuff afterwards.
But it was a fun one, Michael. I played Alpha Protocol.

(01:47):
We have feelings on that, Michael.
I have feelings on why you did that to me.
I played the Hulk video game from 2003.
The. PlayStation Two movie tie.
In the PlayStation Two movie tiein game.
Because. Because you never know what
state of the save is gonna drag out and make each other play.
Is this a good episode for our SCO?

(02:09):
Probably not, but. I mean, you know, I think we
probably should get better at that.
Yeah, but. At the same time, fuck it, I
mean, you know, whatever, it's the end of the year, it's time
to remote, you know, look back on a hell of a year and just
kind of play video games that you want to play.

(02:29):
Exactly. So, Michael, before we get into
the games that we gave each other here in our game trade
retro video game show, what other stuff have you been
playing? Have you had any time to play
video games this busy holiday season?
I actually did most of my weekend to.
The past two weekends have been pretty open, so when I wasn't

(02:51):
playing Hulk, I spent a lot of time playing games I wanted to
play, especially since my birthday was around this time.
So I accumulated some games and waited for some Black Friday
sale on some others. So I've accumulated 3 that I
want to touch on briefly becausea couple of them were, we're not
going to spill the beans on whatwe're doing next time, but I'm

(03:13):
going to be talking about a couple of them next episode.
I I feel like that's AI mean, I guess we can go ahead and yeah,
why not? Let's go ahead and talk about
that so you don't have to be toovague.
Next year, next episode, the endof the year episode will be kind
of all, like all game of the year episode.
We're going to look back on 2025and what video games have made

(03:36):
major impacts in our lives and what video games have really
been, you know, the the best of the best.
You know, like every other videogame show this time of year is
going to do stand and say we're going to follow that whole
trend. So I'm assuming some of these
games might be on your best of the best of the year.
Yes. What games are you looking at?

(03:57):
What are you? What you've been?
The first one I've played was when I got for my birthday that
was really excited for I got theswitch version of Guilty Gear
Strive. That's a good video game.
It's a great video game. Holy cow.
So I didn't realize how in depththe lore was for guilty gear and
now I have watched like probably5-6 hours of guilty gear lore

(04:23):
videos and now I'm like obsessedwith everything that this weird
trippy world is doing. Well, though I can't even start
to tell you what that lore is. It's just like Metal Gear meets
like Disney's Fantasia or so. I don't know, I just pulled out

(04:43):
something. Shockingly accurate.
But like, you know what? You know a good fighting game
live and lives and dies by the characters and those characters
are so good. Those characters are so cool and
like iconic right from the get go.
Like it's one of those characterselect screens where like as you
go through, you kind of like laugh as as you go through,

(05:07):
right? It's like, oh, OK, there's a
robot guy, there's a guy with a big sword and it's like, OK,
there's a lady with a rock'n'roll guitar and she has a
hat that's alive. That's kind of cool.
And then we got a lady with a ghost wolf.
Like all that stuff, like like it's so it's so like iconic with

(05:28):
each character design. The main guy of this universe is
so bad guy. Yeah, he's re you.
Yeah, you is so bad guy, which is a great name.
Also not accurate because I don't think he's a bad guy.
So he's not a bad guy. That was the name they gave the
enemy gave him while they were hunting him, but he adopted the

(05:48):
name. It's like how the Master Chief
is called the Demon by the Covenant.
Yeah, Soul was not all the war is like in a mishmash like
Mashed potato scramble in my head where if I was watching it,
I could reiterate that to you right now.
But because it's been a couple weeks since I watched these war
videos, all of it kind of jumbled up really like Axel
Lowe, who is just a guy who has randomly time shifted to the 21

(06:13):
hundreds from 1998 England. He just he just blinked in time
and then woke up there. And also like the guitar playing
lady, her story takes place mostly in alternate universe
versions because she's trying toprevent a future that is like
building up to in Guilty Gear strive through Guilty Gear Rev

(06:37):
and stuff. She's like trying to prevent
like a an alternate future from.Having an anti hero kind of
yeah, sort of yeah. Like I'm not, I'm not up on the
guilty Guild lore, but I did play a lot of that game.
I and OK, so who's your main? Who's your main?
Elephant Valentine OK, so the Switch version comes with all

(06:58):
the DLC characters so far OK so for.
Because I did not get to play any of the DLC characters.
We are behind three DLC characters because they
underestimated the amount of time it takes to port them, but
we're getting the remaining DLC characters by the end of the
month, so the Switch version will be like completely caught
up. There's some as a port, this

(07:20):
switch version running on the switch to incredible lock 60
frames a second. Load times are kept relatively
short. The only Achilles heel of this
port is no cross play. So because of that, you kind of,
if you want to do online fights,you kind of got to get into a
Discord channel or fumble your weight around Japanese servers

(07:43):
because that's where all the players agree to meet Was like,
we're going to meet in Japan andthrow down with our 300
milliseconds of input like. I do.
I don't know if the switch to does the switch to have like any
good fight sticks or anything. There's a so the one I use is
the 8 bit dough OK fight stick and that has an update that runs

(08:08):
on the switch to if when it comes to 3rd party accessories
not made the Nintendo 8 bit dough is my go to.
I have but their Pro 2 controller is super good.
Was that the one you let me borrow?
Was that did they make the the switch controller you let me?
Borrow. No, that was Hori, the one that

(08:28):
did like the side panel. What was that was that was a
huge deal for me. By the way, massively improved
over the standard switch. I don't.
Think so. I don't think it don't makes any
joy cons, but they make an excellent like pro controller
equivalent that is like what if the Super Nintendo controller
had grips and thumb sticks 6 andlike back panels on.

(08:50):
That is so good. The Pro 3 is really cool because
you can, I don't have that one, but you can swap out the buttons
for whatever console you're playing with.
So you can swap out X&Y&A&B. That's cool whether you're
playing on like Xbox or like Switch or something.
Yeah, but as a port, this game is super good, probably the best

(09:11):
I've seen. Keeps up.
Even though this is like a Switch 1 port, it's keeping up
with like the PS4 version, and Ihaven't noticed like anything
weird or slowed down or anything.
This is running near Florida State.
I am in love with this thing. I mean, it's a great game.
Elephant Valentine is my main. She has a electric guitar gun
that becomes like, a microphone,and she does death metal screams

(09:33):
and do it and will, like, shoot herself to propel herself
forward. Yeah.
And like just hit you with it. It's cool.
Is it Giovanni G? What's the lady with the wolf?
The green wolf. GI don't know any a lot of the
characters. Ain't yet I forget her name it.
Starts with AG. She's she's.
Really, she was my favorite. That was like my main.

(09:53):
I did practice rounds with everybody and that's why I
picked picked that main. Just elephant Valentine was like
super fast and like could clear the screen at a moment's notice.
Had like, again, does death metal screams on her victory?
Yeah. Like, like I was like, I was
like sold, yes. I, I can't believe I forget her
name. It starts with AG.
It'll come to me eventually, butit's the lady who has a wolf

(10:16):
that's like a spirit animal kindof thing that's with her.
But I loved her because she had so many cool little like drop
kicks and like basically you could close the distance so
quickly with her that she was like, you could play defensively
and then close the distance really quick and just, you know,
get into somebody's face real fast the game like.

(10:36):
The rushdown characters are my go to.
They're super fun. Milia rage is another one.
She's super cool. She has the she was my go to in
accent core plus R which is a hell of a title.
Cuz she can use her hair as likeblades and like chain some
really crazy air juggle combos. We can knock a guy in the air

(10:59):
and then like just stab them a million times with your hair And
it's so fun. I that game is, I did a lot of
the tutorials and it feels like I don't know if I'm like
learning these combo strings or if I'm matching, but Guilty Gear
has like this weird. Like it's just whatever you're
doing. It just looks like the coolest

(11:19):
thing in. The world yeah.
Even the basic 123 punch combo looks cool.
You know, like I will say, like,you know, is a game like maybe
Street Fighter or something likethat more technical probably.
Maybe. But it looks cool.
It feels. Cool.
There's a switch to port of Street Fighter 6 is apparently
really, really good too. Really.

(11:41):
Yeah. So huh, fighters on the Switch?
I played a lot of fighters, likeclassic fighters on the Switch
1. And now I'm hoping for if they
ever make a port of Tekken 8 on Switch 2, I'll be there because
that's that's a really good gamewith a decent amount of single
player content that I think should be on that thing.

(12:02):
It's a really good time to be a fan of fighting games.
Tekken 3 is on the PlayStation Store right now with really good
like upscaling and then I'm holding off on that because
Soulcalibur 3 is probably getting it's due.
Is it getting like a remastered?No, it's getting the PS2 version
on PS-5 but it is upscaled. Which?

