The Gamerheads Podcast
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The Gamerheads Podcast
End of an Era: Reflecting on Game Informer's Legacy and the Future of Gaming Journalism
Welcome to another episode of The Gamerheads Podcast. Mike and Phil are back and this week, we delve into the legacy of Game Informer magazine, a cornerstone of gaming journalism for over three decades. Phil gets personal, sharing heartfelt memories of the Game Informer team’s dedication and camaraderie. Reflecting on its shutdown, we explore the uncertain future of beloved gaming institutions like GameStop and the broader implications for the industry. The emotional toll on staff and the impact on game journalism quality become focal points of our discussion.
We also discuss the games we are playing. From rediscovering NCAA Football’s thrilling gameplay to reviewing the quirky language-learning RPG Terra Alia, our gaming discussions are as diverse as they are enthusiastic.
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Music:
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And welcome to another episode of the Gamer Heads podcast. My name is Roger. Along with me are my good friends and co-hosts. Coming back is our CEO and President, phil. Welcome back to the show.
Speaker 2:It has been a long journey of mine and I didn't get to send any new followers.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, nice try though I had a flag on my car. Was it a Gamer Hes flag or just a flag?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1:GamerHeads flag. For the sake of the story. Okay, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, and also welcome my good friend and co-host, mike. Welcome back.
Speaker 3:Oh, welcome.
Speaker 1:Mike, you caught something on your vacation, and not a fish. You caught a cold, it was just a cold.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's all I got.
Speaker 2:And above the pants, cold Not above the pants cold.
Speaker 3:So yeah, so I'm not my normal chipper self. Right now. You're getting a whole different Mike. Today You're getting a pissed off. Mike, I'm just going to complain about everything. Wow, wow. Well, I a whole different mike.
Speaker 1:Today you're getting a pissed off mike. I'm just going to complain about everything. Wow, wow. Well, I'm looking forward to this episode no you're not no I'm not. No, I'm not.
Speaker 1:You're right get off my podcast and uh, welcome to our patrons, matt, jill and sarah. Thank you so much for supporting the gamer heads podcast and if you'd like to support the gamer has podcast, you can as well. For as low as three dollars a month, you can help support our independent games journalism. Just go to patreoncom slash gamer has podcast and you can select the tier that best fits your budget. And if you do go a little bit higher to the five dollar tier, uh, phil here will write you a letter. He just practiced writing yeah.
Speaker 2:I did I wrote Cajun. Rice-a-roni.
Speaker 1:Cajun Rice-A-Roni. Yeah, I don't know if it's called Cajun Rice-A-Roni, but it's like something like that I don't know, it's something like that.
Speaker 2:It's very good is it the Rice-A-Roni people or is it made by, like Zantanas?
Speaker 1:Oh no, zantanas, you're right. Oh you, son of a bitch, you misled me.
Speaker 2:I did. I'm so sorry. Wait, I've had that stuff.
Speaker 3:The magician girl from DC has a rice. Yes, no, but she's got a really good series going right now.
Speaker 2:That's Black Label, neither here nor there. Oh oh one.
Speaker 1:It was pretty good rap. Al's in prison. I saw that. I saw that. Yeah, they're growing up. Yeah, anyway, welcome to the show. Uh also, hey, speaking of yummy food, seven bridges, yum yum sauce. That stuff is very good. It's so too good I ran out. It's too good, I ran out too. I'll grab you guys a case tomorrow. Okay, and uh, a case did you see a case, wait what?
Speaker 2:there's six bottles in a case. I'll split it three or I'll split it two ways.
Speaker 3:I will gladly pay you tuesday for a yum yum sauce. Today. The thing is, only old gamers will understand that reference yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:That's right, um, I think they're called old heads these days. Yeah, that's right, I mean it's very good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's very good stuff. So, yeah, I'm excited to have some more sauce.
Speaker 2:If you're in the Minneapolis St Paul Twin Cities area, you can now find it at Von Hansen's meat markets as well. Oh wow, I also have a link in the show notes, but they can you right on Twitter. Dm me, skip Amazon, I'll save you money yeah, yeah, so yeah, check it out.
Speaker 1:Seven Bridges Yum Yum Sauce. It is very good. I'm not joking when I say this. It is probably my favorite, not probably. It is my favorite Yum Yum Sauce and. I've had a lot of Yum Yum.
Speaker 3:Sauce and it's good on everything. Actually, I'll take this back. The only thing Yum Sauces.
Speaker 1:And it's good on everything. It is really good.
Speaker 3:Actually I'll take this back. The only thing I put it on that's not good on are those Keebler fudge stripes.
Speaker 2:Oh Jesus, Mike, I thought you were going to go with rice cakes.
Speaker 1:Did you try it on Captain Crunch yet though?
Speaker 3:Crunch Berries.
Speaker 1:The Crunch Berries.
Speaker 3:Yeah, same result goes good with milk yeah, I didn't have any milk, so I used your sauce. Yeah, I was gonna say you don't, but I ran out of toothpaste the other day, so you use yum, yum sauce I gotta go chef yuck, oh man, yeah.
Speaker 1:So that's seven bridges, seven bridges, yum yum sauce. Go check it out. We do not endorse it using it as toothpaste, though that is not or putting it on crunch berries.
Speaker 2:Every fiber of my being hurts right now, just hearing that.
Speaker 3:I had an ear infection the other day. There we go, little dab will do ya. I had an ear infection the other day.
Speaker 2:There we go, little dab will do you.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 1:Oh, we should have like a disclaimer. This product does not cure male pattern baldness.
Speaker 2:It's intended to go in your mouth, not your ear.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 3:Anyway, I don't know how to transition out of that, because I was building a computer and I used it as thermal paste. Sorry, I'm sorry. The nyquil is kicking in, man, the nyquil is kicking. Actually, I ran out of nyquil so quill sauce yum yum sauce coated throat.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh okay, so on to some more somber news. So this week last week, I should say, to surprise everybody, including the employees there GameStop shut down, game informer uh, in a really I'm just gonna say it in really fucking shitty way well, of course, yeah, because it's the game.
Speaker 2:Stop mo but, the higher graded baseball cards yeah, so, um, so, yeah.
Speaker 1:So there was just a message on their twitter that said the final level, or something like that, and it was just. I can't even read it now, because the other shitty thing that they did was they just shut down the fucking Twitter as well.
Speaker 2:As well as the entire website.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as well as the entire website. That is fucking insane. And, to make matters worse, they were like almost done with their latest issue yeah, like I think I saw that they're like 70 down with our with the latest issue, like and they, they just posted reviews like earlier that day, yeah, and all that's gone, all of it's gone, like and when, when I, when our at my old, when our corporate office closed down our office, we were given probably I think about a three month notice. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So that's, and GameStop had done the same thing, it would yes, it would be, it would suck, but you know it wouldn't hit as hard. Give everybody time to to find, you know, to find new jobs and stuff, but this was a horrible, horrible way to handle things. What's?
