Episode 245: But They Had Impact!: Games That Have Had the Biggest Impact on Us

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:33):
Hello, and welcome to episode twohundred and forty five of the Not Your
Mama's Gamer podcast, the podcast wherewe talk about living, working, and
playing in and around the games industry, and we do so from a feminist
perspective. My name is Smith theblack Man, and I'm an associate professor
at Purdue University in West Latvia,Indiana, and I am joined the tonight

(00:55):
by my two fabulous co hosts,Jordan Lukomski and Victoria Breaker. Let's start
with you. Jordan, how areyou doing tonight? I am doing good.
Thank you. Excited to be backand talking with everyone. It's been
a super busy summer, so agood episode to come back and chat about

(01:19):
games. I know, I'm superstoked. How about you? Victoria?
Wait for first before we go toVictoria. Jordan, who are you?
Oh right? I am Jordan Ukomski. I am a senior environment outsourced artist
at That Snow Moon, which isbased in Los Angeles, where I currently

(01:41):
live with my partner and two cats, one of which has gone into the
habit of stealing my plushies and hidingthem throughout the house. So we're doing
great. He's helping the core Rocksare looking for their friends they are so
yeah, no, at least he'snot them in the space or dropping rocks

(02:02):
on their heads. Well that wasan accident, all right. Me,
Victoria, who are you? Howare you? I'm I'm doing I'm doing
awesome as normal. Thanks for asking. I'm Victoria. I'm a PhD candidate

(02:23):
produced studying gamer identity and controllers.I'm currently on a summer research fellowship to
write my dissertation. And let metell you, it's going awesome. Everything
is awesome, doing great, yahyah, portrayed by my cat. She's
she's not she's not taken to theschedule very well, that's okay, she'll

(02:46):
get used to it. What shediscovers, there is no schedule. She'll
be fine. That's gonna make itso much worse. What you hear,
my who's taken up? One ofmy cats is take um the habit of
screaming at me NonStop whenever I startstreaming or start a zoom call um,

(03:08):
and any other time she just likelays under the couch, I mean under
the couch under the desk and sleeps, or just like lays on the floor
next to me and sleeps. Yeah, but any other time as soon as
I start talking on it, andit's like if I'm talking to someone in
the room, she's fine. Um, But as soon as I like start

(03:28):
talking to somebody on the screen andshe can see people on the screen,
she just starts yelling. I thinkit's just to drive me to distraction,
that's where. But any who's let'sget started. We're gonna start with our
usual what's playing, what you're reading, what you're drinking? What about you,
Sam? What about me? Usuallyyou do an intro for yourself,

(03:50):
a little yeah, who are you? Sam? I did it? Didn't
I? No? I did it? Okay. Well, I'm Samantha black
Man, um, and I'm anassister assistant. Oh my god, that
was twenty years ago. I'm anassociate professor. Um. I'm an associate
professor here Purdue, and I teachgame studies and minority rhetorics, digital humanities

(04:15):
kind of stuff. That is myjem. Um. Yeah, that's who
I am. That's who I amand have been for a very long time.
So let's jump into who we're whatwe're playing, who we're playing?
Oh my god, what we're playing? Um, And we'll switch it around
this time. Victoria, what areyou play it so recently? Um,

(04:41):
I think a couple of weeks agoto two three weeks ago from this recording,
UM fall Out seventy six came outwith the next season. So back
on that bullshit every day because Igot to get all those plushies. I
just I have to get all theplushies. This one didn't have any plushies
and season board, but it cameout with a new event that had three

(05:01):
plushies, and within the first day. I don't know what it is about
my partner's role rate, but hegot two of the plushy plans the first
day. I got none. Hegave them to me though, so I
could fill my fill my camp withplushies. I have all the plushies,
but now I have to complete theseason um per normal. So I started

(05:23):
playing the new update for Minecraft andthen just in time to be completely distracted
by Diabo four. Yeah, ohyeah, super super distracted. It really
it's been a problem. And thenyou know the season for that comes out

(05:44):
on the twentieth. I gotta fit. I haven't finished the game yet.
I think I'm only level like sixtysixty three, sixty four right now.
So we've done we've completed the game. The content game was were is doing
side quests and finding the altars ofLilith and completing the map and everything before
the season comes out. I'm notsure how I feel about the season because

(06:08):
they're doing the Diablo thing or toplay in the season, you have to
roll a new character and then gothrough the content with the new character,
and then it'll become an eternal characterafter the season. Yeah. So yeah,
not sure how I feel about that. Like I didn't love that in
Diablo three. Yeah, that's ittakes some of the fun out of it

(06:31):
for me. Yeah, so internalcharacter me, does it mean you can
play it with other seasons or itmeans you can play it and so you
have the eternal world, I guessthe sanctuary world where your main character lives
and lays and lies and hangs out, and so after the season ends,

(06:54):
your season character will can be playedin the eternal realm so that you can
keep that character if you want tokeep using it. But that's just not
my favorite thing because I get kindof attached to my characters. Mhm.
It's why I have like one Falloutseventy six character. I know a lot

(07:16):
of people have like tunes that theyuse, not me. I have one
character I've been playing there since beta. That's the character for me. So
I'm the same way in MMOs mostof the time, is that I have
one character that I play. Iwas the same way, and I mean,

(07:40):
and I know that that like peoplewould like have different characters with different
roles in different serveries playing World ofWarcraft. And I started playing World of
Warcraft at launch, and I alwayshad like one character that I played.
I mean, I would start othercharacters, you know, just the like
play through their intro story a littlebit for like research or whatever, but

(08:03):
I never played them played them.I always had like my main that I
played, and that was it.And uh. And then when I started
playing fourteen, because you can likeswitch between roles on one character, I
was so happy because I could alwaysplay my main. Yeah. Yeah,
yeah, the grind, the grindis real, and I would rather just

(08:26):
do the grind on my main.And then after that, I don't have
it in me to go back anddo additional content, like I don't want.
One of our friends started later thanthe rest of us, so my
partner and I created new characters tostart at level I think it's eleven when
you get out of the tutorial,so that we could start and we could
play together. Yeah, and Ihated it. I was miserable as playing

(08:50):
necromancer and I normally play a rogue, and I was like, I don't
like being the necromancer. I don't. I don't like I just I don't.
I want to dart in and outof combat. I want to lay
traps, I want to stab things. It's just lecton mancers are creepy.
They are they are creepy. Thathasn't that has that going for it.

(09:11):
I have skeletons, and you know, freaks out your friends when they see
like the silhouettes of skeletons running around. So I know because because I like
if anytime I'm running with somebody who'sa necromancer and I'm like what, I'm
like, Oh, that's just yourthat's your crew of dead people. Yeah,
and you like try and attack them. It's like, wait, aren't

(09:31):
there Yeah yeah, yep. I'vealso recently been playing Snake dot io UM,
which is just a snake game,so you know, you eat the
dots, big snake and um.They have this like season up right now.
It's like season of the Dragon gettingnew new snake skins. I'm like,

(09:52):
I like snakes. I am unfortunatelyreally good at this game. Like
most people are running around there's snakesof like nine hundred dots or a thousand
dots. Oh my god, there'smy snake of eighty six thousand dots.
What and it's my record right nowit is eighty six thousand. But they

(10:16):
started this new season and there's thislike Boss Dragon that appears every minute or
so, and it chases the leadplayer and you got to get into these
like countdown circles, so it'll firemissile at the dragon, and it has
like a number that you have tohit, and if you stay in the
top two hundred of players for this, you get that that like Boss Snakes

(10:41):
skin at the end of the season. I think it like ends in twenty
two days or whatever. And Iwas like, yeah, I'll try it,
Like why not. I'm currently rankednine, and I'm like yes,
So I have like weird pride inplaying Snake dot Io on my phone way
too much and being really good atcreating snakes. Oh my gosh, eighty

(11:01):
six thousand. How do we Idon't know, because it's not like you
know a traditional snake where you can'thit your own tail or anything like that,
so you can like wrap around everythingand take up too much of the
map and you're just torturing little snakesthat spawn in the gaps of where your
snake is, and then they haveto live their existence in there, and
then they, you know, theyget too big and so they have to

(11:22):
try and get out and they can'tbecause I'm too big, gesu fetus.
Yeah, if you want a timestuck kind of game that takes no brain
power, Snake to Io was superfun. Nice. Okay, Jordan,
what about you? What do youplay? Well? We just finished recently,

(11:48):
Amy and my partner Dying Light Too, finally after over a year and
a half of restarting three times.And it was ironic because the moment we
end, a week later, theyreleased a huge DLC and we both looked
at each other and we're like,no, we cannot go back, and

(12:09):
we haven't. We finished it.We're moving on. We have other co
op games we want to play,so we just finished that one. I'm
still playing my tabletop RPG games withdifferent groups, but the two biggest new
ones that I am playing are JediSurvivor and Tears of the Kingdom, or
rather say I just finished Jedi Survivorand Tears of the Kingdom much like Breath

(12:33):
of the Wild is probably gonna takeme six years, but super loving both.
It was really difficult because the games. Those two games came out like
a week apart from each other.Oh my gosh, that was so difficult.
But I pre ordered both, andwow, I had the best and

(12:58):
the worst, not the worst,but a not great game stop experience because
I went to go pre order both, but I did. When I went
to go pick them up, theywere a week apart, So Tears of
the Kingdom. I love Breath ofthe Wild. And when I heard that
there was going to be a collector'sedition of Tears of the Kingdom, I'm

(13:20):
not joking when I say I waschecking multiple websites every day for five weeks.
Every single time they sold out withinseconds, I couldn't get in.
I was so upset. I reallywanted that collector's edition. So we go
to the midnight release of Tears ofthe Kingdom because they say, oh,
hey, we're going to be givingout collector's editions. You still have to

(13:43):
pay for it, but you getthe chance to buy one, and I
was like, well, okay,the chances are super slim, but I
want to try. So we wentand I put my ticket in. I
purchased insurance on the game for anextra ticket. We get there late to

(14:07):
the raffle and I'm like, oh, no, they've already called all the
names. There's like four hundred peoplehere. There's no way. But they
called my name and I got theCollector's edition, and I like cried.
It was wonderful. Jedi Survivor wasa much different experience. Did not go

(14:28):
to the midnight release, but Ipicked it up the next day. And
this absolutely should not matter, butI mentioned this detail because I think this
is what the person was pulling from. But I got this new purse.
It is a bright, pink,hot purse. I walk in, I'm
wearing jeans and a hoodie. Igo to the front desk. I say,

(14:50):
hey, I'm here to pick upa pre order, and there's two
guys working there. One starts typingin my phone number in my name to
pull the receipt. Super friendly,super helpful. The guy sitting next to
him turns to me and says,oh, let me guess you pre ordering
my little Pony. I no,nanny said, waiting some Powerpuff Girls.

