Let's Rank Video Games!

[00:00:02] Let's get together, talk about the movies that we saw this week We'll have discussions, talk film news, we'll laugh a lot and act like geeks Sometimes we'll have a guest or two, sometimes it's just the two of us Let's crack some jokes and tell some folks to come along and hang with us Mike and Chosen wisely I've been having these weird thoughts lately

[00:00:32] Like, is any of this for real? Or not? That's a Kingdom Hearts opening reference, Mike I should have known if I had a guess Yes, but I'll tell you what's not a far off memory That's like a scattered dream It's a Kingdom Hearts 2 reference It's Mike and Mike go to the movies I'm Mike Smith and joining me as always Is someone who likes shorts, they're comfy and easy to wear Kingdom Hearts 3? Nope, that's Pokemon Do you not remember that kid?

[00:01:01] I don't know if you played like the old school Pokemon games When you were a kid I'm assuming at some point you did So, fun fact, literally never You've never played a Pokemon game? Never played Pokemon What? Okay, well there's one kid But you are familiar with the mechanics of the game The concept of a pocket monster? Yes So there's a You go around the game, you're wandering around And sometimes people will see you And they challenge you to battles and stuff Yeah, you walk through the grass In the original Pokemon

[00:01:30] You know, there's this one kid I think, like a biker kid or something Who walks up to you and his line is Hey, I like shorts They're comfy and easy to wear That's awesome So that's the reference that I was making But Mike Decrecio is here Oh, that's me Yeah, Mike Decrecio Hello Yes I was considering going with I'm Mike Smith and joined me as someone Who used to be an adventurer like you Until he took an arrow to the knee I would have got that one That's one you would have gotten, I think Yeah, I should have gone with that

[00:02:00] No, I like that one a lot Yeah, I remember I never played Pokemon games Because I never had a gameplay Really? Yeah Until I'm too old for Pokemon I'm in ninth grade now I don't remember how old I was I'm playing Dragon Warrior Monsters or whatever Exactly Yeah, Fire Emblem And then I re-found that It was a Pokemon Advanced SP The square one with the backlight Yeah, that's the best one

[00:02:29] And it was pretty sick And I found that during lockdown And I was like Oh baby It's Pokemon time Sick And I went on eBay And I bought Pokemon Yellow Okay Which turns out Is the one that is in real time So you have to put your Like It's got a clock It's like It has like a night and day cycle in it Okay I kind of remember that actually Yeah So You need to put the Input your time in it When you start the game But Because of that clock Runs 24 hours

[00:02:58] There's a battery in the cartridge Which As long as it's been Since that game came out Those batteries no longer hold charges So Whenever you turn the game off It resets Because there's no power In the cartridge anymore So It just restarts the game Every time you turn it on So I've still never played A Pokemon Because I was thwarted by technology You know the thing is There are so many other Pokemon games That you could also try to play No that was my one I tried once and I failed

[00:03:28] But I'll never do it again Hey fair enough I get it If I'm not good at something immediately It's not worth doing Yes And that's really The attitude you should take When going into video games Mike Correct Yes So yeah Today it's Mike and Mike Going to the movies We're doing something a little different today Right Mike? Mike and Mike go to the Video game? Yeah Go to the GameStop Yeah sure You know There you go Yeah so We are not talking about movies today

[00:03:57] We are talking about Video games And in fact That's what we're doing It's a Let's Rank episode Where we're just talking about Some of our favorite video games Yeah And This is such It's sort of a weird thing We had this idea last week And really I had this idea And Mike D was like I guess we could do this Well first I think it was Video game movies And we were like Right That might be a lot of work Because we gotta watch Some bad movies Yeah And this came up Because as we're recording this Mortal Kombat 2 Is about to hit theaters Yes

[00:04:25] And we are in kind of An era where we're seeing More and more Video game based movie adaptations That have been happening Over the last couple years And including some really big hits Obviously the Illumination Mario movies Have been very big I saw the first one on a plane It's okay You know The Sonic movies have been very big I've seen the first two now They're okay You know The Minecraft movie Was huge I didn't see it I'm probably not going to You know The Five Nights at Freddy's Movies have been big

[00:04:55] I haven't seen those either That's a little after my time We got a Zack Kregor Resident Evil coming out But that's not for a while Yeah But that's what I'm very excited about I am very stoked The trailer for that Just came out And it looks sick I did see The first Mortal Kombat When it came out And by that I mean Like the new rebooted Mortal Kombat Yeah Movies I saw that That was one of my first Post-COVID vaccine movies Right Like that was in like April of 2021 One that came out So it was like You know Either the third or fourth Like movie I saw in theaters

[00:05:25] After that got the vaccine And so to me That movie was perfect Because I was in a theater again And I was watching Stuff on a big screen I have not gone back to it since And I don't want to I feel like I want to preserve the memory Of having a blast With the first Mortal Kombat And I will probably go see Mortal Kombat 2 At some point In the near future Because I think it does look Kind of fun Yeah Yeah I mean I don't remember the exact Timing of it But were we doing Michelle Yeoh at the time Because I feel like I remember like Because Hiroyuki Sonata Is in it right Hiroyuki Sonata is in it

[00:05:54] It was 2021 So I think we were still On Goldblum Oh interesting Yeah Because we didn't start Yo until after Everything Everywhere came out And that was 2022 Right Right But yeah We definitely talked about Hiroyuki Sonata A bit on the Yo season Because he's in Royal Warriors I believe Yeah And so I think We might have talked About Mortal Kombat then Because you also watched That Mortal Kombat movie Yeah On HBO Max I think right Yeah I was a big fan of that movie When it came out But yeah Not in theaters But HBO Max But I was gonna say That I remember Connecting with Being like Oh Hiroyuki Sonata Like oh The Michelle Yosi

[00:06:24] Like I remember that Having those thoughts But I guess maybe It's the other way around And I was like Oh this is the guy That's in the Mortal Kombat movie Instead of the other way around Where it's like The guy from Royal Warriors So yeah I really liked that movie And you know We're kind of The age old curse Of video game movies Seems to be lifting We'll see I don't know Or moving in the Direction of good Moving in a direction Where I mean Again I just listed off A bunch of the big ones And they're all like Okay to bad But I'm very excited

[00:06:54] About Zach Kregor's Resident Evil I think that's gonna be Really good And we've also seen Adaptations in other areas Obviously the Last of Us TV show Has been a big hit on HBO Which we're both big fans Of The Last of Us video games So we've been watching that show And we've talked about that show Quite a bit On Mike and Mike In the past And actually the only other time We've done like a video game Centric episode Was when The Last of Us Part 2 came out And me, you, and producer Colin Did an episode reviewing Last of Us Part 2 So yeah And I think we were all Pro at the time I was the most pro I think You know

[00:07:23] And I think in the years since I think you guys have Grown more pro with it I think we all liked it At the time Yeah But it was a game that You know Much like Star Wars The Last Jedi Has just like Divided fans from moment one And And people years later Are still yelling about it You know Right Yeah Yeah I mean I really liked that At the time Even though I was very I don't know Confrontational or whatever With the whole like Thesis and the like Implicating the player In the violence And all that stuff Which like Yeah

[00:07:52] You weren't a fan Of how the game does Like it names all the NPCs So when you kill somebody You hear somebody go like No Mark Or whatever Yeah I mean which is fine Like I don't know I'm you know It's a very common trope Like you know Or device You know Of like In movies at least In particular Like you know Peeping Tom And all these movies Are like Well Orange You a pervert For watching this movie And enjoying it And all that stuff But there's something Extra about it When it's a video game When it's like Okay but then The point is I shouldn't have bought This game then Fuck you

[00:08:22] Like I don't know Like what If you don't want me To play your game Don't make it So So yeah I don't know I rub up against that But that game Is very good Very intense Haven't played it since though Which is interesting I did replay it Before the new season Of The Last of Us Came out Okay yes I remember that Because I was unemployed At the time So I was like I'm gonna replay The Last of Us 40 hours Exactly yeah I'll replay The Last of Us Games and get through It before the new season And all that stuff But yeah no So obviously You have The Last of Us TV show

[00:08:52] You have The Fallout TV show Which has been a big hit as well You know And so we've seen adaptations Kind of being You know It's kind of happening Throughout movies and television A lot more stuff Based on video games There's gonna be God of War TV show At some point In the near future And they are making A Street Fighter movie again And all that stuff We ran out of comic books So they're like Well let's left That sort of feels like What it is It's like okay Well I guess now The next big thing Is video game movies And there have been Like enough very big hits To like convince studios Yeah no We're doing that Alex Garland's

[00:09:21] Making an Elden Ring movie Right For A24 Which that's gonna be wild I believe there's a Death Stranding movie Still in the mix as well Which I think I wanna say the guy Who directed Pig Is directing that Michael Sarnowski That sounds very familiar Yeah Yeah Yeah so you know There's stuff like that In the works You know there's Classic games There's newer games All kind of getting Their own time in the sun As far as movie And TV adaptations go And I'm very curious To see what else Gets adapted I mean if any More of my favorites Kind of get in there For years There was always The talk of

[00:09:51] Gore Verbinski Wants to make A Bioshock movie That's like One of those things That like Man I wish that Happened He would have Crushed it It would have been So good You know what We were forgetting And how could we Forget the The monumental Achievement that is The fucking Uncharted movie Yeah You know Damn I went to go see It in theaters Because I was such A huge fan Of the Uncharted games And it looked bad And it was And it was And it was Yeah no It was a bummer

[00:10:21] And that movie Was in development For so long too Remember they Yeah They announced The Uncharted movie In like 2010 And Mark Wahlberg Was cast as Nathan Drake Yes And it was Going to be A David O. Russell movie Yeah And it was Like yeah Okay Mark Wahlberg Nathan Drake And I think It was Robert De Niro Was going to play Sully And the movie Was in development For so long That it cycled Through like five Different filmmakers I think Dan Trachtenberg Was attached to At one point And then In the final product Mark Wahlberg Had aged out of Playing Nathan Drake And was now Playing Sully In the

[00:10:51] Ridiculous In the Uncharted Movie Which is crazy Yeah Uncharted The movie No good But maybe One of the Uncharted games Will pop up On this list So Oh interesting So we were Talking about Video game movies And we were Kind of talking About you know Maybe we do That and that Could be something We still do Down the line I think that Is something That like You know Maybe when Resident Evil Comes out Or when Like Street Fighter You know There's a lot Of video game Movies coming Out now So we could Tie it Into Whenever Yeah You know But I You know We were like That's a lot Of work We have a lot Going on In our Place right now I got the Baseball season Starting

[00:11:21] And all that Stuff so I work for A baseball team Now that's not Just like I'm watching A bunch of Just watching Baseball I don't have Time It's taken up A lot of My time Some of our Guests would Understand Producer Colin And be like Yeah no He can't He's watching Baseball He doesn't Have time But yeah So I think We decided You know Instead of Doing a Let's rank Video game Movies episode Let's table That save That for Another day And let's Just talk About our Favorite Video games You know And so This is a Weird one So we're Doing let's Rank video Games And we're Basically just Talking about Our five

[00:11:50] Favorite games And that's A big ask I feel like It'd be very Difficult for me To be like And the five Favorite movies Of all time Yeah right Right It's just like We're talking About an Entire medium Worth here And so You know I think it's More for me It's more just Like here are Five games I really like That like Define my Taste in Video games I guess Is sort of Where I Approached my List Okay Yeah This was Actually really Difficult I feel like It'd be easier If it was My top five Movies Because like Whatever That's gonna Change tomorrow Who gives a Shit what's On my List Yeah

[00:12:22] But yeah I don't know Because it was Also There's Games are So different If over the Course of Even our Lives Yeah And if you Went back If you Somehow had Access to Earlier games From before It like It's impossible To compare Something even From the N64 generation To something Now or Between N64 and PS2 Like what That's insane To compare Those two Things So this is I think Really fucking Hard Yeah I remember When I was A kid And so I Had My first Console was a Super Nintendo

[00:12:51] Which I think Was just like My dad had Like in the House That was His console Yeah but I ended up Playing it Obviously and All that Stuff and Then I Eventually got An N64 I still Have it It's the It was the N64 that Was packaged With hey You Pikachu And it is a Blue and Yellow N64 That has Pikachu on it And the on Switch is a Pokeball and When you turn It on like Pikachu's lights His cheek Like two red Things on his Cheek flash Yeah Still great Probably a Collector's item Now honestly But yeah so I had that

[00:13:20] N64 and then I kind of Switched over To being a Sony kid And so we Had a PS2 The PS3 was Like a thing That I needed To have When I was 13 and you Know we got It pretty early And it was Crazy and all That stuff I had the PS3 when like The narrative Around it was Like it has No games And I was Like but it Does it has Resistance fall of Man you know Yeah yeah That kind of Thing but I Remember when I Was a kid When I was Like eight Years old And I had Just gotten My PS2 I got my PS2 like Christmas morning Very big deal And it came With five Games or my Parents got Five games

[00:13:50] Along with it And they Were you know Five I think Two games that Like they knew I wanted and Like three that Were just like You know the People say These are good Or whatever They might Like and I Remember very Specifically the Five games were Kingdom hearts Which will be Discussed later Kingdom hearts Sly cooper and The thievius Raccoonus Jack and Daxter the Precursor legacy Gran Turismo Three and ATV off-road Fury were the Five like Starter ps2 Games Whoa I have Not thought About ATV