Speaker 2:even more fucked up and not to use that word, but I do often um is that like they don't even have like an office that, like the guys came walking into, everybody's still working from at home at gi. Yeah and so, like I'm sure, everybody either got a phone call or an email, it was just like hey, by the way, everybody's done like it's yeah there there's. There were no meetings that were had in front of other people. There was nothing like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was cold, it was heartless, it's.
Speaker 3:GameStop. That sounds like their new slogan. Now it's cold, it's heartless, it's GameStop.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've been, yeah, in 33 years 33 years and to me I mean I want to talk a little bit about the impact that Game Informer has had. But to me, what worries me the most about that is like something is established as Game Informer for 33 years, for it to shut down like that. Like what is what is sacred in this industry, like what is safe in this industry, and I don't think anything is industry and I don't think anything is um. I also think I mean I think it's the writing on the wall that gamestop is going to be within the next year they'll be gone.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've got a gift card.
Speaker 1:I got to get rid of it yeah, so, um, so I just want to talk a little bit about the impact Game Informer has had. So, first of all, talking about the legacy and influence, the fact that it's been around for 33 years, phil, you were part of that. You knew a lot of people that worked there. You were in some of the issues in fact Can you talk a little bit about because you worked at funko right, funko land.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you right I did can you talk a little bit about the beginnings of game informer and, uh, just some of your memories as well.
Speaker 2:I may get a little emotional here and that's in my old age. I've come to terms with the fact that I'm kind of an emotional human being and I don't hide it as well. I may get a little emotional here and that's in my old age. I've come to terms with the fact that I'm kind of an emotional human being and I don't hide it as well as I used to. Full disclosure listeners, slash listeners. Andrew Reiner is one of my best friends in the entire world. I've known him since 1995, I would like to say so. We're coming up rapidly, approaching 30 years. I was the best man in his wedding.
Speaker 2:I've been in the magazine numerous, numerous times. I've sat down with him as well as other editors, including Matt Helgeson, matt Miller and others, helping write reviews, helping play games. I shared the Funco Land warehouse was connected to the Game Informer building, obviously when it was owned by Sunrise Publications, which was owned by David Pommage, who started Game Informer, or started Funkoland, out of his garage in Eden Prairie, minnesota, and I worked there back when GameStop slash Funkoland was 100 stores and, as I'm sure you've caught on throughout the course of this show, I'm a smoker and we shared our break room with Game Informer as well. Man. Now I think about paul anderson and going to paul anderson's funeral and like just hanging out with paul as well, um and arthur being in the office, just the dog that was resident residentially there, who I believe was matt storms, if I remember correctly. I mean I go way back with game informer um and just them putting in 72-hour work weeks to try to make deadlines, people sleeping in the office there were couches in there for people to sleep on to try to get things done at crunch time.
Speaker 2:The men and women that have worked for that magazine absolutely busted their ass to make it as big as it was and to create what it is, as I would venture to say, probably the premier video game journalism magazine slash website of the entire, of the entire world even because they covered everything. They had somebody to cover every genre of games and they were a very well-informed group of people. When I was there, I mean it was, it wasn't a tight ship, but it was a tight enough ship, but just to see it come down to this it's, it's just a kick in the face of everybody that spent any time there, even your people, such as Justin Leeper, who was there for a small handful of years. It's man, it's fucked up is what it is. But I mean they were all a family together, at least from the times that I was heavily involved there. Like all their desks were right next to each other. Everybody would bounce everything off everybody else. Like there was no. They all edited each other's work. There was no head editor. I mean at the at the time when I first started working at Funko in 1997, it was like eight people total. There were six, seven editors at the time and everybody just copy edited everybody else's stuff. Everybody got the pictures together and did all that.
Speaker 2:But just the impact that they've had globally on how game journalism was handled in a very professional basis. And you can say what you want about game journalists. As I've stated, I I've known people that have done this for a long time. They never saw a single dime off of any of their reviews. Like as far as getting kicked anything. And the fact that people are willing to drag that one out there. It's always pissed me off and like for it to come to this point pisses me off even more because like there's still those people that think those things and if that was the case, game informer would still be in business game, informer would still be going strong because they'd be getting those kickbacks from these companies free t-shirt here and there absolutely copies of games.
Speaker 2:Here and there absolutely monetary value? Not at all. It's, it's. It's a shame that game informer is gone. It's was the most professionally handled magazine that took everything with a grain of salt and did things in a very non-biased point of view. It's, it sucks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the one thing that I think you said there that I think stands out to me is that, uh, you know, if you talk to anybody like that works there, they say it's like a family. You know, if you talk to anybody like that works there, they say it's like a family. You know, and um, and I've been collecting game informer for a very long time and um, and I was really sad that I couldn't go to their was it 200 issue. Was their 250?
Speaker 2:issue 300th anniversary. I believe 300. It was yeah.
Speaker 1:OK, yeah, and.
Speaker 2:I wasn't there for that, even fuck.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So yeah, it has and I mean it's had an impact on me Like this is one of the reasons that I wanted to start Gamer Heads is because of the influence that Game Informer has had on me and I enjoyed listening to their podcast. I enjoyed reading the reviews. In fact, I mean for me my writing and my reviews. Like I would read a lot of game informer and think about, like, how they wrote the reviews and then think about how I would not like copy obviously I wouldn't copy their reviews but just look at their styles, right, and think about their stylization and think about how they write things and think about how I can improve my writing as well. Um, so it's just, it's heartbreaking. Mike, do you want to talk about the impact the game informer has on you and in your career? Because you also, you know, did a podcast before gamer heads and did reviews as well I I've been.
Speaker 3:I've been writing for gaming websites since 2001. That's when I first started and when Game Informer, one of my favorite things to do was actually it was probably the biggest selling point for me getting the pro membership from.
Speaker 3:GameStop was getting that magazine and it was always awesome. Whenever I'd go in the mailbox and there it was, I grabbed that magazine, go right into the bathroom and that's you know. And you can laugh because you know that's for you know, that's where I do my good reading, it's where reading happens, that's where my good reading happens.
Speaker 3:Yeah, um, but I. It was always just so much fun to read. I loved reading the letters. You know that that people would write in it. Just, you know the and their, whatever their cover game was. You knew it was going to be a in-depth, and when I say in-depth I probably mean the most in-depth article you can get on the cover game. It's spanned pages upon pages.
Speaker 2:You were getting between 8 and 16 pages off the cover game. They were doing their research. They were out at the studio. They were spending time with the developers. They were spending time with the creators. It wasn't just some bullshit thrown together piece, like you see on a lot of websites these days. Websites these days. Sorry, I don't mean to no, it's good.