(12:24):
Soulcalibur 3 is my favorite fighting game of all time, but
that game is an ugly game. It is on is exclusive to PS2
which is the worst looking of those systems at the time and
because of that it's like blurrylike Vaseline style but I love
soul calibur. 3 was it Soul Calibur 2 that had the the

(12:46):
character variation depending onwhat console you played on?
Because it was like spawn on Xbox link on link on the
GameCube, Hachi on PlayStation. Yeah, I remember playing a lot
of Soul Calibur 2. 3 doesn't have a guest character, is
exclusive to the PS2. Yeah, but they make up for that
with like a ton of single player.
There's an RT yes mode on that thing.

(13:08):
Damn. There's like choose your own
adventure arcade towers on that thing.
So I'm waiting for the day that drops so I can eat again.
Weirdly so Caliber 4 is probablythe one I played the most of.
I bounced off of that fast because there was no I played
Soul Calibur for the like extensive single player stuff
and that had like none of it. I was really.
Just I want to say like fan of the show, Nick and me got really

(13:29):
into Soul Calibur around that time.
So I think Soul Calibur 4 is theone that was like super into
Soulcalibur. Good fighting game franchise.
I would like to see it come back.
Probably my favorite fighting game.
Like up there for me. I love Soul Calibur.
I mean that mine's still moral versus Capcom, but I know that's
not really a franchise anymore because it's probably dead.

(13:50):
But I marvelous Capcom 2 is still like the pinnacle of
fighting games to me. It's like that is my favorite
fighting game of all. Time, That's a good pick.
Holy Cal, that's a good pick. Oh, it's so good.
And that Marvel VS Capcom collection that came out is a
really good deal. It's really cool to play through
like X-Men versus Street Fighteror Marvel Superheroes on this,

(14:14):
that and the other because you really see the the slow
progression of them really nailing down that that style of
vital until you hit Marvel versus Capcom 2 and it's like,
oh, this is perfected. This is the perfect version of
this. And then Marvel versus Capcom 3
is amazing. And then we don't want to talk

(14:34):
about Marvel versus Capcom Infinite.
You get to that token, baby. I would like to play that.
I would like to play that. That's a PlayStation exclusive,
isn't it? Isn't it?
Oh, it might. Oh, it might be.
I think it is so oops. I yeah, I, I really bummed me
out because I would love to playthat.
That looks really, really good. I like that art style so much.

(14:56):
It's such a cool art style. I'll be very brief on my next
two because I'm going to touch more of them next time.
Kirby Air Riders. Hell yeah.
Is what if we have like a cute exterior that is secretly under
the hood hiding a 90s Sega arcade racer mixed with like a

(15:17):
Twisted Metal? OK, right on.
You you see, probably seen the video I posted to the TikTok of
Rick the hamster just flying across a really fast-paced
racetrack, not even touching theground.
I think somebody put on there like there was a comment about
like, oh, you picked the easiesttrack or something and you're
like, I'm good on all the tracks.

(15:38):
I was like Michael not taking any Flack off this one.
So that's actually the multiplayer mode and how it
worked. The multiplayer mode is bananas
in the best way. So City Trial, the main like
crux of the multiplayer in this thing is 16 players on a map, 5

(16:00):
minutes start ticking down. You are gathering stats for your
vehicle which increase like yourbooths, your top speed, your
flying capabilities, your offense, your defence.
All these stats are like on the battlefield, you know like
crates. You can steal people's
abilities. This is where like the sort of

(16:21):
twisted. Metal that sounds like twisted.
Metal because you're stealing everyone's statue.
Like getting weapons to like destroy their vehicles to make
sure that they don't have like highly upgrade vehicle before
the clock takes down. During this time boss battles
and random events are appearing like the machine God.

(16:43):
A giant like cloud and a giant like metallic bird will
sometimes grace the arena for a boss fight.
Sometimes giant pillars warmers out of nowhere.
Sometimes meteors will fall fromthe sky as these things are
ticking down which will like knock you out.
Sometimes just random all sorts of stats.

(17:06):
Or like we change all the stats for the next two minutes to
turbo stats. So then everybody starts to go
really fast. And then at the end all 16
players are divided into a mini game of your choosing based on
your stats. You'll see a stats screen at the
end that says OK at the end of 5minutes I only collected like 2

(17:26):
flying but I got a whole bunch of speed and attacking defense.
So then it assigns. You have a choice between 4
random mini games that can be like combat arenas, they can be
races, they can be like hit the target or a challenge of like

(17:46):
how far can you fly? And you pick based on your stats
and what machine you have, whichone you think you can win.
And you don't know how many players are you competing
against because that 16 player pool is picking those 4.
Like a blind pick, so you don't know, like if everybody's going
for the same one or if you're going to be like in a kind of a

(18:07):
loaded race, you don't know, yes.
Exactly. So it there's like a bit of
strategy there was like I think I can win this one.
And then you find out your compete, you could be competing
against one other person or you could be be be competing against
everyone in the arena. And from then, it'll be divided
up. This is a Masha hero Sakurai
game. Sakurai being the lead of Super

(18:28):
Smash Brothers, which upon saying that will make all sorts
of sense because he is very muchhas a design philosophy of easy
to pick up and play, but difficult to master.
Yeah, this is a racing game thatis played with one button.
Not even you accelerate automatically.
Oh damn, your trigger is stoppedwith one button?

(18:50):
Yeah. The triggering will you hold the
button down to have a meter go up that will slow you down, but
when it fully charges up, you can let it go for a speed boost.
You hit that button to like do your drifts.
You would use it to absorb enemypowers and you can have their
powers on the battlefield. This is made for this game, made
for my design sensibilities, andI will go into the single player

(19:12):
modes. I will go into the other modes
next time I have to talk about this because this is a game that
has worked its way into my heart.
It's such a it's such a, you know, this has been such a
loaded year, but it's really good to see that games like that
still can walk their way in, youknow, like there's always a a
worry that like the big, you know, I guess the games that get

(19:35):
the most eyes take the attentionoff of games like that.
But it's good to hear and I always like to hear people be
like, hey, yeah, I played these other big AAA major, you know,
games. But this court racing game
basically, or this, you know, vehicle combat game is also one
of my favorite games of the year.

(19:55):
Like, it's just, that's the way.Video games are a vast variety
of things that you should experience as many of them as
you can. Instantly hooks me and my
favorite thing is people buying this game not realizing how
chaotic and insane it's going. I have no clue what's going on
here or this game is too chaotic.
I can't see what's going on. It's a giant pink BLOB on the

(20:16):
front just waving as he's like looks like he's having a good
time. Like people are getting Trojan
horse into a twisted metal like and I could not be happier for
it. Like, I'm so happy that Soccer I
got to make the sequel to his pet project cult classic game
off from the GameCube. Such a weird thing that Twisted
Metal is not out right now. Like there's not a new Twisted

(20:38):
Metal. In a world of battle royales in
the water, 100 player death matches.
And like also there's ATV show. Like you'd think Twisted Metal
would be like trying to have some kind of day in the sun
right now, even if it was like aremastered collection or
something. Like Twisted metal is great.
I like twisted metal. Like bring twisted metal out.

(21:01):
And the last game I got on sale,I'm not going to touch this at
all because I took a lot of timedeath training too.
OK, I'll talk. I feel like that needs to be
talked to in the game of the year.
Yeah, yeah, I'm about 12 hours into that thing already.
I also hit up a bunch of cells Igot I got AI gave this game that

(21:22):
long, long ago on this very show.
I believe it was a Christmas episode or a winter episode or
something like that. Eric talked about his just
vitriol and how angry he was at Cyberpunk 2077 and how mad he
was and it didn't come out to bethe thing he wanted and this
that and the other. I, it was a good sale.

(21:45):
I had some time this week. I was off most of this last week
and I said, you know what, let'sgive it a shot, right?
Let's give it a shot. After all these years, after all
the the patches. I looked and brought up my old
save file. I think I played around 9 hours,
10 hours the first time. It's about deep into like the
second chunk of that game after the prologue, yeah.