[00:14:19] Off-road fury In 20 years You just Blew my mind That game Fucking rocked It was so More memory Unlocked Yes but I Remember I Think I was Playing sly Cooper and There was a Scene you know I was eight And playing Sly cooper Playing the game And it went Into a cut Scene and Like at this Point I was Already pretty Familiar with Like yeah Games gonna Have cut Scenes sometimes They have you Know story Bits and all That kind of Stuff and That's sort Of what I Kind of play Played games For sometimes Was like Because I I am Somebody who Would love A kochima Game if You've ever Played any Of his I did

[00:14:49] Play a little Metal gear Solid 4 when That came out Because I Was a big Hyped thing But I had Not played Any other Metal gear Solid and I was Totally Lost But I Remember Playing Sly Cooper and Like a Cutscene Happened And my Mom Was in The Room And I Remember Her Being like Shocked That was Like wait This video Game has Like a Story to It Because I Think in Her mind Like her Concept of A video Game was Probably still Like the Original Super Mario Brothers Where it's Just like You know You're one Character running Across the Screen and That's it It makes Bips and Boops and That's it What I'll See in Yeah

[00:15:18] So the Medium has Evolved Tremendously Over our Lifetimes You know We Like at This At this Point You know It sort Of feels Like it Was in Its infancy When we Were kids But obviously It was in Its infancy Like before That but Games had Only really Been like a Major home Console thing For like Ten years Before we Were born Right So You know It Drastically Evolved With technology And storytelling Techniques And all That stuff And I'm Going to Preface this By saying I don't Play that Many games Anymore You know Yeah I would Love to Have the Time But I'm A movie

[00:15:48] Guy You know I don't Have the Time Right To play A lot Of games And might I think You're a Similar way Where I Think you Do get into Like a game For a couple Months at a Time and that That's your One thing For a while Right Yeah I guess I actually Play a lot Of games To be Honest If you'll Notice our Discussion Episodes I usually Have five or Six and You have Twenty For movies And that's Because you're Playing games I'm playing Games I'm hanging Out with the Homies Playing some Games There's been A new

[00:16:18] What was the One in Among Us Right Those kind Of games Yeah That have Been They've been Dubbed Friend Slop Which is You know I'm trying to Think of the Other ones That are Pretty big Off the top Of my head That A lot of Them are Like horror Kind of Games That we Don't play A ton Of them I think Repo Is one Of them Or RV There yet Like RV Is the Which is Like your Guys driving Your RV home From vacation And shenanigans

[00:16:47] So those Kind of Games Where it's Just like We're Going to Get a Bunch Of Friends Together And we're All going To be Yelling In the Discord Because oh My god Push the Button What are You doing Oh my god And then Right You know Those are Fun for Two three Weeks And then You're like Well that Was ten Dollars So like Whatever You know Then you Stop flying It Until the Next one Comes out So yeah We play A lot Of those Games Or Other Games Like you Know Destiny Two Just sort Of like Big Online Games That are You know Those have Narratives I've We've Fallen off Destiny Two Because Bungie Is a Shit show

[00:17:17] But I've heard There's a lot Of stuff Going on With Bungie Which I'm I'm not Super privy To But yeah I've heard That's Nuts Bungie Used to be The guys They made Halo I mean They made Halo Yeah That's all I had to Do I mean During lockdown Obviously When it was Like Well let's Just all Shoot aliens For six Hours a Day Because What else Are we Going to Do And we Played The shit Out of It For years And then It was Just like They got Really I want to Say Predatory That's Aggressive But just You know Expansion DLC All that

[00:17:46] Kind of Stuff That happens In an Online Game And we're Like I'm Good But we Do Play We spend Broadly A lot Of Time Playing Games Together When I'm Not Forcing Them To Watch Movies They're Like Let's Play Game So it Sounds Like As a Gamer You're More Of An Online Multiplayer Style Of Gamer Right Yeah We've Kind of Evolved Into That From The Well We want To Play Together And It's Excuse Time To

[00:18:24] As Soon As I Don't Want To Have Any Part Of This And Back In The Day On The PlayStation Three It Like Some

[00:18:54] Online Stuff But If I'm Playing Multiplayer I'd Like To Be Doing It With People In The Room Like That's Always Been Right Thing Which Has Had Less Emphasis Over The Years In Terms Of New Video Games Being Developed But You Looking At My

[00:19:24] List Literally None Of Them Are The Online Games So Really Like Because I Think They're Just Less Impactful I Don't Know How To Getting Involved In A Single Player Story Where It's Not Necessarily On Rails Or Whatever But You Can Craft A Narrative That's Meaningful And Impactful When You Don't Have To Worry About Getting Fucking T-Bagged In Halo You Know Like You Know So You Know I Think Those Hit Harder Those Games Can Hit Harder Not To Say The Online Ones Don't Have That But At At

[00:19:54] For Me Yeah All

[00:20:27] Right It's Mike Mike Go To The Movies And It's Time To Do A Let's Rank For Video Games So Mike D What Is Your Number Five Video Game Of I Don't Know That Doesn't Feel Great So I Don't Know Like What Else

[00:20:56] Let Reach Back Oh Yeah This One And Then What Do I Do For Number Five I Don't Really Know What To Pick So I'm Picking Four Games For Your Number Five Slot Okay My 64 The Very First Game I Got

[00:21:26] With The N64 That Christmas Was Mario Kart 64 Hell Yeah And That Shit Rules And I Loved That Game And I Played It A Lot And I Remember Bringing My N64 To College And My Sweetmates and I And I Brought My Box Of Games And Mario Kart 64 Was Absolutely One Of The Games That We Still Played All The Time When We In On Lock On Repeat All The Time On N64

[00:21:56] For Me As A Child And Then Even Back Into College When I Brought It And That Was Mario Kart 64 GoldenEye Diddy Kong Racing And Snowboard Kids Hell Yeah I Video Games With Going Back To Retro Gaming And

[00:22:26] Stuff Is Like Not Only Has Everything Evolved But Are These Secretly Really Bad Now If You Go Back And Play Ever Having Played 20 Years Of Halo And Destiny And All These High Tech Crazy Shooters And Play GoldenEye Which This Like I Can't Think Of

[00:22:56] The Word I'm Trying To Earworm Is Not The Correct Thing Whatever I'm Trying To Think Of Where There's A When You're Selecting Your Characters Right They have Different Stats Then You Select Your Snowboards And The Snowboards Have Different Stats Right Okay And So You Know It Was Alpine Which Was More

[00:23:26] Speed And You Could Pick Whatever And Then There Was All Around Which Was Balanced Stats And It Would Just Be Like All Around And It's That It's Like The Thing That I've It's Been 30 Years And I Can Still Hear Them Say All Around And I Just Need To Know Do Other People Know What That So The Spider-Man 2 Movie Game

[00:23:56] Is Genuinely One Of The Best PS2 Games That One's Great But There Was A Game Before That That Was Based On The First Spider-Man Movie In 2002 Which Is The Spider-Man That Game Based On

[00:24:26] The Movie That Says Looks Like The Freak Wants To Play And It Was Like One Of Four Henchman Lines That Are In That Game And So It Happened Over And Over And Years Later A Friend Of Mine In High School We Bonded Over That Line What A Weird Thing To Lodge In Your Brain Yeah Yeah So Yeah This Diddy Kong Racing I think Of Those Four Might Be The One

[00:24:56] That I Played The Most We Played A lot Of Mario Kart As Well But Diddy Kong Racing Was Great Because It Was It's Like Mario Kart But It's All Rare Characters Right It's All The Characters From Games Developed By Rare Which Rare Also developed Donkey Donkey Kong 64 Which Was A Huge Game For Yeah So It Donkey Have Planes And Hovercraft Things

[00:25:26] On Certain Levels Or Whatever And I Just Remember That Being Like Whoa We Have Planes This Is Crazy Yeah I Think They Eventually Did Like There Was A Version On The DS I Think Of Diddy Kong Racing Like A Remaster Or Capable Of Today But It's Also Sometimes The Controls Are

[00:25:55] Wonky Because They Play Weird Now That We Are Used To More Modern Video Game Controls And Yeah All That Stuff I Feel Diddy Kong Racing Is Prime For Like Man They Should Do That Again That That So Sick Yeah I Remember Even Even Within Maybe I'll Save It For If A Certain Naughty Dog Movie A Certain Naughty Dog Game Whose Movie We Already Referenced Will Come Up Later For You I Don't Know You Talking About Jack X Combat Racing Yes I Was Talking About Sly Cooper Sly Cooper Sly Cooper Sucker Punch

[00:26:25] Actually So That Yes And Actually If You're Talking About Last Of Us Or Uncharted Neither One Of Them Are In My Five Right Now Oh Okay So Then I'll Bring It Up Now But I Was Talking About Uncharted Is What I Was Referencing But Even Even With Controls Within A Generation Were Just So Silly Because I Never Played Those Games Till College The Uncharted Games Where I Was Remastered With Colin Producer Colin And He Brought Uncharted Two That Is My Favorite One And It's An Honorable Mention For Me

[00:26:55] It's It's Close And It's Great And We Somehow Got I Don't Remember The Whole Situation But We Played Uncharted Two First And Then Canoe Or Whatever You Have To Do And We Were Like This Shit

[00:27:25] Sucks Like It Was Terrible The PS3 Was Definitely Like Because It Was Happening At The Same Time As The Wii And It Really They Needed To Compete With The Wii In In Some Of And All That Stuff Yeah And

[00:28:21] Not I I Probably Pick Four But It It It All Of Them You Know And I Did A Big Uncharted Replay I Think When The Movie Was Coming Out And I Played Through The First Three I Didn't Replay Four But I Should I Should Go Back To That One That One It Feels More Like Some Influence Of The Way You Traverse Through The World And

[00:28:52] GoldenEye Which Is Also Great Diddy Kong Racing And Snowboard Kids Yeah Nice My Number Five So From My List I Wanted To Make Sure There Was At Least One Like Classic Game On The List Like Talking About The 80s Here You Know Going Old School And There Is One Classic Arcade Cabinet Game That I Do Still Consider Among The Greatest Games Of

[00:29:22] Pac-Man From 1982 This Is Yeah I'm A Huge Pac-Man Fan This Game Rocks So Here's The Thing Pac-Man Pretty Good Okay Ms. Pac-Man Better There Is A Difference And It's Not Just The Fact That She Has A Bow Which Is What Brian Delamurie And But No Ms. Pac-Man Actually Does A Lot To In Terms Of The Difficulty Of The Game It's A Little

[00:29:52] Random In Terms Of How You Traverse Through The Maps How The Ghost Come After You Ms. Pac-Man Has Specifically Designed You Know That's A Two Years Later Than Pac-Man And In This One The Ghosts Have A Trajectory They Know Where You To Be And They Chase After You In That Way So It's A Little More Difficult And I Got Real Into Ms. Pac-Man Late Late

[00:30:22] Could Play I Was On Vacation In Cooperstown With My Family I Think It Was High School And We Were In Cooperstown And We Were Staying At A Hotel And The Hotel Had An Arcade Game And So Me My

[00:30:52] Incredibly Fast In Order To Play The Game And I Got Really I Played It For An Hour And A Half I Got The High Score And As I Was Playing It Was A Really Long Game I

[00:31:22] So You Kept Going And After A While Some Guy Was Watching My Game And Was Standing Behind Me And I Had A Few People Who Were Standing There After Watching Me Play This Back Man Which Felt Awesome It Felt Like Being Steve Weeby In The King Of Kong Or Whatever Right Yeah Yeah Yeah They Carries You

[00:31:52] And Then Like An Hour Later I Think I Get Up To Go Like Go Across The Hall And Get Ice Or Something For The Hotel Room And Come Back And I Passed The Arcade And I See That Guy Playing The Ms. Pac-Man Machine And The Next Morning I I See He He He Got To Fuck Up This Ten Year Old I Was Like 17 It Was The Most Mad Bad I Came To

[00:32:24] Jump Into The Gameplay Is Still Very Solid And Obviously Iconic For A Reason It Is An Early Game And It Like Represents Video Gaming In Its Infancy But I Think Of That Era Of Video Games Of stuff uh ms pac-man to me is like kind of the definitive game of that era okay yeah that makes

[00:32:51] sense i'm not super into those games i mean you know we used to go to nathan's you know that always had the arcade in the back and all that stuff and yeah we would play those games but uh and those are fun but i'm not good at them so fuck those games no i mean they're just they're just uh challenging but they're fun you know they're cool yeah definitely but uh all right so ms pac-man my number five what's your number four mike my number four is a similar situation where it's like i

[00:33:19] could pick the whole franchise but like you know you gotta gotta pick one i guess sure yeah coming off the slot where i picked four i guess i gotta pick i gotta pick one for this one if you must yeah if i must yeah and i'm going with uh tony hawk pro skater two hell yeah that's an honorable mention for me yes yeah i mean these games obviously uh hit hit the friend group the 10 year old friend group like crack uh when we were playing these games and we would just play them all the time and i guess

[00:33:47] i'm not really i mean it was either gonna between one and two for me um i think maybe one has the more iconic soundtrack which is of course the the whole thing with these games yeah that's the one with uh superman by goldfinger so it clears you know that's the best one and gorilla radio um and gorilla radio yeah yeah uh but i think i remember the levels from two more uh okay you know so i'm kind of mixing one and two sort of here but i'm picking two because i think that's it's a little more refined