Speaker 3:Here's the thing Some game magazines and you could say journalists and you could say podcasts, you could tell that they were fake. I'm not going to call anything out, but especially when it came to magazines it was like, okay, you could tell that there was not a lot of effort or care. But with Game Informer it was always it was, it was professionally done. There was, there was humor in it. But like I read those things cover to cover, I actually I I still have a bunch of mine I still have all mine I still have all mine too.
Speaker 1:They're on my shelf right over here. Um, in fact, I have to get another shelf because they didn't.
Speaker 3:They didn't fit on all the shelves, so so you know, I've always, you know, after reading those, you know I've, I've always wanted to get into to games, journalism, um, and you know, I at first I thought, well, you know what are my odds, I can't write for a magazine. But then, you know, once, once websites started coming up, then I'm like, okay, well, now I've got a chance I can write for that and actually that was.
Speaker 3:it was kind of a pipe dream of mine to be like all right, I'm going to get my feet wet with writing for this website, then I'll build up a good writing resume and I'll submit it to like Game Informer to see if I can get a job with the big leagues, so to speak.
Speaker 3:And it broke my heart when they, when game stops, like no, we're doing digital only for the magazine yeah, yeah and I even actually literally, like probably about a month ago, I was in game stop and they had game informer magazines on there. I'm like I don't care if I have to pay extra. Can you mail me the magazines? Can you send them to me? Oh, you have to do it on the app, okay. So it's like. It's like gamestop, they just didn't care anymore. I just, you know, it doesn't matter, and that that's what pisses me off the most.
Speaker 3:It's just like yeah obviously that they did it, but they did it with no advance notice. Do they realize like what that does to families?
Speaker 1:it's messed up yeah, and, and the other thing too, that I mean outside of just the journalistic integrity, the fact that they did fundraisers, uh, you know, extra life raising money for uh, is it gillette right? Isn't that the gillette hospital up there, phil?
Speaker 1:yeah um, they raised lots of money for, for the children's hospital. Uh, you know, and you could tell that the people that were doing it like had fun and they enjoyed each other's company and and, like, I think I'm going to start crying, I don't know why, but yeah, I don't. It's just, it's heartbreaking and I just, I'm so, I'm so angry and so frustrated it's like they were not even where they are.
Speaker 2:They are the apex of game journalism. They did it properly, they did it professionally. They didn't give you any kind of again just bullshit spins on things, like they called things as they saw them, and I can tell you for a fact that editors that didn't and wrote with a certain amount of bias and or a slant to their reviews, they didn't last very long. If you couldn't hack it and your ship was all, it was faded in one direction or the other, like you were. You were given a small handful of warnings and you were gone Like it was a very real thing. It was as much as it was a family for them. It was still very cutthroat on the inside as well, because they had a certain level of integrity that they wanted to stand by, and if you didn't stand by those levels of integrity, you weren't going to last.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think I think that's that leaves me good into the next topic here, the state of gaming journalism. Because when you lose something like Game Informer, I mean because of the fact that they were, you know, like I said, they're the gold standard for what gaming journalism should be right. And now, what you know, I mean you still have, you still have big names out there, but like I don't know. I just think the state is just in a weird spot right now and I and I wonder, and I'm a little worried, right, like, where does this industry go next in regards to, uh, the journalistic integrity of of what, and not only that of the industry, but not only that, but like there's not as many jobs out there, like there there's, there's just not, like, and the other thing too, and I'll just touch this and I'll let you guys talk, but the other thing is, nobody's going to want to go into this industry. You have something like that, like Game Informer being shut down the way it is.
Speaker 2:Nobody's going to want to go into this industry, which makes me sad because because of the fact that there are a lot of charlatans, uh, in this industry, like you were saying, mike, right, that are not, um, that just are not as good, and they're just not right, and and I just and I don't want that to be the norm, I guess- there's a lot of people that will pay freelance, freelance freelance writers to go out and write articles about whatever that have little to no talent, that are somehow getting published week after week after week, and yet then you've got this juggernaut like game informer that have got some of the best game journalists on the entire planet that just all got their feet cut out from under them, and people that have been doing it for a long time. Matt miller has been there for shit. He's got to have been there for 20 years at this point. He's a very talented human being, he's a very talented writer and I mean he's now looking for a job as well and like it's just frustrating.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:He's. He had been a backbone for a long period of time.
Speaker 1:It's, it's it's fucking stupid. Yeah, I mean, where does it go? What happens next? I don't, yeah, I don't really know. Um, because we lost this trusted voice in the industry. I don't really know what happens next. I don't really know. I mean, my heart goes out to all those that were affected, obviously, like because that sucks and I don't know, I don't know, I mean I would, I can't, I can't imagine what they're going through right now, especially not those that have invested so much time into it, I mean yeah andy reiner.
Speaker 2:Andrew reiner hasn't been there for two, three years now and I I don't know how much I want to disclose here, but I can tell you that he's fucking bummed out about it.
Speaker 2:I know I threw a post out on social media but obviously he and I have had a lot more in-depth conversations about it, because it was 26, 27 years worth of his life that he helped curate and he helped build this thing up to being what it is, including taking over editor-in-chief once Andy McNamara not once, as though Andy McNamara had to leave, but when Andy McNamara left, andy Reiner took over the helm of being editor-in-chief and then put all that on his own shoulders to help continue to make the magazine what it was that Andy McNamara built it up to be, to continue the vision of what Game Informer's greatness is.
Speaker 2:And even though he's not there anymore, he still talks to people quite often that still work there, because again, those people were, they were friends, they were, they were family, a lot of those people that have been there for a long time. It's just to watch it all go away like this. I mean the state of game journalism it's. It's not going to be the same. There's going to be people like and I I mean no offense to any of us, but like the three of us write game reviews, we're still going to do it do we do it to the level of game informer, absolutely no, no I'm not gonna.
Speaker 1:I'm not gonna fool myself, I'm not.
Speaker 2:I'm not as good as there's writers yeah, and I mean even I'm not gonna throw any other outlets under the bus, but, like some of the larger other gaming journalism outlets that are out there, like they don't do it to the level the game informer did either either, nobody did it. It's just a high level of professionalism. That was there and again, I cannot emphasize the unbiased enough. Like it was a very real thing and it was something that they prided themselves on as well. They should have.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, karma's a bitch.
Speaker 2:Yep Hopefully.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you. Yeah, I mean you know. Like I said, I would not be shocked if they close the door. You know, but here's the if GameStop doesn't close in the next year. I didn't finish that sentence there, but I went out to their Twitter to see if they did any kind of post about like hey, this is nothing, Nothing at all, it's like it never even existed.
Speaker 2:They just tried to wipe it off the face of the earth like they dropped an a-bomb on the entire fucking thing.