(22:06):
Yeah, I've played now about fourhours, about 5 hours, maybe four
or five hours. That game still isn't what I
wanted it to be, but it is not nearly as bad as it was now.
A lot of my complaints were technical when it came out,
which I think are valid. I stand by that the game did not

(22:28):
launch in a state in which it should have launched.
Why was this on last year hardware?
Exactly why? Why?
And I stand by that 100%. I do not.
It did not launch in the state in which it should have been.
Now, I will say the game runs a lot better now.
That's not an issue. There's a lot of things I still
like about this game, but it it does, it's not the Witchel for

(22:52):
me, right? The Witcher 3 is such a special
game and that was what I was excited about seeing like what
those guys did next. And this wasn't that.
But I am enjoying it. I am enjoying kind of trying to
get back into the swing of this game.
I I think I'm going to try to give it another good, honest

(23:12):
shot and maybe see because there's so many people that I
respect their opinions, who talkso highly and and feel so
connected to this game that I want to feel the same way.
I want to see what they see in it.
And so I'm trying to go into it with open eyes and re experience
this game in a way that I can maybe re evaluate it all these

(23:32):
years later. Yes, I that's the way to do that
with this one. I I played this last year for
the first time not having touched it because you and Nick
definitely warned me about it aswell as everyone else on the
Internet is like stay far away from this thing.
Last year the Phantom Liberty DLC came out, so after that the
game hit a sale. I did not I do not have Phantom

(23:55):
Liberty, but I played the base game.
I was thinking about getting it,but I was like, I want to see if
I can play the base game first. I like Marathon that thing.
I really liked it. What I think the piece I made
with it was like this is not going to be the Witcher 3
Instead I need to go into this and experience this like what if
this is watchdogs but good yeah is how what like with the

(24:19):
hacking like the RPG mechanics like the dialogue system is not
as deep as the Witcher 3. Granted I have heard better
things about phantom liberty. I have heard Phantom Liberty is
a much better story, and becauseit is smaller scale, the
integrations between your choices and everything have a
lot more depth and meaning. I can't speak to that because I

(24:39):
haven't played it. That said, my time with
Cyberpunk was still a lot of funlast year and I'm glad I finally
saw that thing through and I wasactually going to find a way to
lend you to like a library system or something.
Cyberpunk, because that was going to be one of my games for
you next season if you didn't already get it.
Because I'm like, he needs to experience what this thing is

(25:01):
again, because it's a vastly different game from what he
played before. I think, and I will say there's
a lot of, like, there's a lot ofGrand Theft Auto inside, inside
punk, Yeah. Like it's a different vibe.
And I, I say that in a good way.Like, I'm not saying that as an
insert. Grand Theft Auto has been absent
for a lot of. Years.
We need more yeah, yeah. And I.
Think that's not what I was looking for from CD Project Red

(25:26):
because I love the Witcher so much and it was not like the
Witcher in a lot of ways, but I do.
I am enjoying this playthrough alot.
I don't think the combat's as good as I wish it was, but I do
think that there's been some changes to it I know of that has
made it a lot more serviceable. And like, dude, like the Ward

(25:47):
building is very good. Like when you go walk up to your
apartment and you're walking about these other people that
are out there and you know, you've got all these great like
vibes of just driving down the highway.
You're coming off of a bad job and like you're going down the
highway and you're seeing the the lights off in the distance
or you're seeing the, you know, as you're coming off an exit

(26:10):
ramp. Like it feels like a walking
city. All that stuff is amazing.
Like they, there is so much craftsmanship there.
I'm glad that now it runs at a stable, consistent pace where I
can enjoy it. Yeah, which was always.
My major. Issue when I first played it
back in 2020, right? Or 2020?
Yeah, 20. 20 God damn. I was just.

(26:31):
Flying by. But there is things I really
enjoy about it, so I'm really trying to come at it from this
new open point of view. Which is odd in particular
because I remember playing through a lot of this back in
2020 and there was so many technical issues.
I wasn't able to enjoy a lot of the missions.
I had a lot of missions bug out on me.

(26:51):
I had things where like cues wasn't connecting, so like a
conversation with one character wasn't leading to that character
showing back up later like thosesupposed to.
Oh man, it's been this bad. But because I didn't.
Have that issue now I'm actuallyable to like, experience a lot
of these missions the proper wayfor the first time.
Weird. Yeah.
What a what? A what a concept.

(27:12):
I'll update more on that as I play through.
It's probably going to be something I've been around for a
long time. I wonder what you think of.
Going into the end of that thingbecause I have some thoughts on
where like my story ended up andI wanted to see like how that
shakes out. I also really liked.
I picked a different origin. So originally I picked St.
Kid. I picked Nomad, which is coming

(27:34):
in from the desert and just it'sjust a stronger opening mission.
It was like very much like a better choice.
St. Kid skips that that welcome the
night city vibe because you're from there.
Nomad has this great moment whenyou're riding into the city from
the desert and like you're goingthrough like the security

(27:55):
checkpoint that leads in the night City and stuff.
And it's like, oh, this is like the way you probably should
experience this because you as aplayer new to Night City, having
a character that is new to NightCity.
It just Bob's battle. I really liked the.
Crypto. That's crypto, the corpo origin
I. Played that one.

(28:15):
That one's interesting because you get AV who is like on the
street level of Night City, but kind of like talk her like I
played female V could like talk her way up like the corporate
ladder system, like understood. Yeah.
The corporates really control Night City.
So she like knows all of like the like underpins and

(28:35):
everything in this society that like is really fully in control.
Yeah. And that was a cool way to play
that too. I really I.
I, I think the I'm enjoying the Nomad path because I feel like I
really like that feeling of being that as a player who's
experiencing this from the firsttime, quote UN quote, it feels
good to have a character that's also new.

(28:57):
It feels less like you should know the things that are going
on around you. You feel like you don't feel
dumb about asking questions because you're not from here,
you know? But really enjoying that, you
know? It'd be fun.
What? If once you finish this game,
like we just hold off on PhantomLiberty until that it's like a
really good sale and then we just play Phantom Liberty, it's
not, it's not a bad idea. Because Phantom Liberty is on

(29:19):
sale all the time. It's on all the.
Time. Yeah, we put a pin in that, but
a bit, yeah. I was thinking would that be a
fun? That would be fun.
He's just Elvis in that, yeah. He's like your.
Main guy in that right also playing just some hit some hot
highlights real fast. Played banishers new New Eden.

(29:41):
Banishers New Eden is a focus interactive game.
You play as a ghost banisher, you play as a it's a husband and
wife and your wife becomes a ghost and you try to take down
ghosts. OK, it's OK.
Game is * person action game, not bad story narrative.
Driven. Yeah.
Story, narrative, kind of game. But you know, good baseline

(30:03):
action's fine, you know, not, not not a God of War or anything
like that, but it's fine. Played the new Space Marine 2
operations. They're still pumping those out
and those are still great. And then let's talk about really
what's the important game, whichis a game called Clover Pit.
Michael, ask me what Clover Pit?What is Clover Pit?

(30:24):
I actually. How me and Nick.
Spent six hours. Clover Pit.
Is a video game in which you wake up in a jail cell.
You have a oh, oblivion kind of you have a great underneath you
that will open up into a pit of death and you have A1 armed

(30:47):
bandit. You have a classic, you know,
slot machine that is in front ofyou and a voice over intercom
tells you that you have to make a certain amount of money to
keep yourself alive and it's round based.
So is this a rogue like? Slot machine Yes, the game has.

(31:11):
AATM system. So you're putting money into the
ATM to reach a certain goal. You have 3 rounds to hit the
next money goal. Starting off, it might be $75
you'll start off they'll give you like 12 bucks.
It costs $7.00 or 7 coins to play the slot machine for seven
pores. It might only cost 3 coins to

(31:33):
pull it for 3 coins, 3 pores. You also are receiving tickets.
Tickets allow you to buy upgrades.
Upgrades affect things like how many points you get for certain
kinds of patterns and also what's your luck stack?
Stack is it might have a thing where on every, if you've poured
twice and you've not scored anything, that there's a Choo

(31:56):
Choo train upgrade that gives you a little bit of extra luck
on your third pole. Or you can get a thing that
instead of having 7 pulls, you can get 9 pulls.
All this is about managing the money that you're putting in
Now, first few rounds, very easy, right?
Super easy. You're just trying to make sure
you're winning enough to keep yourself alive.

(32:17):
Then you hit 666 and it's like, hey, now there is.
I believe it starts off at a 1.5% chance that you get triple
sixes. If you get triple sixes,
whatever money's in your bank gets taken away to zero.
And remember. You've got to make a certain.
Amount of money to keep yourselfalive so you're trying to play

(32:39):
the odds you're trying to also buy upgrades.
You're also every between every round a phone call comes in and
you can get upgrades from the phone call.
There's different mechanics in which you're trying to upgrade
the potential upgrades that you get.
Obviously it's a rogue like. So as you die, you're you're

(33:00):
carrying over only the upgrades that you get.
There was a card system in whichyou can start buying yourself
cards that make the game horrible but have different
kinds of upgrades and different kinds of ways to improve the
games. Your chances.
Dude, this thing is just addictive as hell.
This is the most 30 year old manvideo game I've ever played in

(33:21):
my life. But me and Nick sat in my living
room. I had a place to be man.
I had a place to be and I was here for way too long not being
at that place because I was playing this video game with
Nick. This thing is amazing.
It's so addictive to like trying.
Like we at one point were like hey, cherries are hitting,
cherries are hitting. So we have an upgrade that gives

(33:43):
us a 50% chance to take bells out of the equation.
Less bells, more cherries. Oh my God, it's a watch.
Robust slot machine. It's a watch robust slot.
Machine and so my. Favorite thing is.
Also, fun fact, me and Nick loveto gamble.
We love to gamble. Oh we love we, we put us on a
parlay and we'll we'll be desperately trying to win.

