Closing Thoughts and Channel Updates

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Stepping into sunshine and embarking on a flavorful journey into the tropics where ripe fruit is crafted into wildly delicious juice. And the best part, no passport required Strawacanna, give life some juice in this particular case with being like big announcement coming soon. Cffee pop up in London You have to know that's not a big announcement. especially because they teased it for days. They had a freaking green square zooming out, finally revealing the sigil And then it's like it's a coffee popper. Hello everybody, Wlcome back to the Break Room. I'm Alex Berg here as always with Brian Kim. Let's talk about some stuff. How you been since the last episode? It has been a couple days, but ye it has been a wild, wild couple days. Yeah Well basically, the long story is short. Please A friend of ours, u Well, not ours. It was by a friend of mine. I know his person I'm gonna shit. reccently gave birth and so we just wanted to be there for her and that happened at like midnight Yeah, it's never it's never a convenient time. No, one hundred percent. Why can't it be right after work where I'm done, ready to go home? Yeah yeah But that was that was just really exciting. She's the first of our like friend group to have a child. Yeah she's like, wow, this is the first child that's going be like in my life actively as well Becauseuse like, you know, other family members are friends, they're like over there and over there. I don't really interact with him. But this kid is gonna be in my life. Are you do you want to have kids someday? Definitely eventually I don't know fiancee watching Bankink twice She's like in C We both we both eventually would lo kids. Yeah. It's a question, Marg on when? Yeah, so it was just so late and I haven't stayed up this late in a really long time my body feels heavy like how it does Yeah you're like just smoke up and I don't want to get up Uh, but That's what happened in the past few days. I mean similarly, after so on the show Monday, we talked a lot about why I should go see break rooms or back rooms, backrooms. Oh yeah, yeah. Then that night I was almost gonna see backrooms, but instead went to go see obsession for a second time I was with like a group of friends We' were like, let's go see a moie and And I was like, I hear backrooms is good. And they were like, we really want to see obsession. I was like, can't argue with that. It's so good But I stayed up late and like I'm two days later, I'm still like ugh, I mean Brian knows I chugged a monster energy drink During a meeting, just sit with my feetle like, I got stay aw You need that these days, man. N it, man I have some friends who used to do a couple times a, they do a twenty four hour movie marathon.. Oh wait, a marathon. So there's just watch a movieies for twenty four hour. Yeah. So like, we'd go to their place and it would be like, you know, people would come and go over the course of twenty four hours, but they're like very close friends of mine. So I would always there was like me. to other people who are always there the full twenty four hours. And I'd always be like I'm staying up like I might I might sneak out to smoke a cigar at like four AM or something, watch the watch the sun come up, but u Like I would stand up and watch it and The first time we did it, I was like, it was great Fine, you know, like you know, had like a red Bull or something in the middle of the night Yeah. And then by the time we did it for the last time I was just like, okay, I can't anyore. You know, like I don't have the energy to sit through like, you know, roller babies or whatever six AM, you know, I can't remember what that movie iss called. You know the one with the rollerblading in the post apocalypse You got the guy from Critters who you also played rumum Ticker or whatever on Broadway. I craz. You all know. you all know it. What is he talking about? Let's I don't know. Let's talk about let's lets let's get into the show. So we got a new trailer this morning or yesterday. I think this morning for Supergirl with tickets on ses all ticket on sales The trailer looks good to me. Yeah somethinghing I'm trying to interrogate for myself. is why aren't I more excited for this movie? Sure. You know, like growing up, I was never a DC guy. I really like what James Gunn did with Superman. I'm excited for the new direction of DC Millie Alcock seems good in the role But for whatever reason, I'm not like hyped for this. and I think it might just be that I don't have Enough attachment to the character. Yeah I think generally speaking, Spergirl is one of the like I say like B tier characters of the DC universe. Right. Yeah, because A tier would be like Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman. The Flash. Yeah, Flash. Green Lanterns. Yeah ye the core Justice League. Yeah, is like the A team U And so I think there's that aspect. I will say though, I think this trailer in particular, at least for me has got me the most This trailer looked r as. it' it's the most like it's not likeike showing the most amount of like superhero action. Yes. And that's what's making me really excited. Yes. And I think at least anecdotally, I've been looking at the comments of that trailer I think most people are in agreement that like this trailer is the one that's getting me the most hyped. I think generally speaking, It has been kind of like, whatever. Like the first couple of trailers were like, o, okay, yees I'll watch it. This is interesting. Yeah yeah. But I think this is really showing that like if you want like a super fun, like superhero action like movie U That's not just like a quirky kind of Gard is the Galaxy esque like adventure this might be the one for you. L I think it really showcases betteret than the previous stuff. like what's gonna to make Supergirl stand out differently from Superman. Yes, there was there was a line in the trail and I'm going to botch you because I don't have in front of me and I wasn't planning on quoting it off her being like, you know, I'm not him. likeike you know he it's I think it's like he sees the good and everybody. I see the truth. But there's some like addendum she has. Yeah. you know, before she like, you know, kicks someone and them lasers a guy next to her whatever and I'm like Oh, this looks like it feels like it could be the things I enjoyed about James Guns, Superman Minus a little bit of like the, you know, maybe being nice is the real punk rock that made me go like it's a little schchmaltzy. I liked it. I liked it. Smalzy. is like, I think more of the actual punk rock like vibe Yeah too, which I really enjoy. And I what I also like is like this is happened in the previous trailers, but she does still like mirror a lot of the things that I like Supermand did and his trailer, especially the covering of the girl Yeah are happening. So they're both heroes. They're both good Supergirl does it in a different way. Yeah, I like I like a drunken mess. I can relate to that. You know, like I can't relate to goodoody two shoes, but I can relate someone who's like, I don't know, man, I'm a little bit out of it. Let me see what I can do. percent. And we again We always love seeing people do things that they're good at and she's going to be good at kicking butt. Yes. and she's going to kick a lot of butt. I think so U Well yeah, great. So yeah I guess suupergirl tickets are on sale now. Yeah. G get them. Yeah. so go get your supergirl tickets. We also got another other This is not trailer news. this is specifically non trailer news. A couple days ago