Zelda, Starfield, And The Year To Come

I mean, how many more video games could there be? But they're making another one. Oh wait, I'm hearing it's more than one? Oh, welcome to Triple Clip, where we bring the games to you. This week we talk about the upcoming video game release schedule, and by schedule, I mean our personal calendars. Princess Zelda, I can fit you in sometime this August. Wait, come back, I was kidding. I'm Maddie Myers. I'm Jason Schreier. And I'm Kirk Hamilton, and hello. Hello, my friends. Hello. Hello. I'm great. How are you both doing on this lovely week of March? Wonderful. It's pretty lovely, actually. It's kind of love while it's raining, but sunny here in Portland, and I'm doing quite well. I'm having a lovely week. So do you two remember last week on the show? I said that I wrote spring on my calendar for March 20th. Do you know what else is happening on March 20th? Just purely by coincidence. It actually is a coincidence, as far as I know. What, Maddie, why don't you tell us? Max Fun Drive is happening. Oh my god, that is exciting. I think it's exciting. And can you explain what Max Fun Drive is to people might not know? So if you're a listener to the show, or if this is your first ever episode, you don't maybe know. But if you're a listener, you know, every single week, we're like, hey, you could become a supporter of maximum fun, the podcast network we're on, and you can get bonus episodes, monthly bonus episodes from us, and also bonus episodes from all the other podcasts on Max Fun. But once a year, we do something called Max Fun Drive, which is a pledge drive, where we really try to entice people who might be a little on the fence, or maybe they've been putting it off, or they just haven't been getting around to plop in the old credit card down. And those folks are going to be enticed. They're going to be enticed AF. Yes, a lot of enticements coming. And if you are somebody who would like to say that you support the show, support our show or support Max Fun, and you want to tell people how much you like that, we're doing member stories this year, which some other shows have done it. We've never done it though. So you can send in a little message. A little anecdote about why you're a Max Fun supporter. Could be about specifically why you support TripleClick. Could be about the network. Could be about, I don't know, your feelings. Just all your podcasts and how much you support them. Or how much you like pins and cool stuff. Yeah. I mean, maybe you're really just in it for the merch. And you're maybe not even listening to me talk right now. You're just in it for the merch. Bless you as well, I guess. Still making the show happen. Yeah, we appreciate you. We'll take it. Even if you aren't listening. And you know, I'm not done talking. I have so much more to say. I'm so, first of all, I was going to start out by saying I'm excited to talk about Perfect Dark next week because that is the video game that I've forced you about to play according to the terms of a very elaborate annual bet that we engage in. And so anybody who wants to play along with us, regardless as to whether you know about the bet or not, doesn't matter. You can play Perfect Dark. It's on Xbox Game Pass. And you can also just buy it for $7 on Xbox if you want to. That's what Kirk did because he doesn't have Game Pass for some reason. I bought all of rare replay for $7. So I got so many games for $7. Wow. Okay. There you go. So next week, we're going to talk about Perfect Dark. And we are going to spoil it. So yeah, I mean, it does have a story. So there's that. Yeah. And then at least, you know, while you got your calendar open, just circle May 18th because that's the triple click live show. Did I do it? Did I get all the things? You covered all the things. We have a lot going on. Jason's looking at me very intently. Jason, the house. It's great. All the throw clearing. Jason, how did I do it? All right. Should we get on with the show then? Let's go. We got all that out of the way on with the show. So this week, we decided we're going to do something interesting. So we're about 25% of the way into 2023, which makes a good, a good time to kind of check out the landscape to see what's going on, what's been happening in the world of video games, what's still to come in the world of video games for this year. And we're also in kind of like a really weird, interesting spot in the new game console cycle or the new, I mean, this generation of consoles and games and next gen or whatever. You want to call it. So we're going to talk about a few things today. We're going to talk about some of the games that are coming down the road, some of the big games we are interested in and are excited about. And then we're going to talk about some of the stuff that has happened this year, some of the news that we found interesting, some of the kind of incidents that reflect the shape of the video game industry in 2023. We will not be talking about NFTs today. No, we'll be talking about cool video games. So guys, the next couple of months are like totally loaded to the point where I'm actually a little afraid about the amount that we're all going to want to slash have to play and the time that it's going to take to do it. I just want to read a quick list of some of the games and then we can kind of talk about each of them or whichever ones we see fit that are just coming. And this is just like that we know of. And this is just some of the big ones. And this is just like in the next three or four months. Our Wars Jedi survivor April 28, that's a sequel to Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order. Red fall May 2nd, that's the new game from Arcane, the makers of prey. Arcane Austin specifically makers of prey. Zelda, tears of the kingdom. That's the new game from a little company called Nintendo. You may have heard of them. Little playing card from the Hanafuda cards. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Zelda 4, the fourth devil. June 6th. Finally, they're making a fourth devil. Free warning us. Maybe another one. They were definitely not sufficient. This is in part four of the Bible includes the fourth devil. June 6th is the yellow four. Final fantasy 16 June 22nd. Baldur's Gate 3 August 31st, 2020 something years in the making that one. And of course, Starfield, which is TBD, but Microsoft and Bethesda have said are coming in the first half of this year. As far as I know, by the way, last I checked with people who are working on that game, they still don't have a release date yet either. So I might not be totally finalized, but still could arrive in the first half of this year. So we don't know about that one yet. Bing Kirk from the future here editing the episode. And in the time since we recorded this, Bethesda has announced a new release date for Starfield. And that release date is September 6th. So that's when that game is coming out. Allegedly. I believe it when I see it. Okay, back to the show. Bing man. That's a lot of big game games. A lot of video games. All of which I think all of which I want to play. Yeah, I'll play all of these. Me too. It's a lot of video games. It's a lot of potential bangers. Yeah, I don't know. Are you guys, do you guys have like strong thoughts on any of these games? Is there anything on this list that you're like particularly excited about or interested in talking about? Man, I've already been feeling that that I'm playing too many games just from the beginning of this year. We're not even in the thick of it, but it just have this sense of there are so many different games I want to play. I've been playing more Octopath Traveler too, because that game's really good as we talked about last week. But like I'm playing it and I'm aware that it's very, very long and there are so many other things that I want to be playing in addition to Perfect Dark, which we're playing for next week. I already kind of have that feeling of spinning plates that I don't generally like. Like I do prefer it when I'm able to be in the mode of the person who plays one game to completion. So I guess when I look at this list of games, the ones I'm most excited about are the ones that I'm pretty confident that I will play from beginning to end. And that we didn't list it, but it's coming a little sooner as the Resident Evil 4 remake I'm very excited about. That's a pretty long game, but I think that I'll play it all the way through. Yeah, I didn't include a couple of remakes in here for what it's worth. It's also a system shock remake that I mean. I mean, and that might be great. Yeah. That seems really promising. So Jedi survivors, the one on this list that for whatever reason, I think I look at it and I can get my head around it. I'm like, this is going to be a Metroid inspired kind of Solzy. It's going to be like the first one. It'll probably have a cool story. I'm going to get to use lots of different kinds of lightsabers. Cool. Like I can get my head around it. Where when I look at Diablo 4. Lots of different kinds of lightsabers. You've watched the trailers right? He's got all these different lightsabers. There's stances and so a lot of lightsabers. So anyways, I look at that and I kind of know what it's going to be where Diablo 4. I'm like, man, that game's going to go on forever. I want to play it. Baldur's Gate 3. That's going to be so long and so involved. And then also there release a definitive edition in a year that won't work with my save. Starfield, you know, right? So Jedi survivors, the one where I'm just like, I know what that's going to be. I'm excited to play it. So that's my thought. I agree. I felt similarly about the list. Zelda is so big that it's hard for me to even express my excitement and also fathom its importance. I am thinking about it in the back of my head at all times. It's so tough. It's hard to get my head around that. And it's too much. It's too big. And so it's easier for me to be like Star Wars Jedi survivors. That's probably going to be a really fun, fun time. I'm going to learn a little bit more about that specific microcosm of the Star Wars world. Liked fall in order. I think we even did a beans cast, although maybe it was prior to the era that we called the beans cast. Yeah, it was split screen. We talked it. We did a spoiler cast. Oh, wow. Okay. So we did a spoiler cast, which is a phrase that makes no sense. And I'm so glad to change that. Totally different genre of fuck death. Yeah. Very good game. Those folks are respawned. They know how to make games. I got to say that. And you guys. I think you guys are spot on. And I think something about Jedi survivor feeling like it could be a game that you can finish in 20 hours, hopefully 15 to 20 hours. That is really appealing among all these massive games because I think normal people, I mean, many me and you and Kirk to lesser extent you, like the three of us can get a have a little bit of leeway when it comes to playing games during the work day. But your average like normal people, most of the people listening to the show are going to have to make like a lot of big decisions in terms of where to spend their time with all of these games. Because like you said, Kirk, I mean, Diablo four is going to take 400 hours. Zelda is going to be a bazillion hours long. Final fantasy, boss game. Final fantasy might actually be a little bit more manageable because I don't think that's an open world game. There's actually, I don't know if you guys follow. There's a big string of previews a couple of weeks ago. I saw them. I didn't read closely. Yeah, I haven't looked at them too closely either because I want to kind of play it for myself and not really know anything about it to the best of my belly. But I did see a story about how it's deliberately not an open world game. And so they're going for a more linear experience. That's just fine with me. Yeah, it's just fine. Again, yeah, it's it's this interesting. We're at this interesting place. Okay, so my my theory and I think it explains a lot is that video games take too long to make. And I think that fundamental problem has caused a lot of kind of ripple effects throughout the industry, throughout what people are playing, throughout what people are