(34:04):
You take us to Vegas. I went to Vegas not last year,
last year had a great time playing craps.
I love gambling, man. I love gambling.
And this thing was, is a blast. And like I said, you have this
overarching realization, like sometimes you'll be like, you'll
have $20,000 in the bank. You're just racking up jackpots.

(34:25):
Your luck's hitting, you're hitting good.
And then you get that 666 and you lose it all.
And it's like the last round before you're about to have to
pay up and you're like, I got tomake $12,000 and two poles.
And like the sick realization oflike, I don't have the money,
man. I can't pay the devil on this
one. It's amazing.
It's a great video game. It's so simple, it's such a

(34:49):
basic concept. There is so much strategy that
comes into what upgrades you're buying and when you're getting
tickets and how many polls you're doing and trying to
negate like those upgrades that increase the chances for getting
the 666. But it's like a really powerful
upgrade. So you're constantly trying to
balance up being like this increases triple sixes by 2.7%

(35:13):
but. It.
Also increases the payout on jackpots by 7%, you know, Or
then there's an interest mechanic where you're putting
money into the system in betweenrounds and if you survive the
round, you get paid out intereston the mount.
But you want to try to. So sometimes you might hang
around for an extra pool or two to try to increase your
interest. It's a it's a great video game.

(35:37):
It's so simple, but it's so addictive.
Just a great It's a. 30 year oldman video game and as a 34 year
old man I freaking had a ball play and like I had so much fun
with this. It's only 10 bucks.
Apparently it can run on any computer.
Oh, it's very straightforward. Simple simplistic graphics and

(35:58):
stuff like that and Mike will play this video game.
You'll have a blast. It is Blantro but with slot
machine. I played like 50 hours.
Of blotro this year, you'll havea blast with this.
One here's a surprise Clover Pit.
Probably going to end up on my top ten games of the year.
Because I I spent. Sunday night you played 10 new
games. This year I realized I played a

(36:18):
lot of video. Games I filled out my.
Back to log 2015 game of the year list back on this really
cool website where you can like it's like letterboxer for video
games. They did a 2025 game of the year
pool where I logged how many games, how many new 2025
releases that play this year. It's like you played like 10.

(36:39):
I've probably played like. Snap.
I've played a lot, but I also. Have 5050 custody.
I have a lot of time on my hands.
So, you know, there's that war drop again.
There's the war drop, all the amount of time.
I was like. Babe, I'll be there, but I got
to play black. I got to play this video game
real fast. Clover Pit, Great video game.

(37:01):
I love it. It's awesome really really
really enjoy it everybody shouldcheck it out we'll talk about it
more on our game of the year show next next time, I guess
it's time to play talk about some video games that we played
for our little game club yes we.Basically did a suicide pact.
This time, we just kind of. This was just when you get angry
and you're like, well, fuck you,you got to play this.

(37:24):
We've been giving each other. Like legitimately good games.
And then we're like ha ha, end of the year, fuck you.
Well, mine was more like. Hey, we had a conversation about
alpha protocol. My game also leads.
Into a big old conversation about Obsidian and that style of
RPG in general. Yeah, so I think it is
something. But how about you talk about
Hulk? OK, let's talk about the Hulk.

(37:47):
I feel like in order to talk about the Hulk I need to read
all of my notes in or sequentialorder because.
Like the game? Itself.
I too went through a mental downward spiral while playing
this. I played first level, then I.
I played half. Of this game all the way like up

(38:08):
to past a sneaking mission and then you doing a.
A beat em up. Mission in that same This is a
sneaky mission. When you're dressed as a
soldier, yes. Yeah, That's terrible.
OK, That fucking sucks. I'm.
Yeah, I'm going to talk. About that, I remember that from
being a child. I beat that mission.
I was. Not going to let that mission
beat me. Oh it's a piece of shit.

(38:30):
I made it through. That mission?
The halfway point of that game. I I did it, I saw it first.
Note the box says Hulk, the infoscreen says the Hulk.
Weird that they can't decide what this game is called.
So so shading. You know what?
I don't hate the look of this has a really cool also
editorializing some of my notes to explain he had this kind of

(38:50):
really cool comic book quite style thing going on.
It doesn't look bad. It's kind of like a good version
of Drake and the 99 Dragons. Yeah, yeah, OK.
Like. Not a good looking game by any
means, but you're like you're going for something here.
I can kind of appreciate that. Next note.

(39:11):
OK, this feels good. Let's talk about the first
level. It's the best first level in
the. Game.
It's the best level in the game.The first level starts with you.
At this like hotel gas station in like a Bruce banner dream
sequence also the cutscene here is like really cool because he
like punches the glass and like different charges of glass have
like the Hulk in it. It's like they're going for
something here. This is actually this game might

(39:32):
actually be good. This game might actually be
great. You get to the first level you
have. The first level.
This broken promise of a level. Where you're in front of.
The motel and you can take chunks of like the hotel off.
You're like smashing dudes in one hit.

(39:52):
Yeah, you're smashing dudes in one hit.
Yeah, just knocking them and they're flying.
Remember that how easy these guys are just to like you're
just. You're fucking them up.
They'll take. You're the Hulk.
You're the Hulk, man. You're punching 1 soldier.
He goes flying through the air like you can pick dudes up.
Throw them against the wall and the wall just like this brick

(40:13):
wall just shatters like into they don't, they don't go
through it. It's APS 2 game.
I get the limitations, but the walls like crack.
It feels good. You can there's a helicopter
coming in. You just throw dudes at the
helicopter. You can, you can jump up and
like punch a helicopter. There's a tank that starts
shooting missiles at you and thetutorial is punch the missiles
to fire them back at the tank. I'm like there is something

(40:35):
here. This first level.
Is a promise that the game does not keep up.
This is the only time in this game portion I didn't play the
entirety of game. I played about halfway.
This is the only time where you feel like the Hulk in this
entire video game. This first level gives you a
promise that it can. It's writing checks that you

(40:57):
can't cash for some reason. I think I even told you this.
It's a great It's one of the best first levels I've ever
played. This is why it's so great.
Remember in Sonic Adventure? 2 When you have a great first
level and then you go to Knuckles, this is worse.
This is worse. Because.
Right after. It is, isn't it?
Right after. It is worse than this because

(41:21):
it's not a great knuckles level.It's not the worst knuckles
level, but here you go to a Bruce Vander Stelt section
immediately does not bury the lead and you're like, OK, this
is a weird one off thing. No, this is what half of this
game is. No, I feel like it's.
More than half dude. Because I feel like you
generally what? And maybe it's just because you
fail them so often. Dude, the Bruce Banner.

(41:45):
Stuff whoever thought like we have a concept of being the Hulk
this and know what? We should.
Do make them spend the bulk of the time walking around hiding
as Bruce Banner. My next note here.
Oh, this is a bad dream. Why does he look like Harrison
Ford? Right?
Okay, into a stealth mission. My next note is me failing to

(42:06):
stealth mission because I write in all caps.
Limited continues. Yes, Limited continues.
Yes. Why?
Why? It's a PlayStation Two game,
Michael. Why?
And it doesn't. And it doesn't.
Tell you when the limited continue that you're going to
waste just sends you back to thebeginning of the level we're
doing a reset mission would justdo the exact same thing so
you're burning and continue. They know when things are going

(42:28):
to get bad because they put in right before.
Like the bull crap happens. Like pickups for more continues
also like. Think about the insanity of that
to have limited continues on a PlayStation two game on an
action adventure game like this in which you have hard because

(42:51):
the kids platformer. From the PS1 days, yes it even.
Those games started. Abandoning Limited continues
very quickly. It's insanity.
It's insanity like Spyro had. Lives, but then it just kicked
you out to like the overworld and you hop back in, hop back
into the same level. You were just in.
You just had to go back to the Oval world when you died of when
you ran out of lives. Yeah.

(43:12):
It's insanity. It's insane.
General Riker is here. And then my next remember my
note that says this feels so good.
My next note, this feels so bad.The.
You turn. He still controls like he's the
Hulk. He has like the turn radius of
like 3 quarterbacks which is duct tape together which is

(43:34):
insane. When you have to do the stealth
mission, which you are dressed as a soldier because that was
all about like, don't get too close to people, but you make
turn radiuses as if you're drifting in a car.
So it's very hard to even round a corner without getting close
to the guy who's standing on theother side of the wall.
Stressful hacking. Mini game.
Why is the hacking mini game only 20 seconds?

(43:55):
It barely tells you what to do and there's a lot of prep for
it. You just see 20 seconds and then
a blank wall of text and Bruce Banner's like I need to
rearrange this codes. Michael, why?
Why if you're designing a video game?
Why if you are? Designing an Incredible Hulk
game. You have already proven that you
know how to make that feel good.You did that first mission.