[00:34:13] whatever i don't know it's it's fun i haven't really played these games and obviously forever um i know they did that like re-release of one into you recently uh that was well that came out in 2020 i think it was like six years ago uh they did actually recently do three and four like that came out really in the last year or so i haven't played that but i did get the uh the re-release of one and two together uh which is like a full-on remake of those two games right so it's graphical updates and all that stuff uh and they play great uh they play really really fun uh and so i got it

[00:34:42] back in 2020 uh when it came out because also in 2020 i was back in the games in a big way as we talked about then uh i got switch and you know all that stuff uh and i had my ps4 and i got that tony hawk game and had a blast with it and recently when i was unemployed a few months back i started playing that tony hawk game again because it was just like like needed something to do so i played tony hawk and ended up uh like beating the game like you know there's still like challenges and stuff to do in all the levels and stuff but i i unlocked all the levels and got through all the main stuff in those

[00:35:11] games and all that they're a blast there's so much fun and it's a it's a great like game to just be able to pop on play for a half hour while you're waiting to do something else like that kind of thing yeah yeah well i remember just recently when i went to visit friends of the show dave and megan and becca who made us watch convoy and and the mighty morph and power rangers movies uh yeah we were playing tony hawk underground 2 okay so it's you know one of the later entries in the franchise but still and that was like oh baby it's coming back you know like but it was so it was so funny uh just

[00:35:40] all the like trying so hard to remember how to do a christ air uh you know what were the specials oh no is underground one of the ones where you can get off the board and like walk around the underground is the first one where you can get off the board yeah there's like a story to it and you you create your own character and then you meet all the pros and you like are uh trying to go pro or something like that um and then two i guess continues that i don't really remember um yeah ton of fun basically

[00:36:07] is what i'm getting at and those games are great so tony hawk 2 okay i have one last tony hawk 2 story that i'm gonna throw out there but uh i had tony hawk's pro skater 2 on the n64 and loved it played it all the time all that stuff there was one day so i had a friend named jamie who i was like we were in like second and third grade together we were pretty good friends back then all that stuff i went over to his house and i brought tony hawk and uh he asked to borrow it for a little bit and i was like

[00:36:31] oh yeah sure you can borrow it for a while fine and then you know he was borrowing it and then i moved i think i was gonna say don't tell me he moved well so here's what happened so i moved because i moved uh the summer between second and third grade so i think i was friends with jamie from like you know first and second grade and then i moved we didn't move far you know i moved to like another house like nearby but uh you know it might might have been even later but in any case i moved and we like

[00:36:57] kind of lost touch and he still had my game uh and like a few years passed like a few like years passed i hadn't heard from him and uh at this point like i wasn't even really thinking about it anymore i was like man i like every once in a while i would like you know a couple years passed and it's like i don't really play the n64 that much anymore i'm onto the ps2 or you know all that and so a few years passed and one day where you know me and my brother are hanging out and my mom's upstairs and it's you know after school and it's nighttime and there's a knock on the door and it's jamie and his

[00:37:27] mom whoa this is years later like you know we we used to hang out and we were like eight years old and then didn't really for many years and then finally he showed up it was maybe like seventh grade and he showed up on my doorstep and i was like hey like what what are you doing here yeah uh and they're like oh so we're moving okay and and jamie uh was going through his stuff and realized he still had your copy of tony hawk's pro skater 2 and uh wanted to return it to you before we moved that's crazy

[00:37:56] and we're like oh wow well crazy come in and then we came in he came in and we played tony hawk's pro skater 2 for like two hours that's awesome and then he left and i never saw him again but i was thrilled to get back yeah but uh it was one of those things like oh my god i can't believe that he brought this back this is amazing that's awesome yeah tony hawk's pro skater 2 it brings people together is what i'm saying but uh i'm interested in your number four if that story

[00:38:24] doesn't get i can't believe that didn't get tony hawk 2 onto your list that's crazy uh so my number four technically is three games okay yeah i'm glad we both did this good my mine makes a little more sense than yours i'm just gonna say okay yeah no i mean yours yours is great because like it brought the n64 era together and stuff uh but i'm talking about game boy color here uh and it's pokemon red blue and yellow uh those three games which you've never played before mike so you have no context for

[00:38:51] i tried to play the pikachu one i was like i want the pikachu that's the yellow i need it uh and it turns out the universe said no yeah uh pokemon red blue and yellow are the games i've selected for number four uh blue i think is the one that i played the most when i was a kid but we had all three of them i basically blue was mine red was my sister's and then eventually we got yellow as well but uh yeah pokemon uh i was five years old when pokemon aired on tv and it was the biggest thing in the world to me i loved pokemon so much uh you know i think like the neighbor kids

[00:39:20] who were a few years older than me like they introduced me to it i got hooked on the tv show i hooked like i think i found out i think i knew the tv show first and then found out there was a video game and had to get it uh you know and i had a game boy color uh that had super mario brothers on it uh like we had super mario brothers deluxe or whatever and we play that and then eventually yeah we got pokemon blue and i was obsessed with it got into that uh didn't know that you had to save the game like i wasn't familiar with the idea of saving the game you know yeah i grew up on the super

[00:39:48] nintendo for the first few years so i was like yeah you play the game until you're done playing and then the next time you play it you have to restart right that's how it works so the idea of saving the game i don't think i even really understood until i got like a ps2 uh yeah maybe by the end i i definitely had a memory card for the n64 but i didn't know how to use it for a memory pack yes i think we talked about that maybe last week or something but uh yeah so pokemon red blue and yellow i had blue we

[00:40:15] had red and i would play both char charmander was my guy uh you know my starter pokemon because he was the fire guy so he was cool i do have a story surrounding yellow though okay which is uh so obviously you know the genius behind the pokemon games is that and this is like a genius move on nintendo's part is that they can basically go in your pocket yes exactly that uh but a genius move on nintendo's part is that they somehow tricked people into buying two games at the same time yep you know these are you buy you get red you get blue they are essentially the same game there is

[00:40:44] like slight differences in the fact that like your default player name can be red or your default player name can be blue in red and blue but you can also put your own name in there so it doesn't really matter and then there's like i think there's like maybe three or four pokemon that like are exclusive to one that you can't get in the other one or vice versa right like it's you know so of the 150 pokemon like 147 are available in each one and if you want to get a mall which is you know the tagline that's the tagline right gotta catch them all if you want to get them all you either have

[00:41:14] to have both games or you have to get like a trade link like there was a thing you had a cable right or something you had to have a cable that connected two game boys that could then trade the games back the pokemon back and forth to each other brilliant strategy you know and so they essentially tricked kids into buying two games and with pokemon red blue and yellow they tricked kids into buying three because with yellow essentially it is the same game as red and blue but now pikachu follows you around uh yeah it's arguably a more limiting game because like you said it has that time thing

[00:41:43] but also you're limited to just that starter pokemon you can't get char as a charmander uh or squirtle or bulbasaur in those games because pikachu is automatically your starter but because of how popular the tv show was where pikachu was following you around it's like well i gotta have the pikachu gotta do it you know uh and so we had red and blue and i was maybe like six years old when pokemon yellow came out and i need to have it like i was like i had to have pokemon yellow obviously like this

[00:42:08] is the biggest thing in the world like i now pikachu can follow me around like in the show this is crazy crazy and i was on a soccer team when i was a kid and as you might imagine from the person that i am i was bad at it uh you know there's not a good soccer player i was one of those kids who was like picking grass in the back yeah kind of thing uh in every sport that i did uh and i remember like you know i was begging my parents for pokemon yellow i really wanted it all that kind of stuff my dad

[00:42:35] said something like we were going off to a soccer game and he was like listen like because i was begging for like the whole car ride look listen if you score a goal in this game incredible i will buy you pokemon yellow and uh i have never locked in harder than i had in my entire life you saw the matrix basically yes and i scored a goal in that game and i got pokemon yellow so yeah that's my story

[00:43:01] with pokemon yellow is i wanted it hard enough and got it incredible good for you um but yeah that's my uh my game boy era game but uh yeah that was i had that in the game boy we had the game boy pocket for my sister and the game boy color for me and then eventually we got the game boy advance which was like the big blocky one yeah yeah uh and then eventually the game boy advance sp which is the one you mentioned before the flip one with the backlight uh and that's the best machine nintendo ever created i think uh it's i mean maybe the switch is pretty sophisticated you know all that stuff

[00:43:29] but the game boy advance sp you know before that you had to have like a light that attached to your game boy in order to see your game if you're playing at night you know yeah i remember you could there's a button to turn on and off the backlight and i was like that's crazy yeah absolutely and a few years back actually uh i was back in new york and i found my old game boy advance sp and i was talking to my brother and he was like oh yeah i took it for a while but uh yeah here are all the games if you want to take it back with you and i was like great so i took it back and i have all the games i started playing pokemon fire red for a while which is like the remake

[00:43:57] for the game boy advance of pokemon red nice uh and uh yeah had a great time doing that only played it through like the first two gyms or whatever but uh still had a good time yeah like i said i never just never had a game boy uh when i was prime pokemon age so i never played them we you know i watched the show played the card game and then uh the cards got banned at my school because obviously children cannot be trusted sure um and so then i was kind of it really i just sort of was like well okay this

[00:44:24] isn't that fun i can't play this at lunch with my friends now so like what do i do with these uh yeah and then just sort of aged out of it you know it was like i'm too cool for this yeah and i i sort of had a similar trajectory like aging out of it um you know and then it was a weird so i played pokemon red and yellow red blue and yellow i also got uh the next generation which was uh gold silver and diamonds i want to say or crystal crystal was the next one it was gold silver and crystal okay uh and

[00:44:50] then so i played those and then by the time it got to the next generation it was like ruby and sapphire i was pretty much like i played a little bit of ruby and i was like i'm good i like i yeah i must put away childish things now but my brother was very into that game and he was very into diamond diamond and pearl and all that i have to go watch godfather now yeah i did i did watch the godfather when i was 10 so uh yeah absolutely but yeah no i kind of grew out of it as well and i saw the first like two movies in theaters i didn't see the third one in theaters yeah uh you know but like my brother

[00:45:17] was in the third one so i was still kind of like aware of what was happening with pokemon i was also like eventually kind of grew into the hot take kit of like you know digimon's actually better uh i forgot that's your hot take yeah that was kind of my thing at least with the tv show um but uh yeah and so you know all that stuff and then when i was in high school like an interesting thing started to happen where like a few of my friends got really back into pokemon in a big way and they were playing fire red and leaf green and whatever the new one was like at that time like

[00:45:43] black and white or whatever i think that might have been a one and like they were playing pokemon cards like in the lunchroom and i was very much like guys people can see us like we can't like what are you doing perceived exactly uh so i was pretty embarrassed by that but you know after a few years uh you know i was back in college and a similar thing where like me and my friends would get drunk and watch pokemon or where you started with digimon and then eventually switched over to pokemon because they both hit netflix around the same time yeah uh all that stuff so it all came back around but i haven't played a new pokemon game in a very

[00:46:11] long time i know there is they just came out with one right poke pia or whatever uh oh yeah there well there was also a regular like game before that this year last year uh i forget what it was called but uh yeah now there is another new one i forget the whole thing but yeah it's like they're it's bigger than ever now you know with magic the gathering and just to the card game i think is like gigantic again it's like yeah yeah i mean this year is the 30th year anniversary of pokemon so i

[00:46:38] think that's also a big uh you know a nostalgia thing people kind of coming back to it but yeah but i had those games i also had like pokemon snap and pokemon pinball pokemon stadium and all that stuff you know there's a ton of great games around that time yeah i think i had pokemon that's the picture one right pokemon snap pokemon snap is the one where you're taking pictures of pokemon it rocks it was fun yeah you can also beat it in like an hour and a half like you can get through the whole game pretty quickly but all right that's my number four pokemon red blue and yellow mike d what's your

[00:47:03] number three okay to move on to number three it's it's we're beyond childish delights now forget these these frivolities uh we're we're moving into serious art mike yeah um i set that up like i was gonna put some bullshit in here but actually i didn't mean to do that um i was i was fully expecting you to be like i don't know yeah asteroids slide three or whatever yeah i should have done that i mean slide

[00:47:32] three is serious art no you know but whatever the most recent jack and daxter game is um oh man that that franchise has laid dormant for too long we need to bring it back wasn't there i thought there was like a semi-recent what am i thinking of no because naughty dog made the jack and daxter games and they've been making uncharted and last of us uh there was there was jack one two and three there was jack x combat racing and then i think there was like a psp game there was daxter on psp and then there was

[00:47:57] not thinking of a psp i think there was like one last one on the ps2 that naughty dog didn't develop that was like ported from the psp yeah or something like that but uh yeah i never played that one um but yeah they haven't uh touched it in a very long time and uh i think they should daxter is still my uh profile picture on my playstation uh incredible still my guy nice uh but anyway my number three is uh cd project red's the witcher 3 okay that makes sense yeah so it is like a sexually serious game

[00:48:25] not serious game but you know intense game um but yeah this was uh i had been aware of the witcher games or at least since witcher 2 um i didn't play it at the time because i believe it was a it's probably not a pc exclusive game but anyway uh i heard about it blah blah blah and then witcher 3 came out and was getting a ton of hype and i was like well let me check out this this witcher thing what is this yeah uh and then that was it and now it's like one of my favorite properties i've never played the other games because i've heard they're actually not that good uh oh really it's like

