Triple Click
Hosted by Jason Schreier and Kirk Hamilton
The name is Click... Triple Click.
16,550 words · 6 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
Agent, you'll need to secure the asset in the time it takes to conclude this episode. Keep an eye on the timer on your personal playback device. Welcome to TripleClick, where we bring the games to you. This week, we talk about 007 First Light, a James Bond game from I/O Interactive. It's got a helping of Hitman inside of it, its own special blend of James Bond bits, and some new flavors, too.
I'm Maddy Myers.
I'm Jason Schreier.
And I'm Kirk Hamilton. Hello.
Hello.
I have to tell you guys a funny story.
Please.
That just happened to me minutes before we started recording. I got a text from someone that I know, a game developer who has, I've talked to for several years now, and like, just talks to me about various industry things. And this guy is like, "Hey, I just realized, you're the same Jason on TripleClick." And I was like, "What?"
Wait.
Had he never spoken with you before and heard your voice?
I was like, "How could you listen to TripleClick and not know who I am?" Like, do you skip the intro every week when I say my name? And he was like, "You know, I kind of do, and I just listen to it on airplanes and stuff when I'm like half paying attention." I was like, "What? We have talked, you and I have talked out loud, and you do not recognize that. Like, how is that possible?" Which, I mean, it just makes you think, there's all kinds, all kinds of listeners.
You don't have a very distinctive voice, so I don't know why anybody would...
True, nobody could possibly recognize my voice.
I feel like you do have a distinctive voice.
That's what Kirk is joking about.
We all three have incredibly distinctive voices, I think.
Yeah, I don't, I don't know. I feel like that's one of the benefits of our show, you know? Sometimes you listen to a podcast, you're like, "Ah, I gotta slowly learn how to tell those apart."
Bunch of guys.
Sure, I wasn't gonna say anything. But I do think people can probably tell me apart from the two of you. But furthermore, I think the two of you have lovely, different voices as well.
Yes, this was always something I marked in our favorite when we were very first starting Kotaki's split screens, that Jason and I are very easy to tell apart vocally.
That was on your list of pros on the pro con list you need before starting a podcast.
Easy to tell apart. I'm kind of picturing Homer Simpson writing this list for some reason. Owns a microphone.
And you know, if that is something about TripleClick that you love, or even if it isn't, I can imagine that perhaps that might inspire you to want to listen to even more TripleClick than is already available to you for free every week. And guess what? You're in luck. If you become a Maximum Fun member by going to maximumfun.org/join, you get our monthly bonus episodes. There's a ton in the backlog, all kinds of topics. We talk about games and TV shows and our personal lives in the bonus feed. And our most recent episode, we talked
about esports and competitive gaming. That episode was kind of inspired by this mockumentary television show called Players that was made by the American Vandal team. If people watched American Vandal on Netflix, but that show is kind of lost media now. It's really hard to get. And so we did watch that and we talked about it very briefly on that that bonus app. But I would say most of the bonus app is actually us talking about competitive gaming as an institution, as an institution called esports for a time period and the esports bubble and what happened to it. It's depicted on that show, which we do recommend if you feel like tracking it down. But also our bonus app, I would say, listenable, even
if you can't manage to watch that show. It was really fun to talk to you guys about that. I used to cover esports all the time. So it's really a throwback for me.
That was a fun episode. And it was fun to watch Players. Like, if anybody
I recommend it.
Does have access to that show. It's really funny and worth watching.
It's funny and we absolutely didn't spoil it. It is not a beans cast of our, as we call it. We didn't spill the beans on Players.
Not really a very spoilable show, honestly.
No, it's really not. It's pure sitcom goofiness vibes. So yeah, that would be something you could get by going to maximumfun.org/join, becoming a member and getting not just that, but so many other bonus apps that I think are wonderful. I'm proud of our apps. And speaking of being proud of things, Kirk, you've got something else you want to talk about at the top of the show today.
I do. I have mentioned before that next month, on July 11th, I am doing the first ever Strong Songs Live. This is, I'm sure most people know that I have another podcast about music.
What if they didn't?
For many years, but maybe, maybe they don't know. I mean, some people don't even know that Jason is the Jason Schreier. So some people listening to this probably don't know. So I make a music podcast called Strong Songs. It's kind of my main creative project. I've been making it since 2019 and I've never done a live show for it. Until now, and I'm very, very excited about it. We've got the whole program dialed in. I have a huge band. It's like 15 people or something, guest vocalists, a horn section, a full rhythm section, a bunch of my friends.
Oh, my gosh.
Some great local musicians, people that I'm sure anyone listening who lives in Portland will know. It's gonna be super killer. So I just want to promote the show on here.
I hope you record this and put it online for people who can't make it, like me and Maddie.
Yeah.
The plan is to record it. I don't want to like, promise that I'm gonna put the whole thing out because it might just be clips. But we've got, I mean, our listener is a videographer and he's gonna bring his camera, plus we're recording at the venue. So we will be recording the whole thing. It's gonna be really cool. And yeah, I'm just, I'm so excited. We're gonna cover songs that I've covered on the show. We're gonna do some original stuff. There's gonna be audience participation. There will be some learning since it's an educational show. But mostly it'll just kind of be a musical celebration. And I really hope that if you're in the area, in the Pacific Northwest, that you'll come out. So it's on Saturday, July 11th. It's at the Alberta Rose Theater, actually the same place where we did Triple Click Live last year. On the same date.
So funny.
We're gonna have lightning strike twice in the same place. It's gonna be really cool. July 11th, Alberta Rose Theater, Portland, Oregon, Strong Songs Live. We'll put a link for tickets in the show notes. I hope that you can all make it. I'm very, very excited.
It sounds so cool. Good luck. It sounds like a huge undertaking.
Yeah, I have so much work to do.
I'm just working nonstop from now until then. So many rehearsals and other things to do.
Yeah, that's exciting though. That's really, really cool. All right, we have something else we're gonna talk about up top before we get to the meat of the episode. Jason, take us through it.
Yeah, well, okay, so we're recording this, it is Tuesday, June 2nd, a couple hours before Sony's State of Play, which is really the kickoff for the week that used to be called E3, but is now called Summer Game Fest. I have to always preface that whenever someone asks me where I'm going this week is, um, Summer Game Fest, you've never heard of that, but it used to be called E3, which you might have heard of. And so there's a lot of announcements coming that I thought it would be fun to just kind of like talk a little bit about, maybe give a couple of predictions, a couple of hopes that we might all see. So I thought it might be fun, this isn't a predictions bet or a game or anything, but I thought it might be fun for each of us to just kind of say some things that we would like to see this
week, and then next week we'll react to it all, and I'll come back being able to talk about some of the things I saw there and played there. So should be a fun week of gaming news ahead. Yeah, why don't, Matty, why don't you start off and give us a couple of hopes and predictions that you have, and then Kirk, you can go, and then I'll go.
Sure. Okay, so I've got kind of mundane ones and wackier ones, or more, more hopeful, dreamful ones. So here's a mundane one. I feel like we deserve a release date for the Silk Song DLC. We know it's coming. Just tell us when it's coming out. That seems very plausible.
Famous snubbers of Jeff Keighley.
I know. But I think it'd be nice to know the date. And another one that is kind of in that same arena is the next Final Fantasy VII Remake Rebirth. What will it be titled? Actually, finding out that name and release date would be great, because those are obviously a couple of things we're all going to play. And then I am going to predict, we're starting to get into the middle category. So I think that during the Xbox stream, I think we're going to actually see Asha Sharma coming out and doing her best Phil Spencer. And I'm curious to see what kind of outfit she's going to wear. And I think she will. Announce some type of new direction for Xbox in an official capacity.
If I had to stake a claim on that, I I'm guessing, I'm guessing it will be something that will be very hardware focused and very back to basics in terms of what Xbox used to represent because she seems like she's really devoted to going back to this old school perception of Xbox.
Like, like what? Can you be more specific? What is she gonna say?
Uh, maybe like-
Remember, this isn't, you're, you're not being judged on this.
I know, I'm not being judged. I know, so there's no points at all.
There's no stakes.
Maybe like, I don't know, she can't lower the price of the handheld and make that more accessible. That could never happen, but maybe she would tease something about like the next Xbox or like talk about like a new controller or something like that. I, I feel like that-
What about exclusives?
Yeah, or exclusives, like she could, she could talk about like hardware exclusives. I mean, that would be impossible. You can't have a hardware exclusive in this day and age, but-
According to Steven Totillo's reporting, that is the most requested feature on the Xbox forums. That's what the, that's what the Xbox gamers want. They want their games to be exclusive again.
Yeah, disk drives. Let's bring back the freaking disk drive, baby.