(15:18):
No, oh so Jedi Survivor.Yeah, thanks, And the game was
wonderful. Picking up was not.I just I want to, oh rage,
I need to cross stitch something.Just I knew it was something like

(15:43):
that. I was like, Iwas gonna say the guy said, oh,
you're picking this up for your boyfriendor something to that effect. But
that's even worse, not worse.I was expecting the boyfriend comment and no,
yeah, that's the worse than theboyfriend comm And I had just read
something earlier that day where it's justlike showing more teeth, be more confident.

(16:06):
And I never think of it inthe moment because I'm always just like,
what the heck? But oh,I just wanted to look at and
be like, oh, you thoughtthat was a good joke, You thought
that was funny. Hi, you'reproud of that joke, because no,
that wasn't cool. But I juststared and I was upset, and I
grabbed my game and I left,and I enjoyed that game. Jedi Survivor

(16:27):
was very fun, and I hadqualms about the first one in terms of
like the character, some of thecharacters. Um, Calcastus is still in
my favorite character, but he's muchmore, much more depth, much more
interesting in this one. That yeah, than the last one. It still
didn't resonate with me one hundred percent. And I don't know why because because

(16:51):
he was he was pretty bland inthat first one. Um, he's a
little less bland in this one,but still doesn't have the depth I want
from a character in this universe.Um. And that's just me. That's
just me. And I know alot of people loved it, and I'm
glad. It's just me. It'sjust for me, it's and maybe I'm
just still salty about the last one. No, I agree, like he's

(17:15):
still not my favorite. It wasjust better. Yeah, it's better.
But I want a game with Searand Maren so bad after this day because
they had amazing narrative stories and partsof the game, and then some of
the missions with them were a lotof fun. So I'm just like,

(17:37):
hey, I know you're making atrilogy out of this where he's like a
Paddawan a master or a night thanprobably a master, but can we get
games on these other people because they'rea lot of fun, because they're more
fun. Have you? Did yousee the trailer for the new excuse me,
for the new game? What isit? Star Wars Out? Yes?

(18:00):
Is that what it did? Yeah? Oh, wait till I see
more because it's also very cinematic.Obviously beautiful because of the cinematic nature.
But um, yeah, I'll waittill I see more of like the gameplay,
I'm intrigued. I don't know ifit's like a pre order for me
based on the information I know atthis moment, but I'll keep mine on
it. I want that that game. I'm for some reason, I have

(18:25):
never been I've never been. Oh, this guys, sounds horrible. I've
never been excited for a Star Warsgame until this one. And I don't
know why. I don't know veryrecent just like past four years. Yeah,
that's because they've been kind of likenah, but this one, I

(18:48):
don't know if it it looks reallyinteresting, like narratively, the cinematics caught
me. They got me, theygot me. And maybe that's because you
know, Chet Survivor. I was, I was still just like man and
then I saw that and I waslike, see, this is what Jedi
Survivor should look like. This iswhat you know, but also because you
have a um, excuse me,a female protagonist who you know, it's

(19:14):
kind of like a badass, Andum, I'm excited. I'm excited.
And there's a Space ax A Lotto. I think I'm probably more excited for
the Space ax A lottle than anything. I've got to be perfectly honest with
you. I love ax A lottos. And I was like, that's a
Space ax A lotto. Yeah,Um, so I'm super I'm super stoked

(19:38):
for that one. I am superstoked for that one because Space ax A
Lotto. But anyway, I digress. Do you have anything else, Jordan?
Nope. We've been playing a lotof board games, but those are
the video games. M hmm,okay, so I guess that's me.

(20:06):
I too have been playing Tears ofthe Kingdom, a lot of Tears of
the Kingdom. But you want toknow something funny, I have played over
one hundred hours of Tears of theKingdom and I have done one temple.
I have done one temple. Ihave done a ba JILLIONI shrines and koraks.

(20:34):
I have done side missions of theWazoo. I have like been running
around getting outfits, like doing allthis stuff do it, you know,
going in the caves, discovering caves, doing all this stuff. And I'm
like, I have done one templeone and I did the first. The

(20:57):
first one I did was the WindTemple. UM, and I really need
to like make I don't want tosay make actual progress, but I feel
it feels weird to have that muchtime in the game and not have like
progressed the main story. Um.So I know other people who like started

(21:23):
playing the same the game the sametime that I have, have less time
in the game and are done,like with the main story. They're like,
oh, I've moved on, I'vedone started playing blah blah blah.
Instead I'm like, I am justhaving too much fun bopping around doing puzzles
because I love puzzles, um andfor them to make like the shrines,

(21:44):
like most of them like puzzle shrines, and then of course you're you're training
shrines or whatever. I am justtotally happy doing anything except what according to
many people I should be doing.Any Um. So I may ever,
you talk about taking six years,I may never finished years in King,
especially if they start doing DLC,I may never finish. Um. That's

(22:07):
tortually. Fine, I am notone hundred hours in. And when you
started talking, I thought, inmy head, there are temples, and
yeah, the shrines are fun?What are temples? So you know this
is not a spoiler, you know, because they tell you this early on,

(22:29):
like when you're like, they're like, you have to go check out
these places where anomalies are happening.Oh yeah, ignored that. Okay,
that's where your tipples are if youever feel like doing them. You don't
have to. You don't have tojust have fun. See now I might
like get just like you're like,am one hundred hours and oh I've done

(22:52):
is quooks and shrines and I'm like, what else is chorks shrines, side
quests. Yeah, yeah, I'mjust having a blast doing what I'm doing,
doing what I'm doing, going fromlike and okay, so can I

(23:15):
also say I've also been collecting poniesand I did not know at first because
I bought it. I bought aTears of the Kingdom um switch, right,
so I'm not playing on my oldswitch. And when I was like,
you know what, I'm not gonnaI'm not gonna import my old saves

(23:37):
or you know, from my oldfrom my other switch. I'm just gonna
use both of them. Um,So I didn't import my Breath of the
Wild save, so I didn't getmy ponies from Breath of the Wild.
And then I was like, oh, so what I'll do is I'll just

(23:57):
you know, import my Breath ofthe will save now and maybe that'll give
me my ponies. Nope, ifyou have already started, it won't give
you your ponies that yeah, yeah, so I had to. I was
like, well, I can getI think you can get all of them
except for Eponia, Epona Epona,And I was like, fine, but

(24:23):
the only way to get Epona isthrough the Super Smash Bros Zelda amibo that
I don't have because I've never playedSuper Smash Bro. I have like every
other Zelda amibo ever, but Inever got the Super Smash Bros. One.
Of course, they are all soldout, and because once the scalpers

(24:47):
found out that was the only wayto get Epona, they bought all the
Super Smash Bros amibos and we're sellingthem on eBay for like a bazillion dollars.
I'm like, I'm not playing payinga bazilion dollars. Nintendo needs to
do better. I and I neverdo this, but I did it.
I went on at Sea and boughtone of the fake ambo like chip things

(25:11):
to get a pona, and Iwas like, and when the Nintendo acts
like they have some sense, whichthey did like a month after the game
came out. They were like,Oh, We're gonna rerelease these other amibos
that you could only get certain thingsfrom, but we didn't release when the
game came out. What So I'llprobably eventually get the Super Smash Bros amibo

(25:33):
just so that I can actually completemy collection, because, like I said,
I have all the other ones.So but yeah, Tears the Kingdom.
I'm playing a lot of tears asthe Kingdom Tears the Kingdom. Like
I said, I got about onehundred dollars in. The game has only
been out with a month month anda half. That's a lot of time.
I played a lot of Diablo four. Played a lot of Diablo four,

(25:57):
but because of the way that gameplays, it took me about two
weeks to blow my hands out,So then I had to stop playing,
and everybody I was playing with finishedthe game, and the amount of time
that I was trying to let myhands heal, So I have to go
back and finish that before the twentiethLet's see what else are I blame?

(26:19):
Oh, the new Minecraft update cameout that had um cherry blossom cherry tree
growths. So I started playing Minecraftagain and I got hooked on Minecraft again.
I'm always playing Minecraft, excuse me, usually not like a lot lot,
but I've been playing a lot ofMinecraft again and I'm happy. I

(26:42):
like playing Minecraft. Um let's seetrying to go through like fast stuff.
So I love farming simulators. Everybodyknows that. So I picked up Story
of Seasons. Actually I was giftedto code for Story of Seasons A Wonderful
Life, which I didn't play thefirst time because it was a Harvest Moon.

(27:02):
It was a Harvest Moon title backin the day. But I had
seen people play like on Twitch.So they did the red They did a
remake of it. They actually calledit a remake, I think, instead
of a remaster because they redid likegraphics and other stuff. And I'm gonna
be perfectly honest. One, itwas boring because it was just there was

(27:30):
not a lot to do, andit's like super repetitive and there are things
that are there are things that areweird, like you can sell certain things
in the box outside your house,but other things you have to save for
the vendor who comes to town onlyon the third and the eighth, which
makes no sense. And you haveto get married by the end of year

(27:52):
one or you can't progress your game. And then they maintained they maintained racist
caricatures from the first game, AndI'm like, if you're gonna do a
remake of a game twenty years later, why do you maintain racist caricatures.

