STALKER 2, Rise of the Golden Idol, and More

It's a Thanksgiving cornucopia full of video games as the Triple Click gang talks about what they've been playing. They discuss Rise of the Golden Idol, STALKER 2, Loco Motive, and Tactical Breach Wizards. Plus: spatchcocking!

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Speaker 00

  The days are getting shorter, the goose is getting fat, and the last few amazing games of 2024 are being delivered to our doorstep. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week, we do a video game grab bag of recent games: Rise of the Golden Idol, Stalker 2, Locomotive, and, yes, we're talking about it yet again: Tactical Breach Wizards.

• 0:30Speaker 00

  I'm Maddy Myers.

• 0:31Jason Schreier?

  I'm Jason Schreier.

• 0:33Kirk Hamilton?

  And I'm Kirk Hamilton, and hello, friends.

• 0:35Speaker 00

  Hello. We're back again.

• 0:37Jason Schreier?

  Happy Thanksgiving.

• 0:39Speaker 00

  It is that time of year when it gets really dark, really early in here, and I start thinking, should I get another light for this room? And I'm looking at myself on the screen, talking to the two of you, and I'm thinking the same thing again. I look really dramatic right now. I look like Dracula in a castle, podcasting at you live.

• 0:59Jason Schreier?

  But that's mostly because of the vampire fangs you're wearing.

• 1:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, also, it's the fangs. I'm celebrating Nosferatu. All of it is here. Well, we're a listener-supported show here, and we're part of the Maximum Fun Network, which is pretty cool, if you ask me. From the supportive listeners like you, we're able to do something like Triple Quest, which is a Dungeons & Dragons campaign that we're currently running on our bonus feed and eventually running on our main feed. We already have episodes 0 and 1 on the main feed, and Part 2 is in the bonus feed right now, and eventually Part 3 will be out. But I will say, once you hear Part 2, I think you're really gonna wanna hear Part 3. That's my opinion, having lived it, folks. But also, I guess I buried

• 1:48Speaker 00

  the lead. Whomst is our dungeon master but the one and only Matthew Mercer? And how could we do such a thing? Well, of course, it was through listener support. We were able to hire him to do that for us, and there are so many other things that we're able to do because of that. We are able to record all these wonderful bonus episodes for everybody once a month, and that

• 2:10Speaker 00

  For all those reasons and more, you should go to maximumfun.com/join and become a member. And once you do that, you'll get to listen to those D and D episodes earlier than everybody else, and you'll get to support us. You'll get all those warm fuzzies and you'll help me buy a new light for this room. Really, it is really dark in here. So I'll keep everybody posted on that week by week. But hey, that that's enough of that. Maximumfun.com/join, that's the URL. I already said that, but I like to say it twice, just in case somebody wasn't listening the first time. But now I've said it twice. But I'm the one running the episode. I can't, I can't throw it to anyone. I'm throwing the ball in the air and I am the one catching it. And now, we're going to talk about some video games.

• 2:52Kirk Hamilton?

  Hell, yeah.

• 2:53Speaker 00

  This isn't just a triple play. We're cramming them all in. We played a few games here, and we're going to talk about each of them a little bit. And the first of those video games is The Rise of the Golden Idol, a much anticipated release for us here on TripleClick. It is the sequel to The Case of the Golden Idol, which was one of our three favorite mystery point and click adventure games of 2023. Is that, is that really true? It only just came out last year? Is that right? 2022? It had to be. Right. Yeah, yeah. That makes way more sense. 2022. And pretty soon, though, afterward, the sequel is out, Rise of the Golden Idol, very similar title, but pretty different in that it is

• 3:36Speaker 00

  the same kind of point and click adventure style where you're dragging and dropping words as you discover them in a static scene that you're viewing. Usually that scene is depicting a murder. Sometimes it's depicting some other thing that you have to figure out, but most of the time it's a murder. And as you drag and drop those words around the screen, you're filling up a series of almost Mad Libs. And once you've filled them up, you've discovered what really happened in the scene that you saw. And I would say the main difference is that it is more difficult. That's been my experience thus far with Rise of the Golden Idol. I really had to crack open my notebook earlier on when I was playing this. But I want to hear from the two of you. Kirk, how far have you gotten into Rise

• 4:21Speaker 00

  of the Golden Idol? And what are you thinking about it so far?

• 4:24Kirk Hamilton?

  I like it because I like these games.

• 4:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:26Kirk Hamilton?

  I've definitely noticed it feels a little different playing it compared with Case of the Golden Idol. I think there's kind of a trajectory, though, if you played the DLC for Case of the Golden Idol up to Rise, where I think the DLC for Case of the Golden Idol was also more complicated

• 4:42Speaker 00

  Yes, it was.

• 4:42Kirk Hamilton?

  and sort of required a little bit more lateral thinking. And for me, like, a little bit more guessing, which is actually something that I've had to do a little bit more of in Rise and has left me just feeling a little less connected to it, even though I think it's great and I love it. Like, overall, I love the aesthetic, I love the writing, I love the story. So, you know, I like it. I'm like in the third act, I'd say.

• 5:08Speaker 00

  Same. I think it's chapter three, is how they do it?

• 5:12Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, as we discussed in the past, I think, Jason, this was your one more thing and we talked about it. There are these acts, which are usually three or four of the cases or, you know, sort of scenes. And each scene sort of starts out and you're looking at a room and someone's standing there and it's in media stress. So it's like something is going on and you need to figure out what, so you sort of slowly piece that together. So when it comes to the sequel, for whatever reason, I've just felt that the game is more complicated and sort of more demanding. I started out playing it with a controller because I actually played through The Case of the Golden Idol entirely with Emily. And I was on the couch using a controller. I gotta say, I do not like the controller, like, playing this game with a controller.

• 5:57Speaker 00

  I've been doing that, too, and it's not good.

• 6:00Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I don't like dragging the words with the thumbsick. And once I sat down at the PC to just play it with a mouse and keyboard, I was like, oh, okay. I'd actually never played one of the games in that format, which is sort of funny.

• 6:12Speaker 00

  It's way easier. It's how I played it the first time around with Case of the Golden Idol. I played it all on PC and it didn't even occur to me to try it with a controller because dragging and dropping with a mouse is the most natural behavior in the world to all of us who use a mouse and keyboard nowadays. But I tried it on the Steam Deck this time and they've created a version of it where you can kind of highlight something and then drag and drop it, but it feels, I didn't care for it. I think mouse, it works, you can do it if you have to, but I do think playing with a mouse is the ideal setup for these two games.

• 6:43Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I've definitely found that to be the case. So then I played a little bit with a friend of mine who was in town using a sort of trackpad keyboard. Sure. That I was plugged into my PC and then streaming it to the TV. And that worked OK. But it's really best, I think, just with the snappiness of a mouse. And I still find, I don't know, I'm sort of, it's, it's, it's a great game. I mean, like, it's not, it's really similar in terms of design and writing and, you know, vibe to Case of the Golden Idol. It's not quite blowing me away as much. And I'm not, or blowing me away, that's the wrong way to put it. I don't think The Case of the Golden Idol blew me away. It, it, uh, it charmed me. Like, I found it just really engrossing. And I'm, I'm enjoying Rise, but I'm sort of, I feel a little held at arm's length.

• 7:27Kirk Hamilton?

  And I think some of it is the complexity. A little bit is the UI and the act of playing it, where I'm, I struggle a little bit with all the windows that have to be open. And I know there are keyboard shortcuts that let you get from one thing to another thing quickly. And I haven't learned them all yet, so some of it's on me. But I have this feeling like I wish I could use my multi-monitor, like, work setup to play this game. Like, it'd be really nice to just leave all of the words open in another, on another monitor, you know? And like, you know, as you unlock words in this game, so as you explore and you, you find things, you like, you know, it kind of adds to the number of words that you have available to you that you can then use to fill in the blanks on the description of what happened.

• 8:08Kirk Hamilton?

  And this game kind of scaffolds it a lot more than the first game did, where there are multiple descriptions that you have to fill in. So you'll fill in one and it'll unlock another. Like, they've built in a lot more, uh, sort of tiers in the overall mystery of the chapters. So like, you'll start with just one thing, you know, who's who. And once you do that, it'll give you another thing. And it's like, OK, so what was the initial, you know, series of events that led to this happening? And then you'll get maybe one more. And the whole time, you're also trying to fill in the whole chapter story, which is like the broader one. And so- There's kind of a lot to keep track of. There's a lot of different windows that you're kind of opening and closing. There's a big list of words. There's usually a list of names where you've named everybody in the scene.

• 8:52Kirk Hamilton?