Yeah, I mean, if I had to springboard off of that, I would predict that she comes out and is like, we're, since, since everything she's done, including on Twitter, I don't know if you guys have seen this, but like, basically Xbox announced last week, they said in a podcast with our old pal Tina Amini, talking to Matt Booty, they said in a podcast, they said like, just like previous years, we're gonna be transparent about what platforms each game is coming for and it's gonna be like logos of PlayStation, Switch, whatever. And Asha Sharma, like on Twitter, replied to someone complaining about that, being like, we missed the mark here. We're, we're gonna revisit that in the future, putting pla- other platform logos on there.
Asha Sharma walks onstage to the Gary Jewels cover of Mad World, Marcus Venus face up.
Oh, my God, yes.
And then she says, yeah, then she says exclusive, Xbox exclusive. So springboarding on that, I feel like her trying to address that hardcore fan base, maybe she'll come out and be like, we're gonna embrace exclusives again in some way or another, or maybe just kind of like a, a limited- Way, I don't know.
Yeah, I mean, Gears of War is already such a throwback and like to even have it be a prologue is it feels like they're trying they that's been true the whole time is is just the whole concept.
Kind of tailor made for this new approach they're taking.
It is.
New approach they're taking.
New, old, everything old is new again. And my last, my last piece of information, normally I would never talk about leaks that originate on 4chan because I think they have absolutely no basis.
But this is an exciting setup.
This could be literally anything. But there have been a lot of people talking about From Software developing a pirate themed game. And I don't know if you two have kind of seen that rumor going around. I got kind of excited when I saw it on like, Rosetta had read it and so on. And I was like, where did this originate? And the answer is 4chan, which immediately makes me like knock down my believability rating on this one. However, would be cool. It would be cool if they were doing that. Pirates are cool and why not, you know? It does seem like they'd be kind of busy working on Dust Bloods though, doesn't it?
They're, they're very prolific. They make a lot of things.
Yeah, they do a lot. I actually, I think with From Software, I have no idea about a pirate game or anything, but I think with them, I think because Dust Bloods is a multiplayer game, I would think they would want to be like, hey, we also have this cool single player thing.
Yeah, like a cool RPG where you play as a pirate. I mean, it'd be very different setting for them because they do so much medieval fantasy. But that doesn't mean they couldn't do something set a few hundred years later while still having some fantasy elements in it. It'd be interesting.
Yeah, I know. Everybody is excited about Elden Ring 2, just because Elden Ring was great and huge. But at the same time, I kind of like the idea of From Software just putting out a bunch of weird stuff.
Right.
That isn't more Elden Ring. The more like even thinking about that other announced pirate game. Sure, that'd be actually, that'd be great.
Yeah, it's kind of in the spirit of, I guess, Bloodborne in the sunset. It's just super different. So it doesn't seem totally out of the question that they would just be like, oh, we're going to do something with a very different aesthetic and influence. So it could happen. Actually, it couldn't happen, but it would be cool if it happened.
Nice.
Those are mine.
Kirk, what about you? What are your hopes and dreams and predictions and thoughts about SGF?
I am pretty out of the loop, so I just kind of listed a few things I'd like to see or hear about.
One of them is the Persona 4 revival slash remake.
I think that's pretty likely, actually.
That's pretty likely. I'd love to get a date on that. I think, yeah, I'll be interested in when a remake of that game looks like.
What about Persona 6?
And that was my second one is perhaps some kind of announcement of Persona 6. I am not so out of it that I haven't seen some of the purported leaks related to Persona 6 that have been posted around, character art that allegedly leaked online that represents the characters from the game. I looked at it. I mean, it kind of looks like Persona characters to me, so that makes me think perhaps something is close with that game. I'd love to hear more about this Witcher stuff, this Witcher 3 expansion that's coming next year. I was not expecting this. I knew that they were planning something that CD Projekt was going to release, something for The Witcher 3,
presumably to bridge it to The Witcher 4. I was not expecting that it would be the scale that they have described it being, which is something like Blood and Wine, the last expansion for The Witcher 3, which I am the only one of us who has played. It is substantial. It is a whole separate story and a whole separate map. I mean, it's a whole thing. So that's really exciting and I just would love to hear more about that and about The Witcher 4. Then again, with all of these big companies with these kinds of games, you know, Rockstar being top of the list, there are these developers who are making games that are just sure things and they just really kind of
don't need to tell people about stuff until they really want to. So it wouldn't surprise me also if there's just no Witcher at this at all. But that would be really cool to see. And then otherwise, I just, I keep thinking about that Quantic Dream Star Wars game.
Yeah, what's up?
Is that doomed? Is that never gonna happen? It would just be interesting to hear more about it. I'm, I'm like, you know, obviously Quantic Dream is kind of in a rough place in general right now. And I'm, I don't like, I'm not excited about that game exactly, but it, I don't know. I just am curious about it, so maybe it'll turn up. Similarly, Judas, Ken Levine's big Bioshock-like game. We haven't heard about that in a while. Just kind of seems like one of those games that we hear about every now and then and literally never comes out. But maybe we'll hear more about it.
Do you know, Kirk, do you know off the top of your head, how many years that game has been in development?
Uh, I mean, I guess not since Bioshock Infinite.
Yeah, since Irrational shut down.
Oh, since Irrational shut down. So was Bioshock Infinite like 2014 or something?
2013.
Infinite was 2013. Irrational shut down a year later, so Judas has been in development.
So 12 years.
Since 2014.
Still not as long as Star Citizen, so you know.
Isn't that, well, Star Citizen was around the same time, wasn't it? Or no, that was 2012. That was 2012.
Oh, 2012, okay. So same ballpark, I guess. And then the last one, and Jason, maybe this can be a question for you. Is there a chance that we'll see anything about that Assassin's Creed game? Assassin's Creed Hex? Or is that just sort of like, would they not announce that for some reason? Or not show more about that for some reason?
I think that's next year or later. So it seems unlikely that they would do a big blowout. Maybe they would do a teaser. I don't know. Ubisoft hasn't really done any, announced any, like sometimes they have a showcase or sometimes they have their own thing. They haven't really announced anything like that.
They've been so backfitted lately. Right, and then they have this, you know, Black Flag remake coming out. That'll be fun to talk about on the show, by the way.
Oh, yeah, we're definitely gonna talk about that.
Yeah, aren't they finally not backfitted too? Cause Shadows did really well, I thought. So aren't they kind of finally doing okay?
You know, I guess I mean like, in the, the corporate side of things. Like it just has, has not really been going well. And they've been in a kind of a reactive pose for a little while. I don't really know how all their games were selling. It's just kind of felt like they're. In this defensive crouch and trying to figure out what they're doing. So yeah, anyways, it'd be cool to hear more about that game. I'd love a new Assassin's Creed, even though I am looking forward to Black Flag. But yeah, I guess, given that they have that coming out, it's probably pretty unlikely that they'll also, they'll like split the signal and talk about a new Assassin's Creed game. So that's probably a little further down the road. Mainly it's Persona.
The director of Hex left Ubisoft recently, Clint Hawking, who directed Far Cry 2 and Rush on Regids.
And that bummed me out, which has happened before.
Okay, I have a couple of thoughts, a couple of outlandish predictions. I mean, I, so I have all these appointments booked for Summer Games Fest, and some of them are like unannounced things, so I'm not going to speculate, or I won't speak to those, or hint at those, or anything like that. But a couple of predictions that I have, or thoughts, or hopes, or whatever. Just want to clarify one thing. None of this is inside info, so please Reddit, do not make any threads, et cetera. Please do not, do not turn this into news stories. I am just making guesses and predictions. I'm not reporting anything here. Okay, thank you.
One is actually for the thing that is about to air, like, right after we record this, and so we'll already know the answer by the time this episode goes live. But I am very excited to see the next game from Sony Santa Monica, which is, has, as has leaked everywhere, a God of War spinoff that stars Faye, played by Debra Anwal, who is fantastic in that game. And a lot of people looked at, or if you were, if you kind of played Ragnarok, God of War Ragnarok, the last game, and you saw her get a whole character model and played by this incredible actress, and be like, wait, why is she in two scenes? And it kind of makes sense when you see that, when you actually see this game.
That's funny. I hadn't seen this rumor at all. That totally makes sense. I think she's great, so that's great.
You hadn't seen this rumor? Oh, wow. Okay.
No. Like I said, I'm kind of out of it. Like, I'll hear about a rumor like that and think, I think I should have been aware of this. But I'm just, I think I've just been so busy. I really haven't been paying close attention.
Yeah, well, that's.
You're writing a live show.
That's the internet scuttle, but yes.
That is very, very cool. She's so great.
I've known about this one for a while and yeah, it's, it's gonna be, I'm really excited to see it. I hope and expect that we'll see it at the State of Play. If this episode, if, if the State of Play goes without us seeing it and this episode just airs without us having seen it, then that would be annoying. But I am looking forward to seeing it. So hopefully that is at the State of Play and hopefully people are listening to this and being like, yeah, that was super cool. I've heard good things about it. Another thing, this is just kind of a outlandish hope is when are we gonna see a friggin new Ace Attorney game already? I feel like it's been so long.
