Why Do Players Like Crimson Desert More Than Critics Do? [Mailbag]

Why have players taken to Crimson Desert when critics haven't? Is the PS4 Pro really the PS5? And is it worth going to Summer Game Fest if you're not media? All those questions and more as the Triple Click gang opens up the mailbag!

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

• 0:03Jason Schreier?

  They say there's no two episodes of TripleClick exactly the same, but can they say that for sure? Because they'd have to get them all together. And obviously, that's not possible, even with computers. Welcome to TripleClick, where we bring the games to you. This week, we're opening up the mailbag and taking some of your questions about whether to go to Summer Games Fest, classic educational games that should be remade today, and much more.

• 0:31Jason Schreier?

  I'm Jason Schreier.

• 0:32Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm Kirk Hamilton.

• 0:33Speaker 02

  And I'm Maddy Myers.

• 0:34Jason Schreier?

  Hello.

• 0:35Speaker 02

  Hello.

• 0:36Kirk Hamilton?

  Hello, my friends.

• 0:37Jason Schreier?

  We're back for another episode. A couple of things up front. First of all, it is Maximum Fun Drive.

• 0:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 0:44Jason Schreier?

  So we're not gonna do our usual spiel up front. Instead, we'll save it for a little bit later in the episode. But just so you know, now is a very good time to become a supporter of TripleClick. One other thing is, we are doing a little bit of traveling, or at least I'm doing a little bit of traveling this week, so we had to shuffle some things around. We will be talking about Saros, the new PlayStation 5 exclusive, next week. And this week, we're doing a Burning Questions episode. One other thing you should know as we record this is that on May 1st, which is the day after this episode airs, at 8:00 PM Eastern, we will be doing a livestream where we play some games, maybe Kirk plays some games and we make fun of him, on the YouTube channel,

• 1:29Jason Schreier?

  TripleClickPod. @TripleClickPod is our YouTube channel, so check that out Friday night, May 1st, at 8:00 PM Eastern. So, yes, I'm sorry to everybody out there who will have to wait another week to find out how many times Kirk has died in Saros.

• 1:45Speaker 02

  It's still being calculated as you're listening to this.

• 1:48Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I haven't played enough to be able... I was about to say it's more than seven, because it's gonna be more than seven, but I haven't played enough to actually... It hasn't been seven yet, so it remains to be seen.

• 1:58Speaker 02

  It could be only seven, still.

• 2:00Jason Schreier?

  We shall see.

• 2:01Kirk Hamilton?

  It could be six.

• 2:02Jason Schreier?

  So, once again, we are going to take some listener questions. We have a nice, healthy backlog of great questions, so we appreciate all of you out there for sending them in. If you want to send in a question, you can reach us at [email protected]. All right, on with it. Kirk, you want to start with this first one?

• 2:22Kirk Hamilton?

  Sure. This question comes from Kevin, who writes, "Hi, Trip C's. I'm a dad in my late 40s who has picked up gaming as a serious hobby within the last three years. I'm now at a point where I am listening to multiple gaming podcasts, following all the new releases and industry news, and generally diving headfirst into all things gaming. The one thing I've never done, for which I have intense curiosity, is attend a gaming convention or expo. From what I hear, the experience sounds like a ton of fun. Unfortunately, given my hobby is still somewhat in its infancy, I don't have many gaming friends, so a trip would likely be solo. In the last few weeks, I have been looking at Summer Game Fest and the events surrounding it. I know not many official events are open to the public, but would it be worth a two-day solo trip

• 3:07Kirk Hamilton?

  for those that are? And if not, are there any other conferences or events that you would recommend? Any advice would be appreciated."

• 3:14Jason Schreier?

  Absolutely not.

• 3:15Speaker 02

  I think we can fairly say don't go to Summer Game Fest. This is why we're answering this.

• 3:19Jason Schreier?