(44:17):
I have a theory. On that, I'll get to that.
OK, I'll get to that theory at the very end of this thing.
All right, all right, stressful hacking mini game where your
goal is to I found out that you just go to the end and just
start shuffling letters until they get right and I would
always get without 5 or 6 seconds remaining.
It's stressful. I thank the Lord above that it's

(44:40):
not an auto fail state for family knows hacking many games.
You can do them as many times asyou need to.
In which case, why? Is there no if?
There's no penalty for doing this.
Why are you making me do this? Also I imagine that.
Probably sometime dealing development there was a penalty
and that was taken out because even they realized that was

(45:01):
incredibly. Frustrating.
This game has no follow through on any of its ideas.
Any of its ideas. Good ideas, bad ideas, there's
no follow through. The only thing they follow
through on are these stupid stealth missions and I don't
know because they. Have the most variety.
In this game, yeah, because you have some.
Point you're like you're just like literally trying to like
hide behind things to dodge people and then you have

(45:23):
somewhere you're dressed in likedisguises, but like none of them
are good. None of them are as fun as just
being the Hulk back to. Actually, we'll get to this next
section. We're playing as the Hulk again
and I said you can kind of run through this without much
fighting fighting dudes. We're in the promise at the

(45:43):
first level. You're not going to doubt like
one hit tossing them and everything.
All of a sudden the dude just all of a sudden have so much
armor and so much health that they become like bullet spongy
and they're they're just. Dudes and they keep flooding in.
Yeah, like don't forget like thestupid like Hulk wolf dog things
that pop in. Oh yeah, like the Abomination.
Stuff the most optimal and. I keep fun of me and the most

(46:04):
optimal way optimal way to play this game is to run past fights
and punch doors. Run past fights, punch doors,
throw a guy into a generator to blow that up then so you can run
and punch doors. Because if you stay and fight,
you're going to lose a ton of health and a Hulk.
Game. There's no like.
There's no power fantasy right like there is in the first

(46:28):
level. In the first level because I.
Mean I stand by the first level is great.
Like as a kid, I because probably because I kept failing
out. I I played that first level so
many times. But dude, like you want to be
the Hulk, man? You want to be blowing tanks.
You want to be, you know, punching helicopters and fighter
jets. You don't want to be taken down

(46:50):
by a puny guy with a gun. Like why is that guy a problem
for the Hulk? Like Space Marine two, you're a
Space Marine, right? You're like a nine foot tall
space Marine. They are.
They're like baseline human enemies.
If you run at them, you they just get crushed into blood

(47:12):
chunks. You don't even have to deal with
them. You are so powerful that just by
running through a crowd of them,they just died from being
stomped and impacted against your body.
That's how it should feel in a Hulk game if you're fighting a
bunch of dudes with guns like they should be nothing.
And then when it's time to make it difficult we throw

(47:34):
Abomination or we throw big robot suits or something into
it. We don't need to ever be
threatened by a dude with a gun.My favorite thing?
This is a talk about an unrelated game.
The Hulk should be so powerful that if you're making a Marvel
fighting game, you need to find a way to write the Hulk off
because he's too powerful. There's another terrible Marvel
game around this time, 1 I love Marvel nemesis Rise of the

(47:57):
Imperfects. Yeah, he does in the opening.
Country because you can't. Have Hulk in your fight so you
are also familiar with Marvel nemesis Rise of the Imperfect
also. A incredibly intense opening
trip cutscene. Captain America's dead captain.
America The Punisher. Is dead but like it's done from
this like shaky Cam. Shaky Cam like in.

(48:17):
Those like footage of like dead superheroes, it's like a dark
opening cutscene for that, for the gameplay to be power.
Stone Yeah, it's not like. It doesn't follow through.
Listen. That's a bad video game.
I love that video game. I would say that better that.
Video game is probably better than the Hulk.
That yes, that's what. I was thinking it was like man

(48:38):
why can't this play more like Marvel Nets?
There's a sewer level 4 levels in my next.
I didn't write any notes for that because screw that level.
Half life sucks. Not the game.
Half Life. No, no, no.
But I say we're gonna fight. No, you fight.
A vampire named Half Life. I don't even recognize him from
the comics, so there's a lot of.Like B level heroes I remember

(49:02):
as a kid not being sure if they were from the comics or not
because I like I read like 5 Hulk comics in my entire life
and you're the comic book. Guy and you don't even know who
half life like my favorite Hulk.Runs are never him dealing with
like super villain of the week because like I mean what's like
Hulk villains like I guess like the Leader and like Wendigo and

(49:23):
the Abomination. Is like his big villain.
Any other versions of Hulk? Are Hulk villains like Red Hulk,
Red Hulk, She Hulk and Red? She Hulk, they just started
giving colors out. No, they like those good things
with the Hulk that's been done. Like the immortal Hulk is a

(49:44):
great storyline. Like there's been good stuff.
But like as a kid, I remember just being like, I don't know
who any of these people are. Like I don't even I don't think
half Life's a real guy. Right in the comments of Half
Life is a real guy. I wrote he sucks.
Pun intended, because he's a vampire.
Next note. Oh, these still sections are

(50:06):
bad. For the love of God, let me
climb the boxes. I just I'm.
Just that all the frustration ofa young Eric is being put on a
poor Michael running away from. Fights should not be the best
strategy in a whole game. And then another note here, one
of my last notes. A complete fundamental

(50:29):
misunderstanding about what makes the Hulk cool.
And then right after that, here's a nerd boss fight where
you where you press square a bunch it.
Is such a weird video game and they come back with what is it?
Hulk ultimate destruction? Hulk ultimate destruction.
Which is a which is a good. Game I have that's.

(50:50):
The open ward. One, yes, correct.
And it's like it's Hulk doing Hulk stuff.
You're jumping off of buildings,hitting helicopters.
I was burned on Hulk video gamesbecause of this game.
So when Ultimate Destruction came out, I played it at a
Walmart kiosk and you're like never again.
I don't they were playing it. And being like, this is really

(51:13):
good. And I was like, maybe I should
like try to ask this game for Christmas or whatever.
And then I remembered that in the Hulk video game, I only had
fun playing as the Hulk once. So I was like, well, that's
probably going to happen. I'm probably going to have to do
a lot of Banner stealth. This game traumatized.
Yo it made it made me never want.
To play a Hulk video game ever again, I have a My theory?

(51:35):
On why the first level is so much better than the rest of the
game, I have a feeling that first level probably came in hot
last like they finally found thefun of what this thing is.
And I have no proof of this, this is just a theory that.
Being a movie licensed. Game.
They've had to. Probably they had to deal with a

(51:56):
time crunch and getting out in time for the movie.
I imagine this is a situation where you're crafting a game.
A lot of game design is you experimenting with things,
finding what works and what doesn't.
They found you wouldn't know if you're a game desire playing
this game. You wouldn't know where the fun
is that fun isn't that first level.
So what makes sense the most to me is that that's them honing

(52:17):
the craft. That's them understanding.
This is what makes a whole videogame fun.
We should do more like this and we're out of time.
We need to release what we got. I also think though there.
Is a, there was a time in video game design where the difficulty
was the drive, right? We, we wanted games to be a
mountain to climb. And it wasn't always about

(52:41):
necessarily finding that peak fun factor at all times.
It was also times where it's like, we want this to be
difficult because this needs to be a climb.
That's true, yeah. And.
So I wonder sometimes. It's like some of these missions
or things was like, well, it's got to be hard.
You got to feel like you accomplished something.
Otherwise this game is only like.
Will be like 3-4 hours long if it's not hard and I think that

(53:03):
like. Maybe that's a factor that plays
into some of it, But you're right.
That's why it's always been so confusing to me, because it that
first level is everything you want from an Incredible Hulk
game on the PlayStation 2. Like if you had the whole game
like that, Oh my God it'd be great.
I forgot which game. Designer says this, I think it

(53:25):
might be fun for Nintendo, but they say like, find the fun what
makes your game fun and then pick at it wasn't that that's a.
Damn, I know who you're talking about.
Was that Miyamoto? I don't.
Think it was Miyamoto, but it. Wasn't a Nintendo guy but it is.
But it is. I get what you're saying.
The philosophy is find the fun. Find what makes your game fun

(53:46):
and then don't fuck it up. Don't get in the way of the
field build your. Game around the fun and ways to
like change up and just keep that driving force fun.
I think also there's something. To be said about having that,
like sometimes it's simple, sometimes the gameplay loop,
that is, sometimes the gameplay loop is trying to play a slot

(54:07):
machine. Like, I'm going to use that as
an example. That is a video game loop in
which I am trying to accomplish a task in a short amount of
time. I have AI, have something that
is, you know, going against me and I'm trying to beat the
clock. It's a simple concept and you
just roll with it sometimes. It doesn't have to be that

(54:29):
complex. And then like if you start
adding things and adding mechanics and stuff like that
that get in the way of the fun, you've lost the plot.
And like in this game, the fun is playing as the Hulk, smashing
things. Everything else gets in the way
of being the Hulk. And it's so weird.

(54:50):
It's such a weird thing. But I think also, you're
probably 100% right. It's a, it was tied into a
movie. So I'm sure that they had to
like budgetary. Time get it done before the
movie. Comes out so it's on the shelves
right alongside the movie release and you know this, that
and the other. But it's such a fascinating
video game. There's a reason why only a.