Dude, I know. I keep having that, especially given Capcom's hot streak. Come on, come on.
That's the one thing they've been lacking is Ace Attorney 7 and it feels like it's been so long since a new one. We did get, a few years ago, we got the great Ace Attorney finally localized in the West, but even that was an old one.
Fantastic game.
It's been more than 10 years since the last like real new Ace Attorney game. I expect that if a new one is announced at any point in the near future, it would really be, I mean, it would resonate with a lot of people. A lot of people I feel like are craving a game like that. I also, I expect they'll like push the series in new directions rather than trying to just repeat the same formula. So very much looking forward to that whenever it comes out. Maybe it'll be at Summer Games Fest. I don't know. It might be more of a Tokyo game show sort of thing.
What if instead they come out, Capcom comes out on stage, Ghost Trick 2. The Ghost Trick theme starts playing.
People would lose their minds.
So good, so good. Also really wanna see a release date for the new Danganronpa, Danganronpa 2x2, 2X2. I am looking forward to seeing more from X-Box, from Arcane's Blade game. We saw an announcement, but we, a couple of years ago, but we haven't seen anything from it since. I wonder if they would maybe talk about it?
The Leon, this is the French Arcane studio, right?
Yes, this is Arcane Leon. Well, the other, there is no more Arcane Osprey.
Yeah, that's right. They closed the other one.
Arcane now sadly.
Just Arcane. So yeah, so they announced a couple of years ago. We haven't seen anything since. I don't know if it'll be at the Xbox showcase, but that would be a cool thing to show, especially if it's coming out next year. I don't know if it is. I don't know if it's 27 or 28. I don't know. And Marvel is already, they're doing a big Wolverine thing. So maybe they'll be like, yeah, more Marvel stuff. Let's do it. That would be cool. Also, looking forward to seeing more Clockwork Revolution, which is a game from In Exile that kind of looks like Bioshock Infinite. It's kind of a RPG shooter, steampunky thing. That seems pretty cool. And then, yeah, I mean, Persona 6 would also be my just kind of real hope and dream type thing, especially if it's
coming out in any sort of like near future. Like if they announce, if they announce Persona 4, and they're like, or if they do the remake, and they're like, that's coming out this fall, or like, early next year, and Persona 6 is coming out fall 2027, that to me would be a phenomenal string of events. I would be, be very happy by that one, and would not be surprised to see that kind of, that, that sequence of events, because it's been so long since Persona 5. I would also love to see, while we're on the Atlas bandwagon, I would love to see a Metaphor Refentazio DLC, or kind of enhanced edition with new stuff in it, the way they did for Persona 5, with the Royal.
That'd be cool.
Edition. That would be super cool. I don't know. I don't, I don't have anything else.
That's plenty.
If like, a fifth of that stuff happens, that we just all listen, that'll be a great show.
It would be a great show. All right. Let's, let's get on with the rest of the show. Kirk, you want to tell us what else we're talking about today?
Yeah, we are talking about a video game, a James Bond video game. And I have written us a little setup for our discussion of this game. And I will now read it to the two of you. 007 First Light is a third-person narrative action game developed by I/O Interactive, the Danish studio best known for their terrific Hitman series. First Light tells the story of-- I mean, it's a Bond game. It tells the story of James Bond. The Bond of First Light is a very different kind of character from the suave, mildly sociopathic version portrayed by movie stars like Sean Connery and Daniel Craig. This Bond, portrayed honestly pretty brilliantly by Irish actor Patrick Gibson, is younger
and rawer than his Hollywood counterparts. In fact, at the start of the game, he isn't a secret agent at all. The narrative begins with Bond as a simple soldier deployed on a covert mission to Iceland when it all goes horribly wrong, leaving him as the sole man on the ground able to complete his squad's objective. His quick thinking and resourcefulness catch the eye of the spooks at MI6, in particular the handler Money Penny and her superior M, a high-level intelligence officer who recruits him into the service. Bond is made a late addition to the 00 program, which is being unretired after years in the dustbin. And so, this is a bit of an origin story, with the early hours taking some notes from
Kingsman, the secret service, as a young, talented agent finds his footing in the world of British intelligence, fictional British intelligence, where the rules are important but not as important as knowing when to break them. These early hours also feature a tutorial montage that is so good, you'll wonder why every other Hollywood-inspired video game hasn't been doing the same thing for years.
That's true.
Bond stalwarts might hear that setup with some concern. Is this just going to be an uncharted game dressed up in the aesthetic trappings of James Bond? Will it be all shooting, climbing, and car chases? But over the course of the game, our young James develops his skills and matures into a proper secret agent, and the story evolves along with him. What starts relatively small-scale quickly balloons into a proper globe-trotting Bond caper, filled with outrageous car chases, secret identities, monologuing villains, high-tech gadgets, and secret lairs. The whole thing has clearly been made with a huge amount of love for the series' cinematic and literary legacy. Over the course of its 15-ish hour runtime, I finished over the weekend and that's what my play counter was at, you will engage in some naughty dog style gunfights and platforming
with limited ammo and an emphasis on improvisation and quick weapon switching, but you'll spend just as much time engaging in social stealth and environmental problem solving as Bond wanders twisting semi-open world settings straight out of a Hitman game, like a well-attended chess tournament at a posh mountain hotel or a Vietnamese resort for the 1%. Though Bond's strategic options are far more constrained than Hitman's Agent 47, he can do more than shoot and sneak, bluffing or using various gadgets and environmental opportunities to bypass his enemies. Most objectives in the game can be met in a number of different possible ways. It is a richly-written game with a light touch, some dense, surprisingly experimental design ideas, and I at least really liked it a lot. And I'm sure the two
of you have a lot to say about it, so let's get into it. Maddie, how about you kick us off? What do you think of 007 First Light?
I love this game. Let me start off by saying I have seen several Bond movies in my day. I haven't read the books, but I'm at least kind of familiar with them. So I do understand that a 26-year-old Bond who is not even an MI6 member at the start of the game does seem like something that is unusual. Bond is never that young in the book, from what I understand. And so this is like an actual deviation from his past. But I think it really works, and I think that he is in the spirit of a lot of the Bonds that I've seen in film form, in the sense that he does have questionable motives.
One of my favorite things that he does is bluffing. We can talk about this as like a mechanic in the game. I will bluff at any opportunity that I possibly can because I've enjoyed the writing of this game so much, and often his bluffs are really funny and impressive examples of like the spycraft and the improvisation required in these scenarios, and also- I can't remember the actor's name, and though you just said it, but he can do all these different voices, or Bond, I suppose, is doing all these different voices and kind of variations on UK accents, depending on the class of the type of character or background of the type of character that he's very quickly trying to take on, which I think is like-
It's funny, Patrick Gibson is his name, and it's funny because he's Irish, too. So he's clearly had to study English accents.
He's already had to kind of take on the sort of like more posh British accents, and he's already playing a kind of a different accent from what he already has, and I think that is a sign of how good he is at this. And I've just been so impressed with his performance and the writing across the board. I love, I love this game. I think it's so, so cool and really lets you truly feel like a spy in a way that I feel like the best parts of the movies emphasize, like, oh, Bond actually has to improvise suddenly or get out of a situation where you're like, I have no idea how he's going to get out of this, and he does either through improvisation or sometimes killing people, or sneaking. And Bond in this game does all three of those. So that's, that's plenty James Bond for me.
I'm having a really great time with it. I'm about halfway through the game, I should say, based on the number of chapters there are. There are 17 chapters.
And I'm on like, chapter nine or something like that.
Jason, how about you?
I also love it. I could do without the mass shootout sections, but other than that, I'm really enjoying it. It does really feel like a mashup of Uncharted and Hitman in all of the best ways. Or better yet, it feels like a Hitman game with like, an actual story and characters that you care about, instead of whatever techno-babble nonsense is in this game.
Whatever the hell is going on in that Hitman series.
Which is still fun, but yeah, I agree. There's a way, way more story in this game.
Which is fun, but I've always, I've enjoyed the Hitman games, but they've never quite grabbed me, in part because Agent 47 is just not an interesting character.
No, you don't find him to be a compelling, relatable character.
And James Bond in this is just played so well by Patrick Gibson. And is so charismatic and fun to watch and so horny all the time, constant, constant sexy.
Yeah, they get that part of Bond right.
They really do. There's like the mechanic where you could just talk to women at various points in the game. And there's no mechanical benefit to doing so, other than just you get to talk to a woman who will inevitably think you're really hot. Like canonically, this guy is super hot.
Women are obsessed with him. Every single woman he walks past, which is a very funny.
He's cute. I get it.