interested in. And I think if you look at all these games, other than Star Wars, the bulk of these games that I just mentioned have taken at least five, six, seven years to develop. And that means that they've cost many, many tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars to develop. And that means that when they come out, they need to be humongous hits. And that means they need to be as appealing as possible to as many people as possible. They need to they need to sell 10 million copies plus to recoup that investment to recoup that investment. So you're looking at all these games and they kind of feel like they have to be a million hours long because that's what people seem to be playing and buying is games that are a million hours long. And they feel like they have to like follow all these other kinds of checklists. And we'll talk about Suicide Squad, which is another game I haven't even mentioned here in a little bit. But that is a game that really feels like it's just like smack in the middle of that problem space where it's like, man, this game costs us a lot to make. We have to put everything possible in it that will get get our money back out of this thing. Why don't we just talk about Suicide Squad? I mean, we might as well. Yeah, we can. It's an interesting thesis. Do you think that game fits interestingly into it? Yeah, well, so that game you look at the history of Rocksteady, the developer in the UK that is making Suicide Squad previously, of course, known for the Arkham series that kind of revolutionized superhero games back in the mid 2000s. So Rocksteady. Late 2000s. Late 2000s. Yeah, Rocksteady has been working on this game for a long time. Their last game, Arkham Knight, was 2015, and then they did a VR Arkham in 2016. And then they were working on this game that they eventually canceled. I believe it was some sort of new thing. And then they started working on this, let's call it 2017 or so. And I don't know when how much of their time and development was pre-production versus like actually heads down working in the game, but still that's six years ago. In 2017, as you guys will remember, was the year Destiny 2 came out. It was the year that games as a service were taking over the world. PUBG had just come out. Fortnite was about to turn into a battle royale. So like the decision was made at that point. Hey, let's make this a service game. And then along the way, it became this thing that we saw a couple of weeks ago and got a lot of negative backlash, a lot of negative reactions because it looks like kind of a service game. And I think one of the big problems there is that like because it took so long to make, I mean, in addition to what I was talking about before, we have to be kind of conservative as a game publisher to try to recoup your investment. You also have the problem of like the decisions, the creative decisions and management and business decisions that were made six years ago might suddenly seem a lot less appealing, a lot less interesting today. And also everybody instantly, including me, compared to Marvel's Avengers, which we talked about a lot on this show as the obvious comparison where it is a similar game as a service, also based on a massively popular superhero franchise, but feels a little different than the movies everybody's familiar with. So there's that uncanny jarring aspect to it, but then also just the experience that we even had when the three of us tried to play it on our Twitch stream of getting everybody as individual superheroes and working together in a mission. I mean, even leaving aside the technical issues that we experienced and trying to play it, it's also not that fun because it just feels like a very disjointed experience where some superheroes were more fun than others. Some felt like they had been developed more carefully than others, probably just due to the time management issues that would come up if you're trying to develop multiple very different feeling superpowers in a game. And watching that Suicide Squad trailer really took me back to Marvel's Avengers and also I'll give a little bonus shout out to Gotham Knights, which is not quite the same thing. It's not a co-op multiplayer experience, but also had those huge menus full of upgradable loot and just also felt like a real slog to play. Also two game developers, just like Rocksteady, that were entirely single player and then turned into pivoted to making a multiplayer game. Yeah, that Suicide Squad trailer bummed me out as well, I suppose it wasn't a trailer like a gameplay demo. There was a kind of flattening that seemed to have happened where everybody was just using a gun, which struck me anyway, is watching it. Like I'm not super familiar with each of those characters. I really liked the Suicide Squad movie, but I don't really remember King Shark using a machine gun and he's kind of running off the gun. So then it really made everyone seem the same and it kind of just looked like I was watching Fortnite skins of lesser known DC characters and that was notable given that the Avengers game at least tried to have, you know, each hero was different or they fought differently and kind of in the way that they do in the comics. So that was just another thing that made it feel like, oh, okay, so this is just a service co-op shooter. And let me say we joked about this last week, but I played a little bit of Destiny 2 lightfall of the new expansion. Oh, wow. I'm not sure. I loaded it up to play it and Jason's shaking his head. I know. He's so concerned. Kirk, are you okay? Yes. I'm okay. I just tried a little bit and it's fine. I can quit anytime I want. Okay. No, I really did. I was almost physically repelled by the game. Because I started out and I was like, oh, yeah, Destiny is pretty fun. And it looks sick, you know, on my ultra wide screen monitor. I'm like, yeah, that's really cool. Like, yeah, HDR is on. This is great. I'm shooting people. I start first at dawn on me that I'm shooting people with Ace of Spades. And like, I don't remember the same heavy gun that I've been using for like four years or something at