on this show, I sat in this very chair. wearing this same outfit and was like, trust me, we're getting a doomsday trailer tomorrow and we did that I have had the I'm I'm Charlie Brown with the football on this doomsday trailer. I've've I've fallen for it I fell for it during Cinemacon. I fell for it this week. I I don't know when we'll get a doomsday trailer. I wish I wish we had one now just because I'm excited for it. But what we did get was an announcement cooffee shop pop up It sounds like I'm making this up. We got anounceer about a doctor Doom the Coffee shop pop up experperience in London Yeah, And it's like specifically for South byy Southwest was they didn't have to make this whole announcement on their Instagram. Yeah you guys could have just done that South by. It could have been a nice surprise, you. Yeah people would. Pe would have found it on their own. I just you know, I know there's a lot of frustration with the Russo brothers and I'm trying not to just like pile on with the negative emotions, but I do think in this particular case Uh it does feel a little bit likeike They knew that everybody would pay attention because we're waiting for a trailer. Yeah, you basically post cinemaon U And it felt like they kind of took advantage of that eagerness to promote a coffee shop I can't even go to. one hundred percent. I would drink the Hasenstadt Dark or Cythia's blood dr Yummy. you know, like I want Lterian coffee? Yes, if it was even if it was like a partnership with Starbucks and I I'll say this here here and now Starbuck, if you're just a regular coffee drinker, you're not like having a milkshake in the morning that just has some coffee flavor in it If you like just straight up drip coffee, Starbucks coffee is garbage. Oh yeah. I'll say it. I can't speak brave I'm brave. I will say I will say their cold brew, their nitro cold brew legit good. Their nitro cold brew is so good, but the regular hot drip coffee is is hot hot drip garbage. It's pretty bad. But even even if the Ruser Brothers had been like, yeah, go to Starbucks and you can get Doombucks, you know, or whatever. I'd be like, Yeahah, fuckking I'll go to Starbucks today. You know, I I would have checked it out, but inst it's like, well, I'm not flying to London. Yeah, one hundred percent. I''t I think I forget who said it. It might have been Eric. mentioned that maybe the Roooster Bothers are pretty not online. So maybe they don't really understand the fervor behind it. I think you have to understand whether or not you're online If you are a producer at that level, sure you should Yeah, you need need to be aware of marketing and a lot of marketing is either intentionally subverting or meeting audience expectations Yeah Be aware of that expectation is boilerplate, you have to, you know, like you might not be aware, I don't think to to be a producer of that level. I don't think you gott to be in like the comment feed on every liveestam or something like that But I do think they if they don't have an awareness that people want this trailer or they don't have an awareness that People were a little bummed not to get it after u Cinemac Con or they don't have an awareness that like, you know, the teasers they put out for Avatar were' like, fine, you know, like Th then then that's them not doing their job. I'm not I've never directed a major Marvel movie that's made over a billion dollars. you know, so who am I to criticizeed? but u But I do think there' in this particular case being like big announcement coming soon. Cffee pop up in London You have to know that's not a big announcement. Eespecially because they teased it for days. They had a freaking green square zooming out, finally revealing the sigil. And then it's like, it's a coffee pop up I mean, granted Eric was able to make a whole video out of it and got some stuff out of it. Yeah, partarticularly that like the sigil seems to be part of like the Ger Lveria flag, which is which is different from the flag they showed in Fantastic four. where there was like the old flag and this one has doom sigil on it. So maybe this is indicating this is post to doom taking over that variant. Right. So there's like these tiny little hints that putting his face on the passports. Yeah, exactly. Um, But yeah, I agree that like they they did they did a little too much. I think they I think they thought they were being really clever and fun and cute And like this's like oh fun little marketing stuff. But at the end of the day, the fans are already frustrated. They're not getting the trailer, which is clearly good from Cinema Con Um partarticularly because like a handful of people have already seen this So they're frustrated that they're All Like seeing it. But I also have to say I don't know if it matters Because I don't will that Will this frustration lead to them not watching the movie? No, but it doesn't Yeah, first off Secondly I think I don't think it matters that much in the grand scheme of things. I think that But I think what it reveals is a kind of It create at least for me as someone who is going to see thisat. they could release no trailer Yeah that we'll see. They could release exactly zero trailers between now and when the movie comes out and I would still be butts and seats opening weekend, you know And they know that And I think where it kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth is leaves a bad taste in my mouth likeike I just had Starbucks hot drip.. But where it leaves a little bit of bad taste in my mouth is, you know, in comparison to something like the trailer for the next Dune movie where I was like, holy shit, fuck, yes, you know, or the trailer for the Odyssey. You know, which I cite just or the trailer for brand new dayay Yeah Those trailers feel like they were, hey, we know you're excited Here's some more shit to get hyped about And this feels a little bit like Hey, you're excited. I'm going to take advantage of that to market you something you can't even buy or experience. Yeah. And that's and what whereas that may not make a difference on the bottom line of ticket sales for opening weekend or globally or whatever at the box office It does kind of make me go like, what what it, what are you guys doing? And what's the plan? Yeah. And that kind of sentiment is what impacts stuff like Disney pllus viewing numbers, you know, of. That's the kind of background sentiment that takes people who are on the fence about being fans or being super fans and shifts them one way or the other. You know, likes it's that kind of sentiment that that makes me come into the first trailer with my arms crossed a little bit. 