Which is, yeah, I mean, which is all great. And I feel like this, this, that's all like testament to the, I don't know. I don't know how the anti woke crowd has reacted to this game. I stay away from those circles and watching those particular videos. But like, I imagine they're complaining because there are black people in it. But meanwhile, anyone who's like complaining about like sex negativity in games should look at this as like a perfect example of like really good, just kind of depictions of, of sex and sex positivity. And how you can have fun with a game without like, uh, without infan- like, without being gratuitous about certain aspects of it.
But anyway, I'm, I'm really enjoying it. I really like this game. Um, I really like especially the writing and the storytelling and the way that, um, uh, that it's edited, the way it cuts around, the way there is no real space wasted. You just kind of move from one thing to another very quickly, very movie like. Um, I really enjoy the kind of open world sections where you can go in a bunch of different ways. I actually played around with, um, doing it in like experimenting with in different, like actually taking different paths. Cause sometimes it feels like there's a way that the game wants you to go. Um, like for example, I was in that, uh, posh resort that you mentioned, Kirk, White Lotus, Vietnam. And, uh, there was a section where it felt like the game was nudging me towards doing this elaborate infiltration where you go and get a yoga mat and pretend to be a yoga teacher.
But instead I was just like, I'm gonna see if I can just get away with not doing this. And so I, I, uh, circumvented the guards and climbed up to this area from another path and went in and just took out some other guards and found a way to do it and skip that entire thing. So it definitely has that immersive sim quality where you can actually. Actually can pursue your objectives in a bunch of different ways. You don't necessarily have to follow the objectives that it is giving you when it tells you to go and and find a disguise or whatever. And I really appreciate that. Yeah, I'm really enjoying it. I haven't been this into one of these big AAA monstrosity games in a while. And I think that's testament to just the quality of everything they've done here, both the writing and the gameplay of it.
Yeah, I agree. Yeah. And to that last thing that you just said, I think, thinking of it as a AAA monstrosity, I think, I know you're being kind of glib, but it is different from something like Ubisoft Gamer or Horizon, because it isn't one of those huge open world checklist games. It feels much more akin to a Naughty Dog game where you just kind of roll along for the ride.
Well, that's also a AAA monstrosity.
No, I know, but it's a different kind of monstrosity. And I think the pacing of a Naughty Dog game, like it pulls you along. There's always variety. There's always a new scenario. I was so impressed by how many different mechanics and how many different surprises this game throws at you. There are definitely a lot of sequences where you're just shooting at dudes and you're shooting red barrels and they're exploding spectacularly. And like, okay, yeah, there's a few too many of those. I think the more the game goes on and those kind of develop. And I got used to the mechanics, which is very improvisational, a lot more like Uncharted. You're always running out of ammo. You can aim at a guy and hit Y and you like shrieken your gun across the room. You can always throw anything at him as well.
Which is always an amazing move. So, you know, those fights got more fun as I went, but there's a lot of them. But at the same time, I was just really impressed by how often you're using the cue watch, which is the kind of gadget, you know, the master gadget that holds all your other gadgets, using that on the environment. They're putting you in some unique scenario. Really early in the game, there's a fight where you're on a plane and you're fighting a bunch of guys, like a big cargo plane, like a military cargo jet. And James hacks into the plane and then as you're in a gunfight, like Uncharted 3 style, it very much feels like Uncharted 3, you can use the like shoulder buttons to make the plane go hard left and hard right. Everything is flying around inside the cargo bay, including all the guys that you're
shooting at. It's so cool. And that only happens that one time. And there's a ton of stuff like that. So the variety really helps the pacing. It makes it just feel like, all right, now we're doing a car chase. Now we're doing some social stuff. Now it's a story sequence. And I'm just listening to dialogue and walking around an apartment, talking to my friends. Now we're at a nightclub and we're having to like, you know, manipulate people and get backstage. Now we're at this thing and this thing. And it just keeps changing. This game must have been so hard to make. I know. A thought I had over and over. Going into this, I was so, you know, I was like, oh, yeah, I O. They're a perfect fit because the Hitman games already feel kind of like James Bond and those mechanics really would lend themselves to a spy game. But I am shocked
by how different this is from Hitman. It does have those similarities. It looks like a Hitman game. It feels it's written like one. The overheard dialogue, some of those things that they clearly have an institutional knowledge of. But they have come up with so many new systems. The stealth system is completely different. The like melee fighting system is like really totally different. It's this Arkham style counter system. Shooting is different. They like basically reinvented the wheel, even though they're also using some of their skills. So yeah, it's, it's very impressive that there's so much in that.
One thing I really appreciate is that it giving to, given the James Bond feel, the improvisational feel, it never really feels like you're failing even when you get caught. I found that in Hitman games, when I get caught, I want to restart the whole mission. And sometimes you can't with an elusive target. But like, usually I'm just like, okay, that's it. Clean break. I'm gonna just start again and try to do this without getting caught. Cause it feels like, and especially if you kill someone, it feels like you're really being docked in a significant way. Here, I never had a problem getting caught because I can often just knock out a couple of guards and then just keep going without any sort of punishment. It doesn't seem like there's any sort of, maybe there's something at the end, but I so far I haven't seen any sort of grading system that is like, you
didn't play selfie, so you, you are doing poorly at this. Instead, it feels like the game wants you to be experimenting and potentially failing and getting out of failure, which I really appreciate.
Yeah, I think, I have to think that they had a design meeting where they basically decided, "Okay, what are the things in Hitman that make the player feel punished for experimenting and don't reward experimentation?" Because, yeah, it's a very different experience. There's no need to save scum. The save system in this game actually is pretty weird. Like, sometimes you'll load a checkpoint at different points in the mission if you lose twice at the same place, which is, there's a lot of kind of strangeness, actually. You would never really want to voluntarily reload, maybe in a very extreme circumstance, but mostly you just play through. And that's because, yeah, you can try to sneak into a restricted area at a place where you're kind of dressed as a civilian, and a guard will say, "Hey, you're not supposed to be here." And you can just say, "Okay, my bad."
And then he just leaves, which is actually more believable. That's like how usually it would work in the real world. Some guy that's at the tournament wanders into the restricted area, and they're like, "Hey, you're not supposed to be here," and he can just leave.
You mean, they wouldn't just start shooting at you?
Right, exactly. Or like, somehow every guard in the whole, you know, building knows that you're a bad guy.
Knows about it. They all, 20 of them, show up and start killing you.
There's also a little design thing that they've done, it's just an interface prompt, really, called "Situation Contained," where you'll get in a fistfight with a guy, and they're kind of generous about no one noticing that like a huge fistfight just broke out two rooms over. So you'll beat up two guys, and then a green "Situation Contained" appears, which is the game's way of telling you, "Okay, you can just keep going. Like, you didn't screw anything up. No one else will know about this. You're fine." Like, keep moving. And maybe someone might notice the body and get on alert or something, but mostly you're okay. And it's like a lot of decisions like that to keep you in the game and keep you moving forward. And I think it's a lot of great changes.
Yeah, I think it's also just environmental and level design in their favor, too, where there'll often be a lot of relatively small rooms with a few guys in them. So it's, it does strain fragility a little bit that no one ever overhears you if you're like, "Well, I killed all three guards," or "Took them down," whatever you may choose to do, "in this one room, and all 20 of the ones in the adjoining rooms didn't figure it out." But I think because in Hitman games, there can sometimes be situations Where somebody's patrolling the room every single time, every 30 seconds. And you have to just be like, okay, I need to like really laboriously hide all these bodies that I've knocked out. Like, I just haven't really been thinking about that as much.
I mean, it's just not really a factor here where I'm constantly like, oh, my God, I need to cover my tracks. It's just, I mean, I also, I appreciate that occasionally James Bond will tell the truth and it doesn't benefit him. Like, there is this moment, he's, he's trying to break into a party and like stop an assassination attempt. And there's this moment where he like goes up to a couple of the security guys and he's like, I'm with MI6. And there's going to be an assassination here. And I was like, kind of laughing at that moment. So I was like, I think this is maybe the first time I've actually told the truth to anybody in, in a security capacity, at least in a while. And they just immediately are like, no, you're not, you're a child for one thing. And like, we don't believe you at all. Like later, you can overhear them like kind of making fun of you and being like, what was up with that guy?
Like, he, he probably wasn't MI6.
Throw a coffee mug into that guy's face, which is what I did.
And it's like, no wonder, no wonder I don't tell the truth to most security.
It does actually kind of help you understand the justifications for everything else you're doing is that it's like, well, he's gonna have to figure out how to get past these guys anyway. So even if you tried, they're not going to believe you. And therefore it's fine if you throw a coffee mug in their face and perhaps even moral.
Yeah, I've definitely, I've seen people complaining, like Hitman fans complaining that the game does not have close to the depth of a Hitman, which is true. This is not that, it doesn't have that incredible mechanical complexity, which is the thing I love about Hitman. For me, that's fine. There's so much Hitman and those games are so infinitely replayable that it's cool to see I O doing something different. There are definitely times during some of the missions where I felt a little bit railroaded, like I was being pushed toward one objective. I may be wrong about this, but I couldn't figure out how to turn off the objective marker. So there is always a little bug on your screen, just sort of telling you where you're supposed to go. You can like limit the number of hints you get, but you can't quite make it as immersive as Hitman. And yeah, like you mentioned, Matty.