  I can help walk Kevin and everyone else out there through some of the options, at least. So, Summer Games Fest is now the big June event. It has replaced E3, and it is nothing like E3. E3 was a big, just kind of spectacle of a show, all in the LA Convention Center. You could go there. There would be thousands of people mobbed in the LACC, and a bunch of halls with games, and big demos, and splashy trailers, and TV shows, and just loud noises everywhere. It was quite something to see. Summer Games Fest is not that. Summer Games Fest has two components. One is a live show that Keely

• 4:01Jason Schreier?

  puts on, the keynote where he announces stuff, and that is in a theater. I believe it's at the YouTube Theater in Los Angeles. And then it has a media-only component called Play Days, where media gets to go on this little campus and play demos of games. So, the public is not allowed to go to that, will not be able to go to that part of it. And that part is the only part that actually lets you see new games, and play stuff, and play demos, and actually talk to people." No part is just a waste of time, I would say, for most people unless you just want to sit in an audience and cheer for new game trailers, which certainly

• 4:41Kirk Hamilton?

  If you want to experience decibels, that's a good place to do it.

• 4:44Jason Schreier?

  Oh, my God. Yeah, it was so loud that like, oh, man, Kirk, we were there a couple of years ago and we actually just left in the middle of it because it was so loud. So, yeah,

• 4:54Kirk Hamilton?

  It was pretty punishing.

• 4:55Jason Schreier?

  I've been watching that from the hotel that I stay at in Los Angeles in recent years. Matty, I believe you, we watched it together last year.

• 5:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think we did. Yeah.

• 5:05Jason Schreier?

  So, a couple of other options that come to mind. One is the Game Awards, which is also just kind of sitting in a big theater, but at least that has more of a social component to it. A lot of people wind up just hanging out in the LA Live area afterwards, including at the hotel bar nearby. And so you have an opportunity to kind of do some schmoozing, meet some people. You'll spot me at the hotel bar. You'll spot a lot of like famous gaming people. You might look on one side of you and see Reggie Fizemay and then on the other side, you'll see Phil Spencer or something like that. Shigeru Miyamoto over there. Who knows? So, that's one option. I would say maybe the best option is to go to something like Gamescom, which I've never been to, but from what I've heard, that is the show

• 5:48Jason Schreier?

  that's in Cologne, Germany. So, it's a bit of a further trek than Los Angeles for people in the US. But that is the show that, from what I've heard, captures that vibe of E3 and the kind of the large scale spectacle of everything. So, maybe that's an option. And then, of course, there's like PAX and stuff. I haven't been to those in a while.

• 6:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, I haven't been to those in a while either, but I think PAX is kind of, there's probably one near where Kevin lives. If he's based in the United States, there's one at least in some distance, some, some long driving distance. Those are fine. I feel like as a non press person, PAX is tough because the lines for each game demo are so long that I think you have to kind of plan your day around it if you want to play double and triple A games there. But if you just want to play a whole bunch of new game demos and meet other people, then there's an indie game festival in Boston that I've been to a few times. It's called like the Boston Festival Indie Games and It's really fun and just from either a press perspective or just a human perspective, you actually get to like directly meet indie game developers and have conversations with them

• 6:50Speaker 02

  at a ton of little booths. And that I think is a really cool vibe that is a little different from something like a PAX where you're just standing in line for a really long time to play like five seconds of, I don't know, Pragmata 2 or whatever it may be. I don't know. Whatever you can imagine. And that, that, it depends on what you're looking for, I think, out of, out of an event and what, what you want. I think if you want to make friends, then some of those smaller events like the indie game festivals, you probably have one local to a city near you that you can Google and find. And that might actually be the most fun that you could have.

• 7:26Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I think that would be the only additional advice I would offer is to like lower the stakes and keep it as close to you as possible because, you know, going to something like a PAX by yourself, like PAX is probably more fun with your friends because then you're waiting in line, but you're waiting in line with your friends. Like it is still, you're going to the hotel together. You're sitting around in the beanbags, you know, playing Switch together. Like there is kind of, there's plenty of opportunities for being social, but if you're on your own, I could imagine it actually feeling kind of isolating or like a bummer if, depending on the experience you wind up having, like you could still kind of feel alone in a crowd and that might be a bummer where, you know, looking at your local town, you know, Kevin doesn't talk about where he lives, but there might just be like a game night, a tabletop

• 8:08Kirk Hamilton?

  night at a game shop that you could go to where you kind of start meeting people who are into this kind of stuff. And then maybe that game shop does a live stream where they watch the game awards and you can go hang out and, you know, there's a bar where they do that and you hear about it through people you're kind of meeting there. And then you can like have a beer and watch the game awards and get to know some people. And it's kind of like a lower key social environment with like a lower degree of difficulty where it isn't like, okay, I bought this ticket. I bought a plane ticket. I'm in a hotel. I don't know anyone here. And you're kind of going back to your hotel alone. And it's like, damn, I didn't meet anyone. Like, I could just imagine it kind of, it's a little harder to make it work in that environment. So maybe, yeah, try local. I think local, starting local is a good idea in general.