Destiny 2. So, and it's the same enemies. I'm shooting Kabbal. So it's the exact same experience. Yeah, that's the most amazing thing. Yeah, I know that's your game. Yeah, war never changes, et cetera. Yeah. So there's that feeling of, okay, this is the thing I've done a million times. But then I start picking up armor. This happens pretty quickly. And in a new expansion in that game, they reset your level. So their blue crappy armor you're getting is going to raise your level. And you go through this initial period where you just get whatever armor, then you get your level up and then you get high enough to do it. Everyone knows how this works. Everyone's played this game. And I just, the first blue helmet I picked up that was a higher light level than all my other stuff, I was like, I want to stop playing this game and never play it again. Like, it was this really visceral feeling because I've been through that process and dedicated so much time in the past to that grind. As you can see, I'm just trying to get the same feeling as you can see. I'm just trying to get the same feeling as you can see. I'm just trying to get the same feeling as you can see. I'm just trying to get the same feeling as you can see. I'm just trying to get the same feeling as you can see. I'm just trying to get the same feeling as you can see. I'm just trying to get the same feeling as you can see. I'm just trying to get the same feeling as you can see. I'm just trying to get the same feeling as you can see. I'm just trying to get the same feeling as you can see. I'm just trying to get the same feeling as you can see. I'm just trying to get the same feeling as you can see. 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I'm just trying to get the same feeling as you can see. I'm just trying to get the same feeling as you can see. I'm just trying to get the same feeling as you can see. I'm just trying to get the same feeling as you can see. I'm just trying to get the same feeling as you can see. I'm just trying to get the same feeling as you can see. I'm just trying to get the same feeling as you can see. I'm just trying to get the same feeling as you can see. I'm just trying to get the same feeling as you can see. I'm just trying to get the same feeling as you can see. I'm just trying to get the same feeling as you can see. That's the word that is Metroid Prime 4 ever coming out. Who knows? Don't worry about it. I guess it's like the as stacked as this year feels as the next few months feel. It feels a little like the area past this very exciting neon wall right in front of us is kind of like foggy darkness. We're not really sure what there is. Yeah, it's interesting. I feel like Kirk to your point, I feel like Sony and Microsoft are in the polar opposite positions because Microsoft has like a dozen different big games they've announced but they announced those like three years ago and they just have totally disappeared. From like fable to ever wild. A bright fable. A vouch to perfect dark speaking of perfect dark. Yeah, perfect dark. I could go on and on with all these names of games that have been announced and just never came out and who knows how many of them are still coming, what they look like, what kind of shape they're in. Whereas Sony announced a bunch of games and has released them all and now we don't know what's on the horizon for them and then Spider-Man 2. We know that they have like a bunch of different studios all working on whatever stuff and at some point they're going to have to come out and be like, hey, here's what our run map for the next couple of years looks like. But yeah, and both companies I think have kind of suffered from a lack of big budget third party blockbuster quote unquote next gen games and also to your point I feel like we're in that weird kind of transition mode. This is definitely the longest it's taken a console generation that I can remember to really like go enter full steam into like the big game. Right, which. That feel like. Launching during a pandemic. Right. Yeah, launching during a pandemic hurt. I think I think another part of it is just that like there's only so much you can really do from here. If you compare some of the games that we're playing now to some of the games that were out five or six years ago. And the graphical fidelity hasn't really gotten that much better. Red Dead Redemption 2 is still probably the best looking game that I've played like and that came out in 2018. So I don't know that like there really needs to feel like quote unquote next gen games or what that would even look like. I mean the one thing that really has felt next gen and this was kind of the promise of next gen is the lack of loading times on console. I still blown away when I like pick up my Xbox and it puts up in two seconds or like jump into a PlayStation game and like the loan like the loading screens for whatever are just non-existent so that I think is pretty cool but yeah it is a weird time for the video game industry. Maddie what's your take. Oh, I just I'm in I completely agree and I also feel like the hardware shortages have really affected things like it's weird to still have switched to rumors be trending every other day. And yet there's no announcement. It's like people just have some anxiety so they're googling it every morning just to see if Nintendo is going to give them a switch to. And that combined with tears of the kingdom and the fact that Metroid Prime 4 has been MIA forever and we don't have anything else to point to feels very weird. Also just as sort of a Sony fan Jason do you not a Sony fan you're such a Sony fan boy as a fine fantasy fan. Do you feel like Final Fantasy 16 is like a big mid console tent pole because I don't feel like that's the narrative around that game for whatever reason but I'm a little outside of that fan though. Yeah I don't know that's a good question I mean the game looks cool it looks very different from previous Final Fantasy games which I think is a good thing like this is a series that is always reinvented itself itself. It's hard to know until I pick it up and play it and get a