(28:17):
Why not just change though? Andpeople were like, well, nostalgia,
No, that is not what peopleare nostalgic for. I'm not nostalgic for
racism. Take that shit out.You know it's wrong. So I played
it. I played it for acouple of hours. I streamed it the

(28:38):
one day and I was like,I'm not playing this somemore one is born,
even if it wasn't. I mean, because I can play a boring
farming simulator. I can. Iplay a lot of boring games that people
will find boring because they're repetitive,because I find comfort in repetition. But
I'm not gonna play it if it'sif it's also got shit in there just
making me mad. So story seasonis a wonderful life. Um, if

(29:00):
you're nostalgic for it, please feelfree. It ain't for me. Uh,
it ain't for me. And speakingof games that are kind of boring,
speaking of games that are kind ofboring, but like I all said,
I also find um comfort in thatrepetition is I got a code for

(29:23):
a game called Nude the Factionless UM, which is apparently also a comic book
series, and it's about, um, it's an RPG about learning to play
an MMO RPG. So you havethese two these two characters at the beginning,
um who want to like go growpro and esports, but they suck

(29:45):
at like traditional esports games. Andthen they learn, um, they learn
from the folks at the Internet cafethat um, this MMO that's got a
new expansion coming out soon is gonnabe like a part of like the esports
scene. So they decide to pickit up, hit max level, get

(30:06):
the best gear before the expansion comesout. Um. So and it's really
about learning how to play an MMO, right, And I'm like, okay,
so either this is I gonna say, how it's aunt horrible either they
are really good at showing how boringthe grind of an MMO could be,

(30:30):
or the game's just boring. Ichoose to believe it's it is the former
and not the latter. M Thebattle is turn based. The battle is
turn based. It's super simple,and it's super repetitive, and it reminds
me of old Pokemon battles. Itreminds me of old Pokemon battles. And
you know, I have a softspart in my house part for old Pokemon

(30:53):
battles. So um, so Iwas, I was playing and really enjoy
and then for some reason, Ihit I hit a spot in one of
the dungeons that my game always like, it didn't crash, but it didn't
progress right. So I would runinto like a group of folks you had

(31:14):
to fight, and the fight justwouldn't start. Um, And I restarted,
you know, I'd like shut thegame down and restarted it like five
six times, and it just wouldn'tgo past there. And I'm like,
well, I'm not starting this gamebut over so I stopped. So hopefully
they'll fix that. Um. Butlike I said, it's it's kind of
it's kind of repetitive, but I'mokay with that. Um. It's called

(31:37):
New de Factionists, and I didget a code for it, um and
and it's one that i'll play ifthey can like fix it so I can
play past that broken spot. Um. And then I'm probably this is gonna
be my last thing. Is I'vebeen really into um like games I could
play like in bed and not getpulled into a deep story. So I've

(32:00):
been doing a lot of hidden inhidden object games. And there was a
bunch of artificts munde um. Theystill are on sale. Um. I
think they're on sale to like thetwenty third or something like that of July
twenty twenty three, depending on whenyou're listening to it. Is um hidden
objects games on sale in the NintendoE shot for the Switch, so they

(32:22):
were, and they were a dollarninety nine. So I kind of bought
a couple because I love hidden objectgames, especially like the more modern ones
that have like some other kind ofmechanics to them. And they got a
deeper story and they got like voiceacting, and they're fun. Um.
The Artifics Mundy ones tend to bereally good. I bought another one that

(32:45):
was really pretty um the day itcame out. Um it was by like
an indie developer, and it's suked. I was mad. I only paid
like I think it was ten ninetynine. It was only like ten ninety
nine, so I wasn't like madmad, but it was really bad had
and it just made me mad thatI couldn't get more like Artifics Monday games
on Switch. And then earlier thisweek they had a big dump of Artifics

(33:09):
Monday games that they had pored itover to the Switch that have been released
on other stuff before, but theyported a moment to the Switch and they
were a lot of them are onsale. Some of them are still fourteen
ninety nine, which is their usualprice, m but a bunch of them
were dollar ninety nine, so Ibought. I bought several um but the
other game and it's like I said, this is my last one. I

(33:30):
promise we ever streamed it so long, I mean, we haven't podcast of
it so long. I've been playinga lot of games, um I recently,
um because two things I liked mylike My Dirty Little Secrets are mystery
novels and hidden Hidden hidden object gamesright, and they're not really dirty secrets,

(33:52):
but you put those two things together. Um. Like I said,
one of the artifics Monday games Ibought was a mystery one um and oh
and the other. Um. It'sa new game that just came out.
It's called Crime a Clock, andit's like a mixture of uh, Where's

(34:15):
Waldo and of Where's Waldo and uma mystery. Right, So it's got
uh these kind of Where's Waldo typescenes where you have to like find the
crime that's taking place, and thenonce you find that crime, you can

(34:38):
time jump backwards and forwards to like, um to like track the thief or
see where things change and try tosolve those little mysteries. So in this
one game, there's like I thinkforty or fifty there's like forty or fifty
cases, and as you as youdo these um, as you do each

(35:02):
case and jump back and forth intime, the scene changes. Um,
so there's like more stuff to doin that scene. Um. They Okay,
so I have to say this.Jordan and Victoria are in our are
in our podcast discord, um makingjokes about um never getting out of a

(35:25):
podcast without spending money. So nowy'all know how I feel. But anyway,
so it's called crime o' clock andit's um and it is on switch
right now, um, and itis coming to steam on the twenty first
of July. I believe. Um. And it was pretty treat it's pretty

(35:45):
cheap. It's I want to say, it's less than twenty bucks. Um.
But I did get a code forit. I'm glad I got a
cold for because I was planning onbuying it anyway, because I was like,
where's Waldo and Mysteries? Sign meup, sign me up. Um.
So that's a that's a cool one. That's a cool um. That's

(36:05):
it. That's it. I'm gonnastop. That's what I've been playing.
This is my birthday present, atthis, at this, and this.
I did the same thing. Idid the same thing in May. I
kept buying stuff. I was like, this is my birthday, and this
is for my birthday, and it'stears in the Kingdom switches for my birthday.
I bought myself like ten birthday presents. It's fine, but okay,

(36:30):
So that's what I'm playing. Whatare we reading? Why don't we read
Jordan? What you're reading? Um? I am reading the first book in
a trilogy by Timothy Zon. Itis the Throng trilogy, and the first

(36:51):
book is literally just called Thron.I know there's a lot of Throng books
out there, but there's two trilogiesthat are considered in Cannon since the official
change. I don't know which yearit was because I wasn't super into the
franchise back then, but Thron releasedin one of the last five years.

(37:14):
There's two trilogies, so this isthe first one of that trilogy, and
he is the main protagonist or antagonistof one of the animated TV shows that
me and my partner watch that wereally got into, which was Star Wars
Rebels, and one of my favoritecharacters in general, but definitely my favorite

(37:37):
characters in Star Wars is Ahsoka,and her TV show comes out next month,
so I'm super excited, and Thrownis supposed to be one of the
main oppositions carrying on from the previousanimated TV shows. So me and my
friend bought the books. We're goingto try to read them together. I

(38:00):
am really liking it so far.It's a very interesting look into his rise
to power in the Empire. It'snot exactly what I thought, and I
don't have a lot of context intohis background in general, but also the
book, without giving too much away, is super interesting to see all these

(38:30):
motions and movements politically, tactically,strategically, but it's not from his perspective.
It's actually from two other people's perspective. And then you occasionally get these
small snippets of his thought process thatare italicized, So it's constantly going back

(38:50):
and forth between these three perspectives,but it's primarily from two other people.
And it was hilarious because as wewere playing a board game, mean,
my partner and I've literally just takensomething from the book strategically based on a
board game and applied it to ourgame and it won because of it,

(39:10):
and I was like hot. Soit was a really cool moment to one
learn more about this character that Ithink is interesting. It was franchise that
I'm getting more interested in the bookI think is really written well. And

(39:30):
then also because they literally talk aboutboard games in the book, I took
something from that and applied it thenext day and I was just like,
yeah, I learned it from thisbook and it worked. So it really
is strategically based. It goes throughthe thought process of strategy along with this

(39:52):
person's narrative. So it's fun.I'm enjoying it. I'm excited to get
to the other two. Nice.What about you, Victoria, what you're
reading? Oh, I'm reading trash. Trash is good. Trash is good,

(40:14):
trash is great. Yeah, Imean that's what we need. Sometimes
you need trash after after a verylong day. You just need to read
trash. M hm. That's that'swhat I'm doing. That is one hundred
percent true. That's one hundred percenttrue. So I don't see. Um.
I'll tell you what I've been reading. I've read UM, I finished

(40:37):
UM. I don't remember if Iwas reading this last time we podcast it.
But Rest in the Route by JustinaIreland was our our twitch book group
book. Um, which is it'sa really good book. It's about kind
of magic and necromancy, and itis also very much about race, race

(41:07):
relations history. It is another oneof those books that takes a kind of
real world social historical political situations andintegrates them into a more fantasy setting,
and Justina Ireland does that very well. She's got two other books in that

(41:30):
dread nation. I think there's onlytwo, maybe three by now, But
in the books in a dread Nationseries about zombies and how in the Antebellum
styth they used black folks to trainto fight zombies because they were disposable.
But here we've moved into a different, different place. When we're basically in

(41:53):
the gym Crow, we're basically inthe gem Crow era in this one.
UM, it's called Rustling the Rootand it's really good and I really enjoyed
it. Its graphic, um,but it was really good. UM.
I started another book that popped up. M. It was an audiobook,
right, I started an audiobook thatpopped up. When I went in,
I was like, I got tospend some of these audible credits because I

(42:14):
keep forgetting to cancel audible. Um. It was called Wade in the Water
M and it was an audience SoI got that one, but it was
it was I think it was freeand then so it didn't help me was
spending my audible credits. It wasjust like a part of like their audible

(42:34):
club thing um. And it wascalled Wade in the Water and it sounded
interesting. UM, so I grabbedit and I was listening to it and
I'm like, what's this author?Because they are way too comfortable putting the
in word in the mouth the mouthof this kind of shared protagonist who was

(42:55):
a white woman. Um. Andit's actually being read by a white woman
as well. So I mean itwas like in word in word in wre
in word over and over again.And I'm like, you know what,
I'm about to find this white womanto go punch her in the face because
I am tired of hearing her saythis word. UM. So I just
stop listening to it. Um.So then I gave up and I was

(43:19):
like, I'm not gonna I'm notgonna read that. I'm not gonna listen
to that. So and then Ibought a new book, um that I
have been hearing about everywhere. Um. That's about dragon writers and a dragon
writer school called Fourth Wing. Ithink that's what it's called. Let me
see, yes, Fourth Wing byRebecca Yarros. Um. So, I'm

(43:40):
like, this feels a lot lighterthan that last one, because that last
one just had me mad. Um. So I started reading Fourth Wing by
Rebecca Yarrows. I'm only about achapter or two win so, but I'm
really enjoying it so far, rightbecause it's about um, it's about a
the protagonist Too's mother kind of runsthe dragon writing school, and who wants

(44:07):
her daughter. She's she's like acommander of like the Dragon writing army or
whatever to um, And so shewants her daughter to follow in her footsteps.
She's got two daughters, one whowill definitely like following her footsteps,
and she wants the younger one tofollow in her footsteps as well. But
she wants to be more like herfather, who was a scribe and not

(44:29):
a soldier. But she had alsolike gotten sick as a child and it
weakened her, which of course weakensher in her mother's eyes as well.
So it's it's an interesting premise.Um. And like I said, I'm
only a couple of chapters in sofar, but I'm really enjoying that one.
But I've been seeing people like everywhererave about this book. So I'm

(44:51):
like, let me see what thisbook is about. If it's really as
good as people say it is,or am I just gonna be bad I
spend my money. So that's whatI'm reading. That's what I'm reading.
And drinking. What are we drinking? Jordan, I'm gonna jump back to
you this time. Tell us whatyou're drinking. I am drinking one of

(45:15):
my go two's similar to Guinness.I love dark beers. I love stouts
mostly, so this is Stones ImperialStout. Nothing extra or new. They've
been releasing a lot of IPAs,like every month or two months they've been
releasing Yeah, I know. I'vebeen releasing like special edition limited once so

(45:42):
I've been trying to get those justto try it. I haven't really tasted
a difference from a lot of them, but as an a IPA, it's
been fine. But yeah, no, there's Imperial Stout is very good and
I usually get alongside Guinness. Sonice solid, go to Nice Victoria.