'causeuse now I'm like, you guys have burned me. Yeah. you know, like now you got to win me back. Again, I'm still gonna see the movie and it makes me feel like an ass Yeah, but but I don't want to feel like an ass. I could just feel like I feel towards June whereere I'm like like excitement. Yeah, I'm just stoked. I could just be stoked instead of feeling like an ass for being stoked. You know what I mean? Like that feel it It's a little like, okay, like you're we're excited. comeome on, just give us something. Like I got I sat here and I was like, hell, yeah, we're gonna a doomsday train tomorrow. We got a coffee pop up in London You know ye, evenven if I wasn't on camera, I would be disappointed in my even if I just saw their announcement in the privacy of my own home didn't speak to anybody about it. I would still feel a private kind of shame that I got fooled into getting excited. And now the next time they make an announcement, I'm not gonna to let myself get excited. Right, R. It gonna be it's gonna be like they're like, oh, another secret announcement happening. It's like It's like, okay, sure, yeah. And then if it is, like, o, like it's like kind of a surprise and not as fun. Yeah, and you know, it makes me also kind of go like, well, their cutesy thing about like, you know, well here's here's a shade of green, you know, like here's These u these trailers tell a story. What's the story? Here's a still image from the set. hereere's You know, us at the Agbo office is doing the Fignon blonde Bees in the trap mash upp or whatever. It makes me feel a little bit taken for granted as a fan and as someone who is excited for Doomsday. and I don't like that feel. hundred percent. And so and I kind of and like Regardless of how good the movie is, now I feel a little bit like an ass for being excited about the movie. Yeah. That feels bad. Yeah. It might be the long term, the damage done to the fandom might be apparent. ultimately it's pretty minor. I think this movie iss still going to do really well. And I The quality of the movie stands separately from the quality of the marketing. And genuinely I do like Js just the scale of this movie, even if they I don't think this's going to happen. But if they do no trailer at all The mostost of the people who know about this in the vague sense, they're gonna go watch it. Well here's my thing. this is thinking out loud. No trailer at all. thinking out loud. It would have been so balssy if instead of like the cutesy announcements about the pop up, if they really did, hate, zero marketing. Oh sure. That's never going to happen for a movie of this size Yeah But like, what a balssy move it would be to be like, you're not getting to. We're not sure We're going to watch cinemaom like we're like maybe there wass going to be a set leak, but like you're just going to go into this blind like I would I would respect that So much. And you know what, it' kind of doom vibe. He's like you're going to watch my movie. Yeah. I know you're going to watch my. I would I would be like, damn what a ball or move as opposed to Well, we're going to do this kind of middle ground where it's like weird marketing, but not just a trailer. you know, Yeah, just give me a just give me a trailer that's just a to feel the green. We're slowly zooming out. you get the one like low tua note or whatever like, you know, and you just hear like You know, a voice and a mask saying like, T I'd be like A true tease. A true true tease. Yeah, I don't know. Anyway, so I don't mean to harp on about it, but it did feel like notable news since Oh yeah, you and I ask Oh yeah This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast instead of Doom sccrolling? Smart move. Another smart move Getting help from one of State Farm's nineteen thousand local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto Bundling J another way to save with the personal price plan. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state When it's time to scale your business, it's time for Shopify getet everything you need to grow the way you want all the way. Stack more sales with the best converting checkout on the planet Track your chis from every channel, Ride in one spot and turn real time reporting into big time opportunities Take your business to a whole new level. Switch to Shopify Start your free trial today Um, The other thing that's happened since we last spoke which I am so hyped about for so many different reasons is Sony had a big state of play presentation yesterday. We got so I am a sucker for a for gameplay in a trailer. I don't love a story trailer for gameplay that much because I'm like, show me how the game is going to feel for gamers. I enjoy a cutcene but I want to know what it's going to feel like We got incredible gameplay footage for I mean, there's there's a bunch here The ones that I am most excited about based on the gameplay footage I watched Wolverine looks sick as fucking hell. Wolverange there are so many shots in the Wolverange that look sick as hell U I'm so excited for contontrol resesonident I think the trailer we got yesterday was actually like not that much different than than footage I'd seen previously U U the new God of Wargame with Fe looks fucking awesome and Kamuri, which I was not on my radar Also looks sick as hell. Yeah, I could go off for a very long time and I will shortly, but I want to hear you are excited about from from yesterday's state of play. if anything. Yeah. No I think it's I'm on the same page as most most of all that stuff, they showed Also a lot of surprise hits. Yeah. or like surprise like Oh, they're doing a Dave the Diver prequel. I don know chef They're gonna make him like a I didn't even I was funny. I was so tuned in on like Wolverine and control and Fe that I didn't even know There was a boncho game coming until I saw on your printout right before. it's not I got to go watch that.'s great. They did They did away with the pixel art. They decided to go the three D route, which is interesting to say the least, but I'm still I think that's a really fun. Dave the Diver is so fun. Yeah. like I love that game. Yeah. No, but I kind of wanted to talk about I Let Let's do a deeper, deeper dive on Wolverine. Yes. The gameplay is showed, I think looks really crisp and I I think you mentioned it before, but I have to say kind of love how Harry Wolverine is. Yeah I'm like, I almost forgot. He's supposed to be like a beast of a man. Yes. And like ye super hairy. I'm like, Wow, this guy's like Burlely, Harry's like a beast. I'm like, this is sick. I love this guy. I also like it it's very difficult. It I think that the Arkham games really left their imprint on All superhero games that followed. you know, like Batman Batman ran so Spider Man could spring U, and You know, so with the combat for Wolverine, obbviously we're seeing like something that feels like not quite as agile as Spider Man, but something that has like A little bit more of that like chunk and crunch of the Batman combat, which I appreciate and. I love him like running and like, you know, like pumping his claws down to like knuckle off the ground and But I think the main thing for me with the Wolverine gameplay that we saw is just how Bloody it is. like the, you know, the Arkham games, which I love The Shadow of Mordar games which I love, the Spider Man games which I love, like They're very clean you know, And like in this trailer like, you know, like Logan is just covered in sheets of blood. like he's like like like, you know, putting his claws up there popping out people's eye sockets like it it partarts of it feel like mortal combat over the top alost. It is so it is so over the top violence that I'm I don't know. I'm actually having trouble like squaring that in my head. I'm like, this is a marvel hero and he's killing people. But like but yeah, it's Wolveritt, you know? Yeah, it's the things where like when you see it in like the cartoons The pretext is these are knives. He's got killing people. He's killing people, but it doesn't really show it. you know, you just know it's I mean, even like I was re watchatching Civil War recently and is it Civil War or maybe it was a Winter Solder. It's Winter Soldier that has the opening sequence where is on the ship and he's just like, you know, like murdering all these people. And it's like he is murdering them, you know, but it's it's very clean Yeah. you know, like and in the Arkham games and the and insomniacs Spider Man Games is like, well, Batman doesn't kill. Spideran doesn't k, you know, it's like L' like, Yeah, that guy's neck probably snapped when you webbed him