feel for it really. But shouldn't that be the one that we would look to and be like well that's the mid console generation big exciting example of something. I think so but I think well okay I guess it depends what you're using as like a baseline for that like are you talking graphically are you talking like innovations and how a game is played or how it feels to play or like the capability of these open worlds. I feel like one of the problems and one of the reasons there's been a little bit of malaise at least until we get into this like intense period of 2023 is that like there aren't really boundaries being pushed anymore. Like we're not seeing some big open world that blows our minds because we've already seen a bazillion different open worlds like it's not really exciting to imagine a game where you can explore every inch of the horizon because we've had a million of those. So I don't know maybe there just hasn't been enough innovation. Kirk what's your what's your thought. Yeah the horizon that I sense will be pushed or that could be pushed just based on things that have been happening over the last few months is the horizon of artificial intelligence and that's a much bigger topic that I think we'll probably get into in depth at some point because it's pretty complicated and pretty interesting but it does seem as though one can imagine that being something that actually feels groundbreaking and different because like you said there Jason there's diminishing returns with visuals like rate tracing has really kind of turned out to be this major let down in PC gaming I'd say it's a thing that you still just don't turn on 90% of the time because it ruins performance and there's all this talk about how it's going to be so realistic looking but honestly like even in cyberpunk I play that game with everything turned on now yeah it looks nice but it looks great without that stuff turned on like it. It doesn't really that wasn't a mind blowing thing because the visuals are just incredible no matter what but when I imagine a game like I've actually been replaying some red dead too and the thing that strikes me about that game is it's so high touch like it's so high effort everything about that game that's so impressive and also kind of leads me to conflicted feelings I talked about this in my review of that game five years ago but it if you imagine a version of that game that is like being written in real time by an artificial intelligence and performed in real time by an artificial intelligence actor those things are not out of the realm of possibility at all and suddenly you're thinking about something that just your your imagination starts to run wild and I don't know what's possible and what's not but the minute you're there it's like oh we're talking about a totally different kind of video game that could be something genuinely groundbreaking and wild and exciting and you know just crazy that's the sort of thing that feels like it's missing when it's even looking at this list of games like okay it'll have an even better looking open world but we we basically know what it'll be you know oh it'll have a slightly tweaked combat system but we basically know how it's going to play like they all feel like there is kind of a malaise there may be when you think about everything like we basically know what we're getting with all of these games it's not always bad but we know yeah so yeah I mean that's why I'm so excited about stuff like a case of the golden idol all of us do it because it just feels so new and actually different play before yeah Kirk to your point I think felt like what a I might bring to the table and yes we'll definitely talk about this more down the road because it's like one of the hottest topics in anything anywhere right and like a genuinely interesting topic to I would say and it's fascinating yeah I'm like it's funny last year was the year of like crypto and NFTs and shit and it was hard to even muster any interest but AI is super fascinating for like lots of reasons and you asked someone like what why did NFTs matter like they just do trust me yeah or they are just like just use chat GPT for five minutes and you're like holy shit like this is crazy it's also by the way I don't know if you guys saw there's like so pretty much everybody as we've discussed pretty much every gaming company has been like screw this we're out of NFTs like clearly nobody wants to care about them but doctor disrespect the internet personality he started a game studio and he's out here still in 2023 in March of 2020 he's out there defending putting NFTs in his game which is hilarious to see anyway it's actually retro now to do that so what I think is what I think AI will be able to do is allow the player to kind of like have an improv improv session with the game to the point where like the player whether it's in a conversation or whether it's even like creating things I think that's the stuff that will be really interesting it'll be interesting for a lot of reasons one is like if a game is suddenly taking from like the internet's collective like art and ideas and writing and storytelling then like does that cause all sorts of legal and ethical issues but also just like it's fascinating to imagine a game that like uses AI to generate stuff in a way that we've never seen before so yeah that's a super interesting topic that I think we should discuss down the road yeah just a couple more news items real quick Nintendo Direct there was a big Nintendo Direct that we haven't really dug super deep into obviously we talked about the Metroid Prime remake I was extremely excited that they announced a new Professor Layton game because I thought that series was dead I think we're all excited about Ghost Trick coming to switch and modern consoles I'm very excited about Finacy Life 2 cause the first game I really enjoyed which again something we can talk about closer to that game's release and also Manny I know you're excited about this one Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games have come to the switch we can now all play Minish Cap Zelda Minish Cap