0138 mattflynn and Extra Life

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:09):
Channel 3. Is the future
welcome crew to one of your 3A channel 3 podcast that had to

(00:32):
delay the podcast a couple of days because I I I was just down
to a squeak on Tuesday night that was that was that wasn't
going to happen on Tuesday so I I'm not I'm not me but I'm back
whatever it's all good I'm Dan Ray's here do the.
Thing I I am here, Dan, is this is this our first Thursday
recording? Have we ever recorded on a

(00:52):
Thursday from before or is this like a monumental historic
recording? You know, we've done Tuesdays
before. I we've definitely done
Tuesdays. I have.
Done. I have done Fridays several
times, but we've never done a Wednesday and this is probably
the first Thursday we've. Done.
It's historic. I don't know, have we?
Have we done a Saturday either? Probably have a Saturday.

(01:15):
We have done a Saturday, that's absolutely.
Yeah, this is a, this is a firstthing.
Wow. It's historic.
We've almost hit every day, 111 week.
We're going to, we're going to do, we're going to run a party
night, we're going to run streamand then we're going to do a
podcast right after because for some reason we're we're going to
think that's a good idea. That night, every guest of me
says it's a terrible idea. But OK, it's odd.

(01:36):
It's definitely a terrible idea.If some reason that the bad idea
fairy is going to catch us, Oh my God, catch us on Wednesday
and it's going to happen. But tonight's guest, this is
awesome. Awesome episode.
Here we have Matt Flynn who is the child life specialist over
at Cincinnati Children's Hospital.
We are going to be talking aboutExtra Life.
Extra Life Day is coming up. When this drops will be 3 days

(02:00):
out from Extra Life Day. If you are looking for a
hospital to support consider Cincinnati Children's Hospital.
Joel is actually signed up on the channel three Extra Life
page as a as raising money for Cincinnati Children's Hospital.
Dan signs up every year. We've got a couple people on
Channel 3 all signed up raising money.

(02:21):
So a great call. So Matt, welcome.
Hello, How are you doing tonight?
I'm great. Thank you guys so much for
having me. We're excited to have you here.
I'll let Dan go and talk more because extra life is really his
thing. I, as always, I follow along
where Dan tells me to go. Yeah, Ray, Ray is ready because
we're going to have Smash Brothers that night.

(02:43):
And that's true. That is one that we we plan then
because that will go into like 3in the morning, whether we
wanted to or not. We will be, we will be ready to
fill some of that, some of that extra lifetime in there.
But yeah, so Ray mentioned we'vegot you, you you're willing to
come on and talk with us about extra life, which is great
because I, I mean, it's kind of the nature of what you do.

(03:04):
You've been great about sharing a lot of your just everyday
activities there, whether it's like the funniest one I think
was inside. I think you shared with the
you're, you're kind of followingalong with a kid there, but
you've done all sorts like 3D printing stuff.
You're very engaged and you knowthe, the Children's Hospital

(03:25):
life is not always an easy one or ever an easy one.
Kids don't want to be there. Most of them don't understand
what's happening. Some of them, it's just a long
and arduous journey and you're there to help kind of try and
make that as easy as possible, right?
Like it's, that's your everyday life, right?
Yeah, that's the plan. And then for those who don't

(03:46):
know, yeah, I'm a child life specialist.
I'm one of like, I don't know, somewhere around 90 over at
Cincinnati. Children's and child life
specialists are there to engage patients and families to help
reduce stress and increase positive coping.
We're there to help explain a medical diagnosis in a way that

(04:07):
kids of all ages can understand,to provide support during
painful and scary medical procedures.
But we're also there to do fun stuff, help celebrate
milestones. And we do this a lot of ways,
but the biggest ways we do it through play.
Play is how all of us initially learn to to learn, to grow, to

(04:30):
heal. And play is very much at the
center of the work that we do. But then what I do in particular
is I was able to kind of carve out and create a job within my
job. And that's something that I now
call patient guided technology. And so I use video games,
virtual reality, 3D printing, robots, pretty much anything

(04:53):
electronic I can get my hands onto engage and support patients.
And because gaming has always been like a big part of my whole
life, I love it. And I really wanted to take that
version of play and apply it to what I learned over the years as
a child life specialist because that just seemed like a natural

(05:14):
pairing for me. So yeah, now I'm at this point
where I've been doing patient guided technology as a full time
job for the past nearly two years and I don't want to do
anything else as a job at all. Can't, can't blame me there.
What is there? Is there a game that sticks out
to you that's been like particularly impactful or one
that like the kids react to or something that's kind of helped

(05:37):
with bridging those gaps, Anything like that?
There are a few. One of them is one of the three
that I picked for today. We could talk about that now.
I don't know. Let's save left for dead until
we get to Ray. We'll hold that.
You know, VR has been awesome. It's it's what's great about

(06:00):
that is I've been able to use itwith people who probably, you
know, aren't necessarily gamers.Like gamers can jump in and, and
get certain things and understand certain aspects of,
of VR gaming quicker, but you don't necessarily have to put a
game on. You can put an experience on.
So it's like, hey, this isn't a game.
This is just more of now you're in a nice forest and you can

(06:24):
control certain things and you can, there's this one game
called Nature Trek where you like, can just throw a ball and
it makes a tree grow and you canthrow another ball and it makes
the rain come down, You throw another one.
It turns day into night. You can make butterflies appear.
It's just this nice relaxing thing.
And we'll have kids do that while something invasive might

(06:45):
be going on and like, because they're so immersed, they don't
always feel what's happening, despite the fact that you may be
like, that's a needle going in their arm.
And I have seen kids not react at all.
And it's incredible. Why do you even think about
doing some of these things during some of those procedures?
Either that that has to be greatfor taking their mind off of

(07:06):
things. Good God, that's.
Oh yeah. Yeah, especially for for some of
the the various procedures that's that's excellent for
them. So.
Wow. So, you know, this is this is
all tied to Children's Miracle Network.
Extra Life goes right through that.
I love that because 1, you know,I say extra life and people are
like, I don't know what that is.You say it's tied to Children's

(07:27):
Miracle Network. That always helps and, and bring
some legitimacy. And I always love like the money
just goes right to the hospital.You don't have to worry about it
doesn't go to a middleman. Nobody's going to RIP it off In
the meantime. I'm always paranoid about about
those types of things, but I'm like, no, this, this way, it
just goes directly to the hospital.
The hospital communicates with it.
Is there anything in particular you know of from Sensei that

(07:51):
extra life is been directly beneficial for anything off the
top of your head? I probably should have prepped
you on that one, but Oh well. That's OK.
The biggest thing I would say that you know, as anybody
setting up whatever their donation is through, even if
it's through Extra Life, you canalways kind of, you can pick and
choose to designate where it goes.

(08:12):
So if like anybody out there is raising money, if they're doing
this for personal reasons, like whether they were a patient or
they knew someone who was a patient in a particular kind of
unit, you could be like, we'd like these funds designated to
that unit in, you know, whether it's like in honor of the
treatment I went through or in honor of the treatment that my

(08:33):
friend or sibling or whoever went through.
Or if you just want to designateit directly to the child life
department at that hospital. Because child life departments
really rely on donations throughout the year to kind of
get whether it's board games, arts and crafts, video games.
So if you designate it for that,it'll be a huge boost for them.