off the off the tower or whatever. likeike You know, it's it's presumed that you're knocking them out. Yeah. And for the Wolverine gameplay trail to come out so hard and be like, no, no, no, no, no, we're killing people all over the place And also even, it's not even just him. There was the scene where he was like punching somebody and he pushes them into like a forklift. I'm like, oh my God, they're making the envirment part of the violence. Yeah It looks awesome And also The fact that Gene Grreay like helps him kill people is also so crazy to me. because on one hand, I'm like, yeah, Overin will kill you. He has knives for hisis powers are knives. That's what he does. Yeah ye ye. But the fact that Gene Greayy holds a person up and like pushes him towards Wolverine in order to stab him. I like Yeah. I also just like g You know, I um I love a single player action adventure. I've never really been like a multiplayer I mean, I've played my fair share of Fortnite and hell divers and you know Red Dad See Steve, you know, like I play those things like those thoseose are like kind of like more excuses to be social than like a gameplay experience I seek out on my life own. You know, And as someone who loves single player action adventure titles, like the Wolverine Definitely But Sony State of playay broadly felt like it was really speaking to how I like to game. You know, and I'm primed towards it because I'm As everyone watching knows, I won't shut up about how much I'm liking z z seven first lightight. We're so close to beating it. It's just been a more social week than usual. I think we have like probably like ninety minutes left, if that But it's Double of seven First L is the first game I've played in a couple months where I've really kind of been like, right, this is what I love about a first person. or a single player Action Adventure title, these big cinematic set pieces. Wolverine seems like it's going to have that fucking all over the place Um I'm also the game I'm second most excited for U is control resonant which So The elephant in the room is GTA six, right? Like right. You know, like GTA six is scheduled to come out in November All these games now packing in to September Wolverine, I think comes out on the september seventeenth U or maybe september eighteenth somewhere somewhere in that in that range Control resident comes out the twenty fourth or twenty fifth or something like that U I think there's something else pretty big coming out on the twenty second Like it's They're trying to beat the UTA six Yes you know, like, which is great. for me as someone who is going to play through Wolverine and and resonant with my my wife. We're getting married two days.. I could say my wife. you know, like, but as someone's going to play through both with her, like it almost it reminds me a little bit of when Breath of the Wild, Baldersgate, Starfield, Starfield w up being met, but breath of theild or not Breath of the wild. Teers of the Kingdom Diablo four, Starfield and Baldder's Gate all came out basically within like six weeks of oneed It reminds me a little bit of that stretch where it's like All right This is This is a problem I've made myself, but where playing video games starts to feel like a second job, you know where I'm like yeah. fuck, I gotta finish Wolverine before Control Resonident comes out and then I'll have to finish Control Resident before whatever you know, like Uh which fine, it'll be fun, but it's going to be a lot of late nights for me as I try to cram and Wolverine. Its going be a lot of Yeah, September is going to be the time for all the gamers, man. Yeah, man. It's going to be thick. And this and keep in mind also like You know, a lot of the stuff shown at Sony State of playay. U will come out like twenty two seven like that game Kimori, which was not on my radar at all whichich looks fucking rad. Yeah. I love Yokai. like it's such a corner of like folklore. I didn't discover until adulthood But I think it's like just so fascinating. There's so many good stories there They had a is it do you know what's the name of the giant skeleton? Is it Gashidaakoru in Yokai? Oh, it's definitely Gashidaoruru. don't I Yoka yeah, but like there were so many Yokai my girlfriend for a while was working with a a Japanese director who grew up in Brazil to write a movie about like, you know, Yokai getting loose in Rio Di Janeiro, basically. Yeah And it wound up you know, wound up not going, but but because of that like, you know, in talking to this guy U and, you know, like her doing research for it, like we were just inundated with like Yokai books and movies and stuff for a long time And u and it's they're just so cool and so so like not. anythingy I have any real like cultural background for. it's so refreshing. And I love seeing a game that's just like leaning into it with like a cool aesthetic that feels like bright and vibrant as opposed to like, you know somethingomething like grimier and grittier or whatever. like That game looked fucking rad U, no, it's it's it's like Not Pokemon, but like you beat the Ok and they absorb their powers and then you do stuff like ye, I think that game is going to look Sick as hell or it's going to play sick as hell Uh and yeah, the style is so it's just so fun I games that look fun. Yes, I like a game that leans into that. You know, And then also the other game I want to talk about is the God of War spinoff about Fe starring Debah Anne Wall, who we know and love as Karen Page. Yeah. which I Daredevil Born again. I didn't play the original or the God of W, the new God of W the PS four PS five God of Wars yet. So I didn't know Deborah An Well was fe. and I'm like, wa, yeah, I recognize that face. Yeah. what the heck. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, she's great. And then Jack Quid as the cube, which is pretty named Frank which is so funny to me. I'm doing that Yeah. I mean, like, you know, the gameplay the combat from God of War, Lfi looks so good and specifically, you know, similar to how it's impossible to evaluate Wolverine's combat without comparing it to Spider Man I think similarly, like you know, you have to evaluate phase combat in comparison to Kratos in the modern games It looks a lot more fluid, a lot more aerial, a lot more mobile. You know, and I love the combat in God of War and God of War Ragnarok is Fantastic almost to the point where like it's a little bit frustrating because You want to be able to just go like, you know, they they both have like areas where you can go and just fight But like the end of Goda War Ragnarok has an action sequence that is like Fuck yes, I've been waiting the whole game for this and it pays it off so hard. I hope I hope Fe will have something similar or something similar to the Rogueelite mode, we saw for Godot of War Ragnarock as a DLC. Um, but I really like that the team is like Yeah, hey, you know what? we've seen on the ground crrunchy. Let's try aerial U I'm excited for that. I like I'm like Two minds here where U That's gonna to be my catchphrase I think too. I mind I'm a professional fence sitter. I don't have an opinion Slit brain fr. sever the corpus colos. That's true. I have two brains Yeah. someone's fighting for control. One side is saying I enjoy that they want to go like a different direction from like the God ofor like general aesthetic because You know, God of still being mythology is still pretty grounded in like how they present it where it's like You know, it's nature is real it's like kind of more real lifey where this this is like the afterlife of the gods. And so it's a lot more fantastical. Yeah