[00:48:54] yeah i think witcher 2 is pretty good witcher 1 i've heard is like very primitive compared to the other games and like uh you know that they were like a kind of indie upstart polish dev company and like and the the leap to witcher 3 is like holy shit these guys could pull this off um is what i've you know read a little bit about um but yeah witcher 3 uh is great incredible game huge it's one of

[00:49:18] those sprawling rpg open world you play you know geralt of rivia witcher witch hunter or monster hunter uh and you just kill monsters and do do rpg stuff and i actually finished it which i've played a bunch of other rpgs before this okay uh you know oblivion skyrim you know those are elder scrolls like whatever other kind of games like that but i would always just run out of steam you know it'd be that thing where if you do you play games like that also right sure where you do that thing where

[00:49:47] you're playing you're playing you're playing and then you're like well i got other stuff to do i'll come back to this and then you come back two or three weeks two or three months later whatever it is and you're like why the fuck am i in this dungeon what is happening what who's this guy i got following me like you don't remember where you are at all and you're like yeah i guess i'll start over or whatever and then you get to the same thing happens where you get to a point and put the game down you come back to it and you're like what the fuck why am i on top of a mountain so that didn't happen for

[00:50:14] witcher 3 with me is where i'm going uh i was like locked in uh and you know got me into the books because it's based on the whole series of novels and short stories and all that stuff and yeah really opened up a whole new uh like you know passion for me of the witcher franchise character the whole so yeah which witcher 3 it's incredible um i actually never beat the there's they did two expansions to it uh there was hearts of stone which has one of the scariest characters in a game i've seen

[00:50:42] um dontero dim who's fucking terrifying who just kind of is this omnipresent evil thing uh that you make a deal with in the beginning of that dlc uh and he's just around it it's one of those things that it turned out uh when they dropped the uh expansion to it and he became like a main character people were like holy shit that character model which you don't like you know whatever that character gone to a dim is in the main game but you never interact with him and he's just like there's cut

[00:51:10] scenes like there's like a wedding scene or whatever and he's just one of the guests to the wedding and they're like holy fuck he's been there the whole game like oh my god it's like a whole mind-blowing thing um and then they did what was the they did another one uh flesh and blood which was all vampire or wine and blood something like that i forget it's all vampire stuff and i never finished that one because by then it was a couple years later and it's another let me it's very cool that their expansions are like significant 30 hour like it's not like hey this is gonna cost 25

[00:51:38] dollars and it's some horse armor or whatever the oblivion bullshit microtransaction thing was it was like here's an entire new game uh sort of like the uh last of us ellie thing i forget what that was called right the left behind uh dlc right or the the uncharted one you mentioned before where it's like oh this is like actually a substantial expansion new storyline new new area thing um so i never finished that one but which were three number my number three favorite game of all time nice yeah i uh i have not played the witcher 3 i've seen it played a little bit i think kyle

[00:52:07] cullen the producer slash music supervisor of this podcast uh is a big fan of that game as well and i've seen him play it a little bit uh seems fun but it also seems like one of those games so i like we kind of mentioned before i'm a pretty story driven game player uh gamer i guess uh and the thing about a game like the witcher 3 or like skyrim uh or that kind of thing is that if the world is too expansive i don't know where to go i don't know what to do yeah you know i i need like a

[00:52:33] direction to head in uh and so you know sometimes i'll be playing some of those games like i i liked horizon when i played that and that's a similar like yeah there's a very big world like you can kind of go and do whatever there's a million different side quests you can do um but even when i was playing horizon i was like all right where's the next story point that i have to go to i'm gonna go straight to that if i see any side stuff on the way maybe i'll do it but otherwise i'm just i'm going straight there i just need like some kind of like direction to go to and i i feel like like i played a little bit of skyrim when that came out because that game was so huge and that

[00:53:02] kind of thing and it was just like the first like hour or so where you're like stuck doing a story thing i was pretty into it and then the second it like let me loose i was like where do i go i don't know what do i do now i don't know where that is uh but the witcher seems like it's a great game uh my only familiarity with the witcher is uh the one episode of the witcher blood origin that we had to watch for the michelle yo podcast yes yes i remember uh but of course you were a big fan of the tv show uh at least for a while until uh it became bad uh yeah you know uh during the

[00:53:30] cavaliers uh now it's is it still on the air it finally ended right or is it i did that did that last season come out okay i have no i think the fourth season came out which is the liam hemsworth season i don't know if there was a if there is a fifth fifth and final kind of thing i don't think it's like official unless it's been canceled which i don't know but i don't think it's uh like over yet really okay yeah yeah are they doing uh the witcher 3 video game is still like the last game like they haven't made a witcher 4 yet right they have announced a witcher 4

[00:54:00] uh i think at the the last game awards which i don't remember i guess i was in 25 i don't really know when that is off the top of my head they dropped a uh like tease like a cinematic trailer for it got a story trailer so no i don't think there's any game footage or anything but they are making a fourth witcher which is interesting yeah that's exciting um but yeah but that is also a weird thing with like the modern state of video games where like you know in a similar way to like prestige tv shows and stuff it takes forever to get a sequel to a game that you love uh

[00:54:29] to the point where like by the time the sequel finally comes out it's like well i forget everything that happened in the previous game yeah uh so if i want to remember that i should probably go back and replay it or i'm just not going to play this game i guess pretty much although i'm sure yeah i don't know some of this usually some kind of like recap or something at the beginning but still you know yeah it definitely helps but yeah it used to be in the in the ps2 era it was a you know jack one 2001 jack two 2002 jack three like it was just like back to back you know they came out in quicker

[00:54:57] succession but games got bigger and take a lot longer to make and now yeah we've been waiting on gta 6 for you know 13 years or whatever well yeah for sure but they also at least with gta games they they figured out infinite money with the online versions so like gta online why make a new one when you can just continue to print money from gta online why spend money and make a new game although we are allegedly getting a new game this year i think or so that's what they say i mean and and

[00:55:25] honestly and they've also re-released gta 5 like six times uh you know for because that was a ps3 game that has like then came out on the ps4 and then it came out of the ps5 like you know that kind of thing and everything yeah yeah so they've been able to like that like that game on its own has been sustainable for the last 13 years but you know there used to be a time when it would be hey gta 3 came out the next year gta san andreas the next year vice city like they were just always

[00:55:50] gta games coming out and uh now it's not the case anymore because of uh the bloated nature of the video game industry and you know i mean it faces similar challenges to the film industry and tv and everything and all that stuff but witcher 3 seems good i've never played it yeah great stuff i mean you know i think it's um i did actually just recently in the last couple months like reinstall it and go back to try to play it again and i was like kind of frustrated with the controls i was really

[00:56:17] like what the hell yeah so it's more i think the story and the sort of getting me into the books for the witcher and just the like the whole thing uh that it like really has that extra weight for me but it is a great game the story is great uh and it's cool it's it's very fun interaction with the the books in the witcher 3 because it's separate you know it's not like canon or whatever uh it's not the same continuity as the books but there's lots of stuff that happens in the game well actually a lot

[00:56:45] of like the side quests that you would skip um are like oh this side quest is like this chapter is like oh oh like oh cool later on like once i go back and like went and read the books it was like oh shit this thing where it's like you come across like a carnival barker guy who's claiming he's got a dragon in his tent and it's really this other thing painted and then it gets loose and kills a bunch of like oh shit that's a chapter that happens in the book that geralt runs into this thing and it's like oh that's a lot it turns out that's a lot of fun uh so i don't know i'd recommend

[00:57:11] read the books okay read a book idiot you know i don't got time to read books mike i'm playing all these video games i got video games to play yeah uh but all right so that is the witcher 3 mike d's number three video game of all time my number three is my ps3 era game and uh this is a game that uh you know this is my local multiplayer game this is the one that is bringing people together and that

[00:57:36] is rock band 2 whoa which uh and very specifically rock band 2 i mean i was a huge fan of uh the rock band series so i think we should talk about the uh the music guitar hero boy or a rock band boy i was a rock band boy baby uh yes but we should talk about like the music game craze of the mid 2000s because man that was a crazy few years uh that was going on uh so were you a guitar hero or rock

[00:58:00] band fan i was a guitar hero guy because um i didn't have friends to come over no uh yeah i mean but the weird story about them is that harmonics uh developed the first two guitar hero games and then they split off from uh you know the publisher who was putting out those games i think i forget which one um but like they ended up going to lead they left guitar hero behind to create rock band okay and so meanwhile guitar hero continued never soft was developing them uh the same the same developer

[00:58:29] as tony hawk's pro skater yeah absolutely and so never soft continued making the guitar hero games from three onward uh but harmonics you know really like kickstarted that whole music rhythm game genre with the guitar hero games the first two and then really kind of used rock band as a platform to expand it you know obviously you had guitar but you also you know you had guitar and bass and guitar hero uh and rock band added drums and vocals uh and so guitar hero 3 came out and i think it was still

[00:58:55] just guitar and bass and then it was sort of like a battle between the two franchises for many years and like they were each putting out like a game a year uh and so the next year it was like rock band two and guitar hero world tour and guitar hero world tour was also guitar bass drums vocals you know right right and so there wasn't you know what really differentiated the two was that uh you know they both had different soundtracks uh so whatever songs you wanted to play and sometimes there was

[00:59:20] some overlap between the two games too uh but i think what set rock band two apart from the other music games and even from the first rock band is the very expansive uh world tour mode yeah so that was the thing where like you were essentially like you and your friends and like whoever you wanted to play the game with like you were creating a band and like you were sort of creating a narrative of the story and like starting off playing like you know small grungy you know shows like that kind of

[00:59:47] thing for you know drunks and stuff yeah and like as the tour progresses like you're and like you're playing well and you you unlock songs as you go along and so those become part of your repertoire until eventually you're playing like major big stadiums and all that stuff uh and so that progression was really cool and that was a lot of fun plus the soundtrack was great uh and i think a big part of like i was a big rock kid uh you know rock metal uh punk you know ska uh all that stuff i got i got

[01:00:15] really into like my ska punk phase that never really stopped uh around like middle school but these these rock band games were coming out 2007 2008 was this one so i was yeah like freshman year of high school i think was when rock band 2 came out and uh yeah i think a lot of my music taste uh was partially shaped by the rock band games uh and i got introduced to a lot of artists that i might not have gotten into otherwise like the beastie boys i think i heard sabotage for the first time playing rock band

[01:00:42] you know that kind of thing i got into the replacements because alex chilton was on rock band 2 you know and uh just looking at i'm like was looking back at the soundtrack and it's like oh yeah they had afi and rise against and chili peppers and cheap trick and acdc uh let there be rock by acdc was in there it's natius d uh who was in there as well bon jovi lincoln park judas priest the who you know all all that stuff which was great uh and so i was already a fan of a lot of that stuff and i got

[01:01:08] introduced to a lot of stuff through uh rock band so as like kind of a music geek sort of thing like that was really exciting uh and also it was like the best time you could have with your friends you know just pick an instrument and uh do your thing genuinely like my brother uh i would mostly play with him because obviously we lived in the same house yeah uh and i would usually like be on guitar he would be on drums and he got so into drums from rock band that he eventually got a drum set and like became a very talented drummer uh when he was a kid so and and is still but now he lives in an

[01:01:37] apartment in brooklyn so he can't take his drum set you know all that stuff so uh yeah rock band two rocks it is i think the best one uh around the time rock band three comes out we did get rock band three and that one added piano to the mix which uh yeah you seem surprised and it's because that one didn't really take off as much as uh yeah i've never even heard of that yeah no they had a piano in rock band three so it was another instrument that you had to kind of get attached to it and rock band three was good it still had like a lot of fun stuff and they had to like really specifically

[01:02:05] add some songs that featured piano so that you could use that so you know all that but uh it was definitely like at the point where like the games were starting to wane down that the craze was starting to go away but like they also had beatles rock bands uh which which i which blew my mind at the time because the beatles music was like legendarily difficult to license right uh and was still an incredible game i i thought and like actually had all the master recordings of the beatles uh by the time rock band two came out they were all master recordings too because for a while it was like

[01:02:32] yeah sound like covers of the songs for like the first few guitar heroes in the first rock band i think like some master recordings were in there but a lot of them were covers a lot of them were covers and i was gonna say i feel like i remember rock band having better music better song options but i we played i played guitar hero more sure and if you were playing for the guitar i think guitar hero had better guitar parts for you to play which i think was part of it too right yeah so that's funny though

[01:02:58] but i but i specifically remember what it would be like oh this one's a cover like you could tell like it's not the actual song yeah but uh like there was beatles rock band there was a green day rock band so of course i was all about that uh you know all that stuff and also one of the cool things about it you know is that you could actually export the set lists from other rock band games and put them into rock band 2 or rock band 3 uh so you could export you couldn't do a beatles rock band that was part of the licensing thing with the beatles you couldn't export that one but yeah you could

[01:03:25] export the entire rock band one soundtrack get it in rock band 2 uh and then there was also downloadable tracks that like came out every week that were just like you could download from different artists and like they would like just a new three pack of songs came out and it's like oh yeah here's this artist or this genre or whatever and uh we probably spent hundreds of dollars like downloading songs for rock band over over like a couple of years and i would like steal stuff i me and a couple of my friends like i would get their playstation network logins that i could sign into their stuff and if they

[01:03:53] downloaded a song like if they bought something i could then download it and vice versa like if i bought something they could get it so we like amassed like a you know hundreds of songs in our rock band libraries it was great no it was fantastic and i think the instruments are still in my mom's house somewhere and i hope they are because at some point i'm gonna eventually get everything out here to missoula and like build like a video game console shrine of all my old stuff and have rock band set up ready

