SPEAKER_02 0:15

Hey all you cool cats out there Hello It's me the cat dead alongside the other cool cats I'll introduce them one by one after I'm done. You both say hello. We have Jelani and Cameron.

SPEAKER_03 0:48

Hello afternoon.

SPEAKER_02 0:51

Good afternoon.

SPEAKER_03 0:52

Yeah, it is afternoon. Yeah, good afternoon. Hey. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 0:55

Hey. Happy Sunday, y'all tuning in. It is a happy Sunday. Welcome. Shout out to the chat. Shout out to Brett. What's up, Brett?

SPEAKER_03 1:07

Oh, is Brett here?

SPEAKER_02 1:09

Nice. We got a sub from Brett. That's cool. Brett's here. What's up, Brett? Brett's here. Yeah, for Brett. What's up, everyone? Hello. Guys. Hate advertisement. Not paid. Not paid. Welcome. Welcome. Any sort of endorsement. And free shit. Capitalism. What's up, y'all? As he takes a swig of drink. This one tastes okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:41

It's called Watermelon Wave. It's okay. It's alright. I don't like watermelon wave. It tastes a little bit like Capri Sun. A little bit. Not as good as Capri Sun. You can't beat Capri Sun. You just can't get you can't beat a Capri Sun.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

I was more of a Kool-Aid jammer. It's good. True.

SPEAKER_03 1:59

Ooh, a Kool-Aid jammer. Yeah, that's. Do you guys remember the mystery flavor Kool-Aid things? Like the little like pellet. The little mystery gray pellet that you'd stick in your drink.

SPEAKER_05 2:12

And kids would be like, oh my god, science! I'm gonna drink that.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

It's probably like grape. It's always grape.

SPEAKER_03 2:20

It did seem to always be grape. What if it was all just the same flavor and they were just like, ugh, it's I think it is.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

Honestly. No, it's totally lemon. Kids are fucking dumb. Cyanide, dude, throw it in there.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Oh bro, let's talk about like the toys made with lead way back in the day.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

Like, yeah, that was like a like an actual thing that like I haven't read it, but someone talked about it, like a study of the people who were exposed to lead and how it's altered their general thinking as they've gotten older.

SPEAKER_03 2:59

Not to you know not to go dark, literally, minutes within the podcast, but there was I remember I don't remember I think it was from Forensic Files. Sometimes I watch it, it's fun. And there was this basically this case where this little girl had been hanging out on the porch of her house, of just her like family's home, and she had just been like just chip like pulling away the chips on the paint, like the wood paint, and just being like, hold on, and just like shoving in her mouth and just eating paint. And I guess like the the landlord like lied about like what was in the paint when the parents like hinted to them about it, and the little girl died. So yeah, not to get like super, super dark within a couple minutes, but yeah, also that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

Teach your kid not to eat fucking paintless of it or not.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Yo, just just watching your kid eat paint is crazy work. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:02

Apparently they would just like during the day, just sit there like just like taking little paint drugs, doing little tablets.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

That's crazy work. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 4:14

Wait, hold on. We're on little the little kid dying talk. You can only hear me. Oh, I know why. I got it. Hmm. Um the fucking one that got me, I don't remember if it was like forensic uh shows, but it was like the uh um like Thousand Ways to Die or some shit, right? Right, right. Yeah. Where like the kid uh had like a pain in his stomach, and he was like, ah man, it's like it might be gas. So like they like go to the hospital, they do like an x-ray, and then they find little tiny grill bristles from the metal brush in his stomach. Did this because his dad had cleaned the grill and then made cheeseburgers on it. Oh my god. And then he ingested metal shards, and it was just ripping his stomach up. Oh no, that poor kid. So all because of his dumbass father.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 5:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

Yo, clean your grill right, bro. Clean your grill good. Do the better. Like Zani even just the dad was trying. He was attempting to clean the grill, but like obviously he was doing something incorrectly.

SPEAKER_03 5:33

I mean, something got left, like something got left behind. Like, it takes literally just checking after the fact to make sure that a literal metal uh brush, like what is it? What did it yeah, bristle, thank you, is like literally just stuck in my son's cheeseburger.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Like Well.

SPEAKER_02 5:54

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

It's weird. Yo, yo, either way, either way, either way.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

Hey crazy words, it's a video game podcast, not about thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Can we get to what everybody's been playing, please?

SPEAKER_02 6:07

It's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, hey guys, what have you been playing? Let's hit up uh let's get Jelani first, because I feel like Cameron's gonna go in some depth, some shit.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

What? Um I've been playing a lot of F125, which is oddly addicting.

SPEAKER_03 6:24

F-125, is that a F1 like generation?

SPEAKER_00 6:29

It's the F1 officially licensed game. It's by EA Sports. F1. It's in the game. With that a gift with that being given, it's a really good racing game. I enjoy the shit out of it. But because it's an EA game, the UI and menu system is absolute fucking garbage. It's trash.

SPEAKER_02 6:56

Um how many ads do you see like advertisements in the game?

SPEAKER_00 7:01

I feel like that's look, they keep the ads to a limit.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

It's not like laden with ads. Mm-hmm. Because it's an F1 game. So everything in that game is ads. Right.

SPEAKER_03 7:19

Oh like different like company logos and stuff like that for the various brands.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Mm-hmm. Because one of the main ways of like you get to make your own custom F1 car, and one of the main decorations is logos and shit for different companies and sponsors because F1. Right.

SPEAKER_05 7:39

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Uh that's not even uh needless to say, it's a lot of fun. Hot lapping is addicting. You I could lose hours.

SPEAKER_03 7:49

Do the cars look really, really nice to drive around in?

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Yeah. Yeah. I enjoy the hell out of them. Like, I get the feeling a lot of simracing purists would say like, it's an arcade bla it's too arcadian, blah blah blah blah blah. But you know what? I'm just starting off. I just got my race wheel within the last six months. I'm having a fuck ton of fun.

SPEAKER_03 8:13

Did this come out at the same time as Forza? Did Forza 6 just come out?

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Forza Horizon 6 just came out. Um the DLC for the 2026 season came out recently.

SPEAKER_03 8:30

Uh it came out last year. Okay, right, because 25 as in year 25, okay. It's like I see. Um I'm just curious like how people are like whether people are comparing them, because I know one isn't is a Formula One thing, so it's very different from like Horizon, but completely different kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

I feel like they attract very different crowds. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:58

Oh my god. Like I wouldn't play I wouldn't buy Forza or sorry, oh my god. I wouldn't buy F1, but I would play it if someone had it, kinda do.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Yeah. What's it called? I've actually right before we started recording, I tried out Sulphur, the the roguelike first person shooter. And that's actually really fun too. How do you spell it? Sulphur? Sulfur. S-U-L-F-U-R.

SPEAKER_02 9:32

F U R bro.

SPEAKER_03 9:34

I don't think I've heard of this game.

SPEAKER_02 9:36

Yeah. Sulfur. Yeah, it's like a roguelike first person.

SPEAKER_03 9:39

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 9:41

With some uh gun gun stuff. Some like weirdly goofy shit. Yo.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Like the theming and everything is really interesting.

SPEAKER_02 9:54

How far did you get in sulfur?

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Oh I just a couple hours in, so I've gotten my first other than the pistol weapon. I've gotten one enchantment and two oils so far. I'm just really starting out. Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:13

It's really axis still, right? I'm pretty sure. Let me double check. Yeah, I think it's still.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

I think it's been early access for a bit. Like that uh material design kind of look.

SPEAKER_02 10:26

It's cool too, because it's like it looks 3D, but like it has almost like a one-dimensional like paper Mario like look to it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Um, it is, yes, in early access. It came out, I want to say it came out like three years ago.

SPEAKER_02 10:45

Maybe I'm wrong.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

2024. Alright. October 28th. Yeah. But it's still getting regular updates, so it just the last update was on June 2nd. So yeah, it's been in early access for a while, but at least they're still fucking working on it.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

Yeah, I man, as much as I get the concept of early access, sometimes I'm just like there's some trash. Yeah. Yeah, just don't put do that. Just release it, please.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

It is like there's some great games that used early access correctly, and then there's a lot of trash released into early access, a bunch of abandoned wear.

SPEAKER_03 11:36

I mean, I feel like Daisy kind of started the whole trend in terms of like early access, because like when the original Daisy concept, I guess you even want to call it at the time, came out, it really only was early access. It was a very, very, very early build of a game. I think the game now as it looks is completely I don't want to say completely different, but like it it's not even the same um game anymore, just in terms of like what is there and what it was at the original, like when it first came out. And I feel like game uh game companies kind of took that on and they're just like, oh, we can kind of you know get the money early out of people and then we can just build on the game from there, and it's just like I don't know. It I think it affected the industry in such a way where it kind of took took over in a big way, you know.

SPEAKER_02 12:34

Kickstarters, yeah. Some of those fuck.

SPEAKER_03 12:39

I mean, I'm not necessarily against Kickstarter games, mainly just because that like yeah, that's sort of you're all you're you're paying into a promise, like, but at the same time, like they don't have to release that early. Like you're just buying into the concept of a promise and you're saying, like, hey, I'm willing to invest in this early, versus like an early like an early access game, I feel like it almost feels like a trick in a way, because like they're saying, like, hey, you can come play this game, and it's a game and you can play it, but it's like I don't know, I think a lot of people go in expecting it to be like a fully developed game, even though it says early access, and it's just wholly not that, and then it just stays in early access for the rest of its lifetime. Like, literally, what was Smite and wasn't Smite in early access, Connor, for fucking like years, like for like four plus years, I think it was in early access.

SPEAKER_02 13:32

Um, not to trigger, but our good friend Brett here mentioned there's a little funded unknown game called Star Citizen that's been in release. Shut the fuck up. Shut all the way the fuck up. I know.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

I know we talked about this last week, actually. That's the funny part. Herein lies the problem. Star Citizen isn't even a scheduled rant today. Like, I could go on. Like the fact that it started off as a Kickstarter, and then it feels like it got ran off Kickstarter, so they're just like, okay, cool, we're gonna keep doing Kickstarter, but forever.

unknown 14:16

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

But forever and more elaborately, every time.

