#138: A Vicious Cycle

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Sacred Symbols, a PlayStation podcast, is brought to you by, well, you. If you want to learn how to support our show, go to patreon.com slash lastandmedia. Greetings and salutations! Welcome back to Sacred Symbols, a PlayStation podcast.

This is episode... Wait, I don't even know what episode is. One hundred and thirty-eight? One hundred and thirty-eight.

My name is Colin Moriarty. Joined, as always, by the Cavalier, Chris Ragan. Chris, how are you today? Doing pretty good.

Yeah? Pretty good. Same old, same old. Nothing new.

Yeah, I mean, there's nothing new for any of us to report. Is that right, Dustin? You're here with us as well this week, Dustin? Yeah, I mean, I spilled some water on my shirt, and it dried mostly.

I was, like, nervous about looking like an idiot, and I thought the best way was just to acknowledge that I'm an idiot right off the bat. Yeah, it's tough. It's really tough. Yeah.

Life's tough, sometimes. Well, it's good to see you guys. It's good to be here with all of you. I did put out a plea on Twitter yesterday for when we were recording this.

Anticipating in Central Virginia here, just terrible ice storms and snow storms. Now, I want to be clear, it's not like it is in Texas right now. Virginia snows and gets ice every year. It's not like it's a heinous situation, but it could cause power outages, but we're totally fine.

So we're recording on schedule. Is the weather okay by you, Dustin? Because I know we're kind of experiencing the same sort of fronts here. We got a little bit of dusting.

We've been getting some ice and, you know, a little snow. Nothing crazy, though. Well, good. Chris, can't relate.

I don't know. Can't relate. I keep looking at the maps, and, you know, when they put the map of the country up with all the different heat and the freezing temperatures and whatever, and California looks, it's cold, but it's not like it is anywhere else. Yeah, no, it's like kind of windy, you know, but that's like, sure, that's like basically it.

You're all quarantined and have been for years, so that's kind of the trade-off. Yeah, that's true. But everyone out there, thank you so much for joining us on our weekly PlayStation podcast. Support it on Patreon.

I should say, patreon.com slash last-hand media. More than 10,000 of you over there. Thank you so much for your love, kindness, and support. Of course, you can support us over there at Sigurdsum's Plus, our weekly supplemental podcast.

Last week, Sigurdsum's Plus was the Hitman 3 spoiler cast and review discussion. How did that go, guys? You guys were on that? Yeah, I believe.

I think I'm pretty good. Yeah, I feel pretty good about it. We have a new term, Colin. Now, we are, when the show specifically, when the stars align, and it's myself, Chris, and Maddie, we are DMC.

Oh, nice. Yeah, it's pretty wonderful. Like the DeLorean, right? I was thinking more like Devil May Cry.

Yeah, of course. I always think about that with Ryan McCaffrey, because he's a buddy of mine. He has DMC Ryan as his name, which was such a huge mistake on his part, right? Just because of where he is in the realm, everyone thinks he's a big Devil May Cry fan, which I think is the furthest thing from Ryan McCaffrey's interest.

Yeah, he doesn't see him. Like, I wouldn't pay him for a Devil May Cry person. I don't think he plays the weeby stuff. No.

Well, nonetheless, thank you over there for supporting us on First Sake of Sables. Plus, next week, we're going to do, I think, an episode on Habroxia, too. I'm going to talk more about this, though, when we talk about the news in a little while, because I would like to get an episode in about this Six Days of Fallujah stuff, but I don't know if that's going to be possible, so we'll see what happens. But, hey, I wanted to read this letter out from Joe Roderick, who wrote it to us on Patreon.

Remember, if you support us on there, you can write into the show. It says, hey, boys, yesterday, I was listening to the most recent episode while driving when all of a sudden, someone rear-ended me causing a wreck with us and a third car. Luckily, no one was hurt, and my car isn't too badly fucked up. Not saying that your voice is casted a protective halo around me, but if that's the case, please keep working your voodoo magic for those of us on the road.

Cheers, lad. Well, what do you think? I mean, do you think we cast some sort of... I kind of resent the term voodoo.

I'm more of just a straight black magician. Yeah. I don't mean black skin color. I mean black magic.

Correct. And, yeah. I think about this often... This specific scenario that Joe brought up here, I think about it in the reverse a lot, where it's like, how many times have people been listening to a podcast of mine where, like, something funny might happen, and then they burst out laughing, but they're driving, and then they careen off a bridge and die.

So it's like the opposite of a protective halo, I guess. We had that joke for old-school podcast beyond listeners back at IGN 10-plus years ago. We had the bus full of nuns joke that we used to say, where we would picture that a bus full of nuns was driving the bus, and then we said something, and they spun off the road. I don't know why or where that came from, but that's what it reminded me of.

I do like the idea of a bus full of nuns listening to a video game podcast. Me too, in a bus. That's awesome. I mean, how bored are you if you're a man or a woman on the clock?

You're pretty bored. And I guess you need video games. Especially if you're a nun on the clock. I imagine that's particularly like, what do you even do at that point?

I don't know. Right. I don't know. I'm imagining someone's final moments, like, they're hearing you guys talk about Chris's bed size, and then they hear Chris splurging on a bed, and then that's it.

Their time on planet Earth is done, and that's how it ended. Tragic. I laughed, too, because he said splurge on the bed. It's really splooging, if we wanted to be technical, the verb.

I knew what you meant. That's enough. Close enough. Yeah, to make me laugh.

So, well, thank you to the nuns and all the people, Catholic Persuasion and other religious orders listening to our show. Hope you're doing well out there. Now, Chris, I wanted to call this out for you. You have a toy.

Yeah. Some sort of action figure type thing. Yeah, it's like a Funko Pop type of collectible thing. The guys over at U2's is the company that came out.

They approached me like a couple months ago, because I saw a lot of my friends and colleagues getting these pop figures made, and I'm like, what the hell is this thing that's happening? And I jokingly tweeted, I'm never going to get one of these, because they would never find a way to make me short enough, and they just reached out, and they made it a real thing. I don't know if you, will this show up in the actual video, like on the video podcast? That's a Dustin.

I'm trying to, I made you full screen. I don't think I can see. I'm not going to bother bringing it, but it's this little Funko Pop thing. It's really cool.

I'm flattered by it. It's a little weird to see yourself in collectible form. That's not something I anticipated ever seeing. So it's one of those things that's like, what did I do really deserve this at all?

That's a fair question. Especially because the likeness is so impressive, because, especially looking at old Star Wars figures, not even the ones from the 70s and 80s, but if you look at the ones from the mid-90s, like if you look at Princess Leia, for instance, someone go look at Princess Leia in 1995, she looks like, it's horrifying. So it's amazing that they couldn't get, Hasbro couldn't get Carrie Fisher, Kenner, couldn't get Carrie Fisher, right, and yet, you two can just nail Chris Raygun's likeness for one of, you know, a thousand of these things. Will you send me one?

Yeah, yeah, I'm getting a bunch of them to ship out and give away, so I have to sign them, too, so that's going to be fun. But yeah, I'll send some. Yeah, that's kind of the thing that confused me, because I remember seeing, I think that's probably what threw me off, because I saw news about that, like, PS5 upgrade for Crash Manacute, and I was like, and they said, like, oh yeah, CC frames in 4K, and I was like, oh, well, that clearly must mean, like, my assumption would be then that the PS4 version was 30 frames in 4K or 30 frames in, you know, whatever the hell resolution they chose to run it at, but yeah, I mean, I guess, yeah, I guess I was wrong, I guess that explains a lot, because if it's between 30 and 40 frames, then, like, that would explain why, I was like, this doesn't feel like 60, but it's really smooth. That would explain why I was confused, but.