simply by the fact that, yeah, there's a talking gelatinous cube and on the sword there's a talking ribbon. It's like more quirky Um, and I think I have to assume the developers like wanted to try a different direction and they can't really do that with Kratos because he's such a like serious character. Well and also worth mentioning like, you know God W for PS four was a different direction for Craig. Sure. R was it was true. Totally it was taking him out of this kind of like very over the top Yeah, you know, like hyper masculine sort of arcade arcadady style games, which fun as hell Uh and putting him into this much more like contontemplative brooding he's dealing with parenthood. like it was that was a huge emotional shift This this I think what you're saying with Low pha is like we're seeing a similar shift from that towards like almost something that's like a little bit more fantastical. craz to be like God aa warar wasn't fantasticical enough. We only had two dwarves in a whole realm of eills you know, like But But yeah, but I know what you mean like aesthetically, it does feel like a little bit of an evolution. And it's not not as like gritty because even the I would say the original God ofar and the current God ofar, while like tonally, they are different I do still have a through rack through line of like that grittiness Yeah of like Yeah, you still like rip a werewolf face open to kill it. Yeah said One hand. L that they're trying a different direction. On the other hand, I am like a little bit Of course, Public discord doesn't really matter, just play the game that you like. But it's interesting to see People like online seem to be confused about the whole like cube thing especially because it's so goofy. L a talking cube with JackQay's voice has a little galaxy in it. I was like what's going on here Um that I'm like, is the tone becoming too Whimsical. Um I whoo knows until l is only the. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. you know, it's like, I don't if You know, in God of War, you had a Memir, you know, on your on your belt who would kind of like crack wise with areus while you're walking around. Rck and Syndry were always like a little bit more like sort of comic relief, you know If u if Frank, which is the name of the cube You know, if Frank is handled with like a deft touch, then I think it doesn't really change the overall tone so much as just like stillill that same way You know, kind of like in Lord of the Rings, like You know, by by the time you get to return to the King like Gimli and Leglas are just sort of like peanut gallery They're awesome, you know, like Legless Sliding down the elephant's trunk and taking it out, you know, whatever like They're awesome, but they are kind of like spice not substance. If the cube is spice not substance, then like I'm not too worried R. Um And If it's not But the game works Then fine You The game looks like it'll be a lot of fun. It looks really fun to me. yeah This summer, serve up the cookout classics, Oscar Meyer Hot doogs and Heinz mustard. Grill up a dog, add classic yellow mustard, or loaded Chicago style We all know it's not a cookout without Oscar Meyer and Heinz This episode is brought to you by Palm Olive Family time isn't just the big moments, it's weeknight dinners. sitting around the table, everyone talking all at once. So when the plates are empty and the sink is full, use Palmaloive Ultra. Palmaloive's most powerful formula removes up to ninety nine point nine percent of grease, leaving your dishes sparkling clean. and the new convenient pump makes cleaning even easier, so you can spend less time tackling dishes and more time together. Shop now at palmaloive dot com d If we knew more about our sleep, What will we do differently Would we go to bed at a consistent time or take steps to reduce interruptions to our sleep with Sleep score Apple Watch measures your bedtime consistency, interruptions, and sleep duration And then, every morning it combines these factors into an easy to understand score, from one to one hundred. So you'll know how to take the quality of your sleep from okay to veryer high. Know your sleep score with Apple Watch. iPhone eleven or later required. And ultimately too, I think this being the afterlife of gods, they'll be able to explore so many different mythologies. It already looks like we're getting a lot of like Egyptian and you know, like I think I saw like a Buddhist deity in there I think the Red fire guy. I think someone said it was a Mongolian god. go of war. Yeah. So I'm like, that's really interesting. Yeah they can explore It there't They can explore a lot of different ideas with this direction, I think. Yeah that's really I'm stoked about it. And then where are the oers? So that Okay, let let's talk about control resonant, which I won't shut up about because I love control so much. You know, control very SCP coded. I don't think it was written or developed in conjunction with the SCP community online that spun out backrooms, but has like a very similar kind of eerie vibe, contontrol resident taking that eerie vibe and being like, well, now that's escaped out into Manhattan. U This is a game I'm looking forward to because the The ways in which control was cinematic felt so lynchy. Um, you know, and the ways in which like Alan Wake Control and Allan Wake two both take Huge weird fucking swings, right? Like, you know, the The Ashtray Maze in control, the musical sequence in Allen Wake two. are things that feel so unique to each of those games and unique to Remedy as a studio and we're not at all teased in in the trailers or promotion for those games. My hope for contontrol Rident is that we see some Whether it's a musical sequence or just a weird sequence. Yeah You know, I control Troll also had a level where it's like the might have been an optional boss. I can't remember where it's like, it's anchor that barfs clocks at you, you know, like like the games like the remedies games of late have been so uniquely odd. Yeah. that I'm really excited to see what they do with the character of Dylan Fadom The story of you know, one of these weirdnesses getting out into Manhattan and how that all interplays with the combat and the gameplay because I think that's something that Remedy does really, really well They'll be like, yeah, I dont know,ere's this puzzle where you're in this like, you know Weird motel, go check it out. likeike, you know, the This being has attached itself to you. you know, I it's They're just like so bizarre in the best possible way. It's a world I'm excited to spend a lot of time Um Okay,'s my that's my soapbx about control resident. There are a couple other things you had highlighted that you wanted to talk about. Yeah. I mean, there some other stuff that A interested in is I like They're doing the remake of Rayman Legends. Oh yeah, I never played any of the Rayman games when they were out. Yeah, I think like their original Rayman games, I think was like just a three D platformer. Yeah, I think it was PS one, right? And It was like kind of like It like cell shaded. It was animated very fluidly, I recall. Yeah But they when they reintroducce Rayman in the modern era as with Rayman Legends, which is more of like a U Okay. I don't know exactly how to say it's like an endless runner type or he's just running and like the platforming is more so like what timing went to jump in like Yeah a little bit more like Cnibolt or something like Yeah. Yeah. So but the way that the legends played it was still like really fluid, really fun Um And it's cool that they're bringing that back, but like in a more modernized way. I think I would have maybe liked to see just another Rayman game. Yeah rather than a remake of a reintroduction to Rayman because they already They already did like a reboot with Rayman. So like to remake the reboot just feels like interesting But byither way and then we'll reboot the remake because theake Yeah just make like a new remake, justust make a new remake. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of jumping around here, but that's kind of my feeling with The Star Fox that's coming out this month is I am really excited for it flat out and Nintendo released or put up on YouTube and Maybe I just hadn't watched the whole thing and this was there before, but like when you're playing multiplayer, If you're using the Nintendo camera, it could basically map your facial. Oh they do that. which is that a feature I will ever use? No. Do I love that that's included? Yes But you know, part of me is like, well, if it is just a remake of Star Fox sixty four Great. You know, like Star Fox sixty four hit when I think I was like fifteen or sixteen, you know, like I loved it. The soundtrack is something I still listen to on occasion. So if it is just a remake, like, yeah, I'll be sto But it leaves me feeling a little bit like that like we werere talking about the Rusa Brothers earlier where it's like Yeah, but I also as a fan, I want a new game. you know, like I don't want to feel so taken for granted that I'll just play whatever remake they put out But also I will. Yeah, you know, like It's funny Star Fox in particular. there was a YouTube video I saw I didn't finish through all of it, but it was like How many times did they remake Star Fox sixty four? It was like the premise of it? Yeah yeah. But like as it turns out, a lot of the Star Fox are just reimagining of The original NES Starfx. Yeah because even Starfox sixty four was kind of like, well, this worked. What if the graphics were better? Yeah, I think it was like an interview with Shiga Romiyoto specifically, where Um he was like, yeah, sixty Starfx sixty four was what I imagined the original Sarfox to be. because I was limited with the technology. Yes, now I was finally able to make it. And so every iteration of that is almost like a retooling of like, oh, what if we take this core idea and remake it from this new tools? Well that's something that like I'll say this and then I want to get back to the other things from Sony that you're excited about because I absolutely was like, Brian, what are you excited about? Then I cut you all But I But you know, that's something Nintendo historically has done a lot of with great success. You know, when when Nintendo put out the super Nintendo They were kind of playing catch up. They were caught a little bit flat foooted by Sega And so a lot of the best super Nintendo games are kind of like almost one to one reimaginings of Nintendo games with better graphics, right L link to the past. You know is the one that comes to mind most immediately you know, Super Mario worldld is like, okay, well, we did a lot of experimentation in Super Mario three. with power ups and stuff. We're going to kind of condense those and strip the rough edges off and give you Super Mario World. You know, Starfox sixty four did the same thing with Starfox I would argue Mario Odyssey did the same thing with Mario sixty four I don't like Mario sixty four. I love Odyssey U, you know, and I would argue that Breath of the Wild kind of did the same thing with Uh what's the Occarne of timeim? you know, like where they're like, hey, we kind of played around with this three D Zelda game Let' let's do it, you know as much as we can. And that that obviously eraces like, you know, two whole platforms worth of Zelda games that that did similar things, but breath of the Wild don't watershed which is why I cite it. You know, so it's like I am excited. I think there is a lot of potential, whether it's Starfox, Zelda, Rayman, you know, like I think there is a lot of potential for being like Hey, here's what I was trying to do without being limited by the graphics, but but yeah, but even in those examples you gave with like You know, the Zeldas and the Marios. It's like, yeah, it is the core gameplay is like the same, but has been upgraded Yeah and Cappy is new. Yeah, there's still new mechanics new levels. And I think that's mostly what people want I You could make Starfucks the next Star Fox can play basically the same Yeah, but give just a new level layout, a new bosses. Yeah. I don't see why I that's the part is like we really can't come up with another reason why the Starfx team has to do something Uh They it could just be another big boss. They could reuse the big head guy, but it's not Andros, it's just some other scientist. Sure Yeah So like, That's the part where I'm like We're resting a little bit too much on like Nostalgia The thing I would love to see from Starfos is more of And But but yeah, I hear you' on the resting too much on nostalgia. I don't know whether or not it's the case with Rayman because I don't have any noststalgia for Rayman With Star Fox, like the four V four multiplayer seems really U The Star Fox sixty four had like a great level where you were kind of like dogfighting against Star Wolf some more levels like that, some cinematic sequences to really take advantage of You know, I like a good rail shooter. House of the Dead rules. Yeah. And there was a House of the Dead port for we that rules U The Star Fox sixty four port for switch sucks largely because the implementation of the And sixty four controller was so weird And I just felt like it wasn't good. but anyways, I'm excited. Rayman, if it gets good enough forviews, I'll check out. What else from Sony popped up that you were excited about that I didn't already yet? U I It's mostly like ideas that I didn't know were happening. The Lost Wild that looks really fun. I think that's the one with the dinosaurs It's like a dinosaur like survival you're a protagonist, either like hiding from I don't know what the plot is, but it's the end of Oak Street the end of Oak Street. Yeah, exactly. But what's really cool about this one is that they're implementing the more modern designs of Oh dinosaur feathers whers Yeah Yeah, which is it's just fun to see Yeah that version of dinosaurs. Yeah. So I'm excited just to see what that looks like he's the next Silent Hill game? Yeah, I saw that, I didn't watch the trailer.. I mean, it's suiciently Silent Hill. It's very the same vibe I I've only played the signin Hele two remake So that's my only real context. That was my my girl my wife played through that recently. She She had never played a resident evil game Then residentval Requiem or whatever the most recent one came out And since then, she's played through Requiem three times. and the whole series Except for the on set in Afic you know, But she's played through the whole series since then and then that's because of that she was like, well, I guess I should go check out some of these horror other horror franchises I've missed on She played through the Silent Hill remake, Silent Hill two remake U, which like I watched her play a lot of that and like it seems very like vibey, creepy Um not not quite for me. But it's obviously you know, when it hits it hits the pyramid head guys you're like the fuck is this, you know, like U Now she's playing through bioShock She stoped She stopped playing through the first bioshock only because D zero seven first light came out. And I was like this game's getting great revs. We should play it together and she got so into it so so immediately Yeah. so