You can't move bodies. You don't clean up after yourself. Obviously, that's something you do so much of in Hitman. That series is well known for picking a guy up and dumping him in a closet or whatever. But, and I, you know, I think that is like a notable difference and kind of tells the whole story of the difference between this game and Hitman, where they don't want you to be worrying about dragging bodies around. We know that they could build that system in if they wanted to. It's something that Hitman lets you do. It was a decision and the decision was, don't worry about this too much. Just keep moving. James Bond isn't really that kind of, you know, sneaky secret agent. He's sort of just like goes in and makes it up as he goes and keeps moving forward. And the game really captures that, I think, through all those design decisions.
Yeah. And so Kirk, I wanted to get at what you were saying earlier about the bespoke design decisions like that plane thing. It's so cool that they stuffed this game full of ideas like that.
There's another section where you're going through a warehouse and you have to like take these servers offline and then back online and just like flip a switch and stuff. And it's nothing super elaborate or really all that interesting, but it's still just variety. It's constant variety. This is very much a game that is throwing new things at you all the time, which actually, I mean, makes it all the more pronounced that there are just constantly mass waves of enemies that you just have to shoot through. And that part starts to feel like a drag, especially because the rest of it is just so constantly throwing, like the rest of it is constantly throwing new stuff at you, that the idea of having to just like gun down hundreds of enemies is a little ridiculous. But yeah, I mean, I really appreciate it. I also appreciate that you're constantly getting new gadgets.
Later, like in the second half of the game, you get the missile, like you get the, what's it called? The thing you shoot, the rocket, little pocket missile?
Incredibly helpful in those gunfights.
Yes, that's true. It does add a little bit to that. And yeah, and there's just so much variety. I mean, you're driving, you're infiltrating.
Driving is good. Also, considering, I don't think they've ever done driving in an I O game that I don't think, I've played every Hitman game. I don't think you ever drive. This must have been a new team coming up with these driving sequences and the driving sequences. Are great. Some of the big sort of crowd pleasing, you know, Her Majesty's Secret Service music kicks in, just like it would in a Bond movie, happen in vehicles and they're really, they're all fantastic. I was very impressed by the drive and surprised.
And sometimes you're stuck in traffic and you're just like, yep, this is this is.
That's right. Yeah, it's like very mundane as well, where sometimes you're just driving around. I, I mean, yeah, I feel like the mundane moments are actually what I've really loved about this game. And I feel like it's been a while since I played a story game like this and it's reminded me how much I really like games that just have mundane moments with your, your protagonist, where they're just talking to their coworkers or their peers or friends or driving around at night or whatever it is. I, I just, I really like the story overall. And I think part of it is because Bond seems so human here, which is also what I tended to like about the Daniel Craig Bonds as well, is that often he would screw up or just seem really human, especially in the
first movie where he's kind of new at it and, and falls prey to like, kind of misunderstandings and things like that. And I, I feel like that's really powerful. I mean, I haven't finished this story, so maybe it'll disappoint me, but Kirk, you like it, so I'm not too worried about it.
No, I really don't think it will. It ends, it ends strong. This game also, I think, has a notably good Bond girl, which is cool. Like they, there are a lot of things that a Bond movie is supposed to have, one of them being a really good Bond girl. That's just the term that we've come to associate with like the mysterious woman who turns up.
A femme fatale, essentially.
Yeah, she's, we don't really know like where, you know, what her, where her loyalties lie. She's a great character in this one. I won't say more about her for people who haven't played the game, but they get that right. They get so many of these little things right.
The money penny dialogue is always really fun as well. Like their chemistry is incredibly good. I love her.
Yeah, I love, I love her.
I guess I should say that I've never actually seen a James Bond movie. So like if you're listening to this and you're wondering if you would enjoy it, even if you don't care about Bond, the answer is yes.
Fair enough.
Yeah, I think this, if you like this movie and you haven't seen a Bond movie, it also kind of goes the other way. It indicates that you might enjoy a Bond movie. Because it has helped me appreciate the things that Bond movies do that are pretty distinct to Bond movies, just their ways of resolving storylines, some of their embrace of anticlimax, which does happen at times in Bond movies. It isn't always James Bond being the greatest, most awesome dude who pulls everything off. I mean, obviously, he's the greatest, most awesome dude. But there are times where the final denouement, or the, you know, the person who takes down the villain, like, it's always a little more twisty, a little bit more Jean-Luc Hare, like, a little darker and more that edge of, like, spy fiction, which this game gets right as well.
And also, yeah, Matty, to what you were saying about the mundane elements, you know, I think the pacing of the first third of this game is really remarkable. I, again, look at it and I just think this must have been incredibly difficult to get this paced correctly, just because there are so many moving parts. But there's a lot of downtime. They really take their time. They have this whole extended training montage. I alluded to it in my intro, but I want to at least, like, explain what it is for people who haven't played the game or might not. They basically run this whole training montage where James has been thrown into the double O training program. He goes to this special island where they're training, you know, the, all the other cadets. He's the seventh one that's, you know, maybe.
And everyone's like, oh, the new guy. He's here late.
So he's with, yeah, he's the new guy. He's very much the fish out of water, just like in that Kingsman movie. This first part really feels like that. They kind of resent him. And then you get this training montage that's expertly edited to feel just like a movie training montage, where it's like, you're shooting, okay, obstacle course, go, run, get the flag, back to advanced shooting, to hand-to-hand combat, okay, here's how you counter, do the counter. And each one just lasts a few seconds, but you do the tutorial, so you're learning all of the things you have to do in the game, how to shoot, how to jump, how to climb, how to block, how to fight, how to drive a car. And it's doing the montage thing that movies do where it's getting progressively more advanced because you're seeing time pass. And you're seeing James learn and become a better and better agent.
And it's so well done. It's so cool. It serves character development. You really get to know Monroe and Cressida, his two friends. But anyways, just to finish the thought, that opening part is amazing. There's so many of these slow chilled out moments, these sequences without a lot of combat or excitement, these long character development sequences. You're in the apartment with your friends. You're choosing which art to put on the walls. You're taking a lie detector test in training. Like, just so many of these things that I could see some director saying, this is too slow. It's taking too long. We need to get people into the action. And I think it exhibits admirable restraint at the beginning of the game.
It reminded me of the Horizon Zero Dawn training montage, except that one was not playable. It's like as if that were playable.
Right, it's what they should have done in that game.
Yeah, I mean, it's amazing. It's just everything you play through it and you just think, wow, it's amazing that nobody's done this in a triple A game before.
Which makes me think it must be a lot harder to do.
It must be super hard. Well, the idea of a tutorial is to get you familiar with the mechanics. And so it's very tough to make that mesh with a very fast paced montage. So that makes sense. But what they did, which is brilliant, is that at the kind of the endpoint of that montage, they have you and Cress and Monroe go on this bad kid mission where you're going off to infiltrate your own people and steal this flag before you're supposed to. And so you can just kind of combine all those mechanics into one actual sandbox where you can set them all loose. And that part is pretty cool, too. And I think a very good way of just kind of culminating and making a natural endpoint for the tutorial section.
Yeah, to call out one other character that I love. So Lenny James, the actor, plays a character named John Greenway.
Not Lenny Kravitz, who should have been mentioned in this podcast.
Did you think I was gonna say Lenny Kravitz? That was a little jumpscare. One of the greatest performances of the game, Lenny Kravitz.
Oh, my god.
No, somewhat miscast, actually, Lenny Kravitz. He's got the wrong voice for the character.
Also, didn't, wait a minute, hold on, sorry, that's a derail you, but didn't They say he was like the big villain of the game and it turns out he's just kind of a minor side.
Yeah, it was sound like an intentional misdirect that they did in marketing or something.
I think so. And that's also actually is kind of very Bond. It's funny that like some of the things that you could like criticize the game for are still true to Bond. It feels kind of like.
Oh, who's the real bad guy?
It doesn't feel fair to say, oh, well, you know, the whole big overarching story is kind of whatever, but the characters and the moments are what you remember. But that is true of every Bond movie I've ever seen where, you know, I couldn't tell you what Harvey or Bardem was trying to do. Daniel Craig when he's in, I just cannot remember, but I remember some of the scenes from that movie like so vividly. That's kind of true. I couldn't, I couldn't tell you what, you know, what the hell Le Schif was doing in Casino Royale, but the guy wept blood when he was mad. And like, I remember that. So anyways, there's a lot of stuff like that, but, um, but no, not Lenny Kravitz, Lenny James, who is fantastic. What a performance. He's so fun. There's a great scene. He's the kind of ornery veteran who's training Bond and doesn't like.