  And then you also have to look at the scene. And a lot of times, some of the best clues are not actually, you know, just words and names. You have to actually look at the environment and realize like, oh, I see now. There's, there's an early mystery, for example, where a guy gets pushed out of a window. One character sort of pulls the rug and someone tumbles out of a window and you have to sort of figure out what happened. And you can only do that by looking at the scene. So between looking at the scene, looking at the words, looking at all the lists, I sometimes feel a little like I'm having to open and close so many different windows that I'm not really quite in a flow. So I've noticed that a little bit. And I guess the last thing that I'll say before Maddie and Jason, I know you've talked about it a lot.

• 9:31Jason Schreier?

  Well, hold on, just pause for one second. I mean, one of the reasons you're experiencing that, I think, is that you're trying to play this on a TV, which seems a little bonkers to me.

• 9:40Kirk Hamilton?

  No, I'm sorry. I was, to be clear, I am playing almost the entire game with a mouse and keyboard on a computer.

• 9:45Jason Schreier?

  Oh, okay. Then forgot I said that.

• 9:47Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah. And I'm, I have two monitors hooked up to my PC and I kind of wish that I could like drag some things over onto the second monitor.

• 9:55Speaker 00

  You wanted on two monitors instead of just one.

• 9:57Jason Schreier?

  Got it. I thought you said you were playing with a friend in your living room with a trackpad.

• 10:01Kirk Hamilton?

  I played a little bit with the trackpad and my friend. I was saying you can play it and share it with someone in that way, which I think is a great way to play this kind of mystery. It's fun to have two heads looking at all the words and kind of bouncing off of one another. Same as how Emily and I played over at Din. But no, I have played the majority of the game sitting at my computer.

• 10:18Jason Schreier?

  Got it.

• 10:18Kirk Hamilton?

  And so I'm finding myself just feeling a little constrained by the interface. And then, so the last thing that I'll say is I've also found myself guessing more than I did in Golden Idol. And this was something we talked about, or sorry, with Case of the Golden Idol. This is something we talked about with that game, that sometimes the game just wants you to make a leap that you're just not quite making. And so when it tells you, oh, you have two or more, you have two or one of these wrong, but everything else is right. You can brute force it. Like you can just start dragging in words.

• 10:48Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 10:48Kirk Hamilton?

  And if it kicks it over to incorrect, you know that that one's right. And then once you start. You can kind of narrow in on what you've got wrong and then figure it out. I found myself doing that more on even, you know, the last two or three mysteries that I've solved. And that doesn't feel great, like it's not a big deal, but I, it's just been, a lot of times I find myself just, I've been staring at it for so long. And I'm sort of not making the leap it wants me to make and I'm kind of falling asleep. Sometimes I'm just sort of like, maybe it's late or I'm tired and I'm like, I don't know, I just want to move on to the next one. So I just brute force it and that is like, not quite as satisfying. So I don't know, it, it could just be a me thing.

• 11:25Jason Schreier?

  So, okay, so there are a million different things to respond to in that monologue. But I'll say that like, I think I agree with you, having finished the game. I agree with you that the complexity, it's definitely ramped up in large part because of those chapter wide summaries. I think, and, and yes, I mean, the guesswork, it really kind of, your mileage may vary. It's like any adventure game or kind of deductive game. You may click with what the designer is trying to say, or you may not. And it can be extremely frustrating when you do not. I will say that I think the nature of a game like this, when the original, when the first one came out in 2022,

• 12:06Jason Schreier?

  one of the reasons that I will say blew me away, I think blew all of us away, at least to some degree. Maybe for you, it was a little bit of a lighter breeze than a full on hurricane.

• 12:15Kirk Hamilton?

  It's mostly that just feels like overheated language. It's not that I didn't love it. I loved the game. I love Case of the Golden.

• 12:21Jason Schreier?

  Nothing wrong with some hyperbole. It blew me away. I'll admit it. Yeah, it blew me away too. So like, it blew us away because there was nothing, we played nothing else like it ever before. Whereas the disadvantage of Rise of the Golden Idols, we have played something like it before, two years ago. And in my case, I played all the DLC cases too and finished those, so last year too. And for me, as someone who just will gobble up any of these games and drop everything I'm doing as soon as I get a code for one and just play it. I'm fine with that, but also just by its nature, it's not like you want to run around shouting the merits of Rise of the Golden Idol to everybody you know, the way you might have with the first game. Cause it's not innovative anymore. It's just more of the same. It's like going from. Of War to God of War Ragnarok or like Horizon Zero Dawn or Horizon Forbidden West.

• 13:07Jason Schreier?

  The only ways in which this game can kind of uh uh build on the last one are by going more complex and going bigger. And as you get further into the game, there's some uh there's some mystery cases that play around with time as well, where it'll be like you can flip back and forth between different periods of time and the same scene. And so it gets more complex and that's my nature because that's the only place they could go. It's funny, I talked to the developers a few weeks ago, the two Latvian brothers behind this game, and they seemed totally over making Golden Idol stuff. They they have to do, they're planning for more, four DLC packs for Rise of the Golden Idol. So throughout next year, there'll be four new expansions. But after that, it seems like they

• 13:51Jason Schreier?

  want to go in a totally different direction. And I don't blame them because yeah, it's hard to surpass a game that really just like kind of comes out of nowhere and feels so innovative and special and unique. And then when you come out with this new game and maybe you try to go bigger, you try to go more complicated, it can fail to resonate with people like Kirk Hamilton in the same way that the first one did. And it's, that's just like, natural.

• 14:15Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 14:16Jason Schreier?

  A ton of oil.

• 14:17Kirk Hamilton?

  I have to wonder if a little of that exhaustion maybe comes through in the game.

• 14:20Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I maybe, I don't know. I'm curious to hear your take when you finish it. Because one thing I'll say is that like, I found the overarching story to be absolutely fascinating. And once you finish it, well, I mean, once you finish it, there's some stuff that like you guys don't know about yet, which is what I'm referring to, which is that like, stuff at the very beginning, really starts to make a lot more sense. Once you've finished the game and you kind of, you might find yourself, as I did, going back and playing the old cases with a newfound appreciation for what they're doing and and the little kind of hidden secrets in them, which I found really cool and a really enjoyable, delightful experience. So maybe your opinion will change, or maybe it won't. I

• 15:02Jason Schreier?

  mean, I can't imagine, once again, just like, having that feeling of euphoria that at least I had, I think all of us had when we first played Case of the Golden Idol and we're just Like, holy crap, this is unlike anything else I've played before. That can't be recreated with a sequel.

• 15:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, I, I mean, I, I will say, I think I'm, I'm enjoying it more because obviously I'm a super genius and I haven't had to brute force anything. And just firstly, I haven't had to, but the thing that is happening to me that maybe is also happening to you, Kirk, and I'd be curious, Jason, what happened to you? Is actually that there are more words that are synonyms or like very similar to each other. And I'm putting them in and then realizing, oh, even though I was correct here technically, or like, I know what the answer to the mystery is. Like I've solved it in my own mind. I'm struggling to get the game to cooperate with me, which is sort of like a classic mystery game problem.

• 16:01Speaker 00

  That I think we kind of talked about on our, our episode about mystery games back in the day. Where like, as one example, there was a kind of fill in the blank situation where I was talking about both the parts that comprise the Golden Idol and also the Golden Idol itself. And those were two different nouns and I was misusing Golden Idol versus the word parts at various points. And I was like, I understand what happened here. I just was using the wrong nouns and I just couldn't figure it out. And that was the only time where I actually looked up a walkthrough and I was like, oh, of course, obviously. Like I didn't even feel bad looking it up because I was like, I know I solved this. I, I can tell I've figured out what happened here. I just am, something's wrong and I don't know what it is.

• 16:42Speaker 00

  And that I don't think happened as often in the first one. I feel like there were far fewer potentially synonymous words, because it was just less complex overall and more minimalist as a game, because there were just fewer terms per mystery. So that's another level that just makes the game harder. But personally, that's the only like true kind of problem I've run into. Other than that, I've just found like, okay, if I just look at everything for a really long time. I'll figure it out. But Kirk, I agree. I mean, it is difficult. I am spending a lot of time just sitting there, which is a weird way to play a video game, where you're just looking at something and being like, well, let me really think about this.

• 17:21Jason Schreier?

  That's the best way to play a video game.

• 17:23Kirk Hamilton?

  I guess I should clarify that I'm, the thing that's keeping me at arm's length isn't exactly the difficulty.

• 17:29Speaker 00

  Right.

• 17:29Kirk Hamilton?

  It's the usability. Like, it's like the experience of playing it, where I can't sift through the clues as easily as I want to. And I'm holding a lot of just sort of names, you know, there's a ton of names in my head, while I'm kind of clicking through a variety of windows and trying to go back. And the interface is like, you know, all those little question marks, and I'm sort of just going around to try to remember to click on the one to see the letter that has the layout of the, you know, the thing I'm trying to put together. And it's more like the feeling of just sort of not wanting to go through everything.

