All Episodes

May 13, 2025 69 mins
It’s a light news week, so we open the floodgates for a massive edition of the Post Office. We dig into our favorite independent media outlets, whether Jacob Fatu is officially invited to the cookout, and the most overrated bands in music history. Brad has found another hidden gem with Drop Duchy—a puzzle game dressed up as a Tetris-inspired roguelite that deserves more attention. We share our excitement about the resurrection of Giant Bomb as a worker-owned, independent games media outlet, and what that means for the future of games journalism. PalWorld is quietly scaling back its more obvious Pokémon inspirations—exactly the ending we all expected in its looming legal standoff with Nintendo.
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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
What is up? Everybody? Welcome to this week's episode of
the Dense Pixels podcast What Girls Brad, joined by my
co host Carrie.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
What's up?

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Terrence? Hey, no Micah this week, but we will soldier on.
There's not a lot of fun to talk about, guys.
I'm playing Clayer Obscure still. As I told Terrence and Micah,
I got to that part, uh in Claire Obscure. Yeah,

(00:41):
but I got to the first, I got to the
first that part, that and and that that kind of yeah,
that kind of that kind of that kind of shocked me. Yeah. Yeah.
So I of course will not spoil that for anyone
for carry or anyone else listening that has that isn't
interested to play it, but had it's not advanced far

(01:02):
enough and Clayer of secure, so uh yeah, story's great,
combat's great, having a lot of fun. Terrence, you have
finished a vowed Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
Finished it over the weekend, finished a Saturday, and I
really enjoyed it. I actually really liked that game a lot.
There are two things that I hate in that game, though,
and I think some review I don't know if any
reviews actually brought this up, but two things that I
hate is in the game, like combat wise is cool,
it's really fun.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
But once you kill everything, no, they don't like respawn
or anything like that. Interesting, nothing responds. So I'm like,
all right, I killed everything in a section.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
And okay, I guess I'm moving on, like because there's
a lot of exploration also, so when you're like running
around just exploring and you killed everything, it's just you
just kind of look for chess and treasure and it
gets kind of boring because these levels aren't exactly small,
all right, They're kind of big. And the second thing
is the upgrade system is a little weird, right. You

(02:02):
have different tiers of loot, and like I have a
sword that I got maybe in like our eight of
the game that I just held through the entire game,
and I just upgraded it. But the thing about it
is sometimes you run into enemies that are like two
or three levels higher than you buy a mistake, and
they hit like tanks, and you don't realize it that

(02:24):
they're you don't realize that they're like higher level than you,
because the only indication is like the little tiny emblem
that shows oh they're level three instead of two, and
they kick your ass. So that kind of threw me
off from the very beginning of the game. And actually
there's three things that I hate it. At the end
of the game, there's a point of no return, just
like every RG, right, because they tell you it's literally

(02:45):
called the point of no return in the game, you
get to this point, but they're still like giving out
weapons and shit. And again, like I said, once you finish,
once you kill everything, there's nothing left to fight, so
they're giving you high level gear, but you only get
the for like the hour that's left in the game, right,
And I'm like, you still give me shit.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
A lot of a lot of RPGs do that, which
is really annoying, Like like I mean specifically, I remember
Final Fantasy eight gives you Cloud Squalls best weapon and
best limit break as a reward for beating like the
most difficult boss in the game, which is an optional boss,

(03:28):
and it's like cool, like I'm glad I got this
as like, but the thing that I would need it
for is dead. Yeah, so like and I mean it
does make the rest of the game, you know, pretty
trivial if you have your party set up correctly, but yeah,
like at the same time, like it's just like okay, cool, Like,
I'm glad that you gave me this reward. I was like,

(03:50):
but I can't use it on the thing that i'd
like to that I'd like to be able to use
it on.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
Some I see what you're saying, but like, I'm getting
these these objects, and I'm like, there's no new game
plus or anything like that.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Once you beat the game. It's a rap.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
So I'm like, I'm getting all this stuff and I
can't use it. I can't even go back to like
stuff that I killed already because they're already dead, right,
So I can't use it on anything but the last
few enemies that are in the game. And I'm like,
what is this fucking stupid? Why did you get very angry?
It was very strange. I'm like, I don't, Okay, thanks,
but I literally haven't well the point of the return

(04:26):
like another hour and twenty five minutes, which I was
surprised that it was so so much longer, but so
but yeah, overall, like those were the two biggest issues,
and it had some it's a great game. There were
there's some quality of life things like over encumbrance, right,
like can we no, here's.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
The thing they have?

Speaker 4 (04:45):
It?

Speaker 1 (04:45):
Let me finish. Okay, they have that. But here's here's
the great thing about it.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
You you can just teleport any of that ship that
you don't want in your inventory to your stash, Okay,
pick it out like or over in Cumbriage. I'm just
defend it to this magic that it's nice my camp,
which was really cool. I was like, my petition is
unless you're like unless your kingdom, come Deliverance where you're
trying to be like a super realistic realistic right, like

(05:12):
can we be.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Able to hold twenty thousand swords to begin with? Dumb?
Can we? Can we please just stop doing over encumbrance
as a game mechanic, but as a like I'm looking
specifically money. I went back to Skyrim. Right after I finished,
I went back to Skyrim. I haven't played it since
it came out years ago, and like it came on

(05:34):
twenty eleven, it's.

Speaker 3 (05:36):
Fourteen years so I'm playing. I'm playing it, and I'm like,
all right, over encumbrance. Fuck, I don't have I don't
have a magical stash. Okay, well I don't want to
play this no more. I'm still playing it. It was
like they have like I was picking up the dragon bones,
because they're worth a lot of money right when you
sell them.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
Oh yeah, but they're so heavy.

Speaker 3 (05:56):
They're incredibly heavy, and I'm like, well, I can only
carry three, and I've already damned near over incumbers. So
I had to leave a sword and went back to town.
And like the townsfolks have like no money and they're
fucking like they're broke.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
All the defenders are fucking broke. They didn't even have
the money to give me.

Speaker 3 (06:12):
And that was the other thing in about I'm like,
they just have infinite money. You sell a whole bunch
of stuff, you can just sell it all like you
had a three.

Speaker 4 (06:19):
What's funny is that I've been playing Oblivion, which about
reminded me a lot of watching my partner play it.
But I've been playing the Oblivion remake right, and my
save file has encountered a glitch where all of the
all of the shop keepers have infinite money. But it's

(06:39):
like it will say like they have a thousand, and
then if I try to sell something that's worth more
than a thousand, they'll be like, nah, I can't give
you that. But if I sell like fourteen five hundred
gold items, they just give.

Speaker 1 (06:50):
It to me, good old Positionnanians.

Speaker 3 (06:55):
So yeah, I just thought like the quality of life
things about when I went back to Skyrim, like, oh
I this makes this makes life so much better.

Speaker 1 (07:04):
And the one last.

Speaker 3 (07:05):
Game that I'll just talk about before you get to
I started playing, and this is a funny story. I
started playing a Revenge of the Savage Planet because it's free, right.

Speaker 1 (07:13):
And I played like what I like. What I played,
I liked.

Speaker 3 (07:16):
But the biggest issue that I have with that game,
which maybe deleted, was the combat music. It's terrible, Like
like when you know, when you get into combat, does
this combat in the game, Like you shoot things, but
the music sucks, right, it sucks really bad. And like
the way the music is set up is like it
starts up when an enemy is in range.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
Okay, cool.