Speaker 1:I can't I, I could not, I could not believe that, nothing at all at all. And then the other shitty thing was and I kind of alluded to this early on in the conversation but so they made a post, the twitter made a post. It looked like it was generated from ai uh about hey, goodbye, uh. And then somebody must, some, some employee or former employee must have access to the twitter and said hey, we just want to have a formal goodbye from employees. And the moment that that got posted, is when they pulled everything down they pulled everything down.
Speaker 1:They shut down the, the twitter account, um think you know, thank goodness, like matt miller did share a very nice post, um, and it was very heartfelt. But man is this? Is this awful? And it's just like I said, this was a gold standard and I don't know what happens going forward. Like I said, nobody's going to want to get into this industry anymore and I'm really worried. It's just going to become no full-time jobs. It's just going to be all contract or not contract.
Speaker 3:But Freelance, freelance, freelance. So you just say positivity for sale, because that's what freelance yeah for I'm not going to say always means there's a lot of people out there still with journalistic integrity, some of your, some of our friends of the show, yeah, but then, but that opens the door for just people to say, hey, send me free stuff and I'll give you a good review yeah well and it's so.
Speaker 2:It's a difficult transition as well, because you think of all these people with the knowledge of the video games that they have and you would think that they could easily transition into writing for a bigger studio. But then you look at the layoffs that the bigger studios are doing, I know like it's.
Speaker 1:It's a stupid, nasty vicious circle that's going on right now within the video game world and it's it's bullshit and it sucks yeah, yeah, I mean because, like the, the, the crazy thing is that the talk the talk of that before before, because I, uh, I had morgan shaver on the show last week, um, and we talked about bungie, uh, no, we talked about humble, humble closing. That's what we talked about, bungie. No, we talked about Humble, humble closing. That's what we talked about, and that was before Bungie. And then Bungie closed or not closed, but they shut down 70% of their After just releasing their biggest DLC for Destiny and then they go and lay off 100 people or however many it was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 17% of their staff. That was insane. And then I mean that's not even talking about the tech industry. And then Intel I don't know if you guys heard this, but like laid off like 15,000 people from their staff. So it just feels really weird in the industry right now. And yeah, that's the shitty thing. It's like, it's not like, oh, I lost my job. Well, thank goodness there's hundreds of other jobs available.
Speaker 2:It just I don't know, and especially knowing that there's nothing that anybody could have done, that was employed under GameStop that would have changed anything Like this was it was going to happen. Hate to say it, but the writing's been on the wall for years. I'm thankful that they got what they did out of it for as long as they did, but with the way that GameStop had handled some of the layoffs and the budget cuts and things like that and started bringing in freelancers towards the end instead of just having full-time editors, you could see that it was coming. You just hoped it wouldn't, yeah.
Speaker 1:So that is.
Speaker 3:I'm going to bring something out of retirement we used to do this thing on my old podcast called the Finger of Shame, and we used to when we would stream the podcast we would call out some asshole organization or studio or something like that and we would shame them by doing the finger of shame and just wag. But I'll do the middle finger of shame towards GameStop right now go fuck yourselves, gamestop.
Speaker 2:Enjoy selling. Funko Pops and buying graded baseball cards. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm not going to go into another GameStop again. I haven't been in one in years. I was in one a couple of weeks ago and it is shocking how little video games they actually sell. Yeah, I'm like what is this? This is just a weird mashup of weird eclectic stuff that you sell here. I don't even know what what is? Your brand, what is your?
Speaker 3:identity. I don't want to buy a my hero academia wallet like no, I know, just become a nerd store and part of that, in devil's advocate.
Speaker 2:Part of that's just due to how much is digital these days where, like sure there's not as many physical collectors, as there used to be, because everybody's got that instant gratification, I don't have to get up and change a disc or a cartridge.
Speaker 1:Let me just go ahead and press three buttons it's a good feeling, though I'm not gonna lie, it's a good feeling, yeah, but you know, but and and not every, not every town has like a mom and pops no game store, for sure, but like we do here, uh, if you live in wisconsin and a couple cities like eau claire or stevens point or sheboygan, we have game. Sheboygan, uh, we have, we have game gaming generations. And I will say, like that place you walk in and that place is awesome, like they have, they do have new games. You can buy new games, but mainly they, they specialize in, you know, games that you can't find anymore and they have lots and lots and lots of retro games and lots of retro systems and lots of accessories and stuff Like new accessories for old systems.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like I bought a Wii controller from them because mine broke, because my kids like to play Wii, phil.
Speaker 2:I didn't say a word. You don't have to point out the fact that I'm making faces Bashing the Wii. What are you bashing the Wii?
Speaker 3:Have you never played Target Toss Pro Bags on the Wii?
Speaker 2:No, I play it in my backyard.
Speaker 1:In the winter.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Get hardy, Mike Get hardy. Alright, Jeff but yeah, but the thing is they know their identity, right, they know their brand identity and that's what their brand is. And like I just don't understand what gamestop's brand identity is anymore, like I don't think they understand what the brand identity is no idea what they're doing.
Speaker 2:It's a catch-all nerd store with no games in it. Like get rid of the gamestop and just call it stop just stop the leadership.
Speaker 3:The leadership at at game stop is like it's like kramer on seinfeld like every week there's a new wacky scheme to try to make money. Like that's that's remember when they were taking. They were taking cell phones or they were taking yeah, right wasn't. Then they do cricket wireless or something they were selling nfts like oh my god that's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then there was talks and it actually was. I was on board with this idea. There was talks that they were going to make some stores into like gaming stores, like tabletop gaming stores you can have a back room and play tabletop.
Speaker 1:I was like, well, that might work, right, um. But then somebody was like I have an idea and they're like that's a good idea, get rid of it. Yeah, like you know, I don't know. Um, yeah, I don't know. It's just shitty, it's whatever. I'm never shopping there again, even my local game stop.
Speaker 3:I moved to this town in 2006. They opened up a game stop think in 2008. And from 2008 till 2023, I became friends with every manager and employee there, Until they got rid of the most recent manager and the most recent employee. Now it's these people are. I'm not bashing people who work at GameStop, but I'm just saying, like it pains me to say it, but I'm ready for GameStop to become a thing of the past, yeah.
Speaker 2:And they kept a roof over my head for a large handful of years, and I'm ready for them to go away. So any final thoughts before we move on to games we're playing nope, I think I pretty much covered the fuck you game stuff and uh, this is bullshit yeah, all right.
Speaker 1:well then, let's move into games that we're playing. That's a hard way to segue into this, but we'll try to segue into it. So you guys are both traveling. I don't know, maybe have you guys been playing games.
Speaker 2:I played something new.
Speaker 1:You did. Okay, Phil, we'll start with you then. Mike, you raised your hand too late. I'm sorry, Mike, you can go first. No, no, that's the. That's the. That's the seven bridges.