SPEAKER_03 14:21

I think at this point, if I was gonna ever go play Star Citizen, I would either, instead of doing that, go play No Man's Sky or Elite Dangerous if I'm looking for like a like a ship simulator kind of like.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

But herein lies the problem with that.

SPEAKER_04 14:38

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

Star Citizen has the like out of any of the space games I've tried, it has the most immersive and like fun flight system out of the three.

SPEAKER_03 14:59

Fair enough. Yeah, like I I'm I I will concede to that. Like, I I have seen some really, really cool shit about it. I just think at the same time, like I just don't know if if all of the negatives that I've heard about it kind of outweigh that or not, you know. Like, is it is it even worth trying because of everything that else that's negative about it, you know.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

My response to that is I am jaded regarding Star Citizen at this point. I will fully admit to that. For sure. But I will also say bef I would recommend anybody who's interested in the genre give it a shot during one of the free flies. It is literally only a $45 buy-in. And at that point, people will tell you, and they're and they're being honest, that from that point you can access most anything in the game. It's just a bit of a grind, like most like a lot of other games.

SPEAKER_03 16:02

I mean, I don't know if you find a grind in it.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Yeah, if you find something like legitimately enjoyable in it, it it'll probably be great. It'll make it'll give you an easy hundred, hundred and fifty, two hundred hours if you're new.

SPEAKER_05 16:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

But if you're tracking it over the years, it's like it really depends on how much you love the project.

unknown 16:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:25

Easy 100 hours, easy 150, 200 hours for a new player just learning the ropes, interacting with the different systems, blah blah de blah blah blah. But when you want to go past that and you're looking for actual depth and consistency, it kind of falls apart. Especially on that fucking point of fucking consistency with all the goddamn motherfucking bugs that make that is not today's advice for Star Citizen is just don't play it. Yeah, if you're not big into the space scene.

SPEAKER_03 17:03

I am big into the space scene, is the thing. I I love like I've always wanted a really, really, really, really, really good start uh like space simulator, and when I started seeing Star Citizen, I was really excited for it. But then I just stopped hearing about it basically at all for the next like six or seven years. Yeah, and then at that point I feel like it was so far into development hell that I just kind of just I gave up on it. It's kind of like um what's that game? Uh Pantheon. Have you guys heard about Pantheon? The MR.

SPEAKER_04 17:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 17:37

Yeah, like that game has been they've been, you know, since like 2015, they've been l talking about how they they want to build a game that's like a you know, it's like EverQuest, we're going back to basics and you know, all that kind of stuff. But that like they're it's 2026 now, and they have like a found like they're they have like a uh also early access that you can like a founders edition you can buy on Steam that like everybody basically says like just give up on this game because it's like not worth it at this point. It's just like it's a it's a dead game that's just like chilling in um development hell. So it's just it's just it was like another one of those games where I just like saw, you know, oh it's like oh it's still an early access. Okay, well, if it's just gonna be in early access for the rest of its like actual life, then I'm not gonna bother with it, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

So you know, not wrong. Not wrong, not wrong. You'll love to hear it. You'll love to hear it. Not wrong.

SPEAKER_03 18:31

Love being right.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

But look, here in lies the problem. I've gotten to the point where if they don't actually finish the single player game that they actu that they've been teasing for the past decade.

SPEAKER_05 18:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

With this las with this most recent deadline, if they don't hit that un what's it called? GTA 6 is GTA 6, it's you're gonna want to avoid that. And I will give them that. But if we don't see it early 2027, I'm never going to believe another deadline they say again. Yeah. And I'm probably gonna like almost completely stop playing at that point.

SPEAKER_03 19:15

I mean, I imagine it feels like a bunch of broken promises, which is why No Man's Sky was having trouble at first, because like their whole thing was they put a whole bunch of promises out there about like what the game was gonna be, and then they released it too early, and then they just I don't know, I think there was like what three years before they got it to a point where people were like, this is a great, great game, you know. Nowadays, people I mean it's kind of like Cyberpunk 2077, like when that first came out, like you know, when it first came out, everybody was really pissed off because it was just riddled with bugs, and then nowadays it's like hailed as one of the best RPGs out there.

SPEAKER_00 19:51

So I feel like Cyberpunk got a double whammy of a chaotic as shit dev cycle, and then it was also one of the games that suffered horribly from being locked into releasing on the prior gen as well.

SPEAKER_05 20:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Because the PS4 and Xbox One fucking killed that game on release.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

They had to like take it off the fucking PlayStation market for a while for PS4 because it was so bad.

SPEAKER_03 20:23

I also feel like in that game they had they they toted this whole concept of like you can be whatever character you want, and like they're they were like this character creator is gonna be insane. You can have a dick. Like like they literally made it so. You can have three different dicks, like yeah, like they can give but yeah, but like they're basically saying like you can you can adjust your gent your genitals and you know you can do all this different stuff, but then like the ultimately the character creator was not that in-depth, like it just wasn't like you could do some things, and there was like a lot of different options with your eyes and stuff like that that you could do, but at the end of the day, it it wasn't like Black Desert Online's like character creator where you can just like make whatever character you want, like it just wasn't like that. And I feel like that I don't know, I was I felt a little bit cheapened out when I went like I because I was a I was a day one purchase uh player, and you know, I go into character creator, I'm like, what the fuck? Like they touted all this crazy stuff that I can I can literally like make uh a you know female presenting character with a dick and balls if I want to, but I can't like make the character that I want to make. I don't know, it's just a little weird for me.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

I was willing to give them grace on the character creator for the simple fact that like it was a damn good character creator for a company that had never done a character creator before.

SPEAKER_03 21:45

That's true. That's that's fair. I can give you that just because I I can't I guess they you know, with Witcher being their previous thing.

SPEAKER_00 21:54

Like, hit me with uh that's a damn good first character creator for A lot of for like a lot of games don't like I'm just saying World of Warcraft.

SPEAKER_02 22:11

There's the whole thing about World of Warcraft, is like it's all about what you the trans mods and shit. Your character you barely see that character. That's your personal feeling. Yeah, by your armor.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

By the end of the game by end game, your your what's it called? Your race is just the frame. You're basically just choosing the frame on which you're putting the armor. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:33

Essentially. I mean, yeah, like I think there's definitely games out there that put a lot of time and effort into creating a very in-depth character creator. And I guess we're getting like a little bit off topic with that, but like there there are some games that put a lot of time into it, like, but other games don't like RuneScape, for example. Like RuneScape you put like there's like two, three options you can do at most. At most. And they just don't like it. It's just not the focus, you know? And I think it's kind of the same thing with for World of Warcraft, it's just it's just not the focus. Like, yeah, you there's stuff there's some stuff you can do, but I think they just, you know, with the the kind of cartoony style I think they were going for, I think they just didn't really care that much.

SPEAKER_00 23:19

Yeah, not wrong. Um, what were we talking about?

SPEAKER_03 23:23

Why were we on that?

SPEAKER_02 23:24

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

I both fucking fuck me.

SPEAKER_03 23:27

Uh we talked about sulfur, then we went to Oh yeah, we were on Star Citizen and early access stuff, and then I've been reading the Dungeon Crawler Carl books.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

I finished books. Yeah, don't you fucking talk to me about that?

SPEAKER_03 23:44

Yeah, I want to get my I want to get mine because um we have this uh we have this really cool local bookstore. Um very cool Connor. Uh and I literally picked the book up when I was there and I was looking at it because uh it had been recommended to me by I can't who at this point. It might have been my friend uh Michael. Everybody? I mean there's definitely at least two people I think at this point that have recommended that book to me. Yeah. And um I really, really want to grab it, but I just didn't get it in the moment, and I super regret it because um I just apparently it's getting all sorts of like awards and stuff like that, and I really want to read it.

SPEAKER_00 24:19

I fucking love it. Uh so you've read it? I fucking love it. I'm on book five. I just finished.

SPEAKER_03 24:25

God damn, there's that many books? I didn't realize that.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

There's like eight so far.

SPEAKER_02 24:28

There's like eight, and he's trying to do ten, I think.

SPEAKER_03 24:31

So okay, so you you've read it then. So ex the way that it's been explained to me, or like when I've tried to look it up, they make it sound like it's a game that you're playing when you're reading the book. Is that true, or is it just a book and he's playing a game in the book?

SPEAKER_00 24:46

He's okay. He's in it is are you familiar with the Isekai genre of anime?

SPEAKER_03 25:00

Oh yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

Okay, so check it out, check it out. It's kinda like that, but instead of what's it called, Buzzcoon fucking sending someone off into the other world via like, you know, death. Um Aliens arrive on the planet and literally like flatten everything.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

And anybody who doesn't anybody who survives the smush gets transported into a, you know, death game show thing that's happening on like different layers underneath the earth. They continue to go down, it gets more deadly, and it's kind of like it they get an RPG-like menu system and stuff, and items, and it's fantasy themed. They have a whole bunch of different classes, and it's wild. It treats like and he's really good at like putting together a world that is kind of like how an alien would look at Earth culture and make fun of it.

SPEAKER_03 26:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

From a point of superiority. That's funny. It is very interesting. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 26:28

Like they researched like popular human um human fucking culture. I can think of the word. Yeah, but like human like tropes. Yes. Like any sort of tropes, like idioms, nerdy shit, like game show shit, just like everything. Gotcha. And he'll make like he has like an inner like announcer that he will quote in the book, and that's like different subtext that like explains certain things that he receives or does, and he gets achievements, and they'll like pop up with like a word, and it's like a whole thing.

SPEAKER_01 27:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

Um the book series goes absolutely fucking hard.

SPEAKER_03 27:14

Well, it's been going so hard that I imagine it's probably gonna get a TV series sometime Peacock.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

Yep, it's already been confirmed.

SPEAKER_02 27:25

Scooping up all the nerd shit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

Yo fucking Twisted Metal.

SPEAKER_03 27:30

Yeah, but then with Twisted Metal, they went and got rid of the show runner. Uh and completely changed like the entire team. They got rid of the one dude that you uh that we all liked. For his name.