like I could see I could see a new Silent Hell game. like if it had like a little bit less like creepy wandy puzzle aspect and a little bit more action. I could see myself getting into that, but I don't know if that's what that franchise is even trying to do.. There's a lot of like horror adjacent games. Yeah. The Tomb Raider leegacy of Atlantis. Now the trailer for Tomb Raider, I watched and it looked fucking rad. I grew up on the Tomb Raider games and then like haven't played any of the modern And this trailer looked good enough that I was like, this looks fucking sick. And then I found out that the studio used GAI. Oh really in the development of the game. and now I'm like, I need to do more reading on it because they're ye. But I don't really want to support that It's one of those things too, because I think it was in Amazon studio, like Game stududios is one of their games and like Amazon is a tech company as all tech companies push everybody to use AI all the time. You got the money to hire animators. hire them. They gota they got to justify how much money they're spending on AI. I know. they gott to make people use it. I also say this like This is not really a Someone's really making the hell out of a latte. You hear that? Yeah. Someone's really steaming the shit out of some oat milk you know, I uh I an article came out earlier today as of taking in the Atlantic by Ted Chang which is wild because Er Eric and I had just recorded a supercast episode for N N our Underground about AI where I cited a different Ted Chang article. about AI, not knowing he was going to have them come out today, but Just talking about like whether or not AI is conscious. And anthropic in particular is trying to push this idea that AI is conscious, which I think is stands on weak technical and philosophical grounds. Also, that's so I didn't know it until I was reading that article that they're even doing that. And what an odd thing to do. Well What an odd thing to do. Yeah, it's od thing to do. Broadly speaking, my background in college, I took a lot of coogsi courses whichich at the time, AI was still theoretical, whether or not machine consciousness was possible was so far off in the future But I've been reading books on philosophy of Mind and AI and tech for twenty years at this point. Does that make me an expert Does it give me perhaps a slightly more qualified viewpoint on AI than the average duck Yes Um Ted Chang, I think really articulates a lot of my Problems with saying that AI is consciously very well. There's two quotes here. One, we don't need to fully understand the nature of consciousness to definitively say that certain things are not conscious And conversational transcripts fall in that category The article makes a thats that summarizes one point that Ted Chang is making in the article Another one The term deep fake traditionally refers to photos, audio and video, but when it comes to discussions of consciousness, we need to regard text as a deep fake medium as well Um Whether or not AI is conscious is separate from is a separate issue from whether or not the use of generative AI is ethical in games. Yeah. but it compounds it because if you think AI is consciousness and you're just making it do shit. Oh sure. You know, like that's also kind of creepy. Like my brother raised the issue. I'm AI skeptic. My brother is like AI agnostic. sure, you know, and is the issue is like why do they want to market it as consciousness? And it's like Yeah, I don't want I'm saying. I don't want my search engine judging me for what I search orr being also bered by my like browsing history. Like that feels bad. or If it's conscious, we're making it do work. time razy. Yes, but my issue with generative AI's that's a side combo.m As I said earlier, I chugged the monsters, so I'm like a little bit I'm a little bit more distractable and a little bit more keed up than usual. But with Tomb Raider specifically in AI in games development The reason there's so much pushback on this is because like, hey you trained this model on stuff without asking for permission for it And now you're profiting off of that. And in addition to profiting off of that you are taking work away from humans. A lot of wh, you know, and Ted Chang's O editorial about AI Your third thing is plagiarism laundering machines. You know, you're chopping up everybody else's work. Visual,, textual, vocal, into such small fragments that now when it's recombined, you can't even trace where the plagiarism came from Um that that's my issue with the Jren of AI. Moment to moment, the trailer looked great. That looked like a really fun game. I was really disappointed to hear Geni had been used in the development There's ways in which I think generative AI can be used ethically. I think if you're basically using it as a search engine, sure, then like Yeah, you know, like Google has degraded their search engine to just being like, hey, search through which of the ads we feel like serving you now Google sucks, you know, like But this sucks too. And you know, and like and I don't I would rather support a game that was made with pure human involvement than one that uses G AI particularly coming from a place like Amazon and a franchise like Tomb Raider that has Enough money to do it. human wise. So I was bummed I was bummed to hear that. I wonder if like the reason why companies like Anthropic are pushing for the idea that Their AI model is unconscious. because they want to shift responsibility of what the AI does to the AI and not to the company. Well, yeah, because Be yeah, if AI and it doesn't have consciousness, it can't have responsibilities Um That will have to fall on the company who made it But if they're like, no, the AI has Claud has choice. Claud is choosing to do these things. and suddenly the responsibility is on the AI. So how are you gonna to like sue the AI? AI have assets they can get? I Yes, it must be a barrier Yeah. I mean, Ted Changg gets into that. I think also like it's fundamentally hyed. Right? like, you know, and again, we can get back talking about video games in a minute Uh or maybe not. we've been sitting here for a minute, but u You know, uh I think the main reason why Anthropic and so many of these other tech places want to push the notion that they're their large language models might be conscious or have some inkling of consciousness is fundamentally marketing h You know, like they they want to push the idea that this thing that has all this massive computation behind it which I should say is already very impressive with what it does if it's not conscious. my all my ethical Qms with AI, all my problems with concentrating so much money and power in Silicon Valley, all my problems with data centers, all my problems with the way the economy is being popped up by the AI bubble right now, even though open AI has yet to turn a profit. All my problems with ChatGBT being used to plan murders over over and over again All my problems with that aside, and they are pretty significant problems What large language models do is already very impressive from a technical and computational standpoint. Um Saying that they're conscious is a way saying that they're conscious is a matter of marketing hyightpe Saying that AI will destroy everything is a matter of marketing height saying AI will fix everything is a matter of marketing hype. when I think what Ted Chang does so well in this Atlantic article that came out today is kind of break down like Hey, here's what an LLM is actually doing And the fact that we ascribe consciousness to it when the output is text and only text and not when the