Speaker 3 (07:38):
The thing is like if you leave that range, you
could like take a footstep out of that range, the
music stops. But if you step back into that range,
the music starts back up again. So there are certain
times where like enemies will be behind you and you
don't realize it the combat music starts up. Now I said,
the music is terrible, right, so it'll start and stop
and I'm like, yo, this is driving me fucking crazy,

(07:59):
and I don't like any this, Like I liked what
I played, but like I don't like terrible music, so
I deleted it.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
I'm gonna I'm gonna check out I'm gonna check out
that that song after we're done, because like I said.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
I I feel like I have to music.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
Yeah, with cl.

Speaker 4 (08:16):
Claire scar is interesting because Claried's here, you can kind
of tell that it's a guy. So they just like
found this dude on SoundCloud, which is really funny. Wish
that would happen to me, but uh, they found this
dude on SoundCloud, and you can kind of tell that,
like he's a little more versed in some styles than
in others. Like overall, the Claire Obscure soundtrack is solid,

(08:40):
but it's like, I don't think Homie knows how to
mix and master certain genres compared to others, because like
some things definitely sounds like a little more crisp and
a little more put together, just even in terms of
the mixing than other stuff.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
They have the same time, every time I get to
go back to the manor, that's a that's a treat
for the ears.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
The manner theme is is solid.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
Yeah, and you can collect all that music and play
it at the at the base camp too. Mm hmm.
Lookout for all those those records.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
They're also putting other vinyl.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
Of course there. Yeah. Vinyl is so back, so it's
I know it has it has been back to be fair.
So the only new game I played is a game
that came out last week that I think it's a
really good game, and it's not gonna get us due
just because of the genre that it's in. It's a
it's a small independent title. It's called Drop Duchy, which

(09:37):
it kind of presents itself as hey, what if? What if?
Roguelike deck builder, uh and Tetris because essentially the core
gameplay loop is you're going down a you know, multi
path roguelike map, and you have a mixture of resource
gathering encounters and combat encounters, and in each encounter you

(09:59):
go into, you have kind of a deck of tiles,
right of polyomen tiles that are different types of terrain,
but also the buildings that you have access to, which
are a mixture of like production buildings and military buildings,
and you drop them down one at a time in

(10:20):
a Tetris like field and you try to get the
buildings that you have synergized with the terrain, and every
time you complete a row, you get resources based on
what type of terrain is in that row. And it's
also interesting because when you do the combat the combat encounters,
you also have to place the enemies tiles as well,

(10:44):
like they're part of your deck, and so you have
to strategize like how to place their how tiles into
the grid without you know, giving them a huge advantage.
And then in the combat encounters, once all the tiles
have been placed, you basically get to set the order
of how the different attacks happen. There's a rock paper
scissors mechanic where like pikemen beat swordman, and bowman beat pikemen,

(11:08):
and swordman beat bowmen, so you have to have that
consideration as well. But because everything in the game is
really deterministic in terms of like the math and how
combat works and stuff like that, it's actually more of
just a straight puzzle game that just happens to have
like like the roaguelike Accoutreman attached to it. And it's

(11:29):
really clever and a lot more difficult than I thought
it would be, because not only do you have to
balance like all right resource gathering so that I can
get a lot of resources because you need those to
be able to upgrade the buildings that you have like
in your deck for that run. But you also can
use gold to like heal yourself, like you have like

(11:50):
a general you know, strength meter that you have to
keep above zero because if if that goes away, it's
game over. But you also want to balance the military
encounters that as well, because is if you bypass doing battles,
then it makes like the boss of that of that
level of that act stronger for every like military encounter

(12:11):
that you pass up essentially, and the way the boss
mechanics are is pretty interesting as well. Like the the
Act one boss is this thing called it's just called
the wall where there's like an arbitrary wall that sits
in the tetris field and you have to play like
a certain number of tiles to make it move up
a little bit. But if you place a tile that

(12:33):
sticks out above like where the wall is, then the
then you're just done and you have to like finish
the roundout from there. So drop dutchy really interesting. I'm
liking it quite a lot. And like I said, I
if you're into like puzzle puzzly games. This is definitely
one to check out because it's been really fun so

(12:54):
far and I've been really enjoying kind of playing with it.
This will this will be my Steam det game while
I'm playing Clear Obscure on the actual on the desktop
because I can't play by game on Steam Deck because
I need the visual palette to be in front of
me to play that one. So drop Dutchy is a
good one.

Speaker 4 (13:14):
Sick, I have something to at least say that I'm
going to be playing finally after it existing for thirty
plus years now.

Speaker 2 (13:25):
I'm probably going to start Krona Trigger this week.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
Are you to stream it? You're probably not.

Speaker 2 (13:31):
I I'm not going to stream it.

Speaker 4 (13:33):
I'm probably just gonna like hang out in a couple
different discords and like stream it to those discords. So
maybe I'll spend some time in the dnce Pixels discord
streaming it to that too. I don't want to like
turn it into content basically by like actually streaming it
on Twitch. I want to be able to like take
my time and not feel like I'm being kind of
like backseat gamed, because I worry that that's what would

(13:55):
happen if I were to be.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
Like first time playing Crona Trigger Twitch.

Speaker 4 (13:59):
But uh yeah, look, the Switch To releases next month
and Corona Trigger is not, and especially long RPG, so
I feel like I can use that as my kind
of little little time killer before the Switch Too comes
out and then all I'm going to be playing is
Mario Kartworld and Donkey Kong and then Ryde.

Speaker 2 (14:18):
Oh.

Speaker 4 (14:21):
But yeah, if you're a part of the Dance Pixels discord,
watch out for me just streaming into that.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
Very cool. I'm really excited to see your impressions, your thoughts, because,
like I said, it's it's odd, especially for someone with
your gaming library background.

Speaker 4 (14:41):
Yeah, I mean it is one of these things where
it's like I had, you know, I've talked about this
on the show before.

Speaker 2 (14:47):
I did not have a console growing up.

Speaker 4 (14:50):
So even though I had friends in the neighborhood who
had like snees systems, they weren't playing RPGs. They were
playing like Kirby and Mario World.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
And stuff like that.

Speaker 4 (15:01):
So I've played, i want to say, like the opening
of Chrono Trigger a couple of times because it appeared
on the PlayStation Final Fantasy Anthology which was Final Fantasy
four and Krono Trigger. That sounds yeah, So I had

(15:21):
a I had a friend who had that, and so
I tried that and I just like, I didn't get
it really at the time, but I was also like nine,
so I'm cutting myself a little bit of slack, but
I want to play the scene version, which I've heard
is okay.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
My wife's started to play it. She really didn't get
into it, but her starting to play it was just
make me want to play it again because it's been
a couple of years since I've actually sat down with it.
So I it. I don't think I'm gon played Corona Trigger.
You're not You're not the couple.

Speaker 3 (15:56):
When I was younger, I played a couple of guys
I've gotten older, like, yeah, yeah, that's one of them
that didn't play.

Speaker 1 (16:06):
I mean still probably probably the whole like build up
to the megas fight in that game is probably and
the actual fight itself is probably probably my favorite singular
moment in any like old school JAPG.

Speaker 2 (16:21):
Yeah. It's funny because like, I've played.