SPEAKER_02 27:42

Stu?

SPEAKER_03 27:43

Yeah, they got rid of Stu.

SPEAKER_02 27:44

Mike Mitchell? Yeah, they got rid of Stu. Shout out Shout out the Doughboys podcast.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

But either way.

SPEAKER_03 27:54

Aside from Mars.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Whose turns next? That's all I've got. That's all I've got.

SPEAKER_03 28:00

Oh, yeah, I guess that's true. I guess that was just a long segment from the first question.

SPEAKER_02 28:08

Uh I can go real quick and then I'll hit Cameron and then he can go on his little uh I don't have some secret tangent here.

SPEAKER_03 28:16

I mean, I'll I have my MMO stuff, but it's not That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_02 28:19

Like we'll get into that. Okay. It'll segue better. Alright. Um I have been playing a couple things. Um other than the normal Counter-Strike 2 shenanigans and Star Wars shenanigans that Cameron will go a little bit more into probably. Uh I bought this game called RuneDice. Rune Dice. Rune Dice? It's a yeah, it's a roguelike dice like rolling game. Um essentially you have like a class like a rogue or a um wizard, stuff like that, and they have different die, and you like roll them to combine them to like do damage and like other like dot damage and stuff. And it's like super quick. It's like one run can take you like ten minutes, and then you can just consistently build on it and like unlock more shit. So it's a quick little uh quick little roguelike you can do. And then I picked up some games on the Steam summer sale that's going on. Um I picked a birding game up, so I can go birding on the computer. Because birds are cool.

SPEAKER_03 29:38

How does that work?

SPEAKER_02 29:40

So you go around and you take pictures, and then based off that picture you get like a rating, and then you take the ratings to unlock new areas and like new stuff.

SPEAKER_03 29:53

It reminds me of geocaching a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 29:55

It's really cute. The design's like really just basic colors and shit, but the birds are done really well. That's cool. Um then I also picked up like essentially just horror games that were on sale. So I picked up Hellmark, which is a supermarket uh simulator with scary stuff. I played a little bit yesterday. Oh yeah, I was watching you play that. Yeah, I didn't get too much into it, but weird shit was happening. Um and then I picked up the um Bendy puzzle horror games, which is like the cartoon character scary game. Um I haven't played those, but I've wanted them for a while, so I picked them up, they were dirt cheap. And then I picked up the uh Dead Space remake that they did a couple years ago. That was dirt cheap. And uh that's like one of my favorite horror games just because of the vibes or like you know, like the thing sci-fi space horror. I love space horror. It's so good.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

I I enjoyed Dead Space, and I'm not a huge horror guy. I I absolutely scream back a little bit like most of my first playthrough of that game.

SPEAKER_02 31:16

I mean, there is scary shit happening in that. Consistent. I like Yeah. Um other than that, I did pretty uh basic gaming couple weeks. Um you know. That's pretty much it. Cameron, what about you?

SPEAKER_03 31:39

Um well, uh I have a couple things, I guess. Um one the the first one that immediately strikes me uh is we've been playing, I think I mentioned this last uh during the last podcast episode, but um Shay and I have been playing Mario 64. Uh we I yeah, I downloaded an emulator on my Steam Deck. Uh because we have uh I have my Switch, but you would have to like if you want to play Mario 64, you have to like pay for Nintendo now. Yeah, and I'm like, I'm not doing that bullshit. So I went and got an emulator, and so we've been playing that for my Steam Deck in the living room on the TV. And that's been a lot of fun. Um we we did we just finished the first level actually, like the doing like all the different stars, and then we moved over to the snow level with the penguin and shit like that, where you gotta do the race and find the baby penguin and all that stuff. So we did that. Um so that's been a lot of fun. We've been playing that. Um like you mentioned, been playing a lot of Star Wars. Uh we have a one of our friends, Mitch. Uh shout out Mitch. Um he uh he's been playing, he's a big Star Wars fan as well, so he um I think he's taking a break from s uh from World of Warcraft or something like that at the moment. So he um you know he found out that Connor and I have been playing, and I've been playing for a long time, and then Connor recently started playing with me, and then um Mitch found out about that, so he started playing again, and then turned out that we had a um uh a guild that was kind of just like left over from over the years from way back when our we have a Final Fantasy guild that's been playing for many, many years together. And so we had a a guild that was just like left over that we didn't realize we even had, I wasn't in it. Um, and so he's like, Well, since you're playing, like here you go. So he like made me the guild leader of this guild. So now we have a guild and we're like working on leveling that up and stuff like that, so that's been a lot of fun. Um there was another thing, and I haven't been I haven't been playing this game, but this is this is something I wanted to like mention because this is this is literally this game has been something that I have been searching for for not kidding at least 20 years. I haven't like I this was I I bought this game when I was a kid, and you remember how like back in like the the 90s and like early 2000s you could buy um game like demos at like Target or whatever, and like they had like a little computer section and they had like a demos and shit like that you could buy for like PC games. So I had one of those and it had this game on it, and it was like this and I'll I'll kind of just explain because I'm not gonna just say the name of the game until I like show what it is, but it was basically this is a female main character who lived in this sort of just like sci-fi sort of post-apocalyptic world, and it was this like turn-based game, and it was really, really old and had like a sort of like isometric sort of like looking down at the the board sort of view and everything like that. But over the years, I swear to god, I have I have Googled it, I have like uh checked wiki, uh I've I've like over the like every couple years or so I would like try and do like a Google search or something like that, just try and figure out what it was. And then I would say sometime last week I was like, you know what? I'm gonna use AI this time. And so I went and I opened up Chat GPT, I was like, what is this game? and I start typing it up, and at first it doesn't it doesn't bring it up, and um I'm like fuck like you know so again it's one of those situations where I like start thinking like goddamn it, like alright, fine, it's you know I didn't find it again, whatever. But then I'm like, alright, well let me just I'm gonna put in a couple more things. I like specified it's got like a female main character and all this kind of stuff. And so then it brought up this. I'm gonna share my screen. Oh.

SPEAKER_02 35:44

Uh visual or audio listeners are gonna be like, what the fuck? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll describe what's going on. Just kidding. I won't be able to do it.

SPEAKER_03 35:53

It's called Septera Core. I finally found it. I finally found the game that I have been trying to find for fucking 20 plus years. But it's basically like a turn-based, kind of like RPG kind of game, sort of like um like uh fuck I can't even think of like uh Baldur's Gate. Like it's made by the same people who made Baldur's Gate 1 and 2. And I didn't realize this until I recently found the game. Um so yeah, so I once I get my uh paycheck, I'm gonna buy this because apparently it's on Steam. So yeah, I'm gonna I'm like really, really excited. I'm gonna be playing this. So um possibly on the next episode, I will give you guys an update. Uh, because I am as soon as I get a chance to, I'm gonna buy this game again. I think it's like eight fucking dollars.

SPEAKER_00 36:43

Um it's on Steam sale for four right now. Oh damn, seriously? I might have the sale ends on that deniance. I might have I might have to just pick it up.

SPEAKER_03 36:54

Yeah, but I'm super excited. Um because yeah, like I said, it's made by the same people who made Baldur's Gate. Um, I looked it up and it has like really, really good reviews. And I remembered it being good. I just like I was a kid when I was playing it. So like at the time, here let me go ahead and I don't know how to stop sharing my there we go. Um, you know, I was a kid at the time, so I just you know, I I think the controls were just a little bit beyond what I was capable of like harnessing at the time. Yeah, um and so I just you know it was a demo, I just didn't think about it for years, and then you know, finally I was able to figure out what fucking game it was, and yeah, I was it was it was like a kind of like kind of moment for me. It was great.

SPEAKER_01 37:37

Oh yeah, I feel uh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:40

Other than that, just been playing uh weekly Final Fantasy XIV stuff. Um I'll tell you some games I've been wanting to play again. Um there's a couple of them. Rift, you guys ever play Rift? You ever try that game out? Yep. Rift was sick. Rift Rift had a really, really interesting class system in Jelani. If you've never played it before, it basically had this concept where like I don't even I think it was like 16 like base classes or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

Yeah, I remember this game.

SPEAKER_03 38:14

Yeah, but you basically every single time you got a level, you got like a s a quote unquote skill point, and you could put a skill point into one of the trees for each of these classes in the game. And so you could basically like have your base class, but then you could like mix it with another class, and then so it just had this like huge amount of diversity that you could play around in terms of like sort of creating your own class, and like yeah, people ended up eventually just kind of making like cody cut cookie cutter sort of like builds and stuff like that, but it was just really really cool. Oh yeah, I see Brett mentioning uh Septira Core is on sale for four bucks. Yeah, I'm really excited to play that game.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

Rift came out around the same time Wildstar did. Oh my god, dude. Don't even talk to me about Wildstar.

SPEAKER_02 39:09

Wild Started Yeah. I remember to have Wildstar back so hard.

SPEAKER_03 39:17

Me too, yeah. I loved Wildstar. The the races in that game were so interesting and cool to me. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 39:24

The I got a funny quick story about Wildstar. When it was being advertised, yeah, I was at a GameStop back when GameStop was trash. And I was in there doing what I needed to do. Yeah, I would do the trade in the newer game I just beat to get another newer game, get that store credit, extra bonus, bullshit. You gotta do what you gotta do, brother. Dude, when you're 16 or whatever it is, and you're trying to just fucking make that make that bread. Um it's probably a little older, I don't remember, but I'm sitting there and the GameStop employee is interacting with this kid who probably fucking hangs out in the store on a daily basis. Yeah. And they're chatting about whatever, and a commercial on of Wildstar shows up on the the TV, and it's just like a cinematic, so it's not really like gameplay. Yeah, yeah. And the kid talking to the GameStop guy's like, oh man, what's that? That looks pretty crazy. The dude behind the GameStop desk, the employee who sells video games, who probably should know information about this game, goes, Oh yeah, I think that's that new fighting game coming out. And I'm sitting there just like this fucking idiot is a motherfucker. He was just selling it off, like, yeah, you know, if you ever played like Soul Calibur or like Smash, and I'm sitting there like two different fighting games, brother. They're totally different.