• 18:00Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 18:01Kirk Hamilton?

  To figure out the one word that I've got wrong. So then I just brute force it.

• 18:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:05Kirk Hamilton?

  It's not exactly feeling like, oh, I'm stuck. Because usually, right, you look at the scene, you're like, oh, I basically get what's going on. This is cool. And you have those moments of joyful sort of connection, where you're like, oh, that guy isn't the guy I thought he was.

• 18:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:17Kirk Hamilton?

  The actual guy in the costume is over here in this car. Because of the way the guy is talking to him, you can tell, you know, that he thinks he's somebody else. And you start to like, piece together all the deceptions and the red herrings, and that's really cool. But then, getting that final 10% requires a lot of sort of memorization and sort of navigation of this very sort of, like, the UI is just not quite up to keeping all of that as organized as I would like. And so then I just kind of wind up feeling a little tired, rather than like, stuck exactly by the difficulty.

• 18:49Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. Although this game over there, as a sequel, it does have some UI improvements. And the most notable one is that you can move the little kind of sub-screens around, which you could not do in the first game. So at least you can organize your screen to some degree.

• 19:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think that's an improvement.

• 19:08Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I guess it would be nice to have a second monitor and just move some stuff on the other.

• 19:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, you just go full minority report with it and just have a million Golden Idol screens.

• 19:16Jason Schreier?

  That's a notebook so far.

• 19:17Kirk Hamilton?

  I think if you require that many open windows, you actually like, you do wind up kind of wanting more real estate.

• 19:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think using a journal also just helped me so much with what you're describing, Kirk. But I also had the mental hurdle of like, do I really need to do this? Like, I need to write down every single character's name and then describe them in a little note underneath their name to myself. And once I started doing that, the game got easier, but it is that mental hurdle of like, I gotta take out a piece of paper at this point. And then, once you do that, you're just like, well, now I've already got paper here. Now I'm already doing this.

• 19:50Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I've actually, I've considered screenshotting the game and just opening the screenshots up on a second monitor, which, you know, it's a workaround.

• 19:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, for sure. Well, I'm really enjoying it. I'll definitely check back in when I've finished it.

• 20:03Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it's great.

• 20:03Speaker 00

  I love the story.

• 20:04Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes, for my, and for my criticisms, like, it's, it's great. Yeah, I'm really enjoying it.

• 20:10Speaker 00

  And the story is so cool and like those moments, we really can't undersell them of kind of having that moment of realization of like, oh, this guy isn't who I thought, or like, oh, this, this actually played out completely differently than what I thought it was. And I even had one where I like, thought I had the solution, filled out the entire solution and got like, not even a two or fewer incorrect, but a flat out incorrect. And I was like, really? And it, and I was like, completely wrong about what happened. And I loved that because then I was like, oh, I see. It's actually a completely different person than I even thought it was. And that was very fun for me and is like exactly what I enjoyed about Case of the Golden Idol and what I'm really liking about this game. And just the story is so cool and weird and just, there's nothing else like the story.

• 20:53Kirk Hamilton?

  The art is still second to none.

• 20:54Speaker 00

  The art is wild. The art remains amazing.

• 20:57Jason Schreier?

  And then there's Eugene. You guys have both met Eugene. Eugene is MVP.

• 21:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, oh my God, there's.

• 21:04Kirk Hamilton?

  There's always one.

• 21:05Speaker 00

  I like these characters. So let's move on. Let's, let's talk about another, another video game for a little bit. So this next one, totally different game, also hard, also difficult for completely different reasons. This game is Stalker 2. So only Kirk and I have played this one. I could not get my PC to run this game. And this was a real moment where I discovered that maybe I need to replace some parts of my PC. But that's something that maybe I'll talk about on a future episode. I know it's, I know it's also Stalker 2's fault. The game launched with some performance issues, but it wouldn't really run it at all for me. And I looked at the specs and I was like, okay, these are outpacing me.

• 21:50Speaker 00

  But that's my own existential journey to go on. So I've actually been playing this via Xbox Game Pass and it's, it runs pretty well on the Xbox. But there are, there are still some problems with it. And I'm enjoying it despite that. I'm having a great time. This is a kind of science fiction, post apocalyptic game. It's set in the, in Chernobyl. I can't remember what it's called, the exclusion zone. But it's like, kind of in another version, an alt history version of the world where there were multiple disasters there as opposed to just the one which does happen in the world of the game. But there's an additional one. And there are all these other sort of supernatural events happening. There's like, kind of lightning storms all the time and like items float in front of your face. And

• 22:32Speaker 00

  it's, it's freaky. And also, there's a bunch of guys out there just trying to survive in the zone and steal each other's stuff and or work together depending on who they decide to trust. And yeah, it's, it's a real big vibes game. And I really like the vibe. And it was also made in Ukraine by people who were living through the Russian invasion while they were making the video game. And the game really reflects that sense of urgency at its best, in its best moments. I think that, that emotion is really palpable in the game in ways that are really impressive. And with each patch, I think it's really improved. So I'm glad I've been sticking with it. But Kirk, what do you think about it so far?

• 23:12Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I really like it. And yes, it is rough. I'd say it's more of a performance thing for me than an issue with bugs. And there was kind of an interesting review situation with this game where I believe I only, I had an early copy. Um, that I played a little bit of and it was quite buggy, like there were missing gun sound effects in the very first firefight I got in. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna maybe come back to this. And then they released this massive day one patch that addressed like a thousand bugs or something. And I, I read reviews and it really just seemed like reviews were written on that version before the patch. And I've played a lot of the game now, post-patch, and it's, I mean, it's not bad. It is like, rough. It doesn't

• 23:56Kirk Hamilton?

  run great. It's weird. It has that stalker feeling, which, you know, this game, of course, is a, a sequel to, a long overdue sequel to these 2000s era games, uh, the earlier stalker games, which were also notoriously janky and, and kind of funny and weird and required a lot of mods and sort of gave rise to a whole modding community that's already on the case with stalker 2. So between the fact that they patched a lot of, a lot of bugs out, and there are already performance mods and other kinds of mods. There's like a mantling mod. There's a mod where you can run without running out of stamina because this game is huge and you have to cover all this ground. So you can really already begin to customize your experience on PC at least, which is, you know, one reason

• 24:38Kirk Hamilton?

  to recommend the PC version. So I don't know, my experience actually hasn't been super buggy. It's been, it's, it's a little janky in general, you know, the facial animations, the sort of, the AI is pretty weird, like enemies just sort of appears sometimes. It's, it's very unpredictable. But all of it is, is charming in a way that I'm kind of fine with. It's been an interesting, like litmus test for the types of, of bugs and the types of jank that I don't actually mind, and the types of games that I don't mind if they're janky versus, you know, I don't know, some other game that would have maybe a lesser bug, but it would bother me more. Um, and yeah, I'm really enjoying it. I mean, this game has big Far Cry 2 energy. It's definitely one of those weird emergent hostile games.

• 25:21Kirk Hamilton?

  You're always, you know, it's, it's not dissimilar from the Metro games, though it is more, a little more systemic. It feels kind of like PUBG, you know, like a single player, player unknowns battlegrounds. And, um, yeah, I'm really enjoying it. I find it kind of cozy, actually. Uh, I find the vibe. To be fairly cozy.

• 25:40Speaker 00

  A wild statement.

• 25:42Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 25:43Speaker 00

  I guess it's cozy in the sense that you're always kind of doing chores in this game. I mean, they're like survivalist chores, but like your guns deteriorate. You need to go back to town. You have a weight limit in terms of how much you can carry. You have to be picking up food and paying attention to your radiation levels. I mean, it has that kind of like survival sim feeling to it. And yeah, there's combat, but also you can avoid it. Or at least I do sometimes when I'm like, I really can't handle that fight right now. I'm just going to go the other way. Or I'm going to like go back and get some repairs done or something, do something else. There's a lot of that. I've found I can run away from a lot of encounters if I am doing poorly and I like need to regroup or just find some weapons somewhere else.

• 26:28Speaker 00

  Kind of reminds me of like a day Z when I was into that game. And I agree about PUBG in the sense that I obviously PUBG is about a real. You're dealing with other players that you happen upon all the time. But the enemy AI, when it works really well in this game, has that same sensation of like almost running across a group of other real people who are engaging in a fight that you're not familiar with. And you're kind of like, oh, uh, sorry, guys. Like, I'm just passing through here. Like, that kind of energy is, is interesting to live in and makes the world feel more realistic in a cool way. And like, like actual other people are there, which is the intent.