[01:04:16] to go for whenever i need i'm sure you will yeah exactly uh but yeah so rock band 2 huge game in my household and that's why it's my number three nice hell yeah my number two game moving on is uh similar to witcher 3 in that it's a huge open world sprawling rpg question mark depends on how you qualify not really in the sort of mechanical sense but i think i think you really do embody the

[01:04:44] character of arthur morgan when you're playing red dead redemption 2 okay and yes that's uh my number two game of all time this is also sort of like uh could be either one but i think two is like major uh improvement leap forward from red dead redemption yeah not even to mention red dead revolver which is a game most people don't even talk about anymore right that's technically the original game right that's the first one that's the first one uh which i played the shit out of also

[01:05:10] at the time um but yeah red dead 2 fucking incredible uh it's definitely got some of that stuff though where it's like why why is this in here you know whatever it's just the open worldliness of it all and all that yeah but yeah i don't know just incredible game did you ever did you ever play these games red dead one or two i've definitely like played a little bit uh at a friend's house or something but i've actually like never dived into the world of red dead redemption it's one of those things like i really should i think there was a time because red dead redemption 2 especially i think

[01:05:39] both of them have been like re-released on like every console since they came out right so like there is like you can buy the ps5 version of red dead redemption 2 or whatever uh and i've seen it in target before and it's like 20 bucks i'm like and maybe this is the time and i haven't done it yet okay i really should i really should i gotta i i gotta catch up with that one yeah absolutely shit it's fucking incredible um so it's a prequel to red dead 1 um which takes place i didn't even

[01:06:02] know that i had no yes it takes place in so that one is 1910 or 1911 red dead 1 because it's about you know the death of the west kind of thing you know there's it's the outlaw it's an outlaw gang the van der lind gang and you played that one it's john barston and in it he talks about it's you know the gang is oh that one the gang has been broken up and uh you sort of get blackmailed by the government to like bounty hunt your old gang it's like they catch you at the beginning and

[01:06:31] we're gonna kill you or or you can help us kill your old gang and that's what each level is like hunting down and finding the old members or each mission or whatever and then so this is a prequel i think it's 1890 or something it's 10 or 15 years or 20 years earlier than that and it's john marston's a young the new member of the gang you're playing this older member and all this stuff and it's it's sort of like the story of why the gang broke up in the by the time the first game happens uh and it's just fucking incredible it's really powerful it's got the big open world you know it's

[01:07:00] it's a rock star game if you've played a grand theft auto you get the basics of it all but it's the wild west um and it's just awesome the story is really powerful and it's got these amazing setups and payoffs where things happen it's told in chapters where it's like each camp because you keep having to flee to a new camp and everything and there's like stuff that happens in chapter one and two and three which is what it's like it's the reaping and sowing tweet or it's like you know

[01:07:26] we're sowing and everything's great and then by the time chapter six and seven come around and you're you're you're reaping it's like nah what have i done uh and that stuff is really powerful because it's things that you don't realize there's you know like whatever you you have to uh well i won't i won't spoil but things happen that are like oh shit when it when it connects hours later when you realize what what what that one mission meant is happening to you but you didn't know it yet um

[01:07:53] kind of thing and uh yeah it's just you know how many times can you cry at a video game turns out a lot okay so powerful which will come into effect also in my first my number one as well but yeah red dead 2 and it's it's really long it can be really long because it's open world there's lots of stuff to explore and do and and all that um but i think it's i think it's worth playing if you're into those kind of you know it's very narrative even though it is very open world um and and i remember playing

[01:08:22] red dead 2 and then watching uh the wild bunch and being like oh this is where they got that idea from so so it's like all very similar because that's also about gang hunting hunting themselves down you know or whatever um right so yeah check out red dead redemption 2 okay yeah no that is one that i feel like i should play and part of my thing with video games i feel like part of the thing with games and narrative driven games especially like i think a lot of people just jump into like the new release it's like oh hey red dead redemption 2 is coming out but because i am me i'm like well i got

[01:08:51] to know the whole story so i got to go back to the original and like play that first and then it becomes a whole project and i don't have time to do it yeah yeah yeah but i do i do want to check out the red dead games because i i think i would really love them i think as far as rockstar goes like i played some gta stuff back in the day obviously and that would mostly be like at my neighbor's house like we would sneak in san andreas because my parents wouldn't let me have gta and his older brother had it like yeah exactly like that that kind of thing so i played some gta in the day uh but really my rockstar

[01:09:19] games were i played bully quite a bit uh man remember bully hell yeah it was a lot of fun and then la noir was also a game that i had on the ps3 and loved and i don't know why they never did another one of those like that was such a good like concept for a game it was so much fun uh they should do it again i think la noir redux or whatever would be great i can't tell you how ingrained in my

[01:09:40] daily life press x to doubt is and that's from la noir um i say it every day all the time for like about everything whenever somebody says something we're like i don't believe like press x to doubt uh like uh so agreed i guess that's what i'm getting at they should make another one and i it was aaron staten in that game who played uh cole phelps who was also on mad men and it's a huge mad men fan i was

[01:10:07] excited to see ken cosgrove in the game uh but uh yeah la noir rocks but red dead redemption and red dead red dead redemption two is your pick for number two that's my pick yeah it's a huge i mean red dead one is great uh but red dead redemption two is like yeah second best game of all time okay there you go uh my number two uh is from 2018 this is a playstation 4 game uh that you can also play on the playstation 5 uh from one of my favorite developers insomniac games and that is the 2018

[01:10:33] spider-man nice which uh yeah no i am obviously a huge spider-man fan we've talked about that many times on the podcast in the past uh we've talked about marvel movies many times uh in in the past yeah us exactly but spidey's always been my guy you know i've always been a huge spider-man fan uh we of course consider uh sam raimi spider-man 2 as one of the three great films uh alongside citizen cane and vertigo uh yep this is how we talk about it and so i was very excited uh when this was

[01:11:02] announced because uh insomniac is a developer that i've always loved uh like they were one of the guys from the playstation 2 era they uh did the ratchet and clank games and they still do the ratchet and clank games whenever they come out with a new one which is great that's what i was thinking about not jack and daxter was ratchet and clank oh really okay i love the ratchet and clank games i'm a huge fan was there there was one semi-recently maybe i think there was one a few years ago there was one of the ps5 which i have played okay yeah that's what i was thinking of i forget what it was

[01:11:29] called ratchet and clank like a rift in time or something like that something like that yeah something along those lines um but that was also insomniac they're still making them uh and there was a rational movie a few years back too like a cgi animated uh movie which i never saw but they did release a game along with and i did play that game because i'm a huge clank guy and so yeah the ratchet and clank was like one of my franchises like through the ps2 and the ps3 and beyond like they there's usually like at least one every console uh every sony console but like in the ps2 and ps3

[01:11:57] era they released like eight of them like there was a lot yeah uh and they were all great all fantastic games and then in the ps3 era insomniac also did uh the resistance series so resistance one two and three were all insomniac and then they they were like sony exclusive and then they were able to kind of branch out do their own thing and they created a game called sunset overdrive which i have not played because that was an xbox game at the time i think it is now available on a playstation platform i'm not totally sure but i and i remember not getting great reviews but i think it has developed

[01:12:25] like a cult audience over the years um i think so yeah uh in any case now they are still occasionally making ratchet and clank games but it feels like at this point sony is using insomniac to be like their marvel factory if they can get marvel rights insomniac's making those games yeah and so the trailer i think just announced or just announced like there's going to be their their wolverine game is finally happening in like november that's coming out so that's exciting but they have made three spider-man games uh and spider-man 2018 i got it and uh as a big spider-man

[01:12:53] fan it just works on every level for me i think the story is really terrific uh i think the way it incorporates you into spider-man's world the web swinging the mechanics all of that stuff is just really really fun i played that game back when it came out in like 2018 and i did the rare thing i that i don't do with most games mike when in most open world games uh where i did do every side quest and i hell yeah 100 percented uh spider-man 2018 nice uh and i think

[01:13:21] it was easy for me to do that because the game like encourages you to just be like hey swinging around new york city you're stopping crimes you're spider-man you're doing your thing and occasionally running into something so even by the time i finished the story of the game i had already done like 90 percent of everything that there was to do so it's like hey i just have a few last things to do and then i can wrap this up uh which i did and then i 100 percented it again or i 100 percented it and then a few months back during my period of unemployment uh actually i went through the spider-man

[01:13:50] 2018 and the miles morales spider-man game to finally play spider-man 2 because i hadn't gotten that when it came out and i was like okay i can finally play spider-man 2 but i want to replay these ones first to refresh myself from the story and all that stuff and i 100 percented it again like i did everything again a second hell yeah uh and i did the same thing with miles morales and the same thing with spider-man 2 i really like all three games uh i think they're all really great uh i feel like spider-man 2 weirdly it gets a lot of hate on twitter i don't you're not on twitter anymore

[01:14:16] so you might not see that as much um but i think spider-man 2 is still really great too uh but the first spider-man 2018 i think the story is just so strong i think it's just so much fun to uh it like really captures like the joy of being spider-man i guess uh and has a great uh you know i think i've mentioned this many times talking about spider-man on the podcast uh but it really understands the thing that i think sam ramey really understands which is that if things are going well for peter parker things have to be going wrong for spider-man and if things are going well for spider-man things

[01:14:46] have to be going wrong for peter parker like there has to be like he has to be suffering in some part of his life uh and i think insomniac's uh trilogy of games like really gets that uh and uh that's a lot of fun so uh spider-man 2018 it's a blast nice yeah i mean that game oh great uh i remember playing that with some friends at the time uh where we got it all together and uh we would sit in like a playstation party you know like the voice chat thing yeah and just be playing together like

[01:15:12] obviously it's not it's a single player game uh but we would just all be playing at the same time together for like oh my god like what quest are you on holy shit i can't wait till you get to this like what like you know we were just having a blast and that game is so good uh and we would i remember spending so much time just like doing the photo mode like swinging around and like taking cool screenshots and stuff like fuck this game's awesome uh but i never did the mile i never played miles morales and i haven't played uh spider-man 2 uh but yeah they're they're both great and they add a lot to it because i mean in the miles morales game you're obviously you're playing miles

[01:15:41] the whole time uh and it adds the element of like he has electric electricity powers also and can turn invisible uh so it kind of adds that to it and then spider-man 2 you get to toggle between the them so you get to play as peter parker and miles kind of throughout the game uh isn't there a couple quests in the first spider-man where you do play as miles right it's because he's a character yes uh but he doesn't have his powers until the end of the game yeah so you're you're playing as miles but it's more like a couple of like story missions where you're like walking through feast or sneak in this

[01:16:09] warehouse or whatever yeah like that kind of thing yeah that's neat yeah and then spider-man 2 adds like the venom powers on top of uh all that stuff too which is uh which is a lot of fun it makes very little sense like story-wise like the story like then because part of the uh the black suit spider-man thing is like you know he gets he eventually takes it off right now and so theoretically you shouldn't have those powers anymore and so the game has to like figure out a way for you to like well we don't want to rob the player of the powers they've gotten used to using over the last like 20 hours uh so

[01:16:36] they have to figure out a way for like you to have like a good symbiote to like be part of your thing which doesn't make a ton of sense narratively but yeah it's a video game so it's it it does the job it like you know it it does what it needs to do yeah exactly but i did recently see uh some was posting i guess there's a new uh like comic book arc called spider-versity going on okay like university but spider-versity uh and the i think issue one it's like got all my faves in there it's it's miles morales

[01:17:06] silk spider-gwen nice uh i don't know if peter if it's peter parker i don't remember there's like four or five of them like in a in like a college dorm thing and i was like oh shit am i about to get back into comics in a big way like because i was all about the spider like that all new arc thing they were doing like all new wolverine all new spider-gwen all right like you were in the x-23 and all that kind of stuff right yeah and silk and all that but those all ended at the time when i was reading them so i was like oh well i guess i'm done with comics now uh but if they're all back

[01:17:34] maybe i'm back you know we'll see there you go uh but all right that is spider-man my number two video game of all time and now we're down to number one these are the greatest games ever made as determined by mike and mike yes correct so mike d what is your number one video game of all time my number one video game of all time was kind of i mean i said before i didn't really necessarily have like a number one immediate locked in like this is it but like it wasn't immediate but it took like 10

[01:18:02] seconds it was basically might as well have been of course it's the last of us one hey there it is there it is of course but so yeah i i did last of us red dead redemption 2 wisher 3 all pretty quick and i was like those are sort of all the same kind kind of game not the same game and i was like i gotta get where's my n64s where's my tony hawk like i kind of panicked a little bit um but uh

[01:18:26] yeah last of us one i i bought a ps3 off my co-worker at fye so i could get this game really okay yeah i was so fucking hyped i was getting i think i was still subscribed to game informer or whatever at the time and was getting reading the articles and like all about it and uh i was like well i'm not gonna i didn't obviously didn't have a ps3 uh i was like well it's like a couple hundred whatever it was hundreds of dollars i'm like not gonna and this was a late period ps3 game too this

[01:18:55] was like towards the end of the ps3 life cycle yeah yeah and so like i because i had already gone to college i was you know my friends had ps3 whatever like it wasn't that big i didn't need one you know necessarily and then um or no and plus i had switched to xbox so i had i had n64 and then i had playstation ps and ps2 and then i got an xbox 360 okay so you know that was the whole console wars