(46:07):
What about you? What you're drinking? Did you make it at home?
Yeah? Nick made it for me. That okay. So what's funny is
um as I wasn't feeling one hundredpercent um and um, I didn't feel
like cooking dinner, so I ordereddinner out and um where the place I

(46:31):
ordered dinner from they had like umbecause Pete doesn't like their desserts, but
they have a dessert that I like. It's a white chocolate peach bread pudding.
UM, and Pete doesn't, sothey have that and she doesn't like
and She's like the She was like, the white chocolate makes the texture weird,

(46:52):
so and I can understand that.So she was like, she doesn't
like that. And the only otherdessert dessert they have is a brownie that
has nuts, and and she won'teat things with nuts. But they have
milkshakes and root beer floats, andI was like, has she ever had
a root beer float? Would shelike a root beer float? So that's
why I was like, when yousaid Rutbier float, I was like,
wow, that's funny because I wasjust thinking about were floats like three hours

(47:14):
ago? No, actually like fourand a half hours ago now, Um,
so yeah, rutber floats. Okay. I bought a We made a
recipe that called for of root beer, and so they we got it.
We got a case of root beer. So we have root beer and it's

(47:37):
like, let's get vanilla be anice cream. I'm like, perfect,
and so now we have root beerfloats until the case of root beer is
gone. Nice love right. Iprefer like, um, pepsi floats or
coke floats. Pepsi overcoke, butum it sounds good though, because that
the vanilla just goes really well withroot beer. Um. It's just a

(48:01):
nice floaty kind of season. Hit is it is all right? Um,
So I guess it's my turn.Um. I am drinking M I'm
not drinking alcohol tonight because I havenot been feeling well lately. I'm drinking
water and I am drinking. Ihave this. I call it um grown

(48:22):
up kool ai. It's a itis a pomegranted antioxidant drink. I think
I might have talked about it forit's a pomegranate anioxidant drink. Um.
But you make it from like powder, right, So I'm like, it's
kool aid. It's so what itis. I don't care. You could
say it's like got good stuff init if you want to. It's kool

(48:43):
ai um, but it's always toosweet, so I generally mix it with
sparkling water. So I have umum. I have grown up Koolate and
sparkling water um in my in myglass, and I have water. So
those are the two beverages that I'mdrinking. Those are the two beverages I'm

(49:06):
drinking. So I guess that isthat does it? That's what we're playing,
what we're reading, what we're drinking. We had a lot of catching
up to do. But what we'retalking about tonight, thanks to Jordan,
came up with this amazing idea isthis week we had National Video Game Day,

(49:34):
and based on that, Jordan thoughtit would be interesting for us to
talk about the games that have hadthe biggest impact on us. Right.
And when I first read it,I thought it's a game. So I
thought I had failed horribly because Icame up with at least three, and

(49:59):
I was like, but it's it'sonly fair because I'm older, so there
are more games that have had abigger impact on me. Um, so
I get more games. UM.So uh, let's we're gonna talk about
that. We're gonna talk about thegames that have had the biggest impact on
us. UM. Let's go up, Let's go around. UM, Let's

(50:22):
go around, round round, robbinstyle. Let's each do one and not
do all three at once. Let'seach do one and see if we have
overlap first, because that'll be fun. Um And uh, we'll start with
you, Jordan. We'll start withyou. What is one of the games.
We don't have to do any anyorder because I can't. I can't
order them because I chose them fordifferent reasons. Um, so you can

(50:45):
do order if you want to.Um, what is one of the games
has had the biggest impact on you? Yeah, No, I totally agree
because we kept us a little bitmore open ended because impact, what does
that mean? How does that meanper person and per game? So I
chose a top three, but asyou said, not in any order,

(51:06):
just because these are the ones thathad a huge impact on me, but
the impact was very different. SoI don't have it ranked one, two,
three, and then I have anhonorable mention because I think some of
them might overlap with other people orI can describe it pretty quickly. So
the first one I have on mylist, and it's one that I've talked
about a few times on some ofthe podcasts. It's a game that I

(51:31):
played in starting when I was prettyyoung in my childhood, which is rare
on this list for me because ofthe rest are actually all games that I
played, I think in college oronward. But this game I played when
I was very young, and ithad a huge impact on me in terms
of formulating what I enjoying games,how I play games, and was also

(51:58):
one of the first games that wasan eye opening realization not in a great
way of safe spaces and what Ineed to do as a woman in games
as I play, especially online,and that game is RuneScape. It was

(52:20):
the first MMO I've played, andone of the few I've played since I
think I started. Oh gosh,I don't remember the exact dates or timeline,
but I think I was around sevenor six when I started playing,

(52:43):
and I stopped around twelve or thirteen, so I've played for a good chunk
of years. And even though thiswas an MMO, it didn't necessarily in
part that love of MMOs to me, because the only MMOs I've played since

(53:05):
then are a little bit of Wowand Final Fantasy fourteen, which I do
super enjoy Final Fantasy fourteen, butI haven't played it. I need to
go back to it. The thingthat it really established for me was I
found out I love exploration because Ioften played this game by myself. I

(53:28):
didn't do like raids or quests withpeople. I was like, I am
going exploring this huge world. Iam doing all the professions. I love
cooking, I love fishing, Ilove mining, I love house building.
And ever since then, it's reallyestablished, regardless of the genre or the

(53:51):
type of game that those are thegame mechanics that I'm always drawn back to
Minecraft, exploration and exploration and mining, love it. Stard has so many
things house building, fishing, cooking, mining, and Yeah, this was

(54:14):
just the first game where I wasable to understand that, explore that and
what cemented it for me. Ithink one of the not great experiences was
this was also the first game thatI experienced a lot of sexism from certain

(54:37):
external actors. This was the firsttime I was active on other websites and
boards to figure out like, howdo you complete this mission? What are
the best things for that star?Seeing a lot of comments. This was
the first time that people would followme because my character was very feminine presenting

(54:59):
and they would ask me questions.And being a young girl, it was
very eye opening and having not hada huge gaming community at that moment,
because this was me still discovering likewhat our games, and I didn't have
a lot of friends that played games, or at least I didn't talk about

(55:22):
games with them because I still didn'tunderstand them as a community, constract or
even like a product. So yeah, I'd also had some not great first
time things and which I had toreally navigate these situations, myself come to
an understanding, and myself learned thatband button fast or that block button fast.

(55:49):
Yeah. So yeah, it wasa really mixed experience. Overall,
I would say it was positive.I had a ton of fun, I
got some really good friends. Ilove doing all the professions and skills.
But yeah, it also was thefirst eye opening like, oh wow,
I can play with other people,and these people have this anonymity and they

(56:15):
say things to me that make mefeel uncomfortable. I don't always understand why,
because again I'm super young, butI need to mute myself. I'm
not gonna unmute. I need toban more. I need to create the
safe space. I need to onlyconnect with people that I know for right
now. So yeah, Roomscape,it was. It was a time.

(56:35):
Oh yeah, oh that's a that'sa that's a good story though, I
mean, you know, in termsof thinking about the effect and how how
those effects can be good and bad? Right, all right, Victoria,
what about you? So I amone hundred percent guilty of being the person

(56:57):
in the discord that just kind ofskims the discord and then doesn't talk until
I'm tagged. So when Jordan postedthis prompt. I skimmed it and I
was like, okay, biggest biggestimpact, game, biggest impact. I
thought it was just game, biggestimpact. And Sam is like, hey,
b are we on for tomorrow.I'm like, yes, game,

(57:19):
biggest impact. Brain that's where.That's where it stopped. And so in
the pre call when we were discussingthings, it became games, and I
was like, oh no, ohno, oh no. So I've had
to spend the beginning part of thepodcast getting more games. Because one game
easy, one game was easy,multiple games much more difficult. I'm sitting

(57:44):
here with sticky notes, like writingthings down. So I think the first
one that I'm going to list hasa similar reason, some similar reasons to
Jordan's about aiding safe spaces and learningvaluable lessons about sexism in games and harassment

(58:07):
and just carving out your own communityand safe space. And that would be
Call of Duty. So I startedplaying Call of Duty as a teenager.
And when you're a girl doing poorlyin Call of Duty, it's acceptable because

(58:30):
you're a girl. When you're agirl doing well in Call of duty,
it is very unacceptable. So Istarted playing with the modern warfare briefly,
and then World at War and Worldat War I got into at the time

(58:52):
my boyfriend's clan, and I wasthe only only girl in that clan for
a very very long time, andum like it was it was a sort
of harassment that you face in partychat from the from people in the clan
itself because it was all guys,and then also in public lobbies, and

(59:15):
this was we played a lot ofsearch and destroying. You can't be in
a Xbox party chat and play searchand destroy, hardcore core search and destroy,
because you could tell somebody where somebodyelse was. So you're just kind
of slammed into a lobby with everyoneelse and when they find out you're a
girl. Back in two thousand andeight, it never went well and I

(59:40):
learned probably like not the best lessonsin there, and that becoming sort of
fighting back using masculine language, likemasculinizing myself as well, and fighting back
with sort of the same crude languagelike back at them them, as if
that would like sinking down to thatsame kind of level and trash talking in

(01:00:05):
a way that wasn't really the best. And so it took we encountered this
other clan of very bright and bubblyand energetic and lovely lesbian gamers and they