Speaker 4 (16:23):
So much of the music from Corona Trigger in various capacities.
I recorded a a award nominated cover of Secret of
the Forest UH with with my partner Ian Cowell and
the Band of Exceptional Goblins. I've performed Shala's theme numerous
times live, you know, Yearnings of the Winds, the opening theme, like,
there's there's a lot, there's a lot of really good

(16:45):
ship on that OSD and now I'll look forward to
finally being able to contextualize a lot of that music.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
So it really they're really cooking when they when they
made that one. There there's a there's a you know,
there's a not a false reported romer, but I guess
the one of the producers of the game miss like
miss miss translated miss speaking Yeah, that there would be
potentially a remake coming, which would be cool, but you

(17:14):
know what, the original version still holds up exceptionally well.
So I would say, like, if don't, don't, if you
haven't played it and you've been interested, don't even bother
waiting for a remake, Just do what Carre's doing and
get it on PS and go from there. Because again
also weirdly difficult to play, despite it's a it's its
stature in the UH in the gaming lexicon. So well,

(17:36):
we'll tell you what take quick break we'll come back.
There's a couple of new stories and then from there
we're going right in the post office. So see it
call an ambulance, but not for Giant Bomb. We talked
last week about how UH Corporate owns games Media was
in a real tough spot with the closures of Polygon

(17:58):
and the kind of of neutering for lack of a
better term, of Giant Bomb. But lo and behold, Giant
Bomb lives, and it lives independently. Was announced at Pack's
East over this past weekend that Jeff Backlar and Jeff Grubb,
who were members of the Giant Bomb, the most recent

(18:20):
iteration of Giant Bomb, actually worked with Fandom to buy
the Giant Bomb brand and all of the assets from
Fandom and it will now be a worker owned and
operated company with Jeff Grubb, Jeff Backlar, Janachoa, Mike Manatti,
and Dan Riker and they were back as of today.

(18:43):
They did their normal news morning show that they do
every weekday. They'll be back with their normal programming tomorrow.
And of course now that it's independently supported, there relying
on their their their listeners and their watchers to support them.
Which was the fastest hundred dollars that I've ever spent
was buying Giant Bomb Premium this weekend because I really

(19:08):
enjoy their content. Look, you love to see it. This
This is where gaming media needs to go.

Speaker 4 (19:18):
This is the best possible outcome is fandom actually agreeing
to sell the brand to the people who worked for
Giant Bomb, because there's a lot of situations where they
would not have let that brand go because they understand
the value of it at least.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
But I'm sure there's also folks at fandom who understand
this is not gonna be a good look for us
if we don't do this.

Speaker 1 (19:42):
So everybody they I mean, in talking about how this
deal came together, they even mentioned that Fandom listened to
the fact that like all of their fans like got
really loud and belligerent after after everything kind of went
down and realized like, oh shit, like uh, probably for
the the best thing to do for Giant Bomb is

(20:04):
actually for us to sell it to the people who
were actually made to do for fandom.

Speaker 4 (20:12):
It's a pr move, That's That's the real question is
how much how much did fandom value Giant You know,
I can't imagine.

Speaker 1 (20:24):
I bet you it's not as much as you think,
just because again, like I think fandom came to realize
very quickly that Giant Bomb without the people that made
Giant Bomb, with Giant Bomb is is kind of is
kind of worthless, right, Like it doesn't Giant Bomb. It's different,
It's it's a similar situation. So when so when sid

(20:44):
Meier first started the Civilization series, and I can't remember
the name of the original company who made it before
he spun off and made for Access, but it was
always called like sid Meier Civilization, right, And then I
think Activision in the late nineties bought the original company

(21:04):
and so they owned all the rights to the Civilization franchise,
and they Activision released two games under the Civilization Moniker,
and they sold for dog shit because they weren't sid
Meier's Civilization, they were just Civilization, and they very quickly
realized that, like without sid Meier, the Civilization brand was

(21:27):
kind of worthless, so they sold it to sid Meier
for nothing, basically, and then so said Meyer was able
to continue making CID games. And again, it's a very
similar thing here is that when you have people and
personalities that are so strongly identified with a brand, they
kind of become the brand and that's the strength and
that's what we were talking about last week. So I
wouldn't be surprised, like if fandom let it go for

(21:50):
relatively little. I think maybe what they maybe got money
for was the all the content like the archive and
the website and everything else that kind of came oull
with it, because that does actually have value. But yeah,
I mean it's like, what were they going to do
with it, especially after everything that happened. I don't think
there was too much. And it's funny because this is

(22:12):
a very different Jeremy Parrish, who used to be with
one up dot Com way back in the day kind
of kind of the giant bomb progenitor, if you will,
in terms of like the game's media space. I remember
when he told an anecdote today like how fortunate they
are is because when he when Zif Davis bought one

(22:33):
up dot Com and a lot of the people that
made that site what it is left, Jeremy Parrish says
he got he actually was able to get together like
a seven figure package to buy like one up dot
Com and all the assets from Zip Davis, and they
wouldn't sell it because oh, there's too much value in
the brand and then they just let the site rot

(22:54):
for a decade plus essentially, which really which really pissed
them off. Like they're like, oh, we have this thing
that's valuable and then they exerted no money from it
and you know, and and let it just kind of
die on the vine. So it's very cool if this happened.
Pretty you know, fans of the site and and in
games media in general, we're really jubilant about this news

(23:16):
over the weekend. A big win for independent games media,
and I think everyone's pretty happy to see this brand
live on. So again, speaking of Davis, they are one
of the one of the rare, like you know, the
worst guy. You know, it makes a great point kind
of kind of examples. So yeah, there, So we go

(23:39):
at a I for open a Eyes scraping of uh
copyrighted works to power it's algorithm. So and I hope
they win, which is not something that you expect to
hear about Ziff Nabels. So giant corporation, right, I mean again,
like they're like there are no you know, there there
are no heroes, but uh, but we can hope for
the best. Speaking of giant corporations, turns out lawsuits from

(24:06):
big you know, corps that have a big stick to
swing pretty effective. Pocket Pair has removed some of the
more overt Pokemon like features from their viral twenty twenty
four hit Power World, with a dating back to a
patch that came out late last year, which most notably

(24:30):
got rid of the ability to summon creatures by throwing
a pal sphere, which is not legally distinct enough from
a poke ball to keep them safe from Nintendo. Pocket
Pair basically last week admitted that, yes, as many speculated,
these were indeed a result of the ongoing litigation the
reason why we did this stuff. Unfortunately, the alternati would

(24:52):
to an even greater deterioration of the gameplay experience for players,
and so it was determined that this change was necessary.
So yeah, like this of course this was gonna happen, right, Like,
of course Power World was gonna have to make changes
after making the Pokemon game that wasn't called Pokemon. Essentially,

(25:13):
do they have a copyright on poke balls? They have
a they have a patent, They have a patent on
the mechanic of throwing like sphere objects. The capture the ship,
You not like, that's where this fucking came from. I
think it's ridiculous that you can patent game mechanics like

(25:33):
like we like, yeah, the most famous example of this,
of course, the neminisist the Nemesis system. Yeah, that doesn't
b owns and does nothing with despite the fact that
it's a cool stud Wow. Well okay, patent is throwing
a tennis ball at animal. Yeah, but look, but look
at this at the same time, like if you're gonna,

(25:54):
if you're gonna, if you're gonna be so overtly.

Speaker 2 (25:58):
Copying, sure, yeah, an homage.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
Like they're not taking money at it, you know what, whatever,
that's true. I mean that that, you know what, That
is the point that I wish would get brought up
more often, Like there's not a single person that's out
there like well, you know, since power World exists, I'm
not going to buy the latest pomon right.

Speaker 3 (26:22):
Right, So intellectual property that they're stealing from it's going
to take away from our bottom line.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
No, it's not. It isn't. We have to we have
to protect our brand. That's yeah.