[01:19:21] loyalties thing i don't even remember why probably because ps3 had no games no i don't i mean that was the narrative also the ps3 was like prohibitively expensive when it came out too yeah it was it was like six hundred dollars and yeah and it was six hundred dollars for a console where like the only real game was i think kill zone 2 and resistance fall of man like it was like those two games yeah now kill zone 2 rips but or kill kill zone rips i don't remember if i played the second one but anyway it was on the ps3 so you might not have yeah so i might not have ever gotten around to it

[01:19:50] but um so i switched to xbox 360 and i had that forever and it did eventually red ring which is so sad uh man devastating so anyway my co-worker at the time i was like man i was talking to him and i was like man there's this last of us game and like i can't wait i don't have a ps3 blah whatever blah blah blah yeah and uh eventually he was like hey look i'm short on rent this month do you want to buy my ps3 for i think it was like 250 dollars like it was and i was like

[01:20:19] done locked it locked it yes you can nobody don't know backseas um and uh yeah so i bought his ps3 and then was able to buy um last of us and then it's my favorite game of all time incredible narrative of course you know this the show here we everybody knows the story of now but um i have replayed this a couple times and this is one of those games actually i don't usually go back and play games that much that are like this this kind of narrative you know like obviously the online games like

[01:20:49] whatever um but i did i have played last of us one a couple times um that's why like i contrast that like i said before i've never gone back to play last of us 2 because it's like and double birds a little bit sure a little bit but yeah i just love this game i don't know i don't know what it's just so powerful i mean crying in the first 10 minutes when uh um joel's daughter dies joel's daughter dies whose name i can't remember but um sarah i think it's sarah yeah yeah yeah and

[01:21:18] i don't know it was just one of those for i think for me one of those first like serious oh this could be this is art not obviously i had realized that before but you know and i had you know played other very cinematic games like uncharted 2 and all that sure but those those are wacky indiana jones adventure kind of shoot-em-up games uh and this last of us has those moments a little bit because it's a video game it sort of has to have a moment where you enter an arena and your

[01:21:44] objective is kill everyone in it yeah but uh there was i don't know it was just powerful weight serious drama about it uh i don't know so yeah the last of us hit me really hard and i love this game i love this story and these characters and uh troy baker is great uh ashley johnson is ellie great yeah and then and then i would go on to watch critical role and be like holy shit that's ellie from last of us like you know like whoa um so yeah last of us one is my pick for number one best

[01:22:12] game of all time yeah i mean you know it's it's it is one of the greatest games of all time it's it's pretty undeniable it's incredible it is definitely both last of us games are honorable mentions for me you know i i love both games i think they're both fantastic uh and the last of us one was a game i was also incredibly hyped for i think partially because i was also a game informer subscriber uh for many years uh and so and would read that magazine like religiously like i was very into it and also i was a huge naughty dog fan and so you know i think we talked about that already but like i was

[01:22:40] really into the jack and daxter games on the ps2 the ps2 had like the three big platforming franchises it was jack and daxter ratchet and clank and sly cooper uh and so you know that kind of put like naughty dog insomniac and sucker punch like in my mind like anything these guys make i'm getting you know and so insomniac went on to do resistance in the ps3 era and sucker punch had infamous uh which i also really enjoyed uh infamous 2 especially i think rocks and then sucker punch now does uh the ghost of tsushima ghost of yote games yeah uh which i've played tsushima i have not

[01:23:10] played yote yet me too and uh yeah i gotta gotta get around to that because tsushima was very good and obviously we talked about insomniac they're now doing the marvel stuff but naughty dog was like yeah they had the jack and daxter games they did that they did the uncharted games and then it was the last of us and so it's like it's a new thing from naughty dog like guys who make games that i love i was very excited about it and yeah completely blew me away i thought it was incredible uh i you know and i feel like i i thought it was incredible but i was also like but it's no

[01:23:36] uncharted 2 or whatever for a while yeah yeah uh and you know i think i've come around on that a little bit and uh as much as i still love uncharted 2 i think last of us is just one of those things it's like it's pretty undeniable like how much impact that has had uh in terms of pop culture and not just in video games but like in other cinematic uh in other modes as well i think if you watch like logan the x-men movie it's very much just like yeah they're they saw they saw the last of us and

[01:24:02] were like hey this this would work as a finale to uh this long-running character uh for hugh jackman like just take this idea and do that right you know so you see so you see its influence like everywhere which is uh which is really interesting and yeah obviously there's the tv adaptation now and the first season of the show is essentially just the game it's like uh right you know there's one episode really that deviates from it the nick offerman episode of uh of the last of us which kind of like does which is a great episode and like fills in like the backstory for like one character like

[01:24:30] one minor character in the game that i don't think you even actually see in the game he's just like kind of talked about um or you don't see his husband right you you meet him you meet bill you meet bill and i you find you find the note because of course it's a video game that explains i think you can find the other guy's body or something something like that yeah yeah so yeah there's there's lore there's backstory there that's hinted at in the game but the show explores it more in depth but otherwise the show is like pretty much like a one-to-one recreation of the last of us video game for the

[01:24:58] most part a couple of like additional characters like melanie alinsky and stuff but like you know it's like 95 percent like the same thing as the game which uh you know i think speaks to how cinematic and how like story-driven that game is already where like you didn't really need to do much to adapt it to tv right yeah that's one of the things i think um that makes usually video game adaptations is pretty difficult for at least for films because it's like you know even if you condense the story uh

[01:25:24] down to a two-hour movie or something you know that's a 40 60 hour game like whatever it's it's essentially yeah potentially you know 10 or 20 times the length plus also you're the one controlling everything i feel like the emotional impact that you can get to in a game can hit a little bit harder than a two two-hour movie and that's i think where like that adaptation gets so hard um yeah so but to put it into a show where it's like oh we can spread this out over eight episodes 10 episodes whatever

[01:25:51] it is it's like oh okay we have the the breath to get to the emotional punch at the end usually yeah and i think the fact that the last of us is also a horror game and has those horror elements too i think uh putting you in that perspective is a big part of it too which we haven't really talked about any horror games in the in this list i do have one of my honorable mentions that i'll that i'll get into but yeah no i i think uh horror in in gaming is such an interesting thing and i haven't played like enough horror games like i've not really played a ton of resident evil haven't played like the silent hills even though i've heard the new like silent hill 2 remake is supposed to be great you

[01:26:21] know that kind of thing like there are major horror franchises did play a little bit dead space uh you know a while back which was fun but uh yeah there's just i think horror is like a realm that like can be really effectively explored in video gaming because it puts you in the seat of the person who has to deal with the horrors and uh that's i think a unique position that games are able to offer yeah no i agree uh and and they're like huge now like that is a major section of the

[01:26:46] even not just like the tentpole like you said resident evil or whatever like just indie like five nights at freddy's like that's a indie horror yeah like you know uh the mortuary assistant which i talked about in the last discussions i think is like a smaller horror game exit eight which is i think a movie right now i think is a small indie horror game you know uh there's just lots of it's just like a huge space in in like indie games which is which is cool yeah absolutely but all right

[01:27:13] the last of us mike d's number one video game of all time yes good game uh all right and now it's time for my number one video game of all time which we kind of hinted at at the beginning of this episode and that is of course the original but you know representative of the whole franchise but the original kingdom hearts from 2002 on the playstation 2 and i would say that kingdom hearts is the most

[01:27:38] embarrassing thing that i'm a huge fan oh you talked a lot about pokemon no yeah that's fair uh no kingdom hearts is uh one of those absolutely bizarre ideas it's such an insane concept for a video game what if uh we crossed over disney with final fantasy yeah but also the disney stuff and the final fantasy stuff isn't really the focus we're focusing on these original characters and this like

[01:28:05] big epic heroes journey stories that like weaves its way into these worlds in some capacity and so the original kingdom hearts is i think one of the weirdest objects that has ever existed uh but i think is still so compelling and fun and the platforming is great uh the level design is great uh the world building is really fun and uh this was a game that uh if you have you ever played kingdom hearts mike are you familiar with this series like i know you're broadly familiar with like the concept of it yeah yeah um

[01:28:34] but like have you ever played one of these games no i have not okay by the time they came out i was too cool for disney things uh and so at 10 or whatever what would you say it was 2002 2002 yeah so i was 11 yeah i was nine years old when this game came out and uh before i got a ps2 uh we were at my uncle bob and aunt joanne's house and they had a ps2 and i think they might have even gotten it just because we were going to be at the house for like that weekend or something like we were we were you know one of

[01:29:03] those things where it's just like shout out to uncle bob yeah exactly we need something to occupy the kids and they had kingdom hearts up there and i had not played it i was not familiar with it but i looked at the box and i saw donald duck and goofy and mickey mouse on it and in the back you see like oh hey there's genie from aladdin oh hey there's you know the you know beating the beast and here's you know all that stuff right so it's like oh there's a lot of disney stuff here let's like let's try this out

[01:29:28] let's play it and the game starts up and the first like half hour of the game is this like abstract art house tutorial um that has you know this original character sora who's played by hayley joe osmond uh falling from the sky and it's like i've been having these weird thoughts lately like is any of this for real or not and then it fades into the song simple and clean and it like is this huge

[01:29:54] sort of music video that like depicts like the darkness within sora and riku and like this like battle between the two of them and like this sort of overture that happens and you're in this like sort of nexus of darkness uh as you're kind of selecting things like do you want power do you want magic or whatever but it's like going through like and it's very deliberate and very slow paced and it's very weird and you're fighting this giant monster creature and then you have to spend like two hours just

[01:30:18] hanging out on sora's island with his uh friends riku and kairi before you even get to any disney stuff you don't get to like any real disney stuff until like four or five hours into the game uh like mickey and donald and goofy like pop up occasionally but like they're not like huge parts of it for a while and uh and then you also get introduced to some final fantasy characters and i was not aware of what final fantasy was at the time so i was just like these guys look cool who's this yeah uh and

[01:30:45] so kingdom hearts is the story of uh sora this kid whose uh home his island destiny islands is destroyed by the forces of the heartless these like demonic creatures uh who are those without hearts right although weirdly they do have hearts there's a weird a lot of complicated stuff surrounding the kingdom hearts lore um and ultimately he finds uh donald and goofy who uh are part of disney castle and king mickey has gone missing and because he's been chasing after those who have been like sealing

[01:31:13] the doors and all that stuff uh and so he eventually teams up with uh donald and goofy and they travel to different worlds searching for both uh sora's friend friends riku and kairi as well as king mickey and there and also sora gets the keyblade he's the keyblade master now and he doesn't really understand what that means it just shows up in his hand and he's like what is this like you know all that stuff yeah and uh it's surprisingly engaging like you know it's something that's very accessible to kids i think but also you know weirdly complex uh and you know i think the first game

[01:31:42] especially i think is the best one from a storytelling perspective you know it's and i think it's the one that like has the best balance of disney stuff where you go to each disney world and it's not just playing the plot of the movie you're like going to the disney world and it's progressing the plot of the overall game story okay uh and i think there are are certain kingdom hearts games where you go to the world like you go to frozen world and kingdom hearts 3 and you're just playing the plot of frozen and then moving on interesting and that's kind of a bummer i don't like that i like when you go to

[01:32:11] disney world and you meet different friends and all that kind of stuff but like all that stuff leads to a progression in the overall story for your character or for the plot or whatever and so there are several kingdom hearts games uh the first one i do think is the best and i think if you did just play kingdom hearts and then chain of memories which was a game boy game that they then remade for the playstation 2 and then and then kingdom hearts 2 i do think that's like a pretty perfect trilogy of games and that's a pretty like easily accessible series of games right there and then there are a bunch

[01:32:40] of other spinoff games and i like all of them to different degrees but they get things very complicated very fast uh and so i feel like i remember what's the was what's the most was the most recent game uh the most recent game well so there was kingdom hearts 3 in 2019 uh but technically the most recent game was kingdom hearts melody of memory uh which is a rhythm game uh where you play where you play through all of the like you know the score of all the various kingdom hearts games you're

[01:33:09] like playing through the score and like it's essentially guitar hero rock band but without like an instrument you're just playing it on your controller yeah and the thing is for most franchises you release like a rhythm game to do to you know add on you know as like a bonus kind of just extra sales yeah yeah that would just be an extra thing like whatever wouldn't really matter that much in kingdom hearts every game is crucially important to the storyline incredible and so i had to get melody of memory and play through it and i kind of had a fun time with it but it's because it ends

[01:33:38] with like a 45 minute cut scene that like is supposed to lead into the eventual kingdom hearts 4 that got a trailer back in 2022 and there's been nothing since incredible yeah so it must have been kingdom hearts 3 when that came out yeah which i've never played these games like i said but you know everyone in our generation did so i was like well let me see if i could just like read the story like what's going on with these games i don't understand a single fucking thing because it's also like

[01:34:06] you know well according to this cut scene in this prequel technically this happened for and like what is fucking who's what and what's going on it's the same thing like when uh middle gear solid 5 phantom pain came out uh which is the last i think main store like main the main line metal gear solid game yeah because now they've put out a bunch of remakes of the older games um same thing i've never played any of those and i was like well this game looks incredible let me getting i'm jumping in on five i don't like i know it's the farewell but like whatever and i tried to like