and Metroid Fusion original links Awakening as well along with the remake and Metroid Fusion is coming will be out by the time this episode is out but it's not yet out as we record this but Metroid 2 the Game Boy game that became Samus Returns is available now if people are familiar with the Mercury Steam version Samus Returns which is a great game that's the one that I'm still waiting on where I'm like Oh people put Metroid 2 from the Game Boy on the switch that's great people can play that but get Samus Returns on there I just need to collect them all I need Nintendo to just put all the Metroid games on one console and then I can just die happy I guess there's really no worlds left to conquer for me at that point I will have achieved everything by the way Russ Freshtik was telling me the other we rush Russ Freshtik and I were talking the other day about the next switch and what that might look like our Nintendo's next console and my prediction I'm gonna zag where everyone else is digging on this one my prediction is that Nintendo's next console will not be backwards compatible maybe that'll be an official 2024 prediction because just because like everybody wants it it makes perfect sense and Nintendo has never in their entire history done something that everybody wants and makes perfect it's not a bad basis for prediction on I mean yeah it's just gonna be something totally unexpected this this might actually be if there's no new console announce this year this might actually be my prediction for next year so we'll see yeah but you said that you saying that reminded me of this just because the idea we're all thinking like oh this great collection of Game Boy games will carry on to the next console but guys remember the virtual console that would make no sense at all but they've beefed up Nintendo online they've made it so awesome and like so appealing as a purchase point and they're like yeah we're just gonna make that not matter at all I mean that's exactly what they did with a virtual console they did that exact thing I know one more piece of news real quick we should dive into before we take a break which is that Elden Ring DLC was announced so we all knew this was coming but still it was cool to see from software just put up this image called Elden Ring shadow of the Urd Tree and I said it was in development and I watched a 20 minute lore video about that image did you really see where I am it's clearly was it body body vidya we got a link yeah it was a video we can look at it's an image of me quella from Elden Ring me cool on me cool on me cool sorry me cool from Ellen Ring on torrent the horse and the Urd Tree is there and Kirk what did you learn from that yeah I can just quickly summarize 20 minutes of boy well I learned for starters that vatya video has a lengthy me cool a mikala lore video that I haven't watched that I now really want to watch because me cool is a very interesting and mysterious character and I learned the theory of who first owned torrent which I believe now vatya video thinks may be mikala and it's not clear if that is the Urd Tree or an Urd Tree with another dark Urd Tree wrapped around it there's a lot in that image there's a lot of that image there is there is I've seen some tree analysis some people drawing little lines around the different branches and roots of the tree and analyzing which aspects of it could be an Urd Tree and might be some dark cool things might be some dark root for example capital D yeah I'm so pumped for this if we want to talk about the future games and what still makes us excited it's really just just keep making those you know is it just the same old thing yes but it's still freaking great so maybe they just make that forever I don't forget don't forget the first time you played breath of the wild that some not I think conjure some of the same sensations so we will be shocking if tears of the wild did the same fit or tears of the wild breath of the king of the king of the king into the same thing but yes of course many I mean Elgin ring DLC the one thing that actually was comforting for me was the fact that they're just kind of teasing it and not even like showing it with one image and not even showing a trail or anything yeah if you think it's actually kind of far away which I welcome because of all the million hour game do not need all the ring DLC in the middle of May or something but that coming like yeah this fall or even like early next year totally 100% fine and by the way if you're listening to this team cherry feel free to just find Sulk song down the road a little bit too I never thought that I would feel that way but I kind of agree as well I can't handle it in the first half of this year like there's too much already maybe like you could put that game in like I don't know Thanksgiving October yeah October and November I'd be totally fine with that yeah we got time then I'll end on this note one of you wrote in the show notes on our list with me topics Kirk you wrote remember Ubisoft LOL which is good I miss the conversation anyway let's take a break we'll have a moment of silence for Ubisoft as we go to the break and then we will be back to talk about one more thing I hope they've got the bread bowl have you seen the bread bowl at this place good evening welcome to maximum fun have you been here before it's her first time very good might I recommend our special please Can I interest you in the max fun drive I'm told they're cooking up something quite extraordinary this year I've heard about this with limited time thank you gifts for new and upgrading members that's right we'll take it how would you like your episodes Can I get them excellent with new boco on the side oh are there livestream events absolutely you know if you're interested in events meetup day is for turning What oh you're gonna love meetup day it's the best okay let me make sure I have everything max fun drive 2023 with limited time thank you gifts livestream events meetup day excellent episodes and of course new bonus content sounds perfect great we'll get it started and it'll be ready in two weeks March 20th