output is novel protein folding configurations novel image generation says more about us as humans than it does about the technology itself Yeah. you know, which is which is fine. likeike we're about We see faces in clouds. I ascribe intentions to inanimate objects all the time. We're hardwired to just see these kinds of patterns where like such social creatures will or bond with anything. Yes And Ted Chiang lays out like very convincingly, he's like, hey, AI companies should have to do at least the level of work to convince us that their models are conscious that animal intelligence researchers have had to do to say that whales have language or ants pass the mirror test or which I don't think a mirror test Whatever. I think the murder test is outdated. but You know, like he makes a pretty convincing argument. I think he's right. and I think we should all be very We don't have to reject anything outright, but we should all be skeptical of any time a bunch of tech bros tell us something is good for us Because last time they did that Facebook made genocide easier. made it made giving kids eating disorders easier. We should just be skeptical of this stuff This is what This is what I saw, like I use like a tw Twitter or something, like a tweet or it's like it's crazy that Companies like Meta have created an environment where some of our most intelligent people are going into how to make ads better instead of like changing the world. Yes.'s like that's their model. Yeah. We just are trying to make things easasier to sell things to us. Yeah, and you know, so anyway, so was I was disappointed that two Raiders said they were using GAI in development and that it was and that they were being so forred about I think that they feel comfortable doing that maybe speaks to the fact that I'm in the minority and thinking about AI in this way, but I feel how I feel. Anyways Let's what other games we got here? Oni Musha? Is this is the On Musha game a reboot or is that a new Oni Musha game? I think it's a new Oni Musha game. Dann, dude, the first Oni Musha game hit so hard It was so good. That That's the thing. like a lot of these games too, like are not reboots, but like sequels to these games I didn't care of. watching a trailer of Vonny Musha, that seems really cool. Yeah Yeah I had to look at up like Oh justs more only Musha games. Yeah That's really exciting. I will not play it, but I was excited to see that Dynasty Warriors three is being re bastard because I don't play Musao games really like I've tried a couple of the more recent Dynasty Warriors ones just been a little bit overwhelmed. and I tried the Zelda. I can' remember what the Zelda Hle Warrior. Hyu Wars. Yeahah. I tri I tried the first Hy Rule Warriors and bounced off it for the same reason. But for whatever reason, when I had a PS two, Dynasty Warriors three like JZhang Ho with the cllaws. Like you fucking rule dude, you know, like u So I probably won't play it, but I'm tempted to play it Um It looks rad. And the last thing that I'm like most excited for is the no rest for the Wicked game. Yeah so what does that tell me about that? It's the developers behind Oi, the Oi. Yeah, but they're doing essentially like a souls like game like a more It's like an isometric, not isometric, but like that kind of a viewpoint. Yeah. So it's like a top down, kind of like Hades actually. Okay Instead of like a speed 'em up, it's more like a souls like gameplay It's been in early access for a minute now, but this is like their Finally like official releases coming out. And I love the Oura games. I think the studio behind them really knows how to make gameplay feel really good. Yeah. Thats why I'm excited for it. I'm like, you know, I want to see their take I saw their take on platform or metrovano platformers. Yeah. That was great. Let's see what their take on like a Souls light game is. Yeah, I missed Ori when it came out, but at the same time I was I was working for a mobile game company and I don't remember how this happened, but basically I was allowed to just play Celeste all day, right. Like I would spend like several hours a day at the office playing Celeste for wors like four words. That be crazy. It was great. And I think Ori might have been an Xbox exclusive at that point and I didn't have an Xbox. And a friend of mine was like, dude, if you like Celeste, you'll love Oi But maybe I should go back and check it out Yeah. I mean overall state of play like really felt like Again, I felt very served as a fan by state of play. U you know, and I know we're going to have summer Games fest and there's going to be more games news happening. IGM live is happening this weekend U New Rockstars is going to have a presence there. Come watch us do a live road to Doomsday on Captain America Civil War U, but u This is just PlayStation. likeike we're going to get more Nintendo release news. We're going to get more indie games, you know, we're going to get more Xbox And there's going to be another trailer for Grand Theft Auto six at some point soon. yees. I would imagine this year. I've learned my lesson from Dooms. donon't make any calls. I'm not making any calls. but I think I do think, you know, summer, even though E three is gone, long live E three We'll get Games Com in Germany in August. We'll get a lot of announcements out of that. So like, you know, It's looking to be You know, it's looking like the next eighteen months are going to be very stacked for AAA releases U I hope things like Mina the Hollower still I hope I still managed to make time for that. I love Shovel Kight. Yeah Mina is getting an incredible review is really good. Yeah really good.. Yeah U I already preordered Starfox though. So it's like, I've got that coming in three weeks. Can I squeeze in Mina in between now and then? you know So I can get that for the weekend. Yeah I don't need to sle Um But yeah, so I think there's a lot of good stuff coming. I'm very excited for the state of gaming coming up. Me too. Yeah, one hundred percent. Rad. Okay, well, should we wrap it there? I think so. Does does a lot of things. Okay, greatreat. Yeah That's it for us today. Make sure to like this video and subscribe to the Bakrom channel on YouTube. Brian and I are going to try to be better about hopping into the comments and responding to stuff 're ting us you're negative, I'm going to ignore you, but do your thing. But if you're positive or if you have questions, please leave them in the comments to this video. I'll try to pop in in the next couple of days and chime in with stuff. Give us a follow on Twitch where we do these videos live on Mondays around Twish. If you want to support us directly, consider buying some merch from Ndrite. shop. If you buy tea from Ndite. shop, that's one of the best ways to support our channel We have designs for everybody. We've got a bunch of stuff for Doomsday. I know we basically talk nonstop about video games. We apparently don't have any video game designs, but maybe they'll change. Maybe when the Wolvering game comes out. Yeah, honestly, when the Wolvering game comes out, we'll probably do something. If you've already got a teeth from Ndride. shop, show it off and tag us on socials. We'd love to hear from you. If you're not already following us, you can find us spray Pom NR on Instagram, Twitter Frs, thanks so much for tuning in. We'll see you next time Bee. Be Int Soock Doc, we know being a healthy adult is like living in a video game. Every day has side quests, taxes, laundry, birthdays, and just when you're leveling up, you have to book a doctor. 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