SPEAKER_00 40:56

Oh, they literally hired the guy whose uncle works at Nintendo.

SPEAKER_02 41:02

Exactly. And then I got up and I was doing my thing, and he was like, you know, hey, do you want to pre-order the new Assassin's Creed? You get this blah blah blah, you know, whatever he was trying to sell me. And I said, nah, man, but can I tell you something real quick? I'm like something that's just really bothering me. That game, Wildstar, that you just recommended to the uh kid in front of me. You should probably do a little research on it before you start spouting off on factual things. Yeah, because he was pissing me off. He was so he was so convinced that you're gonna be. Like, I was like, I understand you're trying to do what you need to do, but please. Wildstar is an MMO. Yep, educate, have a great day. And I just like he's probably doing fake shit.

SPEAKER_03 41:52

He literally is probably just doing fake a TV game. He's like, yo, oh yeah, oh yeah, for sure. Yeah, that's it's just this latest new fighting game. You want to pre-order? I was so fired up after that. You want to pre-order this game that I don't know shit about?

SPEAKER_02 42:04

And it was funny because I think this was like a little bit after I didn't get hired at like up the plan trade that we had that we always went to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was so bitter, I was like, I could work at a fucking video game place and know way more than that fucking guy, man. I was so fired up, dude.

SPEAKER_03 42:24

I don't know, man. I I worked in play and trade. And I don't know. It was a it was a cool experience, but you gotta have good body. Right by idiots. Yeah, you can't. It was run by idiots.

SPEAKER_02 42:36

It was run by dudes who owned a painting and pressure washing company. Yeah, and they they had it as like a side. Yeah, the best part about them is we would hold Call of Duty tournaments there. I say we because I fucking brought in the people to play all the damn time.

SPEAKER_03 42:52

You did, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:53

Um we thought of a um the funniest name for them to pronounce because they were from Jersey. They had that you know, oh I'm from Joycey, like fucking. Yeah, like thick jersey accent.

SPEAKER_05 43:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:05

So we had uh we were the coffee dog ninjas, right? So all three words I couldn't say coffee dog ninjas. I love the coffee dog ninjas.

SPEAKER_03 43:23

I remember playing, I remember playing that Call of Duty tournament, and like you guys like drafted me in at like the last minute. Um, and like we ended up like clutch winning. That shit was amazing.

SPEAKER_02 43:34

Uh I remember that, and then I remember when we played against the other video game store, like across the fucking uh whatever city. We weren't even that far away. Remember there being a lot of shit talking that night. They were camping in a basement on a fucking map, and we were pissed. We were like, yo, fuck those guys, man. They don't know how to fucking play a bunch of pussies. Yeah, we were crazy. Because they fucking had us.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

They had our fucking yeah, they they owned us. Good times. Anyways, sorry.

SPEAKER_03 44:06

Whatever it's our dude, Wildstar had the coolest fucking login intro theme. I'm gonna bring it up. I don't even care if you know maybe our maybe our audio folks can't hear it, but who cares?

SPEAKER_02 44:19

Let's no, you're the video host. Oh, I guess they wouldn't hear it either, right? Our our stream audience can hear it. My favorite class in any MMO, which was Spell Slinger, which was like the spellslinger. Damn it. That game rules. Rest in peace, Wild Star Man.

SPEAKER_01 44:41

Dude, yeah. It's such a cool game. Alright, let me Alright, y'all ready for this? Alright, check this out.

SPEAKER_00 44:48

Hold up. I didn't see so.

SPEAKER_03 44:54

Make sure this is up here. It starts off like nice and slow. And then it goes off into this like big like instrumental, like all the drums and shit like that. Like it's so good.

SPEAKER_02 45:07

I want the audio listeners to pull this up during this moment. Oh my god. It's so good, dude. Yeah. Wow. June 3rd, 2014. Yeah, dude. There's no private servers for this game either. I've looked it up. No, yeah, I've looked it up pretty recently too. But man.

SPEAKER_03 45:37

Alright, I won't go through all three minutes of it, but yeah, isn't this isn't that just like so good?

SPEAKER_00 45:43

It was great. It was such a good game. Bring back Wildstar, please.

SPEAKER_03 45:47

Yeah, please, Wildstar creators, please. Please.

SPEAKER_00 45:50

NC Soft is NC Soft is a wild publisher. In that I agree. And like the only thing that I have genuinely enjoyed that they have shown lasting support for is Guild Wars.

SPEAKER_02 46:08

Ooh. Yeah. And we will be getting that third one.

SPEAKER_03 46:13

I honestly think a lot of it is the fact that Guild Wars mostly I feel like is hands off from NC Soft. I feel like NC Soft is just their publisher, but like Arena Net really like takes care of their brand. Like they give a fuck about their game.

SPEAKER_00 46:38

Yeah. Let me double check. They are Korean. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:42

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 46:43

NC Soft is.

SPEAKER_02 46:44

Well, they're now NC Corp. They're not NC Soft anymore.

SPEAKER_00 46:49

They are still owned by NC Soft.

SPEAKER_02 46:52

NC Corp. NC Corporation.

SPEAKER_00 47:00

NC Corporation.

SPEAKER_01 47:02

Formerly known as NC Soft is a South Korean video game developer.

SPEAKER_02 47:08

Actually, they just named it to NC now.

SPEAKER_01 47:15

But uh God, this many games crazy.

SPEAKER_00 47:20

I will absolutely play the shit out of Guild Wars 3 though. Hell yeah, dude.

SPEAKER_03 47:25

Yeah, that was actually one of the games that I had on my list that I wanted to like mention because they had um they announced the the Guild Wars 3 coming out recently, and I'm really excited for it because I I mean did you play Guild Wars 2 July? I know Connor did, but you played too.

SPEAKER_00 47:42

I what's it called? I had a launch day land party in college for Guild Wars 2. Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:51

Guild Wars 2, it was just so exciting at the time when that game came out. I don't know what it was, but like there was just it was it was so unique, I feel like, in terms of what it was doing versus everything else. The con the the art was amazing, the combat was unique, you know.

SPEAKER_00 48:08

The character creator was pretty good.

SPEAKER_03 48:10

Yeah, like the world bosses too. Like they were they were playing at a scale that I feel like no other game was really like doing. Yep. So I'm really curious to see because they they they came out with a uh they had like a sort of um I guess it was like a press statement of sorts that they did recently about the third game and like what their thinking is behind it and like what they're looking to do with it and that kind of thing. And they basically said like it's gonna be different from the first two properties, like it's gonna be its own unique thing, but um, I guess they're gonna run all three of them concurrently, like at the same time together. Because they just came out with Reforged, too. I don't know if you guys have that. That's interesting. Yeah, I bought that as well. It's really cool. Um so I will also be definitely uh we'll be talking about that more next year because I think they I think they noted it's gonna come out next year sometime.

SPEAKER_02 49:00

So yeah, that's gonna be a day one maybe call out a work deal.

SPEAKER_00 49:04

Well, for Guild Wars 3. I agree, I agree with that. Yeah, uh, I might I might I might hit that oh, I need a week vacation. I I'll call it if a game comes out that is interesting enough for me that like and I can see there being enough content, I'll take I'll take an instead of break and mainline that shit like cocaine. Oh yeah. Absolutely for sure.

SPEAKER_03 49:34

Um Ion 2 is also coming out in I think it's September, September this year. Um at least a global release, I think it's already out in Korea. Um but god yeah, like fucking the NC has so many different uh um MMOs that they have now. It's crazy. Wait, they have a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 49:55

They've always been an MO uh an MMO factory though. Oh yeah, yeah. Always that's their main that's their bread and butter is pump is pumping out MMOs, finding out which ones can last, and then dumping whatever doesn't grab an audience quick enough.

SPEAKER_03 50:17

Looks like they're developing some sort of third lineage game.

unknown 50:22

Lineage.

SPEAKER_00 50:24

They've been saying we've been working on lineage three for at least a decade. Yeah, that is true. Yeah. Lineage three is the Korean MMO version of what's it called? Half-Life 3 at this point.

SPEAKER_03 50:40

Dude, I just I honestly I think I will try Ion 2 out. I I played the fuck out of Ion 1. Well, I say the fuck out of it. As a solo player, I didn't like you know, I didn't hit level 50 and like go grind in-game raids and like run a guild like at that level. Like I didn't play it like at that. But like when it when it came out, a friend and I were like obsessed with the game and we were playing it a lot, and but that was like and when did Ion come out?

SPEAKER_02 51:07

2008. So like my last bit of high school, you were already out of high school.

SPEAKER_03 51:14

Yeah, so like I definitely had a lot of time around then.

SPEAKER_02 51:20

But I remember I had a game. Yeah, I played a little bit, but at the time I was uh with a girlfriend, so I didn't play a lot of fucking MMOs.

SPEAKER_00 51:32

I was uh doing what I needed to do. I know we're talking about Ion release when it was two came out in 2003. Yeah, no, I was 2009. 2009. I actually just graduated high school.

SPEAKER_03 51:53

Yeah, I would have just graduated as well.

SPEAKER_00 51:55

Yeah. September 2009, yeah. I just graduated high school when that dropped.

SPEAKER_03 52:02

Yeah. But like, I don't know, iron was just really cool, and uh and I was excited for it because of the whole like flying mechanic, but I was ultimately disappointed by it because like it just felt like a gimmick. You could only do it in the the abyss, if I remember if that was if I'm remembering the name of that place right, which was like the P the big PvP zone.

SPEAKER_00 52:23

Everywhere else it was like gliding.

SPEAKER_03 52:28

Which is like fine, but like I don't want to PvP all the time. And if you're gonna like lock one of like the major core mechanics out of the game simply because I don't want to PvP all the time, that ruins that mechanic for me. Like I get it, but at the same time, like at least give like players a reason to use it outside of PvP, because then I can at least enjoy it, you know. But the I I was I played a uh Spirit Master, they were like the summoning game or uh class. Yeah, fucking love that class. They were like uh maybe it was Elementalist.