Greenway.
Oh, Greenway. Okay.
Greenway. And yeah, played by Lenny James.
Yeah, he's great.
There's a great scene early. There's so much of this really good, like just banter and dialogue. Bond comes running out under fire. Greenway is pulled up in his car. They're being shot at. Bond jumps into the car. You know, Greenway peels out and Greenway has been injured earlier, so he has an arm in a sling. And Bond says something along the lines of, you know, it took you long enough. One of those cracks and Greenway just says second. And Bond is like, what? And Greenway says second. And then Bond realizes that Greenway can't change gears because it's a manual transmission. So he needs Bond to do it. So then Bond is like, oh, and he grabs the stick and puts it in second. And then they're, you know, they're being shot at and he's like, third, and they changed it into third. This kind of stuff is so fun. I mean, what a fun idea for a just, you know, mid-action sequence.
You know, bit of banter and tension between the two leads. It's got a ton of stuff like that. And I find that it's all, it's just constantly so charming and light on its feet. I'm just really, really impressed with, with all of that, the performances and the writing.
Not a mid-action sequence, but a good action.
Yes.
Yeah, that's so true.
Yes, to be clear. Very good. Yeah, I really, I think a lot of this game, I don't know, I think people should play it. A lot of people seem to be playing it. It's a lot of fun. I could see this kind of breaking containment a bit, just because there are a lot of people who love the movies. And it really does feel to me like a playable Bond movie in the way that a Bond fan would really like. Even just, you know, if you had a, you know, a roommate or a spouse who liked those movies but didn't play games. You could watch someone play this game and have a great time. It really, it reminds me a little bit of Arkham Asylum in that, you know, a kind of IP-based game that takes the core of the intellectual property and really does it justice.
Like translates it properly into a full-on, big video game with a lot of ideas in it. And seems ripe for a series. I mean, they tease a sequel. It's definitely not a spoiler to say this ends with James Bond will return, as all the movies do. And we have to trust that he will. And yeah, I would imagine that knowing I O, they'll also be expanding this. I should mention, I'm wrapping us up, but there's like a whole suite of these like training tutorials that you can do in the game. And I played around with some of them after finishing. And I should say, actually, if you're playing the game and you're kind of early on, do some of those tutorials right away. Like, just go do them. It's sort of too bad that they're buried in the menu.
Can you explain what you're talking about? Is this a thing in the menu screen, the tactical simulation, whatever?
It's in the menu screen. So a character, I think it's Gemma Chan's character, comes out and says, "Hey, I've built this VR thing for training." This is very early in the game. And then nothing else comes of it. And you can go into the menu and you can like engage in these escalations. And they're structured somewhat like the Hitman escalations, which I love, where you have to do an escalating series of difficult things. They kind of function as tutorials, but then some of them are in the stealth levels and give you kind of increasingly like restricted options for completing an objective. They're nowhere near as dense or elaborate as the Hitman escalations are. But it's the same kind of idea. It's the sort of thing- That I could see IO expanding on. There's not a whole lot to it right now.
That said, I would definitely recommend people do some of the combat tutorials if you're starting the game. Because there are all these cool moves that Bond can do that the game doesn't really tell you about. You can do a like over, like if you're crouching behind cover and a dude with a gun comes up to it, you can press forward and attack and Bond will knock the guy down and take his weapon from him. It's like a move I didn't even know existed until I did the tutorial. Also, the charging grapple is so much fun. If you run at a guy and grab him, you can then run with him up into a wall or you can like throw him off a cliff. I didn't even know that was possible when I was playing the game. So it shows you a lot of new possibilities and then I think would actually make the rest of the game a lot more fun. So I do recommend checking that out and it seems like that's where the game will expand.
But what it is now is already great. Like I'm really, really impressed by it.
Of the Bond elusive targets, that'd be cool.
That would be cool. That's totally the kind of thing, the kind of thing they could do. And really, yeah, the Lenny Kravitz casting reminds me of all of the stunt casting for those Hitman elusive targets where they're always bringing in some celebrity or other to be the person that you have to kill.
Mm hmm. Yeah, I'm excited for the series to continue. I really like that IO ended up taking this on. I think it's, it's ended up being surprisingly cool and I'm glad that it's so story forward. Cause like Jason, I also like Hitman, but this has such a different vibe because it's so story centric and I'm just really enjoying it.
Yeah, it's a good game and the people who made it should feel good about having made it. All right, let's take a break and then we will come back for one more thing.
International Waters is back, baby. Do you like fun, silly conversations? Do you like fun, silly games? We got them both and it's on International Waters. I am the host, Dave Holmes. This is a panel show that pits American and British comics against each other in a lively and hilarious competition. What is gentlemen's relish? Who is bag puss? Why is the Oscar Mayer weiner mobile so emotionally resonant? And why doesn't American cheese have its own anthem? Get the answers and be left with numerous questions about that and so much more nonsense and or codswallow twice a month here on International Waters. You can catch International Waters on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey Alexis.
Hey Ella.
What animal has the most teeth?
I would guess a shark.
A snail.
No, snails don't have teeth.
They have thousands and they are freaky looking.
No, I don't want that to be true. Okay. Did you know that the hippocampus in your brain is named after the half horse, half fish sea creature found in Greek mythology?
I didn't know that, but we're meant to be doing animal trivia and hippocampus isn't a real animal.
Well, that doesn't matter on Comfort Creatures.
You're right, it doesn't matter at all.
Comfort Creatures is a cozy show for lovers of animals of all shapes and sizes, real and unreal.
If that sounds like your cup of tea, then join us every Thursday for new episodes on MaximumFun.org.
And we are back for One More Thing. Jason Schreier, tell us about your one more thing.
My one more thing is a video game called Tomodachi Life on the Switch 2 that has been doing quite well for Nintendo. I have not actually played Tomodachi Life, but my children have. They are obsessed with it and it's really fascinating to watch. So Tomodachi Life, for people aren't familiar, is a game where, I guess it would be best described as kind of like a Sims-like. It's a game where you create a bunch of people and you can make them into whatever kinds of people you want, your friends, your family, celebrities, video game developers, X-Men, whatever you want.
Well-known games turtle.
Yeah, sure. And they live on an island and they interact and they get into all sorts of fun little interactions and they actually talk using these robot synth kind of text-to-speech generator type voices and they read the names that you give them, which is very entertaining. And you can, I don't know, get money by doing things for them and buy gifts and give them to them and it's kind of Animal Crossing meets The Sims is maybe the best way to describe it. And my kids are obsessed and my kids are obsessed, especially my daughter, who is six and a half, almost seven, and she has created all of her friends and all of her family, all of her brother's friends, like as many people as she can.
She started creating characters from the Babysitter Club books that she reads. She is just having a blast in this game. She's hooked on this game and can't stop playing it. And. Something she said to me that I thought was really funny and interesting and kind of typical was, she was like, I really love Tomodachi Life and I really, I really don't like the games where you have to fight people. And I was like, man, this is so funny because you, I've raised you and your brother the same way, but yet you as the girl are like, I want a game where you just talk to people and hang out and you don't fight anybody. And my, your little brother, who's three and a half, almost four, just wants to play Spider-Man
and Mario and games where you jump on people and do action and stuff like that. It's just like, man, gender roles.
Sometimes people just comport with them and it is what it is.
It's true. Sometimes it just happens. Sometimes stereotypes are stereotyped over reason.
Hey, I'm glad she has games like that, that she can play. There didn't used to be very many of those. And now there are way more and they're really good. Like it used to be the few that were pretty bad.
I was thinking about that too, Maddie, how if this was the 90s, it would be a totally different world and she wouldn't have access. I mean, it's really The Sims that really just kind of like struck out. I like really kind of broke that genre into the mainstream and like started making, making it more lucrative. But actually before that, there were like Barbie games that were appealing to women and girls. But yeah, it was mostly.
I don't think they had as much of the like dollhouse aspect of playing a game where you're like, I'm really going to create my own characters and then I'm just going to watch them do stuff or make them do stuff, which if you like playing with dolls, like why wouldn't you like the video game version of playing with dolls?
Well, what's also brilliant about Tomodachi Life is that they've struck a really good balance between a character creator that is not so detailed that you just get lost in the weeds of cheekbone size and eye length and stuff like that, but also good enough that you can create these me characters that actually resemble the people you know. And I think they, they struck a really perfect balance for kids.
That's long been the miracle of me is just the fact that me's are so simple looking and yet can be so specific. Like when you see Shigeru Miyamoto's me, you're like, oh yeah, it's Miyamoto. It's exactly like him. Even though it has like four facial features total. It's pretty remarkable.
No, it's brilliant. And I think if my daughter were confronted with like the Baldur's Gate character creator, she would be like, what the hell is like, I have no idea what's going on here. This is way too much for me.
Maybe in like seven years or so. And then she'll be obsessed with it.