Yeah, no, it really doesn't matter very much. Yeah. But I do want to be correct. That's fair, yeah.

As much as we can be. Sure. All right, there's a few just kind of quick things I wanted to touch on before we get to what we're playing. Let's see how quick it goes or not.

Game-related stuff, but stuff that I didn't feel like writing up for the news because I don't know if it's big enough, but the first thing I wanted to share was that Bokeh Game Studio, so we talked about these guys a few weeks ago, it's B-O-K-E-H, it's a Japanese game studio founded by Keijiro Toyama, and people have been wondering what he's doing. Toyama, of course, is best known for his work at Sony a long time, Sony with Siren and Gravity Rush, and he also worked as the director and writer of the original Silent Hill. So anyway, people are curious about what he's been doing, and they posted a 10-minute video in Japanese on their YouTube channel, so you guys can go look it up, just look for B-O-K-E-H and K-Jiro Toyama, and if you go on closed captions, people have put English captions in there. I mean, poor people do this if you're a fan, because it's clear he's working on new horror series, and the way he talks about it is very, very interesting, including, I guess, this kind of obsession, or this interesting kind of drawn up in the so-called death game, like Danganronpa.

So it'll be cool to see more of that, but I want to encourage everyone to go check that out if you want, because he keeps coming up on our show. And Chris, I wanted to throw this one at you, although Dustin, you might have insight into this as well. Bungie just announced a few hours ago from when we're even recording this, that they are injecting a ton of money and investments into their studio, including, and I think this is the craziest part, I'm reading it right now, their Bungie HQ in Washington is 84,000 square feet. When they're done, it's going to be 208,000 square feet.

Holy shit. They're also going to open up a studio in Amsterdam, and this will be for publishing and marketing mostly, and the games will continue to be made in Washington for the most part. And the biggest thing here is, and from my point of view, is not only the injection of new personnel and new talent at the top, but they're going to continue to develop, they say long-term development in quotes of Destiny 2, tell new stories in the Destiny universe, and create entirely new worlds, and to be announced IP. So I'm curious, so this is a lot to the right, so Destiny 2 continues, and there'll be another Destiny of some sort, maybe a spin-off, something not central, and then a new IP.

What do you think, Chris? I love it. I love it. That makes me really happy.

That's a crazy huge expansion, too. That's wild. I think the opening of a publishing office is pretty interesting to me, because I wonder if they're going to get into the publishing game at all. That would be really, really interesting to see.

They should. It's a great way to create revenue. They absolutely should. Yeah, that'd be so wild seeing a non-Bungie game with a Bungie logo on it.

At least that'd be wild. But, no, I think Destiny is like a... I've been getting into it a lot more recently, and I'll talk about it a little bit in the games that we're playing, but Destiny is a really good universe. It's really rife for stories and different genres could really...

I could see Destiny tactics, I could see Destiny RPG, I could see any number of things that could work really, really well in that universe, and they've built it out for so long, and it's so deeply entrenched with genuinely interesting lore. It kind of reminds me of what Riot's doing with... Wait, oh my god, is it League of Legends? Yeah, where they're doing all these different...

Yeah, they're doing RPG and apparently doing fighting games and stuff like that. Yeah, I don't know anything about League of Legends, so I can't speak to whether or that fits, but I can definitely say like, yeah, Destiny is a big deal, and it's cool. And I'm looking forward to more non-Bungie, or non-Destiny Bungie stuff too, like I'm kind of itching for that as well, so yeah, I'm hard-pressed to be sad about this, you know, even if it is Chinese money from like, you know, God knows where. It definitely is, but that's why you invest in them, so we'll see what happens.

I'm intrigued by them creating a publishing arm too, just to see if they can create some latent revenue, even see small studios like Yacht Club doing this with Cyber Shadow, and it's just a good way, I mean, we're even investigating... I mean, I can tell you right now, we are porting a game, Lilium, right now, so we're going to get publishing revenue, and it's just something, so it would be cool for them to get involved in that. Dustin, share with me your insights. I have a few thoughts, I mean, first of all, it feels like publishing in Bungie makes sense in that they're a very competent studio that is continually growing, obviously, this is a big part of it.

I guess something I'm going to throw to you, Chris, just something I was thinking about is that I feel like I don't have a pulse on what the Destiny community right now feels, because it seems, I mean, this is literally the story of Destiny its entire life, is that it's a fucking roller coaster. Yeah. And the funny thing is, it's like, half the people are happy, the other half are upset, and so is there, do you think there's a possibility that there's like a negative feeling where it's like, oh, you guys are expanding and you can't get the current game that you have out, right? Or is this overall just positive?

I'm sure there's like something, Destiny is a huge roller coaster, and I think usually like half the community is happy, half the community is pissed, and then like usually it alternates, and like one side is, you know, they usually like swap emotions, and it's been like that for the entirety of Destiny's life cycle, I think, but, you know, the fact of the matter is that people still play it, and you know, like people, like, this is a game that I complain about endlessly, but I still come back to it. It's like, I've made a joke, it's like, I put, you know, 200 and something hours into Destiny 2, I play it all the time, don't buy it. Like, you know, it's one of those where it's like, it can be a chore sometimes, but it can also be like wildly rewarding, and I think that's really kind of the thing that they, that that game banks on, because it is like a live service game, and it's, I think, I think, I don't know if it's out of pocket to say, but I'm pretty sure it's the most successful live service, like, model that exists in like the console space anyway, because you think of like Anthem, you think of like, I'm not talking about like MMOs, like actual like, you know, like World of Warcraft, and then EVE Online, and so there's obviously successes before that, they're way more grandiose, but in the space of like loot-driven, like MMO-lite, like the Anthems, the, you know, the Divisions, your Avengers, it is, it is kind of the, the target that a lot of those titles aim to at least hit the low bar of, and they mostly fail, and I think that speaks to, um, it can't be that every developer sucks, you know, like it can't, that can't be the case, it must be that there's something special about it, that keeps it going, and you know, it's got a rich universe, I would be totally like, if they'd be like a Castlevania, like fucking animated series in that universe, I'd be all over it, I'd be like, yes, give me that. Yeah, Destiny, it's so weird, it's like, you know, the bad relationship that you keep coming back to, like when Destiny 2 came out, I was like, fuck this game, I'm not playing it, I put so much time on Destiny 1, and they never did anything that I thought was the right decision or whatever, I, I shit you not, I bought that game within a week afterwards, right, I like, seriously, I was like mad, and then like, I was like, fuck, yeah, it's that kind of game, yeah, well, I am interested to see how this develops, I'm glad you brought Riot because, uh, Chris, because it is pretty similar, I think that the situation between Riot and Bungie, though, is that Riot realized way too late, in my opinion, what they needed to do to kind of sustain League of Legends, I'm not saying League of Legends isn't popular, League of Legends is, um, what, 13 years old or 12 years old now, and they're just now basically getting a League of Legends spin-off in the form of Ruin King, which comes to PS4 this year, but then I said that the Project L is a fighting game, Project F is an action RPG, apparently, and they're doing an MMO in that space as well, but it almost feels a little late, although Riot also got a big confusion from the very same company that's, um, infusing Bungie and Bungie, so it is, it is interesting to see, I am excited about this, I want to see what else they can do outside of Destiny as an internal studio, it seems like it's going to be a long ways away, and unfortunately, although their talent has been so wrapped up in first-person shooters and multiplayer shooters for so long, it would be fun for them to see them do something else, but there's no way that they can, they can do that, and there's certainly no way they can sustain the headcount that they're aiming for, it's in the space that they're proposing, and making a single-player game 35 years, so.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, we'll see, I would love to see them do, like, just pull a total, like, Naughty Dog, and be like, here's a third-person action-adventure game, and it's a Bungie game, it's like, what? They haven't done one of those since, since Bungie West made, uh, Oni, in, like, 2001, you know, so. Yeah, this is, this is cool. The other piece of, or another, I should say, piece of interesting news, this is more of a rumor.