SPEAKER_02 53:04

I um Elementalist is in Guild War. Yeah, it was Spirit Master, yeah. Yo, you're right first up.

SPEAKER_00 53:10

Hey, I have two things. Two things.

SPEAKER_05 53:14

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 53:14

Lineage three. I just I looked up lineage three just to be like, when did people there is a th I found a thread on MMORPG.com from 2013. That's insane. Talking about lineage three not coming out. It's literally been a decade. I thought I was exaggerating before.

SPEAKER_03 53:38

Man. Lineage two. That game. Ooh! That game pulled me in with the dark elves and the boobies so hard in my teenage performative years, man. I would like I would be like, so during during the summers, I'd stay at my dad's house, and my dad worked night shifts. Um so since it was summer, I wasn't like doing a school or anything. So I'd literally stay up all night every night playing Final Fantasy XI or some sort of MMO.

SPEAKER_05 54:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 54:08

Um and so one of the summers I got like super into two things. Actually, sorry, three things. McDonald's Breakfast. Yeah. Yeah. And Understandable. Uh Lineage 2 and Byzantine, the the band. Because I specifically remember running on this field listening to this song called Halffield. Connor, you probably remember. Well, he he listens to Byzantine, but anyway. Um, so I like distinctly have that like thought from that summer of like spending all summer just grinding in that game. Because like that's the whole thing, and like lineage and even Ion. Like, that was actually like why I stopped playing Ion, is because of the grind. Like, I think it literally took me like two weeks to get from level 34 to 35. And at that point, I'm like, come on, bro, I'm just so tired.

SPEAKER_00 55:01

I ran I started a guild in Ion. My entire it was a small guild, like maybe 10 of us. We started it like within two days of launch. Almost all of us hit that level 30 to 40 wall, and immediat the guild immediately fell apart. No. That sucks. Immediately because like sure, it's fun, but at the same time, the grind just it it kicks.

SPEAKER_03 55:34

It gets to you after a while. Yeah. It needs to be fun. If you're gonna make someone grind, it needs to be fun. And like, I'm sorry to say, but just doing like the keyboard stuff with like you know the MMOs or uh the World of Warcraft style, just like 10 rotation. Yeah, 10 skills rotation, yeah. Like that's just it's not gonna keep someone entertained for four hours if that's all they're gonna be doing.

SPEAKER_00 55:57

It's just not no hotkey combat is I used to be really big into MMOs. Hotkey style combat systems kind of killed them for me.

SPEAKER_03 56:11

Like and I agree, I agree with you.

SPEAKER_00 56:13

Final Fantasy XIV. I had played original Final Fantasy XIV, I got a little bit into Final Fantasy I'm Reborn, I got into Heavens Word, I finally I unlocked what's it called? Dark Knight, tried to keep going, but like I kept finding myself falling asleep at the helm of my character, even though I was like listening to a podcast or something, because hotkey combat running through a rotation, the same rotation over and over again with minor variations based on what's going on on screen will fucking put me to goddamn sleep.

SPEAKER_03 56:51

Yeah, especially like once you get used to what you're doing, because a lot of the main the mechanics and the con because I I've been Final Fantasy 14's been my main MMO since basically it came out. I've been playing it for 10, I think 14 years at this point. Um so like I very much see a lot of the issues that it has and like from what it used to be to now where it's just like like I I think it went in the right direction for what it needed to be at the time, um, because I think they they had a vision for what they wanted it to be when 1.0 originally came out. But then like like you're saying, with like the the hotkey combat where it's just you you have a two-minute rotation, and they've acknowledged this recently, even like they're they're they said in the next expansion that they're gonna try and move away from the the two-minute rotation kind of gameplay. I don't know what that exactly means, but I I super agree with what you're saying because it and and my issue with it is the fact that if if you have hockey combat, it leaves zero room for keyboard coordination to type to your teammates to be able to talk about what's happening in the game. Like in Final Fantasy XI, for example, that was a big thing, is like the combat was much, much slower back then because you when you if if either of you haven't played, I think Connor played like one time, a long time ago. A little bit, but like when you start when you start combat, you basically it's a it's a fully menu-based um system. So like you you select an enemy, a little um you know, uh in-game menu pops up, and you know, you click attack, your character you know takes their weapon out, and they start, you know, every few seconds they go quack, whack, quack, right? Um there's no deliberate, like I'm hitting one, two, four, five, one, you know, to do the right move at the right time in the right order. Like, you there's none of that. It's literally you just you're hitting it until you save up a certain amount of resource, and then you spend your resource on a weapon like ability. That's that's literally all it is, and that frees up all of that time you're spent just sitting there watching your character do all that. You can talk to your team, you can literally sit there and talk to everybody. And that was where a lot of like the combat stuff came in, uh, like where 11 had this system called skill chains and magic bursts, where like skill chains were like, so say I use my skill and that's a certain element, and you use your skill, and that's a certain element, and those if we do them within a certain amount of time with each other, it creates a thing called a skill chain, and that has an element on its own which does damage. And then if we have like a caster class, like a black mage or something, they can do something called a magic burst that follows up on that. So, like, all doing all of that requires a lot of communication with your team, and that requires you to be able to use your keyboard and have the time to be able to do that. Final Fantasy 14 does not allow you to do that because you have to be so on it all the time, like you do not have room to make one fucking mistake. If you make one mistake, you're done.

SPEAKER_00 59:59

It's either voice comms or no comms.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:02

Mm-hmm. Exactly, and I think that's that is one a lot of people don't want to have to deal with voice comms. I mean, even like one of my buddies who was a raider with me for the you know a long, long time, Joey, you know, he he still doesn't to this day, I've known him for years, he still doesn't want to have to hop on voice if he doesn't have to. Like he's just if he just doesn't want to, you know, so it's a lot of times sometimes people just want to type to be able to talk to people. And I think that's something that is missing in modern day MMOs because they're expecting you to just constantly be hitting that button and just like zero wasted time. And because I think it's a lot of people like they want that action MMO, you know, a lot of us, you know, we we lost our attention spans a little bit and we lost the ability to just be patient. Everybody says, well, like I only have so much time to be able to play. But you know, I I think games need to like come back to like respecting your time while at the same time not needing to fill every second of it with active button presses, if that makes sense. Anyway, that's my that's my two cents.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:11

Sorry. I agree. No, I agree. Yeah, no, we are all impatient, short attention span motherfuckers these days, and that's the every aspect in life. That's crazy. Absolutely not wrong. Instant gratification is we're we're addicted to it.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:31

Yeah, yeah. It's almost like it's by design. Yeah. Because if you train the m populace to be if you train the masses to seek instant gratification, the kind of work that leads to actual systemic change takes time and work and mu and people who put in the time and work won't necessarily live to see the outcome of that time and work.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:06

So instant gratification is really, really convenient. If you're not you if you, you know, are looking to create a capitalist telescape that traps people in, you know, debt and misery for the entirety of their existences.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:28

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:30

I agree. Okay. Yeah, moving on to tech news.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:36

Let's let's let's do that. You want to talk about corporations and greed? I'm down. I got some shit for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:44

I see that. I went to go do some notes for the week on tech news, and I saw it, and I'm like, wait, we don't have a we don't have a strict gaming section. We're just diving into tech.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:59

There are, because there are some two big notable news that we have.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:07

The steam controller came out.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:09

Very yes. We will include that in my nice tech notes uh tangent that we're gonna start right now. Hey.

unknown 1:03:22

Oh god.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:23

Steam machine has a price point. Oh, yeah, you were gonna you were gonna talk about this.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:27

Yeah, go for it.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:28

Here we go. Oh, I need to let you get through the entire price before I Yeah, let me get through all the pricing because it's broken down. So the Steam Machine uh this the Valve folks have announced price points for various um bundles, if you have, or if you want to call it that, of Steam machines. So the base price for the most base version of the Steam Machine, which is five hundred and twelve gigabytes, no controller, just the console, one thousand forty-nine dollars. Now, that's for the five twelve? Five hundred and twelve gigabytes.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:18

Let them get through it, cuz it's bad.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:22

It's building in my five twelve gigabytes bundle, they're calling it, which is a controller, steam controller, with the machine itself, um, is one thousand one hundred and twenty-eight dollars. And then you have the two terabyte console, just a console, no controller, one thousand three hundred and forty-nine dollars. And then you also have the two terabyte bundle, which is with the steam controller, the steam machine, and also some face plates so you can swap them out, make it look cool. $1,428. Thoughts.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:07

That's a fucking lot of money, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:10

I'm gonna let I'm gonna break the podcast when you guys let me start talking. Do your thing, man. Do what you want these. What what the do your thing?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:18

I actually have to pee really bad, but do them. Ready?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:20

Okay, go. So what the actual fuck though? Like, is this really where we are? Like $1,049 for 512 gigabytes of storage and fucking hardware that is less powerful than a modern PS fucking 5. Like we're so fucking thrilled right now. I have a friend tell me what it's 360 incredibly sarcastically. And even though I knew he was being sarcastic, I still want it to be to the phone and stuff to get out of it. For these glimpse of the motherfucking prices, and I wouldn't give a shit. Cause we know the proxy have this motherfucker. And fucking hull. And love the fucking hull. And the other dancing. The other dancing. Controllers. The controller slipper. And if you are going to be listening. And then you're gonna hit me with the screen controllers a hundred dollars on the scroll. It's the twenty dollar discount. It's a twenty-dollar discount. You get it for seventy dollars. Let the control. Let me play to the PlayStation. You can even blame with the controller. And the controller 70 dollars on the scroll. Yeah, so you're telling me! I should be glad! For the control! You can kiss my hole! Cause you're being fucking stupid!