Speaker 3:That's the Seven Bridges. Yum Yum Sauce effect. Yeah, that's the sauce talking, I hate it when there's sauce talks.
Speaker 2:I've been playing all the usuals, but then I recently have rediscovered my love as many, many of millions of other people have of the NCAA football franchise.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, Me too.
Speaker 2:Are you playing? Yeah, do you want to know an online dynasty? I've got an online dynasty going with like nine people.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:But you got to keep. Yeah.
Speaker 1:OK.
Speaker 2:How many?
Speaker 1:how many games, how many games you have to play a week?
Speaker 2:We go through like no, it's like two to three to four a week.
Speaker 1:How many? How many minutes are quarters Six? Ok. How many minutes are quarters Six? Okay, okay, is Wisconsin taken yet?
Speaker 2:No, there's only one person that's played as a powerhouse, and one of my friends is playing as Notre Dame, and the rest of us are shaming him for it, because everybody else is playing as, like, mid-level schools.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'll take a mid-level school then That'd be fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'll play that we're six or seven games into our season week nine or so indoor season, I should say and it's a lot of fun. This game is super polished. I haven't played a Madden game in years, but it definitely feels a lot better than a Madden game has when I most recently played a Madden game Me too and the fact that you can control all of your recruiting, your coaching staff and all that kind of good stuff makes it even that much more enjoyable. Occasionally we'll have head to head matches. We've only had one so far because there's 128 college football teams. So when paths cross it's an exciting time until bowl season comes around and hopefully a large group of us make the bowls. I probably will not, because when I was on vacation they simmed a handful of weeks and I went oh and three when I was on vacation, which is bullshit oh no but neither here nor there.
Speaker 2:Uh, having a good time with it. I don't understand football, I suck at defense and, um, yeah, I can't recommend it enough if you're a fan of football yeah, the presentation is really good mike, are you playing so good?
Speaker 1:are you playing this at all?
Speaker 1:no, I am not okay, uh, no, the presentation is fantastic, like the fact that they have like, all these instant replays and they have, uh, a lot of aspects that make the stadiums unique. I mean, I've been playing as a badgers, obviously, because I'm from wisconsin, but, um, it's really, really well polished. Like you said, phil, like I, I'm absolutely loving this game. It looks so good, yep and uh. And then I do love how they cut to other games that I mean they don't show other, they just they just say like, oh, this is what's happening in this game. You know, notre dame is losing by six, but blah, blah, blah and like it's pretty cool, like those.
Speaker 1:Like I played the. I played the. I don't remember what the last year was before this one 14, and those are the things I missed in that game, because that game had all that stuff. Um, it reminds me a lot of, remember, uh, espn 2k5, remember how well that game was. That's what this reminds me of. Um, and I don't understand why they can't do this with a madden game because, like, like you said, phil, it it feels so different than a madden game.
Speaker 2:Well, they just dropped a big patch today and we've got a large group chat going with all of us that are in the league together, and somebody sent the link to the patch that came out today and one of the guys that plays a lot of Madden just responded holy shit, they haven't done this much for Madden in 10 years.
Speaker 1:And that's just in the patch alone. Unbelievable, yeah, so yeah. Patch alone unbelievable yeah, so I yeah. It's good, it's a fun game um anything else.
Speaker 2:I know that you're traveling, so, yeah, no, I've been on the road for eight or nine days. Seven, eight, nine days, I don't know, I don't even know. Well, I know it's thursday because we're recording, but outside of that I had no idea what day it was for a large handful of days didn't even have cell service for three days, which was pretty awesome, and I recommend everybody takes time to just get away from their cell phone for three days touch some grass.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as the kids would say literally or some trees or a mountain, like just go out and do any of those things?
Speaker 1:yeah, um, what about you, mike? What have you been playing?
Speaker 3:I've been playing legend bull. I got back into that oh yeah, they patched it, so now it's playable and it's fun. I also discovered and I don't know if this was old or new, but there is a profile that you can select in the settings that changes all the teams to the colors of their respective city.
Speaker 1:Oh, oh, I didn't see that before.
Speaker 3:And then you can just go in and edit the names Okay, I didn't know that, I didn't see that before and then you could just go in and edit the names.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's awesome, that's cool.
Speaker 3:I'm having some fun with that. What else? Oh you ever see that movie, the Ring?
Speaker 1:Yes, I mean no.
Speaker 3:No, oh, it's a good one. I actually just saw it a couple weeks ago.
Speaker 1:I know of the movie, but I've never seen it.
Speaker 3:Well, the Ring is about a cursed VHS tape that kills. If you watch it, you die seven days. Spoiler alert for a movie that's 20 years old. The only way to get out of the curse is if you make a copy of the tape and have somebody else watch it. Then the curse transfers on to the other person.
Speaker 2:This might be the first ever spoiler alert that nothing was spoiled for me, for.
Speaker 3:This is great. Keep going Well. I had the same situation, although not dead, but it was with Bellatro, and I gifted Bellatro to my buddy, kurt, for his birthday and I streamed it. I gifted Bellatro to my buddy.
Speaker 1:Kurt for his birthday Nice. Oh, okay.
Speaker 3:I streamed it in a Discord chat. He's like, oh, this is pretty cool. I'm like, yeah, I need to stop being obsessed with it. I'm going to buy you a copy and I'll just watch you play it. Now he's obsessed with it. Played some Bellatro I watched. This was adorable. I watched my son play Ghouls and Ghosts oh, it was the very first video game he ever played was Ghouls, and Ghosts, oh wow. And we had it on the Wii Virtual Console.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And there were cheat codes that basically made you invincible. So he would just play the game and he just nothing. You know, he'd just blast through everything. It's been a long time since he played it, so I'm watching him play Ghouls and Ghosts again, knowing what's going to happen at the end and just smiling because he doesn't remember. If you're not familiar in Ghouls and Ghosts, once you beat the game, you're not done with the game. You got to go through and beat the entire game another time.
Speaker 3:And it's one of the hardest games ever made. So I just waited, I waited and I waited, and he continued and continued. He wasn't using cheat codes this time, he was just playing and continuing. Then he finally made it to the end and he's like, wait what I'm like yep, you gotta do it again, buddy. Did he do it, buddy?
Speaker 1:So that was it, did he do it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he did it. Yeah, he went back in time, yeah.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, that's impressive. Kudos to him, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he's got the drive. Wow. Other than that, I played Actually, I played a game that I am very excited to talk about and I am going full ham on this game and, phil, you'd appreciate this, I am playing.
Speaker 2:Battle for Bikini Bottom. It's fantastic isn't it?
Speaker 1:Is it good?
Speaker 3:It is an awesome game the remake the Bikini Bottom remake.
Speaker 1:It's on Game Pass right now too, oh okay.