(08:56):
Yeah, I'll tell you, I've talkedbefore.
My daughter had to spend 5 days in the hospital and that was
that was more than enough for us.
But just the, the, the arts and crafts alone probably got her
through the recovery period for what she had to deal with in the
physical therapy side of things.And she had, she learned what
diamond art was and she was hooked.
I don't say that much. That was the, you know, the, the

(09:17):
child life team there. They, they, they took care of,
they, they kept bringing stuff around.
They were bringing people around.
They were very, very helpful. And that, and like I said,
listen, we were there for five days.
I can't imagine there were people all around us says like,
oh, these people have been here for weeks or longer and we'll
still be here for weeks or longer.
So you, you can't understand howimportant this, this all is for

(09:38):
the kids who have to live this stuff every day.
It's one thing. We're like, oh, my kid, you
know, broke their arm or, or knocked their head around or
something like that. And you go in, you're, you're in
and out of the emergency room. And, and again, even I, I, you
know, I was talking to Matt beforehand.
Like even even when I've had to take kids down for, you know, a
knock or a nick or whatever they've had like, yeah, yeah,
I've, I've seen this stuff at work then and that's always

(10:01):
nice. But the, the stuff that for the
people who were there for a longtime, this is really important
for. So it's, it's just a good 'cause
it's good to I, I have had to see it first hand.
And I love, I love the fact thatit exists out here to take care
of that. Again, reminder everybody, extra
life. They'll be November 8th to be
ready for that. Joel on the Channel Three team.
He is, of course, going to be directly involved in the

(10:22):
Cincinnati Children's Hospital for his fundraising as everybody
kind of picks their local hospital matter.
Are you, are you playing anything during the course of
Extra Life Day or you do you do fundraiser or do you have to
kind of keep hands off with that?
I don't know how that works for you.
Yeah, For me, it's it's more of a hands off.
It's more of like I just kind oflike air traffic control and be
like, hey, hey over here. Want to look at things over

(10:43):
here? Yeah, yeah, keep separation of
church and state in that case. So, but again, if you go to if
you go to to C3 dot GG slash Extra Life, that'll take you to
to our details. You can find Joel on the team
and and boom, that'll go right directly to Cincy Children's
Hospital. So that'll be ready, be ready,
be there. We're going to start at 8:00 AM

(11:04):
and we got people lining up throughout the 24 hours that are
they'll be doing all sorts of stuff.
And then we got Mario Golf, we got Fortnite, we've got the, of
course, 9:00 PM Eastern. If you go to C3 dot GG/C3 CS
will be the Smash Brothers tournament as our our monthly
tournament with the jersey and all the lines.
So be there for that. But otherwise, you know, go,

(11:26):
even if it's not with us, go somewhere and find extra life.
It's going to be all over Twitchthat day.
So have at it everybody. And yeah, anything else before
we we jump to your games, Matt? That's all I got.
Cool. All right, let's jump into your
games and you're still kind enough to come on, not just talk
about extra life, but talk aboutsome of your history here and
your first game is the the SuperNintendo cult classic.

(11:48):
I have to call it a cult classic.
I like, I, I'm, I'm biased because I feel like I know a lot
of people who were like, Oh yeah, Earthbound, of course.
But no, I know that's not the larger population.
So they're they're called classic Earthbound.
Yeah, the the three games that Ipicked, I, you know, at a glance
there's not much of A theme, butI decided to go with kind of
like the three games that definemy game journey, like past,

(12:13):
present or by starting midlife and then kind of up to now.
So you're the same. Beginning, middle and end
Neither that. Wouldn't be good.
Either no, no, no you. Haven't had some sort of journey
with these games here. Yeah, So Earthbound, like I've
been playing games like I'm 40 years old.
I've been playing games since I was like 3.
I think that's like my earliest memories, like going to a

(12:34):
cousin's house and they they hadan NES and like later that year
I got an NES. But Earthbound is probably like
that first game I became obsessed with like every last
little bit about it. I, I wanted to know, It's
probably why now when I play games, like I explore every nook
and cranny that I can and I'll talk to any NPC because that's

(12:57):
like what Earthbound encouraged you to do.
Like even if it didn't lead to anything, like every single NPC
was something, someone you couldtalk to.
And sometimes they just said random nonsense and other times
you like might get something or end up in a battle, or it might
lead you to like this little bitof a side quest that wasn't
important. But like, it was all part of

(13:18):
that, that weird journey that that game took you on.
So were you playing this back inthe 90s like you'd be, You'd be
young then when this was? I was probably like, it was
probably like 9798 when I got it.
So like we, we didn't get an N64right away.
So we hung onto our SNESA littlebit longer than like, you know,

(13:39):
some of my friends did. And it was a game that was like
it. My brother and I saw it at a
video store and it was in the big box.
Like it wasn't in a regular sizeSNES box.
It was in a bigger box because they shipped it with the players
guide because this was the firsttime, yeah, you needed it.
That was the thing you needed it.
The game. The game's fairly linear, but

(14:00):
you could skip things by accident and play it in a non
linear way. And so the player's guide would
tell you, you have to go here after you do that, otherwise
you'll miss this. And so we saw it and I was like,
well, that can't be a game. That box is way too big.
And my brother was like, no, it's a game.
And so he rented it. We got it home and we both just

(14:21):
loved it. And so yeah, I was probably like
11-12 ish years old when when weplayed it.
And then like we, we became obsessed.
We ran out and bought it the first chance we could.
We could find a copy. I still have it right over there
with the box with the players guide.
I will never part with it. And yeah, like this, this game

(14:42):
like, and the other thing about it is it, it was my first
experience of like gaming being surreal, especially the ending,
but like, also gaming kind of being somewhat cinematic, like
before that became the norm, youknow, of, of hiring actors to do
to do voice recordings and to domocap of like there, there is,

(15:04):
there is a story here. And the story isn't just go save
the Princess. You know, there's something
deeper with the story there. It's it's about found family and
going on a journey together. And the people you meet along
the way end up being the ones who save you at the end.
As you're asking, as you're having Paula pray.

(15:24):
And it reaches out to like everycharacter you meet throughout
the game. And then they all like step out
and they start to like pray for your safety.
And that's what ends up winning the the day.
And I was like 12 years old and I was like, what did I just
witness? Like this blew my mind at the
time. Alternatively, it's about a
world where there's not child Youth Services to protect

(15:46):
children from utterly neglectfulparents as an alternative.
There mom welcomes you home anytime you want.
She'll make you your steak. She'll help you out.
Dad is there to deposit money. I think they're doing a damn
good job of being parents. So, so that that's kind of where
I want to, I want to ask you because you're, you're probably

(16:08):
at like a ripe age for the humorto actually hit you even at that
point, because this is a, to your point, like every
interaction. Is there some, some
interactions, there's a few of them that I can think of.
They're just like, somebody didn't know how to translate
this. And it makes no sense because
that that this was a translationnightmare, undoubtedly, because

(16:28):
this was, you know, localizationwas in art.
It still is. But there were far fewer people
who were active in that, in thatjob necessarily.
And but anyways, did you pick upon some of the humor and just
the the making fun of society and all the stuff going on

(16:51):
around it and things like that? Not initially.
That's one of the things that I,that I always love about the
game of going back and replayingit and being like, oh, this is
what they were saying. So like when I was like well
into my teens and 20s and like, I've replayed that game dozens
of times. The thing that I always picked
up on even at that age, though, was like the music because they

(17:12):
just sort of like ripped real music and like just turned it
into to video game format. Like there's there's Chuck Berry
in this, in this game, the mini.Files enough of a difference
that it protects them probably, I'm sure, but statue of
limitations maybe. I don't know.
Whatever. It's something.
But yeah, like, you know, so I remember catching that as a kid

(17:32):
because I actually like, liked that kind of like older classic
rock. And so I'd hear it and I'd be
like, I know what song this is. But yeah, there's, there's so
many like weird little things to, you know, getting as a kid
might have, you know, gone over my head, but then going back as
an adult and, yeah, catching them later.
And I think that that's what's fun about it is like, this was a

(17:52):
game made by adults that kind oflike that, like 90s humor at the
time of like, also like growing up on, like, Nicktoons of like,
certain things go over your head, but then you go back and
watch it and you're like, oh, that was a joke for by adults,
for adults, Yeah. And, and the, the funny part is
it was by Japanese adults, four adults with like a heavy

(18:16):
American reference too. So there's like layers on top of
the humor too, that like even ifyou go back now, if you played
it, then there's still stuff of them like, oh, they're just
making fun of us. And OK, they're probably right.
It's pretty funny. Or there's like, you know, like
I didn't know the Blues Brothersthe first time I played this
thing. But like, oh, I see what
they're, I see what they're doing here now.