• 8:48Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I think that's good advice. There's also very- Specific conventions and get togethers and fan events. So for example, as, as this episode airs, I will have just gone to Final Fantasy XIV FanFest in Anaheim, California, which I imagine if you are a big fan of Final Fantasy XIV, that is like way up your alley. Similarly, there's BlizzCon if you're a big fan of Overwatch or Warcraft or Starcraft, and those feel a little bit more kind of accommodating for if you're a big fan of something, but you don't know a lot of people. Maybe that's a good opportunity to go and meet other big Starcraft heads or whatever. So that might be an option. But yeah,

• 9:28Jason Schreier?

  local is probably the best bet. Back in the day, I would have said, like, if this was 2018, I would have said, yeah, I think you should go check out E3. But there's nothing that's really replaced that in terms of just the sheer spectacle of it all.

• 9:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:44Kirk Hamilton?

  Mm hmm.

• 9:45Jason Schreier?

  All right. Next question. Matty, can you read this one?

• 9:48Speaker 02

  Sure. This one is from Gray, who writes, "Longtime listener, first time emailing. Love the show so much. I'd be really curious to hear about your thoughts on the reception Crimson Desert has received since release and the big difference between the review scores from traditional media outlets and the way the game has been embraced by gamers, including lowercase g gamers like myself. Jason, I know you fell off quickly. Totally valid. Those opening hours are pretty rough, but I, like many others, have loved the sense of adventure and exploration. Why do the three of you think there has been such a big difference between the review scores and the way the game has actually been received? All the best to you all. P.S. Please come do a live show in the UK. I hope we can someday, Gray."

• 10:31Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, man, one day.

• 10:33Speaker 02

  So what do we think?

• 10:35Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, what do we think? This is an interesting one. I mean, I think there's a, there's a narrative with games like this, that I think, I think it's important to consider the type of game that Crimson Desert is. So what Gray is talking about is that Crimson Desert did not get very strong reviews. There are plenty of people who have been like, you know, it's really pretty, but there's not a lot going on. It seems like it was written by ChatGPT. There's like no, no personality. Yeah, 77 on Metacritic. I played like an hour of this because I had a copy, a press copy and was just like, okay, well, I'll try this out. I would come back to it. This is the kind of thing I could see myself getting into, but I think this kind of game, like Crimson Desert is very much a game where they did everything.

• 11:19Kirk Hamilton?

  Like it has every mechanic ever. You can fly, there's like gliding, there's puzzles, there's combat, there's like souls kind of combat. And it's a gigantic open world. It's incredibly pretty. There's like a billion just endless side quests that you can do. You can explore and find little hidden things. There are, I think, some genuinely cool little things hidden in this game. That's the exact kind of game to me that seems most primed for a reviewer to play it and be like, man, this main character sucks. This writing is pretty mid. It wastes a lot of your time and to just be like, whatever, seven out of 10. I don't really like this. And then for a lot of players to be like, I wanted exactly this. Like I wanted a just massive, infinite sort of, you know, cornucopia of, of content that I can experience.

• 12:02Kirk Hamilton?

  So yeah, basically some people just want like a game with just a ton to do in it that it just lets them play and it's pretty fun and it's beautiful looking. And like, that's what a lot of people who play video games just kind of want. And that's also the kind of thing that a lot of critics are, I think, more likely to kind of dismiss because, because of like the specific things that the game does well versus the things it doesn't do well.

• 12:22Jason Schreier?

  I don't know if that's necessarily true. I mean, Breath of the Wild is a game where you just have a lot of stuff to do and it's fun to play and generally pleasing and like.

• 12:32Kirk Hamilton?

  Right, but it's like, the specific weaknesses are like part of it. Like the Crimson Desert has this just like total nothing burger story and main character. And then you have to actually really dig into it to start to, you know, understand what actually makes the, like where the cool stuff is like, I don't know, like it's a specific type of game that winds up having this reaction, right? Like there is a reason that Crimson Desert is having this, like this sort of split thing between people who really like playing it and critics and not games in other styles or with like, that other games, I guess, that have gotten a 77 on Metacritic. It's like particular to this, to some things about Crimson Desert.

• 13:09Speaker 02

  Do you think maybe it's because of just the inherent limitations of reviewing a game, which are that you only have a limited time? And so if a game starts slow or has a first five to 10 hours that are bad, it's really hard to overcome that first impression, especially if you're cramming in a whole lot of time. And I mean, these are all the pitfalls that we describe constantly. And it's harder to notice or even appreciate some of the little things about the game that might be interesting in that context where you're already like, this isn't hitting me right? Because it requires you to take several weeks of time to care more.

• 13:46Jason Schreier?

  I mean, for what it's worth, like IGN, I think they said they played 110 hours.

• 13:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is part of why I'm hesitant to even make my case. Because I'm like, I don't know if I agree with myself.

• 13:55Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I don't think this is a case where like critics did give it a chance. Like, I mean, I said upfront, and I said on social media that I only played a couple hours and really bounced off of it hard, but I didn't review the game. I mean, people who reviewed it, I think, gave it a much more fair shake. So I don't know if that's necessarily it. I don't know. I guess I haven't played enough to put my finger on why, but I have talked to friends who are into it. And yeah, the way they describe it, it sounds like one of those games where it's just really fun for people to just kind of turn their brain off and just go and do stuff for a while. It's very much like a just doing stuff kind of game. I also, I mean, a lot of people have said like, those opening hours are just really

• 14:39Jason Schreier?

  bad, and then it gets much better after chapter three, which, I mean, okay, fair enough. I didn't feel incentivized to play much more than that, but that's why I was very upfront about only having played a couple hours before I stopped.

• 14:52Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I think it's something related to the size of the game, for sure. Like, it's, I'm thinking of that old Mad Max game that came out in the 2010s.

• 15:00Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, that's kind of like a cult hit now, right?

• 15:02Kirk Hamilton?

  It's right. It's the quintessential example of this kind of game where it gets its high 70s maybe or low 80s on Metacritic, and critics kind of dismiss it as like, ah, it's sort of a mid, you know, check the boxes, open world game. And then a lot of people are like, yeah, but I love check the boxes, open world games. And it's really pretty, and it's set in Mad Max, and it's cool, and it's great. And like, then it winds up kind of having a longer life and doing better. And Crimson Desert strikes me as a game like that. And I also think- Some people really do love a game that's just beautiful looking and that game is incredible looking. It's just graphically amazing. And that does still sell games. It seems that there are, I think, a lot of people were drawn to it because when you see it on YouTube

• 15:45Kirk Hamilton?

  and someone's like, I don't know, gliding around and exploding building while a dragon is overhead and landing and getting in this crazy fight and you're like, what is this game? I mean, I watched so much footage of it and thought, this looks amazing. What the hell? And then playing it, there's kind of a disconnect for me because the writing and the main character are so not working for me. But I think that stuff kind of starts mattering less the more you play. And it seems like a lot of people got it and just put in the time to kind of find the coolest things about it and they really like it.

• 16:14Jason Schreier?

  It's not just the writing and the story that I feel like, at least the opening hours of this game, week. I mean, you're playing and it's just completely incoherent. Like, you'll just have these quest objectives pop up that'll just be like, go give money to the beggar.

• 16:27Kirk Hamilton?

  Sorry, I'm counting that as writing. There's no context for anything you're doing.

• 16:31Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, you're just doing things and not actually doing why.

• 16:33Kirk Hamilton?

  It's a narrative design problem. There isn't a person to be like, go over and talk to this guy. It just says, go talk to this guy.

• 16:39Jason Schreier?

  It does speak to the importance that reviewers and critics, and I think maybe a lot of normal players too, place on narrative because a close comparison to this game is Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, which is a game that also has just a ton of stuff to do, but the writing is so much better than it is in Crimson Desert and the storytelling and the design and the way that it is all crafted around these two main characters who are very compelling, that I think that people really liked it more. And that game was a game of the year nominee and received rave reviews from critics. So maybe that's the answer here. It's just that critics, in particular, place more value on story than your average player might. Maybe that's the answer. I don't know.