Speaker 3:It's so reminiscent of those early 2000s platformers, collectathons and stuff and it's. I am having a blast with it. I've made the decision that I'm going to try to get a perfect gamer score on it good luck hey, I'm doing good. I'm doing good. The only thing I I the the hardest thing is going to get all the socks. Yep, to me that's going to be the hardest thing, but I'll look at some walkthroughs and stuff. I'll be fine. So I think I've only got like three levels left, but it's a pretty meaty game.
Speaker 3:There's a lot to do in it. The only thing I don't like about it is I'm a real stickler when it comes to voice acting.
Speaker 1:Do they not have the voices?
Speaker 3:No, they have all the voices with the exception of Clancy Brown, who does the voice of Mr Krabs, and Ernest Borgnine, who was Mermaid man Yep.
Speaker 3:So, everybody else is the original actors and they do a phenomenal job. They do so good. It's like watching an episode until Mr Crab starts talking, and then I just skip past this dialogue. I'm like I don't want to hear this. Yeah, so it's a lot of fun, and then they're just like with any other 3D platformer. There is one or two sections that make you want to punch the wall For me. I don't know how far you got into the game, Phil, but for me, I did. For me it was the dream level.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, you gotta jump on these boxes as they're turning and half of them have spikes on them and half don't, so that got on my nerves.
Speaker 2:And then you have to fight the giant thing at the top of those boxes too, right? Or there's the small handful of things that's kind of like an arena type of a section, if I remember correctly. Yeah, and that's a pain in the dick too. I mean, sorry, pain in the ass.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, you got to go into an arena and fight a whole bunch of robots and like those ones that create fire rings. Oh, it's just so frustrating, but I was able to get through it. So highly, highly recommend it, even if you're, even if you just know who SpongeBob is and you and you enjoy early two thousands platformers. Super fun, super fun.
Speaker 1:It's on game pass.
Speaker 3:It's on game pass.
Speaker 1:Nice, anything else?
Speaker 3:Nope.
Speaker 1:That's it For myself. Besides college football, I've been playing the usual Star Wars Hunters. They came out with a new season, new character now too.
Speaker 2:Tell us about the new character.
Speaker 1:So the new character is a Imperial droid, and apparently the story is that the Graz who's the who's, the wookiee in the game, ripped off this, this droid's arms and this, and so that's what he uses.
Speaker 1:Yep, yeah so this is what he uses for weapons the the wookiee does. He uses these big robotic arms, right? So then now this robot now is available in the game and instead of having the arms because they're gone, they have big shields. So it's pretty cool. So their weapon is that they can put down the shield in front of them and so if you blast at it, they just bounce off the shield. So that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:Does the shield wear down or does it just have a cool down, like after you've held it up for five seconds, then you gotta have it down for 15 or whatever?
Speaker 1:um, as long as you have health, you can have the shield up, okay. So if you don't have any, I mean, and I think there's like a certain amount, like if you have below the certain health, you can't put the shield up, something like that. So, um, so you can keep the shield shield up as long as, as long you want, as long as you have enough health to do so, which is cool. That's a unique aspect of that character. And then they also do similar to what the Wookiee does. The Wookiee does this charge, where it grabs and charges into them and drags them across the playing field. The robot does the same thing, kind of does this block charge with the shield bash type of thing yeah, um, so, so, yeah, they added a bunch, a whole bunch of cosmetics, so many cosmetics, um.
Speaker 1:And then they just opened up darth vader's um throne room like his, like that. I don't, I don't, I'm a star wars fan, but I don't remember the name of where he has his like little like his, like that. I don't, I don't, I'm a star wars fan, but I don't remember the name of where he has his like little like his meditation chamber or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it comes down and yeah yeah, yeah, and then it has, but then it has like the lava around it too, you know, like you know, middle um, so, uh, they just added that and that was really cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so many cosmetics, um, and I think they're going to introduce go ahead, go ahead, no, no well, as I say, I think they're going to introduce a new game mode as well.
Speaker 1:So last season they introduced, um, something ball I can't think of what it's called, but it's basically you get these balls and you have to throw them in the in the goals and you have to like 1% as the ball. You take the ball and throw it into your opponent's goal and if you score three goals or five goals, whatever, you win the game. So, um, but I think they're going to introduce a new game mode into this season as well. Um, is there a?
Speaker 2:new battle pass. There is yep, and what's the big reward at the end of this season's battle pass?
Speaker 1:uh, I think it's, I think it's the. So the battle pass gets you the new character. Yeah, uh, and I think it's a cosmetic for him. He looks like has a full-on black armor. I think that's what it is. Okay, um, but yeah, one of the cool things. So there's this I think I mentioned this before there's a sith assassin, so this is supposed to take place after the fall of the empire, so the empire characters are kind of like beat up and so the sith assassin, uh, she, now you can get a cosmetic that she has a darth vader suit.
Speaker 1:It's pretty cool okay yeah, she looks really cool. Um, that's a little expensive. That one is like you can't just get it in the season pass, that when you have to buy it it's 15, yeah, yeah. So they have quite a few of those that you can just buy. There's there's different, there's different. Oh, the one thing. I will say it like I was so glad they did this.
Speaker 1:So there's different currency in the games. So there is real money that you can buy cosmetics with real money, and so there's certain things in the store saying, hey, you can just pay real money for these things. You can buy purple gems. You can earn purple gems in the season pass as well. You can buy purple gems and then use those purple gems. There's certain areas, certain areas in the store that you can buy cosmetic with the purple gems.
Speaker 1:And then there was these gold coins that you would get. You get 75 gold coins every day that you log in and then you earn a crap ton of these as you play, just like you, either through your dailies or different quests that they have. You just you know, because each quest has its own like little path of things you can earn, and one of these was called these gold coins, and the gold coins weren't really used for anything. There's maybe one thing in the store that you could buy with a gold coin. So I have like 13,000 of these gold coins because I never had any use for them. They finally opened up a whole section of the store that you can buy cosmetics with these gold coins and I was like thank goodness, and they're cool cosmetics. They're not just junky cosmetics, they're really cool looking cosmetics. So I was like thank goodness that they actually incorporated these gold coins and you don't have to spend a dime on that. You can just get these really cool cosmetics if you want.
Speaker 2:Out of curiosity, is the stuff that they're offering for the gold coins? Is it stuff that was originally available last season with either the purple coins? Or the other anything else, it's all original stuff, yeah it's all original stuff, yeah yeah I was really surprised about that too, as I was expecting it.
Speaker 1:What you just said was it was going to be like old stuff from the last season, but it's not, um, it's a new original costume. So each one of the characters now has a bunch of cosmetics available to them, either through the season pass or through the shop that you can buy. So, yeah, so I'm honestly really impressed with the fact that season one I was really impressed with. You know, this is a good step in the right direction, but they went hard on the second season. I was like holy smokes, this is a good step in the right direction, um, but they went hard on the second season. I was like holy smokes, this is awesome. So, uh, good on them, I do. I do think that there's still some leg issues that they deal with, um, and loading times are atrocious oh well, you know I'm, you know I'm gonna refrain yeah, I know it is a switch.