(01:00:28):
this was the oh man, thiswas Modern Warfare two. Because I can
still remember, like where we werestanding. So we encountered this clan and
we liked playing with them, andso then we just kept playing, so
that all twelve of us, youknow, were in one in one lobby.
And the way it rolled back thenis it didn't sort you into a
new lobby every game, Like ifyou liked playing with the other people,

(01:00:51):
you would just be in the samelobby and it wouldn't resort into a new
game, which definitely helped the toxicityof the Call of Duty franchise. Sorting
into new lobbies helps it, likehelps kind of alleviate that stress because they're
like stalking and fighting is now amuch less common event in lobbies, but

(01:01:13):
back then you could just stick inthe lobby and hang out. And she,
like I still remember her name,Washina, and she messaged me and
she asked me, She's like,why one, why are you playing with
these guys, and why do youlet them treat you like that? Like
you don't have to be treated likethat? And so yeah, she was

(01:01:35):
very sweet and so I started playingwith U with that clan more and it
taught me a lot about like carvingoutsafe spaces and harassment online and especially in
a franchise that I was I wasgood at and competed at, and but

(01:02:00):
too bad. It seems too badthat you can't take your supportive clan with
you to competitions because some of thoseface to phase events like Jordan's Jordan's experience
at Game Stop, like I juststarted, like my blood started to boil.
I could just feel it. Becauseone of the competitions I went to,
like I was signing in and therewas some guys there and they're like,
oh, are you here to supportyour boyfriend? And I was like,

(01:02:24):
no, I'm here to play.They're like, oh, well,
do you know how to plan?Like is this anything like playing a DS?
Is it gonna be okay? AndI won that tournament and they're like,
we went easy on you because you'rea girl, And I was like,
is it anything like playing a DS? So yeah, Call of Duty

(01:02:45):
starting with World at wore super bigimpact on me, and it's still in.
World War is kind of the startof the Black Ops phase, which
is my favorite sub sub phase.In the Call of Duty series. I
really relieve. I really love BlackOps. Well it's Cold War, of
course I love it. See andbut Black Ops because of the mechanics,

(01:03:06):
was always my least favorite until four. For some reason, Black Ops four
just resonated with me for like ayear, For like a year, I
don't know that first year Black Opsfar was out. I don't think I
play anything except Black Ops'. It'sit's a really good serious That's why I'm
I'm still like when we when mygroup goes back to playing Call of Duty,

(01:03:29):
it's like, oh, we wantto shoot things tonight. It's it's
it's Cold War. It's Cold Warthat we play. It's not and it's
Cold War is getting worse. Likeyou can tell that there's some sir like
the it's not being maintained as wellbecause it's shifted to you know, um
war Zone and Modern Warfare two.And they tried to push Vanguard but they

(01:03:52):
gave up on that exists. Umbut uh, I would still go back
to Cold War overall. I loveCalled More. I love Nuketown. I
love that they keep bringing nuke Townback. It makes me happy. Yeah,
yeah, it's chaotic. I lovethat. So yeah, okay,
ask can be good. They askcan be good. Okay, so let's

(01:04:15):
see what's um. Okay, Igotta choose one. I gotta choose one.
Let me look at my sticky notes, um, because I also have
it on sticky notes. Um.Since we're since we're going with community ones,
right, um, I'm gonna gowith the Division two um. And
I'm gonna go with the Division twoover Call of Duty um because yeah,

(01:04:41):
I played Call of Duty and Ihave played Call of Duty a lot right
um with friends like over the years, um, just by myself and so
honestly, but call of Duty becauseof like my issues with motion sickness and
like verd Go and all this otherstuff and it being the first person shooter.

(01:05:02):
Sometimes I'm certain times I'm decent atCall of Duty, but often I
just suckum. But so I was. I was never, like I said,
even like even though I played likeBlack Ops like a lot for anyway,

(01:05:23):
it was never one that I justfelt like in my like comfy in
my skin in as a franchise.It's never been. Um. I play
it because I like like just hangingout with my friends and my friends like
playing um, call of duty,but the Division two not the first one,
because the first one, when thefirst one came out, it was

(01:05:44):
broken. So I got mad,and like I often do, if a
game is broken when it comes out, I usually don't make my way back
around to it because I'm always playingso many games for fun and playing so
many games for the podcast and playingso many games for research that I don't
have time to cycle back to gamesthat couldn't get their ship together the first
time. UM. So I neverwent back to the Division. But when

(01:06:08):
the Division two came out, I'mlike, I'm gonna give it another chance,
because like, conceptually, this isthe kind of game I should love.
And it was um and it didn'tmake me sick one UM Like the
didn't make me motion sick UM andI was good at it and I still

(01:06:30):
am UM. And I got toplay with people um and because when the
when the Division two came when theDivision two came out, I was streaming
on mixer, so it was likeI streamed that probably at least once or
twice a week. UM. Westarted we started a club because we don't
go clans. We started we startedthe club and we just played the Division

(01:06:56):
together a lot UM a lot,a lot a lot UM and i've and
UM I recently, so I wouldcome back to it every now and then,
like with big updates. And Irecently started playing again once say recently
probably the last two months, likeregularly UM and doing seasons and like the

(01:07:19):
season passes, and that for mewas like the first time that I had
UM like a good sense of community. One because there were people that UM
I would usually play Call of Dutywith that would play the Division two because
it was a shooter and U twobecause like outside of MMOs, it was

(01:07:46):
like the first time that we hadlike an organized club or guild or what
have you, where people like workedtogether to do things. And I spent
a lot of times. I spenta lot of time. I cannot tell
you how many times I have runthrough the base game of the Division two,

(01:08:09):
just like running through new content withor old content with new people.
And it's something I enjoy doing,right, I enjoy like helping other people
get through things and seeing other peopleenjoy things that I enjoy, if that
makes any sense. That's and that'swhy people are like, well, I

(01:08:29):
didn't want to bug you, becauseyou know, I'm you know, only
level ten or whatever, And I'mlike, no, you don't understand.
I enjoy watching people enjoy things Ienjoy, and if you know, having
someone there to help you add tothat enjoyment, I'm down for it.
So I would say that that interms of thinking about community building, since

(01:08:50):
that seems to be where everybody's firstgame went. That would that would be
mine, that would be mine?Yeah so there? Um all right,
Georgan, what about you? What'syour next one? My next one?
And I one? Have you do? Think? For this? Sam?

(01:09:15):
This game had a huge impact onhow I play games, how I plan
for games, and how I buygames. It really changed the genre and
type of games that I enjoy,or it didn't change what I currently enjoy,

(01:09:35):
but it added to it. UmAnd I know I've talked about this
game a lot. I love itOvercooked. I think a game has really
impacted me that deeply into where Imean. I liked co op games before,

(01:09:58):
I liked indie games before, butuntil we played Overcooked. It's just
something about it I really love andit opened my eyes and I play way
more indie games now Since then.I play way more co op games now,
regardless of whether it's indie Triple AOnline Local. Just that game really

(01:10:21):
changed my mindset, and games likeOvercooked has become a staple in my search
engine. And this is not anexhaustive list, but because of that game,
I went on to play Out ofSpace, Trying Death Squared, Catastronauts,

(01:10:43):
No Hearers Here, Moving Out,Human Fall, Flat Tools, Up,
Cake Bash, the Stretchers, Loversin a Dangerous Spacetime. Loved all
of them. And I am alwayslooking forward to the next Overcooked DLC.
I cannot wait until that team comesout with their next game, regardless of

(01:11:05):
whether it's overcook three or something else. And yeah, just that makes me
so happy. Let me, letme, let me just just throw this
one out here. I'm just gonnathrow this out here, enchanted. I
n in c h A nt ed. Amanda Phillips put me in on it,

(01:11:26):
put me down on this one.She was like, play this game
with me, and so we umplayed Enchanted. Enchanted. I'm just gonna
throw that out there. I knowyou said I was making you spend money,
but I'm just gonna put out theresteam style still on for another what
another day or two? You gotcaught already in this podcast. I have

(01:11:46):
a book at least four games toguy, can you type that one in
the discord? I will definitely,I sure will um but yeah, Overcooked
is just so delightful and at thesame time infuriating, but not in a
I'm gonna stop playing or I'm reallylike, oh my gosh, literal thirtieth

(01:12:11):
time on this boss, I'm angry, I'm mad. I'm gonna reach quick
for the night. Like no,I'm going to talk with the friends that
I'm playing. We've got two stars. That's not good enough. We gotta
get three into four on four starsplus, we're gonna get that four stars.
We're gonna plan, We're gonna strategic, we each got our roles,
and we are gonna knock it outof the part. It is just fabulous,

(01:12:31):
huge, huge impact on all ofmy gaming habits since I played it,
how I buy games, what Ilook for games, what I like
in games. Absolutely nice. Allright, all right, Victoria, what
about you? So my second choiceis Mortal two. And the reason for

(01:13:01):
Portal two is it came out intwenty eleven and I we just got married,
and one of the things like wedidn't have a honeymoon, we eloped,
we didn't have a honeymoon. Soone of the first things we did
was just sit on the couch inour crappy little apartment and played Portal two

(01:13:27):
together. It was the combination honeymoonslash my birthday present. And what it
really set off was kind of ourrelationship with games and with each other,
and how integral games are to maintainingsort of our relationship with each other,

(01:13:50):
like especially stearing the pandemic and stearingthe early years when we were very poor.
So and it really set off likea string of games that just keeps
going and going, and we're alwaysalways, always looking for co op games

(01:14:10):
to play, and it's it's kindof such a headache when you google like
best co op games or co opgames like Portal two, or co op
games like Don't Starve Together, andit gives you lists of games that you
have already played. Sad. It'ssad, and like the lists, the
lists just keep going, so andit's it's the whole list of so we

(01:14:32):
have Portal two and Don't Starve Togetherand Ship of Fools and Divinity, Original
Sin one and two and Squared andDeep Road Galactic and the games just keep
going. And then it also includesit takes two. But I really hated
that game. Oh yes, Iask why. I'm just curious. So

(01:14:53):
the mechanics very cool. Enjoyed themechanics, awesome mechanics, but there is
so much trauma for me as someonewho has no contact with their parents.
Yeah, so it was traumatic.And like they they ripped apart that kids
stuffed animal to try and make hercry. I had to do that in