SPEAKER_03 1:07:17

I can't believe it comes without the controller. It doesn't come with a controller at all. You have to buy it separately?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:25

You have to get the bundle! Which in in in console terms is just buying the console. Yeah, that's buying the fucking console.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:34

A bundle means you buy like it comes with a game, extra peripherals.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:38

Maybe some extra accessories. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:41

Like, oh my god. Oh my fucking god. Let's be so fucking for real. Let's be so fucking for real. And there are multiple channels who have gotten their hands on this thing, torn it down, they've done like what's it called? Performance comparisons. There is there have been retailers, whole ass retailers going online to show, like, hey, we have a $900 pre-built here that's like double what the Steam Machine is hollering at your boy. And I'm like, we are literally at this point in 2026, literally hyping up products for years, for two years at this point, getting people all excited and shit, all excited and shit, only to release the most what is called inflationary fucking peace attack. I think I think that's been a hundred. This is the street flation, and it's a good thing. This is what this is. And you're gonna sit here and blame ram prices. This is a fucking portfolio, not a couple houses, not a what's it called, not a main house, and a couple vacation homes, it is a property portfolio and two of the biggest yachts on the planet, and you're telling me you can't subsidize shit. Piss my ass.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:16

Fuck you. The I think the really big I think we talked about this off pod, Jelani, is that I think the big problem with the C machine itself is the way they marketed it before they came the price or before they announced the price. They were like, oh, you know, this is good alternative. It's gonna be able to play most games. Didn't say what, you know, 4K, didn't say 1080p, didn't say 1440.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:48

No, it's also Brett in the chat just said it here. They said they marketed it as 4K 60 frames per second.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:55

Most games, not all games, most games, yeah. And that's not even like games who who need that 4K or or look good in the 4K 60, you know, like they were like, oh yeah, this this should be able to play some of it, and it's like, alright, and they also kind of went and was like, you know, this is gonna be for someone who wants like an alternative to a home console and to be only Steam games and blah blah blah. At least with something like the Steam Deck, you understand where you're going into with the Steam Deck. There's gonna be limitations on what you'd be able to play, but obviously, you're not like, oh, can't wait to boot up Warzone on my fucking Steam Deck. No, you're gonna use your Steam Deck for the fucking games that you want to play on the move. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:49

It looks like it looks like the you mentioned it, like some games, right? It's gonna be able to play most Steam games, and I'm like that most Steam games I feel like is a is a valve technical term. Because I feel like it's whenever they say that, it's the same overlap of games with the Steam Deck.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:13

Yeah, Steam has Steam Deck has this Steam Deck has this thing, I forget what it's called. Well, it's not Steam Deck themselves, it's uh it's like a uh community like made thing that it's it basically made a list of all the different games that are on Steam and how well they perform on the Steam Deck, and it gives them like a color grade basically, or like a metal grade basically, like between like gold, platinum, all that kind of stuff. Um and so like when I go into like a different game, I can know before I download it or whatever, like w whether it's gonna be like decently good, but I had to go out of my way. Like that's that's a mod basically for my Steam Deck. Like Steam Deck doesn't do that naturally, like that's something that I put on there that I went out of my way to do. So I know I definitely get what you guys are saying. Like, where like even the Steam Deck I feel like kind of tries to schmooze you a little bit into being like, we can play whatever you want, and you can play you could play fucking you know uh Blackmith Wukong on the fucking you know a train or some shit like that, and it's just like that's just not the case.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:12

Like it's just but at least I know going in with the Steam or Steam Deck, I'm like, okay, I know I'm gonna have limitations just by the pure nature of the the form factor and w how it's built and what it's got in it, you know, whatnot. But the people, you know, if you want to be able to have people at home buy your console instead of buying a PS5, an Xbox, a Switch 2 even, you this isn't it, man. This is bad. This is like for niche fucking tech gurus that want like a fancy little box that looks nice that they can play fucking shovel night on on their fucking It's because they know they can get away with it.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:03

They know that people will buy it because there are somehow just a bazillion whales out there with insane amounts of money.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:13

For sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:14

Our economy, specifically the economy that we tend to talk about at this on this show, is becoming more and more a game for whales.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:27

Yeah, because I mean that's that's the target. That's literally the target now for every game out there. Like um Apex now, for example. They have four different, you know, or sorry, like ten rather different like pages on the store now of like different skins and all that kind of shit that you can buy. Uh what were we playing uh yesterday? Was it? I can't remember what it was, but there was like another thing that had just like a whole, like it was a game that like you wouldn't think had a had a bunch of like store like type shit, but it does. Like it's uh every game out there is just like being as greedy as they possibly can to get as much money out of the consumer as possible, you know? It's driving me nuts.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:11

Steam machine almost.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:13

Um just to end it off, uh there was a Digital Foundry article written uh Friday that was titled Valve would quote love to make the Steam Machine more affordable, just don't expect it anytime soon. Which is a variety of things. It's the nature of the of the market with the fucking inflation of anything computer related to the nature of the market is whatever they want it to be, they're the ones making the decision about like what the price is.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:48

But that's like that's it, and then also the who else has a steam machine? Like who else is building it? Well, here in the case, I was gonna say they're not subsidizing it either.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:57

So I'm not gonna be able to do it Well, they're blaming it on RAM that they're grabbing and SS that are grabbing.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:02

I will give it give them that like recently I was reminded of something I forgot. Didn't does anybody else remember the fact that the Bush government was going after Ram makers over the cartel that they were running? Ram makers the only one to get out of trouble was for real for real was Micron because they're the one that's based in the US.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:29

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:30

But but the Ram companies don't necessarily compete. The makers of the chiplets them s the chips themselves, they don't necessarily they are known to not compete. They are known to collude on prices. And now they have NVIDIA playing games with them. There's no way in hell we see what's it called, we see a price drop on our components unless the data center market completely collapses in on itself. Which is looking like it might probably will, but that's a conversation.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:07

Yeah, it depends on like how many places combat them as their city councils get schmoozed by the billionaires and shit like that. So we will see, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:20

Anyways, I can't wait for this fucking shit show when people get get the uh steam machines uh in their house and the I think what they'll probably end up doing.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:34

Go ahead. You go ahead. No, you first.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:37

I was just I was just gonna say that um goddamn, I lost my train of thought because we got into a combat. Go ahead with your thing. Please. Please go with your thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:49

Oh, you forgot to. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:51

We're all forgetting our stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:53

Can I go on to the other price thing that's gonna piss us off? Go for it. Uh this is fun. Super big news of the week is the Grand Theft Auto 6 pre-orders have finally been opened for the public, and you can go and secure a copy of your very own Grand Theft Auto um copy. Um PlayStation Store, Microsoft Store, uh, Retailers, Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, all that good shit. There are two editions, and I will run through real quick the editions. You have the standard edition, which is up to $80 per edition. Or sorry, standard edition is eighty dollars, and then ultimate edition is a hundred dollars. Now with the ultimate edition, I'm about to hit you with the the exclusives you get. You get some exclusive premium vehicles, you know, normal, weapons, sure, and then some clothes that the main characters Jason and Lucia get. Now, also if that wasn't enough, the Ultimate Edition also gives you exclusive shops only open for Ultimate Edition people, and I'm gonna run it run through them real quick for you. We have a mod shop, a barber shop, a clothing store, a tattoo shop, and then another mod shop that only Ultimate Edition people can access. Who knows if they'll be there in the future, or just now, only Ultimate Edition. So there are certain things locked behind a $20 upgrade to your standard edition to get cosmetics. Am I surprised? No. Also, the physical box of Grand Theft Auto does not contain a disc. It contains just a download code.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:05

That's a whole ass. So so let me get this straight. You have a disc case. You have a disc case with a little circle for you to put a fucking disc on, right? And there's no circle in the circle. You don't have a discussion.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:24

I hope that instead of the disc circle, it's just a s another slot for fucking paper.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:31

I would I would love that, but you know they're too cheap to print out a whole ass within the sleeve.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:36

Yeah, they're like, fuck, we're not making new fucking uh It's gonna be a desk book, a disc booklet with no disc.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:44

I honestly I might not buy Grand Theft Auto 6 if they're not gonna have a physical copy that I can purchase.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:50

Like do you play on console?

SPEAKER_03 1:19:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:55

Well you can only play it on console right now, so yeah, because there's no PC release.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:59

Yeah, I was about to say, aren't they going back to their exclusives and stuff?

SPEAKER_02 1:20:02

So also there's no online. Yet. But it's also the case in Crintheft Auto 5 came out. It wasn't online wasn't available for like months after release, if I remember.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:15

Either way, and not to go like back to like the shrinkflation like conversation or whatever, but it's like it's kind of a similar thing where like we don't even own the products we technically own anymore.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:25

No.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:25

We're like, you know, oh, we're gonna we're we're just gonna they they even market it like they're doing us a favor or something like that. Like it makes it so like, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:34

Oh it's so convenient.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:35

Yeah, you you just it doesn't need to come with a disc anymore. You just get a QR code and you just download it like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:40

And it's like, dude, you're literally bragging about giving me less of a product.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:45

Like, what are you talking about?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:46

You're not giving me a disc. Shut the fuck up. You are charging me more, not giving me a disc, and like I hope you don't think I'm fucking stupid because I don't own the game. You are charging me full more for a license. I read your EU LA. You are charging me for for you are charging me more for a license to access the software. Exactly. You don't kiss my black fucking ass.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:12

Like exactly, like that's my whole point, is like it's it with physical media, we don't own anything anymore. Like with I've actually literally started to uh Shay's been getting me um because I'm a fan of Stargate, um, and so Shay's been buying me the literal physical discs of each season so that I can have it.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:31

I have something for you on that. Hold up.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:32

Okay. I am um but yeah, so it's like it's literally just like I've been trying to build my physical like library of stuff because I started to realize, like, say for example, if for whatever reason I somehow got banned off of my account on PlayStation or whatever, I lose access to all of that stuff that I had, no matter what. Like, because I can't just get that back. Even if I go get another PlayStation, I don't get all that stuff back. So it's like same thing with Steam. If I somehow, for whatever reason, if my Steam account gets banned, I'd lose all of that access. So it just I I started realizing the last couple years, like I if if even if just the internet goes out, I have nothing that I can access if I don't have the internet, you know. So I was like, I need to get my physical comp like library of actual things that I can do if I don't happen to have the internet like up again because I don't like the idea of just not having access to the things that I paid for, you know. That sucks. What did you think?