(55:12):
Few movie license games were that good and it was because
they had an idea from the get gothat they were easy to implement
on the first try. Yes, and some.
Cater more towards video. Games than others The reason
Spider Man 1 and two were so good on the PlayStation 2 around

(55:32):
this time was because they also had similar Spider Man games.
Activision made Spider Man gamesbefore they made that really
good Spider man. Game on the PlayStation if you
play spider man. One and spider man 2 inter
Electro for the PS1. If you go and play Spider Man 1,
the movie, it's the DNA is thosegames, Yeah, and those Spider

(55:55):
Man. Games for PlayStation are great.
Yes, that first Spider Man game was the first game I got with my
PlayStation and like this is that's the one that's got Venom
and Carnage and Oh my God, that's a great freaking video
game and then in crafting that. They knew they were going to
make a like Treyarch knew they were going to make a sequel to
that thing with Spider Man 2 andthey knew from the get go

(56:17):
there's going to be a Spider Man2.
We know what we want to do this,we want to make this big, we
want to make this open. We want to do something and they
made something fantastic. Spider Man 2 the movie.
Tie in game is arguably one of the best spider man video games
ever made. Like yes, that game is
legitimately good. I would love to play that today.
I wonder how that holds up I played it.
Was it that played it this year or last year?

(56:38):
I played it recently. I got it because it plays.
That is backwards compatible on Xbox 360.
You're shitting me. The Spider Man 1 and Spider Man
2 games are backwards compatibleon 360 and they still play
pretty good. I mean, listen.
The Xbox. The Xbox version of the Spider
Man game has two additional levels featuring Craven the

(57:01):
Hunter. No, that's kind of cool.
I probably didn't play those because I played the PlayStation
version. I played the GameCube version of
those. Things going up.
So yeah, I mean. I would also probably go back
and play that Activision Spider Man game.
I remember that being the hot ticket item for me that I really
wanted because I played it for the first time in a Toys-R-Us.
I can't remember my Social Security number, but I can

(57:23):
remember when I played Spider Man for the PlayStation.
But I. Like.
I remember playing that in the in the Toys-R-Us and that's
like, oh, I got to have this game.
I got to get a PlayStation because I want to play the
Spider Man game. And it was my first game that I
got with my PlayStation and it'sa legitimately great video game.

(57:45):
Like dude, I like Carnage is scary and that shit, right?
Carnage is spooky. I team up with Venom to fight
Carnage. I like the.
Sequel to the PS1 game Enter. There was APS one only sequel
Inner Electro and that was pretty good too.
I never played that. I would like to play.
That that was good. I'm.
Sure, it's cheap. I.

(58:06):
Can find that. We can probably find that when
you go, we'll. Talk about that later.
Either the thoughts on the. Hulk.
Screw the Hulk. Fuck that Hulk.
He's my least favorite character.
More of a rivals too. Yeah.

(58:26):
Those are bikini skins of the Hulk.
There should be. There's a punisher like banana
hammock skin. Well he has water guns instead
of regular guns. Isn't that where he has like?
They love sexy circular like glasses too.
Yeah, I I've seen that. They love sexy sexy.
Stuff and bongo rivals I'm for I'm all for it.
I I I went back in and played his gambit recently because

(58:46):
Gambit got at it and he's prettycool.
Does gambit need? Help on the sex appeal slider?
No, Gambit's already got that accent along that accent aloud.
Men and women everywhere just just swoon over Gambit.
Because it's I Gambit and somehow Scott Summers cyclops.
Is the greatest superhero of alltime.

(59:08):
I love Cyclops. He's.
My favorite X-Men and I feel so vindicated because as a kid he
was my favorite X-Men. So like I would watch the X-Men
animated series and he's supposed to be lame in that he's
the Boy Scout and I'm like, no, he looks cool and he has laser
eyes. And then the movies come out,
the original X-Men movies with, you know, Hugh Jackman and stuff

(59:30):
and then the black level and they're like the whole time they
kind of make fun of Scott. But Cyclops is cool.
He dies in the lamest way possible in those movies and
like, but I was like, I like Cyclops.
And then slowly but surely the the comics have been like, know
who also likes Scott Cyclops? Everybody who writes X-Men
comics. X-Men 97.

(59:51):
Was sort of pulling his moves from Marvel versus Capcom.
Oh, it's great. It's fantastic.
Also when he goes like. Mutant like revolutionary
Cyclops. Oh my God, it's cool as hell.
There's been rumors that he's going to come to Marvel Rivals.
I am very pumped. We'll get in Gambit and we'll
get in Rogue this season. I'm really hoping that we get

(01:00:12):
one more good X-Men because we have Gene, we got Emma, we got
Gambit. Wolverine, like Marvel Arrivals
is a great video game and they have a killer.
If you're a Marvel fan, they'll cast is great.
Like I'm I'm a huge Cyclops fan.I love Cyclops.
Speaking of video games. First of all, there was.
Some slander last episode because I told you I had beaten

(01:00:35):
Alpha protocol and you said no you didn't and then we went and
checked after the show and yes Idid I did beat Alpha for some
reason my app was. Showing when you had played it
but got 0G and then when you scrolled down far enough I
checked my app again and then all the G we had to Scroll down
to like. 2009 or 8? Oh my God, we kept scrolling

(01:00:57):
because that's the one I used to.
Determine like on 3/6 because like, has he played this game
before? No, he hasn't played this game
before. Now.
You can't trust it now. I can't.
Trust it. How many?
Xbox 360 games. I've played well, we scrolled
through your entire. Catalog.
I think they would have refreshed by now.
If not, then I don't know. Who knows.
I've played a lot of Xbox 360 Alpha Protocol.

(01:01:20):
We you gave this to me because we have played talked a lot
about Obsidian with the Outer Wards 2 coming out, but she's
still on the hard drive. I haven't played it yet and I
talk a lot about how I don't know if this style of RPG still
connects with me. And so first of all, Alpha

(01:01:41):
Protocol. It's not a good game, no, it's
ambitious as hell. There's.
So many things. That I want to like about this.
Like you look at it from an outsider's perspective.
You're like, oh, it's Splinter Cell the RPG, right when you get
abilities. And so also playing through this

(01:02:02):
triggered a lot of memories where I was like, oh, I remember
this game now. You you have a very.
Bad voice cast. There is a mechanic in which you
have limited time to answer questions.
Which other RPGs have done that?Like Cyberpunk does that, where
sometimes it was like you have ability to wait and not say

(01:02:24):
anything. In Alpha Protocol, they don't
let you hear the entire words that are said by the other
person until that countdown starts.
So sometimes they're still talking and the countdown's
almost over for you to answer the question.
I don't know if you remember that I.
Remember this because that's terrible.
It seems like they prioritize like the flow of conversation

(01:02:47):
more than like what the fuck they'll say.
There was times where I'm like, I'm waiting to hear the rest of
this sentence and you need to make a decision.
I'm like, well dude, he's still got like a paragraph from the
half he's reading. Combat is Mass Effect style
combat where like shooting is not necessarily what you're

(01:03:07):
hitting is basically is. Dice rolls based on your stats,
which for a grounded tactical RPG feels terrible.
Yes, when? You're shooting a dude with
assault rifle and you've got thereticle over his Sentinel mass
and the bullets aren't hitting because the numbers behind the
scenes say they don't. And now I will say Mass Effect

(01:03:28):
one did that too. Yeah, now that was fixed a lot
in like the Legendary edition and stuff.
They did some tweaking but. Yeah, I get.
It it was a style of the as was the style of the time, but.
That was frustrating. I also remembered that back in

(01:03:49):
the day I just punched people because you know what doesn't
require a dice roll? Fisticuffs.
I just ran up and did karate on people.
My. The only tracks that I remember
maxing out were pistols, melee, stealth.
So stealth is. Broke.

(01:04:10):
Now I will say though, the resources to get upgrades is not
the same for each path. So stealth is like costly to get
the upgrades for, but they are insane.
Like one of them is just like invisibility.
One of them is if you get seen by a guard, you go invisible.
And so I was like, that's kind of fucking convenient.

(01:04:33):
I did not upgrade pistols this time but I think in the past it
was stealth and just punching people.
Like I think I was a martial arts guy the my last playthrough
of this game because punching people just worked.
And if you have the ability to go invisible, you can just punch
people you can just sneak behind.

(01:04:54):
Them and do an instant kill karate chop to the back.
Yeah, you should just walk. And it's not like stealth, It's
not like invisibility like in other games where it's like a
temporary, like 2 second, like aMass Effect Andromeda has the
invisibility, but it's like a three or four seconds.
Like it's a pretty long time. And you can just kind of do, do,
do, do, do. Do do and the upgrades.