This comes from multiple websites to talk about this, but I'll just go to the Push Square website since we like them, and their story. Their story's called Job Listings Renew Speculation Regarding Virtual Reality Horizon Spin-Off, and usually I ignore this, but it's actually pretty interesting. Here's what the The story says in part it says Firesprite, the studio behind PlayStation VR's surprisingly enjoyable survival horror roguelike persistence, is recruiting a string of new staff for a quote VR action adventure project adapted from one of the most original and successful multi-million selling console IP in the last 10 years, end quote. Previous job listings have referred to a quote multi-million selling RPG, end quote, and specifically reference PSVR.

The advertising for the lead producer position elaborates quote, this is an exceptionally exciting project partnering with the IP holder to create a whole new chapter in the exciting and highly original universe they have established, utilizing the full immersive capabilities in VR to build a new narrative for fans and newcomers alike. And then it says while there are no further details in the description, the wording is fascinating because it was rumored over a year ago that Sony was exploring the possibility of a Horizon spinoff built with virtual reality. At that time, Blood and Truth, developer London studio, was believed to be leading that project, but people don't think that's true anymore. So anyway, there's all these different leads if you guys want to go and click around to upload VR and some other websites.

We don't know the veracity of the claim, but Dustin, I'm wondering if that sounds good to you. It sounds almost impossible to believe, but that IP actually makes a lot of sense in VR to me, so I'm curious what you might want to see something, or would you want to see something from Horizon? What might it be? Yeah, I think this is something that Sony should have done literally years ago.

Like, I'm looking through the list of games they published on PlayStation VR, and there's a lot, but the ones that they adapted from their actual normal PlayStation titles are, they did DriveClub VR, they did two Until Dawn spinoffs, and then everything else was sort of original IP, but anyway, the point is they didn't take any of their core, you know, big titles and make VR spinoffs, and I just don't understand why, to me, that just seems like an obvious way to sell the hardware, get a brand that someone's familiar with, and make a really good VR spinoff or something, and, you know, there's always argument about, like, keeping VR games VR and regular games regular, but we've seen that time and time again that that doesn't have to be the case, so I think it's a fantastic idea to sum everything up, and I'm just surprised it's taken them this long. What about you, Chris? I mean, I guess I'm just kind of intrigued by Horizon being leveraged in this way, because it's such a huge IP. They're obviously doing a pretty big comic run, the sequel's coming out, I wouldn't be surprised if there was some animated stuff in the works, we kind of saw some things from that, I think, like some different workups and mockups, and then maybe a VR game, so maybe they're going to try to make this their next big thing, which I think is kind of smart, because it's so good, in my opinion.

Would you want to see something like that? Yeah, I don't see why they shouldn't, you know, like, I think, honestly, the best, that's kind of the weird thing about VR, right, it's like, it's inherently a very niche market, so you're kind of going to want to attach, like, really kind of well-known IP to anything that goes on in that space, because it's more likely to get in front of people's eyes, it's more likely that people are going to be interested in it. I think that's why Half-Life Alyx exploded, because personally, like, I've played VR games that are very Half-Life-inspired, that are kind of, as far as, like, physics gameplay goes, like, a little bit better than Half-Life Alyx, but, you know, Half-Life has the Half-Life name, and of course it's going to explode, so I think it's wise of us to, you know, take something like Horizon, which is, I think, arguably their freshest success, and really turned into something that could drive people to this really underutilized medium and platform. I think it's smart.

Yeah, I do too. So, we'll keep it, we'll monitor it, hopefully we have some news. Things are a little quiet on the PSVR front, I don't know if that's, I mean, the other exciting thing that we should note about that is that it's going to be a PSVR 2 game, because the story does note that they originally talked about PSVR and their jobless thing, which was removed. I don't know if that's because it's a multi-plat VR game, but it seems more likely that they didn't want to have more people on their trail by calling out Sony's platform in particular, so we'll keep an eye out.

If that game's going to come out, it sounds like it's going to be after Horizon 2, since it looks like they're still hiring for it, so, yeah, nothing to be too excited about imminently. Here's another one, this is an interesting one that popped up. I was originally going to make a story out of this, and then I was like, eh, we'll just talk about it here. There's a random animated short for Ratchet & Clank called Life of Pi, P-I-E, on Crave.

Crave is a website, like a Canadian streaming website, I think. Used to do like some coverage and stuff too, but if you just go to Crave.ca, you can look for it, Ratchet & Clank, Life of Pi, and the description is, while on an intergalactic pizza run, I don't know why intergalactic is, there's a hyphen in it, Ratchet & Clank discovered that the diabolical Dr. Nefarious has developed an interdimensional portal device that would allow him to rule over the multiverse, et cetera. Now, this thing just popped up, and then IGN actually went to Sony and asked, like, what the hell is this, and here's what Sony said about it.

Quote, Ratchet & Clank, Life of Pi is a standalone, licensed, animated, special, created and distributed by Mainframe Studios. The show is not related to the upcoming Ratchet & Clank game for PlayStation 5, and it's not official canon, to the franchise's video game narrative. Glad they cleared that up. Yeah, so, well, I just think these guys were apparently the ones that did the movie that just kind of came and went too, and my assumption is that this was supposed to be something that was going to appear somewhere, and no one gives a fuck, or no one gave a fuck about the movie, so they're like, well, and they might have some sort of agreement to at least get it out so people can see it.

So it's there if you want to watch it, if you have, you know, the inclination. Yeah, if you're subscribed to Crave, as so many of you are. Right, exactly. So, if you're really hankering for Ratchet and can't wait until June, there it is for you.

Dangling. Dangling. And here's one more piece of, just one piece of news before we get into more of what we're playing and one more inquiry from the audience as well. We talked a little bit about this last week, but this was inevitable.

Rainbow Six Quarantine, which is the upcoming Rainbow Six game from UB, they talk about it in their recent conference calls and their financials. It seems like the game is going to be renamed. Now, this is a huge surprise because no one wants to hear the word quarantine ever again. The rumor is that it's Rainbow Six Parasite.

This comes from MP First, which is a website, I think, pretty renowned. I mean, I don't know how reliable they always are, but I've seen them pop up and leak things. And what's interesting is one of the leaks is the PlayStation Vita remote play screen for the PS4 version of the game. And so UB reached out to these guys and said, while we recently shared that we will be changing the name of Rainbow Six Quarantine, Parasite is only a placeholder that our internal teams use.

Recently, we ran an internal test for the game and some of its details became public. We can confirm this is a glimpse of the upcoming game and we will share more details, including the official name soon. I actually like the name Parasite. What do you think, Chris?

Yeah, I don't mind it. I think it's fine. It's not surprising that they renamed it. Yeah, I don't know if I have anything other than that.