SPEAKER_02 1:22:32

I think the crazier thing about physical th like physical games and media in general, that people still find the need to pre-order them, but in reality they're just it's just there, right? Yeah. Like there's not a limit of physical or of digital media. It's all digital. Physical, I understand. You want to get that special edition maybe because there's like I don't know, 2000 made or something like that. Yeah, limited edition. Like the limited of stuff maybe they made, like little statues or some shit, like sure, whatever. But like to pre-order a digital copy of a game is bananas to me. It's bananas. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:21

Look, look, look, look. Don't even get me started on paying for digital bullshit. That is most of 20 seconds. That's most of 2026 economy. Um 20 our economy in 2026. Yeah. Because that is liter that is what AI is, is people burning money on tokens to get access to the bullshit machine.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:54

Yeah. And I don't see it slowing down, especially like triple A games. And I think this is like a good this is a jumping point for a lot of AAA uh developers because they're gonna be really watching how this goes with the Grand Theft Auto. Pre-orders in general, and just how it's gonna sell, they're gonna look at this and be like, you know what? If they can do it, we can do it, kind of deal. I mean, I know it's like a bigger, bigger thing. Like this is gonna be um a huge monumental video game.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:30

Yeah, it fucking better be at this point, because everyone, everyone is like hailing it to be like this godsend of a game.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:37

But it's gonna give other developers, especially the greedy, fucking triple A, all those guys are gonna be like Fucking Call of Duty is going to charge us eighty dollars for a campaign full of AI slop. It's gonna be it's gonna be an interesting couple, I'm gonna say another five years in this industry when all this bullshit is just gonna be like, you know what, if they could charge 80, we could charge 85, and then you're gonna be like, fuck.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:09

That's the crazy thing to think about too, because if you can if you compare the two games, if you take like what you were saying, Jelani, Call of Duty, and you compare it to a game like Grand Theft Auto, where there isn't a release every single fucking year, right? Where there's all this hype, it's kind of like uh Oblivion or um like Elder Scrolls. Yeah, like the the next one that's coming out, right? The sixth one that's gonna come out eventually. Like it's been so long now since the last Grand Theft Auto came out that the next one better be fucking amazing. It better be the most amazing Grand Theft Auto, because if it doesn't, it's gonna be devastatingly bad. Versus like Call of Duty, there's already this sort of just like negative expectation of the if it just being the same game. So they literally just pump out the same game every single year. They make you know, and don't get me wrong, I I enjoy Call of Duty, so you know I don't want Connor over there like seething in his head thinking I'm just over here talking shit about Call of Duty. I play it, but I I can see it's a huge flaw, yes. But like they you know they come out with the same game basically every single year, and then they they just they milk money out of people because they know people are just gonna buy it again because they're basically forced to if they want to keep playing Warzone. And it's just I don't know. It's it's crazy to think that a game that has such low expectations makes probably so much more money than a game that doesn't it's like they're taking their time seemingly to like come out with a game and make it the right way and like make it like a true sequel to the previous one, like a modern Grand Theft Auto game versus Call of Duty just pumping them out and just getting free, like just literally printing money off of it. It's crazy to think of like the comparison there.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:53

My only hope for affordability is Grand Theft Auto hits eighty dollars for standard edition, and then there's going to be another triple A game that comes out right after it that tries to hit $80 for Standard Edition, and it'll probably flop harder than shit. Cause that has happened a couple times. Cause I think they tried I if I remember correctly, they tried $70 a couple of times, and that is exactly what fucking happened.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:26

Yeah, I mean I I think there's a whole bunch of developers who are like literally moving their release times so they don't have to release around the same time as Grand Theft Auto because everybody's just gonna be buying it.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:37

Yeah, the Star Citizen single player, I mentioned it earlier. They're like, we're releasing in late 2026, and Homeboy just a couple months ago is like, hey, I know what I said, but fucking Grand Theft Auto 6, guys, come on now, give us a break on this one.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:53

Yeah. I mean you literally can't blame him.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:57

Yeah, there's like a couple games that are launching. On the same day as Grand Throat Title VI, and I can't remember one of them was like a Barbie game. That sounds about right. That was funny. And then there was like one other like random fucking completely different audience. We'll hang out.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:13

Yeah, I feel like those are so displaced in terms of what the audiences are that they don't have to worry about.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:18

That's so funny. It's probably something the kids can play while dad's playing Grand Theft Auto in the Basement type shit.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:26

I'm literally going to be a sponsor with a baby born on my chest, and I'm just gonna be like sitting there playing like Apex or some shit.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:32

That's like when I went to um the minute release of Max Payne 3. Um there was like two people there. I feel like I remember this.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:42

Was I there for that?

SPEAKER_02 1:28:44

Maybe. There was like two people for like Armored Core, whatever one was out, and everyone like made fun of them, and I'm just like, hey man, they like what they like, bro. They're there for it. Fuck it. Armored core goes hard. It didn't back in the day, it was kind of it was just another one of those, just like in a weird spot.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:04

Yeah, I I don't feel like it was until Armored Core VI that because I don't know, has FromSoft always been the developer for Armored Core? Yeah. Really? Yeah. Then it must it must be the the amount of hype that they got after the Dark Souls and like Elden Ring and all that kind of stuff. Like they they had collected such an audience by then, so when they came out with a new Armor Core, it was like, oh shit, it's them.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:26

The Armored Core, what's it called, Fange Base has been pretty dedicated.

unknown 1:29:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:31

I mean I don't think it's expanding.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:34

Yeah, it's just they're quiet.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:38

That's what I'm saying. It wasn't like it I definitely don't I I don't feel like until Armorcore 6, I don't think it was a pop culture kind of type game. Like they like you said, it had its it had its fan base, but I don't feel like it was like known f it from like the It got folded into the what's it called?

SPEAKER_00 1:30:00

It got folded into the not Gundam.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:03

Kinda, yeah, I guess, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:06

It got folded into the not Gundam for a f yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:10

It is fun. I've I've played maybe like 10 hours of it. I want to play more. Because I do love Gundam. So it's the closest thing you can get right now to playing a good Gundam game. Aside from like playing Dynasty Warriors Gundam.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:26

True. Until uh that new one comes out.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:30

Gundam Rogue Fucking hype as shit. Dude, I'm hype as fuck about that. That looks fucking awesome.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:39

I've been watching um I've been watching through like since like the I think I mentioned this in the last episode, but like I've been watching through all the like the older Gundam series. I've read I've finished the original series and now I'm going through um Stardust Memory, which is like a short, like it's like 13 episodes. I used to think it was a movie, but it turns out it's like it's just like a short series that like sets up the villains and stuff like that for Zeta. So I'm um I finished 8th MS team, so I'm I'm like two or three episodes away from finishing Stardust Memory, and then I'm gonna move on to Zeta, so I'm pretty hype about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:16

It's exciting.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:17

Yeah, dude, I love Gundam. Gundam's so good.

unknown 1:31:20

Alright.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:22

You were gonna move on to something, we're gonna move on to.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We got one more little bullet point I see here. Um Yeah, it's mine. It's Jelani's uh fintech talk.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:34

Ooh. FinTech Talk Financial Financial Technical Service. Financial, what's it called? Tech services. You know, companies Exactly uh Venmo? No. Venmo is does fall into that category. Cash app. Cash App, absolutely. Cash Cap. So herein lies the thing. They aren't banks. They aren't fucking banks. No matter if they say, hey, we have uh you can use us to create a high yield savings account. I need you to understand if you're listening to this, they are not banks. So more perfect Exactly. More perfect Union did a video on this recently. Um so the highlight of their the highlight of their video was an application called Yada. They offered high yield savings accounts to people, and they made it into like a gamified situation as long as you put X amount of money in, you get rewarded, blah de blah blah blah. Um they came to be FDIC insured. Um what they didn't accurately advertise until called out is they are not personally FDIC insured. None of these apps are personally FDIC insured, they are not required to be. They hold your money in banks that are f FDIC insured that they have relationships with. So your money isn't sitting in Yada at this point for this specific instance. Your money was sitting in, I believe, the name of the bank, one of the banks is Evolve. So you have your you deposit through Yada, and then your money's actually sitting in a high-yield Evolve savings account at an actual bank that's FDIC insured. The big problem with this is like let's say the application goes out of business, or a lot of these applications use services like uh Synapse Financial Technologies was the one highlighted by More Perfect Union. They will use the uh companies like that that will facilitate their relationships with these banks, and a lot of the time they'll hold the books and the ledgers and make sure they know where money is and who has which money, and money can disappear in these relationships. They gave examples of like money just being gone. But the big thing that happened with the relationship between Yada and Bank side of like Evolved is that company Synapse I mentioned, they went out of business.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:28

Oh shit. Well, they went out of money.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:32

So, where's all that money? Yada can't get to those accounts because their relationship was with Synapse. So Evolve, what's it called, has the money. Yada can't give it out. The people who own those dollars go to Evolve, and Evolve has no contractual or legal obligation to give them their money back.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:58

That's fucking crazy. Holy shit.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:01

Now, there some of the banks that get into these relationships aren't exactly like nice banks. Because you have to keep in mind, these a lot of these accounts aren't be aren't being held in banks like PNC and Bank of America. Or Wells Fargo, even though like if you know enough history, you know that banks like Bank of America and Wells Fargo do be on some fuck shit.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:33

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:34

These Fargo is better.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:36

Banks like Evolve Bank Interest is actively like investing and moving money in ways that depending on how you look at things, are making this country worse. More Perfect Union once again does a much better job. The host Sanya Dosani, she does a much better job of get going into depth, get going into detail, and listing out a lot of the intricacies of what's happening, and she got the chance to interview a lot of the victims of this. And it's eye-opening. Because like, even I'm known to use, like, I'll use Cash App, I'll use Venmo. Yeah. Um we've all done it. Not to s and I'm not just here to say that like those services aren't fucking convenient, they're convenient as shit. What I am going to say is they are not a safe place to park money.