Speaker 4 (26:35):
It does kind of like boil down to that more
than anything, though, Is that like if a casual observer,
someone who has not been playing Pokemon for the last
almost thirty years, such as myself can can like look
at like gameplay of Power World and confuse it for
Pokemon in any way, then yeah, they unfortunately like it
or not, they've got a case.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
So because like if the three of us all worked.

Speaker 4 (27:01):
At fucking game stop and we all know that the
average forty five year old white suburban mom does not
know the difference. She is not going to figure it out.
She's just gonna say cute creatures and throwing balls and be.

Speaker 2 (27:18):
Like, this is Pokemon.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
You got that new Pokemon is like, yes, we do.
It's like, what's that? It's Power World?

Speaker 3 (27:25):
Is that not Pokemon? It's power World. At the foot
of the difference, it's Power World.

Speaker 1 (27:32):
You know what?

Speaker 3 (27:33):
Well, Okay, yeah, I hated those customers, like she's fucking dumb,
But again, the majority of the people.

Speaker 1 (27:41):
In this country is stupid. But that's neither, as we've
continued to find out, so as as we as we
live in this healthcate that we call America. So right now,
but yeah, I think the lesson here again as usual,
is don't try to step the Nintendo because again, like that,
as I've heard it said many many other places like

(28:02):
all of Nintendo's gaming decisions are made in Japan. Nintendo
of America basically exist as a combination marketing firm and
law firm, Like that's all that they fucking do. They
literally have lawyers on retainer looking for cases to pursue
because what the fuck else are they going to do
because they're not making any decisions on games. So that's

(28:23):
that's basically it. So yeah, don't uh, don't fuck, don't
pee in Nintendo's pool, and you will generally be okay,
believe it or not. That is all of the news.
So we're gonna get right into the dence Pixels post office.
Don't forget to join our discord by going to denspixels
dot com slash fans, and we'll start with beach Boy,

(28:46):
who says, which fictional game world would you want the
current administration to live in? I've never played this game,
but I've read and watched the anime. I'd love to
see Donald Trump live out the attack on Titan Games.
And then they said, actually, we can expand it to
movies or TV shows as well as there's a lot
of folks that they'd like to see get the ending
of con Air Cyrus the virus style. Uh in the

(29:07):
current administration.

Speaker 3 (29:08):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (29:09):
Look, there's no shortage of potential situations that I wouldn't
mind seeing that a lot of the current administration find
themselves in. Yeah, that's a good one. Yep.

Speaker 2 (29:23):
Like the actual plane of oblivion.

Speaker 1 (29:27):
Yep. If we're gonna keep in this Nick Cage movies. Uh,
the Rock, like all of the different ways that the
that the evil military guys die uh in the Rock
would be would be pretty cool. Superman two, we can
we can kind of work with Yeah, sent into the
phantom zone plastic No, well, no, that was like a net.

(29:53):
Now we're gonna We're gonna fantom zone all these fools
surviving the game, except that they don't have like an
icy level uh person on their side. That's that's a
deep cut for you know, time to lead fans out there.
Somehow we never covered surbriving the game. I don't know
how we That was a massive oversight on our part. Yeah,

(30:15):
the matrix, but the real world, yeah yeah, yeah, he
has a bunch.

Speaker 4 (30:25):
Of placements Titanic, but like just on the boat, like
not not in like the world at large, like just
on the boat.

Speaker 1 (30:32):
Donald Donald Trump would absolutely try to pull the billy's
aid right, he'd be like I got a kid. Okay,
he would absolutely be that guy. He one hundred made
me mad. Uh Javal asked, following up on the previous

(30:58):
pods discussion about supporting dependent creators in media, what are
some folks that are doing great independent workout there that
you would recommend giving a follow? Does not necessarily have
to be gaming related.

Speaker 4 (31:10):
So this is interesting because I think there's a lot
of really great independent journalism happening out there. But I
think the best thing that you can do is just
sort of like look within your market. Chances are there
is like a fully independent, you know, newspaper or media
outlet of some sort, whether it's like a community paper

(31:32):
or city paper or what have you.

Speaker 2 (31:35):
So I would start there. As far as like games,
independent games media, it's a great question us.

Speaker 1 (31:46):
Yeah, yeah, start start with us, denspixels, dot com, slash premium.
Are you going to support your friendly local what are
what what like independent games media? Are there out there?
Like online and so much that like.

Speaker 4 (32:00):
Things that like aren't right, aren't owned, like self owned,
aren't like a larger conglomerate.

Speaker 1 (32:06):
Giant bomb kind of funny min Max Remap, Next Lander, Uh,
Second Wind, which is all the former Escapists folks. Yeah,
there's definitely quite a few of them out there. If
you're an RPG fan, Acts of the Blood God Uh
is a pretty good group to check out as well.

(32:34):
Those are Those are kind of my go to for games.
In terms of other news, if you're local to Baltimore, Baltimore, Bannert, Baltimore, Yeah,
really good local newspaper. The Verge is doing amazing work
right now, not just in tech as you would expect,
but also in politics. They've been they've been in Yeah

(32:55):
there they are independent, they have they have some corporate sponsorship,
but they are they are not corporate owned. What else
you got out there? Wired is doing really good stuff.
I think Wired might actually be corporate and I'm not
sure about that, but but they're still doing good work.
I've recently got turned onto The hand Basket, which is
an independent journalism site run by Marissa Cavis I believe

(33:19):
it's her name. She's doing really good like on the
ground working. ProPublica is also great, like if you want
kind of like deep dies and investigative journalism.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
On Yeah, Wired is unfortunately owned, asked.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
Okay, Well, then not Wired, but I still like Wired.
But yeah, those are those are kind of my go
tos right now as far as far as the stuff
that's getting my money, that's most of that stuff right there.
So yeah, but yeah, us definitely, Yeah, for sure. Johnny

(33:58):
asked a question for Micah, but we'll ask Terrence. Uh
he Johnny knows that Mia hates the the usas. But
is Jacob Fatu invited to the cookout out of fear
or respect? I like Jacob Pattu.

Speaker 3 (34:14):
Yeah, I think it's from Oakland or something like that,
So yeah, he would, he'd be invited to the cookout.
I know he's some owen, but like you can till
he grew up a brown a bunch of black folks,
you know, s f like they are.

Speaker 1 (34:28):
He might be. I don't know, he might be from,
but like he don't sound like you know what I
sound like the rest they're all.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
Like Bay Area dudes.

Speaker 1 (34:35):
Yeah, he's definitely to be he's I don't.

Speaker 4 (34:37):
Know that Jacob Fatu is from Sacramento, which is not
the Bay Area but just outside.

Speaker 3 (34:44):
But yeah, he's got a hell of an accent. That's
a that's definitely a California like.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
That.

Speaker 3 (34:55):
I like, I like Jacob Fatu, like I don't like
Solo Ah, so they're fine as a tag team, and
I think Michael would say the same thing, like like
I don't think cham I don't.

Speaker 1 (35:09):
Think Micah does care for the usas.

Speaker 2 (35:12):
I like them as a tag team more than I
like he doesn't.

Speaker 1 (35:17):
But like Solo J fucking sucks. I'm sorry. I got
the same hate for solo J as Micah does. I don't.

Speaker 3 (35:24):
I don't like that character. I don't like eating ship.
I don't like the fact that he's a champion. I
hate the way that they he walks, the way that
he talks.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
I hate the way he.

Speaker 3 (35:32):
Dressed as a fucking Kanye I mean, not a kind
of what that was Kendrick Lamar anyway.