I'm guessing they were like quickly changing the internal name away from Quarantine as soon as possible. I'm guessing that was months ago. Sure. I love the PS4 internal test using the Vita.

That's right. Pretty cool. They must have some information over there that people are using Vita, the remote play. I have no idea why else that would have appeared in there.

Yeah. So it's an interesting little tidbit there if you want to read into it too much. All right. One more to get into.

Do Kroner to us. Now, he says, what's up C and C with a possible side to D? All the serial killer psychopathic eating habit questions have short recorded with me. What's your opinion on idiots that eat with their mouth open?

I've been married nearly 11 years to a woman I love everything about besides the fact that she refuses to shut her mouth while chewing on food. She claims it's because her nostrils are too small to breathe through her nose while chewing. But I find that to be a ridiculous excuse. The sound makes me sick and what's worse is my two children have adopted the habit as well.

If it doesn't stop, I'm going to end up in a padded room anyway. I love what you guys do. So this is a major pet peeve of mine, but here's why I like this letter. He says he loves everything about this woman except for this.

But he says, what's your opinion on idiots that eat with their mouth open? So he's calling his wife and his kids idiots. This is a major pet peeve of mine. If you're eating with your mouth open or something wrong with you, Chris, give me your information here.

Yeah, no, it's not good. Don't do that. It's like there are, I'll accept maybe like an occasional chew that requires your mouth to open once. You know, like I'll give you like a, like a 95% shut, 5% open in any given meal.

You know, like that, that I think is fine. Because sometimes, sometimes it feels weird. Like, I don't know about you, but sometimes I'll think about this while I'm eating and I'll notice that my, that I'm trying to keep my mouth shut. I'm like, oh, why?

You know, I'm by myself, like whatever. But it's good to reinforce those habits though. Yeah, no, it is. But I think it's my grandmother would just hit me with a spoon every time I would chew in my mouth open.

But I just, I can't accept this as like an acceptable thing. Like if you're eating your food with your mouth open, like, and it's the majority of the time that you're chewing, like that's 10% of the time it's too much. You know? I agree.

Dustin, what do you think? So I'm going to focus in. Duke here mentioned specifically the sound and there's actually a term for this and it's called, I had to look it up, but I knew there was a term. Yes, that's it.

And it's funny because I definitely have this and it's the reason I'm on this podcast right now. It's because I've become so good at editing any mouth noises. Everyone does it during a podcast. It's just unavoidable when you've got your fucking mouth up in a microphone, you're going to have a mouth open.

Your jowls all going, yeah. Right. And so, you know, you hired me. I was, my editing skills were of, you know, of quality and part of that is because I can really focus in on those mouth noises and I just love cutting them out.

Now, that's no longer my job because we have, you know, our lovely editor, Ben Smith, who does also a fantastic job now. But it's just ironic, you know, the chain of events, hating mouth noises to now, you know, on sacred symbols. I don't know. You forced to listen to them.

The butterfly effect is real. Indeed. I hate it so much. It's funny because I would have never gotten anywhere near a second date with a person like this.

I said that I was a person at IGN for a few years where I, like, wanted nothing to do with her at lunch because it's, like, gross, you know. And my mom's, like, boyfriend in the 90s when she, like, divorced my dad and, like, the guy she dated for a few years, like, he was allowed to eat her and I remember that so well, too. He would eat, like, bologna sandwiches on white bread and it would just, you know, like. Yeah, yeah.

You know what I mean? Very vivid, very vivid sounds. Yeah. Just a cacophony of just wet slaps and disgusting teeth chatters.

I hate that. So here's what I want to say, Duke, is, like, your wife might be a lost cause. I don't care. I'm worried about these children.

You need to course correct it. With these kids, you can't send them into the world being judged for eating with you. Just don't do it. Everyone makes a noise when you make a chip in the mouth and, you know, you can't go too crazy with it.

Yeah. Not allowed. Yeah, just, uh, you take a cue from generations past. Like I said, my grandmother had this big spoon that she would use to cave in my vertebrates every time I would chew with my mouth open.

You know, I'm not saying you have to do that necessarily, but, you know, sometimes, you know, I don't do it anymore. That's all I'm saying. You know, you're not saying you don't have to do that. I'm just saying I don't do it.

And, like, that's what happens. So, like, you know, you could be seeing the game. All right. Let's talk about the games we're playing this week.

Dustin, you're the guest. So, let's throw it over to you. Sure. Well, I finished Dark Souls Remastered on stream a couple weeks ago.

That was fine. You know, it's cool to go back and see where Dark Souls really got going. Obviously, there's Demon's Souls as well, but I'm now playing Dark Souls 2. Not so good.

This game is kind of notorious amongst the Souls community because it was not directed by their main director, Miyazaki. And you can tell in a lot of different ways. The world design is just totally different. And, like, they didn't really get the point of the Dark Souls difficulty.

It really hones in on, like, let's put six of the same enemy and be really annoying over and over, right? So, I want to finish it, though. Even though I'm not enjoying playing it, really, it's one of those things where I'm such a, like, I really think that FromSoftware is, like, one of the best, the very best. And this is the final game of the Souls, you know, Sekiro, whatever franchise that I need to beat.

I just got to do it. I got to hunker down and beat it. So, that's where I'm at with that. Hey, wait, actually, before you proceed, I wanted to pick your brain about something.

How about this? Because Ben Williams joined in. Oh, yeah. We should revisit this.

He says, hey, fat, I want to push back on your comments about the Soulsborne community. I've recently gotten back into Bloodborne and I'm one trophy away from the Platinum. The community has been incredibly nice, helpful, and encouraging on Reddit, Twitter, Discord, et cetera. Everyone is so happy I'm enjoying it.

They love explaining the lore and help me when I'm stuck. Just want to share my positive experience. Love your beautiful faces. So, this is, of course, an answer to the fact that I said I often find this group of players to be amongst the most insufferable of players.

And I'm curious, you know, Ben is shining a positive light here. What has been your experience? Because I know you had to set some backseat drivers coming in your Twitch stream and whatnot. Oh, yeah.

So, my main experience with the Soulsborne community is on Twitch right now. Like, why aren't you blocking? Why aren't you rolling? Why aren't you doing blah, blah, blah, blah, blah?

It's like, stop. Enough. But, you know, there's multiple facets of every community. I've had fantastic co-op experiences playing Bloodborne or Dark Souls 3 and stuff like that.

You know, it's just, there's bad eggs everywhere. And I do think overall, Colin, though, you're right about, there's a thing with Souls fans that, I don't know, I shouldn't be too general. I'm a huge Souls fan, so I can say this, right? A lot of them just think that they're a little bit better than you for playing Souls and being good at it.

And there's just no way around that. I mean, I agree. And maybe you are, but I don't know that you need to wear that on your sleeve. So, I just wanted to inquire about that because I don't want to, you know, I want to present both sides of the story here.

Yeah. But I didn't mean to interrupt you. You said you were playing something else. Yeah, I don't want to.

I just, you know, it's what we're playing. I'm playing Super Mario 3 land on Switch, and it's awesome. It's very good. And if you played it on Wii and didn't like it, try it again, because they increased the movement speed.

It makes a night and day difference. Cool. Yeah, I haven't played that game. It came in a red case, right?

Is that a call? It's not a new Super Mario. Super Mario Brothers Wii, I think. Oh, okay.

That was our case. Yeah. I don't think I played that though. It's good.

I don't know. Chris, what are you going to do? It's me. So, it's the same.