(18:36):
Like there's all these, there's these like pop culture
references that even now I'm like that they got that
reference over there. Like what it what is this?
I, I don't understand what's happening here.
But yeah, no, they're making jokes over there.
Yeah, sure. Yeah.
And, and there's so much like social commentary because, like,
a lot of the people you have to fight are just like everyday

(18:58):
people. Like one of the biggest boss
battles at the beginning is like, it's, it's the cops, like,
and then you have to deal with like this millionaire in a city
who's like super corrupt and haseverybody under his thumb.
And I'm just sitting there goinglike, the more things change,
the more they stay the same. So, so did you have you gone?
Are are you a member of the the cult of Earthbound like you

(19:20):
would you go back to what we nowknow as earthbound beginnings or
the whole mother trilogy? Basically?
Like, were you there before theyeven released it to us, getting
the ROMs and the hacks and the the like and playing Mother 1
slash Earthbound Beginnings or Mother three that I hope someday
we'll get. Maybe someday, hopefully.
But. Yeah, I did play Mother One

(19:43):
Earthbound Beginnings went before Nintendo officially
released it in America. I didn't finish it.
I've probably started that game like 3 or 4 times and I've got
every time I get a little bit further it's I always.
It is wonky to be clear. Like it was it, it was.
It was a struggle bust for the Nintendo for the NES to run the

(20:07):
game, but also the writing slashtranslations really rough still
because it was mostly like fan done anyway.
But there's a lot of like glitchbecause they didn't they do it
like off of a they didn't. I don't even know if they did it
off a complete cartridge either.Like it may it may have been
like a demo involved or like a aa a mock up cartridge or

(20:28):
something. So like, there's wonky stuff in
there. Yeah, I, I don't know all the
details, but yeah, I, I also think it's hard to go backwards
in, in any franchise. So like starting with
Earthbound, it's like OK, Earthbound beginnings just feels
like an incomplete demo of Earthbound.
Yeah, that's pretty accurate. I think that that they, they

(20:49):
knew what they wanted to do, they just couldn't do it.
So have you, Have you also done Mother Three while you're at it?
That I haven't done, but I have read the story multiple times
because yeah, I, I, I have found, I haven't purchased it,
but I have found somebody has like created these Game Boy

(21:10):
advanced translated cartridges of Mother 3.
And I'm like, I should just likebite the bullet and buy it and
see if it's worth my time. Well, I keep hoping since they
have, you know, they'll they'll like pirate their own gear back
and basically they did with the beginnings was release the fan
translation anyway, and I'm hoping they just do that because
the mother three. I've I've heard nothing but

(21:30):
great things about the the localization that's occurred
with that. So like just give it to us.
Just there's no reason. There's no reason not to.
I'm always intrigued like that was supposed to be a Nintendo 64
game that they like. Yeah, I remember seeing those
like still images. Demastered it basically to to
get into this and and and like you said it, it's it's very is

(21:52):
meta the right phrase with especially when you get to the
ending fight. Like there's just stuff like no,
it's it doesn't run the way a normal video game would.
It's it's doing things wholly antithetical just to make you
think. Yeah, like Paula has this prey
move that like you try once or twice the first time you play
the game and then you never use it again.

(22:12):
And it's that's how you beat thegame.
And it doesn't, it doesn't tell you.
It it gives you hints that you're supposed to do that when
you get to the end, but it doesn't tell you.
So if you don't figure it out, you can't beat the final boss.
Have you gone through and tried to get like the the various rear
gear and all of that in your in your times, have you succeeded?

(22:34):
I've gotten most of it. There's some kind of like I
think like body charm, like the star pendant or something that
like it's a rare drop, but you could get it up to three times.
I'd have never even gotten it once.
Probably go one in 100, drop that Only like 300 basically.
I think it's a one in 128 drop that one specific enemy and one

(22:56):
specific area will drop. But I've gotten pretty much
everything else. Like I've gotten everybody's
like ultimate weapon. Like I've grinded out getting
the Sword of Kings. Like you have to do it.
Beautiful. Those are all.
But I think we, I think we have achievements for that on Channel
3. If you go to Earthbounds, if you
can find those screenshots, get that.
Get that in there. You'll be you'll be lording tag

(23:18):
lines over. People have been jealous.
Verified, verified air. So now we take the experiences
of earthbounds and the only natural jump from Earthbound is
obviously to Left 4 dead 2 the only So I mean Left 4 Dead 2.
It's so funny because you you mentioned how you don't like
going backwards because you feellike it's a demo of the first

(23:40):
game and Left 4 Dead, which is like Valve just, I mean,
innovating and, and creating things that games are going to
use going forward forever. And then Left 4 Dead 2.
I mean that that's the one I love as well.
Left 4 Dead 2. I think it's, I mean amazing
game that you have this, you know, the entire story is

(24:00):
multiplayer you get you get 5 like 5 stories, you know, and
everyone your idea is the same you get your 4 characters.
But you, like they said, you should play this with others.
Yeah, I, I, I find that that youcan play that game by yourself.
I think it's so boring by yourself.
It's meant to be played with at least one other person, but you

(24:24):
know, if you can play with a full team, you're just going to
have a good time. You can play at your skill
level. I love that.
There's the different difficultylevels and then you can do
things with those difficulty levels.
Like I love putting that game oneasy and just being like, we're
all going to run and nobody's going to stop.
And if you fall behind, that's on you.
Or speed running this like there's no tomorrow.

(24:46):
There were so many ways to play it.
I mean, that's the, the, that's some of my my best memories from
because this is Xbox Game Pass. I mean, not game Pass.
Oh my gosh, it's not Xbox game. Pass.
It's older than that it's. Xbox, Oh my God, Xbox Live
there. I couldn't think of the word
Xbox Live getting my little cardat Walmart, my little gold pass
that said I have three months Xbox Live and my my Turtle beach

(25:10):
headset, you know, yelling, yelling at my friends as we're
playing this game here. Please don't shoot the witch
and. We.
Just go around her. We don't have to do this.
I have a friend, she is amazing at taking the witch out in one

(25:31):
shot with a Tier 1 pump shotgun.Like if if the witch is in a
spot where you can't get around,we were we, we just go Rose, you
got this. She'd be like I.
Didn't know that was an option. She 'cause there was a so we, we
played the reason this is my second game is like this is by
no means my first online game, but like this was like the

(25:55):
online game my my friends and I still play this like I think I
just played it a few days ago with them.
And so this, this was like this big unifier game for us like
this, this, like we already kneweach other, but like, we got so
close, like because of this game, we have gone to people's
weddings. Like we, we, you know, we just

(26:16):
know each other so well. We, we ran a YouTube channel for
10 years off of our, our ridiculous moments off of this
game and left 4 Dead 2 when it, when it updated and brought in
all of the characters and, and campaigns from Left 4 dead one.
We're like, this game is just perfect now because the added

(26:37):
infected from 2:00, but the original characters and levels
from one I think is like perfectbecause I think the level design
in one is a little bit better than two.
But it's it's just all the gameplay and the added weapons
and and, you know, adding like the jockey and the spitter and
the charger and all that stuff. But yeah, like, so we put so
much time into that. And there was an achievement

(26:57):
that was called Crown the Witch,which is kill the witch in one
shot. And we learned you can only do
it with a shotgun. And so she practiced it with a
with with a pump shotgun and gotreal good at taking the witch
out. So you say you you play it still
now, do you? Do you guys still play it?
Are you playing this on Steam now or do you still play this on
Xbox? Steam, Yeah, This is this is

(27:20):
always been on Steam, Yeah. It's always been on Steam.
Yeah, it's always been on Steam.I I have a 360, but I didn't
don't really play it all that much.
But no, I'm primarily APC gamer and a Nintendo gamer.
But yeah, the other thing that Ilove about it is is the modding
community. The modding community has added

(27:44):
near endless amount of options, both from like how you can
reskin things to just maps. Like one of our favorite maps is
called the tank challenge, whichis you're not running through a
campaign. You're just standing on a
platform and a big number appears up on a scoreboard and
it says 1. And so one tank spawns and then
you kill it. Then it's 22 tank spawn.

(28:05):
And this keeps going until you get through 10 and 10 tanks at
once is insane. It's and you're running around.
There's multiple levels, but it's so easy to get punched off.
It's so easy to get hit with a rock.
There's so few places to hide. But like now, like we'll do
that, we'll call that our warm up, like we'll do that just the

(28:26):
tank challenge and then we'll goplay a campaign and then that
tank shows up and we all just start laughing.
We're like 1 tank. Let's go.
It, it is amazing. There are certain companies,
Valve, Valve is one of them. And I and I, I think of Rockstar
with, with Grand Theft Auto 5, that, that just say Hardware's
Legacy kind of decided to do this too.

(28:48):
And they say, yeah, go ahead, just mod the game.
Yeah, Like you do what? You already bought it, bought
you bought the game. We'd love if you just keep
playing it. And, you know, we're not going
to work on it forever because wehave to move on.
But you want to make more and more things.
And we'll we'll let everyone know.
They're like, hey, yeah, there'smore mods now.
You should you should come play our game again.
It's it just seems like such easy free advertisement every

(29:13):
every company that says, yeah, modern games seems, you know, to
be successful because of it. Absolutely.
And then I just have to say because I'm, I'm still so proud
of this. When I said, you know, we would
speed run, we love doing that somuch that we actually found
there's a site speedrun.com thatwe decided to challenge the full

(29:39):
game speed run record, which is doing the campaigns in any order
that you want, but it's all of the campaigns from 1:00 and 2:00
plus there was that Coldstream campaign got added on later to
do the full game of Left for Dead 2, record it, no cuts are
allowed and submit it. We at the time took third place
worldwide. It's impressive because the

(30:01):
speed from that website is, is pretty thorough.
Yeah. And they're really good about
their stuff too. So that's that's amazing feat.
So it says you have your team. Do you all have character?
You have to be at all times, right?
There's no changing about this. I'm Bill Bill is the Bill is one
of the greatest characters in video game history.
Like he's not just like one of the best characters in left 4

(30:23):
Dead. He's like one of the best
characters in gaming history because when that first game
came out like that, like that, like little movie plays at the
beginning where it's just setting up, getting to the
beginning of of no mercy. And you know, they do all the
stuff. They see the tank, you know,
Lewis is like run or shoot and Bill just goes both.
And then they finally get acrossand they get to the top of the

(30:43):
roof and Lewis is like, I can't believe we made it.
And then Bill goes, son, we justcrossed the street.
Let's not throw a party till we're out of the city.
And I just went like, that's my guy.
Anybody who like just puts things in perspective like that,
that's my guy. And I always play as Bill.
Who's the who's the who's the rest of the team?
Because you disallows you to play with with characters from
the first game too. So you're Bill, you're you're a,

(31:06):
you're a left 4 dead 1 character.
What? What's the rest of the team look
like? So I yeah, Bill, if we're
playing a Left 4 Dead one map and then Nick if we're playing a
Left 4 Dead 2 map. And The funny thing is we all
have our go to characters. So like if you play a Left 4
dead one map and everybody pickstheir character and then if you
switch it to a Left 4 Dead 2 map, it automatically flips your
character. All our characters aligned.

(31:29):
So like if you go, if you start on A1 map and switch to two,
Bill switches to Nick, Lewis, switches to coach, Zoe switches
to Rochelle and Francis switchesto Ellis and all of our people,
we all have our matches exactly like that.
I'm impressed that you have all four names memorized like that
because they're playing this allalong.
They're not like memorable namesor anything.

(31:51):
You know, they're just, they're like, they're just everyday
people, which is like the, whichis another fun aspect to the
game. Like they're, they're just these
random people with random names.But one's coach, he's like, you
don't even coach, you know, one's like, I'm coach.
That's it. Please, just there's, there's
nothing else we have to talk about here.
And what I love about that game is that like, there's no stats,
There's no, you know, there's nolevel up, there's no anything

(32:15):
like that. Like it's not like, oh, Bill is
older, so, you know, he's a better shot, but he's slower.
It's like, no, everybody moves at the same pace.
Everybody fires and reloads at the same pace.
You know, you're not collecting gear, it's just you're you're
upgrading your weapon for that campaign.
And then the next campaign everybody resets.
And so it doesn't really matter who you pick.
Everybody gets to be at the exact same playing level.

(32:37):
It's just a matter of what you've learned to do in the
game. And I kind of wish more games
would go back to that of like, it's not about your stat points,
it's not about grinding and levelling yourself up.
It's just about jumping in and playing.
Well wait, how are you going to sell the skin for that then?
It it is true, and again, Valve just I mean, so this game by

(33:00):
itself does so many things right, because you have the
whole the point of this game is to play in Co-op, right.
The point is to get online and find and find people, which was
already that that's that's a bigidea right there and that and
that's been pushed so many gamesnow that say, yeah, you should
like the story is to play with others.
You have, you know, the director, so you know this

(33:21):
whole, you know the enemies willnot be in the same place that
the the game is going to try itsbest to kind of to kind of
outmaneuver you. All right.
It's it's it's almost rogue liketo even even though you're still
it's the same rooms of where things set up a little
different. There's so many ideas that you
know are new when when this gamecomes out and and you have stuck

(33:42):
around for so long. Yeah, I, I really think it, it's
set a bar. Yeah.
So, so many little things. And, and then, like, you know,
like I said, there's so many ways to play it.
Like you can play it wrong, almost like one of one of our
favorite ways. If, if enough people were on at
the same time, you could get a full eight group of people.

(34:06):
It was a version known as Left for Friends.
So you're doing the the the versus mode where four are the
infected and four of the survivors, and you wait for
somebody on the infected side toget the boomer and they spawn
and they join the survivors. And the role of the other 3

(34:27):
zombies is to pop the boomer. So the four playing as survivors
are trying to keep that boomer alive and move with them, and
the other three infected people are trying to kill their own
teammate. And if you pop the boomer,
everyone agrees wherever you areas a survivor, stop and you have
to die. So you just stand still and then

(34:48):
the other people kill you. And that's how you gauge who
who's doing best because the thescoring still works.
And it's just, it's, it's so creative.
It's so creative and, and, and just allowed you to have all
that, all that creativity. I will say we didn't even get to
talk about the the verse, the verse mode.

(35:08):
It was a did did you guys do more story or did you do more
verse mode just because you could play as, as all these
infected and they were all so cool and different.
They were all like really like you felt like you have, you
know, 5, you know, 7 different infective and everyone you felt
like, oh, this is a different strategy.
Like if I'm playing this character, I have to, I have to
do something different. Yeah, you, you really have to

(35:31):
learn how to communicate with your teammates, because if you
all just jump in, you'll just get picked off one at a time.
But if you coordinate, you're like, OK, you charge first, then
you spit, then you hit them withthe boomer bile.
And like you can take a team outin like 1 go versus like if if
that first person with the charger misses, it's over.

(35:51):
Like you just have to wait till the next respawn.
And the cool thing is about whenyou play as the infected, you
learn the map so much better so that when you go and play, even
if just playing regular 4 playercampaign, you're just like now
because you're like oh now I getwhere they spawn from and I know
where to look, things like that.I'll ask this does Is this a

(36:17):
game that could ever possibly beused at work?
Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, but you know, because I, I
see patients of all ages, so I, I take referrals as young as 6,
but then no age limit for a Max.So I have a lot of patients that
are, you know, 17 and up. So yeah, I, I play, I've played

(36:42):
many M rated games at work with patients and this one hasn't
come up, but I have toyed with the idea.
I have had a handful of patientswho have their own like Steam
accounts and their own like gaming PCs.
Some bring in their whole gamingrig.
It's awesome. Others have like gaming laptops
or Steam decks. And I've toyed with the idea of
being like, I have a gaming level laptop at work.

(37:05):
I should just install my Steam account and just be like, all
right, we'll exchange information for today and we'll
play today, but then I'm deleting you afterwards.
Yeah, that's the Steam. That's Steam family share again,
that that's another idea that that is almost against the grain
of what, of what somebody want to do.

(37:26):
Steam just says that, yeah, you have an account, here you go,
you know, two or five people andthey can also like you play
whatever you have, or you could take turns like it's a very,
very against the what's the trend idea, kind of what I would
think. Yeah, Val.
Val sees the the value in community and they don't want to
break that up. Well, your third game, Matt, is

(37:50):
a game where. Inspired by Left for Net 2.
The developers were brave enoughto act upon a Slack message that
just pointed out the geese and decided to make an entire game
out of that in a quaint English town.
You brought you brought up Untitled Juice Game and and I'm
thankful this is your your this is probably your your game

(38:13):
summarizing now, no offense leftfor did too, but but you know,
undoubtedly I could see the applications for this one.
I'm guessing this is that's where this one ties in.
Yeah, this is my third game because this is kind of where
things are for me right now as aprofessional.
I love playing this game at workmore than anything.

(38:34):
Like I play a lot of Mario Kart at work.
I play a lot of like Smash Bros and just Minecraft.
But sometimes I'll get a kid who's like, I don't know what to
play. And I'm like, well, have you
ever heard of Untitled Goose Game?
And they're like, no, First off,that title gets everybody's
attention. Like it's the best, worst, but

(38:55):
still best title. Like it's good bad and it's so
amazing and every single patientI have recommended it to loves
it. Does not matter the age, what
there's so many little things right about this game in terms
of it's very intuitive, but you don't have to be good.

