Fire Escape Cast #104

On this week's episode, Drew Scanlon joins Mike and Mary to talk about Blue Prince, Look Outside, and Assassin's Creed Shadows.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Hello, everybody, Welcome back to the fire Escape Cast. It
is episode one oh four. I'm Mike Maharty is always
here with Mary Kesh.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Hey, I'm here, and Dan Reikert. Hi, it's me Dan
Reikert metal Gear.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
That's close enough. That's actually not Dan Riykert.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Why you invited me? Just because you needed someone else
who knew about metal gear.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
I just needed someone who could do a semi decent
Dan impression. Have you done one before that's better than mine? Mine? Mine,
Mine's usually like mediocre compared to that.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
I liked his first one where he just said metal.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Gear fair I am I'm impersonating Dan's wife, impersonating Dan
metal gear, metal gear farting, metal gear farting. Mario Mario Mario. Yeah, yeah,
that covers it.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
That's Dru Scanlon. Thank thanks to you, thanks for me.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Yeah, yes, that's true.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Scalon.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Oh yes, A lot a lot of people on listening
to the show will undoubtedly know who he is. But
for those of you who might not Drew as a
former staple of the Giant Bombs staff back in the
heyday of the site, you did a lot of stuff
for Giant Bomb West specifically, but you also founded cloth
map on Patreon, did a lot of awesome videos about
video games about travel, kind of the overlap between them,

(01:28):
but also separately really cool stuff. I guess the very
non video game in tune. People might know him as
Blinking White Guy from the give. I did ask him
before the recording, was like, are you sick of that?
Or should I mention it? But uh, yes, that is
Drew Scanlon.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
That's me.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Dan was traveling in New York this week. I got
to not get the chance to see him, but yeah,
it was a crazy week for everybody. Mary. You people
watching on the video version will notice she's not in
your usual office.

Speaker 3 (01:54):
She I probably sound different too.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
She short circuited her entire electrical board and the house.
Explain it one more time.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
Okay, so we have we got solar panels on the roof,
which is good, should be really helpful for the environment
and our bills. But the final step is that they
have to like essentially reset all of the electricity in
the house so that they can switch it to on.
And in the process of doing that, it might have

(02:23):
short circuited my computer, which I usually record on, So
I'm recording from a laptop with my really sad blue
yetti mic and a Logitech webcam, so totally different setup.
I probably sound not as good. I apologize, I have
to say though. We all know this, especially anyone who's

(02:43):
ever done like E three major broadcasting. You never update
your system before a major event. You just don't. You
avoid all updates. You do not reset, you do not reboot,
and you just pray and that's it. And I the
idea that I thought that today was the day that
I could reset my computer during recording is this is like,

(03:07):
this is a slap on my face. This is I
am so silly. I know better, I know better than
to do this.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
If you learned nothing from Icarus. Yeah you said, you said,
right before you decided to do it, You're like, this
is a terrible idea. And then we see you load
up from a different room of the house, like, yep,
something bad happened.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
I knew, I knew that's what happened. We have a
lot of changes at the same time, at least so
minus a Dan, but we've added to Drew, which is
a pro.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
And yeah, again, if you're watching the video version, Drew
and I are not brothers who dress the same.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
The white guy uniform.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yep, I don't have any, though.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
I'll find my give it time.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
Yeah, in the limelight somehow, I was saying to Drew
that my grandma's maiden name is Scanlon. But I don't
think it's the I mean, it's not like a common name,
but I don't think it's like ultra rare. So maybe
maybe somewhere way down.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
I mean, how many Irish people are there. It's probably
not many.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
It's not like they're known back in the day for
having way too many kids or anything, but so there
are probably isolated pockets of them around the world. Speaking
of also a war a quick not warning that sounded ominous.
But if I have to leave suddenly for like thirty seconds,
I told Drew and Mary it's because I have my
official Ireland slash EU citizenship papers on the way. I'm

(04:31):
I got approved. I think I told Dan Mary a
few times that I was applying for that because my
grandpa was born there, so they opened that up to
through Foreign Births Department, So I have to go sign
for them. If my buzzer rings, I'm a fourth floor
walk up, I'll be like surfing down the handrail to
go sign for those. But I'll be back momentarily. You
two can just vamp. But uh, yeah, we're and then

(04:51):
we're going to Ireland. I'm going for the first time.
I figured I owed it to them to visit because
I'm going to be a citizen. The least I could do.

Speaker 3 (04:59):
Yeah, so you had to put foot on soil before
they consider you a citizen. What's going on here?

Speaker 1 (05:05):
No?

Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yeah? Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
It was a really really painful, like paperwork experience, quite
a lot of notarizing and tracking down.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
I had to.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
I sent in a copy of my birth certificate and
my grandpa's and his death certificate. He was however, well, a,
They're like, just because this is notarized, we need an original.
Maybe in my ignorance, this is the first time I
realized you could get new birth certificates. I just assumed
like you were fucked if you lost your original one.

(05:40):
So I sent in my original and I had to
track down. I had to go to I forget what
the name of the department is an Irish government, but
basically had to tell them, hey, this is my grandpa,
here's where he was born, here's his birthday. It turned
out he was actually born three months sooner than the birthday.
We've been celebrate. We celebrated his whole life because he

(06:03):
lived on a farm outside of Castle Bar in County
Mayo on the west coast of Ireland. So his parents
just never got the chance, didn't get the chance to
bring him in and get a birth certificate until he
was like three months old. It's because there was a
big deal to like bring the family into town. So
that that caused the hiccup because they're like, we have
a Michael Joseph Ruaine, but he was born in January

(06:25):
of this year. I was like, that's not him. I'm
he had a huge family. There's probably another Michael Joseph
Wrain in the area. And then I asked my mom.
She's like, oh, no, I think that's probably him. We
just celebrated his official birthday, his whole life. What what's
going on?

Speaker 2 (06:40):
Why would of the two, why would you pick the
one that the government says is your birthday?

Speaker 1 (06:45):
I think it like made things simpler in terms of
like actual milestones legally throughout his life, like like driving inside,
I really don't It's just funny to me. I said
the same thing, like why wouldn't we He was such
this like Catholic dude, Why wouldn't we have celebrated his
like quote unquote god given birthday or whatever. But now
we went by Ireland's So yeah, I'll have Irish citizenship.

(07:08):
Is pretty great because specifically the Republic of Ireland you
get EU citizenship.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
They did not secede.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
However, there's also and I forget the exact name, they
have an agreement with the UK. As I understand it,
I could also live and work in the UK through
this like sister country agreement. I just don't think i'd
be I wouldn't be a citizen, but you kind of
get the best of both worlds if you're an Irish citizen.
So I'm very happy about that. Also, you know, I've

(07:39):
my wife and I talk about living maybe in Europe
for a bit for various reasons. Maybe you know, it's.

Speaker 3 (07:45):
There's so much more wine over there. I assume it's
it's the decision. If it was like a pie chart,
it would be like maybe quality of life, and like
ninety percent of it is wine.

Speaker 1 (07:54):
Let's talk about tariffs though, how I think, Yeah, but
it's just a it's a good thing to have. But
now I'll officially be the most Irish person in the
games industry, which is nice because I've known I AM
for a while. But now I have like the papers
to prove. I don't know who else could potect a challenge.
There's no one else now, one might say, I actually
looking forward.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
To hyeah to you co hosting the Formula one podcast.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
Yeah, Patreon called yes clip and you know, we'll see
how it goes, make game documentaries. It'll be fun. No
one will that. Yeah, well that's exciting, but that's yep.
That's why I'm leaving. I'm leaving suddenly if the bell
goes off.

Speaker 3 (08:38):
Okay, that's good context. Drew, tell us a little bit
about what you've been up to. I feel like, I
mean outside of people who do not listen to the
F one podcast, your Formula one podcast where you guys
talk about speedy race cars. What do you what have
you been doing?

Speaker 1 (08:55):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (08:56):
Well, gosh, yeah, after a giant bomb. Thanks for my
cloth map, Mike, Uh that was that was my project
for three years. I don't think the Patreon is still
active anymore. Of the YouTube channel still there if you want.
Covid happened, and that made making a travel show very
difficult to produce. Uh, and so I closed that one down.

(09:17):
But yeah, very proud of of that project and what
people who supported me allowed me to be able to do.
It was really fun. And then from there I worked
for a few years at Digital Eclipse video game developer
who they do what they call interactive documentaries, so the
things like Atari fifty and the Kartica Collection, Jeff Mentor collection,

(09:44):
the most recent Tetris collection. Although I didn't work on that,
that was really cool. But I realized I missed. I
missed video. I missed. I did some video work over
at Digital Eclipse, but like I just kind of missed
you know, pretty action and stuff. And so I got
a I reached out and Mary had an opening on

(10:08):
her team, and so now I work with Mary. Technically,
Mary is my boss.

Speaker 3 (10:14):
How much do you love it?

Speaker 2 (10:17):
So much? She signs my paychecks.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
She's very understanding of any mistakes to fly off the hands, honestly,
real talk.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
Mary has created a really incredible team and it's it's
great to work there.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
I'm sure you fit in well. I've I've heard great
things about working on her.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah, there's a lot of x X games press people
and some TV people and yeah, it's it's a great crew.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
I guess this is as good as time as any
to mention I'm actually joining Mary's not.

Speaker 3 (10:48):
I'm not. It's my slow journey to acquire everybody whom
I loved. Working in games media makes sense, but it's
actually like a good it's a good group because people
who worked in games media have some of that just
that blue blood work ethic of like we know what

(11:08):
it's like to be in the fire, in the flames
of like a live production. They understand editing, but also
just kind of there's like that fine tune of that
and corporal life of like being able to handle like
lots of meetings with lots of different partners and parties
and people who have lots of different goals and being
able to navigate that space. So I think that there's

(11:30):
something about people who we worked with back then that
just like really get it, and it is a good vibe.
Everybody on our production crew is like stoked to do
live streams with streamers and about games, sometimes not games.
We recently just did a live stream for April Fools
and it was like a y two K stream. It

(11:51):
had nothing to actually I think there was I think
there was one game. But other than that, I mean,
like sometimes it can get really weird there, so change place.
But I'm really glad you're there.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
Yeah, I don't think.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
Yeah, have a lot of fun. I'm trying to remember.
Have we talked since you went to you met like
Jack Black for Twitch work.

Speaker 3 (12:11):
I don't think we officially talked about it. I think
we like half talked about it because it was like
one of those work trips where like I was so
stressed that I think like it was almost like PTSD
bringing it up and I was like, yeah, I did it.
And that's not because of Jack Black, who he's like
a saint by the way, He's actually so sweet and lovely,
but it's just it's very stressful to work on a

(12:32):
high stakes production with like celebrities, and like there was
a lot of companies involved in that production, and so
I had, like I think, like the truth is is
like when you have like six different parties who are
like we all have a different vision for how the
stream could go, and I am the producer who makes
the calls, I was like, great, how do I make
as many of you happy as possible without upsetting anybody?

(12:57):
And I think that's almost it's just a very fine
line to walk. So I think I walked out of there. Also,
the stream was from four to five, and my flight
took off at seven in LA and so like if
you can imagine me like running to a partner and

(13:18):
being like, how do you want this stream to go?
And they're like, well, they have to mention the movie
and they have to mention all these things. And then
I run to somebody else and I go, how do
you want this to go? And they're like, well, we
definitely don't want to mention these things. We don't want
to mention the movie, and we don't. Are like okay,
well these are polar opposite ideas, and so like I'm
I'm navigating all these people, making sure as many people
are happy as possible. And Jack Black as usual, he
like literally walks in this street, like walks in and

(13:40):
he's like what are we doing? Like how are we
going to do this? He's got like this like flighty
little fun to him, and I was like whatever, like honestly,
like you're Jack Black, like we were hoping you'd play Minecraft.
He was like easy. He sits down, he starts logging
into his Minecraft account, which is so cute, and I
was like, ok great, He's going to be fun and
we needed to go live. This is the truth about

(14:01):
these types of events, is that when we when you
have a press junket, you get these people, you get
them for very short amount of time. You get them
for like thirty minutes usually, and to the tea. And
so we asked for an hour because that's how long
live streams are, and we compromise for forty five minutes.
So every minute he's on set is part of his
forty five minute you know, obligation to us. And this

(14:24):
isn't even like up to him. This is like the
people that have like offered us, you know, graciously offered
us his time. And so I'm like, okay, well we
need to get going with the live stream, Like right now,
I'm counting down these minutes, and he goes, when are
we going live? I have to pee It's for the
good of the stream. He just leaps I got to
the bathroom, which is so fair, and like try and

(14:48):
be like really understanding. He leaps back onto the set.
Literally he's like a leaper, and he leaps right back
into his seat. He's ready to play minecraft. He's like
let's go. And that was it, and then we started
the stream. So that's kind of how it happened. But
it was just very like from the beginning, the middle
to the very end. I was like, man, I hope
everybody's happy. I hope everybody's having a good time. Jack

(15:10):
Black was so funny. He did a great job. He
sings and dances and he does high kicks. He's really
wild to be around. And when the stream ended, I
shook his hand. I said thank you so much. He said,
I had a great time. I love playing Minecraft. I said, awesome.
I grabbed my suitcase. I shook the production person's hand,
I shook three other business partner's hands. I got in
a car. I went through LA traffic for fifty minutes.

(15:32):
I got to the airport at five point fifty five
and I went through security and I boarded at six
twenty five and they stopped boarding at six point thirty.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
Nice.

Speaker 3 (15:45):
And that was that. And then I think I passed
out on the way, like on the flight, and I
was just I can't believe I was able to pull
that off. My dog is I have a dog sitter
usually when I have to go on work trips, but
they couldn't stay that night, and so I was like,
I have to get at home tonight for the dog.
So I had like all these different priorities. But you know,
we threaded the needle. We like made it work on

(16:06):
that one. But that's probably like one of the craziest
live stream experiences I've ever had, honest to God.

Speaker 1 (16:11):
Yeah, because I would have been in sef with LEXI.
Well not there with him, but we were both in.

Speaker 3 (16:15):
A GDC was that week? GDC was that week?

Speaker 2 (16:18):
Right?

Speaker 1 (16:19):
Okay, yeah, perfect, perfect storm. I was just telling Drew
before this, my schedule this week has been kind of
a shit show.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
I'm glad you made time for us, though. I mean
I know that like between this and wine learning and
being a cat dad, I mean your schedule must be
like packed.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
Yeah, I'm wine learning.

Speaker 3 (16:38):
Wine learning is a good portion.

Speaker 1 (16:40):
For this level of I'll be done in a We're
recording this web in the fourth I'll be done May first. Well,
I'll take my test and then I'll find out whether
I passed, like a month after that.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
So this is the actual If you passed this, you
will be a Somalia No. So okay, this I'm taking.

Speaker 1 (16:55):
This is the w set classes to a school in
London Wine and Spirits Education Trust. If you want it
to go more service side, which maybe at some point
in my life I'll actually go the sommelier route or
try it out see if I like it, who knows.
But if you want to go down that route, you
can do certification, and it's it's like any it's like

(17:17):
any career paths. Like you know, you don't need the certifications,
but they don't hurt. So there's this court of master
somily is that is you take those and you have
to like you know, learn tasting, learn theory, and learn service,
and you take those tests and then you pass and
then you can work. You don't need those, but it
helps to work in some like high end spots in
New York or San Francisco or London or Cleveland wherever

(17:38):
you might be where there's like wine bars and restaurants.
But I'm taking w SET, which right now is that's
more generally geared toward if you want to go into
importing or sales or teach or be an academic in
the wine area. That's it's it's geared toward that. So
I'm taking WST Level three. There's four total four is

(17:59):
the actual ploma. It takes generally two years because you're
doing like, wow, five or six months.

Speaker 3 (18:04):
So into it. I mean, I think it's crazy if
what do you think is more important, like having these certifications,
which obviously do help, or having like a HEC a
resume of like working at like five well established places.

Speaker 1 (18:15):
Probably the latter, which if you have them both great. Also,
some people do the certification just to prove that they
could take the test or pass the tests. I don't
know if people have seen like the som documentaries.

Speaker 3 (18:28):
I've seen Frasier, and I think that they do the
test that's a documentary and they they fight over it
and like who is who is like the better and
they make them wine test in front of each other
in front of like six people.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
Oh, I've seen that and he he purposely picked like
a cheap line to get him to think it was
a Bordeaux.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
Yeah, something like that. But it's good.

Speaker 1 (18:47):
No, the documentaries are about this group who was just
trying to pass the Master Somier test. It's like in
terms of pass rate, it's like demonstrably maybe the hardest
test in the world. I'm not saying it's the most
important test. In the world. We've got writing to be
drained surgeons and whatnot. I'm not even gonna put.

Speaker 3 (19:07):
Spine surgeons weird talking wine. It's hard. I don't understand.

Speaker 1 (19:12):
Sample by the emosurele. So it's you know, the Master
Psalm test is like it's it's sometimes derided for just
being masochistic and you to go that level. I think
there are only two hundred and eighty something Master Sombiers
in the world whoa At some point, if I wanted
to do the quarter Master Salmis, you take an introductory

(19:34):
course which is like three days that you just pass
that to basically get invited quote unquote to take the
actual certification, at which point you can go and pay
like ten thousand dollars to go to do a sixteen
week course for that, and then you take the test
and you're a certified salm and it's a great thing
to have on your resume if you like, I'm not
working in restaurants. It's it would be tough for me

(19:57):
to work in a restaurant when I already have a
day job in video, right, so that certification can help
springboard somebody once you then there's the Advanced Somier, which
is level three basically, and that's also very tough. At
that point, you need to know individual like vineyard names
within regions and whatnot across the world. And then there's

(20:18):
the Master Somier test, where the theory portion alone, you
just you need to be able to say, like, oh, okay,
name these regions in Romania where they grow wine, and
also what's the principal grape in Japan and what are
the flavor profiles of it? And also like if you
were in this part of the world and they were
serving you this kind of food, what historically would they
serve you with but in recent years how they've been
reevaluating it. And I'm sure all those things I just

(20:41):
mentioned is those would all be softballs for many people.
But yeah, I think people just take those tests at
a certain point just to prove they can. And also
if you prove you're one of the you know, two
hundred ninety or whatever it is master psalms in the world,
then at that point you kind of get like people
get job offers the day they passed that test to
go work for big champagne houses or to go like

(21:06):
be the beverage director for an entire restaurant. Group that
has restaurants all over the world. But yeah, I started
this course in my free time. It's once a week
for sixteen weeks, but it's a lot more self study.
I just figured, all right, I'll try it out. Maybe
once I make wine an obligation, I'll start disliking it

(21:26):
a bit more and want to just keep it a
pure hobby. But like Drew you said it earlier, it's
kind of a rabbit hole. It's like the more I
learn about it, the more I want to learn about it.
So that hasn't slowed down yet, and it's it's going
really well. My tasting's way better, my theories definitely. I
just enjoy reading about wine. My favorite part of wine
studying is like looking at maps and piecing together like

(21:47):
how the the ocean influences in the ocean currents and
mountain ranges have similar effects in Chile as they do
in California and the West coast of New Zealand. It's
cool to look at the world like that.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
But that's so cool. Yeah, I fully endorse getting certifications
for stuff like I think it's just such a fun
way to engage with the topic. Yeah, yeah, I got
my inspired by Vinnie, I got my Ham radio license,
which completely different scenario than you are describing, because there's

(22:22):
something called a Ham cram where you go in and
they say, okay, at the end of this like multi
hour session, you're going to take the test to get
your Ham radio license, and you need to be licensed
because like for your body. Yeah, so you have to
cram for the test. So the way that they do it,

(22:45):
and I can't believe this is actually like legal or
that this stands, is they have a book of all
of the questions that are going to be on all
of the potential questions that could be on the test,
and so for many hours, all you're doing is just
looking through those questions and answers. And because the test

(23:09):
doesn't scramble ABC or D, they instruct you to just memorize,
not look at any of the wrong answers, just read
the question, read the right answer, and then when you
come across it on the test, you just remember the
one that you read.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
Okay. Interesting, so a hand scan. They really want people
to pass, right, So they want more people in on
this on this practice. So Ham Radio correct me if
I'm wrong. You could if the way it functions, you
could tune into different channels right now and hear someone

(23:48):
who just happens to be speaking to that channel.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
Yeah, okay, yes, and you wouldn't need this, it's been
a while. You don't need a license to tune in,
you need a license to transmit. Okay. And it's actually
it's not I misspoke earlier. It's not a broadcast. Broadcast
means multiple channels. It is ham radio is just one channel. Yeah,

(24:12):
which is why you need an FCC license, because you're
broadcasting or you're you're transmitting to a frequency that anyone
could theoretically pick up.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
So the license, you could do that right or Mary
could do it right now if she wanted to. But
if she would have a license, could she transmit? Like
could she actually like does she have the means to transmit?

Speaker 3 (24:30):
She just can I transmit illegally?

Speaker 2 (24:33):
What is your radio station?

Speaker 3 (24:36):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (24:36):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (24:37):
Is that what pirate radio is? Like? Unlicensed? Oh? Gotcha?

Speaker 2 (24:42):
Okay, cool, But it's tough to do because of the
way that you know, physics work. You're very easy to triangulate.

Speaker 3 (24:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:48):
I was gonna say, would they be able to track
you right away?

Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (24:50):
But what do they do to the FBI come and
like knock down my little shed where I like play
banjo for like three other people. Like how much do
they give a shit?

Speaker 2 (25:00):
If you're interfering with stuff, they'll absolutely come after you.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
What kind of official like authorities use ham those kind
of radio waves to communicate.

Speaker 2 (25:11):
So mostly it's for emergency response, So when there's no
cell towers, you know, emergency coordination will be done over
HAM radio. I've also seen it for like when like
on cycling rides, like fundraiser cycling rides that I've done,
different stations will communicate with each other over Ham because

(25:34):
sometimes there's not cell service.

Speaker 1 (25:38):
Okay, I as morbid as it is, I do like
the idea. It makes me laugh to think about like
an evac helicopter just circling Portland and it can't find
an emergency because Mary's just like thrashing her upright base
on her pirate radio. Mary two point sixty seven.

Speaker 3 (25:56):
This goes out to all six of you out there.
I know that some of you might be looking for emergencies,
but this is also an emergency. How then the FBI
breaks through my windows and tackles me. This is a
really interesting concept though, Like when you're getting a license

(26:17):
or when you're when you're going through this process, like, uh,
are you doing so with the intent to broadcast, like
you want to broadcast Drew.

Speaker 2 (26:25):
It's tough because to I would love to be able
to talk to Vinnie, but he's on the other side
of the country, so it would be possible, but we
would both need really big antennas, and that's something that's
tricky to do in San Francisco.

Speaker 1 (26:40):
Oh okay, right where I live. That's so funny. That's
that does sound like a like a cool thing to do.
Like the analog nature of it, Like the idea that
you do, like you would actually need a bigger physical
thing to send it farther is so refreshingly, like one
to one as opposed to everything else I don't understand
with the internet today.

Speaker 2 (27:01):
Yeah, so I actually did study for the test. Yeah,
and because I don't just wanted to learn this stuff,
and you're right, it's like, oh it needs to be.
It just clarified a lot of stuff that I missed
in physics class in school. We're like, of course the
antenna needs to be that tall because the actual wavelength
is like multiple meters, like the wave that is going

(27:21):
on the air is physically this large.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
Yeah, okay, from the peak to the value whatever you
want to call it, or there's probably more official terms.

Speaker 3 (27:30):
No, that's it peak and valley. Yeah. Yeah, you could
pass your your HAM test today.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
Your valley's interfering with my riffs. Yeah, that sounds cool.
So you aren't licensed, you passed it?

Speaker 2 (27:43):
I did. There are three levels. I am at.

Speaker 1 (27:46):
Number two, okay, and do you just get increasing permissions
at the third level or yeah?

Speaker 2 (27:52):
You can broadcast or you can sorry, transmit on more
and more frequencies as you go up.

Speaker 3 (27:59):
Are there only two hundred and ninety one other Tier
three ham hams?

Speaker 2 (28:05):
It's totally getting close to that because they're all dyeing.
Do they have to definitely like flying? It is for olds.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
They to differentiate between nebiolo and sang. Oh.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
Yes, there's probably a good Venn diagram.

Speaker 1 (28:22):
That Bermuda triangle of red wines. In Italy.

Speaker 3 (28:26):
You can get pretty drunk and jam out on your
HAM radio, but you should not drink and fly.

Speaker 2 (28:33):
Interestingly, you cannot curse. Also, is FCC regulated frequency?

Speaker 1 (28:40):
Interesting?

Speaker 2 (28:40):
But again, you're.

Speaker 3 (28:42):
The FBI gonna knock down my door because I set
a couple fbis don't get fined.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
Wow, you don't get fined. Yeah, because they know the
frequency that you will be transmitting.

Speaker 3 (28:53):
Well, who's hearing me?

Speaker 2 (28:57):
I guess if you're if you're transmitting to no one.

Speaker 3 (29:03):
Says, go fuck yourself in the woods?

Speaker 2 (29:06):
Is the sin?

Speaker 3 (29:07):
Find them?

Speaker 2 (29:08):
Just get a talk a walkie talkie and turn off
the other one and go to town.

Speaker 3 (29:14):
I do. I do have walkie talkies. Me and josh
My my buddy who lives in Portland, have walkie talkies
and we use them on road trips and it's really
fun to be able to talk to someone, uh via walkie.
I think there's something classic about it makes me feel
like a kid again and I really love it. So
we did a road trip last Christmas and it was

(29:36):
maybe like a four hour road trip. So we had
these walkie talkies where we could just be like, you know,
got a stop to be, you know, over, and we
would do that. But then one of the places that
we were stopping to get gas, it was really close
to a just a hardware store, and as we were
talking to each other, a person came on was like, yeah,

(29:57):
we need some want to come to Aisle three here
and it turns out whatever we were broadcasting on the
people who were working at the woodshop were using the
exact same broadcast frequency for their radio, and so that's great. Yeah,
Josh and I would just keep being like, hey, we
need to go get some more slim gyms before we
start back all right over, and then they would be like, Tana, Tanya,

(30:19):
is that you you hear them?

Speaker 2 (30:21):
We don't have any I.

Speaker 3 (30:23):
Don't understand messing with their frequencies and their radio, but
it's so neat that in a simple act of us
communicating where we're on the same frequency as people doing
their jobs, it felt really fun to talk back and
forth like that. And I actually I love my walkie talkie.

Speaker 2 (30:42):
Yeah, I got fun.

Speaker 1 (30:43):
When I was younger, I don't know nine, my next
door neighbor, Alyssa, and I hung out a lot and
at a certain point we're like, oh, let's let's use
these walkie talkies. And my older brother had to like say, hey,
do you want to come over or do you want
to play basketball? Or do you want to like come
over go swimming? So we basically decided to use those.
And the first night we well, first evening we had them,

(31:05):
I went to Uh, like, right after dinner with my family,
I like called her, let's go let's you gotta come over,
Let's let's go swimming. It's super nice out And like
twenty seconds later, Alyssa's dad shows up at our house
and like with the walkie talk He's like, this is
not happening. And then he just gave it back to
us because apparently I had been annoying them during their dinner.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
And she didn't turn it off.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
He's like, no, fuck this, you left next door, go
over and knock off. I know, but he just he
had to make a point. I'm yeah, that was fuck him.
But yet, Drew, don't you also have your pilot's license
of some sort? Is there?

Speaker 2 (31:44):
I'm assuming there are multiple levels to all that. Yeah,
certainly there's there's different ratings. Uh so I can I
can fly a single engine land piston airplane, So no
jets for me. Yeah, well, moving on fly I can't.
I can't fly a seaplane yet, although that would be awesome.

Speaker 1 (32:06):
Yeah, that'd be cool. There's a there's a service here
that you could fly between like New York and Boston.
They land on in the Harbor and then on the
Charles or whatever. Light there was for a while. I
don't know if they still have it. So do you
fly regularly or no?

Speaker 2 (32:20):
So I got I got my pilot's license in February
of twenty twenty, okay, and then couldn't really fly during
COVID because the place I was renting my planes from
temporarily closed because of that. And so the thing the
thing about flying is again this is why it's for olds,

(32:43):
is that if you are inexperienced like me, it is
dangerous to fly infrequently because you just get rusty. Yeah,
so you if I were to pick it back up,
I would want to make sure that I could do
it with regularity so that I.

Speaker 3 (33:00):
Don't kill yourself, don't. Yeah, Yeah, I think that's super fair.
I mean the thing about these hobbies, I'm like a
serial hobby quitter, and I have so many hobbies that
I've picked up over the years, like stained glass. I've
been like trying to mix stain glass art, and I
have like my stand up base. And sometimes I'll be
busy for a couple of months, you know, three or
four months, and I'll be like, oh my gosh, I
haven't played my bass at all, Like I haven't even

(33:22):
thought about it. But I can always just pick it
up on a rainy day and play a tune and remember,
I'll have to regain my calluses. But that's like the
worst of it. Like you are potentially not just endangering yourself,
you're endangering the lives of others. If you're like, what
does this button do mid air?

Speaker 1 (33:39):
Yeah, yeah, it's you lose it like you lose any
other skill set. But the risk is so high, higher
than most other hobbies.

Speaker 2 (33:48):
Yeah for sure.

Speaker 1 (33:49):
Yeah, I'm not endangering myself, but taking a week off
from wine tasting, if anything, is probably better. But that's
super cool. Mariy have you flown up plane?

Speaker 3 (34:01):
I'm in them. I'm in them all the time. I
was just in a plane a couple days ago and
it was so cute. They did the thing where the
the kids were in the front with the with the
pilots getting their wings, and.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
Uh oh, I'm so glad they still do that.

Speaker 3 (34:15):
It's such a special moment. And they they were leaving
and the mom was like, come on, don't bother them anymore,
and the pilot was like, what are you talking about.
They need a picture. My kids ran back in and
he gave him a big hug and she took like
eight pictures. Obviously he was into it. And I think
that's really sweet because that's probably what inspires the next
gen of pilots, is having that experience and being able

(34:37):
to meet a pilot see on all those sick buttons.
That's what That's what puts me into it. It's like,
what what do all those buttons do? I gotta learn.
I got to learn. That's piqued my interest.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
I think for me, it's the ability to fly that
entices me. You fly anyway, that's the end goal for me,
I know, but I would I don't know. I'm not.
I fly a lot as well. I don't love it.
I'm I go through phases, but I feel like the
older I get, the less I like flying. And I'm
not saying I'm old, but I'm I'm getting there. Just

(35:10):
that my tolerance for it decreases every time. Maybe I
need to go the pilot's route so I can like just.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
It is a It is a different kind of experience
in those little planes. Like you know, an airliner is
basically a building. Yeah, and when you're in a little plane,
you're very for better or worse, very aware of all
the physics going on. You can feel all the wind happening,
and like, yeah, it's it's a different experience.

Speaker 1 (35:37):
Yeah, I feel like that would lessen my anxiety getting
on an airliner if I had been flying a single
engine that I disagree.

Speaker 3 (35:45):
I feel like if I can feel the wind, my
anxiety might be peaked. I feel like, even you know,
with an experienced pilot, Yeah, I would just be.

Speaker 1 (35:53):
Like and like getting on a United flight would be fine.

Speaker 3 (35:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:58):
There.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
I had the worst turbulence in my life a few
weeks of coming back from GDC. The plane did one
of those things where we tilted so hard, like five
hundred feet off the runway that I thought he was
turning like it was that abrupt. It was after those
like country wide storms, so I'm sure it wasn't that bad.
But to me, who sometimes is not great with turbulence,

(36:20):
it was like, oh, okay, this is it.

Speaker 2 (36:22):
Yeah. I was in a one next quick coming into
I think the Portland Airport when I was a kid,
and the turbulence was so bad the overhead compartments were
popping open.

Speaker 1 (36:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:35):
Yeah, that's never fun. Flight attendants were getting hit by luggage.

Speaker 1 (36:38):
It was.

Speaker 2 (36:38):
It was bad.

Speaker 1 (36:39):
It's when the plane the yaw is when it's the
actual like this right the wings, that's what's yea yaw
is is that's what when the yaw changes, like the
nose of the plane just like slides left or right
above round, that's what gets me. I'm like, this can't
be good, like in terms of physics and landing proper.

(37:00):
Really yeah, but uh but it's I don't know, we
get where we're going.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
I love to share this video of them testing airplane
wings and uh. They basically like attach cables to the
ends of a plane while it's you know, uh, on
the ground under construction, and they winch the wings up

(37:25):
and it is crazy how high the wings can go
before they break. It's like way above the fuselage. Like
it almost looks like a bird flapping its wings before.

Speaker 1 (37:35):
Last shuttle from Star Wars exactly.

Speaker 2 (37:38):
Yeah, it's like maybe not that far, but like pretty
far up there. And so that that made me feel
pretty good.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
Yeah, I've I've heard people say like and to be
I'm actually not that bad with turbulence. I don't think
she'll mind me saying my wife really just dislikes turbulence.
It's the more I'd like, actually take the time to
learn about the basics physics of it, and they're like,
just turbulence is like potholes based. And again like I know,
statistically I'm more likely to get in a car crash
leaving the airport. Yeah, it's still sometimes messages with me.

(38:06):
It's just uncomfortable, but you know, like the worst of it,
you know, just I think the breathing exercises help, but yeah,
in general, it's just God. You think I'd get used
to it, but I haven't yet. Luckily I have to
fly often. That's always awesome. Great. Maybe I should just
go to Sombi a route I don't. Well, then i'd

(38:27):
be traveling a lot too, but at least i'd just
be walking around a restaurant most of the day. There
you go, everyone, But well, that's cool. You have a
cooler certification than I do.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
Don't worry. You'll get there all right.

Speaker 1 (38:41):
One day. You guys gonna talk about video games? Yeah, sure, Okay,
last episode, Mary, we had talked. You and Dan had
played Assassin's Creed Shadows. I had not yet. Yes, I
have since played between twelve and fifteen hours. Let's say
I'm really really enjoying Assassin's Creed Shadows. I've always liked

(39:04):
the series. I'd say Valhalla really did not do much
for me at all. I feel as if Valhalla went
way too wide. I also did not find that world
to be interesting. I also thought the pacing was not great,
especially when you actually go into that you actually like
go play as the character's god counterparts. In Valhalla itself,

(39:26):
I found those sections to be interminably boring. The overall
flow of that game just did not work for me.
I tried playing it twice. But I really liked Odyssey.
I really liked Origins. Origins my favorite in the entire series,
along with like Black Flag Rogue, but Assassin's Cree Shadows
striking that sweet spot where Sure, at the end of
the day, it's a pretty fairly standard Ubisoft open world

(39:48):
in terms of the actual progression of things you're doing.
But I feel as if, a it's absolutely gorgeous this
era of Assassin's Creed, especially like or You're largely obviously
in the desert, but there are these pops of color
in like the poppy fields, or these like lavender fields
near the Nile. Odyssey the same thing, their use of

(40:08):
color in this otherwise pretty you know, dry Mediterranean climate
was really impressive. Here they're doing the same thing. And
then you know, like the actual like costume design, the
the verticality in the castles and the towns. The towns
themselves feel pretty alive. I'm really enjoying this game. I've

(40:29):
I've only just gotten Yasuke back the Samurai character, so
now I can you know, I have I kill both
of them. Yeah, but I like now a lot as character. Also,
her move sets super cool. I've been using the fuck
I forget what's called the webon type with like a
sick like a comma on one end and the ball

(40:50):
the mat flail on the other.

Speaker 3 (40:52):
Yeah, I don't remember what that's called either, but it's
like a sickle ball. It's really yeah, yeah, ball and sickle.

Speaker 1 (40:59):
So I don't know. I'm liking the game a ton.
I think the like the flow of tracking down one
of your targets is just you know, done really well.
I like the scout system. For those who haven't played it,
Odyssey introduced the discovery mode that many Ubisoft Open world
games have done now or instead of just putting away

(41:20):
point in your map, they're like, all right, he was
last seen in this general area. Some people said he
really likes to drink, so you'd be like, Okay, I'll
go look at the taverns in that area, and you'd
eventually like that, Yeah, when you get semi close, it'll
be like, Okay, that's him, but you would need to
get close. Valhalla, I believe did something similar, but Shadows
does that. Plus, the seasons changed throughout the game, So

(41:44):
when you go back to your hideout, you upgrade your buildings,
you plan out your little animal crossing layout, what have you.
The seasons change. I don't know the full timeline, like
the actual real world time that it takes for them
to change, but most of the time when I do it,
decent amount of stuff and then go back to the hideout,
the season has changed, so it resets your scouts. Scouts

(42:06):
kind of play off what Brotherhood introduced way back in
the day, where you have other Assassin's Guild recruits that
you're sending out on missions to bring back supplies and
also take out assassination targets. Your scouts. You can a
tag supplies in the open world physically with your character,
and then those supplies will be like smuggled out at
the end of the season. So you'll get supplies for

(42:26):
your hideout. But when you're on the overall map, you
can actually like hover over the area where you think
a character is or like an objective is, and you
can say tell your scouts to scout the area and
they'll find the objective for you, which is kind of
a nice middle ground I think for people who like
the discovery mode but also flavorful diegetic reason for you

(42:49):
finding the waypoint is you sent in your recruits to
go right.

Speaker 3 (42:53):
They found a good way to put it into stories
that it feels real.

Speaker 2 (42:58):
Yeah, Yeah, they like do that.

Speaker 3 (43:00):
Throughout the entire assess so at some point as well,
because it has some of these like really linear linear
areas where you're not supposed to veer from the path,
and then it's just like you're leaving the memory and
it's just like, all right, this is like how you
keep me within the game world, and you need to
be able to sell this to me. I find that

(43:20):
one really weak and kind of annoying. This one is
like something that you can buy. You're sending out scouts
and that tells you whether or not there's something in
that area for you to investigate. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:31):
I like that, Yeah, and the I think the last
thing this game's doing really well. I had no idea.
It's that they were going for like a spaghetti Western
kill Bill thing with this. I don't think I gathered
that from any of the trailers. But I don't think
this is spoiling much. Noways on a revenge quest most
of the game to avenge avenge somebody. But there's a

(43:53):
scene where the shit that the inciting incident happens, let's
say it's the wedding scene from Kill Bill happens, and
like this, this guitar riff straight out of a Tarantino
movie plays, but it's got this like join like wood
flute influence to it. Yeah. But and then you can
see the camera like is zooming in close to each
of the perpetrators faces, and it just it's telling you

(44:16):
what she's doing. She's like taking mental snapshots of their
faces and their armor and stuff, and it like goes
between his scabbard and her face. I was like, this
is fucking badass. Why don't know what? Tell me? It's
like it's as told by Tarantino, but it's awesome. It's
very highly stylized. I it's a pretty simple revenge story overall,
but you know, she they do the Ghost of Sushima

(44:38):
stuff where Okay, go to this cliff side and meditate
and then you'll go into one of those linear memories
or what are some other like uh, ancillary activities you
can do again, you could smuggle goods when you're going
past the hideout. You can there are those obstacle courses,
like those those trials where you're like scaling cliffs. It's

(44:59):
the parkour challenges.

Speaker 3 (45:00):
I love those because I love a good challenge just
for it's a platforming challenge, and I find that so fun.
You can turn your brain off for a little bit.
I suppose there is maybe some mental gymnastics of like
how do you get through, but ultimately it's about being
able to press the buttons at the right time, and
that is such a nice release from the other aspects

(45:21):
of the game of like oh, I have to hunt
down this person and I need to like solve this puzzle,
Like I love the platforming components in Assassas screen.

Speaker 2 (45:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:29):
And the last thing I'll say as well, it's like
having played I think every Ubisoft open world game. Probably
my measure of a good open world is how confident
the developers are in, leaving spaces empty. Assassin's Green Origin
is still probably my favorite in the series because at
the center of that map there's an entire I think

(45:50):
it's the Black Desert. There's litterally, there's nothing you can do.
You can just you can traverse it if you climb
to the top of that one spire. The game director
left like a tribute chief that pops. That's a tribute
to his.

Speaker 2 (46:03):
Late Sun.

Speaker 1 (46:04):
I believe. I know that director of that game has
fallen from grace a bit. But outside of that, there's
no objectives. It's literally just an empty desert, which is
so cool to me that they didn't feel the need
to stuff it with artificial gamified things. They just let
it kind of breathe, so to speak. I think Odysty
obviously got away from that, even when you're on the

(46:24):
high seas between the islands, like oh, there's a pirate
chip coming right at you, or there's sunken treasure, or
it just it did not want to lose your attention.
Valhalla I think went too far in the opposite direction,
where there's no verticality. It's just this swamp for as
far as you can see. But I think Shadow strikes
are really good balance. There's parts where I'm just riding
through this forest, I come across a shrine that there's

(46:45):
no objective. I think you can maybe pray to it,
but it's just a temporary buffer whatever. But it's just
it can be pretty peaceful in between the more hectic
gamified areas.

Speaker 2 (46:55):
Yeah. Yeah, I was just just interesting to hear that
because I think that and you were saying about the
you know, not a waypoint but more of like clues.
I think a lot of the reason I haven't really
dived into Assassin's Creed is that they do end up
feeling just too much like a checklist to me and

(47:16):
not enough like I'm embodying the character or it's not
enough like role playing in the lower case sense. Yeah,
and that those touches are nice to hear.

Speaker 1 (47:28):
Yeah, at the end of the day, this is still
very much an action game, but the Yeah, the role
playing progression or at least like inhabiting a shinobi who
gets some a bunch of buffs at night and is
very much like taking people out stealthily or just using
more gorilla tactics as opposed to Yasuke was very much
you know, brute force, heavily armored, legit bigger weapons is

(47:50):
the Samurai. I haven't played as him again enough to
see the dichotomy emerge yet, people have told me late late,
as you get more and more into each of their
individual progression trees, it does. But in the sense that
you mentioned you like your your lowercase role playing as
a ninja. It's extremely I think effective in that way,

(48:11):
and I'm still finding little things I didn't know you
could do. I thought it was like a bug at
one point, but the way that they structure many of
the castles, like Osaka Castle was pretty cool for me.
I've actually been there in real life. Apparently it's not. Again,
this game is not like the most historically accurate. There's
a polygon at an article contextualizing the actual Japanese media's

(48:33):
response to the game. Apparently it's pretty sweepingly positive. They're
not saying it's the most accurate thing ever, but they
appreciate the where the artistic liberties have been taken.

Speaker 3 (48:44):
I mean, it's it's Assassin's creed too. I think, like
to a degree, we should all like let these things
go a little bit, you know, like you know, you
kill the pope into It's like like, let's.

Speaker 1 (48:53):
Just yeah, but Pope is like hooking up with the
Karl Marx or something. Yeah, I think we can.

Speaker 3 (48:58):
Yeah, I think we should ease of of like literally
how accurate it is? And more so is is can
you suspend your disbelief?

Speaker 1 (49:04):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (49:05):
Enough? Where to Drew's point, like, can you feel like
you can like actually role play a little bit or
you just like ticking boxes here to finish the game?

Speaker 1 (49:14):
Yeah, And there's I mentioned Oscaka Castle because there's roof
hatches they let you go and there's a lot of
quality of life traversal things. There's just a roof hatch
on many tall towers where you can just press a
button and it'll you'll slip through it. I kept hearing
this weird chime that I could not figure out why
I was doing it. It turns out there were these
winches on the ceiling inside these structures that I can

(49:36):
grapple hook up to like eight feet above me to
pull myself up to the ceiling into the shadows above
of the patrolling guard like cling to the ceiling, oh
fire style or splinter cell. Yeah, And then all of
a sudden dropped down on them like that's pretty cool.
They didn't point that out to me at any point.
It's just a nice little option to have, Like, that's
the stuff I wish Assassin's Creed three did more in

(49:57):
the Woods that they didn't. Really, Yeah, I'm really liking
this game. It's the most excited I've been to like
get back to playing an Assassin's Creed since origins and it.
I don't know if this will ring the same for
you or if you did try it out having not
played one in a while, but I don't get overwhelmed
in this one. It's nothing feels imperative that I just

(50:17):
or obligatory. Obviously, killing the people who killed this person
I care about is like obligatory, and they push it
home anytime you encounter them. But yeah, I'm I'm liking
it quite a bit.

Speaker 2 (50:30):
You know.

Speaker 1 (50:30):
It's it's it's got me hooked.

Speaker 2 (50:33):
I like it nice Drew.

Speaker 1 (50:38):
Yeah, you have been playing the Forever Winter Yes, survival
game memory serves.

Speaker 2 (50:45):
So it's uh, sounds like I guess you'd call it
an extraction shooter.

Speaker 1 (50:50):
Oh okay.

Speaker 2 (50:51):
I think structurally it has a lot in common with
something like Hell Divers third person shooter, but you've got
a You've got a hub world where you it's you know,
it's where you outfit your character and take on quests,
buy things from vendors, and then you've got a map
where you choose where you go into to do your run,

(51:15):
and then it's it. But I think it's also and
I didn't play a lot of pubg but I think
it's got some of those elements in it too, because
like when you outfit your character and you go in,
it's very it's a very punishing game. It's like very
much a like hardcore hell divers like because you take
your weapons into the game world and if you die,
those weapons are gone. You can do a corpse run

(51:36):
and get them back. But it's very much like it's
that kind of a game. Okay, And the I think
what's really drawing me to it though, is the the
setting and the art and the presentation, because the developers
have said that there it's they basically just tried to
make they were inspired by the future war scenes in

(51:58):
the Terminator movies, right, And it is absolutely that like
you are not it's like three different factions on every map,
there's a gigantic battle going on, and you are none
of them. You are just a scavenger trying to pick
your way through and find water and like you know,
parts of for for weapons and stuff, and just scrape

(52:21):
by to get to the extraction zone and get out.
So it's really tense, and it's just got a really
good look, like a lot of like visual filters to
make it look like a VHS tape. Yeah, all the
text in the game looks like it's you know, you know,
an old CRT like the video input on a CRT TV,

(52:43):
like Get.

Speaker 1 (52:43):
The fuck Out. That game did something similar with its
CUI in game. I don't know if you played that,
It looks very similar to that.

Speaker 2 (52:50):
Yeah, yeah, I didn't play it, but yeah, I've seen
some some clips of it, but yeah, it's it's in
early access. They actually just overhauled the way that the
water system works. It used to like deplete even when
you weren't playing the game. That was really divisive.

Speaker 1 (53:06):
Yeah, that's very hardcore.

Speaker 2 (53:08):
They they just updated that to not longer does that?

Speaker 3 (53:12):
Yeah, longer do that.

Speaker 2 (53:15):
Yeah. But if you if you go in and you
keep dying and you don't like find water and extract
your your overall water will go down because it costs
water to go into a map and if it goes down,
your base will get raided by like bandits. So yeah,
it's it's cool. It's it's got a lot going on.

(53:37):
It is an early access, so there's there's still some
jank in there. But it's kind of fun too to
see a game, you know, listen to its community. They
do a great job with with responding to people and
putting out video updates and and stuff like that. Thirty
bucks on Steam and the Epic Game Store.

Speaker 1 (53:55):
There's a free demo as well.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
There is, Yes, so I played a lot of the demo.
Actually I've only it's only one map, but your your
character can can level up and you can get a
good sense of it.

Speaker 1 (54:07):
It sounds rad I'm always curious about extraction shooters because
that especially with Bungie trying to get in on that
with Marathon or at least elements of it. And also
I think that term like hell Diverge two to your
point is sort of an extraction shooter. But I think
when extraction shooter fans here extraction shooter, they expect some

(54:29):
level of punishment of losing things permanently, of the risk
reward being much higher. I am enjoying the game's most
that borrow elements from that Hell Divers two. I don't know.
I liked DMZ and Call of Duty. I'm looking forward
to seeing what Bunge does with Marathon. But I saw
this and it also reminded me if Remnant was futuristic,

(54:54):
just in terms of the actual and maybe it's the
same engine or something, but it looked similar in terms
of sounded like the overall game flow too. But this
looks rad Yeah, I had it byemarked. I didn't play
it yet though the.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
I heard that some of the team was also the
part of the team that made Hawkin, that mech first
person shooter that came out like ten or fifteen years ago.
There's a lot of mechs to a lot of mechs,
and that game looked so good. It's like Ghost in
the Shell or something like very It's like a cyberpunk

(55:30):
future but destroyed. There are so many friggin' pipes everywhere,
and like just tiny little details all over the place,
like the pedigree there. Made a lot of sense to
me when I learned that.

Speaker 1 (55:42):
Yeah, I remember Hawking or now it's Hawking. Oh, this
is a different one. I think they're trying to do
it again. But I know what you're talking about. Yeah,
I like this aesthetic. I want to check out Forever
Winter at some point, Mary, maybe like we try that
for a bonus episode or something.

Speaker 3 (55:59):
I mean, yeah, this is a This seems how many
people can you have on a team when you're playing
co op online? Okay?

Speaker 2 (56:06):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (56:06):
Yeah? And what happens? So again, like just so I understand,
like understand when you say hell Divers, I was like,
you know, but when you die in hell Divers, like
they just call you back down, you know. They even
have like a really fun system. It's a bit tongue
in cheeks, so that I can just come back to
life if I die. What happens if I if I
die in a four person extraction? Am I gone?

Speaker 2 (56:29):
Yeah? I haven't played with any other people yet, but
I think it's like solo gamer.

Speaker 3 (56:34):
Drew Scanlon, Yeah, that's me, No other people, please.

Speaker 2 (56:38):
I think it's it's like you get knocked down and
if if you failed to get pulled back up, I
think you're just spectating.

Speaker 3 (56:45):
Okay, yeah, yeah, I mean it seems brutal. I think
there's like a lot of pressure I would have with
like letting everybody down.

Speaker 1 (56:55):
But I don't know we've played. Like again, there's that
whole like subsect of co op horror games borrowing from
extraction shooters as well, between Repo, Fasmophobia, Lethal Company. I
think those all are sort of toying with that structure
as well.

Speaker 3 (57:10):
Don't feel as stressed out. I like accidentally get absorbed
by a ghost that makes me vomit bile at you
guys while I'm screaming, get away from me, don't come
near me. Like, I just don't get that stressed playing
that game. This game I think has more of a
tenseness to it. But I think that that's also like
a great way to bond with your fellow buds. And

(57:33):
I mean, Helldivers was my goady last year. It was
just so so much fun to play with other people.
So this seems like it'll be really interesting. Are there
different biomes. I'm seeing a lot of machinery or is
it like you're just basically against machines the whole time.
I'm seeing animal machines and I'm seeing like giant mechs.

Speaker 2 (57:51):
Like, yes, there's three different factions and they all have
a bit of a different style. Some are like cyborgs.
Some over just like military dudes. And there's a whole
lot of mechs and tanks and all manner of very
frightening things, like a lot of like you know, the
the upper torso of a T one hundred crass, Like is.

Speaker 3 (58:11):
That almost like a zombie esque thing? Like I saw
them like crawling towards you. That's pretty freaky.

Speaker 2 (58:16):
Yeah, as far as biomes go, I've only so far,
I've only played one map just to try to like
learn it, because the maps are static, but spawns are different,
so you never are quite sure where you know a
patrol is going to be coming through, so you're you're
always on the lookout for for what's going on. Yeah,

(58:38):
that sounds bad.

Speaker 1 (58:38):
It's cool, Mary. I know Dan is bummed he could
not make it because he was looking very much forward
to talking about the game. That we delayed this episode
a few hours to hit him Barber or to meet Embargo. Rather,
You've been playing blue Prints, and I want to point out,
I don't think you spelled it right.

Speaker 3 (58:57):
Uh it's Prince p R.

Speaker 1 (58:59):
I yeah, but I wrote it down. Yeah, So anyway, yeah,
take it away. What is Blueprints? And I've hearing a
lot of people wish Dan this is going.

Speaker 3 (59:11):
To be This is going to be on a lot
of people's list this year. This game is fucking incredible,
and I'm going to do my best to describe the premise,
which I think is one of the great things that
this game does, among others. But this game begins with
a open letter from your It doesn't matter, but like
you're like golder grandpa who is dead and his last

(59:33):
will and testament is that he has gnulled all of
his other wills and he only now has one will
and is that all of his money and all of
his estate goes to you, his grandson. However, to get
his estate, you have to uncover a secret room on
his estate, and there's some rules that you have to

(59:56):
follow to find this secret room. You know, it's so
freak d about this game is that this story is
a hook. Like that is so interesting to me. So
immediately I was like, that's it on my grandson. I'm
going to get my granddaddy's money, and I'm going to
start looking at these rooms. And you start at the
base of the mansion. It's a huge, huge mansion, and

(01:00:17):
you immediately go to the first doorway and there it is.
As you get to your doorways, you unlock three random
blueprints of rooms. These rooms could be hallways, they could
be closets, they could be kitchens. They each give you
different bonuses and benefits. They are randomized and you get

(01:00:37):
to pick one. And what's really interesting about this there's
so many interesting things about this game, but like, one
of the things I really love about this is like mechanically,
you have to be very cautious with how you are
navigating this space because if you pick, for example, if
you picked a closet, a bedroom in another closet, now
the game is over, you've lost because you don't have

(01:00:59):
any hallways, which means there's no more doors. The game
is over wild and you can have runs. These are
this is the day based games. Some of the rules
here are that you cannot spend the night, so you
go during the day and you go to these rooms.
When you're out of rooms, when you're out of places
that you can go, your day is over and you
go to sleep, and when you wake up, the house

(01:01:21):
resets and all the rooms you uncovered are gone, and
you start back at the beginning of this mansion, opening
doors and trying to navigate your way to the far
back of the mansion, where this room is that you
have to unlock and uncover to get your money. Where
it really starts to get interesting, though, is that you

(01:01:45):
need items in order to progress throughout this game. It's
not just about making sure you hit hallways. Why would
you ever choose a closet, you might ask, Well, the
closets might have items like keys, rubies, and money. So
your three main components of currency that you need in
different ways. The money will help you unlock items that
are going to be very valuable for your journey. Things

(01:02:07):
that you can buy are things like food, which I'll
get into in a second. Oh, a metal detector, which
will help you uncover more keys and money. I've found
really valuable items. A magnifying glass. Oh, that one's so cool.
And so you have this magnifying glass, and as you're
like going into these bedrooms, maybe you'll see a letter

(01:02:29):
and it'll be from like the grandpa's wife, and there's
going to be lore in there. And if you have
the magnifying glass, maybe you'll find something you would not
have found without that magnifying glass. That's going to be
very important in your journey.

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
There is.

Speaker 3 (01:02:45):
So much lore in this game that is all done
through environmental storytelling, and they do it exceptionally well. This
is the type of game that you will come across
a bunk bed and it'll sell it to you in
the sense that it's like, hey, this counts as two rooms,
which gives you more steps. I'll get into that in

(01:03:07):
a second. And so you're like, great, I'll choose the
bunk beds. And then you see that there's a book
on the bunk bed and you open it and it's
a diary of one of the boys, and you can
learn about these children and how they combat each other,
you can learn about their personalities, and this all comes
into play on the wider picture of like what happened

(01:03:30):
to this family. There is really interesting stuff that's happened
to the like basically like the main landlord, like old
guy who's like died now, his wife who was like
a writer, their children. There's a whole family tree of
people that are like ins and outs that are like
have a lot to say about like his title and

(01:03:50):
his money and where it came from. The mom was
a writer. There's like really interesting story there, and it's
all done through like finding pieces of paper, finding pieces
of their past and connecting it together. Super interesting stuff.
And it's all done passively through like finding pieces of writing.
Here's like the last mechanic that I think is really
important that there's a fourth currency that I consider a currency,

(01:04:13):
which is your steps. The game works that you start
ish with fifty steps. Every time you walk into a room,
it costs you a step, costs you energy. Essentially, when
you get to zero energy, you must end the day
like it just stops your day, even if you just
entered a really cool room. So you need to replenish
your steps. You can do that in a couple of ways.

(01:04:34):
One is certain rooms like bedrooms give you two steps back.
Sometimes they'll give you four steps if it's a bunk bedroom,
Like that's important. Food replenishes your steps, so you're constantly like,
I got to open a kitchen so that I can
get some bananas in me and that I can have
more steps to play with. The intricacies of these rooms
are mechanically brilliant. There will be times where you will say, like, Okay,

(01:04:58):
I've just unlocked a power room, and I'm going to
turn the power off on a particular room because this
particular room actually costs me steps, but if I turn
the power off in this room, it costs that there's
now it doesn't cost me steps anymore, okay. And so
you're combining particular rooms, same thing with the power. And

(01:05:20):
there's a garage. There's a button in the garage to
open the garage door doesn't work because there's no power.
But if you turn the power on, now, all of
a sudden, you can open the garage.

Speaker 2 (01:05:28):
WHOA okay, okay.

Speaker 3 (01:05:30):
And so you start recognizing that there's a lot of
patterns between the rooms that you're acquiring and you're choosing.
This game is not about the perfect run that gets
you to this end door, which is how I started.
I started this game being like I'm getting to that endoor.
I'm getting this money, like I can't wait to find
out about you know, get all that money and win.

(01:05:50):
That is not what is happening anymore. Now. I am like,
I have to know what happened to my niece. I
have to know how this happened, and to uncover that,
I need two halves of a broken lever, which means
I need the combination rooms that I can combine those levers.
I also need to open the pool and the boiler

(01:06:10):
room because there's a connection there. Once once you have
the pool, you can actually turn on the boilers, which
is going to probably give me some like extra lore
or like some endgame shit. It is fascinating how intricate
these rooms are. I think I'm on day seventeen or eighteen.
I don't think this is like a crazy thing to say,

(01:06:31):
but like Dan is in like the seventy.

Speaker 1 (01:06:34):
Seventy Yeah, WHOA, this game is deep?

Speaker 3 (01:06:37):
WHOA, this game is deep. I am probably on the
cusp of it. I think I'm very early in this game.
I am so fucking hooked on how I combine these
games and these items and learn more about these characters.
I mean, this is this is going to be a
game we're going to talk about all year.

Speaker 2 (01:06:53):
This is it? Okay, So yes, yeah, I'm trying to.

Speaker 3 (01:06:57):
Yeah try TLDR what I said.

Speaker 2 (01:06:59):
There's I've been trying.

Speaker 1 (01:07:02):
Is it like a is it like a.

Speaker 2 (01:07:06):
Not procedural? But like, uh, what you're doing in these rooms?
It's first person? Right, Yes, You're you're walking around looking
around when you're in a room. Is it like are
there like mist like puzzles that are going on? Are
you pulling levers?

Speaker 3 (01:07:19):
And in some of them okay, and I think we're
like yes, but not in all of them.

Speaker 2 (01:07:26):
Uh gone home, Yes.

Speaker 3 (01:07:30):
I would prepare the narrative storytelling to like gone Home
or what's that other one with the house and it
just yes, it has a lot of like what remains
of Edith Finch in regards to like the storytelling family.
I think that, But the the intricacies of connecting rooms
and items that is very missed, and I've never seen

(01:07:52):
a game do this before where it's connecting these components.
There's also like this new innovative design that I've never
seen before, which is almost like some kind of weird
deck build where I will sometimes choose a room even
though that will not help me this run, because now
I want to know what's in it and I need
to unlock it because it's going to be really important
that I'm probably gonna be able to use it later.

Speaker 2 (01:08:12):
Oh, select a room to draft? Yes, are you an architect?
Is that like the okay blueprints?

Speaker 3 (01:08:19):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:08:19):
Got it.

Speaker 3 (01:08:19):
Every time you go to a door, you get three
blueprint drafts and again, so some of them are like hallways,
some of them are rooms. Some of them are atriums.
They all are color coded, which comes into play like
it's very complicated. And originally my thought was like, well,
I need a hallway that goes north so that I

(01:08:40):
get to the end game. But now I'm I'm past
that blood Like now it's all about like which room
is going to help me progress what I'm currently trying
to get after, And you can't run out of keys
or rubies. The further north you go, the more likely
that the doors will be locked, which means they'll be like, hey,
the key in order to progress. I've lost this game

(01:09:02):
by running out of keys. I've lost this game by
running out of rubies. Certain rooms cost rubies in order
to construct them. So if you run out of rubies
and you get a hallway that costs nothing, and then
two yeah, two rooms that cost rubies, and it's just like, oh,
now I'm stuck. I needed these rubies in order to progress,
so all of these these pieces. In my last few playthroughs,

(01:09:25):
something else like really interesting happened, which is I had
a metal detector and I had a magnifying glass, and
I went into this room that allows you to combine items,
and I thought, well, all combined my magnifying glass and
my metal detector and I and it became a I
want to say, it's like a laser gun or something
like that. And I was like, what it's there's no enemies,

(01:09:47):
so it's not to damage. But they were like, oh,
you can turn on lights with that. You can turn
you can you can use this to burn candles and
turn on something. So like oh, I was like thinking,
like when in this game have I been in a
dark environment and there is a whole property and underneath
the area. When I was investigating earlier, I remember like

(01:10:08):
going into a garage but you couldn't see anything because
it's could pitch black in there, and it's like, shit,
I have to make this fire like laser fire start
or whatever and go down under this garage and turn
this on. I haven't done that yet, but that's like
something I really want to want to do next. So
it's like there's endless combinations that you will be your
your curiosity will be so peaked in this game. There's

(01:10:29):
so many things that you get to do. I wish
Dan was here. He's probably like chopping in the bit
to like jump in on this and like talk about it.
It is so fascinating. The person who made it is
like a fricking genius with how many all the intricacies
of these rooms are really something to behold. I mean
it is. It is incredible how much the designer thought
about all the different components. Atriums are more likely to

(01:10:51):
have dirt piles, so if you get a shovel, all
of a sudden, now you can dig into all these
dirt piles and you can find like items through that.
So you can have like runs where you'll be like, oh,
I got a shovel early Atrium run. You're just constantly
making green spaces with lots of dirt piles. That's going
to give you lots of items and money that you
get to spend. There's rooms where you can exchange your currency.

(01:11:13):
It's called it's also very tongue in cheek. There's if
you get a laundry room, you can launder your money.
So in the laundry the washer is how you can
exchange your coins for keys, or your rubies for you know,
whatever you have an abundance of you can lose. But
I find that every run you are rich in something

(01:11:35):
and poor in another. I've had runs where I've had
twelve rubies, and I'm like, I'm ruby rich, like come
for me, but I only have seven steps left, and
I would sell all my rubies for a snacks that
I could continue playing. But that's it. That's just the
way it is on that run, and so you're just
constantly refreshing. My goal ultimately is just to make some
kind of progression each life where I feel like I

(01:11:57):
can actually extend the life of my game. And there
are per and it upgrades in this game, but they're
very difficult to get, so you have to work very
hard to get these disks that will allow you to
like permanently upgrade a room in the house or your character. Yeah,
one of them was I'm going to try not to
give it away because I think some of it, like

(01:12:18):
the exploration is so much fun and so discovering these
things are huge joy. But uh, one of these things
that I opened over time, I finally got like power
onto a very specific thing and I had to do
this puzzle, a very mistlike puzzle to Drew's point of like, uh,
navigating these colored buttons, and I had to make them

(01:12:39):
all a very particular color which you could only find
in a different room in a piece of paper that
tells you that they all need to be a very
particular color for a wall to open up. And if
you do that, I have now unlocked that. Every time
I start the game, I start the game with two rubies,
which is a blessing in that game because the currency
is rare. But it was it took like a long time.

(01:13:01):
You're an indion. You're going to need a gamer notebook.
I take photos on my phone every time I come
across something. I have come across music sheets. I think
I've come across eight pieces of music sheets with one
bolded letter on each music sheet, and I am missing
a very important music sheet that will give me the
final word that I need in order to complete a puzzle.
There's also simple puzzles, there's math puzzles for people who

(01:13:22):
are interested in that. There's like a fun area where
to unlock keys. You have to solve some math puzzles.
Oh and I have to tell I'll say, because this
is something we always say on the show from Dewey Talkie. Yes,
you have to like read in this game. But something
I'm so obsessed with about this game is that at
no point did it actually tell me how to do
any of these puzzles. One of the times I was

(01:13:45):
in I was in a billiard room and I was like,
I don't understand how this works. And I would press
a button and it would go me. I press another
button to go mate, and then I think about it
a little bit and I press two buttons and it
let me progress, and I went, Oh, my freaking god,
I know exactly what they're teaching me. And I learned

(01:14:07):
the intricacies of this puzzle on my own without any
that anyone telling me what to do, and I figured
it out and it was like one of the most
rewarding experiences I've ever had. I think four days later,
I ended up going into a room that had a
piece of paper on it that said, Hey, have you
guys ever been in the billiard room? It's so crazy
like XYZ and it explains the puzzle. So if you don't,
if you can't solve it, there's hints everywhere, but I solved.

(01:14:31):
You can solve shit on your own. You can just
use your own noodle and figure it out. I freaking
love this game.

Speaker 2 (01:14:37):
Wow, I want to play it. It's out.

Speaker 1 (01:14:40):
What day is this episode? It's out on April tenth,
so later this week. If you're listening to this episode
new I want to I have not played. It sounds
kind of like, oh shit, be very back. That might
be my pa.

Speaker 2 (01:14:52):
You might be irish.

Speaker 3 (01:14:55):
If he doesn't answer in the next thirty seconds he
has to remain American.

Speaker 2 (01:15:00):
Yeah, this seems absolutely wild. I always love a game
where when I try to think about how how someone
made this, my mind melts and it absolutely seems like
one of those games.

Speaker 3 (01:15:13):
Yeah, this on Oh still American? Yeah, what a loser.

Speaker 1 (01:15:21):
Yeah, it sounds like like bolotro Haites kind of picked
the next thing you're doing. Meets knives out what remains
of Edith's bench.

Speaker 3 (01:15:31):
Meets yeah gone home.

Speaker 1 (01:15:32):
Yeah, like a bit of miss in the Witness.

Speaker 2 (01:15:35):
Yeah, sounds d.

Speaker 3 (01:15:37):
Yeah, it's a it's a it's a new genre. I've
never seen a game like this ever. I think this
is absolutely untapped, and it will peak your interest in
terms of story, in terms of delivery, and then just
mechanically you're gonna have a really good time just being like,
what am I going to build? This run a really

(01:15:57):
fun fun game. And the fact that he's on seventy
to me is like this has a longer end game
than what I have even recognized the fact that I
am I'm so built, I'm so bought into this game.
But I'm only on like day eighteen. I thought maybe
I would be beating it by like twenty five or thirty.
I'm I've like started to recognize with myself this is

(01:16:17):
this is a very deep game, and there's going to
be so much to uncover. I can't wait.

Speaker 1 (01:16:22):
Is there like an end of run recap that shows
you the house you built?

Speaker 3 (01:16:26):
Okay, that's also cool. There's a lot hoping every time
you asked you a question, I'm like, You're gonna fucking
love this answer.

Speaker 1 (01:16:35):
I think Amanda is going to want to play this
as well.

Speaker 3 (01:16:38):
When your run is over. It also even creates a
house based on the rooms that you ended up picking,
and it gives you this isn't to like be bad
or good, but it'll be like, oh, this is a
cottage because you only unlocked five rooms before you ad
you lost, whereas when you have unlocked twenty eight rooms,
it's like, oh, this is a manner, and if you

(01:17:00):
open more red rooms then that will change the name
of the house that you've built because of the pieces
that you've selected. It also tracks everything in this game,
and there is a library room and if you go
to the library, it'll be like did you know that

(01:17:20):
you're least likely to pick this type of blueprint and
that this is your favorite item? And it tracks every
stat and it's really exciting to go, uh dieget every
I mean almost like psychotic where it's like, no, it
knows how many steps I've taken. It knows everything. I
mean every decision that I've made. This game has tracked,
which is it's fun. I mean, it's really fun to

(01:17:43):
review and think about, like psychologically, like, oh, I've really
avoided this very particular type of area. I wonder why
that is. Yeah, it's it's sick you guys.

Speaker 1 (01:17:53):
I want to try it out. I'm looking forward to.
I'm sure Dan will talk about it in next episode
he's back as well.

Speaker 3 (01:17:58):
I think so too. I think he will have a
lot to say about it, more than me because he's
the one who's been playing it longer than me.

Speaker 1 (01:18:03):
But I mean it's I'm also a game elements, so
I could see Dan getting hooked on something like that.
That's not what happened before.

Speaker 3 (01:18:10):
It has it has a lot. This is why I
was like talking about the talky Dewey is like I
was a little worried. It has a lot of letters,
but because I think it's very Edith Finch in its delivery,
which is just like you you see the picture of
the character before you read the news article about what
happened to them. Now I'm like in h and there's

(01:18:30):
really interesting lore of what happened to this family. And
that's why I'm like willing to read that like three
paragraph news article, which also will absolutely come into play
on one of the later puzzles. And so I'm just
taking I take photos of everything in this game because
it all ends up, it ends up benefiting you if

(01:18:52):
you have all of this stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:18:54):
Sounds sick. I'm looking forward to playing this a lot.
Sounds very at my ali as well.

Speaker 3 (01:18:58):
Yeah, you guys are gonna love it.

Speaker 1 (01:19:01):
Drew, You've been playing something called Utopia Must Fall.

Speaker 3 (01:19:04):
Must Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:19:05):
This is another early access game, currently on sale on
Steam for seven dollars. It is it's like a it's
like a like a a New Veau arcade game. So
asteroids or not asteroids. If enders it's missile command, mistle command,

(01:19:26):
thank you, but you have one missile base and it
is on auto fire, and then you can also click
a button to launch a nuke. And then the enemies
coming down are more like Gallagh or Space in videos,
or even like Geometry Wars. Right, they all have very
distinct looks and in behaviors. But everything looks like it

(01:19:48):
looks like remember that game def Con. Yeah, it's like
very stark, single single colors to everything. Actually, I think
the developer calls their engine a vector engine, so it
looks like a color vector game. But yeah, it's it's uh,

(01:20:11):
it's I guess it's got like roguelike stuff between stages
you can depending on how well you did upgrade your base, Like, Mary,
is that me? What's going on?

Speaker 1 (01:20:25):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:20:25):
I don't hear anything? That was my steam?

Speaker 1 (01:20:27):
Sorry, I was looking at the AutoPlay a trailer. I
guess it's so funny.

Speaker 3 (01:20:31):
There's like this iconic I was like, what did I do?
There's this like iconic Simpsons episode where Lenny and Carl
are going up a mountain and Lenny goes, Carl, did
you hear something in? Carl goes no, and Lenny goes
did I? And Carl's like, I don't know?

Speaker 1 (01:20:49):
You idiots?

Speaker 3 (01:20:50):
Like it's like attacking me.

Speaker 1 (01:20:52):
The trailer just started playing on Steam when I opened
it up.

Speaker 3 (01:20:55):
That's your fault, I know.

Speaker 1 (01:20:57):
That's what's fun about blaming you.

Speaker 3 (01:20:59):
Though it's beautiful rainbow game. It does have a stark
literal colors, like every if it's like a certain laser,
it's red. If it's like a certain thing attacking you,
it's bright green.

Speaker 2 (01:21:14):
So very like a yeah, a vector game, and yeah,
it's fun. It's a it's a you know, fairly simple,
but like I'm really impressed with the way that they
have taken something that looks like it had existed in
the eighties but updated it to be, you know, something
that like I want to do a bunch of runs

(01:21:35):
with because you know, between each level can change depending
on you know, the role that you get of the
options that you can choose. So I think it's a
pretty small team. It would be great on steam Deck,
but I don't think the steam Deck. It says it's
verified on their page, but I tried it and last

(01:21:58):
time I did then did not seem to work perfectly well.
But on PC it's it's really cool, so seven bucks.

Speaker 3 (01:22:08):
It is a early access though, is there an endgame
or does it just go go go forever.

Speaker 2 (01:22:12):
I don't know, I've never gotten that far. Yea. But
another game like The Forever Winter that just like is
seeping with vibes like I really enjoy the a lot.
Like def Con, it has this sort of like just
kind of grim like you'll never actually defeat the waves.
You're just trying to survive as long as possible and

(01:22:33):
you know, oh, twelve million people died in your city
just last round. Sorry does it say that? It's got
some like I can't remember any of the actual phrasing,
but it's got some like flippant yeah lines in it
and stuff. It's cool. I really, I really like the
the presentation cool. Oh yeah, when you die, it doesn't

(01:22:55):
say you know, defeat or anything. It says accept Yeah, yeah,
deal with it.

Speaker 3 (01:23:04):
All the babies are dead. Rough, But I love that
it knows what it is and I think like you
can tell that this game is like going for a
very specific thing and is committed to it. Also a
good price point. Did you buy this in a sale?

Speaker 2 (01:23:19):
Did you say?

Speaker 3 (01:23:20):
Or did you?

Speaker 1 (01:23:20):
Did you? Uh?

Speaker 2 (01:23:22):
No, I misspoke. It's not actually on sale. It is
just seven dollars.

Speaker 3 (01:23:25):
Okay, yeah that was a good price.

Speaker 1 (01:23:27):
Yep. Mary, what is Lookoutside?

Speaker 2 (01:23:31):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (01:23:31):
Lookoutside is I'm like, what is the genre of this game?

Speaker 1 (01:23:38):
It is a.

Speaker 3 (01:23:41):
I'm really struggling to describe it. RPG survival horror. It's scary, okay,
it's like a horror game. I streamed this and it
was a very funny game to stream. I recommend it
as a stream game because the very first thing I
did was I, uh, you know, you go to the
window and I had the optional lookout side and I
looked outside and I died. I died immediately, and so

(01:24:06):
I started the game again. It turns out that looking
outside causes you to either die or mutate into some
kind of like horrible monster. The premise of this game
is you are waking up in your apartment and you
have to live. I think the game says this, like
very bluntly, you need to survive for fifteen days. Time

(01:24:30):
goes extremely slow in this game, and so while you
do have stuff in your house, In fact, I brushed
my teeth, I showered all these things, and they all
changed my stats of like morale and cleanliness and stuff
like that. And then I was like, well, now what
do I do? And so I did a crossword puzzle
for two hours, but my braw went down because it's
so boring, and I played a video game and then

(01:24:53):
I ate some food and then I was like, well,
at some point I have to fucking leave, I think, right,
And so I left my apartment and there there's this
huge trail of blood outside of my house, and so
I follow the trail, of course, and I stumble across
a zombie that's like eating somebody, and I pick up
a baseball bat and I ended up killing them, and

(01:25:14):
all of these things that I'm doing are passing time,
but it passed. I think I woke up at six am,
and by the time I killed my first zombie after eating, showering,
you know, video games, all that stuff, and killing someone,
it was nine to fifteen. And so it's like you
have to keep going, you have to keep looking. Time

(01:25:35):
progresses mostly when you walk into a new space. So
the game is encouraging you to walk into a new
space and discover what's going on in this crazy post
apocalyptic world. You do have a life meter, you have stamina.
Killing somebody, you can take damage, and so I needed
to eat to replenish my health and my stamina. Having

(01:25:57):
more stamina means I can do like a better attack
with my baseball that or my knife or whatever. Items
you can get hats and shirts and shoes and necklaces
that all increase characters, stats and traits. The saving is
what's interesting in this game. So just like an old
school game, there's only one way to save, and it's

(01:26:17):
a hole in the wall with your neighbor's eyeball looking
at you. She's like looking at you through the through
the wall, and so when you walk at Wilson Home,
pro yes, it's exactly the same. And so I go
up to the eyeball and she's like, what have you been?
What have you seen out there? And it lets me save,
and that's like my save. Once I do that, she

(01:26:40):
goes away because she's already heard what I've been up
to recently, and so I cannot save again. I have
to go out into the world and I have to
go into a bunch of different rooms and find stuff
and sometimes die. And that did happen to me. I
lost my save multiple times by like dying. Each room
you open, there's like a progress bar on the bottom
of the screen that appears, and if it gets to

(01:27:00):
the save file, then you can go back to the
lady and tell her that you've what you've seen and
save again, so it makes you go into the unknown spaces.

Speaker 2 (01:27:11):
I love weird save systems too. Yeah, it was annoying.

Speaker 3 (01:27:16):
I lost my save I want to say, like four
or five times, and it is grading. But it's so
interesting how it makes me go into uncomfortable situations. There
were rooms where I was like, I don't want to
go in there, but I haven't hit my save yet,
so I have to, and so it forces me to
go into scary situations. I also think that this game

(01:27:37):
is quite well written. I did go into a space
where I met a painter and he said, something's wrong.
I've been painting and I think the paintings are coming life.
I actually think they're trying to be me, and I
need you to like help. You got to kill all
these other guys they say they're me, but I am
the only friend and I need you to help me.

(01:27:58):
And he's like, I think one's in the first and
you're like, Okay, that's weird. I go to the fridge.
I open the fridge and there is like this grotesque
monster with like the melted off face of Fred. And
he's like, you gotta help me. I'm Fred, this other
guy that you've been talking to, fake Fred, I'm the
real Fred. You have to kill him. You have to
kill him for me right now. And so now you're

(01:28:18):
making a decision. Do you kill Fridge Fred, do you
kill painter Fred who claims he's the original Fred? Do
you kill none of them? And just like let them
sort it out. But originally, like the guy was like,
I'm the real Fred. You gotta believe me. And I
was like, well, you do have a bug body, and
he's like, ah, you got me, all right, I'm not
a real friend. It's very cheap and funny. As you

(01:28:41):
continue to progress in this and this is just one area,
but as you continue to progress in this one area,
I met like six different Freds, all like absolutely fucked up,
like completely incredible art design of how they have like
made these mutated Freds that have apparently like jumped off
the canvas. My goal is to get a very dark
painting that Fred said is like super bad and evil,

(01:29:04):
and I have to get it. But every time I
go down this path, I've died because like something kills
me in this space. But it's it's scary, it's interesting,
I mean, it's absolutely piqued my interest. It's I do
I will say, like, I am blown away by the
effort that they have put into all of the components

(01:29:24):
of this game to make it feel so real. I
mean down to like, you know, I showering and like
cleaning myself with a bar of soap that I found
in Fred's bathroom, which increases my morale, which helps me
have a better swing of my bat the next time
I like come across some kind of grotesque creature. I
think it's I think it's a triumph of this of

(01:29:48):
this team to be able to make something so intricate,
But it takes a big stomach because it is gross
and it is scary and it is intense, and I
also just think it's very hard. I lost save so
many times.

Speaker 2 (01:30:01):
Yeah, I love the look of it. It looks like
a second Genesis game.

Speaker 1 (01:30:04):
Mm hmm, sounds rads a lot of stut catch up.

Speaker 3 (01:30:10):
On this one's neat. Yeah. I think this one is
a fascinating I am afraid this is a sleeper. I
feel like people aren't gonna try this because it's so
weird and it's probably hard to stomach. But I have
to say like, I really encourage people, if you like
scary games or if you're interested in this type of thing,

(01:30:30):
I really encourage you to play this and and give
it a whirl. It's it's it's quite it's quite good.

Speaker 1 (01:30:37):
Cool. And the last thing, Drew you wrote Halo master
Chief Collection E three.

Speaker 3 (01:30:44):
Yes, So what are all these letters?

Speaker 2 (01:30:51):
Like? Every male who was in high school in the
early two thousands, I love you still of Halo. Yeah,
And I distinctly remember my buddy Mike had fast internet
and so he downloaded this video from IGN and burned

(01:31:12):
it to a CD for me, which is a very
bold phrase. It's also league and no, no, no, it
was it was a game trailer or I guess a
video of the Halo two presentation at E three two
thousand and three.

Speaker 1 (01:31:29):
It was Halo on, Halo two, Halo one disc. I
believe there was a certain version of Halo on that
had it. If this is the same thing I'm thinking of,
I think you might.

Speaker 2 (01:31:40):
Be thinking of the what Halo was like the Halo
one demo before it was a first person shooter.

Speaker 1 (01:31:49):
I'm thinking the thing there was a preview of Halo
two of a mission that was never actually made it
into Halo two and it was different. I played all
of Halo two wondering when it was going to happen.
But interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:31:58):
Okay, so this is when when Halo two was first
shown at E three, and like, people should go look
up a video because I frequently, well I not frequently,
sometimes return to this video because of the goosebumps that
it still gives me because it was the first time
anyone had ever seen Halo two, and it is a

(01:32:21):
bespoke demo level that they made just for E three,
that's what they're saying. There's a moment in there, and
the best version of this video is the one that
has the crowd reaction because no one knew anything about
Halo two. And then there's a part in it where
master Chief like someone hands him a second submachine gun.
Yeah you're and then suddenly he's dual wielding them. And

(01:32:45):
if you find the video with the audience reaction, they
just lose their minds. And that's the part that gives
me chills because again, as like high school era, drew
watching this video that I got from my buddy on
a burn CD. It it yeah, was mind blowing, and
I just I don't know I just think back to,
you know, the leaps that we were making back then.

(01:33:06):
Like I'm sure you guys have memories of the first
time you saw like polygonal graphics, right second weapon in
Halo was up there with me for me in one
of those moments. Anyway, you can now play that level
on the PC version of the Master Chief Collection.

Speaker 1 (01:33:28):
What the fuck?

Speaker 2 (01:33:29):
Yeah, So if you have the if you own Master
Chief Collection on Steam, if you got to Steam Workshop,
there's a mod team that basically worked with Bungee or
I guess three or four three industries at this point
to take like they they I think they like copied
files from old Bungee dev like Xbox dev kits, and
then recompiled this thing because you know E three demos

(01:33:52):
are always smoking mirrors and like barely held together and
highly scripted. But they basically made a playable version of this, uh,
and it's it's free if you own the Master Reief Collection,
which is frequently on sale. And I played through this
this E three demo recently and it just brought the
biggest smile to my face. It is like it's a
pretty janky level, like if you deviate from the path

(01:34:15):
at all, it just breaks or it doesn't crash, but
you know, there's just there's nothing over there. But yeah,
I picked up the sub second submachine gun and jumped
on the ghost and yeah, it's just uh, I got
try that.

Speaker 1 (01:34:29):
I remember I watched that so much. Yeah, I what
a some version of Halo that I bought or some
like maybe my Xbox came with it that was on
a DVD or something that came with something I bought.
And I remember finally playing Halo two, and I love
that game. I still do. But I remember playing through

(01:34:51):
Outskirts the mission and thinking that it was going to
be that. I didn't understand that they made they crafted
that demo solely for E three. I was like, this
isn't okay. Maybe it's the next mission. And then I
kept playing and I was like, we've left Earth. I
don't know when that's going to happen. I didn't know
that it was, you know, like a bespoke thing. So
that's really cool that it exists. You know, I don't
know even if it's janky. I want to load that up.

(01:35:12):
Yeah that sounds aweso coool. Yeah, uh, do you guys
want to do emails?

Speaker 2 (01:35:19):
Sure, let's do it.

Speaker 1 (01:35:22):
Okay, Welcome back. As always, you can run into firescape
cast at gmail dot com for questions you want read
on the show or, in the case of one particular
email today, something that might be exonerating one of our
cast members. Although I don't agree with the email, we'll
get to it. That's firescape cast at gmail dot com. Mary,
I usually toss to you for the first one, but
I think it makes more sense if someone else reads

(01:35:43):
it because it's a reference to episode one hundred. We
decided the top sixty four games of all time. Yes, Mary,
you you said something that didn't you that It turned
my head as well, not just stands.

Speaker 2 (01:35:55):
The top sixty four games or the top Nintendo sixty
four games, top.

Speaker 1 (01:35:59):
Sorry, top sixty four games on any platform of all time.
It just sixty four made sense for the tournament bracket.
We did a bracket. Yeah, so it was weird where
like that that would sound like that until you asked,
because yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:36:11):
That's why he's here. The idea was, yeah, it's one
v ones in a bracket style tournament to determine the
best game of all time to us. And the way
I did it was I asked Dan and Mike and
myself to write your top twenty, and any game that
was in your top fifteen automatically made it, so that
was our forty five. Even if I didn't agree, right,

(01:36:33):
even if I was like, there's no reason that you
need to have eight Metal Gears, but all Metal Gears
were in Dan's top fifteen, so they were all in
our bracket list ye, and all Marios. And then to
fill out the rest of the sixty four, I picked
like really popular beloved games that just should be in
this list, like Tetris, and that's that's how the bracket

(01:36:56):
was constructed. So there was some debate because sometimes.

Speaker 1 (01:37:00):
Well, specifically, what this email is referencing is when Mary,
you told Dan and I that you think Diablo two
historically in the context of video games, is more important
than Mario sixty four. That was rheads. I still think
that's asinine, but I stand someone agreed with you. Our

(01:37:20):
friend Darien from Toronto wrote in and say, dearest, Scarpers
Quake came out the day before Mario sixty four. Games
would have figured out three D without the fat Plumber.
What's sixty four his legacy? More marios and three D
platformers become a niche genre for dinosaurs. Meanwhile, Diablo has
infected every game of every genre with this randomly generated loot,

(01:37:41):
skill trees, and repeatable, endless gameplay. As Leon Trotsky once said,
Mario sixty four belongs to the dustbin of history. Lots
of love. Darien from Toronto Bonus points if Dan knows
who Leon Trotzky is. So I still disagree, but these
valid points there. Mario sixty four wasn't the only thing
doing three D at the time. Okerina of Time was

(01:38:03):
doing this thing. It was after But yeah, and true,
you know, I didn't think of it in the context
of we really are chasing after loot and armor and
numbers go up in many, many in every genre today.
So it was there.

Speaker 3 (01:38:17):
It was iconic, and I don't think to Darien's point,
I actually don't think I articulated this very well. I knew,
here's what this is something that happens every once in
a while when we have an argument. But if we
have an argument and I've kind of know from the
beginning that I'm going to lose, I panic and then
I just start insulting you.

Speaker 1 (01:38:35):
And oh, yeah, you're saying this, Like I don't I
forgot I forgot.

Speaker 3 (01:38:39):
To make really good salient points about why Diablo genuinely
is extremely innovative. But as Darien is saying, like the
systems that it constructed are now staples in every video game,
for better or for worse, till the dawn of time,
everybody is doing this. I also think this was like
before a lot of stories of games had incredible carryover

(01:39:04):
from one to two, to three to four, and Diablo
two was one of the most like iconic, insane, mind
blowing endings of any game of all time and is
so fucking good. And so I just think like there
was these monumental things that Diablo did ahead of its
time that everybody was like, write that down, write that down,
and now we all do it. And that's why I
feel like it It really was a contender, but it's

(01:39:27):
not Mario, so like it didn't win.

Speaker 1 (01:39:29):
Okay, Yeah, you're saying.

Speaker 3 (01:39:34):
Look up, I don't need guess, I don't need you
to play kate me and tell me that it was right, Darien,
and I know it's right.

Speaker 1 (01:39:39):
Speaking of mind blowing endings, we talked about it ignoring
me last week.

Speaker 3 (01:39:44):
He's moving on. He's just pushing past what I said.

Speaker 1 (01:39:47):
No, we just you got your point across. You made
good points, and I meant that. We talked about m
night Shyamalan.

Speaker 2 (01:39:52):
Last episode, Mike, you said that the Happening was like
a fun movie speaking of we're speaking of respectful.

Speaker 1 (01:40:00):
No, did you just say moments I started that.

Speaker 2 (01:40:05):
Movie is bad? Movie is not good at all?

Speaker 1 (01:40:09):
Movie here with Zoey Deschanel.

Speaker 2 (01:40:13):
Yeah, deemable, Oh my god, I know what you're saying,
but I never saw the village.

Speaker 3 (01:40:23):
You're changing the point.

Speaker 1 (01:40:26):
I talked to myself into a hole where I'm like,
oh fuck, I really like I'm not Shyamalan.

Speaker 3 (01:40:31):
Last episode, beloved Shamalan lover Mike Mahardy.

Speaker 1 (01:40:37):
Thought wrong not to swing.

Speaker 2 (01:40:41):
No one brought up Unbreakable.

Speaker 1 (01:40:43):
I like Unbreakable quite a bit as well.

Speaker 2 (01:40:45):
Unbreakable is good.

Speaker 3 (01:40:46):
Unbreakable was the peak that was like it, and then
it was all downhill after that.

Speaker 1 (01:40:50):
I think, so, uh, this one, we could probably omit
this ps here. That's a fun anecdote, but just in
the interest of not reading a novel, you know who loves.

Speaker 2 (01:40:59):
Lady in the Water former Giant bomb designer Dave Snyder.
Lady in the Water.

Speaker 1 (01:41:06):
Yeah, that is if that would be the The Happening
or that would be the hardest for me to argue.
It'd good. I think that I really really enjoy The
Village despite the dumb twist. But like the first time
I saw that movie, I shit my pants, like and
I know everybody else did, so stop trying to act
like you didn't. Adrian Brodie's performance was questionable in hindsight.

(01:41:28):
But yeah, so let's read this. Mary. You want to
take this one from Eric, and again you can probably
omit the ps just because it's longer.

Speaker 3 (01:41:39):
Sure, sure here, Hey Gang, your talk.

Speaker 1 (01:41:43):
About the yeahs?

Speaker 3 (01:41:45):
Oh did you okay? Your talk about m Night Shamalan
last week got me excited. I love m Night Shamalan.
I find all of his late stage movies to be
pad in the best way possible. He kind of plays
a game of if this, then what In a lot
of his movies. Movies Split Old, The Visit and Trap
are enjoyable movies to watch once you realize he can't
write dialogue and maybe he has never spoken to a

(01:42:07):
person or a child. When he made The Happening, he
said he was trying to make a high budget B movie,
And if you watch all of his more recent films
that lends it's enjoyable. So to that point, who is
your favorite mid director? A mid director is a person
who's arguably has great films like The Sixth Sense or Unbreakable,

(01:42:29):
but also has a lot of trash and a lot
of cases you enjoyed both, my boy minaj Oh, I'm
not gonna say this, right, M Night Shyamalan is mine?
Who is yours?

Speaker 1 (01:42:40):
If M Night Shyamalan is the measure of a mid director?
I think my other favorite mid directors are probably Francis Ford.
Coppola has done some great stuff. No, the person that
came to mind for this is probably someone like not
Paul Thomas Anderson, the Paul W. S. Anderson did Event

(01:43:04):
Horizon stuff like that. What else did he do that?

Speaker 2 (01:43:07):
I gotta look at the Resident movies, Yes, Like I
love that ship Like that's I like when people are
doing B movie stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (01:43:16):
What the hell do you?

Speaker 2 (01:43:17):
That was you?

Speaker 1 (01:43:18):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:43:18):
Did you guys?

Speaker 1 (01:43:19):
Hear that?

Speaker 3 (01:43:19):
Everybody heard that?

Speaker 2 (01:43:24):
That was definitely a fighter jet?

Speaker 3 (01:43:25):
Is your ride here to pick you up?

Speaker 1 (01:43:30):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (01:43:30):
It is not fleet weeek Fleet weeek is later. So
I don't know why there is a fighter jet flying
over that's uh slightly distressed.

Speaker 1 (01:43:39):
CNN for a second and just double check. Yeah, I
think Paul W. S Anderson is.

Speaker 2 (01:43:45):
That's a good one is up there, but like there's
problems and Paul W.

Speaker 1 (01:43:52):
S Anderson not the is my favorite director period and incredible,
but and I can't fucking wait for one battle after another.
His upcoming movie with Leo DiCaprio, based on Vineland by
Thomas Pinchin so many of my douchey interests.

Speaker 2 (01:44:13):
No, Paul W.

Speaker 1 (01:44:14):
S Anderson very very different.

Speaker 2 (01:44:17):
I think mine is. See this is this is hard
because like imagine to be offensive to some people, you know,
like I can't believe you'd call him a mid director,
but like, please know that I say this with love.
Paul Verhoven. I love RoboCop, Total Recall Starship Troopers. I've

(01:44:43):
not seen show Girls. I've heard that it like horrific
reviews but also is well loved by Verhoven fans. I've
also heard his most recent film, Benedetta is is pretty good.

Speaker 1 (01:44:59):
So it's a good.

Speaker 2 (01:45:00):
That's that's a director who I have not watched his
entire filmography, but I would.

Speaker 1 (01:45:05):
Yeah, I'm married. Do you have anyone that comes to
mind because I just thought of someone else.

Speaker 3 (01:45:08):
I mean, I don't know if this counts, but I
think actually Sophia Coppola might be like mid and I
hope that is also not offensive. I think that there
are films and Lost in Translation is like so iconic
and like so important to me, and I think it
was like a beautifully made film, and then they've also
made like The Big Guiled and like stuff that I
don't care for and like.

Speaker 1 (01:45:29):
Didn't you like Marie Antoinette.

Speaker 3 (01:45:31):
It's okay. I just think there's like a lot of
back and forth with me on Sofia Coppola, But I
do like their ability to like navigate characters, and I
don't know, I think there's I think there's really good
meat there. But I also have like watched UF and
be like where are they? Where were they on this?
Like what was the point of this?

Speaker 1 (01:45:48):
I don't know. I've my wife recently showed me Marie
Antoinette for the first time, and I think we both
agreed it's not a phenomenally like written or directed movie.
But Mike, God, the set dressing and like the set design,
the costume design is.

Speaker 3 (01:46:03):
The pieces were there?

Speaker 1 (01:46:04):
Man? Yeah, it's really good. The other person that came
to mind for me is again I I almost wouldn't
even call him mid. I think the both of these directors,
the first one that's going to piss people off is
Darren Aronofsky.

Speaker 2 (01:46:21):
Yeah the edge.

Speaker 3 (01:46:23):
No.

Speaker 1 (01:46:24):
I love Black Swan. I when I was eighteen, I
loved Requiem for a Dream. I don't anymore. Well, I
haven't watched it in a long time. I don't plan My.

Speaker 3 (01:46:35):
Club is your only favorite movie?

Speaker 1 (01:46:37):
Now? Mother was way over my head.

Speaker 3 (01:46:40):
That was a crazy thing.

Speaker 1 (01:46:41):
Or I completely understood what he was trying to do
and just hated it. Either way, Uh, and then what
was it? What's it? A? Noah, He's got a bunch.
I love some of his movies others. I think this
suits the email's definition in the way that he's made
some in one in my mind, some phenomenal movies, but
others that I just really I don't think he's got
the batting average of the greats.

Speaker 3 (01:47:01):
Yeah, oh, I got a really good one. Go for it,
Rob Zombie. We're gonna get this guy's mid A shit
House of a thousand Corpses is fucking brilliant. It's so good,
it's fucked up It's an absolute classic horror film. He
knew exactly what he was doing. The Devil's Rejects is

(01:47:21):
also wild and takes some massive swings. There's like a
ten minute end sequence that is just like all set
to a song. It's so wild. And then he also
made Halloween and it's just like what happened here? And
the monsters like where's where this guy? Like lost the
sauce somewhere? But like, dude, the original components of these
films were so good.

Speaker 1 (01:47:40):
So Rob Zombie, Yeah, the one that came to mind.
I think I was. I took some time to to
say he sucks in a few a few episodes ago,
is h Nicholas Vinding Refin? I rewatched? Was that on Firescape?
I talked about rewatching I rewatched Drive like a year
or two ago.

Speaker 3 (01:47:56):
Oh right, and you didn't like it?

Speaker 1 (01:47:57):
It was Oncape.

Speaker 3 (01:47:58):
You didn't and you didn't like Can you be coming Dan?

Speaker 1 (01:48:01):
No? Wait what? No?

Speaker 3 (01:48:02):
He doesn't forgot?

Speaker 2 (01:48:04):
No.