Yeah, well, yeah.
I don't know. I still kind of feel like those things are too much for me.
The me balance is really perfect for that. And yeah, I mean, props to Nintendo for continuing to make games that are family friendly and for kids, when a lot of other companies have just totally abandoned that market. So that's also very nice to see. And yeah, I think my daughter is probably, probably playing it as we speak. We're about to start playing it.
That's awesome.
I'm gonna let her play a little bit today. Cool game, Tomodachi Life. And I've enjoyed listening to her talk about it. And by the way, I just gotta say, I said this on a previous episode a few weeks ago, and we ended up burning questions about this. But like, watching my kids interact with watching TV versus interact with video games is such a night and day difference. And I very strongly encourage any parents out there who are listening this to like, try to replace your TV time with video game time, especially games that involve interaction. And you can, they can play with their siblings and parents and stuff like that. Cause just when they watch TV, they're just zoning out, staring at the screen, not saying a word, just kind of lost in this just kind of world of television.
Whereas when they're playing games, they're talking to each other, talking to us, just constantly interacting. It's just so much better for their brain development, I think. So I'm very much in favor of like, trying to get rid of TV time and just have them play video games instead, especially games like Tomodachi Life.
Yeah, plus I bet it's resulting in, like you said, fun conversations where she's like, showing you stuff in the game. And like, that just wouldn't happen if she's just watching a TV show. And that's like a fun way to be involved.
A hundred percent. I, I overheard like, one of the characters being like, or the game just being like,
Jason like, has a crush on Amanda. And I was like, whoa, did he make that happen? Cause that was me and my wife's characters. And somehow, somehow the game just decided that, that we were gonna fall in love in the game, which I thought was very funny.
That's adorable.
Yeah, that's, I mean, we've talked about it before. It's an interesting topic, though. I mean, even talking to, you know, our friends' kids about video games, it's so much more fun. And they also appreciate that I know a lot about video games. So it's this fun thing that I can bring to them, where I'm happy to talk to, you know, one of my friend's daughters about Hollow Night, because she's really into Hollow Night. If she wanted to tell me about Paw Patrol or whatever, like some TV show she was watching, like a kids' show, it would be a lot harder to get excited about. They're like, they're, obviously, there are some kids' shows that are rich and that I'm interested in. And, you know, if, you know, one of my nieces, when they, well, both my nieces got into Avatar, like, that was really cool, because I love talking about that show. But mostly, it's less interesting. So it's also just kind of a more fun topic of conversation in general. And being
a video game nerd, it's like, something that I, you know, know a lot about and can, can actually contribute to the conversation and be interested.
Yeah, there are some shows that are better than others. I have never, a lot of my kids are never even brought up some of the worst, some of the real slop shows, like Coco Melon.
Yeah, I should say, I've never seen Paw Patrol. Maybe it's great.
Paw Patrol is fine.
And I know Bluey is great.
Yeah, Bluey is, I mean, yeah, Bluey's, it's not, it's kind of become overrated by people. But yeah, it's fun. Bluey's fun and emotional. But, I mean, whatever. My kids are into the Spidey shows and PJ Masks is their newest one, if you guys have heard of that. That's what they're, they've been obsessed with recently, but.
It's like Spider-Man and His Friends.
Spidey and His Amazing Friends and Iron Man and His Amazing Friends. Spidey and His Amazing Friends has a theme song by Fall Out Boy and Iron Man and His Friends has a theme song by
That's for the parents.
Mark Hoppus of Blink One Eight Two. No, Maddie, it's for, it's, it's for the millennial parents getting their kids into their music.
Yeah, and into whatever comic books they grew up reading, too. It's a real double whammy. Oof, all right.
That's funny.
I hope they're, I hope they're at least kind of bearable to watch.
But yeah, Tell Me About Your Life, it's a cool game.
Nice. All right, Maddie, how about your one more thing? Tell us.
Sure. My one more thing is a YouTuber named Forrest Balchi, who also goes by the Renegade Science Teacher. My wife is really into this guy and hooked me onto him this past week. She majored in biology in school and just is kind of like in the science content creator space. And as somebody who, when I was younger, was pretty into like, science blogs and like, kind of especially like atheist and skeptic blogs, I have been really disappointed that a lot of those guys have grown up and become like, really sexist and transphobic. And it's just been sad to see. And Forrest Valca is like, the opposite of that, in the sense
that he like, has like, videos kind of talking about those issues from like, a pure scientific perspective. And all of that stuff is really cool. But I was gonna recommend a video he made that was hilarious. And I don't know that YouTube will think it's funny, but I think some of our listeners will. So I'm going to describe it. So, one type of content that Forrest creates is that sometimes he will watch like, movies or just content that's been created that involves pseudoscience. And he'll commentate on it and be like, here's what's wrong with this, or what, you know, often in a pretty polite way. I don't, I feel like that's kind of fair to say about his content in general, is that he's really interested in educating people and like, taking a fair stance, even if he's technically
making fun of somebody for being wrong, he'll try to be pretty level headed about it. And he did one of these about this, this kind of elderly creationist named Donald James Parker, who makes movies. And these movies are kind of in the style of like, The Room in terms of their quality, I would say. They're pretty absurd. Like, for example, Donald James Parker made this movie called Gramps Goes to College, several years ago, where it stars him, he's Gramps, it's his nickname for himself, where he, a creationist, goes to college and majors in biology and argues with the teacher until he convinces her that creationism is actually real. And then she falls in love with him. And so Forrest did like, a video review of this.
Forrest did a video review of this and then Donald actually reached out to him about it. And they had this whole email thread about it and ended up deciding to do a debate together where they did like creationism versus biology. And so they did a video together. And after the fact, Forrest like did a ton of emails with this guy. I know this because Forrest has made these emails public for reasons that will become clear later, where Forrest actually gave him like final editing approval on the debate and like sent him the video ahead of time and was like, here, like, I just want to make sure you feel like this was completely fair to you. And like, we represented your views on creationism fairly. And Donald was like, that's fine. And so they both put their videos up. This was two years ago. That kind of came and went and Forrest kind of like didn't think about the guy.
And then they were friends and it was fine.
So this man, Donald, made a movie about Forrest. He spent the intervening two years making a movie about how a creationist played by him has a debate with an atheist YouTuber, science YouTuber, except that of course, in this version of the film, he wins the debate and a whole bunch of other stuff happens in the movie that is really absurd. And I don't want to spoil in case people would like to watch Forrest's video where he's really flummoxed that Donald James Parker has made an entire film about him without contacting him in any way. And a movie that depicts him in a really negative light. And so Deidre and I watched all of this on Friday and it was incredible. It's just a wild ride.
So if any of that appeals to you, check out Forrest Valguy's videos. You can also just enjoy some of his science content. I think it's, it's really lovely. And I appreciate that people are out there like trying to educate folks in a kind of non condescending way. But also if you just like whatever I just described from a comedy vantage point, you can check out, it's his most recent video at the time of our recording this. It's titled, "Gramps Made A Movie About Me!" exclamation mark. And it's iconic. So yeah.
Wow.
That sounds great, and I will 100% watch that, even though I feel
It really goes places.
Well, it'll send me into the YouTube atheism versus religion algorithm hole, which is a real hole that takes some time to climb out of.
I don't know if it will, because Forrest is so further over onto the like, kind of leftist circle, especially because he disagrees with a lot of those guys, that I think, I think you'll be safe, in part because my wife subscribes and she's, she's kind of in the science hole that is
Well, and also, whatever algorithm can't tell me what to watch.
It sounds great, I'll just watch it.
I mean, I just can't think of anything, can't think of any bigger waste of time than a creationism versus evolutionism debate. Like, who is, who out there needs to be convinced? Who out there is like, I'm on the fence?
So many millions of hours on YouTube are dedicated to this.
There are many people who need to be convinced, Jason, unfortunately. I mean, they're out there.
It's a whole world.
No, no, no. I mean, who out there is on the fence and have not been, have not
Well, it's not that. I think it's that, I think it's more that people just, it makes for good content. Like, I think a lot of the people who watch those videos are just like, watching a
They're rooting for their side.
Religious person get owned by an atheist, or watching someone pick apart what a jerk an atheist has become. Like, it's more about that.
I think if it felt like he was making fun of him in that way, I'd be a little more sad about it. But instead, I feel like he, because he's a science teacher, is like genuinely trying to engage with it and be like, let's actually talk about what the evidence is for evolution, which a lot of people don't necessarily know. And it does come back and bite him in the ass, because obviously Donald didn't really take it with the spirit it was intended. But I appreciate that he tries.
Yeah, for sure. And yeah, not, not speaking of Forrest here, just the general
Yeah, I'm sure there are debates that are more interested in just owning a person.
This kind of overlaps with science YouTube, you know, Bill Nye and Hank Green and like, science explainer type people who are like, nice and engaging and thoughtful and even-handed. There's, that stuff is great. Like, there's plenty of good stuff there. So this sounds more like that.