• 27:07Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, there's a kind of a granularity to the inventory management. Like when you kill a guy, you can unload his gun and take the bullets. There's a kind of scarcity and it just feels along the lines of those kind of Arma and Arma mod type games where there's just like a little bit more detail and micromanagement. But I, I find that stuff kind of pleasing in a way because, you know, having to actually engage with those sorts of things kind of centers me in the world a little bit more. And yeah, the coziness is just, you know, there are, yeah, there are these horrifying storms that come through that just murder you if you're outside. And there's something about having a really bad storm coming and then running to a town seeing everybody running inside and you go in. And then you're in the store and you're waiting while like the red sky outside and the storm goes by.

• 27:53Kirk Hamilton?

  And you kind of eat like some salami.

• 27:56Speaker 00

  And like guys have guitars and they'll tell stories. I mean, that stuff is really cool. Like it really does feel like you're hanging out with some other dudes in the zone.

• 28:06Kirk Hamilton?

  There are radios that are playing all kinds of really cool Ukrainian music. They have like this massive playlist of, I believe, all the music, or at least a lot of it is, are different Ukrainian artists, which is just cool because it's all stuff I've never heard before. There's a really strong sense of place in this game that I enjoy. And yeah, I mean, there's the same annoying stuff from the earlier stalker games is here, like there are mutants, kind of monsters that you have to fight.

• 28:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:30Kirk Hamilton?

  And they're mostly all a bummer, at least all the ones I fought are like not fun to fight and I just run away from them.

• 28:35Speaker 00

  Like the invisible guys, I don't know what they're called, but those guys aren't good to me.

• 28:40Kirk Hamilton?

  You just waste all your bullets on them and you can usually just kind of run around them and like grab whatever you want and then get out of there. And I've started playing that way.

• 28:47Speaker 00

  I've started doing that for sure. Dark Souls style.

• 28:50Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah. So there's, there's kind of a joy in this game, I guess, to feeling like you're getting one over on the game.

• 28:55Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 28:55Kirk Hamilton?

  Which is like, it's not a bad sort of second prize compared to a game where it's really fun to fight the monsters. And so you do it voluntarily. This is a game where like, it's not fun to fight the monsters really, and you waste like your bullets. So you instead find a clever way to just run around it. And then feel, I still feel good at the end because I'm like, ha, ha, ha, I got away and I didn't even have to shoot that thing at all. So I don't know. I find that sort of satisfying.

• 29:20Jason Schreier?

  That reminds me of what playing Resident Evil 2 was like.

• 29:23Speaker 00

  Hmm. I mean, there are some horror elements in stalker 2 for sure.

• 29:27Jason Schreier?

  Well, I just mean in the sense that like you get into an encounter and it's better for you to avoid it because there's no reason to fight it.

• 29:33Speaker 00

  Yeah. And you're running out of bullets like in Resident Evil 2. Like you also have to think about every single thing you're picking up and where it is. And so in that sense, it is like a survival horror experience. But I don't think it's that scary exactly.

• 29:47Kirk Hamilton?

  No, not really.

• 29:48Speaker 00

  Not that Jason thought RE2 was scary. He didn't. So I guess this is a good comparison for you.

• 29:52Kirk Hamilton?

  But there's no like real jump scares, even when they're kind of trying to engineer one. The game is, I would say, rough enough that there just isn't quite the smoothness required for the timing to work for a jump scare. It's more like, you know, that invisible doodle show up from time to time. But like, those guys are kind of everywhere.

• 30:08Speaker 00

  I'm not sure if that's even supposed to be a jump scare or not, genuinely.

• 30:11Kirk Hamilton?

  Right, I don't, I don't. Yeah, I don't, I don't really know if it is. But it's like a sort of a scary situation, but it still feels kind of

• 30:17Speaker 00

  The tense situation, for sure.

• 30:18Kirk Hamilton?

  Kind of janky and so not that, not that scary. This game has a really funny vibe. I've been kind of alternating back and forth between the Ukrainian voiceover and the English voiceover.

• 30:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:29Kirk Hamilton?

  Which I know, Maddie, you wrote an article about.

• 30:30Speaker 00

  I really like the Ukrainian one. I think it's really cool. I think it's a cool way to experience the game, for sure.

• 30:36Kirk Hamilton?

  It is. There are times where I find I can't take on all of the dialogue.

• 30:41Speaker 00

  I get that.

• 30:42Kirk Hamilton?

  Because it's, it's just a little too much to read it all, especially if I'm playing and someone's talking.

• 30:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:47Kirk Hamilton?

  But I think generally the Ukrainian voice actors seem stronger.

• 30:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:50Kirk Hamilton?

  It might be that like I don't detect the shortcomings in their performances because like I don't speak Ukrainian, so I don't know.

• 30:56Speaker 00

  Same. I could also be just, just experiencing that. It's like kind of the classic, oh, just like play with the Japanese voice acting and then you won't notice whether or not you like the voice actors. It's like the equivalent of that.

• 31:06Kirk Hamilton?

  The English voice acting is all over the place. It's like a variety of accents. The guy who plays, is his name? It's, Skiff's voice is way better in Ukrainian than in English.

• 31:17Speaker 00

  For sure.

• 31:18Kirk Hamilton?

  Some of the other voices are kind of, you know, hit or miss. Or there's a variety of accents and like quality levels to the performance. I gotta tell you though, I just had this cutscene with a guy. It was like the strangest sequence where you come in, it's this guy solder that you're looking for in the beginning. And it goes into this cutscene where you're kind of walking up to the door that he's behind and then, you know, it goes into cutscene mode. So like you, you can't just go in and shoot him, basically.

• 31:44Speaker 00

  Right, right.

• 31:45Kirk Hamilton?

  And, and in, and in first person perspective, this cutscene plays out where you go in there and he's there and he's sold you out early, so you're pissed at him. And he has a gun and you're like trading barbs about the gun. And then you fight for a while. Like wrestle over the gun and you're trying to get to the gun and then you get it and you you pointed at him and you're like, ha ha, now I have the gun. And he's like, oh, whatever. And he grabs a loaf of bread and he like is like holding the bread and then you shoot the bread. And he's like, ah, and then he bites into the bread while talking to you, while you're interrogating him. And he's chewing on the bread and then he starts to choke. And so then in the middle of this cutscene, he's choking. And then your character like hits him on the back because there's like breadcrumbs flying out of his mouth.

• 32:27Kirk Hamilton?

  And then he stops choking. He's like, ah, this goddamn bread. Thanks. Like, no problem. Anyway, tell me who sent you. And then he like walks over and he starts pouring some tea. And then he like throws the tea kettle at you. Like this, this cutscene is like more involved and bizarre than anything I was expecting. Like especially that anything that I'd seen in the game up to that point. And I have no idea who is responsible for it, but it's actually delightful.

• 32:50Speaker 00

  It sounds great. I'm excited to get to it.

• 32:53Kirk Hamilton?

  Thing like that in this game. I was like, oh, is there going to be more stuff like this? Because I really hope there is. Like this type of strangeness was not a type of strangeness that I was prepared for. And I I really loved it. So hopefully there's more of that in the game. It made me want to keep playing to see more.

• 33:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think there is kind of a general energy of like, you never know who you can trust. And even when you do trust someone, they're always kind of on the verge of killing you with which that cutscene. It's a designed one to give you that sensation.

• 33:19Kirk Hamilton?

  I mean, at the end of the conversation, you can choose to kill him or not kill him.

• 33:22Speaker 00

  Of course, yeah. I feel like I've run into that by accident or or maybe on purpose a couple of times, not in cutscene form. Where like I sometimes just walk around without my gun out because then people will still talk to you sometimes. And like you aren't considered a threat, basically, if you just hide your weapons. And so I like was just walking around and found a quest that I had agreed to with a bunch of guys that I was supposed to kill. But I didn't know that. So I just was like walking around, having conversations with them. And then eventually I was like, how am I supposed to advance this quest? And then I was like, oh, I'm supposed to just kill these guys. And then I like took out my gun and I was like, oh, well, anyway, it's been nice. I had to just kill them all and then advance the quest line.

• 34:04Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I'm not really, I'm not sure how some of it works. I've had that in like a bandit camp where I'm talking to people, but I always have the dialogue option of like, enough of that, attack, you know?

• 34:13Speaker 00

  For whatever reason, this time I didn't have that and I don't know why that was because it took me, I had to like look at my journal and be like, so what am I supposed to be doing here? Oh, killing all of you. I see now. It was very funny to me.

• 34:25Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah. And it seems like there are repercussions for killing some people. There are definitely factions. There's like a tooltip or whatever, a tip at the loading screen about like, you have to pay off faction bosses. I haven't really interacted with that that much.

• 34:37Speaker 00

  Me neither.

• 34:37Kirk Hamilton?

  I don't know how well it works, but I guess we'll see.

• 34:40Speaker 00

  And I think I'm sure, I'm sure I'm gonna screw up and kill the wrong person. I'm sure I already have. I'm just kinda, I'm just kinda winging it. And I know there's also a thing where, and I am not even trying with this. I've died a million times in this game and I don't care, but I know that if you die fewer times, you get a different ending, or so I hear from previous stalker games, but I've already accepted it. I've accepted that I'm not gonna get whatever that is. I've just died a lot of times and I'm, I'm moving on.

• 35:05Kirk Hamilton?

  Seven deaths Hamilton is not, is not showing up for stalker.

• 35:08Speaker 00

  No, absolutely not.

• 35:09Kirk Hamilton?

  We're like 20 something deaths Hamilton.

• 35:12Speaker 00

  We're in, we're in the, the dozens for sure. We're, we're 27 death Matty over here. So yeah, it's, it's not gonna work out, but I'm having a good time and I'm, I'm really enjoying like the, the kinda classic jank. And I think the Xbox will continue to get patches and so will my PC in a different form, in a more physical form.

• 35:31Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I would, I would say to close out, just as a recommendation for this game, that if this stuff sounds good, like if you're already into this kinda game, you'll probably enjoy it as it is. I do think this game will get better and better over time.

• 35:42Speaker 00

  Agreed.

• 35:43Kirk Hamilton?

  Especially because it seems like Microsoft is actually like really supporting it and helping them patch it. And then like I was saying earlier, I think there will be more and more mods as time goes by. And I bet that in a few months, this game will be a much better version of itself. So you could also wait. I think you could kinda go either way, but I'm actually, yeah, I'm having plenty of fun with it now.

• 36:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, same. And the fact that it's on game pass, I mean, if you already have that, it costs nothing to try it, other than what you're already paying for game pass, which is kinda like it costing nothing. So there you go. All right. So Jason, you have a game here that only you played called Locomotive. You wanna tell us about it?

• 36:17Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, so Locomotive is this new game that just came out. It's from this British studio founded by a couple of brothers. And it's a kind of old school point and click adventure, very reminiscent of Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle and such. It's set on this train. It's a murder mystery. You play, at least in the first part, you play as multiple characters, but in the first part, you play as this, um, this estate lawyer, uh, who is on this train to, uh, help, uh, do some amendments to the will of this elderly, rich woman. And the woman dies, she is killed, and, uh, you have to figure out exactly what happened.

• 36:59Jason Schreier?

  Um, and in true point and click adventure style, that means going around and talking to people and clicking on things and putting them in your pockets and then taking them out and using them to solve puzzles.

• 37:08Speaker 00

  Heck, yeah.

• 37:09Jason Schreier?

  And it's very charming. It's a very charming game. And, um, I am really enjoying the writing and the characters and the animations, which are very silly, very, uh, old school LucasArts style silly of you just like taking a massive object and putting it in your pants, that sort of guyber statement.

• 37:26Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 37:27Jason Schreier?

  Type stuff and other kind of silly animations, um, and other silly, uh, just, just funny happenings. Um, the thing that is annoying about it is the thing that is annoying about all point and click adventures, which is that sometimes the logic doesn't actually make any sense and you find yourself kind of frustrated looking things up. It's unlike Rise of the Golden Idol, you can't brute force.

• 37:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:50Jason Schreier?

  Uh, the, some of these puzzles, you have to really just go and look up what the fuck to do, um, which can be pretty frustrating. Um, but it's a solid adventure. If you like point and click adventures, you'll probably like this one, too. I'm enjoying it.

• 38:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, sounds great.

• 38:04Kirk Hamilton?

  How's the story?

• 38:05Jason Schreier?

  Well, story, I don't know, I haven't finished it yet. I'm like in, through the first act, you kind of, it changes characters after you get through this first big chunk. Um, I, I'm playing this annoy, this, this, uh, very delightful portion where like you, um, The second character you play as is this detective fiction writer. And his, uh, his chapter starts off with him in a publishing office pitching a manuscript, but, uh, to three editors, but the editors use this giant machine called the board that uses algorithms to determine whether a manuscript should be accepted or not. And you have to, it's not, no, it's like, it's like an AI. It's like a big like spinning AI thing that is like, oh, this does not have this, this

• 38:50Jason Schreier?

  and this. Like it goes through like bullet points of like, so it's like an AI thing. Um, it's very silly and you have to figure out how to disable it in some way and get your manuscript approved. So it's just a very funny game. The overall story, I mean, I don't know, I don't really have, uh, thoughts on that yet because, uh, you kind of have to see where the murder mystery is going and who the culprit is. But, um, yeah, very charming.

• 39:15Speaker 00

  And you're also playing something else, Jason, if you want to introduce as well.

• 39:19Jason Schreier?

  I've been playing also, uh, a bunch of tactical breach wizards, which is,

• 39:25Speaker 00

  What?

• 39:25Jason Schreier?

  Which rules, just like you guys said it did. Um, and that game I'm also really enjoying. I don't remember if either of you made the comparison, but my immediate reaction is like, oh, this is like a more elaborate version of Into the Breach, which is a game that we all really enjoyed a few years ago. I think it's kind of,

• 39:45Kirk Hamilton?

  I did make that comparison.

• 39:46Jason Schreier?

  Oh, you did?

• 39:46Speaker 00

  But it's okay.

• 39:48Jason Schreier?

  Who's counting? Who's going back and forth?

• 39:50Speaker 00

  No one said this. I think Jason came up with this. It's like,

• 39:53Jason Schreier?

  I did, I did. I was the first to make that comparison point. Cause it's, the, the reason I make that up is because it seems on its face, you look at it and you look at the way it functions and the camera angle and the, the conceit of it all. And you think of XCOM because it's kind of like an isometric grid based. Like you have three shooting characters, you can like upgrade their abilities and so on and so forth. But it's really nothing like XCOM. It's really a lot more of a puzzle solving game than it is kind of like a, a tactical RPG where you're like customizing characters and figuring out the best loadouts and stuff. This is more, you have pretty, pretty strict suite of abilities. You can do so. Some upgrades and customization, but they're pretty limited. Mostly you're just kind of figuring out how to ideally solve each puzzle.

• 40:37Jason Schreier?

  And if you really want to go all the way, you solve the optional objectives too. Anyway, I'm, I'm really loving it. It's a really cool game. I'm about halfway through, I guess, and I just finished the second kind of act. And it's like a four act structure.

• 40:52Kirk Hamilton?

  Got it.

• 40:53Jason Schreier?

  Anyway, that's it. I mean, it's really cool.

• 40:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's really good. I'm glad you're playing it. I, I, Kirk, was it you who was sharing like the FAQ in our chat about all the different things that the game is not? I thought that was really funny and I was thinking about it as Jason was saying, the game looks like XCOM and it's not XCOM. And people being like, well, is this game a rogue like? And it seems almost like it would be when you start playing it, but it's, it's not a rogue like at all. And they have like a funny answer to that where they're like, we don't know why people are saying this. But it's like each level is really discreetly.

• 41:24Jason Schreier?

  Cause every indie game is a rogue like.

• 41:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, but it's like each level is really discreetly designed to be a very specific puzzle that can be solved. But also to kind of tell you something about the characters who are in the puzzle as well. Because it's ultimately a story game, like in addition to being a strategy game, it's a story. And I, I just think that's so cool. I don't, I, that part of it also isn't really like Into the Breach or really like anything else I've ever played. And is something that I really love about that game. It's cool. I'm glad you're playing it, Jason. We bullied you effectively.

• 41:57Kirk Hamilton?

  I think the, um, the Steam page and really all of the sort of meta textual stuff around this game. All of which I, I would imagine is written by Tom Francis.

• 42:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, probably.

• 42:08Kirk Hamilton?

  Tom Francis energy, like, and just as a sort of, I don't know, he was like a PC gamer reporter. He's sort of like, he kind of understands like the language of a Steam game and of like how to describe it. There's just something a little like self-aware about it. And so in the marketing materials, yeah, that they're like, it's not actually like XCOM. It looks like XCOM, but XCOM is, you know, this, like Jason just described. And this game is actually very different. And then also, well, yes, it has breach in the title and it is somewhat like Into the Breach, because both games are grid based and have a time mechanic where you can rewind turns, which is actually. Pretty significant mechanical similarity. But then he actually very clearly articulates the difference, which I can't remember the exact language. But basically that in tactical breach wizards, there's a far greater suite of options available to you,

• 42:53Kirk Hamilton?

  especially as your team expands on any given turn. And where into the breach is a much more linear and much are much more like rigid kind of design. And I do think that's something you'll find as you play more Jason is that it becomes less and less of a puzzle game as it goes. I actually heard some people disappointedly describing the game as, oh, it's actually just a puzzle game. And I really wouldn't, I know you weren't saying that, but I really wouldn't say that, especially the more I've played. Because once you have a full team and you've kind of customized all of your different team members, there is a variety of different approaches you can take depending on how you, you know, do your builds. And then you have all these different options for taking people out. And then the only time it really gets puzzly is when you start trying to do those side objectives,

• 43:36Kirk Hamilton?

  which are such a great little idea, like Ubisoft games used to do this. I guess maybe some of them still do, but I love this approach where there are these optional objectives that both give you a fun challenge and it's usually very rigid. Like a lot of times it'll be knock, you know, knock out five people with Jen on the first move or only go twice. A lot of times it's like, you know, only take two turns and then complete this scenario. And what's cool about that optional objective is both that it gives you a fun challenge to try to do. And it also tells you

• 44:06Speaker 00

  That you could.

• 44:07Kirk Hamilton?

  That it's possible.

• 44:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:08Kirk Hamilton?

  Right. It's possible to figure out a way to do this. It's kind of a double edged sword in that I find myself sometimes like chasing that a little too hard. And the game really tries to remind you over and over, these are optional. These are for people who are finding the game too easy. You definitely don't have to do them.

• 44:24Speaker 00

  These are for sickos.

• 44:25Kirk Hamilton?

  Unlock anything, right. You unlock outfits or something if you do that. But, um, but I still found myself sometimes chasing them, but I, I kind of liked that and thought it was fine. And I just like when a game tells you some really difficult thing that you can pull off. And I think this game communicates with the player very well.

• 44:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, same. I'm also very capable of just giving up if I'm like, I tried this a few times and I'm not having fun. I'm going to continue on so I can see the story and have a good time, but I also. Like knowing like, oh, I could have done this in two moves or whatever if I if I had figured it out. And I'm sure somebody out there is really good at this kind of thing and they know how to do it.

• 44:59Kirk Hamilton?

  Plus, there are those like optional challenge rooms that that unlock each chapter. And there are more and more and more of them as you go. And I didn't even do all of them. Some of them are really hard and they're all they're all like really distinct. Those are very puzzly, like one room with an extremely specific scenario that you have to figure out. Those are fun in a kind of different way than the more open ended campaign missions.

• 45:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. So I feel like I should list all the games we just said, just in case somebody wants to hear them again. So I'll just run them down. It's only four games. So we talked about Rise of the Golden Idol at the beginning. That's the one that's the sequel, the point and click adventure sequel to Case of the Golden Idol. And then we talked about Stalker 2. That's our Eurojank FPS sci fi post apocalyptic game.

• 45:40Kirk Hamilton?

  I saw someone call it Slavjank, which I thought was kind of funny. It'd be a little more specific regionally.

• 45:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's be specific with it. And then Jason talked about Locomotive, which is like a mystery game that he's playing. And then last but not least, Tactical Breach Wizards, one of our faves, probably going to come up when we talk about our goadies. We'll see. We're getting to that time of year. And so with that, we've discussed some video games. Let's take a break and then we'll be back for one more thing.

• 46:13Speaker 03

  Dr. Game Show is a podcast where we play games submitted by listeners with callers from all around the world. And this is a game to get you to listen. Name three reasons to listen to Dr. Game Show. Kyla and Luna from Freedom, Maine.

• 46:27Speaker 04

  Dishes, folding the laundry, doing cat grooming.

• 46:32Speaker 03

  Okay, thank you. Great.

• 46:34Speaker 05

  Oh, things you could do while listening. Yeah.

• 46:38Speaker 03

  I love that the re- I'm like, why do you listen to this show? And Luna's like, dishes. Fantastic. Manolo.

• 46:44Speaker 05

  Number one is that it'll inspire you. You're gonna be like, oh, I could do that.

• 46:51Speaker 03

  That's all we have time for, but you'll just have to find Dr. Game Show and maximum fun to find out for yourself.

• 46:58Speaker 06

  Do you like stuff, things, items? Because MaxFunStore.com has tons of stuff from a bunch of shows. Want a shirt? We got them. Bumper stickers? No need to honk, they're here. Drinkware, sweatshirts, tiny bedded up fur for your dog. It can all be yours at MaxFunStore.com. And if you're a MaxFun member, keep an eye on your inbox because you get a discount. Now is the time to shop for the MaxFun fans in your life, including yourself. You deserve it. MaxFunStore.com. Go get something special or kinda dumb. We've got it all.

• 47:42Speaker 00

  And we are back for one more thing. Kirk, why don't you go first?

• 47:45Kirk Hamilton?

  Sure. So my one more thing quite a while back was the Apple TV show Slow Horses.

• 47:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:51Kirk Hamilton?

  Which has continued to be great. And they just finished, what, their fourth season or something? And every season of the show has been great. It's really gotten better as it's gone. But my one more thing is actually the Slough House books by Mick Herron, which the show is based on. I actually found the first book, which is called Slow Horses. It was published in 2010. I found it among my dad's stuff when we were clearing out my parents' stuff over the summer. And I was like, oh, that's cool. I didn't even know he was reading this. It was kind of a very, kind of a sad moment of like, oh, I watched the show and it would have been nice to talk to him about it. So I was like, well, I'm gonna take this book with me and I'll take it home and read it. So now I have his copy of Slow Horses. And I read it even though I had already watched the season, you know,

• 48:34Kirk Hamilton?

  the first season of the show, because the show does follow the books in order. And there are like 12 books or something. And they've just gone straight up in order. Every single one is a pretty faithful adaptation of the book. So I'd already seen the season. I knew what was gonna happen. And I actually found that I enjoyed the book even more as a result. I knew where we were going. I knew what kind of a story to expect, like what kind of a spy story, I guess. Because there are, you know, a lot of different kinds of spy stories. So from there, I just kind of kept reading the books. I started checking them out from the library. And I read the first three and now I'm reading the fourth. Book after having finished the fourth season, which just aired. The fourth book is called, I think it's called Spook Street. See, Joes are spies. And Spook Street is like where the spies have to go. Right.

• 49:19Kirk Hamilton?

  So these, these books, uh, these books are like the show, uh, based on, uh, it's the sort of MI5, like British spy stuff, but with a slightly comedic bent. I would say like a dark comedic bent. It's not really a comedy. The books are very funny. I'd say the books are almost funnier than the show, though the show is also often quite funny. It's about a group of spies, uh, assigned to an outfit called Slough House, which is the house that they all work out of. They're MI5 agents who have screwed up in some way or another. So they're like, one is a drug addict, one is a gambling addict, one like made a huge mistake during his training, even though he was supposed to do well, and also kind of got sold out by some people. So all of them have been screwed over in some way. And then, uh, Lamb, who is the kind of, uh, that's the name of the guy who's in charge

• 50:04Kirk Hamilton?

  of everyone. He is, uh, kind of the worst of all. He's like an old Cold War spy, who's this kind of horrible, unkempt, smelly, farting, belching asshole who's in charge of them all. But also, of course, he is an incredible spy. And you always, you get the sense that on some level, he cares about his people, even though he'd never really let you know. And he's played by Gary Oldman, um, on the show and is a, uh, a really, a really incredible performance. Jackson Lamb is his full name. So it's kind of all about all of these different misfits who work for Jackson Lamb. They always, they keep winding up getting like sucked into some kind of shenanigan or another. A lot of times it's like a problem of MI5's own making, where they're just caught up in

• 50:47Kirk Hamilton?

  some internal politics where their adversaries are also members of MI5. Occasionally it gets a little more international, but it's not quite like a spy story, you know, like there are spies from another country. Most of the time it's like, oh, our chickens are coming home to roost because of some shit we did during the Cold War or whatever. Um, anyways, the books are really funny. Mick Herron is a very, very funny writer, um, even though in the end, they're really like these hard boiled, kind of well put together spy capers. He writes very, with a great amount of momentum. He does a lot of editing where he cuts in between. Multiple scenes that are happening at the same time. And the show feels that way, too. It's pretty breathless, especially, I think it's season three. Like, once things get cooking, it almost unfolds in real time. And most of the books are that way, too, so they're super readable.

• 51:31Kirk Hamilton?

  Like, you just get started, and once it gets cooking, which doesn't take long, you really kind of just go through to the end. So anyways, for anyone out there who likes the show, I just thought I'd recommend the books. They're really fun, and actually, reading the books after watching the show has been a really rewarding experience and has made me appreciate the show even more. When there's a new season, I feel like I just have more insight into the characters and appreciate them even more. So, yeah, they're great books, and I recommend them.

• 51:54Speaker 00

  So are you not going to continue because you don't want to spoil the show? Or you're kind of at a stopping point right now?

• 52:00Kirk Hamilton?

  That is a question. I actually have the next book on my Kindle from the library. And when I finish the one I'm reading, I'm gonna have to make that decision.

• 52:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:09Kirk Hamilton?

  They shoot them really far ahead of time. Like, I think they've got the next season in the can, but I'm guessing it won't hit Apple TV for a while. So I don't know, I'm gonna have to make that decision, and I'm not sure what I'm gonna do.