Speaker 1 (35:40):
I will say he just presses me off. I will
say that on the Latest I caught his promo on
the Latest Raw, and just seeing him wearing the world
title belt, it's just kind of weird, Like it's just
sem right.

Speaker 2 (35:53):
That was a wild ass fucking promo. Paul Hamon coming
out and doing what he's done best for the last
several decades, and then and then Jay just being like
are you okay? She was so fucking funny man.

Speaker 1 (36:12):
So Andy asks a wild Andy appears in the chat
and just ask what the fuck is your problem? Which
I think Andy is confused. I know Cam has been
on a couple episodes of The ner Apocalypse, but he's
not on this show, so I'm not sure what Andy.
I think Andy just wandered in off the street and

(36:33):
was very uh perplexed on going on. So there's that
film Wander asked favorite Saboo match? Yees. So for those
who did not hear, Saboo passed away unfortunately the age
of sixty this past weekend.

Speaker 2 (36:49):
Yep, like many wrestlers dying way too.

Speaker 1 (36:53):
Yeah. However, I don't have an answer to this because
I was not a well I've seen I've seen the
Sabu match, but like I was on clips of Sabu matches,
I've never seen any full match. I wasn't an ECW
guy back back in the day, so like, I didn't
really have an occasion to watch that. And and again,
like even back then, I find the the death match

(37:14):
stuff really like off putting just from a general you know,
wrestling standpoint.

Speaker 3 (37:20):
Yeah, I was watching like they had Dark Side of
the Ring has a new season now, right, and they
did the Hell in the Cell match with Mankind and
the Undertaker that they've done a thousand times.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
There's been like ten documentaries on.

Speaker 3 (37:34):
That, right, It's even back then, it's his, it's his,
like it's his Kuda graph you will.

Speaker 1 (37:41):
But like, even back then when he fell off that cage,
I was what sixteen seventeen years old.

Speaker 3 (37:48):
Even back then, I'm like, this is fucked up. I
thought he was dead, like just like, what's his name, Jr.
I was like, oh my god, they killed him, Like, well,
it seems like he's not. But then he gets up
and continues to wrestle. I'm like, yeah, I'm not a
big fan all today. Yeah, I'm not a big fan
of like light bulbs and fucking like the hard courshit
he was doing before he made it to the WW

(38:10):
I'm like, this seems unnecessary. Yeah, and the people are
doing that shit today. I'm like, y'all are going to
kill yourself for like twenty thousand, hot dog. That doesn't
make any sense.

Speaker 1 (38:19):
But what's what's funny about that Hell and Cell match, though,
is that people forget like people like, oh, this Ultra
Violet match is crazy. It really was just three big
spots that just are so legendary that they kind of
stick in your mind, like it's it's the it's thrown
him off the cage, it's it's chokes letting him through
the cage, and then the right and then.

Speaker 2 (38:41):
It's God is like witness he's broken in half.

Speaker 4 (38:44):
And then you know, and then like you know, the
medical team was like you good and he I guess
was good enough to get like.

Speaker 1 (38:52):
Through, Oh no, I'm pretty I'm pretty sure that like
once he got tossed off the cel like they were
like they were like, you're you're done, the match is over,
and he's like, no, I'm going to continue to I'm
going to continue to do this Undertaker, I don't know what.

Speaker 3 (39:07):
Yeah, And the Undertaker was like you sure, okay, And
like I remember they asked when he threw him through
the cage, right.

Speaker 1 (39:17):
And they go through like what's his name? Comes in
to try to buy him some time.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
Well that was like the bump through the cage was
not planned.

Speaker 1 (39:26):
No, no, it wasn't.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
That wasn't like a couple of zip ties up there
holding that ship.

Speaker 1 (39:35):
Was the same.

Speaker 3 (39:35):
But Terry Funk comes in the ring and he's like
and and Undertaker comes down, he breaks his ankle actually
or he twists or like fractures his ankle when he
lands on the on the mat and he asked Terry
Funk and he's.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
Like is he alive? Like the question he asked him.
It's like is he alive?

Speaker 3 (39:52):
And he's like, yeah, he's good, Go ahead and choke
slam me. You're like, knock me out and knock him
out of his socks so he can get to like
his bearings back. That's an Saye match again, there's three
it's three spots, but like mcfoley is a lunatic, yeah, crazy, yeah,
and now he's paying for it all these.

Speaker 1 (40:07):
Years, like of course, of course, honestly, honestly though, like
as bad as that match was, and it was real bad,
I think not the worst WWE like destructive mcfoley match.
I'm pretty sure the Royal rom Street fight against Yeah
or which one do you think gave him more brain damage?

(40:30):
The Eye Quick match definitely gave him more brain damage, yes,
one hundred percent. But I'm just saying from a from
just a brutality standpoint, like I remember the Street Yeah, yeah,
that was pretty good. But Triple H also ate some
ship that match, I think he cut his like cap
and it was bleeding.

Speaker 3 (40:49):
Yeah, it was great get out of each other on
that match. That was a pretty brutal match, but like
like body damage wise the hell himself.

Speaker 4 (40:57):
Yeah yeah, I mean it's been like what it's been
nearly thirty years and mcfolly's still dealing with like chronic
pain from that ship.

Speaker 2 (41:07):
So yeah, man, that's some ship. Yeah anyway, yeah, anyway
to answer the question, I also don't have a favorite
Sabu match because I could.

Speaker 1 (41:18):
Could you pick Saboo at Vilna because again, you're not like.

Speaker 5 (41:26):
Without him whearing, that's the thing, like with out a costume.
I don't know, he just kind of looks like a dude.
I think a lot of these guys just look like
dudes when they don't have their gimmick on.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
To be fair, So what if what if it was
five different people all in the Sabo gimmick, could you
then identify him correctly?

Speaker 2 (41:45):
Depends on the facial hair?

Speaker 1 (41:47):
Yeah, okay, so okay, yeah, but uh but yeah save
home to Saboo. That does I mean it always sucks
right like whenever whenever. Even pasil on so Cam asked
how bummed out are you that Gunta was not allowed
to murder Pat mac over the weekend?

Speaker 2 (42:08):
I mean, yeah, he did kinda.

Speaker 4 (42:11):
I watched Backlash this weekend and I was generally unimpressed.
But I do think that the Gunther pat McAfee match
at least was like the most entertaining.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
I think that's what I said.

Speaker 3 (42:25):
I'm like, okay, you shouldn't have existed, but I'm like,
no better than that fucking WrestleMania between No.

Speaker 4 (42:30):
I mean, I think people tend to forget the fact
that Pat McAfee was in the NFL, which, of course
I mean, I mean, look, he's still you still.

Speaker 2 (42:41):
Gotta be in something physical.

Speaker 1 (42:43):
Did tackle a guy one time, though, that is true,
that is, he did.

Speaker 4 (42:49):
Do that, so but yeah, look, uh, I find it
funny that they're basically setting up that Gunther has more
BacT for Pat McAfee than he does for Chase.

Speaker 3 (43:04):
I have more respect for Pat McAfee than I really
I really just don't like him solo.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
I kind of hate it, I really do.

Speaker 3 (43:12):
But now that match was actually pretty was a pretty
fun match, considering I don't expect anything from it.

Speaker 1 (43:19):
I mean, Gunther should have destroyed him, but you know
it was fun for what it was to watch someone
get their ass kicked a lot.