(01:15:16):
the game, and I have neverquite forgiven myself, and I sure as
hell can't forgive that game for beinglike, you know what you should do,
try and make the kid cry,and at the end they stay together.
I'm like, no, you twoare terrible. Yeah, yeah,
I'm not gonna lie. We literallytalked about the scene today with my friend
group. Two people had played it, one person. I'm not because we
didn't do spoilers. I was like, I enjoyed playing the puzzles and the

(01:15:42):
art with my partner, but atthat moment we literally had to put the
game down because we were so mad, we were so upset we couldn't do
something different. We were like,no, this is horrible you're doing and
you're treating your daughter horribly. Thisis not what you have it was.
It was. It was. Icould not reconcile the game. Like the

(01:16:08):
puzzles. I really enjoyed the puzzles, but anytime the character said anything to
each other like a sideline, Iwas just snarky. Like from that point
on, I was just like snarkyand retail like. I cannot revisit that
game. I enjoyed the game,it was. It was fun to play,
but it was a miserable experience fromthe cut scenes and from some of

(01:16:33):
the things that the game has youdo. So and I get annoyed when
that game is included on lists oflike best co op games. I'm like,
it is not. Yeah, itis Trauma. That makes sense.
That makes sense co op games portaltoo. Okay, Okay, let's see,

(01:16:57):
so we're talking about like, okay, so I'm gonna go with the
one that I said I had,well, two games in one slot because
they both kind of um served thesame purpose for me. And those two
games are gonna be Bason and Brothers, a Tale of Two Sons. Bastion

(01:17:24):
is a game I tell I'll talkabout this all the time. If if
I pick up Bastion, if Istart a play through, a Bastion.
I'm gonna finish a play through abaston It's a game that I cannot start
without finishing. It is a gamethat makes you question like a lot of
things like you you like the rolethat you play in the world, things
like colonization, things like what meanswhat means what to whom right? And

(01:17:49):
there is there's one part of thatgame where, without fail, even though
I played that game, I don'tknow twenty thirty times at this point,
I cry every single time, likeugly cry, ugly cry. Um.
It is one of the best indiegames I have ever played, and I've
played a lot um and Um.It is one that I will continue to

(01:18:14):
replay because I really enjoyed UM andthe soundtrack is the soundtrack is amazing.
UM super Giant nailed that for me. And Super Giant has had some really
good games since that, but thatwas their first I do believe um And
because they just got it like onehundred percent right for me with that first

(01:18:34):
game. None of their other gameshave been I mean, they've been nine
nine percent even, but have notbeen that same one hundred percent. Nailed
it in the same way that Bastionwas. UM and the second game that
occupies that slot. Like I said, His Brother's Sail of Two Sons UM,
and that game UM, I wouldadd because it made me realize the

(01:19:00):
extent to which UM mechanics can bea part of narrative. Because because you
like start the game and it isawkward intentionally so because you control one brother

(01:19:21):
with one joint with one thumbstick andyou control the other with the other thumbstick,
but you have to work collaboratively.And they they later made that game
co op and it made me mad. I'm like, no, why would
you do that? It is thewhole part, the whole point of like

(01:19:41):
having to control each brother with adifferent thumbstick UM, and then have to
make them work together. It isa part of the struggle. You feel
that you physically viscerally feel that struggle, and then something happens. I'm not
and I never I try not tooil this ever, because I want everybody
to play this game. Something happensin the game that makes you feel what

(01:20:10):
happens in the game into your body. And that's all I'm going to say
about that part. But that game, I mean, yes, I've always
understood that mechanics can add to anarrative, right, I mean, of
course, of course they can,but it it never resonated with me to

(01:20:32):
what extent until I played that game. Until I played that game, and
I always highly recommend it to anybodywho is willing to listen. And but
you can usually get it because it'sit's such an old game. Now you
can usually get it for like fivebucks. Same thing with Bastion. And

(01:20:55):
I own Bastion on everything except thesmart fridge and the microwave. I own
Bastion on everything, and I willreplay it so like so I'll be like,
Okay, I'm gonna uninstall this gamefinally, and then I'll be like
shopping for something in the E shopand I'll see that Bastions on sales and
I'm like, oh, I shouldreplay. Okay, I'm gonna replay Bashion

(01:21:16):
and I replay it again, andI will do it just kind of on
a whim. And I will doit on a whim. But yes,
those two um definitely made me,gave me a better understanding of games in

(01:21:41):
in some in some interesting ways andsome interesting ways, and they helped me
to make that clearer to folks whoum think about game design, who either
like either my students who want tobecome game designers or people who want to
talk about game design, just likedifferent ways that we can get people to

(01:22:03):
a different understanding. So you haveone kind of understanding with brothers, and
then you have a second kind ofunderstanding with Bastion, because, like I
said, you wake up as thiskid who doesn't know what the hell's going
on in the world's been destroyed,and then he has to put the world

(01:22:24):
back together. But then you haveto ask that you have to ask yourself
constantly at what cost? And thenso you know in the end, and
this is this is I mean,it's kind of a spoiler, so mute
yourself for thirty seconds. In theend, you find out that you are
the colonizer. Right, So you'vebeen going through all this and and you

(01:22:46):
figure out at the end that you'rethe colonizer, and you have to make
a choice of whether or not you'regoing to continue to colonize or if you're
just going to let the world staydestroyed and rebuild from there. So those
two are definitely in that flat forme. All right, Jordan, we're

(01:23:13):
gonna go back to you a showturn again. Yeah, So the last
that I have under not honorable mentionis a game that whenever people ask what
had the biggest impact, what wasyour favorite games? What had the most
emotional experience. I'm really bad atremembering what I've done, what I've played,

(01:23:40):
what I've written, what I've preparedfor meetings or other games or anything.
I have to have it in frontof me for me to remember.
But this game never ever fails toimmediately pop in my mind, and I
remember the exact visuals, the exactfeelings I had while playing this game,

(01:24:00):
and it was really the first gamewhere I was like, wow, that
was also an experience. And wealso did play this game a little bit
in the class that I took fromyou, Sam, but I think I
played it slightly before then, soI had a little bit more contact when
I completed it. And that wasjourney beautiful game. Oh yeah. I

(01:24:23):
just it's so hard to explain interms of the emotion and feeling because it's
probably different for everyone, but alsowithout having played it, it's a little
hard to describe. But that momentwhen you have survived the heat of the
desert and then you go cascading downthis sunlit, reflective sand and then immediately

(01:24:51):
are purred into this dark blue cavewith some dangers and literal really the game
is a journey. I know that'sthe name of it, but you don't
quite understand and realize until you've playedthe game. And the thing that really
hit me hard was when I wasplaying this game, it was a little

(01:25:15):
confusing into in terms of how itwas advertised of is this a local co
op game? Is this a singleplayer game? Is this an online game?
And so I went into this bothin terms of buying it and playing
it thinking, oh, I'm justhere by myself, and I got through

(01:25:36):
the almost the entire journey by myself, under covering these different locations, this
history, this culture, of theseartifacts surviving all these different monumentous occasions,
and at the end, I allof a sudden saw another person wearing a

(01:26:00):
red cloak and a cape jumping around. I'm like, what way is that
an NPC? They're not moving likean NPC, because just the way they're
jumping and running around like that doesn'tseem like a programmed path. And I
went and we started jumping up andsignaling to each other because it's not really

(01:26:23):
voice chat and that game or atleast I didn't have it enabled, so
we were signaling the symbols to eachother and we both just walked with each
other up the mountain right at theend of the game and walked into the
light and finished the last mission together. And it was just a really fun

(01:26:46):
and mind blowing experience having with that, having been the first game like,
oh, I'm here by myself inthis vast desert, exploring, uncovering all
these different things, and then togetherright at the end with another player and
be like, oh wow, No, this has been an open space where
you can encounter anyone, and we'regoing to finish this together. We're going

(01:27:10):
to help each other and heal eachother as we climb up this icy mountain.
Yeah, there's no other game thatI've gone back and played through,
not considering games that are situational basedin terms of like war Zone or Dead

(01:27:30):
by Daylight, where the whole gameis playing multiple time in lobbies. In
terms of a narrative experience, I'venever gone back and replayed a game except
for Journey, So that one hasbeen super impactful, just always in my
brain. And we talked about ita lot in college and doing a class.

(01:27:51):
Sam and It was also the firstgame where the environment of the Dead
Dessert was not posed as like thisthinly veiled backdrop of xenophobia and racism,
especially if you're dealing with war,and especially if you're dealing with the themes

(01:28:14):
and impact of colonial powers and peoplecoming into other countries. So and then
on top of that, if thedeaths say, oh, hey, our
game's not political, Like what doyou mean it's not political? You literally
are talking about war. I'm notpointing out any specific games, but yeah,

(01:28:38):
it was just such an impactful experiencein terms of the visuals, the
emotions, the experience as the gameitself. And it was also the first
time I had played a game wherethat biome had been presented as something colorful,
historical, beautiful, something that youwere exploring, not to own,

(01:29:00):
not to destroy, um and whereyour impact is literally just to understand yourself
better as you navigate this space.Not I'm gonna take this artifact. I'm
not gonna shoot all these people.I'm not gonna destroy this um monument as
I slide down a helicopter or something. So just just say lord Croft,

(01:29:25):
Just say lord Croft. I chartedas well uncharted as well. Yeah,
but yeah, House of Ashes.Um, yeah, there's quite a few
out there. And don't get mewrong, there have been. I've played
tumb Raader, I've played Uncharted.There's parts of those games that I've enjoyed
as well. But yeah, Iknow, Journey huge impact. Yeah,

(01:29:51):
I thank you, all right,Victoria, your turn. And to be
predictable yeah ah yeah. So thereason that I found it simple when I
thought Jordan's said biggest game like singular, I'm like, easy, It's easy.