oh can we also get a couple of waters of course Where am I on maximum fun what do you want a podcast mini series about the prisoner whose side are you on that would be telling but okay I'm on my own side it's one of my favorite ever TV shows we want a podcast on it a prisoner podcast you won't get it by hooker by crook we will who are you I'm Elliot Kaitlin who is number one Jesse Thorn but you are John Hodgman I am not a prisoner podcaster I am a free man I'm a free man hahahaha oh you okay are you alright okay I'll watch it all four episodes of the potting you are out now Oh baby you better death alright Kirk Matty RIP you miss off it's time for one more thing uh Kirk take us away sure my one more thing is an Apple TV plus show that I've been watching called slow horses that is a really enjoyable show I like it a lot more than I thought I would I kind of put it on kind of randomly Emily's out of town this weekend and I was like here's some spy shit that she probably wouldn't like I'm gonna watch this show and it's really great it is a really enjoyable kind of British spy drama with some levity some sort of comedic elements it's mostly hard boiled spy stuff so these are based on the slough house series of books by an author named Mick Heron and it stars Gary Oldman as the main character the head of this house and of course Gary Oldman well known for portraying what was his name smiley I forget his first name but the famous John LeCarae spy in Tinker Taylor Soldier spy I thought you were gonna say Commissioner Gordon but okay well he's also gonna spend a very different kind of spy in this this kind of just really sloppy old washed up burnt out guy who's like always letting horrible farts rip in a super rude to everybody but of course is also a brilliant spy and he is in charge of this what's called slough house is a sort of a place where people are posted as punishment so it's kind of the dog house of MI5 of British intelligence so if you screw up in some way or you're kind of useless or no one wants you around they send you to slough house and you work for Jackson Lamb who is the name of Gary Oldman's character so this begins with the kind of introducing slough house and quickly you get to know the various characters they're all kind of you know they've messed up in the past you know they've messed up in various ways you learn their back stories but of course there is a plot of foot and it involves a lot of sort of double dealing and spying on other spies and mischief within MI5 and people trying to get slough house to take the fall for things and it's all a very twisted web and very complicated but really well told and in the end I found it to be just a really enjoyable spy story plus it's six episodes which is great because it's that nice sort of British series length just six episodes in the first season there is a second season out that's also six episodes I think maybe each one is probably based on a book if I had to guess but anyways it's like it's just a fun show I don't have a lot of deep thoughts on it or anything but if you dig that kind of you know spy story I like the kind of things that Gary Oldman has been in or those like her a books it's it'll totally be up your street and I really enjoy it so yeah it's called slow horses it's on Apple TV plus and there are two seasons of it that you can watch I just started season two cool sounds fun Maddie what's your one more thing so I watched total recall for the first time hell yeah you did the first time oh my god I know it's crazy I'm so happy this is so funny everyone more thing from you into any it's just a Paul Verhoe movie that I want to hear the first time I am gonna run out of Paul Verhoe the movies but we'll see how many more 80s sci-fi classics I can watch for the first time especially a total recall technically not 80s technically 1990 although Arnold Schwarzenegger looks so young in it it's it's wacky he looks like such a little baby can doll he looks perfect is this pre-terminator is this before terminator I think it's right before when before terminator to it's post-term right when it's like 84 or something got it mm-hmm who knows it's all the same year to me it's all 1989 it's it's right before a terminator to anyway Arnold Arnold has a beautifully smooth face in this movie and he is incredible I recommended Robocop last week I super triple recommend total recall loved it maybe my favorite Fairhove in movie thought I knew what it was about didn't know what it was about didn't know all the twists which was great and which is why I'm not gonna spoil them because if you're like me you're like oh yeah it's like a sci-fi movie there's like a lady with three boobs in it like there's a three prosthetic that's yeah I know a lot about that yeah we kind of these the well-known thing though it kind of is yeah well I remember South Park parodying it that's of course I mean yeah there's many parodies of it that I have seen and and also I knew that it was kind of like had a similar premise well conceit as eternal sunshine of the spotless mind whereby there is a fictional sci-fi corporation in the in the slight future that can alter people's memories and they pay for it so I kind of knew like the total recall the recall in the title had to do with sci-fi memory alteration but I really didn't know that much more than that which made it a wild experience to watch really dug it wasn't expecting it to be so political and so leftist and badass and also to have just great performances from everybody Arnold really stretch in his acting chops to the limit here he's he's still Arnold Schwarzenegger but he's really doing his damnedest and Rachel Ticotan and Sharon Stone are freaking incredible as like the two I mean this period of Sharon's like casino and like she's amazing and everything so so good but I really like Rachel Ticotan is like the the badass action chick who kind of comes out of nowhere and like the second half of the movie I ended up really digging her performance so I super recommend it if you haven't seen it you have to watch it drop everything and watch she'll recall I feel like it's influenced every other sci-fi thing in every video game ever and I can't believe I never saw it until now that's absurd and I'm glad I finally watched it and I've been thinking about it all week and I'll probably think about it forever now thanks Paul Verhoeven for making a great film. Also one of the great practical effects films so many amazing prosthetics and costumes and like painted backdrops in some of the scenes it's definitely right before CG took over of course in Terminator 2 a couple of years later when she was in that like that was like the rise of CG. Which Terminator 2 looks great but but Total Recall has so many unsettling weird effects that you can tell are props like pop-ups and weird things that scenery takes his head off and he's so many kissing. Yeah it's great it's great stuff. Cool okay cool so my one more thing is a book that I have been reading that I am really really enjoying it's a book called The Poppy War by R.F. Kwan and it is a fantasy book that is kind of based on the Sino Japanese second Sino Japanese War which was like the 30s or 40s or mixed with the 30s and 40s China and Japan fighting each other. And it's really really interesting it's it's it's based on it's it's got a lot of roots in China and so like it said in this kind of like fantasy version of China which is this big country on a landmass with a lot of just kind of provinces that are. All squabbling but ultimately unified under one emperor and then there's this nation to the east this island nation to the east that there's a lot of tension and historical war or a history of war with. And the book is it kind of reminds me of that book Grace of Kings that I was talking about a little while ago in that it's like fantasy based on Chinese history. And it stars this this girl named the Rin who is who lives in this small little like hick village and she is has this awful adopted family and is like betrothed to be engaged to someone that she does not want to marry or betrothed to someone who she does not want to marry who was probably going to treat her like shit. And she finds an escape route from this horrible life because that she is no way out of by testing into the military academy where she winds up going. And so the first half of the book is kind of like a military academy Harry Potter where this woman this girl Rin is taking classes and learning how to be a soldier. And then things take a big twist in the middle of the book and the second half of the book from what I've gotten to so far I haven't finished yet but appears to be about something else entirely. And so it's really good because the writing is fantastic and it's really just kind of like fast paced and just really easy to read. And so I think it's a grace of Kings of the book I talked about a couple years ago that was much harder to read it was much more like a big kind of epic history book where like it told a lot of anecdotes in that were kind of some of them were just loosely connected some of them were a little bit kind of tough to get into whereas this book it's probably the most approachable fantasy book I've ever read because it doesn't like throw a bazillion proper nouns at you from the get go it really just tells this grounded story about this girl who like within the first two pages you're ready in love with her as a protagonist because she's fantastic as this like spunky 16 year old. And it's really great from what I've read so far is really fantastic I mean she gets to the school and there's a lot of just fascinating characters there and she discovers these powers in herself that of course every fantasy book protagonist has to have some powers. And it's just really just an easy just the really excellent read from what I've gotten to so far. Nice. I really enjoy it I don't want to talk about like more specifics of the story and the way to center is it a series or it's just one book. I believe it's a series because again every fantasy book has to be part of the show. Sure. But it's pretty again just very approachable like it doesn't feel a lot of fantasy books are you really need to like take the time to like know that you're going to spend the first hundred pages not knowing what's going on you'll probably have to reread the first few pages and you know like it's there are a lot more dense this is not this is like really character driven in a way that is really appealing to me at least because you just you start reading and you're immediately hooked you don't have to like let it it's not like one of his JRPGs that takes 10 hours to get good it's like it really just takes 10 hours to get good it's like I'm really enjoying it I mean I reserve the right to come back and be like man this book sucked once I actually finish it. Because again I'm probably like I don't know two thirds of the way through maybe so we'll see but I did just kind of like I was so hooked on it that I barrel through 200 pages the first night I opened it so yeah really impressive book. I'm going to be playing the next week and I'm going to be playing the next week and I'm going to be playing the next week and I'm going to be playing the next week. I'll move on somehow somehow. Yeah so another reminder for everybody will be playing Perfect Dark next week and spoiling it and I'm looking forward to discussing that one again we're playing the 2010 version of the game that's on Xbox Xbox 360 which is for putting it on any Xbox now and say yeah we'll see you next week. Yeah see you next week. Bye. Triple click is produced by Jason Shrier, Maddy Myers and me, Kurt Camilton. I had it in the next show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration. You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. Triple click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network and if you like our show we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at maximumfun.org. Find us on Twitter at TripleClickPods and email the tripleclick at maximumfun.org and find a link to our Discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time. ♪♪♪ Maximumfun.org Comedy and culture, artist owned, audience supported.