Speaker 4 (43:27):
Sometimes I think it was the whole like Gunther was
like toying with him, right, and then he showed a
little more gusto than Gunther was anticipating. And now that
whole stupid ass storyline is over. Yeah, generally I wasted time.

Speaker 2 (43:48):
Hole in there.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
I'm like, all right, that's you know. Michael Cole came in,
it was it was fine, it was a fine match.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
So everybody else retaining I thought was just.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
Well, like we welcome to the unfortunate downside of the
first post WrestleMania pay per view. I mean, I mean,
I here's the thing.

Speaker 2 (44:08):
I understand.

Speaker 4 (44:09):
I understand Dominic, I understand Sina, I understand.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
I understand Jacob far too.

Speaker 4 (44:18):
I thought that could have gone another way, but whatever, right,
But what I don't understand is Lyar of Valkyria retaining
because the Women's Intercontinental was not up for uh you know,
not up for grabs at WrestleMania. So I thought, I
think a lot of other people thought too, that Becky
would get it.

Speaker 2 (44:36):
At Backlash, but then they didn't do that, and so
it's like, what are we doing with either of these women.

Speaker 1 (44:44):
Right now depends on I mean we retire again, Yeah,
we don't. We don't know the we don't know the
future for that story. So we'll see, we'll see what
boring I mean, that's I agree with that as well.

Speaker 3 (44:58):
That's that.

Speaker 1 (44:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:59):
The the only reason she got she got bird wings
that she puts on sometime. That's neat.

Speaker 1 (45:06):
Yeah. The only the only reason Backlash has been really
good the past two years is because they've done it
in other countries and like like it's like like literally
like that's one of the twenty twenty three Backlash was
fucking awesome. Yeah, and and and also because like they
ran like that WrestleMania was so packed, they basically ran
like WrestleMania caliber matches like Bad Bunny versus Damian prit

(45:28):
should have been. Yeah, all, so it was a fucking
great match.

Speaker 3 (45:34):
And again, like I said during WrestleMania that the Bianca
bel A and e Scott should have been by themselves,
But that turned out to be like one of the
best matches of the weekend. But that match in Puerto
Rico with Bianca Belk was one of the best matches
on that card. Yeah, like three, that match was amazing. Yeah,
that card was really good, just all around.

Speaker 1 (45:57):
That Puerto Rico card, that crowd with and last La
said last year was get to they were in Frank,
I don't remember last year. Last years what matches did
they have you back? Lass, I don't remember. I The
only one that I remember happening was Cody versus It
was Cody and no, it was Kevin Cody. Cody had wrestle,
So that's what it was.

Speaker 4 (46:18):
It was the Bloodline uh So Solo so CoA and
Tomatonga tag team street fight against Kevin Owens and Randy Orton.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
Cody Rhodes wrestled a J Styles.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
I don't remember. I don't remember that, but but I
remember the crowd. The crowd was fired.

Speaker 4 (46:38):
Though for that whole, for that whole, Yeah, it was
uh the tag team street fight and then Bailey uh In,
Naomi and Tiffany Stratton triple threat match, Damian Priests versus
Jay Usso Bianca Bella Air and Jay Cargill versus Oscar
and Kyrie Saane and then Cody versus a j Okay.

Speaker 1 (47:01):
So the crowd, so the crowd of heavy lifting on
on on that during that event. I've been looking at
this cord. I'm like, this looks away, but the crowd
was amazing.

Speaker 4 (47:11):
So like that, Like they're starting to announce the the
next Saturday night's main event, and that's already going to
be wrestling.

Speaker 2 (47:23):
Oh yeah, Jays versus Logan.

Speaker 4 (47:25):
Paul and then Seth Rollins and Brown Breaker versus Sea
and Punk and Sammy's ain was just announced.

Speaker 1 (47:31):
So that'll be interesting. Uh, I forgot that we need
to take a second break. We're gonna do that now
and then we'll come back with the rest of the
Post Office. All right, we return with the second half
of The Post Office with t Wash who asked which
side character do you like better than the protagonists in
their game?

Speaker 6 (47:53):
Hm?

Speaker 1 (47:53):
Hmmm, Tifa Lockhart number one or basically any other character
in Final Fantasy seven who's not Cloud.

Speaker 3 (48:08):
And honestly, any RPG where you're like like any like
first person RPG where you have a like a companion
with you if you're not if you don't have any dialogue.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
Sometimes yeah, some some sometimes that could get that companion
could be really fucking annoying. So yeah, like Kai in
Avowed is pretty cool.

Speaker 3 (48:27):
I like YadA and Avowed. I'm just I'm going with
recent characters. I don't I'm trying to think of anybody.

Speaker 4 (48:34):
I think every character who isn't Sora is more entertaining
and likable than Sora and Kingdom Hearts.

Speaker 1 (48:41):
Everyone loves Gareth and oh that's true, you.

Speaker 2 (48:46):
Know fucking Moduma. Yeah, over Kirio.

Speaker 1 (48:55):
I don't know, though, because people really like hearing you. Like,
It's not like Kiru is unloved by not.

Speaker 4 (49:00):
Asking, like they're not asking general. I think me specifically,
To be fair, I have not played.

Speaker 2 (49:08):
Much of Yakuza, but I like, I like a little
bit curiod. Yeah, trying to like just look through my fucking.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
Is it Is it fair to like, like, if you
have a silent protagonist, is it fair to hold that
against them?

Speaker 4 (49:24):
I would like part of me wanted to say, like, oh,
I liked use game more than I liked the protagonist
of Persona five, But I just I don't know that
that's necessarily fair because like the Persona, you know, protags
are as of three are kind of supposed to be
like your self insert basically.

Speaker 2 (49:44):
So yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (49:48):
I can't think of any other game right now. What
was uh ship? What was the what was the uh oh?
His name is escaping me now in metaphor, the the
the bunny aired guy. Uh Basilio, No, no, no, no
no no him.

Speaker 2 (50:11):
Oh the bat it's not.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
I don't know why he keeps.

Speaker 4 (50:18):
I also almost called him him doll, and I was like,
not not right, no, buddy, ear no they're bats.

Speaker 1 (50:25):
Correct.

Speaker 2 (50:26):
Uh Yeah, I like metaphor is a good one as
far as like the side characters.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
They're all there. I think they're all good.

Speaker 2 (50:35):
Actually, I man like heisme sorry, got me real good.
I really liked Basilio. Vasilio is my boy. Juna. I
really liked Juna.

Speaker 1 (50:52):
Juna is probably the only one I could take her
leave really, I like.

Speaker 2 (50:59):
To be fair. I also just like I really like
her like default class, I just.

Speaker 1 (51:04):
Stroll stroll fucking rules. Hulkenberg, fucking rules.

Speaker 2 (51:09):
Holgenberg is this like incredibly chaotic presence, and I I
love her very much. Yeah, they all good.

Speaker 4 (51:22):
The entire metaphor cast is probably better than than the
the than the protag in that game, and the protag
is good.

Speaker 6 (51:31):
I like, I like Will a lot, even but would
rather hang out with even Galau solid Yeah Gala, like
I said, but usually that character like like that that,
you know, companion that's attached to your hip in those games,
really annoying.

Speaker 3 (51:46):
But all those side characters in your team got like
all of these exotic names. But the protagonist names is Will.

Speaker 2 (51:57):
Yeah, that's that's his default name, and.

Speaker 1 (52:00):
That's it's a metaphor refantasio terrence.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
It's yeah, okay, we call that a double on tundra.
I'll explain after the show. I don't want to spoil anything, but.