[01:34:35] read the wikipedia page for the the the the continuity of the metal gear solid game so i was just like what the fuck is happening yeah and it's a weird like with kingdom hearts like i think you could like just line up like okay the continuity i can almost get to right like yeah kingdom hearts chain of memories is right after kingdom hearts 2 then there's three five eight days over two okay that takes place in between chain of memories and kingdom hearts 2 kingdom hearts birth by sleep all right that takes place 10 years before the first kingdom hearts game all right kingdom hearts dream drop distance that

[01:35:02] takes place uh after kingdom hearts 2 before kingdom hearts 3 all that stuff like you can kind of get that but then there's like elements to it where it's like okay the heartless they exist they're those without hearts right somebody becomes a heartless and uh they're sort of like a shadowy figure of themselves um and then in kingdom hearts 2 it's revealed that like when somebody becomes a heartless also a nobody gets created and they're like a husk of your former body uh and it's like okay all right that's a little bit confusing but i'm sort of with you and then like like the next game

[01:35:29] it's like now there's the unversed who are like this this other thing that exists and then in the next game after that oh the dream eaters are here and they're all like variations on heartless in different ways uh sora has like four or five different like doppelgangers now at this point where like roxas is his nobody but xion is like the shadow of roxas and ventus looks like roxas uh and all that stuff there's you sound like in community when they're talking about inspector

[01:35:54] space time and they're like i'm in the blur guns you're just saying syllables uh you're correct you're correct yeah absolutely uh that said they rock yeah i'm jealous i don't know what they mean yeah it's it's one of those things if you didn't get into it when you're eight years old i don't think you'll ever get into that's it i missed my chance yeah uh but uh yeah huge kingdom hearts fan the first kingdom hearts game is like one of those things it's like yeah this is probably always my favorite video game of all time and recently i've been like kind of scratching the itch like

[01:36:23] i'd really like to start just like replaying the kingdom hearts games and there'd be a lot of fun you know and i kind of want to time it out where like obviously i don't have time to do that right now but like if i if i ever get unemployed again and have some time to play video games yeah i i would probably start to do a kingdom hearts replay through uh where i got to replay all the games all that stuff there are like seven or eight stuff and some of them are like there's like remasters of all of them except for like two or three games that they kind of like have in the remaster collections

[01:36:51] but they kind of just turned into like cinematics where you just watch all the cut scenes yeah um you know because some of them were on like the nintendo ds uh and it's just like well that's hard to remake for a playstation kind of thing like the you would have to rebuild the game from the ground up essentially and so that's part of it too and that's also kind of the thing with the kingdom hearts series when they were coming out was like there was all these different spinoffs that were happening uh especially after kingdom hearts 2 and they were all on different consoles and they were all important to the story yeah and so if i wanted to really know everything i had to have

[01:37:19] the game boy i had to have a ds i you know like you bought a ps3 off your friend for the last of us yeah i bought a psp for 40 bucks off my friend so i could play kingdom hearts birth by sleeping that came incredible yeah no it was uh you know huge huge series of game for games for me they haven't released a new game since melody of memory which was 2020 uh but they've been teasing kingdom hearts 4 since 2022 and there are rumors that uh maybe there'll be some kind of announcement this year

[01:37:44] but uh we'll see what happens whoa yeah we'll see uh in any case that's kingdom hearts it's really good people should yeah i also i mean like i said just totally missed me final fantasy as an entire franchise totally missed me uh yeah so i just you know there's there's some major pokemon missed me like you know there's a major like uh tentpole pop culture video game franchises that i just never engaged with which is and same you know i never played red dead i never played the witcher

[01:38:13] you know that kind of thing so but all right that's uh we've been going for a long time with this video game episode mike we got more to talk about i think and we do have you know i i've got some our mentions it sounds like you might as well mike but uh before we get into those let's run down our five one more time just so people have them what's uh what is your uh five your top five video games of all time top five video games of all time is really a top nine because my five slot is snowboard kids g kong racing mario kart 64 and golden eye hell yeah number four is tony hawk 2

[01:38:42] number three is the witcher 3 number two oh that's fun number two is red dead redemption 2 and then uh number one is the last of us one there you go there you go yeah which has been re-released as the last of us one i think right it's yeah i think so yeah has that ps5 remake another one of those games they keep putting out on like every console because every console people keep buying them my five was miz pac-man my number four was pokemon red blue and yellow my number three was rock band

[01:39:10] two my number two was spider-man 2018 and my number one was kingdom hearts uh before we get into all mentions mike is there anything you're playing now anything that uh you want to give a shout out to that you're yeah right now sure i'm actually playing uh absolum a b s o l u m okay how you spell that uh and that's sort of a um fighter rogue light kind of thing you uh you know you're uh there's a great evil has been unleashed in the world and you're this these small group of heroes

[01:39:38] uh and you go on runs as far as you can make it and you level up and you could do another run because you earn more stuff uh and uh it's got some co-op so me and my friend have been playing it the last couple weeks it was on sale so we were like hey this is on sale on steam that's the other great thing you know i've switched to being mostly a pc gamer lately um and so steam regularly does a spring summer autumn winter sale um and so you can pick up uh you know like i think i i got i'm trying to think of what i got on sale but you know you can throw out get some like

[01:40:08] games that came out in the last couple years that are pretty major throw them on your wish list wait for a sale and be like okay i'm getting that for 22 you know like whatever whatever right which is a great way to get games instead of having to get them on launch when everything's buggy and garbage um so anyway yeah i'm solemn been a lot of fun nice cool i'm currently playing uh i've haven't had as much time to play as i wanted to but i'm currently playing through a final fantasy 7 rebirth which is part two of the final fantasy 7 remake project so final fantasy 7 iconic

[01:40:35] playstation 1 game uh developed by square enix uh and you know it definitely like the definitive like jrpg final fantasy game like it's the one that kind of keeps coming they keep coming back to new remakes new expansions all that kind of stuff and they did a final fantasy 7 remake uh back in 2020 in 2024 they released rebirth and uh the rumors are that 2027 they'll put out part three um but it's like a three-part remake project to take on just the story of final fantasy 7 because it is so long uh i think on i think on the playstation 1 it was like a four disc

[01:41:05] game or something like that like it was just it took forever to get through and i think on on the playstation 4 like final fantasy remake was also on two discs like it was one of those things so yeah no huge uh huge undertaking but uh final fantasy 7 rebirth has been a lot of fun and uh the story of final fantasy 7 is really good so uh yeah i'm playing that right now but all right honorable mentions mike d let's uh let's wrap it up what do you got i got a ton because while you were talking about kingdom hearts which is who gives a shit about that no i'm kidding uh while you were talking about kingdom hearts i was like oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah and i was like writing down all these

[01:41:35] games uh that i didn't even really think about um but i just reminded myself of another one uh talking about absalom which is cult of the lamb which uh is a similar thing it's a you know it's a roguelite you you do runs get as far as you can uh but you play a sacrificial lamb bound bound to be killed by the great demon lord or whatever at the end cool and in order to defeat him you have to

[01:41:59] steal his cult members so it has a town management like uh villager sim component of it where like when you're not doing your runs you're in your town you're building buildings you're you're having your villagers worship you so you get the power that you use spend to buy upgrades and you know blah blah blah blah blah and then you have to fight your way through it and it's really fun and everything it's kind of like happy tree friends like everything's like really like okay like uh joyful

[01:42:25] and cartoony and beautiful and then you're fighting demons and you're a sacrificial lamb uh so that's very fun cult of the lamb um and then just a whole bunch of really important big games that we didn't talk about i didn't talk about at all uh such as bioshock or halo or destiny 2 or splinter cell uh call of duty for modern warfare specifically the first time they did modern warfare sure and not like the third time or whatever they're on now yeah they just keep remaking like the third this the

[01:42:53] the third sequel trilogy they're on or whatever the hell they're up to with those games um yeah and uh yeah call of duty really took a whole dive but those first couple are incredible uh and we used to play the shit out of these in college of course same thing with the halo games i don't remember which one we used uh halo infinite no that's the current one halo probably halo 3 i guess i don't remember yeah i mean halo 2 was kind of like i think is considered like maybe it was too yeah but 3 i remember coming out as like when 3 was coming out that felt like an event and i didn't have an xbox like that felt like

[01:43:22] an event you know yeah yeah it was the really cool everyone in the suite taking turn we're doing a tournament lock in boys and we're just like you know all eight of us from the guys across the hall we're gonna play uh a halo tournament and that was so much fun um so those uh bioshock we didn't talk about any of the bioshocks yeah and i i really loved i played through all three of those games bioshock bioshock 2 and bioshock infinite i think it's i was just talking about this with somebody it's crazy that there hasn't been one since infinite came out like they haven't yeah done anything with

[01:43:51] that um i don't know the whole story i feel like i've what i remember seeing recently in the last couple years is like everyone really turned on bioshock infinite of like actually this game is stupid as fuck like wait a second what are you talking about that game blew my mind when it came out i loved yeah me too um so who knows and and then maybe it's one of those you know some games some some uh i think bioshock the franchise had like a really create like it was like a creative

[01:44:17] lead that this was like his friend like i forget the guy's name todd something is yeah is the elder scrolls guy okay uh but there was a guy i think at whatever studio and he left or was fired or whatever so like there's like this was his baby and he's not there anymore kind of thing i think for bioshock um gotcha so those games um payday two was massive for me i don't know if you ever played

[01:44:43] that or anything it's a heist game yeah i played it a little bit i think yeah yeah i don't remember if i got this because i plus the other thing is when i was working at fye uh we got an employee discount and then on used things it was like a pretty good combo you know if you get like a game used with your employee discount so i used to just buy a bunch of random shit for once i bought that ps3 i was like oh maybe i got a whole generation to catch up on uh but i ps or payday 2 in particular

[01:45:08] really like i put hundreds of hours into that because it was just so much fun nice and then uh the last one is sort of a whole thing which uh i think like absolutely foundational to modern gaming uh is like half-life portal uh you know sure the orange box the orange box yes source uh which allowed you know is all the counter-strike like all those games are built on the source and valve engine and stuff yeah valve yeah um so anyway incredible gary's mod which you know is all the

[01:45:37] other spawning spawns to tons of games so but i used to play same thing uh the same friend's older brother that we used to steal his jay and sell and bob strike back dvd we would go onto his computer when he wasn't home uh and just play counter-strike for fucking hours uh me and my me and my 11 year old friend like sneaking into his 16 year old brother's room or whatever it was uh and we would just play counter-strike and and all the other uh there was like day of defeat was like a world war ii one and

[01:46:05] like all there was all kinds of other games on there and they're like the source thing uh so yeah those chuck chuck chuck those up nice all right uh as far as all mentions for me go i got one more i forgot yeah throw them in death stranding which is okay i've never played it kojima productions game there's death stranding 2 now but i'm doing that thing where i have it on my steam wish list i'll wait till that's on sale for half price sure and get that in a year that's how i play almost every game now is like you know if like games cost like 70 i will wait until it's 30 and then i will get it

[01:46:34] you know and i'm still like a physical media guy so i i will go to the store and buy a game at target or whatever and they're like okay grandpa yeah here's a box with the download code yeah exactly uh that said if kingdom hearts 4 came out tomorrow i would be buying it for a stay that is the one where i'm like i will buy that as soon as it comes out yeah but um death stranding i thought i contemplated putting in my top five uh like really hard because that game's incredible

[01:47:00] and i had tried it i don't know not when it came out but a while ago uh and bounced off it because it's kojima so it there's you know you put the controller down you're gonna watch a 45 minute cut scene like you know there's shit like that and it takes a really i played like i talked to somebody and was like yeah i don't know i played like five or six hours and like i don't know and they're like you don't even get to the beginning of the game yet i was like what do you mean um so i was

[01:47:26] like fine i'll try it again because i already own it so like whatever um and uh and i did i made it past that barrier and it's like one of the most beautiful incredible games like just inventive crazy games uh i hadn't gotten to the beginning of the game yet i was still in the like tutorial thing you got it they were teaching you all the stuff but once it opens up into um i can't even begin into it's another one of those i can't even begin to explain the story but the whole thing is you

[01:47:53] get you have to connect the country again right everybody is nobody's connected to anybody they got to re reestablish uh the whatever network i don't know the video game network you know the the mcguffin and when you do that you get access to you you have to like build infrastructure you're you're making deliveries you're driving your motorcycle and and you're building roads and all this stuff but when you connect to the other cities you gain access to the infrastructure everyone else has built so like there'll be a spot that you couldn't reach yet like you know it's a

[01:48:22] up a mountain cliff and you don't have the supplies to build the road and the ladders and the ropes and all that stuff but you connect to the network and somebody else that had those things has built it already and now you have access to it it's just like whoa and you can leave notes for each other and it's just like blows your mind like holy shit video games man right so yeah that's death stranding and death stranding 2 is probably good also yeah those are both games i would like to play at some point and just haven't gotten around to but uh yeah and coach my only experience with kojima is

[01:48:50] metal gear solid 4 right uh which i got because it was such a huge like deal when it was coming out on the ps3 and uh you know i i liked the idea of solid snake and all that stuff but i had not played any other metal gear solid games and uh was completely lost i had no idea what was going on uh i enjoyed it like i enjoyed the gameplay and stuff like it was pretty fun but like anytime it cut it went to a cut scene which could last for like an hour yeah i think that was the one that had a yeah the very