Speaker 2:I didn't say it yeah, but it is.
Speaker 3:We're gonna start talking about switch 2 in the near future. We'll see what Phil has to say about that. What is this? We shit you're talking about Mike we the term the plural of I the collective because I'm not gonna be talking about it so that's star wars hunters.
Speaker 1:And then I have a review of a game that I just reviewed. It's up on the website hankymerhazpodcastcom. Uh, and this is an interesting game. It's called terra alia. Is that the game you're playing last night? No, I'll talk about that in a little bit. Uh, so terry alia. An interesting thing about terry alia is I played this game twice, I reviewed it twice. I reviewed it as a console game, on the switch, and then it came out on the quest as well as a vr game.
Speaker 1:Um, so this game is a rpg game that teaches you language. So I don't know if you guys remember this is about probably a year ago when I talked about this game originally. So it's like Harry Potter meets science fiction, and the premise is that some evil force took away the ability for your native tongue to cast spells, like the magic is gone. But they didn't realize that if you learn another language, that you could cast spells in another language. So the whole premise is they get to learn another language. Um, so in the console version you're just clicking on different things and they're like they would say, like you know, tableau right, and then you had to pick what that meant in. So if you're learning french, you'd had to learn say well, that means whatever blah, blah, blah or baguette, right. So you had to pick what that meant. But in the VR version you actually had to say the word and then it actually assesses how well you say the word, and then you had to say sentences as well. So I was really impressed with that. I thought that was really cool.
Speaker 1:Um, they took away a couple things, um, which is fine. Like you could. You could, uh, in the console version you could customize your character, um, but they took that away in the vr version because you don't really see your character, which I I get, I get it right. Um, there's no wand. Instead, in this, you just point your finger, um, which is fine. Again, um, the puzzles are cooler because you actually are doing the puzzles, so you have to actually hit the buttons with the vr, versus where you just kind of hover over them in the console version, um, so I thought that was really neat. There was a couple glitches, though that I was like really, uh, in one of the first rooms there's this door that's obviously you can't go through. It has, like these, this like white line. It looks like a magical line and you're not supposed to go through. Well, I walked through it. I was just like what happens and don't do that, because I ended up in a void and I had to restart.
Speaker 3:It didn't save any of my progress, oh no, yeah oh gosh, I was gonna say, you ended up speaking latin backwards, and now your house is even more haunted, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1:Uh, yeah, so that was weird and I was like there should have been a collision box here to stop me from going in there. But whatever, I guess. But that was interesting. The other thing, too, that I didn't actually say this in the, in the console version, because it didn't make me realize it until I was actually saying the sentences.
Speaker 1:It teaches you words, but it doesn't really teach you grammar, right? So when they're just having you say sentences, I don't, I mean, it tells you what the sentence is, but it doesn't really tell me how sentence structures are set up, why it's set up a certain way, right? So it's not really teaching you the grammar of the language. It's just teaching you how to say sentences, which is fine. It's just that I don't think you're going to get I mean and I, which is fine. It's just that I don't think you're gonna get I mean and I I didn't expect this, but you're not gonna get like an in-depth, like you're not gonna be fluent in any language that you speak in this game. So, uh, in fact, what's funny, I did french both when the console version and the vr version. Uh, and I tried, because my wife has been taking duolingles for like five years now she's been doing so, so she speaks French pretty well actually, and I tried speaking French to her and she was just like that's not actually right. What do you say?
Speaker 3:She's like fine, if you want the divorce, then fine, I'll do it. I was like what?
Speaker 1:That's not what I said. I said make me a sandwich. Yeah, I said make me a sandwich. Oh, I did. Oh, that's not. Anyway, that's not much better.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's not much better. That's why she's unless she's, unless.
Speaker 1:She loves making sandwiches and she's really good at it yeah, and she was like would you like a sandwich yourself? Would you like me to make you? Um? So yeah, so it's tari alia. I give it a b plus. You can read my review on gamer has podcastcom uh. Another game that I've been playing is called uh, I'm gonna save that last one, the one that I streamed for last um. Another game is called a ranger. So a ranger is a puzzle type game where your character interacts with things and when they move and they shift, they shift the floor, so the floor moves along so they arrange the floor.
Speaker 1:So they arrange the floor uh, in in some ways, some comical ways, like somebody might be on top of a ladder painting something and then you move and the ladder goes away from them and then they fall. Um, it's a cool puzzle game. It's a really interesting puzzle game. I heard on another podcast that the art is done by the same people that did braid. Oh, uh, so, um, so the same same artist. The art is very good.
Speaker 1:Uh, in the the, the battles are interesting. So it's not battles, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's puzzles. So you'll have like a sword in the room and then you have to figure out how to make that sword move to be able to hit certain things. Um it, there are ports, parts where I'm like I'm really stupid, I can't figure this out, what the hell? And then I realized, oh, if you go one way, you end up on the other side. So if, like, I go to the left and there's no floor there anymore, I end up on the right side. So that's a lot of times you have to figure that out. And that's usually Like Ms Pac-Man. Like Ms Pac-Man exactly, but Arranger's. Very good, I'm not very far, but I'm playing it and I'm enjoying it. I would say, though, like Some of these puzzles are beyond me, I'm just not very smart. I guess.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think I would get destroyed at that game.
Speaker 1:It's hard. I think it's the spatialness of it. I don't know why. I just can't seem to figure out. Oh, I need to move this here. It's like you know how, when you ever played those games where you had to move certain things and you had to get a certain item to the free space or whatever Usually it's cars and you had to get like a certain item to like the end to the, to like the free space, whatever, like usually it's like cars, and you had to like move these or buildings, right, like to move all those things, and you get to the free space and you win. That's what kind of reminds me a little bit of, and I was never very good at those puzzles to begin with. So that was that was here. There was some, I don't know. My wife walked by and some bells rang. I don't understand what happened there. I don't understand that. Uh, that was weird, uh. And then the last game I'll talk about is the game that I was streaming is. Thank goodness you're here right.
Speaker 2:Thanks, roger.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you're here too yeah, so this game is a I don't even know what to describe it as, I guess, an adventure game. You have two options jump or slap.
Speaker 3:I thought you were gonna say like play or not play yeah, play, you have two options in this, two options start the game or turn it off I turned it off, I chose to play the game yeah, so you are.