(01:30:15):
Fall Out New Vegas done one anddone. I don't even have to
think about this. I just goabout my day. So Fallout New Vegas
is the one that has had thebiggest impact on me. So in in
twenty eleven, the Game of theYear edition for New Vegas came out,

(01:30:35):
and I had at that point notplayed a non first person shooter like Call
of Duty since two thousand and six, Like the last one I played was
The Godfather, and I would Iwould just since first person shooters because I
thought that's the only thing I liked. I'm like, I only want to

(01:30:56):
play first person shooters. And thenone day Nick was like, I bought
it for Nick for his birthday andthe game of the Year edition for the
PS three, and he's like,hey, can you finish this hand of
Caravan? I've got to go.I gotta go to work. Oh like
yeah, sure, whatever, Andso I did not just finish that round

(01:31:18):
of Caravan. I played that gameall day and the whole you know,
get the character to New Vegas.And he had not been to New Vegas
yet. He's like, played Caravan. I did, and then I was
like, oh, okay. Andso I noticed that I was next to
like a casino and they were doingblackjack. I'm like, I like blackjack,

(01:31:38):
and so I went and I playedblackjack, and then I was like,
oh, there's there's like a skillset, like you can have skills
in this game, and then likeyou can level up and there's a there's
a story. And Nick got home, you know, eight hours later,
and he had to start a newcharacter. Had no idea what was going

(01:32:00):
on in the game. It wasone percent one of those like I have
no memory of this place. Hehad no idea what happened in that game,
and I got to create a newcharacter. And the reason I point
to New Vegas a lot is thatit sits in in my whole history of

(01:32:21):
playing games as the game that kindof revitalized and renewed a real love for
narrative in games and building on thechoices that you make. New Vegas is
very much into the moral system,and because Obsidian did it, and it

(01:32:41):
has more connections to one in twodue to the previous previous developers having a
hand in the game rather than justBethesda, And so the choices I was
making in the game had an impacton who liked me and who didn't like
me, and what the world lookedlike as I moved through it, and

(01:33:03):
how characters reacted to me. Thechoices I can make based on my own
skills, Like if I played withan intelligence of one, the game's completely
different. You speak differently, youact differently, characters react to you differently.
And I was really into the story. And I know it gets a

(01:33:29):
lot of flak for being kind ofof that video game era that was all
colored in like shades of brown andgreen, but it really sort of revitalized
I can do other things in games, and I can enjoy other games,
and I can like other games thanjust being a consistently competitive first person shooter

(01:33:53):
player. And I had been likea long time Before that, before I
got into first person shooters and likereally involved in some of the toxic undercurrents
of that community, I had playeda lot of single player games and enjoyed
a lot of single playered games.I played hit Man a lot, I
played Deuce X a lot. Iplayed ice Win Dale was one of the

(01:34:15):
first computer games I played. Andas soon as I got into sort of
this toxicity of first person shooters andCall of Duty in like about two thousand
and seven ish two thousand, yeah, two thousand and seven, I just
kind of forgot that other games existed, or that I could take a break
from that sort of environment to reallyenjoy a story and how a story builds

(01:34:41):
and how I can impact an environment. So, yes, Fallout New Vegas,
and I love all of the Falloutgames except for we don't talk about
four. Nobody nobody talks, nobodyshould. It's just like, let's take
out the best part of Fallout,which is that you have choices that you

(01:35:03):
can make in a like at leasta really good illusion of choice an impact.
No Fallout four, your choice optionswere like reduced to four choices,
and none of them were based onyour skill set or what you were leveling
up. They were like, yes, no, but yes yes with sarcasm.

(01:35:23):
Yes, but I'm a jerk,so I'm gonna be really mean about
it, but I'm gonna do exactlywhat you want anyway. It's like,
I don't want to go and dothat. I don't want to save my
son. Why would I want tosave my son? I'm pretty sure that
I'm a synth, Like I amnear one hundred percent certain that the protagonists
and Fallout four spoilers is a synth. There's nothing else that makes sense in

(01:35:45):
that game without you actually being asynth, like one of the I think
it's far Harbor, the DLC farharbor. One of the sense even kind
of points out to you, like, hey, have you ever considered that,
like you're a synth? And you'relike, absolutely not. And I'm
like, wait, wait, toomuch of that makes sense. I'm a
sin. That's not my kid andwhy is everybody calling my kid father?

(01:36:09):
Am I supposed to call my kidfather? I don't get any of this.
Oh yeah, so we forget aboutfour, but yes, please,
that's it. That's that's my lovefor Fallout and I played Fallout three after
I played Fallout New Vegas. Istill hold that Fallout New Vegas is the

(01:36:30):
best Fallout game so far. Sah, I should play it now that it's
fixed. I'm gonna play it.I keep saying it. I also keep
buying it, so you know,I like that you support it, like
Absitian. It's like, hey,good job of city, and let me
buy your game again. I'll geta round to it. I'll get a

(01:36:53):
round to it, all right.Since we're talking about games and narratives,
seem and it's funny that that ourgames kind of line up, and these
like literally were the three that Iwrote down, but our games line up.
Um, the Mass Effect Trilogy.I know that's three games. I
cheat, It's fine. Um,the Mass Effect Trilogy one, two,

(01:37:17):
and three. And a lot ofpeople didn't like one as much. I
mean, yes, one had hisownly had his issues um with you know,
searching the searching the cosmos for stufffor long periods of time. Um.
But the Mass Effect Trilogy, becausethat was for me, a game

(01:37:40):
that I felt like in a funnyway, I could be me, right,
you could. You could make choices, um, and and I do
have and and I think let's seeNope, the division the division is one.
I don't have a division tattoo.Um I gonna say, I wasna
I think I have tattoos with allthese games. Uh, But it was

(01:38:02):
a game that let me be me. And when I started playing the mass
Efect trilogy, I said, I'mgonna make decisions based on the way that
I would meet as a person wouldmake decisions. And everybody knows you play.
If you've played Mass Effect, you'llknow sometimes you'll be like, oh,

(01:38:24):
well, I'm gonna tell this personI don't feel like talking to you
right and and that'll be like thechoice right the little textual choice on the
screen, I don't feel like talkingto you right now, So you'll click
the I don't feel like talking toyou right now button and the game will
just say I never want to talkto you again. Get away from me.
I mean. So it often takesto a streams, which is part

(01:38:45):
of the funny part. But inmaking the choices that I, as a
human being would make in those extremesituations, it turns out that I rolled
like a hundred percent renegade. Soby the end of the game, I
would like point a gun at somebodywho was doing something wrong and try to

(01:39:08):
shoot them in the leg, andthe game would shoot them center mass and
they would die. And I waslike, well that's harsh, um.
But it was this was like thetrilogy where I like really felt invested as
a person, even though some ofthe things were a little harsh. I
felt invested as a person, andI felt invested in the relationships I had

(01:39:31):
with the MPC's in the game aswell, right, Like I still I
have a Liara statue like on theshelf behind me now, and like people
will talk about like who they romanceand Mass Effect and I was like,
I can never romance anybody except Learabecause she named a star after me.
And that means it's forever and it'scross safe and it's cross platform and it

(01:39:57):
is everything. Um. So whenthey did that like teaser trailer for the
next Mass Effect game, and I'mpretty sure that's Lee are there. They
got all my money, They gotall my money, it doesn't even matter.
They're gonna come out with a collector'sedition. It's gonna be three hundred
dollars, and I'm giving them everyone of those dollars. I don't care

(01:40:17):
if I have to go into mykids colleague food. Um, it's is.
Yeah, mass Effect was that wasthat for me and and I have
and I don't know what the nextmass Effect game is gonna be better?
Be it better be better than thatlast one? UM, because with the
with when the last one and theystarted out and they were like, yeah,

(01:40:40):
the last in seven is dead,I was like, Nope, not
playing this game. I hate it. UM. As a matter of fact,
I just ordered another in seven hoodietoday or yesterday wanted two. UM.
Mass Effect is a game that hada great effect on me because you
know, I was invested in thatgame in a way that I had probably

(01:41:01):
not been personally invested in the storyand felt like my choices had some impact
on the story. And we allknow that that is limited, right,
because that was the whole That wasthe whole thing about UM Mass Effect three
is people got mad because they saidthat, you know, all of the
it didn't have an unlimited number ofpossible endings and all your choices didn't contribute

(01:41:25):
to the ending and blah blah blah. And I still say, hot take
UM that their reaction to that,their reaction to the haters U and mass
Effect was what ultimately started game orgame. UM. But you know that's

(01:41:46):
neither here nor there, and that'sa whole other conversation. But yeah,
mass Effect, the mass Afect trilogyis my is my third one. So
I know, Jordan, you saidyou had some honorable mentions I have.
You can want to run through yourhonorable mentions. I do have three honorable
mentions on mine and I can runthrough those quickly witnessed my turn. But
yes, can you tell us whatyour honorable mentions are? Yeah, I'm

(01:42:10):
on a pretty quick. One wasmass Effect, exact same reasons. I'm
right there with you with the nextmass Effect game, except instead of my
kids college Front, I'm just notpaying my debt for that month mass Effect.
Yes. The other one was Breathof the Wild, first Zelda game
I played and just matched everything Iloved about a game perfectly. Exploration,

(01:42:33):
puzzles, cooking, crafting. Thebiggest game construct that I think I will
love forever as Corox. I lovehas to I love Corox. They are
the most merchandise I have in thishousehold other than Avatar. I got key

(01:42:54):
caps, I got cork plushies,co rok earrings, Corocks of the Wild.
I love Tears of the Kingdom,but Berth of Wild did it first
for me, So that's why it'son this list. When you're finished with
Tears of the Kingdom, I wantto know how you're feeling, because honestly,
I think I like Tears the Kingdombetter so far. Yeah, I

(01:43:15):
do like Tears of the Kingdom better, but Breath of Wild did it first.
I'll let you know in six years. Last game, and this is
the one that's always a surprise topeople because it's a surprise to me,
and it's not solely because of thegame itself. It really had to deal
with my situation and my life inthat moment alongside playing this game. And

(01:43:41):
that game is Final Fantasy seven,Chris's Core in Final Fantasy thirteen, because
I was playing them at the sametime. They are not my favorite games.
They're not my favorite Final Fantasy games. Do I still enjoy them and
do a lot of people not likethose games. Yes. The reason why
that had a huge impact on isbecause I was in late high school at

(01:44:02):
that time and people were telling meyou got to figure out what you want
to do, You got to figureout what you want to start with,
what college you want to go to. And I was in a lot of
classes that I loved and was supertorn. I was in music was my
life. I was in marching band, pep band, regular band, after

(01:44:25):
school band. Music was everything.But I was in a lot of art
classes. I loved drawing, Ilove painting. But then I also was
really discovering that I loved playing gamesand I loved constructing environments. I love
narratives. I read three books amonth, and I was like, how
can I choose a career when Ilove all these things? And as all

(01:44:50):
that was happening, I just happenedto be playing Crisis Corps in Final Fantasy
at thirteen, and I actually satand watched the credits, and that's the
first time it hit me this isa product and company and thing that people