[01:49:16] long yeah so it was uh a difficult to get through for newcomers which i was uh at the time also a series that like i think back i'm like what if i got really in the metal gear solid like what if i just started at the beginning and like just just went for it you know yeah i mean i think they've remade three and four recently or uh or two and three i think i've remakes i think four because that was the one i had played i think that was the ps3 games that's probably still you know on its own thing but yeah but it's also it starts as like metal gear there's like three metal gear games and

[01:49:44] then it's metal gear solid right i think it's something like that there's something connected yeah i was also kind of recently looking like what if i got really into resident evil uh and there's like you know i know there's like seven like mainline games or whatever but then there's also like a million spinoffs and also remakes of a lot of the spinoffs i'm like what is how do i figure this out yeah yeah i mean i mean resident evil 2 could be in my um honorable mentions also that was a game i didn't own but one of my friends did and that was a double disc game like it was a whole because you would play as i think leon and then and then

[01:50:13] you switch discs and you play as uh claire is that uh whatever yeah okay yeah something valentine i think um jill jill valentine yeah there it is uh and like holy shit but uh i was too so much too much of a baby i never wanted to buy that myself and play it alone are you insane be crazy yeah uh but all right getting into my honorable mentions uh sorry yeah one of mine is the horror game that i was referring to before and that is alien isolation i was really hoping you were gonna connect

[01:50:40] this pac-man and how the ghosts know where you are to alien alien isolation i forgot that i was gonna mention that before yeah well now we're two hours in so we can talk about it now uh alien isolation is a game that came too late this came out in like 2014 i remember my roommates playing it a little bit um but i never got around to playing it at that point um but i caught up with it a couple years ago in like 2022 2023 maybe um and uh yeah because it was i think it was one of those things

[01:51:08] where like it was on sale on the playstation network for like four dollars uh and i was like yeah steel great fantastic got it and uh yeah this game is uh it's it's a masterpiece it's incredible it is it's genuinely one of the scariest experiences i've had with any piece of media and it's a it's a really fun expansion of the alien universe also one of the most like punishingly difficult games i've ever like got gotten all the way through like there are many other games that are like this hard that i've played and been like fuck this i'm not playing anymore like i'm good and alien

[01:51:35] isolation for some reason i was like i gotta get through this thing man i i'm really compelled to finish it and i did and it's incredible so alien isolation uh rocks they they've recently been teasing a sequel like they're finally making a second one and uh i'm very excited to see what that's gonna be yeah i never played this game but i watched somebody playing on twitch semi recently and was like nah i can never uh i wouldn't have made this we had it through this but that reminded me too is another game franchise that uh like the the dark souls games you know incredibly difficult

[01:52:03] like but just totally passed me by because like fuck that i don't have time for that shit yeah i've never played those and for the same reason like every everything i've heard about them is like these are really hard uh yeah i don't have time for that i play my games uh often on easy mode now because i'm just like i gotta breeze through them you know i'm trying to have fun yeah yeah exactly alien isolation is great uh uncharted 2 and the last of us 1 and 2 are in my list as well uh the simpsons hit and run uh is an all-timer great uh it's essentially a gta clone but with

[01:52:30] the simpsons uh and it rocks uh there's always been like rumors about them trying to do a remake of this game and i really wish they would because it deserves it this was on playstation 2 um but i can confirm it still holds up because a few years ago i was back in new york i think for thanksgiving uh and i got snowed in like i my flight got delayed by like two days because i got like there was a huge snowstorm i couldn't make it back to missoula and at this point like i was just in my mom's house and it was just me and her and you know everybody else had like dispersed gone back to work all that

[01:52:59] stuff and i was stuck in the house and i hooked up my old playstation 2 and i started playing the simpsons hit and run and i got through the entire game in two days like i just got addicted to like i'm just gonna play this and uh had a great time with it so simpsons hit and run it rocks your dad also just reminded me of crazy taxi you were playing sure yeah absolutely which i'm guessing you got there because simpsons road rage was also a game which was just a crazy taxi clone yeah yeah

[01:53:21] damn crazy video games be crazy video games be crazy taxi man um god of war ragnarok also a game i wanted to give it a shout out to uh which we haven't talked about the god of war series but uh i was pretty i i really liked the the greek god of war games um god of war two and three especially i think the first one was fine but like two and three are really good and then when god of war 2018 came out you know that was a similar like ah the last of us but with god of war yes kind of thing right 100 and it works

[01:53:48] it's great like god of war 2018 got great reviews game of the year applause and all that kind of stuff i do think god of war ragnarok is better i think it's a it's a more compelling story i think you get more time playing as atreus in the in god of war ragnarok and so you get like more of his perspective and like kind of the duality between him and kratos uh and you get just more with uh i mean you get odin this game and odin is played by richard schiff from the west wing and he's so much fun and uh yeah no god of war ragnarok is uh is an incredible storytelling experience uh and really

[01:54:17] really fun so uh yeah shout out to that one as well nice i never played ragnarok but i played the 2018 one and goddamn yeah real good um super mario odyssey is a game i'm gonna give a shout out to which uh there are a few mario games i could feel like super mario 64 was a huge game for me back in the day the original mario bros of course all that uh i was recently there's a bar here in missoula the union who recently installed like a giant life-size game boy on the wall like a wooden game boy that plays

[01:54:42] super mario bros whoa so i was there like one in the morning a few months back and uh me and my friends were just like we're gonna beat super mario and we're just like getting drinks and like playing through mario and it was incredible it was so much fun but super mario odyssey is the one that's on the switch and this is the game that i got really into during covid when i was back in the games in a big way when i got my switch this is the game that i got really into it's uh just a really terrific platforming game so much fun inventive level design all that stuff so uh yeah

[01:55:09] super mario odyssey rocks nice yeah i i played i had super mario 64 um but i never got hooked on it i quickly moved into the playstation era games you know like i said i only had the n64 i never had a wii i didn't have a gamecube i didn't have any of those games so i just never really those games didn't really didn't really grab you a ton i mean it's fun great great stuff i also i should mention too uh legend of zelda ocarina of time sure of course also great game incredible game never beat

[01:55:36] it because i was eight yeah fair enough and i feel like the zelda games are always like i'll play them for a little bit and like oh wow this is really good and then just never pick them up again um yeah that's like i was that way with ocarina of time i was that way with uh twilight princess on the wii and then breath of the wild you know so much acclaim behind that game people loved that so much and i played it for a while i was like yeah this is good and there's never i i got frustrated with my weapons breaking every three hits so yeah that's insane but yeah super mario odyssey is really great

[01:56:04] and there's like super mario galaxy and sunshine and all those stuff which is great also shout out to paper mario which i think rocks as well paper mario and then 64 is a lot of fun super smash bros brawl uh i think would be my pick but melee also high up there for me and honestly ultimate on the switch uh is great too like that's another one of those like when i got the switch it's like well i gotta get the smash bros game and uh if i if i had more people in my 30s to come over and play super smash bros i think i would probably play that game more often but i did play through the whole story mode and ultimate and got all the characters and stuff so it was a lot of fun final fantasy 10

[01:56:33] if i'm picking a final fantasy game 10 is my game uh that was the one that i got really into back in the playstation 2 jack 2 the ratchet and clank series just all of them sly cooper and the thievius raccoon is the original but uh sly 2 and 3 are also great donkey kong 64 star fox 64 crash team racing nitro fueled uh the remake of crash team racing which is on the ps4 is a lot of fun uh star wars battlefront 2 i want to give a shout out to as well man the uh the original star wars battlefront

[01:56:58] 2 not the uh not the remake of it's what a pick wow i forgot all about those games that that was a game that uh you know i played a lot on the playstation 2 me and my brother played that all the time and all that kind of stuff and then when i was in college similar to you with your n64 i brought up the ps2 at some point and uh me and my roommates like played a couple of different games but mostly played battlefront 2 it was just like that for hours on end just playing battlefront 2 again and fantastic i had pro skater in here uh dragon ball z budukai 3

[01:57:27] is uh is what i had in here and then also my last one was a shadow of mordor the lord of the rings game oh man that came so good yeah it rocks uh another game that came too late uh like i bought it at gamestop for like five dollars or something so it was used and whatever and uh another game that i had seen my roommates playing they were more in the lord of the rings than i was so i was like oh so it's assassin's creed but in middle earth and you get to kill orcs i'm in like this is great

[01:57:53] that's got one of my greatest video game companies are actually evil things in it um where uh they can it's insane the shit that they can patent and like trademark or whatever they can do like i forget exactly who it is but you remember how games sometimes used to have mini games on the loading screens yeah you know yeah absolutely some company patented that and nobody else could ever use it

[01:58:18] and that's why that doesn't happen anymore on top of loading screens kind of like vanishing from modern games because computers and sure one of the big selling points the ps5 was like it doesn't load it just starts or whatever yeah exactly but anyway uh i think it's wb games published those or whatever uh the shadow of mordor and war shadow of war i think which i have not played but i've heard it's not as good i've never played that one either but they have the nemesis system right which is where like

[01:58:46] when you kill the orcs they like remember you yeah or if they kill you they'll mock you next time you come back all this stuff and never been used in any other games besides those two games because they patented it uh and it's such a good system too it's great incredible imagine if other games had that it'd be so cool imagine how immersive it would be but no yeah anyway that is a bummer but all right that's video games that's video games we did it baby uh we accidentally talked for two hours

[01:59:13] about uh about video games maybe this should be a video game podcast instead mike clearly i or we have a lot to say about video games but we're never going to talk about video games ever again so we had to get it all out now exactly yes yeah this is a movie podcast we had to get our video game opinions out there if anybody wants to donate 50 bucks to make mike d play kingdom hearts uh that would be one's find me a playstation one they've they've re-released kingdom hearts several times uh but

[01:59:39] the kingdom hearts was a playstation 2 game uh and they did like a hd remix on pia on the ps3 and then they've like kind of republished that several times so yeah you can find a modern version of it you know it's there it's available it's available all right that is our video game ranking that was a lot of fun and maybe one day we'll talk about video game movies but uh today is not that day yeah just be assassin's creed five times what's the point i still haven't seen it i was i was a big fan and

[02:00:06] you know we didn't talk about any of the assassin's creed games but uh assassin's creed 2 was a big game for me i really like that one i was uh which one was my favorite i was a big fan of the etzio trilogy i don't remember that was the thing two two brotherhood and revelations were like the etzio trilogy right yeah yeah i don't remember i probably i guess revelations because that's the like conclusion to those finale yeah yeah yeah and that one also involves altair too who was the character the main character in the first game i remember not liking the first game i remember playing like not that good yeah and it's kind of boring and like the way the story progresses it's

[02:00:36] kind of just like oh this doesn't really fit and then assassin's creed 2 is like such a huge upgrade from the first one like every conceivable way yeah yeah that was a game i was on the assassin's creed forums like the first one yeah i was like in i was ready for the gaming world to be revolutionized and then it was just like fine yeah but they uh two brotherhood revelations are great three i liked also and that kind of like concludes the desmond's trilogy yes yes i did like three a lot too yeah and then i tapped out after that i didn't play anything more but i know that four was like

[02:01:04] considered really good i i know for black flag yeah that's black flag yeah i never played that one okay uh i did i did join back in for assassin's creed valhalla which is like the viking one right yeah that shit rules but by then it's it's so full of ubisoft open world bloat where it's like like the thing where it's like here's 800 fucking art fragments to find and and collect all thousand feathers you're like oh my god like what has happened like there's just so much coming at you

[02:01:34] uh that i i played it for a while and it's really fun and cool and i'm really into like the viking you know milieu but like whatever yeah i'm also at this point i i've missed like seven assassin's creed games because these are games that do come out like once a year they still come out with a lot of them yeah yeah miss like seven or eight of them at this point i'm like there's no way i'm catching up with the story now i have no idea what's going on assassin's creed in any case mike d where can we find you online this week you can find me playing video games

[02:02:01] online uh i guess at md film blog on letterbox and blue sky and if you want to donate to the show you can do that on our ko-fi page ko-fi.com slash mike and mike pods where you can donate 50 dollars and pick a topic on the bonus episodes here on mike and mike go to the movies maybe one that won't take us two hours to talk about we do you donate 50 and you make mike d watch one of the like one hour kingdom hearts cinematic movies that are attached to that will make no sense to him

[02:02:28] whatsoever not at all yes include the youtube link to the kingdom hearts cinematic and the donation and maybe i'll watch it yeah you do that on our ko-fi page ko-fi.com slash mike and mike pods and if you want merch we have merch available on our red bubble mike and mike pods dot red bubble dot com that's right you can find me online at m smith film blog on twitter and blue sky mike smith film on letterbox radio mike sandwich on instagram thank you so much for listening to mike and mike go to the movies i'm mike smith it's mike decretio don't forget to rate and view the show on apple

[02:02:56] podcasts or any other podcast app and if you want to contact us go to blue sky at complete work spot you can find the rest of our podcast and rapture press alongside many other podcasts what kinds of comic books and movie news and all that good stuff our theme song was created by kyle cullen who can reach your own podcast themes at kyle's podcast themes at gmail.com and our logo was designed by mac v or at fearless guard on blue sky check out the main podcast the complete works where our elijah wood season season five is uh almost here may 18th is going to be the release date

[02:03:24] for the first episode of the complete work season five that's right lock in it's happening absolutely we'll be talking about back to the future part two a movie where elijah wood pops up for about 20 seconds i think is fair that might be an overestimation that might be yes but a fun episode nonetheless that is the end of this episode of mike and mike go to the movies we will see you on the other side