Speaker 1:It starts off as you're just like little guy. You're like this little person who works for the mayor. The mayor sends you off on this mission to go find a job, or go get a job or something, and then you'll leave and you're walking around these cities and every place you go to, somebody is there. It's like, oh, thank goodness you're here. And then they give you a dilemma of, like, what's happening? And it's just weird stuff. Like there's the beginning. There's a guy who has his hand down a sewer grate and he says, thank goodness you're here, my hand is stuck and I need you to get me something to get me unstuck. So you go to the restaurant, you find a big slab of butter, you send it, you bring it to him and then, instead of like pulling his arm out right, because it's all slid he pulls his arm, he pulls the whole grate out. He's like, oh, I did it. And it's like you didn't need the butter for that. You could have done that without me. Um, it is very monte python like. If you like monte python, you'll like this because the the it is.
Speaker 1:There was a moment last night, okay, so if you, if you want to avoid spoilers, jump ahead like probably a minute or so. There was a moment last night where I was ran, ran into this character who was I walked into this grocery store and Matt Berry, who is a voice, who's an actor, but he does a voice for this character in this game. He's in like what, what we do in the shadows as Laszlo. He's very funny, but he's the voice for this character in this game. He's in like what we do in the Shadows as Laszlo. He's very funny, but he's in this game and he's like get down, get down, lad. This guy's going crazy. And like this guy is throwing vegetables at you and it's like a war zone. He's throwing vegetables and the Matt Berry's character said I didn't say anything about your head and also there's a flat. He did this.
Speaker 1:Um, this garbage can flips up and he sees an image of himself in the garbage can and he has this big, long head and it's just this flashback of like sorry, like his saves his parents, sorry, there's nothing we can do. He's just born that way. He's just a big, big head and like everywhere he goes oh, come on, you got a big head and like he can't put his goggles on because it's too big and his goggles break. And then he's at a movie. People are throwing popcorn at him, so get out of there. And then this girl says I don't care, I love you no matter what. And the next scene she's leaving him. She's like I can't stay your head, it's just too big, and it's just too big. And it's just like, over and over and over again, he has like this mental breakdown and it is just weird and it's this whole scene.
Speaker 1:You're just watching this whole scene play out and you're like yeah, what am I playing? What is this? Uh, I would say, somebody described it as a game that you don't really play. It's more of an experience and I would say that too. It's like it's not, you're not gonna be playing. There's not much mechanics, except for slapping, and there's points where you're like this one guy his butt sticking out, I slapped his butt. Roger didn't like that, I know. I know there's another, there's other also. It's it's not a kid's game, it is a, it is an adult game.
Speaker 2:You're telling me playing slap asses in a kid's game.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know, I know Right. There is this moment where I ran into a character who lives in a trash trash dispenser or trash trash bin, not compactor, but what do you call those big things like you throw the trash into one of them dumpster, the. Thank you. Oh, my god, how come I not think of the word dumpster? Yeah, dumpster, and he lives in a dumpster and he was like I need, I need my beans. So you had to find him a can of beans and you bring it to him. And then the next scene is he's sitting on the toilet doing his duty and I mean you see everything when I say everything. You see everything. His shoulders, his shoulders.
Speaker 2:He didn't have a shirt on while he was doing his duty.
Speaker 1:No, he had a shirt on. Anyway, it's just weird, it's wacky, it's a wacky game yeah. Yeah, anyway, it's just weird, it's wacky, it's a wacky game, yeah, yeah. So, uh, and it's interesting because I uh, jill groat friend of the show, uh, has been playing this game as well, and she actually is the one that told me about it, and then I started playing it and she just said like it'll be interesting to see if this game does well with younger audiences who may not have grown up with Monty Python.
Speaker 2:Is it PC only?
Speaker 1:No, it's on, it's on everything.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's. I mean it was on the switch. I think it's on Xbox too.
Speaker 2:Cause I was watching your stream last night. I didn't chime in, but I enjoyed watching you play. I don't really remember much of it because it was, uh, enjoyed watching you play. I don't really remember much of it because it was, uh, you know, it was past phil time and phil had been home, so my memories are foggy. I just remember getting a couple of good chuckles going.
Speaker 1:This looks like a fun game yeah, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's wacky, it's a wacky game, uh, though my big complaint for it is one there's no map. So there's a lot of times we get to go find, like somebody says, hey, thank goodness you're here, I need to find blah, blah, blah, uh, and you can find it in this grocery store or whatever. So then you have to find this grocery store. Well, like, I was like where was that again, where did I have to go for that?
Speaker 1:And then if and then, every character you run into says thank goodness you're here, I need this right, so you might be on one quest to find something, but then somebody else gives you something else. There's no quest log. So so there's no way for you to know like, oh, like, what am I supposed to get for this one person? You just hope that you run into that person again and he's like hey, you're, I'm still waiting for you to get the screwdriver, for instance. And I was like oh, that's right, that's right, I was trying to find a screwdriver. I guess you know, in real life there's no quest logs. So I guess you just have to go back to those people and say what were you looking for? What did you need from me?
Speaker 2:bullshit, I carry a notebook.
Speaker 1:That's true, that is. That is actually a true statement. You do um, so I don't know. So there's mechanics that it could have been more gamified, I guess, to make it a better experience, but also it's just a weird game. That is the experience, uh-oh Anyway.
Speaker 3:Give him a second.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're still here, at least.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm good.
Speaker 2:This is where we talk trash about Roger. Roger, your face is frozen. There he is.
Speaker 1:Hey, there I am. I'm back, nope.
Speaker 3:Hey, I'm back.
Speaker 2:Hey, I'm back so anyway, that's, I know that was weird.
Speaker 1:I don't know what happened there, so that is. I know what that is. I'm not getting into it. That game is Thank goodness you're here, and those are the games I've been playing Before we wrap up. Why don't we tell people how they can get a hold of us, mike? How can people find you?
Speaker 3:You can find me on twitter at pez man mike oh wait, it's guy mike it's guy, mike it's his guy how's guy mike?
Speaker 1:but if you don't, find him on xbox yeah uh phil, how can people find you?
Speaker 2:you can find me on twitter at b now 23 and listeners.
Speaker 1:You can find us on Twitter at GamerHeadsPod. You can also find me at Nintendaraj on Twitter. You can follow us on YouTube at youtubecom slash GamerHeadsPodcast. You can also go to our website at GamerHeadsPodcastcom, where you can hear this show, amongst our other shows, and you can follow us on Twitch, where I stream games. It's twitchtv. Slash gamer has podcast. So I tried to do those Wednesday nights, but next week I might be streaming more.
Speaker 3:Oh more than games Same bat.
Speaker 1:No more more more days. Oh yeah, I'll stay tuned for that, so, uh, all right. Well, well, mike, thank you so much for joining us this week thanks for having me and phil, thank you so much for joining us this week I'm gonna harken back to the always and listeners. Thank you so much for giving us a listen. If you like what you hear, leave us a review. We want to hear what you have to say about the show. Until next week, everyone stay safe and game on Bye.
Speaker 3:See, ya, take care.