• 52:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, because I feel like that would change the paradigm for you, where then you'd be watching the show already, knowing what's gonna happen.

• 52:25Kirk Hamilton?

  And that's happened. I think I did that with Game of Thrones. Like, that'd be okay.

• 52:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, of course, yeah.

• 52:28Kirk Hamilton?

  Might be fun to try it the other way around and see how it is, but I haven't decided.

• 52:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's always a tough one, when it's like, all the books are out, but the show is only now coming out. I mean, at least they're all done. I think the books are all done. That's unlike Game of Thrones.

• 52:42Kirk Hamilton?

  Sure, there are so many. I'm not sure if he end, because there hasn't been one since 22.

• 52:46Speaker 00

  It's not that kind of thing, right? It's like a serial. It's not, it's not like there's gonna be that thing.

• 52:51Kirk Hamilton?

  No, it's an ongoing story there, especially now he's introducing more and more stuff that's probably gonna come back in future books. But, yeah, each book stands, each story stands alone.

• 52:59Speaker 00

  Okay, fair enough. All right.

• 53:00Kirk Hamilton?

  People get killed, like, you know, there's like, things change, and then the story kind of unfolds.

• 53:05Speaker 00

  And there's things that could be maybe spoiled, that you would be like, okay, well, now I know this is gonna happen. But whatever, that's books, that's shows. You gotta make your decisions. All right, I'll go next. Um, so I watched a movie, the movie adaptation of the musical Les Miserables from 2012. It's a very controversial movie. I don't know if you two know this. I'm really showing my theater kid pride here. So this movie is really hated by people who love Les Misérables. Because it made the controversial choice to have all of the actors sing live. And you can really tell, like, it's not like, oh, you know, they're bad singers or something. Some of them are excellent singers, but you can definitely tell that they're really singing

• 53:50Speaker 00

  live on a soundstage and they're being mic'd as such. And sometimes there's some, a lot of variability in volume because of that. And also, the other controversial choice is that the orchestra follows the singers. So, and this is very unusual across the board for a musical, is that the singer could set the pace of a song and kind of like take dramatic pauses when they choose to, and the orchestra would follow them. And it's really strange, but I thought it was fascinating. I expected to dislike it, so then I liked it more than I thought I would, just because I expected to not like it and because I had heard from so many people that it was terrible. And if you hear something's bad and then it's okay, you kind of are like, all right, well, I'm gonna like, kind of see what's, what's interesting about this.

• 54:32Speaker 00

  And I, I do think it's, it's a fascinating project and I was glad I finally got around to watching it. Hugh Jackman stars in it as Valjean. I don't think he, I actually really like his performance, but his singing voice, he really struggles with some of the range of that role. It's a really, really hard role to sing. It's like a huge range of high notes that he doesn't really have. And Russell Crowe plays Javert and famously doesn't have the right, I, I mean, people say Russell Crowe can't sing. He can sing fine. It's just he's not performing the role the way that I, I feel like Javert's normally performed. And that's really weird to watch. He's a really understated performance and it's like, he's giving nothing.

• 55:14Speaker 00

  But I, I enjoyed it anyway, and I thought some of the moments of the live singing were really moving. Like Anne Hathaway's performance, I thought was amazing. And I don't know if you two are familiar with Les Mis at all, but it's like an extremely sad musical. It's very, very melodramatic. Like to say the very least about it.

• 55:33Kirk Hamilton?

  It's not called Les Joyeuses.

• 55:35Speaker 00

  It's so melodramatic. This is the kind of thing I liked as a teenager, because who doesn't love melodrama when they're a teenager? So all of these songs are the kinds of songs where if somebody was saying these words to you, you could picture them sobbing while saying them. Like, pretty much every song kind of works that way, where you're like, someone would be crying while doing this. And a lot of times, the actors are crying while they're singing. And that's part of why the performances are so unusual, because when you're crying, it's really hard to sing, obviously. And so like, this live performance of it is, is kind of moving in a very different way, because the actors are really bringing it in that way. And Anne Hathaway is sobbing throughout I Dream to Dream. Like, just full-on, raw,

• 56:17Speaker 00

  sobbing, like drool coming out of her mouth, just really bringing it in this. And like, I liked it. I couldn't believe I liked it. But I was like, this is really working. I do think she's kind of a genius, though. And I don't know that it works when everyone else does it. And I also read, you know, some people hate that performance because she chooses to do that. But I thought it really worked. So if you're like me, and you were kind of putting off watching this, because you were like, I don't know what I'll think of it. I'm glad I watched it finally. I did palate cleanse afterwards by watching my favorite version of Les Mis, which is called, quote, "The Dreamcast." It has Lea Salonga as Eponine, and Colm Wilkinson as Jean Valjean. And I watched it, and I was like, this is

• 57:00Speaker 00

  just taking me back. I just love this shit. I could watch this a million times. So like, I did kind of like, you know, double feature Les Mis for myself. But I do recommend it, if you're hesitant. I think there's something interesting about it, even though it doesn't always work. And I feel like after this movie failed in that way with people, the whole idea was thrown out. But I think there's something to it for certain songs, if that makes sense. And it could work.

• 57:25Kirk Hamilton?

  Doesn't Wicked do this, though?

• 57:26Speaker 00

  Does it?

• 57:27Kirk Hamilton?

  I feel like I've saw them talking about Wicked having some live singing in it.

• 57:30Speaker 00

  That's cool. I wonder if they do some live singing and some not, because I feel like that's a better way to approach something like this.

• 57:37Jason Schreier?

  Are you sure you weren't thinking of people talking about singing in the movie?

• 57:42Kirk Hamilton?

  No, I believe, I believe I saw, that's all being in if I'm wrong, but I believe I saw that some of the performances in Wicked are sung on set.

• 57:48Speaker 00

  But then there's also live singing of people who just can't help but sing in the movie theater.

• 57:52Kirk Hamilton?

  Then also in the movie theater, unfortunately.

• 57:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, so that's Les Mis from 2012. Weird experience. Jason, why don't you go last?

• 58:02Jason Schreier?

  My one more thing is Thanksgiving.

• 58:04Speaker 00

  Yay.

• 58:05Jason Schreier?

  Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love Thanksgiving.

• 58:07Speaker 00

  It's so good. It's great.

• 58:08Jason Schreier?

  You got your family, you got your football, and you got your food. And every year for Thanksgiving, I cook. And so I wanted to give you guys and our listeners a couple of useful tips in case you are hosting Thanksgiving or would like to one day host Thanksgiving. So I'm gonna give you guys a couple of tips. And number one is, Kirk, you know what's coming.

• 58:27Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, boy.

• 58:27Jason Schreier?

  Gotta spatchcock that turkey.

• 58:29Speaker 00

  You gotta.

• 58:30Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes, you said it.

• 58:31Speaker 00

  It's every year.

• 58:32Jason Schreier?

  You gotta take that turkey and you get some good, some good kitchen shears or like a good knife and cut out the backbone and then just kind of flatten it as much as you can. Crack the wishbone, flatten it as much as you can, put it on a wire rack over some veggies, and you stick that thing in the oven at 450 degrees. It'll be done in 80 minutes, 90 minutes tops, depending how big your turkey is. And your guests will be like, wait a minute, you made a turkey in an hour and a half? Like, I've been sitting here doing a four-hour basting every 20 minutes, like ritual, and Thanksgiving is miserable because of that. But no, there is an easier way. And a couple of other things you can do to make the turkey even better. You can dry brine it, which is another kind of key tip.

• 59:11Jason Schreier?

  And here is the real, the real pro tip is you take it and you do your spatchcocking and then you put it on the wire rack and stuff. And you put it in the fridge for 24 hours uncovered before you cook it. And that dries out the skin and it makes it super, super crispy. You can do this with the chicken, by the way. Every time I make roast chicken or something, I do the same thing. Spatchcocking and I don't always have time to do like drying it in the fridge, but that also helps make for like crispier skin and much better bird. So that's tip number. Number one, if you want to make your Thanksgiving hosting experience like less miserable because the turkey is so hard to cook, this is what you do and it'll make things so simple and easy.

• 59:49Speaker 00

  Well, you're freeing up the oven for most of the day, too.

• 59:52Jason Schreier?

  You're freeing up the oven for most of the day. You can work on other stuff. Yeah, a lot of people have to do like all their stuffing and pies and sweet potatoes or whatever else beforehand because like they need to reserve the oven for the turkey all day. But nope, you don't have to do that. You can cook everything like that morning of. My prep, I have some other prep. My Thanksgiving is a little bit unique because my, some of my family keeps kosher. So we do non dairy sides. So I can't do like mac and cheese or like mashed potatoes smothered in butter. But I do do a couple of things that I think are really key to like making a really good Thanksgiving meal or making a good meal in general. And they're all really easy. None of this is like difficult to pull off.