(39:16):
You can just run around and honkat people and you're having a
good time. But if you want to get into that
puzzle aspect and like start a fresh file, I, you know, the
gear start turning in their heads and you can see them be
like, all right, how do I get his hat?
And you just try to figure out all those little things.
And you know, I mean, I was recommending this game to people

(39:40):
when it was just single player. And then when they added the
second goose, I was like, it just became the best game in the
world. And, and being able to work
together in tandem like that andbe like, I'll honk over here
while you steal that and, and little things like that.
But like, I've recommended it tokids and like their parents
start watching and they're like,what is this?
Or their siblings come over? I've I've been in situations

(40:02):
where I've introduced to a kid and then the parent, I'll go
back a week later and the parents are like, we loved it
so. So much we bought it and like
their siblings came to visit andthey were just playing it all
day. Do you Do you have a favorite
prank in the game? Chasing the kid that's afraid of
you because it's the only human that will run away from you and

(40:25):
that empowers kids so much. They will plays and they they'll
just chase that kid endlessly until I'm like, do you want to
go to something else? Like they will just honk and
chase him, untie his shoelaces, steal his glasses.
So that's the best 1. Because every other character in

(40:45):
that game's an adult who, like, shoes you away.
Except the kid. Yeah.
Yeah, between tying the kids shoelaces together and one of
the required actions is making him buy his own toy back from
the shop when you have to. Like you steal his plane, drop
it in the shop and the shop ladywill make him buy it seven times
in a row. You can do that to the gardener

(41:09):
too. That's that's rough.
What can you do? What can you do to the gardener?
He's got a little shovel and so if you steal that and make him
chase you to the shop and drop it in the shop, there's
gardening tools in the shop. If you drop that, he has to buy
it back. And that's one of the hidden
hidden objectives. I I didn't realize he would
pursue you that far. Oh yeah.

(41:30):
And my, I know my kids love it. Just by the time you get to the
pub and, and you're like hiding pint glasses and knocking cases
over, making people sit and stuff.
Oh, yeah. That the, The thing is just,
it's this glorious torture. And there's also a lot of just,
like, subtle British humor in it.
Yeah. Because like the, the, the final

(41:52):
achievement is to steal the townbell, basically, right.
And it seems like it's this overly complicated thing.
And then you go back to the nestand you find like 25 bells are
already at your nest. I lost my mind when I saw that.
That's like the final joke. And what I love is if you start
a brand new file, those bells are always there.

(42:14):
They don't throw that if you turn because they do this
brilliant thing. If they start you right there at
the edge of that nest, but you naturally walk forward, wouldn't
back. Why would you walk into, you
know, a pit? But if you do, you'll see them
there. But there's no reason to do that
the first time you play. And I think that was just so

(42:35):
clever. If they're going to be like, no
one's going to look over here, but they were there the whole
time. It's so the, the, the
juxtaposition of the quaint music and the idyllic setting
and just like, it's such, it's so soothing.
You know, your mission is to torture these people in this
town. Like it's, it's silly to me seem
like, oh, it's a nice family game.

(42:56):
It's nice for everybody. Like your goal is to torture
everybody. That's that's all it comes down
to. And the fact that they did it
with basically 3 commands of walk, pick up and honk, that's
it, that's all you can do. And a lot of things have like
you have multiple options for how to achieve some of these
things too. So it allows people to be a

(43:18):
little bit creative. There's mostly like, you know,
one thing to get done, but it itgives some creativity for people
too. It's always good for kids to,
you know, not have to time things out perfectly or not.
The the hardest part my kids hadwas that that was an early one
for them and they couldn't recursive.
So yeah, yeah, fair enough. Translating that for them was
the the the funny part, but yeah, that's I could see that

(43:41):
being a home run with with the kids there.
Yeah, I've never seen it fail. And not just for young kids.
I've introduced it to teenagers.I've introduced it to to
patients that I've worked with in their 20s through their
parents. I've introduced it to like
because I, I do an in service for our child life interns and
like, I just, I used it on the most recent semester and like,

(44:04):
they got, they'd never heard of it and they got super into it.
And one of them was like, I havea switch and she went home and
bought it and like it. It's just that like the the game
just pulls you in and you just want to keep being this jerk
goose so badly. Weird and these are the best.
This is a bad example of it. Well, let's let's change gears.

(44:28):
Let's go to your honorable mentions and talk about another
weird little indie, The Legend of Zelda, Majora's Mask.
This little, this little, this little hidden gem here, Lee's,
Lee's Groundhog Days. So you're see, you're bringing
this in here. Is this where where does this
fall? So you mentioned you're, you
know, not not immediately on theNintendo 64.
This one came a few years down the line.
And yeah, so actually towards the end of the life cycle,

(44:51):
really, it wasn't wasn't long before the game Cube, this one
came out. So why'd you why'd you pick
Majora's Mask? They hit the list.
It's not even my favorite Zelda game that belongs to Twilight
Princess, but Majora's Mask because I love time travel.
I'm obsessed with time travel stories.
But really, I feel like this wasthe first Zelda game where they
were like, oh, we could make Zelda really dark and creepy.

(45:15):
And it works because there's a little bit of it in Ocarina of
Time. And I really like Ocarina of
Time. I think Ocarina of Time is one
of the five most important videogames ever made.
But it was just a Link to the Past all over again.
Like you do the exact same thing.
So controversially, it's so brave.
Yes, I, I. Totally agree.

(45:37):
But Majora's Mask was like, hey,let's just make a very weird,
dark, silly game and I love to grind things out.
And so when it was like go get every mask, I was like, done
deal. You got that.
Awesome on it. Yeah, I don't care how long this
takes. I don't care how many times I
have to reset, reset the clock. I'll do it.

(46:01):
So, wow. OK, so you're you're you were
ready for the grind. You were ready to run the clock
back. I don't care.
Oh, I'm sorry. I missed it.
I'm going back again. I'll wait.
I'll wait till half days. I'll get you noon to the third
day. I don't care.
That's all though, that's all that earthbound training.
Like, you know, you just do it all you, you touch on every
little detail. But like, you know, the, my

(46:22):
favorite, my favorite side questin that game is the couple, the
where, where the guy has been turned into the kid.
And you have to like, like get the true love mask, 'cause
that's like one of the few side quests that you have to do over
the course of all three days. And when you find it, like you
have to wait till like the finalhour of the last day.

(46:44):
And so like, you hear the bell ringing and you're like, is he
gonna show up? The world's about to end.
And then he finally run like thefirst time I did it, he like
runs in at like the last hour ofthe last day.
And then I was like, this is epic.
And that big dumb moon is just hanging over top of it at that
point. Yeah, any any favorite powers

(47:07):
through the course of the game? I love being the the what is it
the the Gort, Gordons, Goron. Goron the Rock.
Goron Yeah, because I love, you know, doing like turning into
the ball and then being able to just like zip around everywhere.
It made travelling to to, you know, where you didn't, you

(47:30):
couldn't justify warping, but you could like, you know, still
had a, a distance to go. So like just rolling around like
Termina field and all of that stuff.
But then also you could do that race with it at one point, which
was really hard to do all three days just to get that gold
powder to make the better sword.But like, it's fun.

(47:50):
I love doing that kind of thing.Any any other favorite
characters here? You had a favorite storyline
there with the the lover's mask,but any other favorite
characters you you come across this weird little game.
They just made these characters to be weird.
Yeah, there's like the one part.It's like the father and
daughter, they're out in the desert area.
And like, the dad is like possessed with the mummy mask or

(48:13):
whatever. And she's like hiding him in
like the house. And like if you, when you go in,
he like bursts out of like this wardrobe and he's like coming at
you slowly and you don't know what to do.
The game doesn't tell you what to do.
You have to pull out your ocarina and play the song to
heal him. And that's how you get that
mask. I forgot about that.
Yeah, seriously. Father and daughter.

(48:35):
Like, what are you talking about?
That I remember? Like I forgot about her.
Yeah, begging for help with that.
Wow, yeah, like it's a jump scare.
They put a jump scare in in thisZelda game.
But like all the little things of like, you know, you just
start the game and you see that like 1 Deku plant that like is
petrified, like it's it's dead. And then like later you see the

(48:58):
Butler from the the Deku family,like you realize, oh, that's his
son. And like you can't do anything
to heal that plant. Like if they just throw that in
there just to make you feel sad like.
Did you know what you were coming into with this game?
No, I thought I was getting likeOcarina of Time too.

(49:19):
And they went in such a different direction with it.
Like there's the part where you go to to the ranch and like
there's an alien invasion and you have to like shoot all the
aliens and stop them from like taking all the cows.
Like what is this? How did you keep track of it
all, especially early on in particular?
I just kept focusing, like, whatcan I do right now?

(49:42):
What's unlocked? What area can I access?
And so I would play a little storyline out as far as I could.
And then you kind of hit a pointwhere you're like, oh, I, I need
more stuff like I don't have theright item unlocked to keep
going. I'll come back to that later.
But even now, like when I replay, I'm like, OK, what can I
unlock right now? I'm still, I'm sorry, I'm still

(50:05):
haunted by your Deku story because I did not know that.
You didn't know that. One.
No, I did not know that one. Oh yeah, the the plan at the
beginning, you feel like when you're when you've beaten the
game and the credits roll, you see the Butler there and he's
like crying in front of that plant and like there's literally
nothing. You the.
Player, there's nothing you can do.
It's just there to be sad. Fair enough.

(50:26):
What that brings me to see you mentioned this is the the
weirdest and darkest of of like especially to that point.
What? What are your thoughts on
theories behind this game, aboutwhat the game's about, or what's
happening to Link? Yeah, I think all of them are
valid because the game doesn't commit to anything.

(50:47):
It's just this kind of weird Side Story in in this Link's
life, even though he only has what, the two games.
You know, it's like, where'd Navi go?
Why did she leave? Like, yeah, we see her fly away
at the end of the other game, but that doesn't mean she left.
I thought she just went out through the window.
Then it turns out she just left him.
What is happening? Like, so it could be a thing of

(51:08):
like, oh, it's it's really happening, or it's not really
happening, or it's all in his head.
Is he dead? Is he dead?
You know, it's all valid. And to me, I'm just sort of
like, I'm not interested in that.
I'm just, I'm more interested just in the world, what's
happening in the world that we can see.
Have whatever theories you want.I just want to live in it, yeah.
Yeah, exactly. I don't think Nintendo carried

(51:31):
either would have made it. No, they they there was no,
they're like, no, we just made this game.
Like, yeah, there's there's no connection here.
Like everyone else wants to makeconnections.
And I guess at some point we'll put a book together.
But like the the team now, the team that the team that made
that one, they had a lot of theyhad a lot of philosophies they
were working with on that. They weren't thinking about like

(51:52):
larger Canon or anything like that, but they were they were
putting ideas into that game. That's that's for sure.
So another, another wild world as we talked about The Elder
Scrolls four and and going to going to Oblivion, a place we've
gone back to recently. But I'm guessing you went the

(52:12):
first time, huh? Yeah, I started playing that
because my brother was playing it on his Xbox and so I started
playing it on that first and then I got it on PC and I've
just kind of, I've always been obsessed with this game.
First real big sandbox open world game for me.

(52:36):
Love the lore, loved the voice cast give.
Me give me Patrick Stewart. Just give put Patrick Stewart in
everything like OK, exactly. You have my attention
immediately and that in Fallout 3 the like ball 3 gives you Liam
Neeson pre taken like is your dad right away.
This gives you Patrick Stewart is like the first person yelling
at you in the. Game right and and Fallout 3

(52:57):
also gives you Malcolm McDowell as the voice of the president
and this also the and oblivion also gives you Sean Bean as the
voice of Martin Septum. And I'm just like, that was the
first time I was like, wait, real celebrities can do voice
work in video games? That's allowed.
Yeah, 'cause, but you're right. Before that, there were like

(53:17):
people who did voices that became celebrities because they
did the voices. Like they, I didn't know.
I still know what David Hader does besides write X-Men movies
and do the voice of Solid Snake.Like I knew who he was when
X-Men 2 came out because of that's the guy that wrote,
that's the guy that does Solid Snakes.
Like there were these people whodid that, but it wasn't the

(53:39):
other way around for a lot of these things.
Like, no, we're going to put some more money and we're going
to get names and, and there's like nerd names too.
Like you're you're talking 2 Pete nerd names, right?
And like the game is so, so big and that place is just massive.
Like you can just run around, play that game for hundreds of

(54:03):
hours and not progress one thingin the main story.
And I, I think it's incredible to design A game like that on
purpose. That was one of my questions.
Did you fulfill the narrative ordid you just wander aimlessly
through the countryside? I mean, at this point I have
done just about everything in that game, but I don't think
I've done everything on one character.

(54:24):
I think I have done, I think I have done with one character,
like the main quest and like allof the faction quests, but not
all of the DLC. But yeah, I, I have a handful of
characters that like, are like, they run everything.
It's like you run the Mages Guild and the Fighters Guild and
the Dark Brotherhood and you're the arena grand champion.

(54:47):
Like, you're like the most famous person in this world.
And some people are just sort oflike, who are you?
It's like I'm the boss of everything.
That's who I am. What do you want, sneak thief?
Yeah, I am your literal God. Why are you bothering me?
So save this. So any again, like you said,
this is a this is a very full world.

(55:09):
The Bethesda has only continued to expand upon that as you see
the time time from Oblivion to Skyrim and the time from Skyrim
to 2022. Elder Scrolls 6 when it comes
out 22, I shouldn't say 22 two, I should see that right?
I shouldn't even come into the 2020.
You're that? You're already too committed,

(55:30):
yeah. The two committed when I say 20
anything but yeah, yeah, again, like this is a very full world.
There's nothing like it's a hugemap, but it's not something they
waste space with. There's there's something
everywhere. There's a cave, there's a
there's a a shack with a person in it.
There's a an interaction happening.
There's a a robbery taking place.

(55:51):
There's a there's a probably an evildoer you accidentally save
who then tries to kill you. Like any anything stick out to
you from from this in particular.
I always appreciated the fact that, like, there are probably
thousands upon thousands of words written down in books and

(56:12):
I haven't read a single one of them.
Like somebody took their time towrite book after book, series
after series within this game. And I'm just sort of like, cool,
does it give me a free skill point?
Yeah, you pick up a book, you'relike, oh, it's a 20 page
narrative. And it's not like it's not like
an allegory that's going to helpyou with the story.
No, it's just like their versionof one of the Canterbury Tales

(56:35):
telling you about the courting of somebody and like nothing
happens with it. It's just like a man and a woman
met and it's their courtship. Like, OK, well what am I
learning from the absolutely nothing?
They just wrote 20 pages of story to put into this book.
Which is incredible to for that level of commitment, because
like, developers know what gamers are going to do.

(56:58):
They had to have known so few people were going to read that,
and they wrote it anyway. And they wrote it anyway,
knowing there were going to be some were like, what did I do
this for? Why you monsters?
Yeah, but I just like, I like little things, Like I think I
like everybody else. You just kind of get to a point
where you play where you're justsort of like, all right, hold

(57:19):
on, quick save now I'm going to kill everybody.
Yep, that was that was my reference for an insult in
gaming earlier. I'm going to quick save because
of you. That's that's kind of what I
kind of what I thought of. So you've played this multiple
times. Do you keep the same play style
every time or do you go for a different kind of build?

(57:40):
I I experimented the first when I first started playing the
game, but I have come to the conclusion Breton as a spell
sword that that's, that's right there.
That's my bread and butter, you know, focus on magic with just a
little bit of sword play. Just enough that if you get
close to me, I'll still take youdown.
Exactly, but I'm probably going to burn you before you get

(58:00):
there. Did you take her with the
remaster at all when it came out?
They they, they gave us a real shadow drop on that one.
I'm playing it right now and it it's the way a remaster should
be, which is like you, you know,you upgraded the graphics, you
didn't reinvent the wheel, but you they did make improvements.
Like I think the levelling system is improved in this game.

(58:24):
They at brought in some newer people to upgrade some of the
voice cast. So like in in the original, like
Argonians and Khajiit were the same voice actor.
They replaced one of them, and Nords and the Orcs were the same
voice actor. They replaced one of them.

(58:45):
That way things feel a little bit more diverse.
They, they, they put in a whole new engine like they, they
rebuilt the entire thing. Like that's the crazy.
We're like, no, we're doing thisone in Unreal now.
Yeah, but like they left in certain sound effects.
They they didn't touch the music, which I was so happy.
Like they didn't change a note because the music in that game

(59:07):
is perfect. Yeah, and like you said, they
left a lot of the voice acting where it was because like, no,
that's just it. It's impactful where it was.
Again, like the cast is built for nerds by nerds.
So leave it exactly where it is.And yeah, you're you're all set.

(59:27):
Did you actually? So did you.
You've completed the game, that you've completed the narrative,
at least at some point, right? Yeah, multiple times on the
original I, I haven't quite gotten that far yet on the
remaster. I'm pretty far in the main
story, but I've just like been running around doing a handful
of side quests cause like there's certain things where I'm
like, I need to have this item right away.
I need, I need the skeleton key because I don't want to deal

(59:49):
with lock picks. I just want to get the skeleton.
That's the thing that like, you can't go back to Skyrim and
Fallout. They are different lock picking.
Oh, yeah, and it is, it is a monster.
Oh. God, so you get that skeleton
key, the lock pick that can't break.
And I'm just sort of like cool auto auto, auto auto doors
unlocked. OK, cool lock pick never broke.

(01:00:14):
So I just run around and collectitems that I know are are great
in the long run. And then item range #3 we have
read the redemption like the first one.
Not the first one. Not the second one.
Yeah, the second one I, I, I have, I own, I actually own it
twice because I think I got 1 ofit was like a free copy when I

(01:00:38):
bought a laptop a while ago. And then I decided, well, I, I,
it couldn't redeem it onto Steam, so I had to like install
it directly through Rockstar. It's like, I don't want that.
So then it was like on sale on Steam for like 20 bucks.
It was like, cool, I'm buying itjust so it could be in my Steam
library. But I, I've not played past like
the first couple hours, like I've, I've probably started that

(01:01:00):
game four times and just, it wasalways the wrong time where I'm
like, I'm forcing myself to playit.
But no, the first one I played loved every second of it.
And that's kind of one of those things where I'm like, games are
like Movies Now. Like games are so cinematic.
You have that full voice cast. You have, you know, character

(01:01:23):
arcs. You, you know, the, the main
character's talking. Like in so many games before
that your main character doesn'ttalk, Link doesn't talk, Mario
doesn't talk. You know, people talk to them.
But like, you know, John Marston, he's got things to say
and he's going to say them. And not only that, again, you've
got another game that's that's going to put in a bunch of

(01:01:44):
systems that are just a little different.
You know, you got bounty system,which is a little more permanent
than Rockstar's star system in Grand Theft Auto, right?
I can't just I can't just go change, get a paint job on my
car and all is well. We would know the police
helicopter was flying over like this is you have to go you,

(01:02:08):
you've got to bribe people and, and, and really work to, to, not
to not have people hunting you down anymore.
Yeah, and I always prefer to play that game.
And, you know, like as honorableas possible.
I like I like heroes. You know, every so often I might
get a little bit bored and I might just be like, all right,
let me, let me just do somethingto save.

(01:02:29):
And now I'm going to shoot up the town.
OK. I did that for 15 minutes.
Let me go back to playing the game I, I should be playing.
But you know, I, I just, I just love all those little details of
like, you could just be riding along and then somebody will
show up and be like, can you come help me?
And then you can choose to go help them.
Or you could just keep riding. One of the first things 'cause I

(01:02:50):
played that after I had played GTA5, so I was familiar with
Rockstar and I'm just riding along and like this guy is on
his horse just barreling towardsme and I was paranoid.
I was like what is about to happen?
And he like stops his horse getsoff and I'm like am I about to
get in a fight? And he just starts like running

(01:03:13):
into the desert and I was like what is happening?
So I go after him, he gets like 1520 feet away from the main
road stops and pees and I was like they put that in the game.
They put that in the game, they.Put that in the game.
I was like, wouldn't even care. Maybe you'll follow it, maybe

(01:03:33):
you won't, but right. But we're going to program all
this out. And that was like, I, I'd only
been playing the game for like maybe a few days at that point.
And that's when I was like, OK, this game is for me.
What else can I find and discover in this game?
So I mean with all this, the, you know, the discovering and
the openness, do you do you get distracted easily or are you

(01:03:55):
pretty good about like I want togo through the story because the
story itself is so good. I need to know what's going to
happen next. Or do you end up roaming around
more? It's a combination of both.
It's more that like, OK, the story is taking me to this
point, now I'm going to explore everything in that area.
OK, now let me go to this next point.
Now let me explore everything inthat area until I like know

(01:04:17):
every little nook and cranny. So usually by the time I get to
like the end of the game, I'm overpowered regardless of what
the game is. It's just sort of like, here's
the boss. I'm like, cool, ZAP, it's over.
Whoops, was that? Was that not the way we were
supposed to play? So this is another one.
Have you, have you just, have you just done everything in this
game? Is it pretty much yeah.

(01:04:41):
And, and any, any time like, andI've, I've played it so many
times that I have this thing where I'm like, OK, when I get
to this quest that, that like triggers the final set of
quests. Like John gets his, his wife and
son back and you can't change his outfits anymore.
So I have this thing where I'm like, all right, I'm, I'm going
to save and not play that last quest that triggers the final

(01:05:06):
set because I don't want to say goodbye to John just yet.
And like anytime I get to like that part where they all show up
and he tells his wife and son, go ride.
I'm like, I don't want to open the door.
I don't want to open the door. I don't want to step out it.
It was one of the first times that a game choked me up and I

(01:05:28):
was like, that's not supposed tohappen.
Like I I wondered if I played itwrong.
I was like, did I do something Iwasn't supposed to do, only to
learn? Like, no, that's the story.
Where's the game over? Where's the oh, try Michigan,
You failed. Yeah, exactly.
Like, like, you know, you, you use your deadeye and you target

(01:05:49):
six of them, but like, there's 25 of them.
Like, you can't win. And it, it, it, it's one of
those examples of like, yeah, games don't have to be fair.
They don't. They don't have to be fair.
And, and, and and they're like, they're going to force you like,
yo, you're going to, you will, you will experience this.

(01:06:09):
Yeah, all right. Like you're going to this is the
story. You're going to experience it.
There's no way around to kind of.
Yeah, and and whenever I get around to and like I know the
story of of two, I know what happens.
I like there was no avoiding those spoilers, but like the the
silver lining for me is just sort of like, oh, so when I get
to the end, I could just play asJohn again.

(01:06:31):
Again, he comes back. Let's move to the future now.
So yeah, you've got all these games, so many games on this
list. You you go and you complete and
you grind since the beginning. You know, Earthbound started you
and you said I'm going to get these one and 128 weapons and
and everything is 100%. We're going to do all this stuff
here. So you have all these games and

(01:06:52):
now we're looking forward to what's almost like a much
smaller scale game and style game with Recur.
Yeah. Kurt which I have to ask, have
you played the Gardens Between? I have not.
That's the game that's my reference to this game with
recur with this idea of kind of like pausing time and going back

(01:07:15):
and forth to the puzzles cause gardens between does the same
thing with like these two buddies.
It's a little indie game and I another one that got me very,
very upset, very emotional as that game went.
But I'm So how does recur get onget on your watch list as a
future game? I mean, I love like these kind
of games, like none of none of them made made the this these

(01:07:37):
other two lists. But like I love inside, I love
limbo and again, it comes back to I I have a love of time
travel and so it's a time manipulation game.
So it just happened to cross a trailer for it like less than a
month ago and I saw it and I waslike, oh, it's inside with time
travel. Sign me up because I loved

(01:07:57):
playing that game. And it I, I like the art style
that, that they've been showing so, so far and the fact that
like you could just, you have tolike kind of play and replay and
like really pay attention to figure things out.
Like one of the little examples I saw was he's running up some
like scaffolding ladders. And so by running forward up the
ladder, time is moving forward, but the ladder is collapsing.

(01:08:22):
So that causes him to have to fall down and now go backwards.
So time is rewinding. So the ladder comes back up and
he goes back up and it falls back down and it so you're stuck
in a loop and I'm like, oh, that's going to be one of those
puzzles that I'm going to be on all day.
Aren't I like, and I love that because I I like when I can play
that kind of game that makes me think to stop and look around

(01:08:46):
because it's not one of those games that at least from the
trailer, looks like you have an inventory.
It's just solve the puzzle. Because when you finally get to
solve that puzzle, that's a goodfeeling.
Absolutely still no release date, just release date to be
announced. This was on the end.
This was on like a like a big game show, right?

(01:09:07):
Because I I I remember watching this trailer too.
I would have to. Like time it out because we
watched on one of the shows. Well, because you had like all
these shows happened in succession too.
I can't remember like who got itfirst or what, I don't know.
Someone played because I remember I remember sing it too.
It says it's still to be Dallas.I I would recommend the gardens

(01:09:28):
between same concept. This one looks like it's going
to be. It feels more challenging like
they could like like bigger puzzles because the first game
has like here. OK, we have the idea here it is.
And now I feel like they're taking it and say, OK, now we we
can make the next level to this idea.

(01:09:49):
So I'm I'm really excited for this one too.
And I'm definitely like this recur the these puzzles.
They're they're so good because they're so creative.
And I mean, I just just give me more games like that.
And I think like, because I, I love puzzlers and I think
playing puzzle games really putsyou in the mindset of a

(01:10:12):
developer because like you're, you're, they're communicating
with you, right? Like they have to build this
thing out. That's not obvious, but that's
not impossible. So they have to put in just
enough to make you notice without it being obvious.
And when you get good at games like that, you start to like,
you start to see the code like you're in the matrix of like for

(01:10:34):
other games that aren't even puzzlers.
You just start to understand game design better.
Absolutely. I, I get that with my, I, I
notice it more that I see it when I'm playing certain games
with my kid who's getting into, you know, he's 7.
He's getting into bigger and bigger games.
And once you know, he'll say, Hey, I, I, he's like, I can't

(01:10:56):
figure this out. What am I supposed to do?
And I was like, Oh, I don't know, I've never played this.
And I'll look, you know, and it'll take me a second.
I'll be like, well, you, you going to want to go in this
direction? Yeah, I say, because that's
because this is clearly what thegame would want me to do at this
point. Like I, I I don't have to even
check. I know that's what they wanted
to tell me. And these were the hints that

(01:11:17):
guide me there. Like you just you're right.
You just start seeing it. Yeah.
And and I, I really started to like, understand games better
when I started getting into morepuzzler kind of games.
But then you see it with other games that aren't even puzzlers.
You just, you just see how they lay things out for you, even
when it's not obvious. It's obvious, yeah.

(01:11:38):
All right, Matt, one of the things we do everyday, we take a
quest, a question from the Channel 3 history books that we
pick for you to discuss today. We don't give you a heads up on
this one. We always, we always ask for the
games. We say we want to have a little
fun with this. So the question for you is,
what's the next epic park we've got?
We've got Super Nintendo Land, we've got Mario, we've got
Donkey Kong, we got Zelda inbound.

(01:12:01):
What? What's next?
It may not even be an Nintendo, but like what?
What video game park do you wantto see?
That I want to see. I mean, I want to see an
earthbound park. That's just me being me.
But I'd be 1 of 12 people that would show up.
Do you have to like, rub the magical meteor when you get
there? Like what?
What? No, it's too hot, too hot.

(01:12:21):
Fire's too hot. Got to wait.
Got to come back all the way at the end just before you leave
the park. You got to go do it.
I want you to be a roulette thatyou that has a one in 128 chance
of cashing on the item. No you I think a good park would
be a Kirby theme park. Thank you.
Everybody loves Kirby. Kirby's adorable and just stop

(01:12:42):
and think for a moment how greatthe food at Kirby Park would be.
Thank you. You know, just pastries
everywhere, candy, you know, it's just who wouldn't want
that? Does everybody in the kitchen
has to dress up as the chef? They better be.
They should, yeah. They come out and they bang the
pot and then all the ingredientsget thrown in and you know.

(01:13:06):
Really make a show. They, they just make that the
like, I guess they have like a Toads Cafe.
Forget that. Scrap that for Super Nintendo
World. Scrap that and everything's
Kirby Kitchen theme now. By the way, I mean, as you know,
as someone who loves Nintendo World and going we can, we can
scrap Toad's Cafe right now and I'll be OK with it.

(01:13:28):
Burn it, burn it down. Get me Kirby on the phone.
You, you could change it right now.
No one's going to be upset. I'm going to say that right now.
Like just how, how welcoming would it be?
Like you're, you're in a Kirby park and you just like every
single character in Kirby is huggable.
Like, you know, so as people aredressed as like as, as Kirby is

(01:13:48):
walking around with like his arms out, everybody wants to hug
whoever that is. Everybody wants to hug King DDD.
Everybody wants to people want to hug Meta Knight.
Like Meta Knight's lovable even though he's a jerk.
Like, you know, Waddle D like you got a parade of Waddle DS
just going through. The thing sells itself.
It's, it's just, it's so obvious.
It's so obvious. How could they have not done it

(01:14:09):
already? That's that's where we're at.
Last question, Matt. Yeah.
Favorite feature on Channel 3? I genuinely like the like the
daily questions, like the the quest questions, the ones that
are like more open-ended. I don't mind the ones of like,

(01:14:29):
you know, choose ABC or D, but like ones like the the one that
was today, like your your favorite game insult.
Everybody gets to share something completely different
and I really like that and I like that everybody gets the
kind of weigh in and everybody has a different perspective.
So anytime it's a a, a question comes up that I'm like, oh, I
can just write anything I'm in done.

(01:14:53):
I loved your, I loved your answer today because I don't
know if I have the mental fortitude or the patience to to
give that response to somebody. I I.
Don't know if I could wait that long.
I didn't even come up with that.That's that's my friend Joe.
Like he, he would say that to like me like because we, we, you

(01:15:14):
know, this goes back to like playing Left 4 dead.
We love to play that game wrong so many ways.
And it would be like, all right,if I put this here and that
there and throw a Molotov and, you know, something goes off.
He would just go, what did you learn?
And so I just started incorporating it into into just
me talking to other people. It's, you know, somebody talks
trash and then they don't realize I know I'm I'm about to

(01:15:36):
beat you in something. And then I would just like get
on The Voice chat and go. What did you learn?
I. Gotta I need to incorporate.
I'm going to start incorporatingthat with my kids.
It's fun. Oh yeah, and I I do it to
patience. Absolutely.
Where I do that, Ray, that's. That's why I got this thing.
Absolutely when I because I. Yeah, you can apply it to
anything, Yeah. When you when you have to lean

(01:15:57):
in and like, OK, I'm going to show you how I really play.
Not that I let you win, but like, you got a little bit too
sassy. We're going to.
We're going to mop the floor with you now in front of your
friends. What did you learn?
Yeah. My kid has my kid has unrivalled
amounts of confidence in in, in every video game he plays.

(01:16:17):
And like not at at halftime, like not earned, like he's not
earned confidence. He's he's sure he's short and
he's great. Sometimes I had to let them know
the other day I was like, there's there's levels to this
stuff kid. Oh man, we've made it.
We've made it to the end of another water year 3.
Matt, thanks for being with us again.

(01:16:39):
Extra life November 8th that is extra life day supporting
hospitals all over the country. Matt once again is the child
life specialist over at Cincinnati Children's Hospital.
Joel, we'll head Matt look at Matt wants to say something as.
Part I was just going to say I'mI'm a child life you're a.
Child life specialist You're theyou're.

(01:17:01):
The no none of. Them are hearing no, no, no.
No, no, no, no. There are 10s when you said
there's like 90 of you. There's like somewhere around 90
of I don't care there's and that's in a in an even larger
division. There's over 100 staff in our
division. I am one of many very

(01:17:22):
hardworking, awesome, capable. Doing it will.
Never take. All due respect to their
important work, you're the sorry.
Doing impressive work, doing impressive and really important
work a lot, every day for families all over.
There's no, there is no doubt about it, extra life, extra life
day, everything, everything all these hospitals do for children

(01:17:46):
is, is having real effects. It's having real positive
effects in people's lives in thehardest of times.
And we again have made it to theend of another war, Year 3.
Thank you, Matt, for being with us.
You can find a podcast at C3 dotGG slash podcast dropping every
Wednesday morning at 3:33 AM Eastern on all the major
platforms, including Spotify, YouTube Music and Apple

(01:18:08):
Podcasts. I'm Ray.
Dan puts us all together. Our theme song is by Caster
Garden and for our executive producer, Joel Willis.
Have a good day everybody, Channel 3.
Is the future.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}0138 mattflynn and Extra Life

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

Dateline NBC

All Episodes

0138 mattflynn and Extra Life

Stuff You Should Know