It's the same thing as always. I'm playing Destiny 2. I normally wouldn't have put this on the list. I would have just said, like, I'm just doing Cyber Shadow again.

Which I still am playing Cyber Shadow. I'm just, like, really bad at it. So, I put it down and decided to take a bit of a break from it. But, out of nowhere, this last couple days, put out this new, like, this random quest.

This exotic quest where you just, like, you finish it and you get this crazy gun. And I was like, okay, I'll just do this thing. I want a shiny new gun to use. And so, I did this quest.

And it was, like, some of the most refreshing gameplay that I've experienced in an FPS in a while. Like, it reminded me. I wouldn't say it's, like, Hitman 3 second level tier where it's, like, oh, man. It's just, like, god tier, like, level design.

But, I played Destiny to, like, shoot aliens in the face and, like, just chat with my friends and just, like, fly around and throw magic at zombies and space wizards and shit. You know? So, when I started this quest lineup, it was just, like, investigate the ship. And then, you know, you walk up and it's, like, quiet.

And the door isn't opening. You're like, what the hell? And then there's nothing to guide you. And you just have to find your way into the ship.

And there's, like, a horror atmosphere that's, like, really strong. It, like, actually got me, like, maybe jump a couple times. And I'm like, oh, my god. This is, like, atmospherically, like, really satisfying.

And it just took me by total surprise. Like, I wasn't expecting just this random free, what feels like just a little short story to just be thrown into the game like that. And it's stuff like that that really makes Destiny, like, easy to come back to constantly because just, like, all these, like, random surprises that are just, like, sometimes they're a little bit lackluster and sometimes they're a little bit cool. And sometimes they're like this, where it's like, this is the best thing that they've done in years.

Even with full-price expansions in that list of things to consider. It's just really cool. And I've had a lot of fun with it. Excellent.

Yeah. Well, speaking of Destiny 2, I mentioned last week I was playing The Division 2 a little bit. And I messed around with it a little bit more. And we got a question from, or an inquiry from Adam Barnes.

He wrote it and said, what's up, fellas? Colin, I'm a little confused about something. You said that you finished The Division 2. Well, you can check that I finished.

You can look at my trophies. But since going back, you've seen that all locations have been taken back over and you don't know what's happening. Don't you remember that at the end of the main story, the whole city is invaded by Black Tusk. And then that becomes a weekly occurrence.

I play this game on PS5 and PC and I solo run on heroic. Yeah, big dick energy. Let's set aside some time for a session together and I'll help you out. Let Daddy take care of you all the best.

No. Because the difficulty is not the problem. I don't really find The Division very hard. Actually, I love their adventures.

I'm pretty competent at them. I don't know what's going on. No, I don't really. I don't remember that.

The game never really told me that when I turned it back on. And guys, I don't even know how to see my level in the game. I actually went back. I walked to the New York expansion, there was a helicopter, I went to the helicopter to go to the expansion.

I was like, I must be a level cast. I don't see anything. I don't even understand. Now I have a weapon that tells you how strong all your gear combined is.

So I went and it's like, you're not leveled up and we'll auto level you if you go. I'm like, wait, wait, I don't want to do that. So I backed out and I studied the screen for 10 minutes. I'm like, I don't know what I'm looking for.

I can't be the only one. Yeah. I'm not the smartest man in the world. I'm never going to make that claim.

But I've been playing video games for a long time. I feel like I understand them pretty well. And I do not know how to see my own level in the game. I don't know what's going on in the game.

And it's so frustrating because the beat to beat gameplay is so fun. Division 2 is so fun. And they just don't, I wish they would just like, I've even searched around. Like other people don't know how to see their level.

And what's funny is that they actually released a random statement on Reddit. Massive did because they're getting so much attention because of the Star Wars game that they're making. They went back and said, oh no, we're actually making even more Division 2 content. Which is great news.

So I want to understand better what's happening. It's frustrating to me. So I wanted to throw that out there. But I just don't know what's going on.

So what I did was, during the Japanese sale that's going on right now, if you guys noticed, Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 was on sale and I bought it. Now, I'm not a Puyo fan. Puyo Puyo is not, I understand how it works. I played it in the past.

It's all very old. I think it goes back to the MSX. And the Tetris, I consider myself a pretty advanced Tetris player. Puyo, I'm not very advanced.

But this game kind of combines the two. And it's got like a cute little story mode, a lot of cute characters. This apparently is kind of similar to the original Puyo Puyo Tetris. But it's fun.

I like it. It was exactly what I was kind of looking for. I paid 30 bucks for it, which seems a little steep still. But I dig it.

For people that don't know, Puyo Puyo is like this puzzle game on a 2D plane. Very similar to Tetris. Think about like Mean Bean Machine or something like that. Or Dr.

Mario. You're dropping like different things down and you want the blocks to touch. So four of them touch at least and then they disappear. But the idea in this game is to basically stack everything in such a way that you start like a careening effect.

And it's the only way to get high scores. And there's even trophies for like deuce six combo. And I've only gotten to a three combo. And it's like two or six combo a hundred times.

I don't think I can do it once. But it's really fun. I really highly recommend it. It's cute.

Twinsicle. I'm digging it. And then, because he's inquiring about another game. He says, hey guys, the question is for Colin.

I heard you mention in the last episode that there are no games to play until May or that I want to play. But aren't you a big East fan? East 9 just came out and I don't think you've talked much about it. Has your interest in the series waned in recent months?

No, it's waned. Well, yeah. As people know, I played East 8 for a while on Vita. I downloaded it last year.

I didn't really like it that much. It's too story heavy. It's weird. It's got this weird hub world.

And so I was reading East 9 reviews and it's like, oh, it's more like East 8. I'm like, well, I don't want to play that. I'm looking more for a hack and slash game that requires very little thought. Yeah.

That's not what East is anymore. So I'll play it eventually. But I think it's called Mos Nostrum or some fucking weird shit. Something like that.

It got a really good source. I don't think it's a bad game. But if it's more like East 8, it's not the East I'm looking for. So I hope that, Mr.

Ferguson turd, it's good to hear from you. I hope that makes it clear for you. Now, boys. It's time to get into the news.

Now, this first story I didn't write up. Instead, I wanted to kind of navigate off of a few stories I put in our planning document, which I know you guys saw, but then some listener inquiries. It's all about Six Days in Fallujah. Now, we talked about Six Days in Fallujah last week.

I want to get into it again for people that missed it. Six Days in Fallujah was originally a Konami published game, third person tactical shooter that was canceled in 2009. And it's being revived as a first person shooter by a new studio and being published as a retelling of the events of the second battle of Fallujah in 2004, which is very contentious. And I didn't anticipate that we were going to really even have to talk about this again, but this kind of blew up in the industry.

And so, Walter Boley running. And he kind of encapsulates what the problem is, I think, with this game with some people. And I want to investigate it with you guys if you mind. He says, sir.

Howdy, sacred symbols with the developers of Six Days in Fallujah revealing their desire to make no political commentary about their true life events that inspired the game. Is your excitement for the game as inflated as mine? In the 18 hours I've known of this game's existence, I went from very intrigued to feeling absolutely nothing. In my opinion, the desire to make this particular game with its subject matter apolitical makes absolutely no sense and removes the very things that could have made this game stand out amongst its peers.

If you have no desire to make political commentary, why make this game at all? What do you guys think? So, before I go any further into this and throw it over to you guys, it's worth noting a couple of things. These guys did a few interviews.

One with Polygon, which I think is a weird site to go to if you want to be treated fairly, and then Six Days in Fallujah did also an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, but on their own website they put up an FAQ, so if you go to sixdays.com, SIXdays.com. It says, why are you making this game? So it answers the question, Walter. It says, from their perspective, quote, We originally started this project because we wanted to share some extraordinary stories we had been told about remarkable people and events from this battle.

As we listened to these stories, we also began to realize how different video game combat was from the real thing, and also how video games could communicate powerful truths about world-changing events in ways other media could not. You can read more about why we're making this game in our open letter to the community on our website, so there's a letter there as well. The few things they make clear here is we will not recreate the death of a specific service member during gameplay. You will always play as an American or someone from the coalition.

You will not play as an insurgent in multiplayer or in single player, and the US government was not involved in the creation of the game. So there's a lot there, but this has become somewhat of a hot-button topic. Dustin, I want to throw it to you first. What do you make of everything that's going on surrounding this game?

It's pretty multifaceted, and I think kind of tells us a little bit about the games industry and the way it's covered, but also about the expectations of gamers themselves. It's so complicated, right? I mean, in one way, I feel like we know games are art on this show, and I would say most of the listeners of this show know that. You should know that.

But the reality is that, do we want to say most people don't believe that? A lot of people still view games as Mario running from one side of the screen, and obviously we love games like that, but if we want games to be taken seriously as the art they are, we need to push the medium further. And I believe strongly that games like this that may make you feel uncomfortable are the games that do that, whether you like it or not, right? And so, you know, looking at some of these interviews with the Six Days developers, I mean, it's weird.

I'm disappointed in the reaction to the game, but I'm also disappointed in the developers. It's like, you can't have your cake and eat it, too. Is this just supposed to be entertainment, or is this supposed to be a statement? Because it really can't, it has like, this is still a very politically charged situation, right?

And there are people that are, you know, people, we know people that fought in this war. And, you know, the wounds are still there, right? Whether they're, you know, physical wounds or actual or mental wounds. This is still, you know, a recent thing.

So I feel like they either need to be like, yeah, this is what it is. You know, this is a, you know, we are making a political commentary, and we do want to portray XYZ emotions around this event. We want to tell the story as it was, or not, right? Either make it something special or make it Call of Duty.

You can't have it both ways. Yeah, it's a good place to start. What do you think, Chris? Yeah, I'm of two minds about it, too.

I think the way people are reacting to it is a little bit disappointing. I thought that maybe we had done it short a little bit to the point where we'd be a little bit more okay with the fact that, you know, like, I've never had an issue with this. Like, I've never had an issue. Like, I say make a game about something that happens, like, three days after it, you know?

I really don't. I don't believe in too soon, really. Like, I just don't think that's even a real concept to me. But at the same time, it's like, yeah, I don't know how you could really, I don't know how you could make a game about such a recent conflict and say that it isn't political.

Like, even, I would even argue that, like, even some of the more schlocky, more mindless, like, games like Call of Duty, like, that's political, too. Like, it's not necessarily, like, telling you something. It's not necessarily, like, trying to force a specific idea down your throat, or it's not necessarily, like, it's not necessarily elegantly or cogently political, but, like, you're making a video game about warfare. Like, that's inherently, like, there's got to be something.

This reminds me of, like, when a couple years ago, and I'm sure people still do this, where people are like, I want politics in my games. Or it's like, well, that's not true. What you're saying is you don't want to be preached to, or you don't want to be patronized, or you don't want to be, like, um, you don't want to have a message shoved down your throat to the point where it feels like you're being condescended to. And I've played games like that, where it's like, it's just beating you over the head with this message, and it's like, alright, I get it.

I feel like people conflate that. And I feel like the developers are complaining that, too. Maybe what they mean to say is, hey, we're not trying to, you know, talk down to the audience here, we're not trying to make a political game, we're not trying to make anybody feel unwelcome. But, the game that we're making is about a modern conflict, and it will be political.

I think that's the bridge that they just haven't crossed yet. Maybe they don't realize that that's the bridge they need to cross. But I've noticed that cognitive disconnect a lot online, where it's like, like, I don't like politics in my games. And then you guys are like, what's your favorite games?

Like, oh, like, Milker Solid and Bioshock. And it's like, well, come on, dude. Like, just because it's fiction doesn't mean it's not political, you know? Like, Bioshock is one of my favorite, I think, one of my top five games ever.

And that's a very, very, very political game. And even I would say, yeah, I don't want to play a game and feel like I'm being like, I don't want to play a game and feel like I'm reading an article on Jezebel, you know? That's what I don't want. I don't think people even go to Jezebel and want to read an article on Jezebel.

But trying to, like, kind of, like, step all over a game before it's even had a chance to make a case for itself before it's even really showcased what it even is, I think that's unfair, and I think we should give all these games a fair shot, even if they will inevitably poke buttons and make people uncomfortable. To me, because you guys have both said it, and you both made a lot of good points here, to me it's very complicated. Because one thing I can't seem to escape in this conversation is this idea, and again, I don't want to misquote him, but he says that while they're giving games, it's this guy, Peter Taptay, who's working with Victoria, who's the publisher of the game. And they keep talking about how they're trying to not make a statement, like a political statement.

And it is ham-handed in the way it's said, but I understand what he means, what he's saying, and I think he says it in one of the interviews here is that, like, we don't want to, like, they want to give context in all of that, but they don't want to make a political statement, he says, quote, without in any way disparaging the service of those who are actually here to fight. And I think that's an important part of this that's being missed, mostly because, and again, I'm going to talk political here, it's a political topic, so, you know, tune out if you don't want that. I'm leaving my political conversation for when we can have long-form conversations like this and nowhere else in my public life, anyway. And I feel like what he's saying is we want to make a game about this.

It was inspired by Marines and soldiers and coalition people that were there. And, yeah, there's some fucked up things that apparently happened in Fallujah, some we don't know, some we don't. There's certainly multiple sides of the story, but we don't want to tell a political story, and I'm talking from his perspective, because we don't want to trivialize the guys who were there making it seem as if they're war criminals, when, in fact, they were just going, you know, on behalf of the commander-in-chief and the people that sent them, the population that sent them. And I think it's hard to tell people that, because I think it's hard for people to understand.

All right, so what you're basically saying is real people fought here, and the outcome wasn't maybe ideal, and maybe there's some white phosphorus being used, and some untoward things, and certainly hundreds of civilian deaths and all that, but that's not unique to Fallujah. Yeah. And I don't feel like I understand in totality the end result of the argument, other than to remove a person's agency to say, see, because this is the thing I really can't escape, is they're saying, well, saying there's no political statement is a political statement. And I'm like, I agree with that, actually, in the main, I do think it's a political statement, but you can't remove a person's agency from saying, listen, you can read whatever you want into this, but we're really not trying to say anything.

If you have a problem with that, then that's certainly fine, but you can't read X, Y, and Z into what we're saying when we're simply saying we're not trying to tell a commentary that undercuts the servicemen. We can go on and on about everyone's opinions, but the reality is that this isn't a largely, I imagine, American conservative gaming audience is going to buy this game. And you make games for who you are aiming them at, pardon the pun, and I feel like that's only logical. So I'm just kind of lost in the mix here.

And what's frustrating for me is that in my own attempts to have a productive conversation, not only has that not been reciprocated, but it just kind of devolves into the lowest common denominator. And Rob Wyburn wrote in the list about this and said, this one is for Colin. I gotta ask why does the games media seem so toxic? I saw a tweet sent out by Rami, he's talking about Rami, who we'll talk about in a minute.

And to be honest, he seemed really mean-spirited and misguided. I don't know you personally, but you seem like a reasonable guy. He had nothing nice to say, he should have never said anything at all. So, I reached out to a guy named Rami Ishanel on Twitter.

I actually met him in the past, although I don't remember specifically when. It was a long time ago. Now, people might know Rami because he founded the studio Glambier, and they're known for Ridiculous Fishing, and Loot Rossers, and later on Nuclear Throne, and some other games. And he's a Dutch, half white, half Egyptian, Dutch born in the Netherlands guy.

And he had a complete nervous breakdown, basically, in public over this game. And I invited him on the show, basically before he had most of that nervous breakdown. I'm kind of glad he declined me as really as he did, because I don't want that energy on the show. I thought he was a little more put together than he seemingly came off.

But what's disappointing to Rob's point, and I'll throw this back to Chris's, we can't seem to find, or I can't seem to find people that will have this conversation with me, because I'm not really even saying that the game's a good idea. I'm certainly interested in it, just from a historical point of view, and see what they say, and see if the game's any good. But people can certainly make the argument that it's ill-conceived and whatever, but no one will make the argument, and it makes me feel when I try to have these conversations that people simply can't defend their arguments, and it just reinforces my own preconceived notions that I'm probably right. So I'm wondering what you mean.

I mean, that's a lot. Yeah, I mean, it's unfortunate that people are just unwilling to have really basic, non-controversial conversations. Like, I'd imagine because when two people are coming from different places and approaching a similar discussion or approaching a similar topic, it kind of inherently nullifies any bit of controversy that could come from it. You know, because it's just two people kind of exploring ideas with each other, and it's kind of a shame that that is just not possible, because everybody just kind of defaults to Twitter clowning, which is why I think just Twitter's the worst.

Twitter has set society back so fucking far, in my opinion. Like, actually, I'm not even joking. But, you know, I... This is a complicated topic.

I... What you said before about, like, um, you know, you can read whatever you want into this. It doesn't mean we're trying to say anything. I think that's interesting because it's like, yeah, you can definitely...

There are definitely games that aren't trying to say anything, but whether you meant to say something or not doesn't necessarily, like, mean you haven't said something. Like, you can make this game, right? And you can be completely apolitical, and it'll just be about, like, hey, you know what? Soldiers following orders, and, you know, they're doing what they gotta do.

But that's an interesting conversation in and of itself. It's like, what... Like, what does that mean to be, like, a serviceman just kind of, like, doing what you're told and just sort of, like, following orders and following instructions and not questioning, like, what it is you're doing and eventually, like, landing yourself in a situation where the morality of the situation is very, very gray. I think that's a political conversation, and it's a statement that they would essentially be making without even intending to do it.

So I think that's what's interesting about politics in media and entertainment in general. Like, even if we think things aren't necessarily, like... I'm not saying, like, Mario is political, you know what I mean? But there are definitely certain things that might come out just naturally, just based on how a story is structured and just how a game presents itself that, while not intentional, are also provoking interesting kind of discussions and conversations.

And I would love to hear a conversation all about this, but people aren't willing to talk about it. I would see it, especially because I would love to just go in blind. I don't know what I would say. I don't know what would come up.

Yeah, I don't even know what they're really doing with this game. Like, they seem to be all over the place. Like, I'm super interested in it. I'm really curious to see how this game does, if it gets canceled again.

You know, we don't know. We have no idea what it will have. I hope it doesn't either. It would be a shame.

I put that on Twitter that I feel like people that are complaining are falling into a trap just because they can't really win at this point. Yeah. And I do find it weird that they are going and doing these interviews with really woke outlets but it's a polygon. It's very strange.

I don't know. there's got to be some sort of intent there, I don't know if it's actually, I've talked about in the past that Kingdom Come Deliverance with Warhorse Studios and others have done this with great effect, this is just take advantage of Kotaku and Polygon by making them angry on purpose and then you sell games, and I feel like that might be part of it, but I just, see here's the thing, and this is the thing about Rami, especially kind of coming in and having a fucking nervous breakdown, and I don't mean to disrespect him at all, but Rami's not Iraqi, and his dad isn't, his dad's Egyptian, he's not an Iraqi, he's not from there, he's Dutch, he's as Dutch as I am American, you know, and if he wants to talk about his connection to his family, that's fine, but then like my grandparents had a connection to like the Italian fascists during World War II, and you know, it's like at some point you have to kind of like draw the line, right, and what I realized was coming out of this, the reason I bring this up is because the most notable conversation, if you want to call it, that came out of this whole fiasco so far, is like a woke off oppression Olympics thing between Rami and this woman named Gita Jackson in Kotaku over who's more offended by the events of the game, who has more grievance over the way their respective people, Arab and or Muslim and black respectively are treated, and I'm like why does it always go down this road, why does it always, always, always, always, like how did Gita Jackson, who I think raised for Kotaku or something, how did she make this about her, what the fuck does this have to do with her being black, you know, these are the kinds of things where I'm like, why are we getting so far away from the conversation, what I want to know, and I think what most people want to know is like, what is the problem with telling the story, how can it be more effectively told, is it a story that's worth being told, and I think most importantly, are your opinions on it consistent, because if you're saying like, we can't tell the quote unquote, if you want to call it that positive of Felucia, or the heroic stories of Felucia without telling all the bad things, and it's like, well, that's like every military shooter, you know, I mean like, do you think that everything was clean during World War II, do you think everything was clean, like, what, during the Cold War, do you think that they're telling real espionage stories in Call of Duty, I just don't understand, but with this particular game, this isn't the first game that's like, just ripped out of the stories, ripped out of the headlines, we played a lineage of World War II games that are just like that, and I don't feel like we're getting the same amount of pushback, and I do not understand how 11 years later, 12 years later, after this game was first cancelled, that we are back to the square one, with the same people saying the same shit, you know? Yeah, I do think, I don't know, I think it's a little different than Call of Duty, and like, a little different than World War II, because these things are, again, I don't necessarily believe in the concept too soon already, but I do think World War II is so like, it's one of those things where it's like, Nazis are, um, they're just like, they're like werewolves, you know? Like, they're just like, kind of like, this cultural, like, kind of, almost fictional enemy, because they're so comically evil, like, and they're so far removed from our, like, modern, I'm talking about, like, obviously actual Nazis who are, like, fighting in World War II, I'm not talking about, like, some psycho on Twitter, who has, like, really weird, really weird takes, but, you know, I do think this game's a little bit different, only because it's, it's kind of making this a problem for itself in a lot of ways, because it's kind of getting on a pedestal and being like, okay, guys, we're going to tell a real story, it's not like Call of Duty that's, like, based on, you know what I mean?

It's not, like, just sort of, like, based loosely on, like, real events, and we all know Call of Duty's, like, action schlock, and we all know it's, like, you know, romanticized, uh, warfare, and it's just kind of the point of it, uh, nobody really thinks too much about Call of Duty, and it's more about, like, what is Captain Price doing, you know? It's, like, it's more about these, like, random fictional characters that they kind of, like, have invented and kind of thrown into this, this real, or, like, pseudo-realistic, uh, environment, but this one's, like, you know, it's based on real people, and, like, uh, it is super recent, and they're making a big deal about that themselves, so I think that in and of itself is kind of causing a lot of this, where it's, like, if they've just been, like, hey, we're making a, we're making a game about, uh, the Battle of Fallujah, and that's all they said, like, I don't know if they, I don't know if you'd see the same amount of pushback, but, but I do think that there's just this weird puritanism, and it was the same thing on Fox back in 2008, where it's, like, this can't be told now, this is not okay, it's, like, now it's just the same thing from the other perspective, it's the same shit. I would hope that a game that is aiming for these, for this goal of being, like, you know, we're going to tell, like, a real story, like, I would hope that they would have the balls to be, like, hey, you know what, yeah, it's not clean, not particularly great, I don't know, I feel like they kind of set the shit up for themselves in a lot of ways, just by the way that they're promoting it, you know, that's not to put everything on them, but, you know, we all know the culture we're living in right now, you know, like, they had to, they had to, I think they're trying to take advantage of it, I just don't know, I don't know, I don't know if they're doing what they're doing on purpose or not, and if it's kind of getting out of control, because I understand that the strategy, but Dustin, what do you, do you have anything to add here? I don't know, it's a bit of, I'm looking back at Rob's question, it's related and unrelated, but I feel like it's worth saying, and I want to go back to what he said about why does the games media seem so toxic, and the answer is because it is, yeah, yeah, it's really bad, yeah, it doesn't seem that way, what I wanted to say, I was thinking about this, because I saw the tweets and the way you treated you, Colin, and I was, was mad when it happened, and I was, like, drafting a tweet, I was ready to go, just like everyone else was, and then, like, within a few hours, the situation really changed, and I was, I really felt bad, not just, you know, that this guy had this mental, you know, moment for the public to see, but the way that everyone else kind of reacted, and so, yeah, the industry is toxic, and, like, to the point where there's people that I knew and would consider myself friendly with, that, like, once I started working this job, no longer want anything to do with me, not many, but a few, and so, my, what I want to say is just that, like, if the industry is toxic, then we need to be the change that we want to see, right, and so, I saw people that were vehemently defending you, and I think that's good, and I think there's a way that can be done effectively, and some people that maybe weren't so effective, um, and I was almost in that camp, right, and so, you know, I don't know, I'm on the soapbox now, but my thing is just that, like, yeah, it's toxic, but we can, we can do better, we can, we got to change the temperature in the room, you know, yeah, and that's kind of what this company's about, right, like, we talked about this before.

Sure, and that's why I, I try, listen, I'm just going to have people on my show, and talk to people, and I'm not going to have an opinion or a strong opinion, they can deal with that or not, but, yeah, I kind of feel like, with Ron, I mean, respectfully, I feel like I said earlier, I feel like I talked about this, dude, just because it's, like, you're not, I don't know, I don't know, like, how any normal person could just go off like this about a video game that doesn't really affect you at all, and then it drags in this other woman who's, and then they're arguing about who's got the most virtue points, and who's the most downtrodden, and it's, like, you know, I'm sorry, man, like, I didn't even see, I didn't see any of that, I only saw the thing with you, and it's, like, you know, to me, I'm, like, it's just, very many people can talk about games the way we talk about games, and I'm not going to just, like, drag some random person on here, or just some, any person, I want someone with a voice, I'm trying to, I'm trying to expose the other side of the argument, if you want to even say that, and I don't really take the tact that it's a good idea, this game, I just think that, like, you're seeing people overly saying, like, cancel this game, I'm, like, listen, you better, and this just comes from the heart, people can take it or not, the far left around the world, not everybody, but a huge portion of the far left is becoming authoritarian, and is becoming the very censors that we used to make fun of in the 80s, that were the Christian, right, and now, it's a right-wing position to fight for freedom of expression, makes no sense, and there are plenty of people out there writing about this and talking about this all the time, whether it's Glenn Greenwald or others, very well-respected left voices, and I just think it's something that we should think about, because the freedom of expression, the freedom of thought, the freedom of speech, and the freedom of association, and all those things, is really important, and so, for us to know what a good Fallujah game might look like, is maybe to get a game that's not so good first, and understand that it's really not going to end the world, if the combat in Fallujah, and by the way, guys, just real quick, I'm sorry to keep going, but 99% of the people that are talking about this have no idea what happened in Fallujah, and listen, I said over and over again, I'm not proud of my, I was a very vociferous supporter of the Iraq war when it happened, very much so, and I'm completely ashamed of that, but it happened, that's what really happened, I mean, I was, me and 85% of America, we're all about it, and we can only learn from our mistakes, and look backwards, and part of that is a real accounting of the things that happened in Fallujah and other places, and the crimes and all that, but they're not trying to tell that story any more than any story ever told in a global warfare setting is going to try to tell, and try to account for everything that happened leading up to it, and there, and all that, it's just crazy, it's just totally nuts, and that's the biggest thing, someone who studied history, I can say that unequivocally, it's insane to expect that, like, we're going to do a game about Fallujah, we're going to write a book about Fallujah, and it's going to cover everything about Fallujah, never happened, never will happen, never going to happen, there's no book like that about anything in history, so why would there be a game like that? And I want to ask these questions to someone who has an answer, and the thing is, is that I just don't feel like the people that are arguing these points have very much depth, not generally, I don't know them like that, to the argument at hand, I don't think they think about these things very carefully, you can knock this house of cards down so easily, so it just becomes about grievance, and that's my opinion, but that's kind of where I stand on it, you know? It's like these milquetoast-like people, who are just, like, sitting in their, like, really cushy jobs, who are, like, just like, uh, you know, I'll, uh, let me just complain about something, because, like, I follow a lot of, like, super, super laughing people, and, like, they're all clowning on these people, too, it really is this out-of-touch contingent of people who are just, like, complaining about shit, like, the far out of people that I follow on Twitter are just, like, talking about, like, hey, where's, where's our stimulus check in the middle of a pandemic, you know, like, that's the shit that they're talking about, they're not talking about six days in Fallujah, who the hell would even, the fact that someone is comfortable enough in the current climate to even complain about something so trivial in the first place is wild. But then it becomes about, you know, it's just strange, because it just becomes about them, right?

It's very self-centered. Oh, I follow Fallujah, and I have an opinion, and it's like, oh, um, you know, I'm a half-Egyptian, half-white man born in the Netherlands, and for some reason that gives me a special connection to what happened in Fallujah, and then it's like, oh, I'm a black woman, and it's like, who gives a shit about any of these, about any of these indicators, like, why can't we just have a conversation about, like, things that happen without bringing in all of this nonsense and this baggage that seeks to divide us and make us hate each other and contentiousness and all that. Dustin, you're exactly right. It's got us, at some point, it's got to start with us, and I do think we're doing that here.

I can't, you want to know what the sad thing is, guys, about this Rami thing? Is that the reason I asked them publicly is because I was afraid to ask them privately. Because I'm afraid to reach out to any of these people privately, because then, well, who knows? I mean, they make shit up about me in public.

Yeah, yeah. It's better to do it in public. So then I email them, like, Colin Moriarty's harassing me. Or, you know, it's like, so I just do everything I do in public now, so everyone can see, and there can be a full accounting of it that way.

Yeah. But these are the same people they've always been. It's like, I'm sure you know, like, the Overton window, you know how things, like, shift. And it's like, you know, it's like the people on Fox News in, like, 2008, you know, are the people on, like, CNN now.

You know, it's like, there's very little difference between those people, I would argue. And it's like, you know, it's annoying and, like, embarrassing that the discourse is this juvenile and simplistic and social media-centered. Because I feel like a lot of this, like, without Twitter, I feel like everything would be better. Definitely, I just realized that in my own life.