• 1:00:34Jason Schreier?

  One of them is making homemade chicken stock or turkey stock for like, as like a base for your gravy. You gotta make homemade gravy. You can't do that mixed stuff. Chicken stock is really like surprisingly easy to make at home and tastes like exponentially better than the canned stuff. It's one of those things, there are like a few things you learn as a home cook that like really elevate your cooking that are actually like deceptively easy and making homemade chicken stock is one of them. You just need time. So like basically you take a chicken, cut the skin off if you want it to be healthy or just take some chicken breasts, like boneless chicken, not boneless, but skinless chicken breasts. You want the bones in there too, or even just bones. You can do it with a lot of different types of chicken, stick it in a pot with some water, a bunch of vegetables, onions, carrots, celery's, like leeks, potatoes I sometimes put in

• 1:01:19Jason Schreier?

  there. You can do this with like the gross, like the vegetables that are like on their way towards rotten on the bottom of your fridge and it's totally fine as long as they're not like actually rotten. And you just let it simmer for about a few hours and it turns into delicious stock that you can then use for your gravy and for your, to moisten your stuffing and stuff like that. And then if you're like me and you have to cook a Thanksgiving meal without butter, something else that I do is I make what's called schmaltz. And so what you do with that is you take your chicken skins, and this is where you can do two things at once. You could cut the, you can get a big chicken, cut the skin off, use the chicken itself, the carcass itself for the stock, and then the skins for this, which is you take these skins, a bunch of skins, and you put them in a saute pan,

• 1:02:02Jason Schreier?

  and you cook them on like low heat for like a solid 45 minutes. You just let them sweat out, and all the fat will render out. At some point, you can put in an onion in there for flavor too, but the fat will run out, and it'll just kind of sit there, and the skins themselves will like turn into these crispy delicious treats. You take the fat, you pour it into a container or something, and you can use that essentially as butter, or as oil, or anything, and add all this flavor to something. So like what I do is I'll take a bunch of chicken sticks, make the skins, make those. I'll serve the skins as like a little bit of an appetizer for guests, because they're delicious, especially with some onions, or like you can, you can do a bunch of stuff with them. You can kind of use them as a topping on like green beans, and have that like nice crispy flavoring on green beans.

• 1:02:44Jason Schreier?

  And then you use the schmaltz to just flavor, add a shitload of flavor to anything you're making. So I'll use it in, as the base for the gravy instead of butter. Use the schmaltz and then some flour and make a little roux, again, super easy. Add your chicken stock or turkey stock and mix it up and make some gravy. I also use it instead of butter for my stuffing. I'll just stick a bunch of schmaltz in there, and it adds all this flavor to it. Not quite butter, but you can't use schmaltz for pies, unfortunately, if you're doing dessert. You really gotta go, gotta go butter unless you're gonna go like vegan butter, or shortening, or something like that, which is not quite the same.

• 1:03:21Speaker 00

  But it's, it's very hard to not use butter.

• 1:03:23Jason Schreier?

  It's hard. If you're making a pie, I feel like you really, you gotta use butter.

• 1:03:28Kirk Hamilton?

  Is this where the word schmaltz comes from, like malty performance? Does one precede the other, really? So schmaltz was first the cooking?

• 1:03:35Speaker 00

  A Yiddish word, I assume?

• 1:03:37Jason Schreier?

  Well, I don't know which was first, but they're both Yiddish or German.

• 1:03:40Kirk Hamilton?

  Same word, schmaltz.

• 1:03:41Jason Schreier?

  Wherever the origin is. Yeah, I'm not sure why it also means like sappy, but yeah, schmaltz is.

• 1:03:48Speaker 00

  It's like dripping in gooey goodness.

• 1:03:52Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:53Speaker 00

  It's rich. It's too much.

• 1:03:55Kirk Hamilton?

  I can feel the connection. It kind of makes a sort of sense.

• 1:03:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, I could see it.

• 1:03:58Jason Schreier?

  Um, one more thing is that everyone, when they hear about spatchcocking, they're always like, okay, interesting. Like, I'm intrigued at this idea of like, only having to cook a bird for 90 minutes. And it seems like you're gonna, especially if you see my pictures, I just posted one on Blue Sky.

• 1:04:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:04:12Jason Schreier?

  If you see my pictures, they're, it looks incredible. Like, it looks so crispy and delicious. And the inside is so moist, because one of the things spatchcocking does is that it allows, it makes it so you're not overcooking the white meat while you're trying to get the dark meat to the proper temperature. Because usually, the dark meat needs to be at a higher internal temperature than the white meat, and the white meat overcooks your bird. Which is why everyone has all these memories of like, dry, like, Thanksgiving turkey that just tastes gross. And you need to cover it with gravy and cranberry sauce, just to like, make it taste like anything. But no, this, this makes it all cook perfectly. Um, a lot of people are like, but then you can't stick stuffing in the middle of the bird, which is true. But what you can do is, you cook it over some, like, carrots and celery and onions and stuff. And at the end of the process, not only will you get these

• 1:04:57Jason Schreier?

  vegetables that are delicious and turkey flavored and fatty and incredible, you can use those in your stuffing or in something else. Or you could just take the turkey drippings themselves, like, there will be a layer of, of liquid under the vegetables, too. You could pour that into your stuffing, and then, before you cook it, and then throw it in the oven, and, and it'll taste just as good as if it was inside of a turkey. So, there's really no downsides to spatchcocking the turkey, I would say. Unless you really want to show off to your guests like a giant fat turkey, but like, whatever. You just carve it and put it on a plate, and it'll be just as cool, just as good looking.

• 1:05:31Speaker 00

  Nice.

• 1:05:32Jason Schreier?

  So, those are my Thanksgiving tips.

• 1:05:34Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm. I like how every year, this is your, this is, like, you're trying to slowly convert everyone in the world to spatchcocking their turkeys. It's a good mission.

• 1:05:42Jason Schreier?

  It is. It's, it's worth it. It's worth it. It's like, so, it's such a, the, the reward for the amount of, like, effort. I'm a big fan of things that are very low effort for a very high reward.

• 1:05:53Speaker 00

  Yeah. What's better than that?

• 1:05:54Jason Schreier?

  Tips I just described are some of them. Um, you really, if you're hosting Thanksgiving, which I, I recommend, you can really do it in like, a low effort way that does not require any sort of fancy cooking, like, techniques or anything like that.

• 1:06:09Speaker 00

  I mean, a lot of the Thanksgiving classics are really easy to make, which is why they're so great is because they're just really simple and comforting. And they're like a special once a year. Like, we could be making stuffing all year round, but we don't. It's for Thanksgiving. There's just something about it.

• 1:06:23Kirk Hamilton?

  It's funny, we're, we're not hosting this year. We're going to a friend's house. And I think we're gonna have brisket. But I think Emily, I think there was like a turkey that was super cheap or something. And so she just bought it anyways. So we have a turkey. And so we will, at some point, I think we're gonna have some friends over and do a kind of week after Thanksgiving turkey dinner.

• 1:06:41Speaker 00

  You should spashcock it.

• 1:06:42Kirk Hamilton?

  I think that we might spashcock it. I'll let you know how it goes, Jason.

• 1:06:45Jason Schreier?

  Let me know if you need advice or tips or tricks. I'll send you some pictures of me chop, cutting out the, the spine of my turkey.

• 1:06:52Kirk Hamilton?

  I can't wait.

• 1:06:54Jason Schreier?

  Although I'll say mine, mine is 20 pounds. So I'm looking forward to messing with that tomorrow morning.

• 1:06:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's a real weightlifting situation. 20 pounds. Okay, wow. All right. Well, obviously this is coming out on Thanksgiving. So everybody's listening while they're having some turkey or they live in another country and they're just having a nice day. And it's just a regular Thursday for you. And that's fine.

• 1:07:14Jason Schreier?

  Well, if they live in another country, it might be Friday by the time they're done.

• 1:07:17Speaker 00

  That's a great point. You could actually listen to Triple Click on any day you please.

• 1:07:22Speaker 00

  We can't stop you.

• 1:07:24Jason Schreier?

  We could. We can make these like self-destruct after 24 hours.

• 1:07:28Speaker 00

  We're not gonna do that, though. We're gonna keep it the same way it has when it'll come out on Thursdays. You can listen whenever you want. And we'll be back again next Thursday with another one of these.

• 1:07:38Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, see you then.

• 1:07:39Jason Schreier?

  See you, but thanks, see.

• 1:07:40Speaker 00

  Bye.

• 1:07:44Kirk Hamilton?

  Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddy Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the 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/join. Find us on Twitter at TripleClickPod. Send email to [email protected] and find a link to our Discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

• 1:08:42Speaker 06

  Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network. Of artist-owned shows. Supported. Directly. By you.