SPEAKER_05 1:36:39

No.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:39

Yeah. Any of any of these applications, no matter whether it's like this this Yada application did not advertise itself as a Cash App or a Venmo. It advertised itself as a bank. We need to keep it no matter how serious the application tries to present itself as, we need to stay aware of what's going on on the back end.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:09

And when I if I have money. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:12

I was just gonna say, if I have money in like Vim or whatever, I almost immediately try and get it out. Like I don't ever want to like just leave it in there. Like Exactly. It's just uh just doesn't feel safe.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:25

No. Like all this to say, like this isn't to say I love big banks. I really fucking don't like big banks. If you have any history listening to this show or listening to me talk, I fucking hate big corporations, and that includes banks. Like the fact that we had to like we keep these fucking big banks in business for no reason. At some point, at some point they are going to fuck the country again. And that's beside the point. Fuck corporations, fuck finance bros, fuck big banks, find yourself a credit union.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:12

Hell yeah. I have had a member of my credit union. Credit union since I was twelve years old. Same.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:21

Well, I don't know about twelve. I don't I don't know what the exact year was, but I had a savings account. Is yours Sunko's credit union? Yes, sir. Hey.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:30

Not to put both of our banks on blast, but we uh yeah, I've been using that. I think we're there's in Cameron. What? Really? Yeah. You're good now. Oh.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:40

Um I was just because my my mom is uh a lawyer, so I was able to get into that. Because that I'm pretty sure that's definitely not. Pretty sure that credit union, or I don't I don't know if it's that union specifically or if it's like all of them, but you have to like be related to someone. You either have to be someone who is either in the military, a teacher, lawyer, some sort of public service like facing job. Or you have to be related to someone who has that type of job.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:07

So yeah, I think my mom being a nurse. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:10

Maybe. Yeah, that would definitely fall into that category. So I they're super good. I've I've never had any issues with them.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:21

But yeah. Fuck. Credit unions are super. Fuck everybody. But anyway.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:26

All I'm trying to say is nine times out of ten. If the it if they are fluent in finances, they are not to be trusted. That is the language of liars. If you if you can legitimately unask tell me the ROI on anything, I am going to look at you like you are the devil himself.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:00

Sorry, I had to move my cat out of here, she woke up. It's all good. Um, we got any other discussion points, boys?

SPEAKER_02 1:40:14

No, but I have something I can talk about.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:17

No, he fucking I don't even know what that means. Oh, you should know.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:25

You should you really should know. Well, this is only his second episode.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:29

It rhymes with uh teamy. That's right, folks! It's time for the Steamy Steam reviews.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:50

Dear God. I hate I hate uh I hate the fact that I actually spun up my podcast, what's it called, Steam account to look at these games again.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:08

Yeah, you're gonna fuck up your uh Yeah, I'm not doing that, sorry.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:11

I'm gonna let uh Connor software and ride the wave on this one.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:14

Yeah, mine is entirely separate Steam account specifically so I can keep track of like Steam searches. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:27

Um yeah, so this is a section where I find some uh quote unquote steamy reviews from the Steam store mostly in the uh adult content or sorry sexual content tag on Steam. There's a lot of 'em. Um I pulled up a couple recent ones that I dug through on a Friday night. Um Steam sale going on, so remember that. So if you're ever really curious, now's the time, because some of these games are dirt cheap.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:09

Um you ever do uh shower with your dad simulator?

SPEAKER_02 1:42:14

Yeah. Someone bought us that game.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:16

I feel like I've got it. I have it, really. I think I have it. That's one that definitely comes to mind. It's overwhelmingly positive reviews. I don't have it. Never mind.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:26

Thank God. Um I pulled up a couple recent adult content, sexual content games, and here are the two that really stood out to me. Uh the first one is called Train 45. Um general synopsis is You're gonna run a train on someone, and several other women are trapped aboard an endless train by the demon canile. Uncover the train's eerie anomalies before death comes for you. So this is one of those where you go through the train, it might be something different, point out the difference. Uh, you know, it be it like an ad has some weird shit in it, it's spooky. It's all spooky.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:12

Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:14

Um favorable, very positive reviews. Um there are a couple reviews that I that stood up to me. Um pulling it up. I finished the game. I will say it's worth it. I do hope the dev does a DL ser two for it in the future. More anomaly, please. Maybe some threesomes too. What? Also, the ending was wholesome.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:48

So wait, hold on. Was it were those were those all separate reviews, or was that one review?

SPEAKER_01 1:43:52

No, that's a separate remote.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:53

That's one review. I'm looking at it now. It's it's a singular. See, this is why I have the what's it called? The spare Steam account. Because everybody always has questions, and I have to provide background info on what this shit is.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:15

I have two more. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:18

You can get into it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't worry about it. Despite mainly aiming for hentai audience, this game is legitimately great on anomaly spotting type of games. The ask that means so you never played an anomaly game? Okay, what is that? So essentially you are observing an area, a room, a train, wherever, and you are staring at it, and then maybe the fucking lamp flickers weird. Click on that, that's the anomaly. You have to see what's different about it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's like it's almost like um Exit ISPY or like a uh what's the game you played as a kid? Like um spot the difference. Yeah. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 1:45:09

Final Fantasy XI used to have this thing where um if you wanted to travel from like a certain area to another area, you had to take this um like ferry. And when you were on the ferry, you could do this quest, like this little mini quest, where you had to deliver a parcel to the right per like passenger that was on the ferry, and they all looked alike, but they were all slightly different in a certain way. And you had to like basically take the description that the person gave you and take the parcel, and then go around the entire ship and look at all the different characters and like compare them and like figure out who was like, you know, which one you should be talking to, and then you know, obviously deliver it. So like yeah, that's pretty fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:52

Alright.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:53

And I got one more of this one. Um shit, where'd it go?

SPEAKER_03 1:46:02

Where'd it go, Connor?

SPEAKER_02 1:46:04

Uh oh my god, where'd it go?

unknown 1:46:11

Oh no.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:13

Connor lost his review.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:14

Oh here, I got it. I got it. I got it, I got it, I got it. Absolute cinema. Masterpiece and so much peak. I just spent my whole weekend for this gooning game for first. I just want a goon. Yeah. I just want a goon. But story too much good. Then I though everything good, sound character design. I'm reading this verbating. I'm reading this verbatim. Let me read that sentence for you. Did you say verbating? Yep. Verbating. Verbating.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:49

I'm verbating so hard. Because I read masturbating.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:52

Yeah, it's the whole thing. Verbating. Alright, hold on. This is the sentence. It's just a one law, like long run-on sentence. Let me repeat it. I just spend my whole weekend for this gooning game for first. I just want to goon, but story too much good than I, though. Everything good, sound character design.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:16

I like how after all that at the very end it gets very sophisticated. It's like sound character design. It's very sound.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:25

Um It's funny. That's uh there was one where someone said that was a wild one. A lot of people praising the um play with this with one hand. No, that's on the next one. Uh the next one is Mocha Love Relive.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:46

Mocha's are not that good.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:48

Mocha? Mocha? Well, it's Mocha, like a like a M-O-K-A? M-O-K-A, like a woman. Uh careful with this one. Uh a live 2D simulation packed with H scenes. I guess you can't use the word hentai. Probably. Um it's H scenes. For those not educated, that's hentai. Horny scenes. Anime porn. We've achieved next generation cross-section expressions with an unparalleled raw feeling of the vaginal folds and orgasm faces that look like they're straight out of a manga. All in live 2D.

SPEAKER_05 1:48:34

Oh wow. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:37

Those are words you just said. Yeah, that's true. He used the word folds. That that's a sentence of all time.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:46

Yeah, um it was kind of normal until they started getting to like vaginal folds and shit, and I'm like, how what is this engine that this game is working on?

SPEAKER_02 1:48:58

It looks pretty normal to me, honestly. Okay. Just look at my profile pick. It's that good. I never smoked in my life until now. This game was made to test if you were gay or not. 10 out of 10.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:17

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:22

Why are you gay? Why are you gay?

SPEAKER_02 1:49:26

This game was made to test if you were gay. Why are you gay? Wait. Here we go. I got two. Hold on. Two more.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:38

Okay, here we go.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:39

WTF! What's her at? Never mind. I came already. Wow. And then to hit it off at the end here to to answer Joanna's question. Very friendly to play with one hand.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:58

Nice. I called it.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:00

Yo, yo, I hate the fact that that's a review and then uh another review on this game. You need two hands to play this game. What is it? Is is this a is is it a skill issue at this point?

SPEAKER_02 1:50:15

Like you really.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:19

How many hands do you need to play the game?

SPEAKER_03 1:50:22

Maybe the person with the two hands is saying they're getting two hands on they're down there. It's a two hands kind of game, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_02 1:50:33

Like they're getting I guarantee you anyone who bought this game does not need two hands for what they got going on down there. Thank you. How can you carry that man? How can you carry anything? Can I guarantee it?

SPEAKER_00 1:50:44

Look.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:45

Guaranteed.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:46

Look, even if they do need two hands to deal with it, they probably don't wash it off and off often enough. So there we are.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:57

Uh as Clamera has a sneezing attack.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:01

That's the steamy steam reviews.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:03

It's literally like the 11th fucking sneeze in the last two minutes.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:06

It's okay, we're wrapping it up, man. I get it. Okay. We're getting out of here. Those are the steamy steam reviews, and that has been another episode of the Cool Cats cast. Everybody, thank you for tuning in on whatever day you're listening to this to. If you're watching the live stream, whatever fucking day you're in. Thanks for hanging out. We appreciate you being here. Um, thanks for the ad revenue, bitch. Um money, please.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:37

You don't you don't talk to our audience like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:40

Guys, you don't. Um we'll see each other in the next two weeks. Shout out to the fathers since we didn't see you on Father's Day. Happy Father's Day.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:53

Love you, Fathers.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:54

All belated and shit. I would say happy 4th of July. Stay safe. Don't blow your fucking hand off with the firework, okay? Eat a lot of glizzies. Glizz it. We like glizzies on on that day. Cameron's losing internet. I'm trying to wrap it up because he's losing internet, it seems. Whoa, how?

SPEAKER_00 1:52:13

What do you mean? Look, thanks for coming. Thanks for coming. We appreciate you. Don't forget to flip off your local data center. We're fucking out of here.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:23

We fuck all the billionaires, bitch. Peace. This one this one's for the billionaires.