(01:45:14):
work on, like this is ajob, this is a career. So
everything altogether hit me at once,and so I know it's not my favorite
game. It's not my favorite inthe franchise. And people always get confused
by my answer, like what wasthe game that you realize you could do
game development? And my Ansel's FinalFantasy seven, Crisis Core and Final Fantasy
thirteen. They're like, oh,that your favorite? Nope, is that

(01:45:36):
your favorite Final Fantasy Nope. Didit do anything different or new? Nope?
But I was sitting there and Iwas like, Wow, still loved
the environments, still love the VFX, loved the music. I can do
games, and so I chose todo games. Got you, I like

(01:46:00):
betting gets all right? What aboutyour victoria? Do you have any honorable
mentions? I know you got puton the spot with d extra gains,
thank do. I do have honorablementions. And the honorable mentions that I
chose were the games that made mecry. So I don't cry very easily,

(01:46:28):
but sometimes, like I get veryinvested in the game. And these
are two like very different games fromeach other, but the first one is
Final Fantasy eight, and I criedseveral times during Final Fantasy eight, and
there is just something about the abandonmentand the orphanage and that just killed me

(01:46:54):
inside. And when they all realizethat they're from the same orphanage, and
it just it just kills me inside. I've replayed that game several times,
and the first time I when itfirst came out and we had a PlayStation
that didn't have a working sound card, and so I never got to hear
the music that went with the gameuntil I played it again as a teenager

(01:47:17):
and I just bald, like chattereddeath. Oh my goodness, it was
terrible. I was just a blubberymess. And I still still get that
way when I probably played that game. And then the next one is Red
Dead Redemption two, so I baled. I read Dead Redemption two and completing
the story and I tried to bethe best version of Arthur Morgan that I

(01:47:44):
could be. And the betrayal becauseyou know what's coming, and I didn't
realize that spoiler for the game thatcame out several years ago, he has
tuberculosis. I didn't realize that untilI got diagnosed with it. And then
you remember, like you beat aperson that had it, and this is
kind of the karmic uporizing of allof your bad deeds. Even though I

(01:48:08):
was trying to be a good person, I still did hit that person to
get their money, and I gottuberculous. I just and that. I
like, I ended Red Dead Redemptiontoo, and I just had to sit
with it for a while because ofall of the themes that run through the

(01:48:29):
game. So some games that mademe cry, biggest impact narrative and that
the narratives can have such a hugeimpact on just feeling and not expecting to
feel those feelings, be like,oh yeah, I'm just gonna play this
game for fun, blubbery mess later. M hmm, I got you.

(01:48:54):
That's me and passion. I'm alwaysblubbery mess all right? Is that is?
That are my honorable mentions? Okay, I got honorable mentioned. I
have a Zelda honorable mentioned. Thatis not because I think I have two
favorite Zelda games. I have twofavorite Zelda games. I have like an

(01:49:15):
all time favorite Zelda game and amodern favorite Zelda which I won't know for
sure if it I don't think it'llever because my my first favorite Zelda game
was my first favorite Zelda game.But I don't think you could ever displace
that. Um, and that wouldbe Zelda linked to the past mum,
because I don't know it's it waslike the first time UM, a Zelda

(01:49:42):
game just I won't say clicked forme, but just kept me engaged,
like beginning to end because there's somuch there um and I'm not gonna go
into that too much. Um.The other um is as a franchise stated
decay because y'all know I'm a bigchicken. You know, I'm a big

(01:50:04):
chicken. Um. And I playeda lot of resident Evil. Um when
I was younger, um, notnot like a kid, but in my
twenties and and my twenties went forward, right, played a lot of resident
Evil. UM. And resident Evillike a resident Evil didn't have a lot

(01:50:27):
story wise. I mean it hadgeneric zombie story right, um. And
I think and people will disagree withme, I'm sure, I'm one hundred
percent sure, um, But forme, Stated Decay was the zombie game
that did it for me first,because there were so many different people,
so many diverse people that also haddifferent stories. There were uh, you

(01:50:49):
know, there were black folks,um, and there's issues with black criminality
in that game. That's a wholeother story. And and and your faith
is gonna be problematic sometimes there werequeer folks. There were black folks doing
stuff black folks that folks will sayblack folks don't do. Um. There
were uh, there were like,uh, there were white folks. There

(01:51:11):
were talks of religion and Christianity.There was um stuff with chronic with chronic
illness. There's all kinds of likepeople with different kinds of stories. Going
on and Stated Decay, which iswhy I've always loved that game. Um,
in addition to its having a lotof more survivally aspects than your traditional
zombie game, UM, which iswhy I still cannot wait for Stated Decay

(01:51:35):
three. But I'm gonna be patient. But Zombie DearS, yes, sign
me up, UM, and no, not zombie zombieds start doing for you,
that's so creepy. I've been reallyinto survival games lately, and I
think that that's Uh. I thinkI've always been in the survival games and

(01:51:57):
that goes back to something you weretalking about earlier, with being able to
mine and craft and build, um, and survival games give you that aspect
as long as the thing that I'mtrying to survive is not too scary,
like supernaturally scary. I mean,I don't mind like surviving the wild or
whatever, but you know, orZombie DearS apparently because it's you know,

(01:52:18):
zombies and it's it's nature, soit's fine. UM. But uh So
I've been really into survival games lately. UM. But uh in the third
game, UM probably would have madeit further up on my list. UM.

(01:52:39):
Was is Nino Cooney Wrath of theWhite Witch. UM. And that
is because that is a game thatUM, I shared with my kido,
who's peeking in the door for somestrange reason right now. UM. And
that will always have an immense placein my heart, UM because that was

(01:53:00):
an experience that we shared and youknow, one of my fondest memories and
one that you know you can't replicate. So yeah, I would say that
is that is That's the third oneon my list. So I had three
on my shortlists. I mean,I'm sure I could come up with forty
seven more from my shortlist, butI kept it to three. I kept

(01:53:23):
it to three. Hold us again, So yeah, those are my three
shortlist ones. So it's it's interestingthat there was a lot of overlap,
not necessarily in games but in Rationalefor our first three. And that was

(01:53:45):
totally unintentional because we had not sharedany of our games with each other prior
to like, prior to like talkingabout them the first time. We didn't
even share those. We didn't evenshare our list when we were doing our
are like pre show chat, wedidn't even share list then. So it's
interesting that we somehow had had somekind of thematic overlap if not ip overlap,

(01:54:14):
so who who? Although I dohave to say, Sam, I
would love to play State of Decaywith you. I also love survival games,
and I feel like most games weplay similarly, except for State of
Decay, because every single time we'vehad a conversation and regards to that game,

(01:54:36):
I'm fast searching you fast. Ohno, no, it rarely leads
to see anything like monumentous. Andthat's why you bring a car with you,
so you just jump in, youzoom away. It's fine, it's
fine. I bet you drive withthe light zone too, don't you.

(01:54:58):
No, that's conserving energy. Ibet you use guns too, don't you
on occasion? Those are guns areonly for emergency. Well that's fun I
mean on occasion emergency. I'm notusing it near my base. It was

(01:55:19):
funny. So I was like,right before the Panini, I was out
at Undead Labs and we were checkingout the new build of the Juggernaut Edition
and I was playing and Brandford Gerald, who who's one of the depths,
came by like where I was sitting, and he was like, you know,

(01:55:41):
you can turn the lights on,and I was like, I don't
turn the lights. And they bringzombies. He's like, no, they
don't. I was like, yesthey do. He's like, I make
this game. I was like,I don't care. That's so funny.
I don't care what you say.I know you made this game, but
I say it brings zombies. Let'sget to know now, because I will
turn on the lights every single timebecause I thought the same thing. Well,

(01:56:04):
I was in the house. Idon't know about the cars, even
though it's funny because I did seeI did see recently them saying something the
State of Decay, like Twitter accountsaying something to someone who had posted a
video about turning the lights on whenthey were driving. And now I was

(01:56:25):
like, uh, oh, don'twe try to get people killed turning on
those lights. But anytime you wantto play State of Decay, I will
play State with Decay. That isthat is one. Everybody has that one
game that somebody could ask them toplay and they'll stop everything they're doing.
The play stated decays that game forme. Stated decays that game for me.

(01:56:47):
Plus there was another What's Today cameout yesterday. There's another Um if
y'all have game pass, looks reallyinteresting. Another can you I fight in
my room? Or in my office. Please thank you. Um there's another
They looking at me like, we'llfight wherever we want to. Um see,

(01:57:12):
I just told you your sister alone. She's trying to sleep. Go
play with somebody else. Um,free cats, this is your boys.
Um so uh what was that saying? Oh? Um oh, there's a

(01:57:35):
new game on game Pass called Commonhood. Um a hit game passions. It's
a survival game. It's got fourplayers multiplayers slash co op. Um.
So, if y'all ever want tocheck out another survival game, we could
play that too, or we couldplay stayd K. I will always play.
Either of those. Either will getyou killed the swamp room in our

(01:57:58):
friendship. If I haven't gotten oraccidentally killed yet, you're fine. I'm
way less herful. I'm like,Sam, I'm on top of the car.
Just drive. I'll be fine.I'm like getting a car. No,
it's fine up here. I canshoot from up here. I'm fine.
I'm just shooting off fireworks, throwinggrenades, going. Oh, I'm

(01:58:21):
bringing every every every zombie to theevery zombie to the yard, every single
solitary one. Yeah, I'll definitelyplay. I'll definitely play, so anytime,
y'all want to play a survival game. Y'all let me know. Um,
y'all, let me know. Exceptyou know, when you're playing Minecraft
and Victoria is trolling you in Minecraft, I am just a troll. I

(01:58:45):
thought we established this. I amone hundred percent just a troll the worst.
Mmm. This is true. AllRight, y'all, thank you so
much for hanging out talking about Viggiegames with me to see and then I
appreciate y'all. Uh, I appreciatey'all. I always I you know,

(01:59:05):
we had a nice like relaxing breakthat I really needed because I've been have
fifteen other projects on the on theburners at the same time. Uh,
but I'm glad to be back andtalking about games with y'all. Uh.
So with that, that'll bring usto the end of episode two hundred and

(01:59:26):
forty five and until next time whenwe have episode two hundred and forty six.
Y'all stay cool, stay safe,and as always, friends, game
on. They can't do anything anythingshout, can't can't be shall not.

(02:02:02):
They need not any need to dothe best. They need to be.
Many needed the nest they need tobe. Maybe too sho

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 245: But They Had Impact!: Games That Have Had the Biggest Impact on Us

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Episode 245: But They Had Impact!: Games That Have Had the Biggest Impact on Us

Stuff You Should Know