Speaker 1 (01:48:05):
But this is because I this is more because I
always talk about how much I disliked Nicholas finding Refin Again,
I'm just I'm being harsh because I last time I
watched Bronson, that movie was awesome when I watched the
Pusher trilogy. I like those quite a bit. It's when
it gets to like revisiting Drive, which again I think
there are some cool parts. I think the overall vibe

(01:48:27):
of it, aside from the soundtrack, is just not held up.
Of Ryan Gosling and Carrie Mulligan staring at each other
wordlessly for thirty seconds on end is no longer romantic
to me. And then, oh, my God, Only God Forgives.
I know Nicholas finding Refin is the biggest Only God
Forgives fan in the world, and I don't want to
offend him, but I still think that movie is dogshit. Yeah,

(01:48:49):
he fits the bill in the sense of, like, if anything,
I think I don't even calling him mid might be
doing him some favors. I know Hideo Kojima and him
are good friends, as Nickola likes to say every chance
he gets anyone. Who Yeah, I think it's just like
maybe I just don't like the guy, which is fine,
I don't need to, but uh, yeah, I need to.

(01:49:11):
I need to like go back and watch Bronson at
some point to see if I still like anything of
his that much. And then there's one more I'm forgetting.
I think it's Valhalla. It was called Holla Rising Valizing.
I haven't watched that in a while either, But anyway, Drew,
you have anybody else?

Speaker 2 (01:49:26):
Yeah, I've got one more. Uh Roland Emeric who did
Universal Soldier. Okay, Stargate Independence Day. If you don't like
Independence Day, you're a bad person. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:49:40):
I saw Stargate in theaters and it worked my baby mind.

Speaker 1 (01:49:44):
Yeah, you should replace your eyes and your ears and
your brain if you don't like Independence Day. Nineteen ninety eight,
Godzilla was that the one with Green Day doing the theme?

Speaker 2 (01:49:54):
That was one with the eggs with the eggs in
Madison Square Garden.

Speaker 3 (01:49:58):
I saw that in theaters too. I was a believer.
Everybody walked out of that film and was like, what
a mess? And I was like, but the eggs they
are hatching at the same time. It was like Jurassic
Parking there. It was crazy, such a good film.

Speaker 2 (01:50:12):
You followed that up with The Patriots starring Mel Gibson.

Speaker 1 (01:50:17):
I got admit. I have to admit, he wales on
those dudes with those hatchets that movie. The scene, I
will say, what the fucking scene where he Okay, it's
like I'm going to spoil this movie. If you haven't seen,
it's your fault. And also if you don't want to
watch something with mel Gibson, and I'm gonna spoil it
so you don't have to. There's a scene his one

(01:50:39):
of his I think his eldest son gets killed by Oh,
Jason Isaacs of White Lotus season three Fame. Now he
plays Peter Right, the dude from North Carolina, the rich dude,
white family dad.

Speaker 3 (01:50:53):
They're all with rich and white.

Speaker 1 (01:50:57):
He's Jason Isaacs was.

Speaker 3 (01:51:00):
Specific yeah, yeah, a great villain, the.

Speaker 1 (01:51:03):
Villain and the patriot who kills Mel Gibson, who is
a former was at this like he's got PTSD from
this like massacre where they killed a lot of Native
American Indians at this fort during the French Indian War.
I believe mel Gibson character, his oldest son gets killed
by Jason Isaac's like executed memory serves. And then mel

(01:51:26):
Gibson like basically gives his two very young sons rifles
and he's like follow me, and they've sprint into the
woods and he sets up an ambush in the woods
with his like two preteen sons to kill like this
squad of redcoats and he's got like rifles placed at
strategic points along the path. And it's tense as fuck

(01:51:48):
because he's telling his like eight year old son, hey,
do not shoot until until basically yeah, and then he's like,
don't shoot until I shoot, and then I'm gonna be
rinting around. It's actually pretty tense. I haven't seen in years,
but I remember that scene like sweating watching it.

Speaker 2 (01:52:06):
But the end of that movie, so he finally the
showdown at the very movies like almost three hours long.
It's so it does not need but it's it's it's
him and the bad guy finally facing off on this
battlefield and Jason Isaacs is charging toward Mail Gibson, who's
on foot. Isaacs is on a horse. Mel Gibson, uh

(01:52:30):
grabs an American flag and h'its it in the ground
and then stabs his horse as it's running as he is.

Speaker 1 (01:52:38):
The best movie. I don't know if this is a
mid director we're talking about. This is like, in that
same battle, you see a cannon ball like kind of
bouncing low on the ground. It hits some guy's shin
and takes his leg off. It's good stuff, but yeah,
then he made Yeah, anyway, day after tomorrow. What yeah,

(01:52:58):
speaking of solar storms, Mary, maybe that's what he was.

Speaker 3 (01:53:01):
A filmography, yeah, too soon?

Speaker 2 (01:53:04):
Yes, yeah, and uh, what's his name, Dennis Quaid? Yeah,
twenty twelve, White House Down and I have yet to
see Moonfall. Sounds like that's where the moon falls. It's
a spoiler.

Speaker 3 (01:53:26):
Yeah. Interesting, what a fucking filmography. That is crazy. That
is a crazy path to take. Hollyween.

Speaker 2 (01:53:34):
Also Yondabon, who did Speed and Twister? Which are there?
Those are just bangers?

Speaker 3 (01:53:39):
Well, that's just not mid That person's just you're right perfect. Wait,
I'm sorry. What else besides Speed and Twister or just
that's it.

Speaker 2 (01:53:46):
That's pretty much it. Yondbon also did Speed to Cruise Control.

Speaker 3 (01:53:51):
Okay, they're a perfect, perfect director.

Speaker 2 (01:53:54):
Yes. And one of the tomb Raider movies, which one
was yeah, oh life, Oh Gerard Butler and that silver
skin suit.

Speaker 1 (01:54:05):
I think I've seen it. I'm pretty sure something tells
me something deep in the recesses of my brain.

Speaker 3 (01:54:14):
Is that when you had your first awakening.

Speaker 1 (01:54:16):
Oh, I had many many awakenings to that movie, if
you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:54:23):
Yes, And nineteen ninety nine's The Haunting with William Neeson
and Catherine Z Jones speed Liam Neeson. Oh my god,
I am so excited for the Naked Gun.

Speaker 3 (01:54:32):
Oh that looks very funny. Yes, the end joke is
what kind of made me realize that they are going
to have a spicy sense of humor with this fel.
It's very important that the Naked Gun didn't just it
wasn't just funny. It was like kind of dangerous funny.
They took some risks. If you haven't seen it yet,

(01:54:53):
everybody should watch the trailer because that trailer will tell
you that they are taking risks with this movie. They
are going. I think it's good. It's good stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:55:02):
I recently started. I think it was Naked Gun Forget.
Maybe it was the sequel. It starts off when there's
like this drug deal going down on the docks somewhere
and they're in a boat house and none other than
oj Simpson shows up, like as I think it's part
of this drug deal, and the bit where he dies
basically or again, I didn't go past the scene. He's

(01:55:23):
just like he gets shot a bunch and then he's
stumbling around this boat house and falling into different things.
At one point there's just a full wedding cake in
the corner that he like face plants into before he
falls over the railing into the ocean. Y. Yeahhh that
kind of shit. So I'm glad it's coming back as well.

Speaker 3 (01:55:40):
I love that shit too, Like that's such a golden era.
And like I was raised where my dad was like,
you're finally over old enough. We're watching Airplane, and it's
just like it was important that I watched this piece
of cinema, but he had to wait until he was like,
you are now ready for the scene where everyone's I

(01:56:03):
was still pretty young. For the record, I think he
was like, you can handle a pair of tits that
are just hanging out on this scene, and so like
it was just a funny, funny time. But I mean,
I to this day if that movie is on, like
if I'm like in a hotel or whatever and I'm
just like sifting through cable ud finding that is like
finding a gold mine.

Speaker 2 (01:56:22):
It's so good. All those movies Wrongfully Accused is really good.
People don't know a lot I haven't. It seems like
not a lot of people have seen Top Secret, which
is the one they made that team made before Airplane
starts val Kilmer ri ip shit, that one's really good too.

Speaker 3 (01:56:40):
It's been years, but I have I just think I
like spoofs in general. I mean I always like hot
Shots and hot Shots Part two. Yes, they're just really
important to me.

Speaker 2 (01:56:50):
Yes, yes, me too.

Speaker 1 (01:56:53):
We're gonna get a lot of emails after this episode.
It's gonna be fun.

Speaker 2 (01:56:56):
Well, that's our show. Good stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:56:59):
Thanks so much for joining us. True again.

Speaker 2 (01:57:01):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:57:02):
You can right into Firescape pass at gmail dot com. Also,
if you're not a patron and you want to be,
you can go get add free versions of the audio episode.
You can go get video versions of all the episodes.
You can also get access to our bonus videos. We
did a co op with Dan and Jake, Mary and
I which is a very fun game. If you played
fast fun or lethal company or trying to scratch that

(01:57:22):
edge with something even funnier it's still like horror based,
then go check out Repo on Steam. We also, I'm
Vinnie and I are cruising along with our co op
series and Total War Warhammer three. I believe next week
we'll be putting up today. If you're listening to this,
when this episode goes up, there's a new episode over
on next Lander in our evil campaign, I think that's

(01:57:44):
the first one where I believe I get into a
full on, like army on army battle with the vampire
zombie pirates.

Speaker 2 (01:57:54):
That'll be fun.

Speaker 1 (01:57:54):
And then we'll have the new episode up on fire
Escape or Mike and Vinnie save the world as opposed
to to destroy it next week on fire Escape.

Speaker 3 (01:58:03):
True, what do you have going on all to F
one and all the other projects you have?

Speaker 2 (01:58:09):
Yes, it's now called Shift F one.

Speaker 1 (01:58:11):
Damn it.

Speaker 2 (01:58:14):
We change the name after after we both left CBS,
I ja.

Speaker 1 (01:58:20):
Change what I said, more elegant name change. Mary and
I had Resident can Evil and then we left CBSI
and just call it Resident Kanini.

Speaker 3 (01:58:28):
It doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 1 (01:58:30):
Someone someone said it one of our fans, and anyway, sorry,
Shift F one.

Speaker 2 (01:58:35):
It's a it's a Formula one podcast. We do a
we kick off the season which actually just started with
only two races in and Aria. There is so much
drama and F one. It's great. This like one of
the leading teams kicked out their driver after two races
because he sucked so much. Yeah, I mean it's a
soap opera. That's why we love it. But our first
episode every season is like the It's like a double

(01:58:58):
length episode that assumes that you know nothing about motor
sports and like tells you all about how the sport
works and who everybody is. So it's like our onboarding episode.
So if you're curious, you can go back and and
watch that or listen to that. I do it with
Daniel Dwyer of No Clip and Rob Zacney of Remap

(01:59:20):
Three Moves Ahead. I'm not sure Rob is still on that.
The show is still going, but I'm not I'm not
sure he's still on it.

Speaker 3 (01:59:27):
And I have a I.

Speaker 2 (01:59:28):
Recently started another podcast, really unique idea. Uh, it's a
movie podcast with my wife. I don't know if you've
ever heard of maybe Dan No. I mean it's called Yes,

(01:59:48):
it's called I Think It's about And one of us
has seen a movie and the other has not, and
the one who hasn't seen it tries to guess what
it's about based on just like the cultural osmosis, like
what they've heard it's about, or like just looking at
the poster, and then we watch it and see how
right they were.

Speaker 3 (02:00:05):
That's a funny idea.

Speaker 1 (02:00:07):
I like that.

Speaker 3 (02:00:08):
That's really cool. Has it been around for how long
have you guys been doing that?

Speaker 2 (02:00:13):
We are fourteen episodes, okay, I think yeah, yeah, hard swings.
We we did Pride and Prejudice followed by predators.

Speaker 1 (02:00:24):
Oh, predator could get pretty interesting if you really don't
know much about it.

Speaker 3 (02:00:29):
Yeah, Pride and Prejudice and predator could be described similarly.
Go hunt, it's a hunt. There is uh, that's it.

Speaker 1 (02:00:45):
Someone comes with mud in both of them.

Speaker 2 (02:00:49):
That's true.

Speaker 3 (02:00:49):
The weather is involved.

Speaker 1 (02:00:52):
Ye, mister Dassi, I can't see you. You have mud
all over you. So yeah, I do want to give
a shout to Daniel Dwyer, the the second most Irish
person in the video game industry. What do you have
going on?

Speaker 3 (02:01:04):
I'm still streaming on Twitch on Mondays. That's actually how
I played. Was it called dote open the curtains or
open the door or just look outside? Look outside? So
as I remembered perfectly. I think what's fun about this
dynamic is often I will stream those games there first
and then I will talk about them here. So if

(02:01:25):
you hang out and watch the streams, you might catch
me playing a game that I'll end up chatting about
on this podcast, which is fun. You get to experience
it before we chat about it. So that's really it.
That's all I'm up to.

Speaker 1 (02:01:38):
Cool, I'm just doing my day job. It's not forward facing.
This is mainly the forward facing stuff I do. And
that's about it. Thanks everybody for joining.

Speaker 2 (02:01:48):
We'll be back in two weeks.

Speaker 1 (02:01:50):
Like I said, go subscribe to the Patreon if you
want to, and you haven't yet. We're on the subscription
model now, so it's not going to charge you on
the first of every month. It's going to just charge
you on the day that you actually sign up every month,
which is a nice quality of life thing. Drew, thank
you so much for joining. Yeah, thanks for having me.
This was fun, of course. I can't believe it took
this long. Yeah, we always have people on. We're like,
why have you not been on before? We don't have

(02:02:12):
subs often, we're usually we're usually around, but you know,
Dan's globe trotting do whatever he's doing, going to see Stuffy.

Speaker 3 (02:02:19):
I might be gone next EPI because I think I'm
going to Saint Jude. But we can eat chat about
it offline. But then two weeks and Twitch always goes
to Saint Jude to learn about how we can help
support creators who are raising money for Saint Jude Charity Hospital.
It's a wonderful organization, so cool. Maybe I'll talk about
that next time I'm hanging out with you.

Speaker 1 (02:02:38):
Guys for sure. All right, Well, we will be back
in two weeks with our one hundred fifth episode. Thanks
everybody for joining. Until then, have good time. Bye.

Speaker 2 (02:03:08):
St.