For what it's worth, by the way, there are people out there who believe in both, who believe that, that God created a universe, but it wasn't 6,000 years ago, it was
Intelligent design.
Yeah, intelligent design. And then there's also, like, I can't remember what the phrase is called, but Forrest describes it, where it's like, people who believe in evolution, but, and that it took as long as scientists believed, but that God was involved in it as well. There's like, there is some nuance there, for sure.
I will totally watch this video. All right, my one more thing is last. This is a show I've been watching that is so good that I want to recommend it called Widows Bay, which is on Apple TV plus.
Hearing about this everywhere. It's in the zeitgeist.
I'm very excited to watch it.
I heard about this really early and just started it not really knowing what it would be.
Well, logic.
Well, and it's been fun watching it go from, you know, an Apple TV show with very famous people in it, you know, that was widely promoted to really a phenomenon because it started pretty good and it has become truly great. And I think that is what has led to everybody talking about it and me deciding to make it my one more thing, though. Part of that is just I wanted to wait to make sure the show kind of could back up its strong first few episodes.
This is kind of the culmination of the show's success is Kirk finally deciding to make it his one more thing.
This is how a show knows, you know, first you win an Emmy, then you get mentioned on TripleClick.
Apple's gonna put this on the, on the card when you sign into Apple TV. Mentioned by TripleClick.
Mm-hmm.
TripleClick bump.
Right, the, the TripleClick bump. It'll definitely, yeah, expect to see my name slowly coming toward the camera.
Fading in.
In an awards reel for Widows Bay. Okay, so this show is kind of a horror comedy. I'd say stronger on the comedy side than the horror. A little more of a Shaun of the Dead type thing than something, you know, truly scary, though it has some real moments of horror and it is made by people who certainly understand horror and know how to do a good scare and how to just set up a kind of creepy scenario really effectively. So it is very true to horror despite being quite funny. The setup is basically a New England island town called Widows Bay. That's where it is, is set. And it's basically just one of those truly just horribly cursed towns where every single bit of local lore, every story is just the worst thing you've ever heard.
Oh, this is where all the children had to eat one another to survive through the winter. Oh, this is where the pioneers like murdered 500 people. Oh, this is, well, there's fog out there after night. You can't go out because, you know, people don't come back and if they do come back, they're changed, you know? So it's all eldritch beings and people who've done horrible deals with the devil, witches and zombies and just haunted houses and it's the worst place. And the mayor of this worst place is played by Matthew Rees, most notably probably from The Americans, but an actor who's been in a lot of things, and actually really enjoyable actor who I've come to just love, perfectly cast as the mayor of Widows Bay, in part because he has probably the greatest haunted face.
Like, he is just the most haunted man, maybe alive. There's just something in his face that just looks haunted and terrified. Like, behind his eyes, he knows the horrible truth and is just trying to repress it, which is very much what this character is all about. The mayor starts the show very much in denial. He is convinced that he can make Widows Bay into the number one tourist destination. Like, it can be the next Martha's Vineyard. That's what he keeps saying.
Is this the Jaws mayor?
Exactly. So I was literally about to say, this is like if the Jaws mayor was not just the mayor of the Jaws town, but the mayor of, like, a place where every Stephen King book has happened and is currently happening. So he is right at the moment that things are kind of kicking off and the island is reawakening and, you know, dark forces are rising. He is trying to get this New York Times write-up published so that he can get a bunch of tourists to come to town. Meanwhile, Stephen Root, who's also in this, Milton from Office Space and a bunch of other stuff, he's the kind of deep, local, you know, townie who knows the truth and is trying to get the mayor to understand his folly. And then there's a whole bunch of character actors, a great supporting cast.
And I would say that actually, before I even knew the sort of genesis of this show, I felt like it had something in common with Parks and Recreation. There's some, there's a bit of Pawnee to Widows Bay. If either of you have watched Parks and Recreation, that's set in the Indiana town of Pawnee, but there is this kind of cursed vibe to Pawnee, especially when they get into Pawnee history, like, all the stories between, like, the, you know, settlers who came and the Native Americans. It was like, all these horrible things that happened. They'll be in the Pawnee Town Hall and Leslie Knope will be showing some mural and it's like, a mural of, like, babies being killed or something and they're like, "And here's our historic mural." It's that same kind of energy in Widows Bay where the town museum is just, everything
is ghastly. It's like, it's just art or like weird mannequin of like, the first, you know, one of the women who lived in the town looking like a monster. So everything is just like unsettling, kind of scary stories to tell in the dark style. So it turns out this show was created by Katie Dipold, who was a writer on Parks and Recreation. So that makes total sense. Katie Dipold, though, famous for another reason. She is the author of the infamous, well, I would say the amazing Babadook Tweet. The two of you know the Babadook Tweet? This was Katie Dipold who tweeted, it's, I believe, a picture of her. I know what you're talking about. And the tweet is basically, "Went to a Halloween party dressed as the Babadook, and no one told me it was more of an adults drinking wine kind of vibe."
And the picture is a party of a bunch of middle-aged people. And then one person just sitting in this like, all-black horrifying Babadook costume, looking really out of place. It's a mega-viral tweet. It's an incredible photo.
Yeah, it sounds familiar. Okay.
It is one of the biggest memes, I would say, of the 2020s. One of the funniest memes, one I still think about regularly. And it's kind of perfect because it really kind of, it is someone who clearly loves horror, who dressed as the Babadook perfectly, but also really understands how funny horror can be, especially when juxtaposed against ordinary life. That tweet kind of encapsulates what makes Widows Bay great. It really, it's really good. It starts as a little bit of an anthology. Each episode feels kind of like its own little horror story. As the mayor, I think his name is Tom, yeah, Tom, like, goes through an increasing series of horrors as he's, you know, his denial about what's happening is kind of torn down. So it's like being haunted by something like Hag, that's kind of like the girl from The Ring,
or a haunted house, or, you know, zombies, or whatever. Like, it's a series of little standalones. And now toward the end of the season, it's kind of branched more into the bigger story, the mystery, the history of the island. And it's kind of getting more into that. I should say, I don't know yet whether they're gonna cash all the checks in terms of there really being this like, cool mystery that makes sense. It seems like they're going to. They've really, they've got a lot of talent behind it. Hiro Morai, the director, who worked on Atlanta and has made some really amazing TV shows, is one of their directors. The show looks amazing, it's well-made. I don't know how that'll all work out, but it's already been so much fun. It's so many great actors, it's so well-done, it's hilarious. I love it. So people should check it out if they think that sounds good at all.
It's on Apple. It's called Widow's Bay, and it's a good show.
Sounds great.
Sounds really neat, yeah.
So it's more serious than something like scary movie, right? It's not like a straight up satire. It's like a serious thing that just happens to be a fun contrast and a funny.
Right. There are comedic moments, even in the darkest sequences. But the latest episodes have had a little less comedy and have been a little more serious. It does take its story seriously, but it is just very much a comedy. And like I said, I kind of put it in like Shaun of the Dead, a little more serious than Shaun of the Dead. But it is at least like the characters are real and are, you know, people in this world, even if it's pretty silly and at times is really juxtaposing really silly things and kind of taking, you know, it's like taking the piss a little bit or undercutting the tension.
It is also, you know, scary intense.
Sounds like a perfect blend.
Yeah. Shaun of the Dead is high praise.
Yeah, it's a real, a real crowd pleaser, a lot of fun. And a great, apparently a great employment opportunity for like every character actor you've ever seen in everything, which is a nice thing about it too.
Steven Root, by the way, also gonna be in GTA 6.
Oh, nice. He'll be great. He's, he's just the best. He's a really versatile actor. He's so much fun.
I think he's in the trailer, the second trailer, you can hear his voice at the very beginning.
Yeah, I feel like I remember people talking about that in the trailer and like not having it confirmed yet. But I guess by this point it has been.
It's confirmed when you hear his voice.
That's the guy, yeah. Yeah, he's really had an amazing career. I know everyone got, like I got to know him in Office Space, but he's in so many things. And sometimes such a menacing character. Did, did you, have you watched Barry? Jason, you watched Barry, right?
Yeah, he's great in Barry, yep.
He was, he was so good in Barry.
Yeah, I watched, I think the first season of Barry.
Oh, you watched it as well, Matty? Yeah, he was really good in that. Yeah, he's a good actor. Yeah, it's a good show. And that was a good episode of Triple Click. We did it.
I agree.
We made another one.
Now I'm off to Los Angeles.
Have fun, Jason.
Nice. Have fun at SGF, Jason. We will be watching online and we'll be talking about it next week. But yeah, until then, I will, I'll see the two of you later.
See you next time.
Bye.
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. Email us at [email protected] and find links to our merch store and our Discord server in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time.
Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artist-owned shows supported directly by you.
Page updated October 30, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated