The Giant Beastcast: Episode 310

Jeff Bakalar goes into Returnal, while Alex talks about We Are the Caretakers, and we learn a little about turnips and tax evasion. We've also got the news, your emails, and much more!

Episode Transcript

(00:11):
Hello, everybody, Welcome back tothe Giant arm Cast. How's it going
everybody? It's the Giant Beast Cast. You're listening to it here. If
you're listening to it right now,this is very second, then I'm speaking.
You're listening to a live through thepower of the Internet. Is it
number one show? The number oneshow out there? They have cleared the

(00:33):
lanes for the Giant Beast Cast.All Internet traffic has stopped coming straight on
through to your ear holes. Thankseverybody for listening. It is episode three
hundred and ten. It is Apriltwenty ninth. Or if it's a Friday
and you're not listening to this live, Tapril thirtieth, goodbye, April wear
view mirror, see you later.Ronto May We're the good where the good

(00:58):
birthdays happened. I'm joining by AlexNavarro. Let me clear my throat.
Oh okay, A reference? Idid it? I get it. That's
really all I have. Okay isthis? Yes? Okay? Sure go
introduce me please? Okay, baclarUh, how's it going? It's going

(01:23):
great here about how's it about you? How did I have the better intro
a bit than you? Because hejust cried yeah, I was I supposed
to do some sort of body soundor do a do a body sound,
give him a body sound. Ididn't like that at all. Why would

(01:44):
you do that? Why is thishappening? Uh? I woke I just
woke up with really bad allergies andmy face feels like it's melting off and
it's just like the worst. Ihate pollen so much, it's so stupid.
Why is this how we evolve?Why? Why? I ask you
why? There are a lot ofthings about how life has evolved on Earth

(02:07):
that or maybe not the most practicalapplications that you could think of. I
just don't get it. I don'tunderstand you. Ever seen the pressure in
my face? It feels like somethingis trying flames flames out of my ears.
It's just the side. It justseems like I don't know, I

(02:30):
don't know, like something in myin between my eyes is trying to escape,
grouse the center of my head.It's bad. Have you ever seen
them that Shamalan movie with the trees. You're talking about the happening? Yes,
the happening? Is that really whatit's called? Yeah, it's called

(02:50):
the happening, and it's the dumbestfucking movie ever made its way up there,
and you know, like that's thething, right, Like that guy's
got a couple of good ideas.You know. I have a friend who
was always like, man, he'sgetting back at somebody after all these movies,
like sixth Cents was great, right, and then like he makes all
these movies that people like are throwingshit at the screen, Agreed, Agreed,

(03:16):
Unbreakable, I'm there with you,but with like The Village and all
this shit, when he was justsort of like getting back at everyone in
his life or something like I don'tknow what. He's got a grudge or
some sort of vendetta against people whohave wronged him, and he's made he
made everyone forced and forced everyone tosee his movies. And this is I
was getting back at everyone. He'slike, I'm gonna fucking run this movie.

(03:40):
And I got yeah, what's afunny plot line? Though, Like
a great a great director like makestwo really great films and then just tanks
the rest just to get back atpeople who wronged him over the years,
just like Scorceseum. Al Right,Oh, I'm just kidding, boys.
I didn't realize we were bringing outthe good actually really enjoyed. I celebrate

(04:05):
the entire catalog now I do.What was the one with the ambulance?
I like that one? Bring Outthe Bringing Out the Dead? Yeah?
Yeah, I like that one too. I even like that one. What's
the what's the other the movies inthe Unbreakable Like trilogy? It was like
the Monster Doctor Glass. I thinkGlass is just what people liked the one

(04:27):
before that, didn't they? Yeah, I hadn't seen I have not seen
the other two and I stopped.Yeah, I stopped watching. No,
No, it wasn't Ed Norton.It was the guy who played Professor x
in Ye, James McAvoy. Yeah, yeah, no. I The last
Shamalan thing that I saw was thatmovie Devil, which I don't didn just

(04:49):
wrote it and produced it. Butthe one that's like stuck in an a
bunch of people stuck in an elevatorand also one of them might be Satan.
You're right, wait, is thatlad? Because you're making it?
He produced it, I don't rememberif he directed it. Maybe he is
just making movies. What if I'mjust saying, all right, what's your
next thing? Okay? Where arewe? Were in an elevator? Now
and what if what if one ofyou were the Devil's satan and uh,

(05:15):
we're really going down? What aboutthat? Oh he's a genius. I
don't know. I like his movies. I think they're fun. I think
they're corny. I like Signs.I think that's a fun movie. I
like Signs is real good until youfind it get to the end. Thank
you. That's that? Everything well? No, because I think the end
of the sixth Sense is actually reallywell done, and the end of Unbreakable

(05:35):
is like a little less well done, but it still works. Everything else
he's the problem is. I thinkhe he got cornered as the twist director
of a guy who makes the twistmovies, and then he ran out of
twists and he just didn't know whatthe fuck to do. Yeah, I
mean like he's like, well,I guess I got to write everything backwards
now forever. You know, didyou guys see the movie where you Couldn't

(06:00):
make a sound or the Monsters eatyou? Oh that's the John Kynsky Quiet
Place would get right. I don'tknow. I think he was in that.
You think I haven't seen it.I haven't seen that. Haven't seen
bird Box. I haven't seen anyof that weird selection of horror where it's
like you can't use one of yoursensence sensory horror. What's bird Box like

(06:24):
Sandra Bullet, Like it's you hadto be blind, like you had to
you could not look at the aliensor they would kill it because the aliens
that I've never seen this slender Manis that the plot of slender Man.
I think you can't stare at slenderMan. Well, I think you're not
supposed to look at slender Man.I like the fact that like, uh,
you know, you got to beblind and like the alien goes through

(06:46):
your eye holes that's how it happens. I haven't seen it. I haven't
seen it. Yeah, I onlyknow as Sandra Bullock is it and it's
apparently terrible. I've never seen it. Oh I didn't know it's bad.
Okay, Well, look, nothingcan be perfect except for except for Sandra
Bullock. Speed is a perfect perfectYeah. It does exactly what it sets

(07:11):
out to do, and it doesit near flawlessly. Speed's real good.
Wildcat I also hear, yeah,you tell that wildcat behind the wheel,
just camera, camera and then andthen god Keanu Reeve is just everything he
says in that movie is just sostrange, the way he says everything.
He's just sort of like he cansee you. You got calar Reeves should

(07:39):
be in a Fast and Furious.I feel like that's that's a cross over
like a John Wick. I thinkit's too intense for him. He thinks,
slow it down. He is prettyintense. Yeah, but but Keanu
Reeves has a certain sort of likeslyness about him and yeah, very slow
pouring like yeah, like kind ofyou know, monotone talkers. That's kind

(08:01):
of what I'm saying. Like there'slike a similar vibe I'm getting from modern
Final Fantasy, from modern fest andFurious and like a like a John Wick
like absurdist, ridiculous but high intenseaction thing that you know, those those
are all heroes now, it's JohnWick. It's how old's Ben Diesel one

(08:22):
hundred and fourteen forties. I don'tknow, forties, Say he is like
sixty seven or something. He's like, oh, he's all he was forty
when he was born, isn't thathe's uh fifty three? Yeah, okay,
fifty three. That makes sense.I would have said late forties,

(08:43):
but I'll believe it. All right, Hey folks, you're listening to Giant
Beats cast. We've got just dothis more. What let's just do this
more to talk about jump Vin Diesel'sage. Yes, specifically Vin Diesel's age.
Let's talk about a deconstruction. Ithas been the mak you feel to
dedicate a podcasts every year we talka little bit about Vin Diesel's age,

(09:03):
and every day of that year wetalked about what was life like back in
let's see fifty three. You saidit's yeah, to do the math,
that's seventy sixty. No, it'ssixty six, sixty eight, sixty seven?
What sixty? Every year, everyday on the podcast, we figured
this one over. Here's the podcast. The podcast is is going over actors

(09:31):
and actresses that you can't believe theirage. Oh my god, the whole
podcast still live passer with us.Okay, like that's the podcast. That's
the pitch for the new podcast.Okay, that's really remind me again,
how old was Wilford Brimley and Cocoon? Uh, the same age as Tom
Cruise is five years ago when thatthing came out. Because I'm trying to

(09:54):
think, like, because there's athere's a Twitter account that lets you know
when actors have a reached the lineof how old. Uh he was in
Cocoon. Yeah, so it waseighty five. He would have been fifty
one. Yeah in Cocoon, whichmeans that Vin Diesel has crossed the Wilford

(10:16):
Brimley Cocoon lot. He's he's crossedthe Brimley line. Yeah, and he
only died last year, last yearof the year before twenty twenty. Wow,
you do you remember seeing him inwhat was that grissom one? Was
it the firm? Oh my gosh, he is he's menacing. Holy cow
that that nice old man telling youquake roads and talking about your cholesterol.

(10:37):
He could do some business to you. Uh. That's part is when Tom
Cruise just just stripped kicks at theship out of Wilford Brimley like it is.
It is a jarring but also hilariousmoment. Man. Uh you you
tell you tell Seahawks over there?Is that what you're wearing? Thunder Hawk?
What are you wearing? Blacklar?This is a Mighty Ducks Hawks shirt.

(11:01):
Okay, it doesn't really make sense. Just the other team, the
other team. It's what Adam Bonsthe team Adam Banks was on the team.
That's what this shirt and that that'swhat this shirt is doing. This
shirt says, screw the Mighty Ducks, the Hawks should have won. Familio
Estevez, Yeah, what do youhave against Amelio? I don't have anything

(11:24):
against him. But have you seenthe trailer for the new Mighty Ducks thing?
Yeah? What is that? Isthat a show? Is it a
movie? What are they doing?It's a show on Disney Plus? Okay,
And like somehow Emilio is like inhis late fifties or early sixties,
and the guy is still so fuckingbitter over hockey. It's like unbelievable.
It's just like he owns the rinkand they're just and he's just like fuck

(11:46):
hockey, like he started, like, dude, you still don't like hockey,
You still don't like this thing.You've had to love all these movies
before they started off. And he'slike pissed that he works, at least
I think since the last time,probably even more since the last time he
appeared in one of those things.Yeah, I just I don't I'm not
buying the whole Like you hate hockeyagain? There you did our best hockey

(12:09):
movie slap shot. Yeah, Imean those are good. You know what's
really good, even though it involvesthe New York Rangers is Mystery Alaska.
That one. I know that it'sfun. That's a fun hockey movie.
Good Goon's pretty good, Cutting Edge. That's not a hockey, that's ice
skating. That's just an ice movie. He's place hockey. Though that movie

(12:31):
is also so blown out, Likethe way they shot that movie, it's
like there's no focus on anything.It's amazing. Stacey wash it the other
day and I was just like,god, I can't even make out what's
going on in this movie. Iam not the biggest fan of like big
sports, like biopics, like theones that are like real sports moments made
a movie because you know, drama. But the one about the US hockey

(12:52):
team being Russia a miracle, Yeah, miracles with Kurt Russell is one's hair,
and that is unfably good. Dynamite, dynamite. But it's also it's
just a really well made movie.Like it's very exciting for sure. Yeah,
I like that one. Hockey moviesare fun. Hockey movies can be
fun. Yeah, hockey might bethe one sport that actually translates better to

(13:15):
movies than it does in real life. I that's a that's a specific statement,
but I have to support it.I mean, what's the best football
movie? Uh, there are none. It might actually be any given Sunday,
which is unfortunate. I think itactually might be the best football movie
that Wildcats wild There you go end? Yeah, okay, we did it

(13:39):
who just like we did in thescript A to B two C. I
played a game called turn Up BoyCommits Tax Evasion. And if you can't
just say things like that, okay, turn up Boy commits tax Evasion the
mad libs of a of a game. I played it on Steam a bonnet.
It was fun. It's pretty muchWhy did turn up Boy commits task?

(14:05):
It looked it looked charming. It'sit looked. It wasn't very expensive.
I don't know. I think itwas like twelve bucks. Uh.
It is Uh, it is asmall project, but it is. It
is fun. I think the worldis really interesting, especially as you continue
to go on in it. Well, it's mostly about Turnable Boy and the
rest of the vegetables. It iskind of a I've heard it described as

(14:28):
a Zelda like you know it isin the sense of like a link to
the past. Zelda like to imaginethat pixel art, but I don't know
if I'd go that far. It'sit's kind of a itometric, you know,
adventure game where you run around youget some other items that open up
other paths. So that is Zeldaish. But it's charming, it's quick,

(14:50):
it controls. Okay, it's onlya couple of map screens, but
you're in there for the that twelvedollars experience, and I enjoyed it.
Turn Up Boy commits ta excavasion inthe sense of humor, like hits more
than their misses. I think it'spretty pretty pretty good, pretty good,
pretty pretty good, short little Youwant to commit tax evasion? Oh?
That didn't need turn the Boy tohelp me. Want to commit tax evasion?

(15:11):
No, I like everybody tax evasion. No I don't. No,
you say that, but like ifyour account was just like hey, Caravelli,
yeah, hey, thanks for holdingmister Caravelli. How can I saved
you eleven hundred dollars this year?No, I want to say, No,
I need my libraries, I needmy roads and uh passing along the

(15:33):
savings to you there, Caravelli.I need uh, passing along to the
public schools. They need the money, Go go go get them more.
Go can't go fill in those puzzles, go go do it to spend the
money. Wisely, I kind ofwish it was like, uh what it
was like Humble Bundle when you doyour taxes right, Like where do you

(15:54):
want your money to go? Sudjustthe sliders just be like, what are
you thinking? Public schools, bombs, U fighter jets, aircraft carriers,
potholes, you really like to getthe local police department and anti aircraft one.
I'm gonna go, okay, allthe sanitation, yeah, water.

(16:17):
See the joke. And the counterargument to that is that, like,
well, no one would want tothrow their money at you know, the
you know, the police department andthe military and you know, the fucking
f thirty eight program or whatever thefuck. But you know what, actually
in this country, there's actually probablya decent number of people that would only
pick just just pinning them pinning theslide on the anti aircraft gun because you

(16:37):
never know, ye, we reallycould use a second tank for your local
police department, tank number two.You've already got tank number one. We
have tank numbers. We're asking youfor tank number two. Well, the
kids love it on field day,they like what happened? Oh, this
is an event where tank number oneis destroy All right, Well, I
have to think about it. Haveyou ever played the game combat? Like,
how you can do that with onetank? You need two tanks and

(17:00):
then we're gonna make them. It'sa two tankment of them. How are
we going to practice against other tanksif we don't have another tank? We
want another tank because this one's lonely. One tank just looks silly. Uh
okay, anyway, turn a boycommits taxation. I believe it's on other
platforms. I played it on thePC through Steam as played some more Outriders,

(17:23):
and I continue to enjoy that game. I think I'm getting a little
bit more in the grind of it, but I am continuing to join it.
I'm still playing it's solo, Stilltrying to convince my brothers to jump
in on the Outriders and they're like, do we want to do this?
I'm like, and I say,I don't know if I can confidently say

(17:47):
let's do this. So trying totell you what's tough can be honest with
the two of you Okay, mybrother lives one of my brothers lives in
Australia. Oh kay, daddie,why you I'm gonna be honest with you.
Here's a lot. Yeah, that'snot a real place. I'm gonna
be honest with you. Australia reallyexists now and they really use tomato sauce
a difference. Uh. And itis hard to schedule game time with somebody

(18:12):
in an upside down time zone.That is just like, hey, can
you wake up at three am?But to play? Because I need to.
We need to schedule this both aroundwork and listen, I'm sure our
time zone is upside down for you, but it's something like sixteen hours or
something like that. When you saythat, though, you make it act
like the Eastern time zone is theone that really counts. It is.

(18:37):
Look, we all know that's true. We do know this that it's true.
This Eastern time zone is really thecore. It's the it's the anchor
of time piller. It's the pillar. But you don't want to be right
there. You don't want to beGreenwich meantime. You want to be a
little bit off. Yeah, butabout five hours off. It does seem
like we have not really wrapped ourheads around time zones like dumb, we

(19:02):
shouldn't do them. So so whatdo you propose it at the same time
we do? Wait, as wedo? As we do? Yes,
you're right that that involves the lights. We have lights and electricity. We
why can't we do this back alarbut I could. But but let's try
and be serious about it, becauseI think maybe, oh well, I
think, why can't we have auniversal time zone? These people got to

(19:25):
get up at different times with thesun. No, I'm just being a
universal time Yes, yes, thatis Swatch Internet Time. Go talk to
Jeff Gerson. Yeah, why don'tyou start learning Esperanto while you're at it?
He he he does he subscribe toUniversal Times. I want to say,
at some point we were going tomake everything on the site uh universe
universal Swatch Internet Time and have thatbe how we do the schedule. Huh

(19:49):
all right, yeah, it's uhyeah go uh. I didn't get the
memo on that. I thought itwas part of the thing now and I
just didn't get the would you switchover to a twenty four hour clock though?
If it meant that time zones aredead and gone? Yeah, I
think I feel like a big chunkof the planet. Does the twenty four

(20:10):
hour time thing? What is it? You know, here's a here's a
really silly question, but they're notno silly questions as silly people. Have
you, guys ever seen a twentyfour hour analog clock? Does it just
go? Yeah? Was it tojust go twelve and then it says thirteen
fourteen and smaller numbers or something?Yeah? Like on I have I have
wrist watches that have the you know, the thirteen to twenty three in like

(20:36):
red below the lower Okay, that'sjust what I assumed. Okay, just
shows that they're wrong, that theythat they you know, how great would
it be though? If they likethe originally it was a twenty five o'clock
and it's just like the analog watchis just going around for twenty four hours,
just one big circle. Yep.I don't think I can adjust to
a world where I have to sayit's zero o'clock. Can't you probably say

(21:00):
not right? What do they whatdo they say at midnight? Midnight?
Probably yeah, I probably just saymin and then it's oh one hundred,
you know, oh one hundred.But also I hate it. I don't
want to do it. I don'twant I don't want that zero one hundred
hours. It's uh, it is. It is better. It's definitely better.
Ampmtric system also better. But youknow, oh gosh, I wish

(21:25):
I would have the system is better. I wish I were raised in a
metric system society. Totally gosh,gosh, gosh. You know it's a
meter and then there's a thousand meters. Wow, that sounds easy. Remember
my fridge is it is? Itneeds a space at seventy inches in thirteen
sixteenth. Cool, let me go, let me go shave a I had

(21:45):
to shave my cabinet doors about twosixteenths of an inch to fit my fridge
and have that work out. Ihave the food feels all right. Do
you get the new thing? Didyou get the new fridge? I did?
Yeah, fridge game for you?How Actually it doesn't have it does
have a Wi Fi. But we'renot doing it. I told you this
last time. And there's like fridgeshortage. There isn't everything shortage. Everything

(22:10):
electronic. Oh, they took theold fridge away. That was the biggest
thing. Like what like again,now they're gonna strip that thing for parts.
Good take it. I paid themto take it, like, holy
cow, Yes, go buy adoge coin man. Yes. Having having
the fridge gosh, you see Hasbroand I don't want to get into it

(22:33):
stuff all the more reason not toplay Magic. The gathering, Oh my
gosh, they said made me somad. I've played Desperado's three and continue
playing that. I really enjoy that. I'm up to for those who have
played Desperado's three, I think I'mon the Ranch Battle. I'm not sure
if how many maps that are inthat game, but like on the Grid,
I'm not sure if they're six ormaybe they'll open up a new thing,

(22:56):
but I'm really enjoying it. Somestuff on the last map got a
big comp Okay, Death Products threeis a game that it's do you guys
remember Commandos? You guys know whatthis Products three is? Yes, Okay,
we've talked about it. Yeah,yeah, okay, it's I don't
want to have to explain it ifyou guys know what's already. But it's
fun. I think the writing isactually pretty interesting and the different character abilities
are pretty good. So enjoying thatas well. And I'm looking forward to

(23:21):
playing Returnal, which comes out thisweek. Yeah, I'm playing it that
and Pokemon Snap right or built Out? Okay, I'm looking forward to playing
Returnal Alex. What's've been playing notPokemon Snap or Returnal not okay, Okay,
let's see. I have been playingmore of that near remake that is
going to be my savor game.I'm just going to play it for a

(23:45):
while. I Am not going toplay it in large bursts. I am
just going to to let that onedraw it over time because I'm enjoying it
too much and I don't know whenanother game is going to come along and
I will want to do that withso might as well just enjoy it while
it lasts. I mean, likea twenty hour game, still, do
you have to play it a hundredtimes? There is a new game,

(24:07):
plus they start you over I thinklike halfway through the game, and then
there's like more stuff that comes outof playing the new game, plus like
more story. They added another endingto this m and a lot of it
is tied to like do you collectall the weapons? And have you seen
like all the side quest type stuff, which I don't know that I am
going to go to the trouble ofdoing every single thing in that game,

(24:29):
but I will. I will seeit as far as I can, and
then I will look up the reston the internet as a normal person would.
But yeah, no, I reallylike what they've they. I mean
again, I've not played the originalnear but I like this game. I
like the remake version, and I'mgoing to keep playing it. What else
you got? The other thing Ihave been playing is a game that is

(24:49):
an early access right now on Steam. It is called We Are the Caretakers.
It is an x COM game hypegame, uh, you know,
turn based strategy that has a sortof afrofuturist bent to it. You play
as a squad or squads of antipoaching units. You go around these environments

(25:15):
and you are essentially trying to protectthese wild beasts and creatures that are I
can't tell if they're they're supposed tobe like sacred or if it really is
just like a conservationist aspect, butyou know, there are poachers out there
and you want to stop them fromharming these creatures. And then an alien
threat gets involved and it's like,oh, okay, there's something going on

(25:36):
there too, but also you stillhave to deal with these poachers. Yeah,
like everyone is wearing like very FUTUREIgarb and there are like laser weapons
and stuff, but also you know, it is I can't tell if it's
supposed to be Earth or not,but if it is, it's a FUTUREI
Earth. And so you can basicallyput together multiple squads of units. When

(26:02):
you defeat an enemy, you dependingon which unit is up next, you
can either detain them, you cankill them, or you can try and
recruit them. At least so farin interesting the version I've played. And
when you detain people, they endup back in your base, essentially in
jail, and you decide what todo with them. Either you send them
off to prison, or you tryand recruit them, or they you let

(26:23):
them bribe you that sort of thing. Okay, so it is an early
access. There are a few aspectsof it that feel a little rough.
The animation doesn't seem like it's allthe way there yet. There are some
sound effects that seem like they're justkind of missing from combat. But the
vibe is really interesting and the youknow, I think the actual like gameplay

(26:45):
feels pretty good. Out of thebig studio or you feel like a small
project. I think it's an indieteam I don't. I don't know much
about the team that's making it,but I played a few hours of it
this week and I was like,there's there's something here. I'm digging this.
We are the caretakers. Yeah,and it just launched, so I
imagine there's probably going to be,you know, an ongoing update process with

(27:08):
that thing. It doesn't feel likeit's like almost done necessarily, okay,
but there is a campaign there,and it is it has like a whole
story aspect to it. Uh.Yeah, no, I'm digging it.
That's cool. Bacalar. We arethe caretakers again, Yes, and I'm
also we are the caretaker Bacalar.Hey, so right, mister returnal.

(27:32):
So here's the thing, Bacalar.Yeah, this is a house Mark game.
I wasn't really sure how this wasgonna land, and then I saw
Brad playing some of that and Isaid, man, this looks pretty good.
I think I'm liking what I'm seeinghere. This looks like I could
get into this. I'm not aI'm a little I think we're all a
little burnt out on run based games. But I like the narrative that they're

(27:55):
playing there. I like the storyI like the kind of the atmosphere they
were going for. You got tellme about this. All that stuff feels
real good when you talk about therunning around and the moment to moment,
the action stuff, the third personshooting stuff, the traversal, the moving
around, like, all that's realon points, super smooth, great use

(28:17):
of the Uh the new haptic stuffcontroller is a PS five game. Yeah,
this is like a straight up seventyjoint. We knew that was happening.
Yeah, but this is it's thisis just yeah, like uh,
I mean for me, this isthe game that's been like, you know,

(28:38):
dusting off the PS five For me, you know, it's been.
It's and I think that's gonna landin a big way right now for a
lot of people who are maybe alittle maybe a little itching for something like
this. I mean, for theeight million people that have PS fives and
have almost nothing to play on it. I mean, I don't know what
they've been playing on it, butthey should probably check this out. Yeah,
they should check this out. Iam reminded by a lot of stuff.

(29:03):
I'm reminded of a lot of stuffplaying this game. This game,
more often than not, kind offeels like a Metroid Prime in a lot
of ways, with the abilities andunlocking the abilities, and you know obviously
yeah, the scanning and just thesort of like, uh, just the
vibe, just the overall sort ofvibe. You are moving through these rooms

(29:25):
similarly to like a Metroid style kindof thing, but they're not rooms in
the way that like, you know, it's like a cube. You're in
these like very strange alien worlds withwith usually a door and another door or
two doors somewhere else in this sortof world. So here's the thing.
The game is a you know,you play till you die, you start

(29:48):
over. It's a cycle game,and that stuff is varied through the fact
that every time you restart your cycle, the environment is more or less completely
different, right, which I don'tunderstand how they do that. It seems
just yeah, they know, Ithey there is a narrative explanation for why

(30:10):
everything's different, but it really doesadd Like, you know, I've I've
been playing for maybe like five hours, and I was afraid that I was
going to get to a point whereI was like hitting the sort of wall
where I'm just like, oh,I want to bounce off this because I'm
not making the progress that I feellike I need to make to sort of
reach what kind of end this gameprobably has in store, And it hasn't

(30:33):
It hasn't felt like that yet.Well, what do you bring back with
you on each run? Like whatdo you what makes what makes you progress
further? Like what are you getting? So that's so you have abilities and
you have certain attributes that will stayover That is where I'm still very fuzzy.
This game on its face, likecontrol control wise is fairly straightforward.

(30:56):
The the rules and and the sortof unpacking of like what stays what you
need to do to keep things thatto me has not made the translation in
my brain just yet. And I'msort of just playing this until I die
with the feeling of a forward movingprogress because I am understanding a lot of

(31:18):
those sort of like gated you know, power ups and these like sort of
things that you can craft if youcreate a certain if you collect a certain
amount of a certain element. Allthat stuff feels progressive, right, it
feels forward moving. But I've yetto make the kind of progress in this
game where like I started over andI have a very specific thing that I

(31:40):
want to go out and do interesting, So I would imagine the boss is
this person or creature who keeps killingme. More ofcome than not is that?
But again there is there is justa lot of teleportation stuff. It
is sort of jarring. You know. The game is a really I think

(32:04):
one of the best map systems I'veseen in a while, where it gives
you this three D kind of likerendering in the corner that is so easy
to look understand. Yeah, yeah, so like that, I've been I've
been using a lot and you know, tons of icons to kind of give
you all the information you need.You know, like there, there's there.

(32:25):
It's tough for me to say rightnow, just how all that's going
to come together. Like I feellike I'm on the precipice of a moment
where where a switch will flip andI will get through that next kind of
mental barrier where I have more oflike a through line and sort of path
that I know I need to godown. But for now, I am

(32:46):
just having a blast kind of makingmy way through. And you know,
it's it's tough. It's tough,right you the game the cycle starts over.
You've you've crashed landed on this planet, and you know the cool sort
of narrative thing is like the personyou're playing slowly is discovering that they're in
this sort of time loop situation.So you find these relics, you find

(33:07):
these uh you know, you findlike basically your corpse a bunch of times
in the game, and then theselogs that you've made and all these things
and that sort of stuff is hasreally been interesting, and I wonder that
those little clues and those little sortof peppered narrative beats is a big part

(33:27):
of the reason why I am sokind of invested in this thing. It's
very neat, which is you know, again as as advertised like that that
shouldn't be too much of a shock. Yeah, I mean, performance wise,
it's it's it's top notch. Itlooks great, you know. I
uh, I feel like I'm thinkingabout it right now where it's like,

(33:51):
oh, I wonder, you know, there's a language that's spoken in that
game that I feel like the moreyou play, the more you become familiar
with and fluent in. And I'mlike, I'm right there. I don't
you know, I haven't really talkedtoo many people who've played it, but
I'm assuming that I'm right at theedge of this thing that a lot of
stuff will will elucidate and uh,you know, get me to to my

(34:14):
next level of understanding with this game. But it is it is a lot
of fun, and folks listening tothis at the time of release, I
think it is out this Friday.Correct, I'm not super excited to drop,
but I am excited to play itas such as the Life Huh,

(34:35):
hey, I don't really want topay for this thing, but I'd like
to play it. I mean,you know, I think that's a valid
standpoint. I do have a questionnot as much about Returnal, but about
the viability of the seventy dollars thinggoing forward. Like I think returnal will
be fine because, like you said, there is not a lot that is

(34:59):
PS five I exclusive right now thatis available on the PS five. But
going down the road, I thinka certain kind of game will probably do
just fine with the seventy dollars thing, which is to say, first Party
Sony and probably like Yearly Sports franchises. I don't know about other stuff,

(35:20):
Like I feel like there are gamesthat are going to get lost because people
are going to look at that seventydollars price point down the road and be
like, yeah, you know,I just I don't know enough about this
yet. I feel like this isone of those things where like maybe the
return of demos needs to happen,yeah, or like this is the one.
This is one of Like I wantto read some reviews and see what

(35:40):
the depth is on this. Yeah, what reviews are important. Again,
here's the thing too, I feellike we discount the speed at which games
get discounted. No, I'm notdiscounting that, but I'm saying that,
like as far as like people beingwilling to pre order, people willing to
jump in day one. Yeah,and I think that is going to like

(36:04):
it's going to have possibly a negativeimpact on games that are not as well
known as the biggest franchises and studiosthat are going to be running at that
price point. There. Maybe thereis a site out there that tracks pricing
and time in which, like theaverage game drops in price. I feel
like in the last three years itis real fast. I'm pretty surehwa got

(36:28):
real cheap, pretty fucking quick.Yeah. Like again, I think,
like you said, it depends onthe studio, it depends on the relationship.
Like first Party Sony stuff, Ilike hit or miss with price drops
the Nintendo never Nintendo, good luck. They'll just take that shit off the
market. Fuck you, Yeah right, they'll just shut a server down.
Uh yeah, I think it kindof depends. And listen, I'm not

(36:50):
trying to say the value of itisn't seventy dollars. I just don't know.
I haven't played it. That doesnot to say that prices did not
need to go up at some point. I'm just saying that I have some
reservations about how this is going togo down the road. Yeah. Yeah,
sure does look nice and uh doesseem as my interest and I want
to check it out. You know. Jeff Grubbs said something on Twitter which

(37:13):
is like so on the money.He said like, uh oh, this
is what it feels like when houseMark makes a seventy dollars game, right
like, and because you think abouttheir other stuff and there are shades of
that, and I didn't bring thatup, like, you know, even
in the way like enemy projectiles sortof like geometrically like you know, bleed
out at you like stuff like,yes, well it's not necessarily bullet hell.

(37:36):
It's like if bullet hell was likegoing through a water, Like,
Yeah, it's just it's this.It's really this intoxicating sort of like light
show in a lot of ways thatI think, you know, I definitely
associate with with you know, theirtheir games. So yeah, it's it's
definitely a fidelity you know, uhlike you know party as well like smarger

(38:01):
sport. It's it's a surgical technicalschmargers usually usually the usually that price point
for like run based games or roguelikes. You know, maybe we use a
lot of maps, a lot ofassets, so I'm curious to see how
that goes. Yeah, like you'lldefinitely I mean, look like the areas

(38:22):
that I'm in now a lot too. You know, they do feel they
have the same coloring, they havethe same sort of like you know,
Cliffy kind of you know, attributesto them that you're sort of just like,
okay, this, I guess thissort of you know makes sense.
But you know, they're they're Ithink there's gonna be people who play this
and kind of don't realize that that'slike the thing, do you know what

(38:45):
I mean? Like I feel likethey might that might get lost on them
or it's like no, no,this is different like this, you know
what I not that you would missnot that you wouldn't believe that you're playing
the same thing over and over again, which is sort of like it it's
just a wild and maybe there's moreof like some sort of magic sauce,
right of like how they're making thesausage, you know, and it's really

(39:07):
just like, oh, everything's justminus one right or you know, like
and that's how we get it tolook like that. But that part is,
you know, has not been loston me. Like that is that
is keeping it fresh and keeping itinteresting and uh yeah, Frosty, I'm
totally digging it. Recommend it foranyone who uh want someone to play on

(39:28):
the PS five? There is enoughto play on PS five, but they
just four games. Is this secondis this second wave? Would you say?
Uh, I think we're still inthe first wave technically, you think
what would you call this? Launchwindow? I'm gonna say the launch window
for this one is going to bea lot longer than other Launch twenty twenty
two, okay, yeah, uhbacklard anything else? Uh uh keeping it

(39:52):
up at night with the video games? We're eating up your time here.
What's you're doing? Are you dealingwith your life? What you're doing?
What am I doing? And nothing? It's been very slow. I'm playing
more subliminal, superliminal, superliminal.Do you feel like I'm heading towards the

(40:12):
end of my patience with that game? But just maybe the run? You
know, I know it's short andI just gotta finish it, but uh,
that's really it. I'm gonna watchI'm the Godzilla movie. I've decided
with my kid, okay, andwish me luck. Got the Mortal Kombat

(40:32):
movie. No, I heard that'strash. I heard his trash. But
also I still want to see it. I want to see what they did.
I think I'm gonna watch it thisweekend. I'm not trying to.
I guess sneak that one in somewhereand watch that find that you're gonna have
to watch that in like VR glassesor something. How are you gonna watch
that movie after the kids are asleep? I don't think I'll just watch it
then. But it's yeah, becausethere's uh they this is an R rated

(40:55):
one. They wait for that Rrating. Yeah. Is it gory?
Is gory? Yeah? I've heardof varying degrees of Yes, it's very
gory and it's not gory enough.Oh, but also the people were saying
it's not gory enough. Are thepeople I know who are the biggest sickos
alive? So is it goro enough? No, apparently there is not nearly

(41:17):
enough goro in that movie, andit's not rubber goro, So who even
cares? I got my arcade upand running. It's the coolest shit ever.
There's a question in the email sectionwhere I feel bad I didn't really
disclose all the specs and all thelittle elements that came together for this project.
And we'll, we'll, we'll,we'll get into that when when we

(41:38):
get to the email section. Okay, uh, well, anything else to
talk about before we head into thenews section. That's it. Okay,
I'm trying to think if there's anythingelse I've touched this week, and I
Esperanos that tax evasion, business taxes. Huh, you know, I love

(42:00):
him? All right, let's whoneeds him. Let's uh, let's hit
the music, we'll go into thenews. We'll be right back. Folks,
stick around, and we are back. Oh boy, hello everybody,

(42:22):
and welcome to the Giant Beast.Cast is the segment part of the show
where we fill you in and we'dfind out together what's going on in the
world of video games tomorrow. You'veput you pulled some stuff this week?
What you got here? You pulledthe story? I did pull? Okay,
well why don't well, why don'tI never think? Turn the table?

(42:43):
You can start this off. Yougot you picked the story? When
your your name is FIRSTA, whydon't you do it? I've just never
been I was always waiting for youto ask, all right, just feel
so gosh, golly, no Ihad. I just clicked it now.
Hallo Infinite, the game you knowand love that will come out someday for

(43:05):
the Microsoft Xbox family of products isgoing to be cross play and cross progression.
Is that what we're saying cross notcross state. Cross progression is the
language in the Microsoft family, meaningthat the PC version and the Xbox versions
you'll be able to jump back andforth between those obviously cross platform stuff in

(43:27):
the other families. Sony, theirversion will your switch version will work with
this? No, this is uh, this kind of confirming that the PC
and the console versions will play nicelytogether on your account and you can jump
back and forth. And I thoughtthat was kind of neat being someone who
might jump back and forth on thosethings. And if you're you know,
want to start on the PC andthen eventually you get your hands on an

(43:51):
Xbox one X Series X, youknow you should be good there. So
that that's kind of in there,kind of short and sweet, not something
that I think for me was unexpected, but nice to hear regardless. Yeah,
all right, that's my story.Wow is it my turn? How
to go? I'm glad. Ithink he did a very good Joby.

(44:12):
What's up? Uh? So fewstories here. It was kind of a
slow news wee, We've got afew things talk about here while we're on
the Microsoft tip here. So Microsoftup to now had been doing what Steam
does, which is charging a thirtypercent cut on all their PC store sales.

(44:32):
And that's a fix that's fixed oris that could that be? It
was fixed as far as I know. This is on the the developer or
publisher end, and developer, yes, on the publisher end, and so
you know, this was the standardfor a long time. But then Epic
came along and they were like,well, actually we're just going to take
twelve percent, which you know,rattled some cages, changed, some things
made, some things happen. Andone of those things that seems to have

(44:53):
made happen is that Microsoft is nowalso going to be taking a twelve percent
cut on their PC store going forward. Interesting okay, okay, oh yeah,
okay, yeah, on their PCstore, on the PC store,
not the consoles. As far asI know, they are not changing their

(45:15):
their their console marketplace at this time. Okay. Valve obviously has not made
any significant changes to their their situation. They're they're still taking thirty percent.
But if a game, I believeit's if it racks up, according to
the story here ten million in sales, the cut drops to twenty five percent.

(45:36):
Oh, because they've made their money, made their money, and they're
like, we can take a littleright right right, you're making us even
a lot, You're making us alot of money. Also if it if
it hits fifty million, it dropsto twenty percent. So okay, the
PC one is the big part ofthis, and not the console one.
What do you think their market shareof PC store sales are for a game,

(46:00):
Probably not as high as they wouldlike it to be, which might
be a good reason why they wouldmake this deal to try and get more
developers to be like, hey,what if you made sure this was available
in our marketplace too? Yeah,yeah, m M yeah, I wonder
what I wonder outside of And maybepeople in the who are listening to this

(46:22):
can help figure this out, Likedo you know, because I don't know
anybody who natively goes to look fora new release in like the Microsoft ecosystem
on a PC. I never have. It is not a Microsoft product.
I have never gone to that storewilling. You probably just get there through
by accident. Yeah, you typedinto the search bar at the bottom of

(46:45):
Windows and you're just like, ohshit, oh, this is not the
marketplace I wanted. Oh fuck yeah, I guess I can only buy it
here. So obviously we live ina bubble. We're kind of a closed
group. I mean I have Ihave family that are not way into games
and aren't just but even they Steamhas you know, been the one for
them for a very long time,and I don't think the seam as ubiquitous.
Yeah, so yeah, I don'tknow who, and that becus you

(47:07):
know, making some inroads, likethey certainly have, like they have a
great selection of stuff, and youknow, I mean, look, I
don't know if we're still in thePC marketplace wars if people are still doing
sectarian violence over which which fucking DRMthey want their games to have. But
I at this point I don't reallycare. I think more marketplace is giving

(47:29):
more money to developers is always agood thing, Oh for sure. Sure.
Yeah. I just wonder, likethe reason I get there is because
of PC game Pass stuff, right, And I'm like, that's the reason
I'm opening the app up and kindof checking in on there and being like,
oh, okay, what's you know? But then yeah, if it's
not first party Microsoft, I'm usuallylooking other places, just you know.

(47:50):
I also just don't enjoy the wayMicrosoft integrates its source stuff into the operating
system, like the way it doespermissions on your computer where it wants to
put stuff. I think maybe it'sgotten a little bit better, but I
never like a thing that says youdon't have permission to open this folder,
just like the fuck man and youhave to go into the OS level.
I don't know if you still haveto do this, but you used to,
And like change where apps are downloaded, change where games are downloaded,

(48:14):
and just I don't know, monkeyaround in there anyway. Good, Yeah,
you're right, Alex the uh competitionhealthy always good, always good to
have? Yeah, what you got? What else is going on? All
right? Well? In less healthynews, Uh, here's your annual Dan
Reicher news update. Uh. SuperMario Party for the Nintendo Switch. Uh

(48:37):
just got a giant new update aftertwo years of being out and not really
getting any updates for the most part, as far as I know it,
what are we getting? Well,you're getting online play that wasn't in there.

(48:57):
So I supposed to now play thefollowing modes over the internet, Mario
Party, Partner Party, and freeplay mini games. So what they've done
here is they've added online play toall these these these modes. Uh,
and seventy of the eighty total minigames are available for internet play. I
don't know why the other ten aren't, but I assume it's just Nintendo being

(49:19):
Nintendo. It might be very Itmight be something where you have to see
a person or some kind of like, uh like couch thing that makes it
doesn't make sense online. I'm sure. I think what game that would be?
Maybe the ball passing, yeah,or like we have to commune.
Really, it really depends on communicationlike that instinctly possible. Yeah, Like

(49:43):
you know, the woman's a littlethread and you have to make the shape.
I love that one. Oh,that one's terrible. I love that
one. What's your favorite one?I like the one who shake the candy
out of the jar? That onetoo well. I just like the one
where I don't play Mario Party.Yeah you know, yeah I should I
should have not did that thing.I did Party. Yeah, I played
it with Dan. I don't know. You definitely shouldn't have done that.

(50:06):
I did it with Dan on astream of his and I just like it
was just like, oh, canyou be mad at one person for two
hours? And I was like,sure can Sure can be mad at one
person. But I'll say, yeah, it's fun when you're not playing with
Dan. But it's also, uh, that game's infuriating. The game's infuriates.

(50:30):
We just played the mini games.We don't do the board anymore.
We just I do the I dothe the version where you're like on the
boat and you got to make yourway through. Yeah. Yeah, that's
its own thing. Yeah, that'sits own thing. That's a lot of
fighting, uh internally with your family. But yeah, but yeah I did
that. I played with him anda couple other people, and it was

(50:52):
really you know, it was goodthat he didn't win. I didn't.
I knew like the drama about himwinning Mario Party a lot, and he
didn't win, and he almost wantedthe end, and like I got real
scared because I thought that meant likehe does have some sort of sick,
twisted like demon power with that ship, but made it by the skin of

(51:15):
our teeth. And you know he'sstill a monster. Oh yeah, obviously
Mario no yeah, and Dan yeah, well but it worked pretty well.
All you gotta do is like enterpassword connected ALMOSTO. Not gonna lie.
I didn't even know this was athing. I didn't know that Mario Party

(51:37):
wasn't online. You would think itwould be online because it's such a obvious,
of course, but no, thisthis happened the other day. It's
crazy. Maybe my kids will playonline with other their friends who have Mario
Party and that that will relieve thepressure to play Mario Party in the house.
Yeah, like, take the pressureoff yourself, put it on your

(51:59):
kids. That's right. I know. This isn't This isn't how things work.
And I understand these are different teamsworking on different things with different priorities,
but it is as someone who isin a household with someone who still
plays a lot of Animal Crossing,it is very vexing to me that a
giant online update for this two yearold Mario party come out and there have
been no actual, like new seasonalevent or content updates for Animal Crossing any

(52:23):
meaningful way since the year really gotgoing? Is that true? Not since
like, like you know, theydid Bunny Day again, the same thing
are different? Yeah, pretty muchlike as far as I know, they
have not really did you have togo different eggs again, like the wood
eggs or the Earth egg? Yeah? I think so. Like it's just
it seems like there's hasn't really beenanything significantly new at it's that game in

(52:44):
a while. Now, that's peoplerealize that Animal Crossing is a bad game.
Is I'm not going to take joyfrom that, But I'm not saying
it's a bad game. I'm justsaying it's he feels like, Okay,
you had your first year. Howabout some different stuff you get? But
you have no problem saying told youso. I never have a problem saying

(53:05):
told you so. Uh wait,what so you're trying to figure out why
it's so, like, like whyit would go so long without an update
Mario Party. Mario Party would goso long. Yes, yes, I
think, well you're saying, andtwo years after launch it's a pretty long
time. It is. But it'salso if there's one company that's going to
do that to a game. Hereyou have it, folks, this is

(53:28):
the world we live in. Can'tI give it back? Well, well,
maybe they're like, update here allof it. Maybe this is a
thing that's like a response to COVIDand and people having to not be not
be allowed to be in the sameroom, and it just took this long
to work it out. I couldvery much believe that, like, hey,
people can't play Mario Party because theycan't be in the same room.
We should put it online. Onlinecode takes a while. And what I'm

(53:51):
saying is if you're doing the mentalcalculus and you're like, oh, people
can't play Mario Party. It can'tbe in the same room, and your
answer isn't good, then you thenyou don't know the Mario Party experience the
world was. This is a solutionto the problem. Yeah, that person
in the room at Nintendo is justa crank at that point, just like

(54:12):
that person sitting in the corner goinggood. It's just like okay, okay,
Phil, Okay, Phil, weget it. You fucking hate Mario
party troyd all right, who justlets him into any of these meetings?
Where's my tried? Phil is theonly one over there making any sense?
If I'm honest with you, he'sgive a bunch of pr people and out.
If you're a little yeah, you'rea little marriage. It was the

(54:37):
last time we did a punch out, honestly, honestly, all right,
Phil, Okay, We're get please, thank you very much, thank you.
Bye? Who you got putting smashneck to person with a sword?
Ba. Okay, let's move onto the next story. Okay, Uh,
close things out here. A coupleof EA stories, one good one
less so. The good one isthat if you have one of those fancy

(55:01):
series xes, uh, you cannow play a bunch of EA titles with
that. They're one hundred and twentyframes per second mode that they are posting
for some of those old Xbox onetitles boost. Yeah, so like the
big ones here, the titan Fallgames, Battlefield five, the Star Wars

(55:22):
Battlefronts, the most recent battlefields,uh, the Plants Versus Zombies, Garden
Warfare Games and Mirror's Edge Catalyst cool. There are some other ones, like
like see if Solitude got a sixtyframes bump, but yeah, like mostly
it's just like, here's a bunchof these Xbox one games. Now they

(55:43):
got hell of frames. When whenI played that Dishonored with the FPS boosts
stuff, that that was pretty good. Yeah. I kind of might boot
up Titan Fall two again because Ibet that'll look real goods. That sounds
pretty dope. It sounds pretty goodto me. I don't think we pulled
it for this. But they alsothere was an announcement that there will be

(56:05):
a version uh Jedi Fallen Order.They're going to make a version for PS
five and and Series X. Theyhad that. Yes, they kind of
had the optimization update. But Ithink they're getting a full thing response at
respond right, Yeah, I thinkit's so it's so weird to say response
Star Wars game will this should begetting a newer version for modern consoles.

(56:29):
Yeah, that stuff is neat uhneater than I think we any of us
gave the credit for initially. So, uh, here's here's two more games
getting that. Yeah, alexand what'sthe other EA business? Well, Okay,
So this I'm just mentioning because itgot some conversation today. I think
in some ways it's a little overblown, but also, you know, it's

(56:51):
it's of interest. So there wasa report earlier this week, the CBC
put it out that involved a elitdI don't know if it's a memo or
a slide presentation or something. CBC. The CBC is a Kadian broadcasting what
have you. Okay, yes,the Home of the Kids in the Hall.
So the thing that was leaked wasinformation, internal information. There was

(57:17):
some like internal memo stuff about howthe company when especially this is in particular
to FIFA, but I think anyonewho's played any of their sports games would
know what we're talking about here.It talks very specifically about how they are
funneling players into those modes they aresort of, you know, the ten
pole thing, the thing that makesall the damn money for that company,

(57:37):
especially with FIFA, And you know, it's it's interesting to see it kind
of laid out in very plain terms, which is a thing that EA would
never ever do about this stuff,not publicly anyway. But also I think
anyone who's paying attention to any ofthese sports titles, especially in the last

(57:59):
like handful of years, knows justdefinitively, Yes, this is what they
are doing. They are trying toget you to play ultimate team because there
are so many menus and so manypop ups that are constantly trying to funnel
you into that mode that you wouldhave to be just completely oblivious to not
notice it. So what what Sothe c BC, Sorry, I will

(58:25):
cannot get the CDC. It's justhurt it to many times. It's not
the BBC, it's the cd Soit's not the CDC either. That either,
even though this might be a uh, this might be an illness,
are they what are they saying here? Are they basically are they saying that,
no, you can't do it.No, they're just saying that,
like you know this This documentation saysthat EA is very explicitly telling, at

(58:47):
least internally, that you know,our goal is to funnel people into these
modes, which are the modes thatthat are most tuned to getting people to
spend extra Okay, so there's notlike regulatory action happening here. They're just
saying this is this is what happened. No, it's not. But at
the same time, you know,EA has had a time, especially with

(59:07):
the US and certain other countries withregulation and the whole loopbox is a gambling
thing, and their lawyers are veryadamant that no, it is not,
and anything that might potentially stoke thoseflames again, they don't want to get
involved in. So they kind ofreplied back and had a pretty terse statement,

(59:27):
It's like, this is sensational andits reporting. This is you know,
we're not blah blah blah blah blah. This is not a thing.
I think they have to do thatbecause if they don't, like they're legal
case for this is not the thingthat we say it is. It kind
of falls apart a little bit.But you know, look, it's again,
it's just interesting to see this kindof laid out here in a pretty
flat way, and also for EAto be like, no, this is

(59:51):
this is fake, this is notour real internal documentation. Just say like,
no, this is sensational, isreporting. This is not a big
deal. Yeah, you know,it's it's just interesting. But I again,
I don't think anyone is surprised bythis, Like, no one could
possibly be surprised by what they aredoing with their sports games. No,
no, no, right, yeah, yeah, right, one of them.

(01:00:12):
Right. Everything about this is likelike a yeah, of course,
except the part where EA seems totry to be bending itself into a pretzel
to say nah. It says,uh, EA had a statement that was
kind of you know, dot dotdot, Hey, we're this is very
active time for the FIFA Ultimate Teamstuff and then goes on to say nothing

(01:00:34):
in the leaked document contradicts this inany way. It shows how we are
supporting engagement in our game during thesummer period, not spending. These are
the things you have to say.You have to say that yeah, yeah,
And I'm not saying like you know, they're lying necessarily, but what
I am saying is that, likewe know, we know why, how
you make your money, what you'retrying to get people to play in these

(01:00:58):
games. You can phrase it howeveryou want, but it's not hard to
figure it out. And they're notthe only ones. Like two K does
this ship with with NBA, Like, as far as I know, the
show this year has some issues withtrying to funnel players into micro transaction heavy
modes like this is what sports gamesare becoming and it's a nightmare, but
it's what they are. Yeah,yeah, because people will buy them no

(01:01:22):
matter what. And they found away to get even more money out of
you, not out of me.Never made you not. Just ignore sports.
That's the best way to live.Stick with my robots until until Hasros
makes NFTs my transformers. I seea lot of micro transactions behind you know

(01:01:43):
those are those are macro transactions.Yeah, that's right, there's a macro
transformers. They boy trying to buyanythings to gamble these days? Whatever happened
to commercialist commercialism? How did it? How did to break? Huh?
Yeah, we're to go wrong thatgood capitalism told about over and over again,

(01:02:06):
predatory? How did it get sowrong? Guys? Guys, guys,
guys, guys. Listen, guys, Alice's are there any more stories?
That's all I got? Okay,backlard, you got any news?
Uh? Not today? Okay?Well been wow? Nothing in the no
talking pinball machines and uh I didthose bits? I I you know I

(01:02:31):
did the pinball Oh no, Iwas in the pre show, but I
feel like I hit the quota keys. How about the keyboards? Nothing there
keyboards? Uh? You dragged melast time I opened up my mouth about
keyboards. So limit. There areno no, I have not I've just

(01:02:52):
been busy, you know, I'vebeen busy doing you know, my my
job. And that's the best.Well I can say, Okay, we
could go, we can go tothe next break. It's okay, sorry,
yeah, let's do it. Yeah, I have no time. We're
trying to make you a family,all right, now, we can we

(01:03:13):
can do this. It's okay.Here we get the relax. We're gonna
get the music up and we're gonnaget your soothing music playing. Stick around,
We're stick around, will be rightback. These allergies though, I'm
not joking. It's stuff and weare back, and it is now time

(01:03:45):
for emails. I declare it.No, no, oh, we've got
sorry. Sorry, objection from thebaccalar, the baccalar. It's like dejection
from the back. But okay,email time. If you have an email,

(01:04:05):
you can send me in to beastcastsat giant bomb dot com. That
is beastcasts at giant bomb dot com. Jeff Backlar going through all the emails,
reading them, replying, I loveit, I love it, I
love it, and I love it. I love it. I've forward a
lot. I forwarded all your emailsthat were not appropriate for the show,

(01:04:27):
forwarded them to the correct say,all the saucy ones, specifically all of
our New Zealand and Australian listeners,thank you so very much for shedding even
more light, maybe even more lightthan perhaps what you'd asked for, nevertheless
shedding that light on the great tomatoketchup sauce debate rages on. Flames of

(01:04:51):
that debate continue to burn well intothe afterhour, but this this week was
another. They're a good one.First thing we will do is we will
talk about resident Evil and they're sillynaming conventions. Alex Navarro Navarro, please,

(01:05:14):
did you take this one from ourgood friend, uh Jordan Jordan from
Ohio. Here, the resident Evilnine sticks to the same naming convention the
village is sticking to with the numberbeing in the name. What do you
think nine will be called? Mytwo best guesses so far Resident Evil crucifix

(01:05:41):
or Resident Evil Vixen. And that'sit. There's no other words, although
I will say this, nine isthe easiest Roman numeral thing to get away
with. I feel like you do, or maybe or maybe like just five?
Why about it? Six? Yeah? Seven's pushing it. I feel
like five is definitely easier than sixor four. Five is one letter.
Actually, I'm gonna say one.It's probably the easiest. Point is the

(01:06:06):
easiest because it's literally just an X. Yeah, have at eleven? Okay,
do you want to you want tocompletely ruin this bit or we're gonna
play wrong with the I X?Okay, let's see there's a pixie could
be uh no, that's that soundsuh so what what the fucking it's resid
evil pixies and it's just a fuckingmenacing Frank Black running around like Black Prince

(01:06:29):
is chasing you around. Okay,I'll see, I'll take it all right,
Resident Evil remix remix Okay, RE mix Okay, R E R
shit, that's it. No,No, you could you save that when
you save that one for a ResidentEvil on thousand and nine, right,
because then it's just R E MI X and then they're not gonna get

(01:06:51):
there anytime soon. I don't knowthe rate they're going re remix Okay,
that's pretty good, or rem mixedaddition. There will definitely be a nine
remixed addition like nine yeah, okay, uh and that's it. Did you
know my grand My great grandmother's namewas Crucifix was in Residel. Yeah,

(01:07:14):
her name was wait, Cruzafisa.Whoa Okay, but that show is just
the Italian yes, yeah, butthat's still I'm just saying the way you
said it, like like the Italianversion sounds like it could be a name,
whereas Crucifix that just sounds like you'rethe lead singer of a black metal
band. Okay, but it's thesame thing. It means the same things.

(01:07:35):
But the thing is like, ifthere's a look the Italian language,
we all know, it's like silkeverything that comes out of it, Like
there's a real kind of pleasant quality. It was sometimes got a sing song
quality to its Crustafix just sounds harsh, of course, Well we have a
we have aisa. I mean,I'm sure the Italian were for diarrhea is

(01:07:59):
less you know, yeah, yeah, it's got whatever it is. I
mean, I would I would sayFrench is the more silk like language.
But I get your point. Ithink all the romance language have a certain
sort of you know, no youare fuck French, Okay, okay,
Okay. I just I felt likeI needed to get saucy. I needed
to have a controversial opinion, soI'm just gonna throw it out there.

(01:08:23):
Saucy, I get no more,no more French? How about uh fix
Fix'll just fix resid Evil because thatimplies the game is broken. No,
okay, okay, Jordan had thecorrect two answers, all the answers we
said, Okay, words, Igot the best one ready, Fixen isn't
wonder what they're gonna se resident Evilbuilt around the fucking eighties hair metal band

(01:08:43):
Like, yes, I'd play thatit just happened if they just call it
six six six. I don't getit. You know what I'm saying.
We did with the no, Idon't get it? All right, what's

(01:09:04):
the next? Backlar Uh? Thisone? Let's go to Vinny read this
one from Charlie. You got it. I was listening to Alex's drum screen
Last Drums three my last week whenBrown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison came up,
and I spent the entire song feelinglike it was off somehow nice Alex,

(01:09:29):
good job. I realized it wasbecause I have listened to the real
Big Fish cover of Brown Eyed Girlso much that it is now the canonical
version of that song in my head. Have you gotten a song any cover
songs that have broken your brain?Do you have any songs that take it
back? Have you got any songcovers that have broken your brain in such

(01:09:53):
a way that you can no longeracknowledge the more popular original? Thanks everything
you do, keep up works?Were excusing anything where the cover was the
more popular version? How would youknow? Yeah? Look, also,
like, for instance, like Natalieand Bruley is torn. That is a
cover song, but like that isthe only version of that song that anyone

(01:10:16):
actually knows, Okay, so Ithink that's different. I also, well,
who will It's tough? I likethe Man who Stole the World by
Nirvana maybe more than the Bowie one. Is that? Is that a fair
one? I think that's a fairone. So I think that the generation

(01:10:39):
that we grew up in is probablyjust more familiar with that one. Anyway.
Yeah, oh my god, someonein chatt is saying they like the
the smooth criminal, Alien and Farmversion. All right, well that person
should go to prison. But like, nonetheless, I get it that was
very popular for a while. Butyou can't, you can't. They're just
they're just joking around on those rascals. Uh, you know, it's funny

(01:11:02):
when you bring up Real big Fishbecause you know, in let's just say
nineteen ninety nine, I'm a bigreal big Fish fan, and you know,
their version of take on Me isnot bad at all. They do
a good job of that version.It did for that year for me,
Okay, but now the Aha versionis clearly better. Uh the original not

(01:11:29):
even better. It's the original,it's the one that matters more. I
will also say that, you know, maybe there's a version of a song
where like you know, it's usuallya ska band that kind of does this
and not a regular other band.I don't know why it's why is it

(01:11:51):
ska? What is it about skathat does this the songs? Because it's
one of the easiest genres to justtake any music and it's like all right
up, strokes and horns go.I don't think it's don't take away from
Scott Yeah yeah, right, Alexwould. Alex isn't dumping on Sky.
I'm just saying music to just applyover any other kind of music, there

(01:12:15):
is a very specific formula like youcan very easily apply. I also think
like that applies to like making thingsmetal too, Like there's there's a lot
of that. There's a lot ofthat. Do you remember do you remember
that it was? It was agood day kind of acoustic cover that that
was around footing around for a whilethere, I refused to acknowledge it.
Oh, it was very good.It was very good. I don't know

(01:12:39):
who was by, but it waskind of footing around there that was.
That was also very good. Yeah, I like, there are a lot
of songs that are taken and thenI'm trying to think of something that I
have one. Okay, uh,the song No Doubt? Did the cover?
What the hell is it called?And I was like, the original

(01:13:01):
group was talk talk Maybe, Ohthat version is good? There no doubts
version is good. I don't thinkit's better, but I think it's like
kind of just as good. Igotta look it up now. There's probably
a bunch of Beatles songs that weonly know the version of that they just

(01:13:21):
ripped off. Mine are dumb andobscure, and I don't It's called It's
My Life is the name of thesong, It's my love. I will
say one that I genuinely the onlytime I ever get yelled at is when
I say this around other indie rockdorks. But I think there's this band
called Jawbox, which I like alot and they but I also like the

(01:13:42):
band. They eventually went on tospawn Burning Airlines better, but def Tones
did a cover of their most popularsong called Savory, and I think of
the song is better than the Jawboxoriginal. Actually, I also think their
version of no Ordinary Love is likealmost better, but not because nowhereeran he
loves like basically a perfect song.So yes, I like when people I

(01:14:04):
went on a bender a tear notthat long ago, trying to find every
cover of Between the Bars. IsZelie Smith the first person who did it?
I assume he is the that's aversion I know, So that's a
version I'm going with. H Man, I Love. I think that's the
only version of that song I've everheard, So there there are there are

(01:14:26):
some really good covers of it.Man, that is a song. I
know. It's like with you knowwhat the sca thing. It's like come
on, Eileen, right, likethat's just between the bars. That is
actually probably the better version to comeon. Yeah, it might be.
I did not like say Ferris forthe most part, and I'd say that
with all affection. I opened forthem once. They were nice enough people,
but they say has is not agreat ska band. But that,

(01:14:48):
come on, Eileen Cover was good, say Ferris. Seemed like they signed
up for something and then got somethingdifferent. Like I don't know what it
is they just signed up for,We're also a ska band, give us
some money. I feel like theyjust didn't mean it. They didn't mean
it. Yeah, I don't knowthey I just don't think they were as
good as some of the other baby, especially like the other SoCal bands from

(01:15:11):
that era. They We're not allright, very good, my friends.
I'll take this next one, Mikey. Couple of you have kids. I
can't help, but wonder do youthink that your kids will ever go back
and listen or watch your content?You always do a great job of treading
the line between rated R and PGthirteen with your comedy and content. I

(01:15:34):
mean, is that a great job, right? Like it's it's And I'm
not saying anyone should sensor themselves.I am just I am more just curious
if you ever wonder, Hey,my kids ever gonna listen to this or
for Alex maybe other family members.I for one would hope it would not

(01:15:54):
cause you to filter yourself, becauseI'm sure it would probably be a really
neat thing for a child have alibrary of digital content made by their dads
to explore, especially one once they'reolder and can appreciate it. You know
this, Uh, it's an interesting, yeah sort of question. This is
why I'm never having kids. I'vealways approached the job as if I were

(01:16:15):
a hitman. And then basically,Dad's that does his dirty business at work.
He washes his hands and he comesto Yeah, basically, don't ask
him about the job. What doeswhat does your dad do? He goes
on you know, he's he's asalesperson. He meets a lot of people,
travels a lot, talks a lot, and they don't talk about it.

(01:16:36):
Sit down. And then sometimes Ihave to go to the basement and
I scream for a while and theobscenities come out, and then it go
upstairs and you kind of you know, that's it. I feel like you
are living in a dream world becausethat, you know, I mean,

(01:16:57):
look like we got a lot ofstuff out there. Some day my kids
are gonna stumble across the bodies andthey're gonna have to make sense of it.
They're I'm gonna say, these bodiesthat fucking me putting electrodes on my
balls on a timer, Put dinneron this, put dinner on be sticking

(01:17:20):
the shot game in my pants,put dinner on this table. Where do
you think those bay blades came from? I just that's I did for you
guys. No, Like I dothink about it, especially like the you
know the Older podcast and just likehow young I was then, and uh,

(01:17:44):
I don't know. I don't worryabout it. I think it's just
gonna be a very interesting window intolike you you know, there's enough content
where you will you can see almoston a daily basis, you know,
many many years of our laws,which I think is fascinating. I think
it'll be interesting for them when they'reolder too, to be like, oh,

(01:18:11):
I remember that, I remember whenyou were downstairs screaming because you were
doing this thing that was fun orwhatever. Like there's there's a section of
time where they will have no idea, and I think that's fun time capsule
wise. But I think there's alsothey're going to get a kick out of,
like me telling stories about them,or them being on the steps behind
me watching me play a thing.That's those memories hopefully will be fun.

(01:18:35):
I don't know who knows. It'sthe it's a weird, weird world we
live in. Indeed, yeah,you lucked out there, Bud. People
in my family listening to this stuff, what are you gonna do? Like
I always I always think about hi, say hi hi everybody, thanks for
everything doing Okay, Like my parentswill sometimes call me and they might be

(01:18:59):
listening to this right now, andthat's something that's called me to be back.
I heard your fridge broke on thepodcast. On the podcast, okay,
yeah, yeah, how's it going? Okay, what's the next back
there? We've got an LG.We really like. You wouldn't be you
would not You're not far off,all right, Alex, do you want
to take this one from Sam?Sure? Thing, let me just bring

(01:19:21):
the window back up. Uh,Sam says, just a quick email,
because I'm not sure who else tomoan to about this. We are we
are your leading moaning podcast, sowelcome. PS five games are one hundred
and twenty five dollars where I liveAustralian that is ninety seven thirty six in

(01:19:43):
US dollars. Okay, you can'teven use the excuse that it's more expensive
to physically get a game in Australiaacross the ocean because I'm buying digital.
Well, that's that pipe that itruns all the way internet. You think
that pipe is free? I thinkthere's to be no question in this email.
But I am with you. Thatsucks. Shit. Isn't that crazy?

(01:20:03):
That's an expensive that's a one especiallyyou know what you need a VPN
and a and a not reagion lockedconsole buy all your games from a US
store. I don't know is thathow that works? Yeah? Yeah,
I mean everything. I guess that'skind of the move. I guess right.
I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what the solution
is there. And I don't knowif that has if that like that cost

(01:20:26):
has anything to do with like youknow, local law, tariffs, things
going on there that I don't knowanything about it. I don't know what
the fuck is going on Australia.Oh that really? Why does that impact
digital? I don't know. Idon't really understand what that is. I
just get scared whatever people talk aboutit, because it's all bad. I
always know we don't have to payit when you buy. Yeah, I

(01:20:48):
don't know about. That is whyit was so expensive for rock band to
get into Europe. Yeah, therewas a couple of kickstarters where like shit
went sideways because of that stuff whereit's just like, oh, this thing
now costs me eight thousand dollars insteadof twenty. I'm gonna look up that
after this. I assume they'll TEEstands for tax. Yeah, it's like

(01:21:13):
very arbitrary tech exactly right, standsfor tits. Oh weird as also very
arbitrary. Okay, this is impossible. Pivot will be done by Vinny.
Let's take this one from Nick aboutgarages. Oh okay, Nick says,

(01:21:33):
watching Jeff's this is Jeff Gersman's deepdiving into his garage garage. I don't
think I've ever seen a garage notcluttered with stuff or taking up one or
more parking spots? Is parking inthe driveway good enough? At what age

(01:21:54):
am I going to start filling thegarage? It seems like only yesterday I
could fit everything I own into awell, garages, you got a couple
of a couple of options. Iknew you'd be all into this hot garage
talk. You got your storage garage, you got I know people who parked

(01:22:14):
the car in the garage backlar,you put the car in the garage,
right, I put two in thegarage. Damn, your carage can fit
two. Mine could fit a horse, not even a car. It's mine
is my where I do my it'swoodworking and stuff is in my garage.
My car sins outside. Wheres inthe god given sunlight, where it's meant
to be. It's meant to be. I put you know, I've got

(01:22:35):
my prius. I put the coveron it every night so the sap and
the trees don't get on the mapleleaves on it, and I put the
cover on it. I put thebra on the front so it doesn't get
dinged up when I'm running. Iput the the what is the thing on
the back that like tail bumper,the plastic thing that comes out of your
bumper. Buddy, Oh yeah,I really take care of that night.
So you put a garage on yourcar just outside? No, I put

(01:22:57):
nothing on that car except gave yourcar armor dirt. I always thought the
people still use carbarage anymore? Oris that's just a long Island New Jersey
they use. Yeah, they don'tuse that anymore. But they definitely used
the bumper buddies for sure. Theydon't have ones for the side though,
huh like bowling bumper buddies. It'sjust like you're molding or something else.

(01:23:17):
Yeah. Uh so, yeah,you have the storage garage, you have
the car garage. You what else, the workshop, garage, workout I've
seen people change their garage into akind of the workout room where they do
their exercise. It's a lot ofdifferent options. Well, well, yeah,
here's the thing. I'll go aheadout, I would say when I
was when I was younger and Iwas in a band, we soundproofd oar

(01:23:39):
garage and putting industrial carpeting down there. So it became more of a oh
that's right out. Yeah, yeah, can't hang out garage or jam jam
room garage. That's always a goodone. Just crack the door open a
little bit, just so you knowwhat garage you know that kind of thing,
smoke out garage. Yeah. Uhthe funny thing. Grow up in

(01:24:00):
my uh my home, my dadwas very precious about all of his cars,
not unlike he doesn't drive it thannot unlike Cameron's like okay, he
just he just rubs it with adiaper u and you know, he somehow
figured out a way to like justsqueeze this thing into that garage, leaving

(01:24:25):
maybe an inch or two on everyside of it. And the garage just
had all so much, so muchother shit in it. And I never
understood, like, you're living thisin this crazy life of like fitting every
list possible square inch of real estatewith useless shit, and then you're big
honking cars somehow fitting there perfectly.It's just this crazy Tetris inventory management exercise

(01:24:50):
every time you come home. Yeah, it's not supposed to go like that.
I mean the garage we have nowis Dad definitely has stuff in but
I've made the decision have a prettydecent sized garage. It's right. Yeah,
I don't want to put any Iwant the cars in there. We
also have a you have a basement, which makes a big difference. That's

(01:25:12):
my my garage is my basement.The storage garage, Well, your basement
is your garage. I mean youhave you have playing room in the basement
to store all that stuff. Likewhen I was in California and we'd rent
a house, you know, evenwe would put the stuff in the garage.
This sor I've never parked a carin the garage. I don't think
ever in my life. Man,you know how you think you know how
to do. I'd probably get thatlittle fucking cat whisper whisker thing that you

(01:25:34):
put you know that like when itlike tingles the car, or is you
see a bend you've gone too far? That thing you gotta hang a ping
pong ball. No, I getthat thing that just stands up and it
goes. Think like when you arelike you see it moving. I don't
know, I've never done it.Yeah, Like it sounds like it sounds
like you never actually one of thethings that I was a little scared about
because someday I would love to havean electric car and that sounds great,

(01:25:57):
But like do you need to havethat inside a garage for the best charging
opportunity or you just run the extensioncord outside if you're looking for a plug.
Yeah, right, Like my garageis a detached garage. Uh,
And I don't know if I wouldjust run the electricity out of there,
or like I want a charging pador something. I don't know. I

(01:26:18):
don't know. It's a I'm lockedout of that future. You're gonna need
an outlet. You're gonna need anoutlet. I'm no one give me solar
panels and some kind of cord thingto go, or just get rid of
the car. Yeah, just walkeverywhere, and that's fine. I love
walking. I love public transportation.You know, living in New Jersey,

(01:26:42):
everybody wants you to drive to aplace New Jersey. You drive out of
your driveway onto a highway that isjust you go right into the turnpike from
California. I know how it justgoes. I feel like it wasna California,
like California was like New Jersey justputs, just puts like highway and
turnpike wherever they can. Well,there's a lot less space to work with,

(01:27:04):
to be fair, like, ifyou just took all the highways and
just condensed them down to New Jerseysize, then yes, you would end
up in a New Jersey situation.But you can't really walk anywhere in California.
You're kind of taking a minimum halfan hour. My experience is mostly
San Francisco and and kind of eastpacestuff. Yeah, yeah, I guess

(01:27:25):
you're right. Sucks in San Francisco, but like it still takes you twenty
to thirty minutes to get anywhere becauseof the fucking hills. The biggest sin
is that I probably live as thecrow flies from Bacalar about ten minutes and
through whatever time portal voodoo that Jerseyis using systems. It's like, Vinny,

(01:27:46):
Yeah, yeah, it's just likeit's like a pretzel. That's just
like as between. It's like likesomebody unspooled the tape and tried to cram
it back in there to get toyou. Got you gotta fill up your
gas tank on the way over.I think I could jump to your house
if I really got a good enoughhead start. All right, anymore?

(01:28:11):
Uh, yeah, we got twomore. Let's oh, well they're I
guess they're kind of like me focused. But let's do the arcade. Well,
we'll go with the are Oh andI did want to do uh you
know, a sort of like explainerthinks, So we'll do the arcade.
Uh. This comes from Brian listeningto April twenty three episode Jef talked about
his new arkad to be great toget more details, maybe a quick video

(01:28:34):
video. Okay, we'll see howthat goes maybe, but here here's the
details. The enclosure kit It's froma place called wreck Room Masters. Okay.
It is a four player controller kit. I got the the thirty two.

(01:28:58):
You know, inch Tension is thename of the model. So it's
basically if you can visualize like whatNinja Turtles looked like, the four player
Ninja Turtles cabinet, and essentially essentiallythat this has so the way they do
it. It's players four, one, two three. Okay, that's how
that goes. You understand what I'msaying. I do so stands next to

(01:29:23):
player one, right. I thinkthat's how it goes, and so that
if you're playing a single player thing, you're not on the wing right,
You're always on the second left.Yeah, the inner left. I did
not. Oh. The replacement buttonsI got are called gold Leaf buttons from
a store in the UK. Ifyou want more details on that, just

(01:29:45):
hit me up on Twitter or something. Did I swap joysticks? No?
Okay? What do you have?A bat? A ball top bat?
What's the they're the ball tops alltops? Okay, so it's four ball
tops, player two, player threeof six buttons. Player one player,
player four, three and four havefour buttons. Oh okay, yeah,

(01:30:05):
okay, because you know if it'sa fighting game. You're just one and
two. Sorry track track ball inthe middle for your golden teas. I
you're seven twenties. I don't yep, I don't have a spinner. I
do. I just gotta put itdown there. What I'm using, I'm

(01:30:26):
using an old, an old PCthat I just sort of had laying around.
I think it has a ten eightyt I in it, which is
probably overkill. Sit overkill is overkillfor what I am doing on that thing.
Maybe sort of the higher end emulation. It's probably like three D fighter

(01:30:47):
stuff like the tech ends and thevirtual fighters and stuff that might meet a
little more meat. But yeah,oh I'm sorry. Avon in the chat,
who who helped me a great deal, is correcting me. It's it
goes from left to right. Itgoes three, one, two four.
That's what it's player three, justfor if you're taking notes at home.
And uh so that's the computer Iam using. I was going to I

(01:31:10):
did have another. And you see, you know those are those little like
they look like the old Apple minis. They look like a little like a
puck. Uh. They're essentially youknow on the PCBs with just like ram
processor and that's it. In avideo out. You could get away with
using one of those. You coulduse a Raspberry pie, you could use
any sort of all in one littlekind of PC thing. But I uh,

(01:31:33):
I wanted to, you know,give myself a little bit of breathing
on with what I might run onthat in the cabinet. Just fine,
yeah, no problem. Uh.And the front end that I'm using is
called launch Box. Oh you gotlaunch did you all? Yeah? Yeah,
I don't know if there's another edition. Yeah, well there are two.

(01:31:55):
There's Big Box. Oh so BigBoxes the premium version of launch Box.
Yes, I got the Big Lifetimeedition. Oh, come on,
you know it. I've been usingLaunchbrocks for a while. I like it,
really, customer, would you?What's your Yeah, EMU Movies to

(01:32:15):
get your look at you. You'reyou're here, you're my buddy. Yes,
I've been here. So the EMUmovie. EMU Movies is cool.
It's like this huge database of likeretro media that it's like this gigantic library
of media, track screens for yourgames basically right, and launch Box tap
taps into that database. You canalso pay for EMU Movies, which I

(01:32:35):
also did. Got a lifetime thing. Thing of a jig there and when
you're using Big Box that is likeyour gooey for you know, accessing all
of your all of your arcade games, which is great, it looks great,
a lot of fun, super customizable. I got a fun little kind
of almost like a stranger things openon that which is uh pretty good,

(01:33:00):
and that stuff like that's. Yeah, you have too much and you have
to curate. I've got about Idon't even it's it's a lot, thousands,
thousands and thousands of stuff of things. I am sort of making my
way through discovering a lot of thingsI completely forgot about. That's kind of
been the best part of this experience. Like the original Ghostbusters game, the

(01:33:21):
real Ghostbusters game, I remember that, the three player game. Shit,
I forgot about that. Yes,it's all right, okay, remember the
NES one which was terrible? Yeahthat was bad. It's not bad.
It's you know it, there's acertain the bar gets lowered, right well,
especially for eighties licensed arcade games.Yes, told totally totally so uh

(01:33:45):
yeah, rediscovering all that stuff hasbeen super super fun. My favorite part
about it for sure. I'm right, you know MK three Ultimate that you
haven't him sit on my lap whilewe put You know, gonna tell you
right now, if you're getting andyou hook up APB, I am coming
to your house and I'm never leaving. That's a that's a whole other machine.

(01:34:08):
H You know, I might haveto get the wheel for iron Man
Ivan Stewart. Yea, even thoughI've been playing that at that restro Arcade,
which I guess I'll never visit everagain. But you kind of hit
a wall with that arcade game.Arcade game. Yeah, but no,
man, you could finish Tea Turtles, you could finish Simpsons, you can

(01:34:30):
finish Final Fight. This game.You get to like Race thirty and the
game is just like, hey,I guess you don't need breaks anymore.
Huh. You want to go fast? Well, your top speed is no
longer your top speed. I thinkthey were doing weird shit top speed.
Yeah, they were doing weird shit. Anyway, Yeah, it's been it's

(01:34:51):
been a great time. I alsogot a really cool I don't know if
I talked about this, but Igot this like LED display that changes with
the game that you play. Nowyou mentioned that, Yeah, so that's
really cool. I got that workingand that fit right into the front bezel.
Yeah, they made it for theversion I have. Okay, they
made it for this. Uh what'son the side of your what's the artwork?

(01:35:11):
Blackness? I just gotta get.I think you're just gonna put stickers.
You're just gonna get one of thoseuh fat heads or whatever, and
just like a football player catching aball or something on there. Yeah.
I was thinking about getting my myVinny Caravelli. Uh fat heads. Yeah,
you should get it, just thegood old me. Just you like,
I don't know what you just youlike cutting wood. It's me in

(01:35:33):
the shape of the side behind youside. It's me with my arms out
to the side of crouched a littlebit so I fit the shape of the
right. We get getting there,We get there, just kind of bend
down a little bit, come forward. That's a lot of fun. Do
you have a name for your thingyet? Do you call it something?
No? My wife calls it.What does she call it? She calls

(01:35:53):
it? Uh, this fucking atrocity. Okay, can you lower it down?
This fucking atrash atrocity? She no. Once it got shoved in the
corner because I was working on inthe middle of the room and she was
just like, well, this isterrible. Now we got it shoved in
the corner and she's much happier.Yeah, I would think so. Yeah,

(01:36:14):
next is to figure out your cableyour cable mess. Mmmm, no,
it's actually not bad. Oh good, Okay, I think I figured
out the solution of my cable mess, which is I need to move.
Oh okay, oh okay. Imean, what what better way to reorganize
your cables than to get the fuckout of the place you live and have
wind already with cables. I'll startover worked for our office? Boom boom?

(01:36:40):
Is that going to do it?For this week's show? Back line?
We have any more emails or corrections? I mean, I think that's
it. Yeah, there's one abouthockey that I'm sort of longing for.
Okay, you want to just couldn'tyou just go watch hockey? It's Alex,
it's for you too, Alex.What all right? Read this one

(01:37:00):
from John and we'll close it out, all right, So I'll read it.
Yeah, you read it? Okay. Over the years, I've tried
to get into hockey, but Istruggle to understand the flow and strategy of
the game, which when I readI left other than looking at a team's
record, I couldn't tell you ifa team is good or not. Well,
that's I feel like that's fair.If you don't watch hockey, how

(01:37:21):
would you know? The same goesfor players. Is there any advice you
can give me? You and Alexhave never mentioned the Avs, so you're
taking half of this blame Navarro.Sorry, I don't follow the Colorado Avalanche
that carefully. I live in Colorado. In the hockey discussions on the Beast,
guess we never talked about I'm sorryto say this year they appear to

(01:37:43):
be a contender for the Stanley Cup. Commentators. Commentators say they are fast,
which is confusing to me. Allhockey seems fast Erstand what's your assessment
of the ass I mean there's degrees. There are guys that are faster than
others. Sorry, John, Sowhat is the question? What is what
is good hockey? What is bad? Favorite team? What's going on here?

(01:38:06):
Is you know you've said this beforethat hockey is cold soccer, and
in a lot of ways it is. It is way faster than soccer.
But here's the thing, like Iwhat what this email reminded me of is
the reason why hockey is not popularin America and not and I'm not making
I'm not making fun of you,John, I'm just saying it is the

(01:38:28):
in it, Like hockey has justnot done a great job at explaining strategy,
or maybe it shouldn't have to.It's very obvious what strategy is in
a lot of other stories. I'mgonna hear what you're saying, Like,
there's no slam dunk, right,there's no like, there's no like,
wow, that guy just jumped andslammed this ball. Slap shot is probably

(01:38:50):
the closest to a slam duck you'regonna get. I feel like I'm going
to break from a breakaway goal.I think a breakaway goal is that for
hockey. I think hockey, inmy opinion, is like the most highlightable
sport just because there's the diversity ofit. We're like home run, Oh,
it's I hit that ball far.Yeah, but sometimes they hit it

(01:39:11):
further than the other balls. Oh, there it goes again. It's just
like, but the whole the homerun highlight is the same fucking thing over
and over and over. Sometimes theyhit it really far, Okay, But
the other thing is like sometimes it'sdark out, and sometimes it's light out,
and sometimes it's here or there.But I think that's also the other
side of it, is that likewhen you see a touchdown, or you

(01:39:32):
see a home run, or yousee a really good dunk or a fucking
ridiculous three point play in basketball,like it doesn't take much explanation to tell
you what is happening. Now.Yeah, yeah, when you see a
hockey goal, like you have tosit there and wait for the announcers to
pick apart. Okay, so thispuck bounced off this guy, but it

(01:39:55):
may have hit this other guy inthe knee and then it bounced under the
goalie, and it's just like there'snot like it's not that they're so strategy.
It's just sometimes these goals feel likethey come purely out of some sort
of like affront to physics as opposedto like a real like easy to show,
well delivered play, you know whatI mean. Yeah, I mean
what I'm talking about is not thatI'm talking about mostly individual effort goals,

(01:40:19):
where like I mean, basically,anytime Connor McDavid scores like he is doing
some supernatural bullshit, it makes nosense. He appears to sort of levitate
at sometimes that doesn't make sense.He does things on ice that no humans
should be allowed to do. Look, am I biased? You bet your
ass, I am. But atthe same time, I do think the

(01:40:41):
slow motion sort of like show offfiness of that game is unlike anything else.
But again, I don't know.NHL's going to HBO Max next season,
so we'll see. Yeah, we'llsee how it goes. So ESPN
and HBO Max are sharing the rights. NBC dropped out of negotiation, so
well you got it's warners, soI think you also have TBS and you'll

(01:41:04):
just have TNT for hockey now aswell. But you know, I think
it's a I think it's cool.So basically you'll get hockey and you'll get
Braves baseball, and that is it. That's all I think it, well,
right, the whole Atlanta thing.But but yeah, I mean,

(01:41:25):
uh, you know, to yourspecific question John about the Abs, Yeah,
the Ams look really good this year. I don't I don't think they
have what it takes to to getthrough a Stanley Cup playoffs, but if
they get there, I'll root forthem because I mean, I like the
Islanders now because they're basically made upof all of ex Devils, so they're

(01:41:45):
sort of like the team I likenow, uh and yeah, it should
be a fun postseason. It's ashame of the actual Devils. It is
a damn shame about the real Devils. You know what the worst part is
like having to tell my kid justsee him and he goes, Daddy,
why don't the Devils win? Igo because they suck? Yeah, because

(01:42:06):
they suck. They're terrible. Butwhat door is not walking through that door?
But when you were a kid,they want a lot of Stanley Cups,
didn't they Yes, they did,and into my young adult life they
most certainly did. Well, howcome that's not happening to me? I
don't know, because I'm sorry,and I'm sorry you didn't eat your broccoli
last minute. You were a cursedchild, That's right. It's like it's

(01:42:29):
it's like, well, I guessI gotta go play for them. I'm
like, I think you do,because you remember when you didn't want to
brush your teeth. That's why,that's why, that's why the Devil's lose
most nine games in our row.That's why I have not paid attention to
the Colorado Avalanche since Peter Forsberg wasplaying and that is not going to change
anytime. Wow, all right,well they they're a fun team to watch.
I'm sure they are, but Idon't care. And and like there
are there are teams that are justfast, like a fast team. They

(01:42:54):
they look like the other team isstanding still, and you can always tell
the faster team and game for sure. It's not just like, oh he
won that race to the buck.It's more of the sort of flow.
It's the chemistry. The Hockey podcastwill start in two weeks. Okay,
it'll just be myself screaming into thevoid and uh yeah, that'll be it.

(01:43:16):
Did you see Nobody saw it?Because it's a tiny little puck and
nobody can Nobody saw, Jeff,it was shot at ninety. It's why
they had to put like a flashon the puck for a while, the
glowy pucks, so people could justsee what no one alive remembers. That
joke is, what is that joke? The joke's twenty six years old.

(01:43:38):
Wait, they don't do it anymore. No, they don't do it anymore.
HD came along and everyone's like,oh, there's the buck. They
were playing, so said the wholetime. Wow, I just had to
squint a little bit about that.All right, should we get out of
here? Then? Hockey hockey,Kelly Rudy, Jeremy Roenick, your hockey

(01:44:02):
team, hockey people, those Wallacepodcasts. Should we get get out of
here? What do we have anythingelse? No? Uh no, no,
right, yeah that's what I said. Yeah, perfect, perfect,
You can prow the music on.But I do have one quick thing to
plug here, real quick. Yeah, plug it. I am on a
podcast called the Cinema Oblivia podcast thisweek. I was invited to do this

(01:44:28):
a while ago, and I amtalking about one of my favorite movies,
which is also one of the mostbleak movies you will ever see in your
goddamn life. It is called BringMe the Head of Alfredo Garcia. Okay,
I love it. All the contentwarnings in the world before you go
and seek that one out, butit is a it is a movie I
love and I had a good timetalking about it. So what's the podcast
again, Cinema Oblivia? Al Right, Backlar or anything else you got the

(01:44:54):
coming up here? Oh no,I'm good for the moment. All right,
thank you for Alex. You're drummingtonight. I am drumming tonight usual
time. You should go check outJen and I are playing some of that
Kingdom of Hearts. That was alot of fun. The Kingdom Hearts stuff
I really enjoyed. If you're watchingthis live, you can check us out
on Friday with the Hotspot and thenafter that we're gonna have our relaxed Friday

(01:45:17):
stream. It's very similar to UPF, we just call it something different.
I hope everybody has a great weekend. Stay safe out there. You've been
listening to Giant Beast Cast. I'mBritty Caravella. Thank you, Alex Navarro,
thank you, Jeff Baklar, andwe'll be back next week.