Speaker 1 (52:20):
Yeah, all the characters, yeah, really really good cast characters
in metaphor. That's that's probably the one. Like like as
far as like bang for Buck, that's that's probably the one.
Yea beach a boy ass has a gaming moment or
game in general, ever been ruined by a friend or
loved one. For example, my only son had new game,
had saved a new game over my depleted Breath of

(52:42):
the Wild file. Everything was maxed out, including the DLC.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
When I was when I was but a wee lass.

Speaker 4 (52:55):
I know my sister on more than one occasion saved
over my Pokemon files and I was pistolten her. But
I was like nine, so I think she was like four.
So you know, you live and learn, and ultimately I
got her Game Boy Advance sp in the end because
she doesn't play video games as an adult because she

(53:18):
is lame.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
I I.

Speaker 3 (53:28):
I've had a physical game ruined by my cousin. Yeah,
my my gold uh legend of Zelda cartridge in a
sprinkler when he was a child.

Speaker 1 (53:41):
Was in a sprinkler. Yeah, how does that work?

Speaker 3 (53:45):
He took the game outside and he just put it
in the sprinkler, like he just put it, you know,
sprinkler partridge like the yeah, just not like well to sprinkler.
He was like following the sprinkler with the cartridge like
for some reason. And yeah, yeah it was fun.

Speaker 1 (54:01):
I'm so sorry that was back in like nineteen eighty.

Speaker 2 (54:06):
Yeah, this feels like some nineteen eighty seven shit.

Speaker 3 (54:08):
Like he was born in eighty six, so he would
have been like three years old. Like yeah, so yeah,
I didn't That wasn't a big fan of that, you know.
But that's that's not that's just ruining any That was
ruining a physical game, not ruining any like a moment
in a game. I don't think I've ever had a
moment rooming for me in a game that I didn't
want that I wanted to play I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (54:30):
I have been very fortunate in the fact that I
guess so my sister didn't play growing up, and I'm
very protective of my game, so I never had like
a memory card mishap or like like a game as
happened people are. You know, I'm really good about avoiding
spoilers for a lot of stuff, so I've never had
any like major story points spoiled for me, I guess,

(54:54):
or at least anything. So fortunately, I've not encountered this,
but I can imagine what it would be like losing
your one hundred percent complete Breath of the Wild save file,
especially those damn Quorox sides, because who has the time
that's for such a thing?

Speaker 3 (55:13):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (55:14):
And finally, U C. Kent asks who is your most
overrated musical act? The Beatles.

Speaker 2 (55:25):
I knew you were going to say that. I'm going
to co sign that, believe it or not. For as
white as I am, I want to co sign that.

Speaker 1 (55:31):
I don't understand. I don't get it. Maybe I needed
to be alive.

Speaker 2 (55:35):
Here's the thing, I you did have to be alive,
and you did have to be white.

Speaker 4 (55:39):
I understand the impact that the Beatles and the British
invasion at large had because my parents were both born
in the early fifties, so they were in adolescence when
the Beatles hit, and so both of my parents saw
the Beatles live, and I understand the kind of cultural

(56:02):
moment that the Beatles created for whites in the United
States of America. That being said, I do not want
to listen to the Beatles. I do not think that
many Beatles songs are particularly good. I think there are
many that are, but there are too many people who
think that the Beatles are the end all be all

(56:23):
of rock music, that popular rock music started with the Beatles,
which is not just whitewashing but incorrectly whitewashing, because if
you want to whitewash it, you should say that it
started with Buddy Holly. But uh no, I think I
think the Beatles are hella overrated. And I'm speaking to
someone who listened to a lot of the Beatles as

(56:48):
a kid. There's some Beatles songs that I think absolutely
fuck Hey, Bulldog Rips, most everything else. Nah, but my
personal choice, and this might be sacrilege again coming from
a white Nirvana, I think.

Speaker 1 (57:06):
Like either of these answers so far, I think.

Speaker 4 (57:11):
Nirvana would not have the kind of reverence that they
have today if Kirk Cobain was still alive.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
I think people would say, I'm not going to argue
that at all, Like, like I've said very blithely in
the past that like, uh, what happened to Kurt Cobain
was probably the best marketing thing that could have happened
to Honestly, you know, I remember when that happened. I
think people crying in school.

Speaker 4 (57:41):
Yeah, I think Nirvana is held in a certain reference
because of what happened to Kirk Cobain. And I think
if Kirk Cobain was still alive, people would be like
that band was okay, Pearl Jam was better or whatever. Right,
I don't think people would give nearly as much of
a ship about Nirvana.

Speaker 1 (58:02):
With songs like I know it smells like teen Spirit.
What other songs are there? Come as you are? Yeah, okay,
so yeah, names like I'm bad with names, but I'm
also like, really good Nirvana.

Speaker 2 (58:22):
Songs about a girl. I guess is I'm not a.

Speaker 1 (58:27):
Big fan about a girl. Heartsheat Box really good, in
Bloom excellent, Lithium excellent. Yeah, Yeah, I disagree with you
on this. One that's okay your Oh yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (58:44):
I don't contemporarily.

Speaker 1 (58:46):
Reason why I think you're wrong about the.

Speaker 2 (58:48):
Beatles, But more more contemporarily, I think sleep Token is
hella fucking overrated. I don't sleep I don't think.

Speaker 4 (58:55):
There are a lot of people who I am very
close friends with who swear by sleep Token.

Speaker 2 (58:59):
I just don't think very good. I don't like them
very much.

Speaker 1 (59:01):
What the fuck is sleep Token? I've heard of sleep Token?

Speaker 4 (59:04):
Uh, they're they're They're a contemporary like rock, alt metal,
prog metal kind of band. Yeah, they're I guess they're
more popular in the fucking guitarist circles that I exist in.
But yeah, sleep Token's been pretty popular as of as

(59:25):
of late, and I don't like them.

Speaker 2 (59:28):
I don't think they're very good.

Speaker 1 (59:30):
This is so so My My answer for this is
an opinion that I have strongly held, literally since my
early teen years and for the past thirty years. For
the life of me, I cannot fathom why this band

(59:52):
gets the acclamation and why so many people like their
music that has you two.

Speaker 4 (01:00:03):
Hockey.

Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
It's not good.

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
They're not good. I'm said, one hundred percent on board
with you.

Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
On that.

Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
I don't get it. No, I you know, I don't.
I don't understand.

Speaker 4 (01:00:20):
Remember when they put like when they like made everybody
listen to YouTube?

Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
Yeah yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
Like like like like I feel I feel like yeah,
like I feel like the only people that like You
two are like you know what, Like I'm really I
really like Bruce Springsteen, but I just wish he was
more Irish and that's kind of what You two is basically.

Speaker 2 (01:00:43):
And I also I'm also kind of a Bruce Springsteen myself.
But I don't think Bruce Chingsteen is overrated. I just
he's not for me, no I I I think Bono
has a very punishable face. And I don't really know
how else to describe it. I don't like you Too.
I don't like You Two's music.

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
I'm just completely different on YouTube. I'm just like, look,
I tried, I've tried, like like, I've listened. I've listened
to several YouTube albums.

Speaker 4 (01:01:11):
You two is one of the handful of many bands
where if I'm like, for whatever reason, have like the
radio on and a YouTube song comes on, I will
immediately turn it off.

Speaker 2 (01:01:22):
There for me, with Train and.

Speaker 4 (01:01:28):
Maroon five, those that's my holy fucking trinity of shitty
white people.

Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
I will say most funny about Maroon five black people
love them.

Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
Understand because that dude looks like a walk in STD.
I don't get that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
I will say, am I wrong?

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
Adam Levine looks like a cluster of syphilis cells made
upon a boy.

Speaker 1 (01:01:54):
He does look like post Balloon's more well to Do Brother,
That's that, That's what he actually that's what he actually
looks like a bomb? Right, Look, Carrie, I'm generally with you. However,
that first Maroon five album does indeed slap. I disagree
the first one.

Speaker 2 (01:02:14):
I think it. I think it slapped at the time,
but unfortunately, at the time was like two thousand and three,
that was what Am I getting that right? Songs About Jane?

Speaker 1 (01:02:28):
Songs About Jane was the debut album.

Speaker 4 (01:02:30):
Yes, Yeah, Songs About Jane came out in two thousand
and two, and that has a lot of songs that
I fucking hate on it, including but not limited to,
Harder to Breathe, This Love, She Will Be Loved, and
Sunday Morning.

Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
I hate all of those songs so deeply. It's like
I get mad.

Speaker 4 (01:02:48):
When I hear certain Maroon five songs and half of
the songs about Jane contained those songs.

Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
I cannot stand Roon five. I hate Maroon five so much. Mhm,
it's a physical reaction. It's physical reactions. I can't do it, man,
I can't do it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:08):
Oh ship, that's funny, and look and and again. Like like,
I I give these takes as someone who whose favorite
bands definitely fall into many people's overrated categories. So like,
I totally understand Dave Matthew's man anywaysis I.

Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
Don't personally have a problem with either of them.

Speaker 1 (01:03:32):
There's there's a lot of people who have a problem
with DMV for some reason. I don't understand where the
venture elcho.

Speaker 2 (01:03:36):
I don't have any kind of problem with It's like
except for me. I like, I like Crash into You.
That's a that's a nice song. I like that one.

Speaker 1 (01:03:44):
Yeah, but yeah, you you too. I just yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:03:48):
I also like some of my favorite bands are also
some that like people really don't like. Like I'm a
big I'm a big fan of ghosts, and ghosts is
very polarizing to people. So like, I get it, But
Maroon five can fucking fall off a cliff for all
I care.

Speaker 2 (01:04:04):
I if I got the rest of my life.

Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
You know, I was gonna mention that was my second
as my second one is Lincoln Park. I do not
understand the appeal.

Speaker 2 (01:04:17):
I just I don't think about Lincoln Park. But I
also here's the thing, I do understand the appeal because
of the I.

Speaker 4 (01:04:26):
I am ten years younger than you two, which means
that like I was of the age of peak young
teen angst that Lincoln Park was going.

Speaker 1 (01:04:39):
Lincoln Park literally got big when I was in high school,
like like I was right there for the whole.

Speaker 4 (01:04:43):
I kind of feel like Lincoln Park appealed more to
the middle school crowd.

Speaker 2 (01:04:51):
I don't know, man, They're not for me, but I
get it anyway.

Speaker 3 (01:04:57):
I think I think I bought that first when it
came out, Like two was one, right and I was twenty,
I believe.

Speaker 2 (01:05:02):
Yeah, damn, like three of that HYPERD theory came out
in October two.

Speaker 1 (01:05:10):
Theory about those two albums, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:05:12):
Two thousand and two thousand and three, Yeah, okay, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:05:15):
How about they had both of those? I like them
part so now I'm not there. There are also another
like change Change the Station kind of band when they
when they've really yeah really, I just really don't so
I think I think we're better off as a society
having moved past the era of peak like rap rock,
like like, I think that was a real bad You
don't like new metal, it's a real bad time. There's

(01:05:39):
one there's one new metal band that I like, and
that is Death That's the only one. Every everything else
can can fuck off. Death Tones is very good Death.
Deathtones should have had the success that Lincoln Park had,
is what I'm saying. Not not the death Tones have
been unsuccessful, but their way there right, I.

Speaker 2 (01:05:54):
Was going to say, you know, they've had certainly successful anyway.

Speaker 4 (01:05:58):
So uh, anyway, if you like five or Train, if
you regularly listen to Maroon five, Train or YouTube, we
cannot be friends.

Speaker 1 (01:06:05):
Look I did have a Train I had. I had
the Train.

Speaker 2 (01:06:11):
Album.

Speaker 1 (01:06:11):
Yeah, I hate that. That was a moment. That was
a moment. Yeah. Look I don't still funk with it,
but I did own I did own the CD back
in the day when it came out.

Speaker 4 (01:06:23):
Oh man, Yeah, there's a there's a there's a YouTuber
named Pat Finnerty and uh he's a guitarist. He's very
good at what he does, and he has a series
of of YouTube Uh episodes called what makes this Song Stink?

(01:06:47):
And so he has done Hay Soul Sister. He did
a forty six minute episode on why Hay Soul Sister
by Train sucks. So if if you want to learn
more about why Train is awful, that's a good that's
a good place to start. But then he also takes
down like kid Rock and uh, Red Hot Chili Peppers

(01:07:10):
and Maroon five.

Speaker 2 (01:07:11):
Actually, so, hey, what what what what song?

Speaker 1 (01:07:14):
What's what? Red Hot? What Red Hot Chili Pepper song?
Is he is he taking?

Speaker 2 (01:07:18):
I gotta bring I gotta bring it up because I
say Californications.

Speaker 1 (01:07:22):
Okay, I'm fine with that. Yeah, like like like Red
Hot Rodd Chili Peppers is in like by top ten bands,
but there's definitely a demarcation point where I like them
a lot less.

Speaker 2 (01:07:32):
Oh no, sorry, it was Fanny California, which is.

Speaker 1 (01:07:34):
Yeah, fine, yes, to take that one down. Any anything, anything,
pre anything pre ninety eight I would have been really
upset about. But yeah anything, Yeah, that's that's I'm okay
with that.

Speaker 4 (01:07:47):
That was fun ate nineties early's Chili Peppers fucking awful.

Speaker 1 (01:07:50):
Yeah, it's sweetweet again that that hole, Yeah, that whole
fucking time period popular music really really fucking sucked back
on it. So uhloy bands were good, you know, fair
like that that that wasn't really my fucking scene, Terrence,
but you're right like that that was yeah. Uh again.

(01:08:13):
If you want to get in on this fun asking
us questions that spurn us off into fun tangents h
joined the discord by going to densipixles dot com slash fans. Uh,
don't forget to subscribe to us on YouTube by going
to YouTube dot com slash dense Pixels. If you search
for TNP Studios in the podcast app in your choice,
you'll find all the shows in this nice little network

(01:08:34):
that we're all part of, including the are Possulbles, Black
and Black Cinema and look Forward. Of course, if you
want to support us with zeal, go to dncepixel dot
com slash Premium and give us five dollars a month
that gives you access to the full episode of Look
Forward as well as any other premium shows that we
put out. Plus, you're just you're telling us you really
like what we're doing here, and we uh we appreciate that.

Speaker 5 (01:08:55):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:08:56):
And in case you guys, miss Ja's announcement look forwards
could be weird. This week. We're actually doing two small
episodes before we transition to our new schedule where the
podcast will be released on Monday. So look for a
small episode look forward probably if you're listening to this,
it'll be out, and then a small episode later this week.
Tonight we'll be talking about bribes and tariffs, so that

(01:09:16):
should be really, really fucking exciting for everybody. Yeah, it's
gonna be great, But that's it for us. Thank you
guys very much as usual for watching and listening, and
we'll see you all the next time.

Speaker 4 (01:09:28):
See y
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