(01:05:15):
Make that effect last longer. Yeah, you can just do it for a.
Really long time. This game story.
Is nonsensical in some ways thisis a classic.
Like, you got burned. Go figure it out.
And it's like. But like a lot of times I'm just
doing things for people without really a great connection to why

(01:05:35):
I'm doing it. Yeah, to the point where?
Like when the rubber when the bandit comes off and you are a
rogue agent. Now at the end where everything
goes wrong, it's just like wherehas I've only done like 3
missions, I have no attachment to this agency or whatever and
now I'm rogue. What?
What's going on, I mean? There is insane amount of

(01:05:57):
potential endings for this like because.
There's also like a. Very branching capabilities,
like once you get like the different wards, like open areas
you can go to, not open areas but different parts of the
country of the ward you can go to.
It does the coaching thing. Yeah, you can do that.
In multiple ways. And so I do like those like a

(01:06:17):
black market mechanic where you can like buy off information on
missions and stuff. And if you did something for
somebody over here, you can use their help to do this mission
and stuff. None of it connects.
The characters are not necessarily likable.
There was a lot of like spy stereotypes, but not in a good

(01:06:40):
way. Like I never felt like my.
Main guy was like doing the things I wanted him to do, like
there was never a personality for him that I enjoyed and like
he has. Because he has to occupy 3
different types of secret agent.They even say like isn't it

(01:07:02):
called like I don't even know ifit was called it colloquially or
in the game itself. Like the JB system.
You have James Bond, you have Jason Bourne and Jack Bauer, you
have the suave, you have the professional and you have the
aggressive. And because you can just pick
however you want to go mid dialogue, you can just swing to
different types and they don't feel connected to each other.

(01:07:25):
OK, this is something. I want to use this game as a a
jumping off point to talk about Obsidian in general.
Obsidian made one of my favoritevideo games of all time in
Fallout New Vegas. Fallout New Vegas is a janky
mess. But you know what?
Fallout New Vegas also is fascinating.

(01:07:46):
Like the things that you can do in Fallout New Vegas, the ways
you can solve quests, the interconnectivity of all these
groups of people. The way that game.
Can end 10 different ways the way you can break allegiances
with one side or another becauseyou ran a dude.

(01:08:08):
When I first played New Vegas for the first time, I tried to
play both sides or multi, multiple sides for so long that
I it all collapsed on me at the same time in this weird, weirdly
like realistic almost way where like, I was kind of playing with
the Legion, but I knew they werebastards, so I wasn't going to

(01:08:30):
be supporting them. I was definitely working with
the NCR, but I wanted to do thatLegion stuff on the side.
I was doing the stuff for Mr. House.
I was doing some stuff for myself.
Yeah, I get close to Mr. House. So you can, like, kill Mr.
House? Yeah, you got to do all that.
But also I wanted to see all thecontent, so I was trying to do
as many missions for everybody. And then like there was like a

(01:08:51):
point in which stuff started falling apart was like, you're
not supposed to be here. You're supposed to be over here
with the Legion. And it's like, oh, no, they
figured out that I'm not with. And like you start seeing
missions getting like blocked out because you, you ran the
line too far. And then I eventually like ended
up taking over New Vegas myself.And I remember like my favorite
moment in that is I did the, theassault on the legion to, to

(01:09:16):
kill the, to kill Cecil or Cesaror whatever.
They, he's weird. They say it's Cecil, but most
NPCS. Call them Caesar right there,
Caesar. But I think there's also some.
Of them, call it it's been a while, but I killed Cecil.
I'm coming down from this Legioncamp where I've just like
slaughtered everybody. I took out the Legion and the
NCR shows up and they're like, hey, you know, we're taking

(01:09:40):
Oval. And I had done a quest like 10
hours earlier while I helped theboomers who are like these guys
who are obsessed with like rocket launchers.
And they have. Planes.
They have a walking bomble that I help them build, like fix.
And I tell the guy in the coldest video game moment of my
life where I go, you're not taking over the New Vegas

(01:10:04):
because if you do that, we'll bomb in.
We'll bomb the Northern California Republic tomorrow
because I have a plane and I gotbombs.
I got atomic bombs and like the whole NCR legions there and then
the security bots show up right that for the the thing.
And so you make the NCR back down with this threat that you

(01:10:27):
you're not taking Vegas from me.And this is after I've already
killed Mr. House in his little tube.
And it's like this bad ass, likecombination of all these things
that led to this moment of me standing outside the the Legion
camp telling the NCR to go fuck off.
And if they don't, I'll bomb. Then I'll bomb the home, you
know, the home city tomorrow with the plane that I've got

(01:10:49):
access to from another mission that wasn't even linked to the
main mission. And it's like, that's what
Obsidian has done well. This is not maps.
But also, like, New Vegas comes out after this.

(01:11:09):
It does. I think so.
OK. Don't double check it but I'm
pretty sure New Vegas is post alpha protocol.
I believe they are being walked on at the same time.
I can't tell you Obsidian game post New Vegas that is connected
to me as well. As New Vegas has.
Like the outer wards felt fine, but the ward just didn't connect

(01:11:33):
with me, the characters didn't connect, everything was just
kind of a little bit weird. I played through Avowed this
year and Avowed is fine. It's a six out of 10 video game.
I think the combat's OK, but I don't like the level grinding, I
don't like most of the characters, and I was coming off
of playing RPGs like the boulders Gate 3.

(01:11:54):
They come out the same year. Yes, but I believe.
New Vegas is after this. Yeah, by 5 months.
What an insane difference in quality.
Yes, insanity. All New Vegas's performance.
Is held as someone who plays played the PS3 version of that

(01:12:15):
thing. That thing is held together with
paper string and duct tape. But but it's bursting at the
seams with ambition, with ideas,with philosophy.
It is so like Rich. Fallout New Vegas, the reason
why I think it's my one of my I love fallout 3 so much, but

(01:12:36):
fallout new Vegas is probably myfavorite of fallout because
everything just feels like it could mean everything.
Everything could connect, everything could feel important
and there's so many just iconic moments in in that game.
I. I am like.
Just I just, I don't think Obsidian has never has ever.

(01:13:00):
Lived up to that. Level of of bar and like alpha
protocol is a. Game that has.
So many good ideas because like a lot of Obsidian games have
good ideas out of wards have like whole playthroughs where
you can play as a stupid person and like the game will tailor
the story to you being an idiot.If you steal a lot of things out

(01:13:22):
in the ward like you do in thesekind of games, you get like a
part for being a kleptomaniac, but it also negatively effects
you because because now like thepolice are like 50% more likely
to grab you. Like they have so many good
ideas, but none of it lands the way that it needs to.
None of it connects the way it needs to.

(01:13:45):
The combat in their games never feels just right.
Like it's so much passion. These are passionate game
designing people, but for some reason a lot of their games just
never have that final over the finish line that they need.
And Alpha Protocol is like that.This is a ambitious idea, a

(01:14:05):
technical spy thriller RPG. Fucking great, awesome idea,
sold, but it just doesn't cross the finish line.
There's all these ideas with like the combat mechanics where
like the upgrade paths and things like that was like, Oh my
God, this should mean something,but there isn't.
There was all these characters, but no one's iconic.

(01:14:27):
Like you have to have in an RPG.You have to have a shadow of
heart. You have to have a Garrus.
You have to have someone who like these characters that you
care about because you spend so much time in that game just
talking to people in RPGs. And if I don't give a damn about
the people I'm having to talk to, you've lost me.

(01:14:49):
And in a lot of ways, like with them, a lot of Obsidian games
outside of I would say New Vegasand maybe Kotor 2.
I've never played Kotor 2 but I hear so many good things about
it. I'm on say that maybe that's a
except obsession. Kotor 2 is another.
One that is like brimming with so many ideas that about sort

(01:15:10):
with their story and philosophy that they love to mind.
We need to play. Kotor, that should be your game
for next year. We could play some good tour.
Because I haven't played that. Kotor too, I haven't played
either of them. Do you never play Kotor?
No, I never finished Kotor. I never.
But a pin in that one, but a pinin that one.

(01:15:32):
But I sit there and I go, how doyou just not bring it across
the, the, the the finish line? And like, I feel so bad because
I really, really want to like this game.
There's a like, I like this. I want this game to be good, but
I just could not for the life ofme connect.

(01:15:53):
I finished it back in the day looking at my achievements.
I banged a lot of people at the end, which 34 year old Eric just
sitting there going OK, that that that says something.
But like, fuck, it just doesn't connect.

(01:16:14):
It doesn't connect the way I wanted it to.
And the combat is just not quiteas good.
And your character is not a he'snot you.
He's not being a vessel for you to betray your own actions
through, but he's not Shepherd. You're like, Shepherd is not me.
When I play Mass Effect, I am playing my version of shepherd.

(01:16:35):
When I play Fallout New Vegas, I'm playing me.
Does that make any sense? Like I'm playing it from a very
like personal point of view of like in this ward, I would do
this. This is Needle.
He's not got enough swabness to be a cool character.
And he's also not a gateway for me to interact with the ward.

(01:16:57):
He's just a guy who says stuff and it just, it is.
Kind of a Dick about it. He's kind of a Dick about it,
but. Everyone's kind of lame.
Even the cool quote UN quote characters are just like
caricatures that could be done. Battle our protocol, man.
So close, but so far. So close, but so far when it

(01:17:19):
comes to. Obsidian games I really want to
play. There's two that I really want
to play that I haven't got around to.
Tyranny is like a dark horse underdog game where it's a CRPG
where there's only evil in the world, so your choices are all
like different shades of like villainy.

(01:17:41):
Like there's no good in that game.
It's all villains. And that sounds like a unique
cool thing. And Pentimate, I've heard
nothing but like amazing things like Pentimate is what I do.
Want to I do want to play. I do want to play pentimate so.
They've stuck around so far, so far and so long because of like,
their ambition and apparently grounded secretly being a big

(01:18:04):
thing. I would think so.
It's got to be. I know a vowed probably didn't
do well for them. I so wanted to like that game
this year. I played through it at the
beginning of the year. There was kind of like a
downtime between releases, and that's the only reason I
finished it. But that was a game where I so

(01:18:29):
badly wanted to like it. And it's just something about
the way they write their characters.
And this is something I feel about with Bethesda as of late
too, is how I feel about Starfield, where it's just
characters are very kind of vanilla like.
Characters don't have any. Edge to them they're either

(01:18:50):
they're like the bad guys are not really that interesting.
The good guys are kind of like caricatures of themselves like I
always think about the party in like Starfield like you're like
you're explorer group right and like OK, we got the good hearted
cowboy. We have the guy who's just a fun
loving Han Solo like rogue. We got the serious, more formal

(01:19:13):
military lady. Like they're all caricatures.
They're D&D people. They're like your people you
would roll up in D&D if you had like an hour to come up with a
character. And then you put that in line
with like what I consider like the modern day, like high
quality RPGs, things like Boulders Gate, where like Shadow
Heart is this morally complex character who can go multiple

(01:19:36):
ways. Lazelle same way.
Gale same way. These characters have more in
depth appealing. They're appealing to you from a
mature point of view, not like just from the content, but also
from treating you as a person who can understand nuance.
And there's so much nuance with the Balder.

(01:19:56):
'S gate cast and they're so fascinating.
The conversations with them are like engaging.
They're real. They're real.
Characters, yes, they have feelings.
And they're not caricatures. No.
I feel like the Bethesda. And then because Oblivion,
because Obsidian runs so like parallel in my mind to Bethesda,
because a lot of times they get they run a kind of similar style

(01:20:18):
of RPGI. Just don't think it connects
anymore man. And it really I really want
something more from them. I'm going to try the outer ones
too. I might actually try that before
the end of the year just so I could talk about it, but that
one. Looks like my style of RPGII
thought that about the. First one though, and the first
one really disappointed me in that way because like I played a

(01:20:41):
significant chunk of the first one.
I like the idea of the flaw. System.
Or if you do something I do like, yeah, but like.
That's not their problem. Their problem is not good ideas.
It's how they follow through. It's how they.
Follow through with the. Like they are great.
Like dude, the ID avowed had some really good ideas.
Like I liked some of the ideas in the the the philosophy and

(01:21:02):
avowed. There was some really good
stuff, but it just never falls through all the way.
Like just cross the bridge man, Cross the bridge we need.
To play Pentamen and I'll play Tyranny, but that game is like
only on PC and it's AC, yeah. CRPG.
CRPG it's like around the times they made right after they made

(01:21:25):
Pillars of Eternity. It's like I played a.
Rogue Trader this year for a little bit, and it's just like
RPGSRPG, motherfucker. Like, you know, like you know,
like I don't want to be. Here a while things where I'm
like I'm I'm in my 30s, I'm likeI'm too young for this.
I need to yes, I need in order to play those games.

(01:21:49):
I need like readers. I need to like have like an old
school computer. I need to be sitting with my
glasses now. People are not having a social
life. Like, you know, like I need to
feel comfortable. We're going to min.
Max, our character here. Yeah, you.
Know 4 hours spent. 4 hours on this stat screen.
Why I never finished. You can't.

(01:22:10):
You can't go to brunch. And play those games at the same
time. I can't have a drink on a Friday
night and play a CORPG like that.
Damn it, I want to. I want.
To love peelers of eternity, butI can't.
It's too, it's too much my I'm not yet old enough to do it.
Old Queensgate torment was. Awesome what?

(01:22:31):
I played a bit but I'm like 16 year old Eric in a nursing.
Home, probably. I hope I'm not well, most
likely, most likely will be. We'll have all the time in the
war to sit there and play those games.
Like finally I was like I can. Wait, see already why?
Didn't you play this back in theday, Grandpa?
I had too many people to actually talk to in real life.

(01:22:53):
I had a job I had. A job.
Children and family and friends if you're a CRP.
G player with a social life and a full time job and we offended
you. I apologize, but also tell me
your ways of how you manage sucha thing.
All right, sorry. We know you ain't.
Listening to this because you'retoo busy trying to mid Max doing

(01:23:15):
scary. How's your how's your World of
Warcraft raid schedule going? That's all I got to say about
our protocol. We're not doing the game trade
this week on account of the factthat we are going to do a game
of the year for Game of the Yearshow next show that'll bring out

(01:23:40):
the end of the year. And then we will have a very
special thing for the start of the next year.
Next season. We will announce that.
Let's go ahead. I'm going to.
I'm starting to tease it on the social media.
Let's go ahead and talk about it.
We used to in. This this here podcast do a game

(01:24:01):
club where we will play through a game entirely in sections and
talk about it as we go more of ain depth breakdown of a game
over a longer period of time. We are bringing that back for
one of our favorite series of all time.
We played through the first, second and third game of this
franchise in the show already, but we're bringing it back for

(01:24:25):
Metal Gear Solid for Guns of thePatriots.
We got we got to bring this home, man.
We got to bring this home. It's time to finish.
This saga yes and you have neversaw the end of that thing right
I have played a pretty. Significant chunk of it.
But I stopped because we were doing the show at that time, OK,

(01:24:46):
And I did not want to move it. You got to it.
Late. Yeah, I got to it lately.
Like I was playing it post us doing this show.
Like I played it over like a Christmas break one year back in
the before times. OK, then we did the show and.
Then you stop. Yes.
We'll talk. We'll talk about where you
stopped. I was in a trench.

(01:25:06):
Coat. Oh, you.
Oh, you didn't even get. OK, OK, all right.
I didn't say I played the whole thing.
Yeah, I was. I was playing.
I played a chunk of it. OK, Yeah.
OK. But no, I'm very, very, very.
Excited, very excited. Because I'm very excited.
No, I'm very excited. We were kind of hoping to wait

(01:25:28):
for a Metal Gear Solid Collection 2 Volume 2 thing, but
that doesn't seem to be coming out anytime soon.
Did you see what they came? Out and said about remaking for
they said they said that's not they're like that's like
impossible I. So things are looking dire.
For I'm hoping I have AI have a long break.

(01:25:48):
During the Christmas break, I'm hoping to play some Metal Gear
Solid Delta. I'm hoping to get that maybe as
a Christmas gift or something because I do want to play that
this year. I really do look forward to
that. I've been looking forward to it.
You're right though, I don't know how you remake 4 because
it's so dense. Oh my God.
And that is. We'll we'll be discussing all of

(01:26:12):
that. I'm sorry, this is our, this is
our biggest. These episodes are going to be
so freaking along. Yeah, but I do.
I do miss the old format in someways, yeah, because I think one
thing, and maybe there's something we can talk about
offline and maybe people can message us and tell us if they
liked it back. But I think there was a way to

(01:26:33):
do that because I do love breaking games down in a very
like detailed moment to moment style.
I think that there's a happy medium between killing ourselves
to get. Games done.
And also still doing that, so maybe we'll discover that, maybe
have a game going in the. Background while we do the

(01:26:54):
something something something, I'm sure.
There's something we could do. I also got more free time, but
Metal Gear Solid 4 Guns of the Patriots.
I really hope people play along with this if you can, if you
can. If you don't have a PS3,
PlayStation 3. Hey, you don't miss.
A lot by just watching along. You don't.

(01:27:17):
You don't. Miss a lot by.
Just watching a video, watching a video on YouTube, it's a lot
of cutscene. It's so many, but.
Is the, you know, it's the grandfinale, boys and girls.
I feel like you just remake Metal Gear Solid first before
you even get close to touching this thing.
But yeah, we'll have that comingyour way.

(01:27:39):
Plus a game of the year show coming next.
Looking forward to that a lot. Thank you guys for listening.
We appreciate it. Y'all.
Stay safe out there. And Oh yeah, five stars, 5
stars, 5 stars on all the platforms, all the action.
Action Damn it. Follow us on TikTok, like and
subscribe on TikTok and thank you.

(01:28:00):
Stay safe.

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