• 17:22Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it could be. Yeah. It's an interesting vibe in that game, for sure. It felt almost as though my character was in a dream and was like having to deduce what the divine powers wanted him to do.

• 17:34Speaker 02

  Divine powers being the game developers themselves.

• 17:37Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, no, but actually, it is kind of The gods too, like your character is sort of chosen by the divine powers. And there's this feeling of like, you walk into a town and, and you just kind of are supposed to go over here because you just are. And you're supposed to go talk to this guy because then when you talk to him, he reveals that actually, you know, he's magical and he, he like starts glowing and tells you, oh, you have a quest and then vanishes.

• 17:58Jason Schreier?

  It's like, oh, you helped me even though you didn't have to. You were a hero.

• 18:02Kirk Hamilton?

  It almost feels like you're dropped into a sort of like a biblical story where you're having to act out the role of the like blessed, you know, whoever, like the prophet, without being really told what to do because the prophet wouldn't know what to do. It has a very interesting thing to it that, I don't know if it holds up or if that's true throughout the game. I really found it to be this like very strange experience of like, everyone else knows what's going on, but almost like the gods are messing with me. Like and they're, they're having me go and like talk to this cat that turns out to be a magical cat and there was no way for me to know that. It just sort of happened, but I had to talk to it. Because if I didn't talk to it, it wouldn't have happened. I don't know. There's a very strange chicken and egg thing going on with the narrative design of the game.

• 18:41Jason Schreier?

  Um, all right. Next question. This is from Morgan. Morgan writes, long time listener, first time asker. I just finished a book about invented languages called From Elvish to Klingon, where one of the chapters is about fake languages in video games. The chapter discusses the different purposes between in-game languages like Dini from Mist and game jargon like Leet speak. It was an interesting, if very dry, read. Here's my question. What is your favorite fake languages, language from video games?

• 19:10Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, man. I think, so I have one. I have a couple actually, but I would just mention Chance of Sinar, the game from a few years ago.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  Such a good game.

• 19:19Kirk Hamilton?

  So this is a game about languages and it has several invented languages within it. And you have to kind of learn how to translate from one language to another. And the whole, the whole puzzle of the game is figuring out from context clues what people are saying. And then also figuring out how to kind of help them communicate with one another depending on their language. And that is for me, like, it's not only a series of cool invented languages, but also they really function as languages and the central design of the game is built around. And figuring out what they mean and figuring out how to translate between them, which I just think is so cool. So I, I feel like it is very much worth mentioning that game in, in this context.

• 19:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a great pull. I, I just thought of Simlish reading this, which is a very similar to English kind of a language, but just sounds like fake English that was created for The Sims.

• 20:11Jason Schreier?

  Is that consistent or is that just like made up noises every time?

• 20:14Speaker 02

  I think it's consistent.

• 20:16Kirk Hamilton?

  A little consistent.

• 20:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's certain phrases that translate to mean specific things and are used over and over. I don't know if anybody, I don't know if it's like Klingon or Elvish where you could learn enough words that you carry on a conversation. It is great. And I, I do think that part of the charm of a fake language is like, do you want to listen to it for a long time? Especially if you're playing a video game for many hours as The Sims requires, necessitates, I would say. Um, that and I don't know, the Mass Effect characters have some pretty fun ways of speaking. They're all inspired by Star Trek characters, so no surprise there, I suppose. But those, that was the other franchise I thought of in reading this.

• 20:58Jason Schreier?

  I have two answers, two very different kinds of languages that you play that allow you to experience them in different ways. One is Erageon from Blueprints, which came out last year. And that's a game where learning that language is an important part of like solving puzzles and getting deep into the mystery. And there's even a whole letter that you can translate and some like story lore that you get out of that. And other bits and pieces here and there, puns using it, it's pretty, pretty brilliant by the end of the day. Um, and the other is Albed in Final Fantasy X, which is a very different type of language to uncover, because you uncover that by learning each of the 26 letters, each of which translates to another, kind of like a code.

• 21:41Jason Schreier?

  And you do that by finding these objects throughout the game that are Albed translators, one, one per letter, which is a much more just kind of straightforward, mechanical way to learn a language, but still is very little, very fun to get those little endorphin rushes of like discovering a new letter and. Realizing you'll be able to understand more of the alphabet language as you go and trying to find all 26 throughout the game. So two very different approaches that I enjoyed in different ways.

• 22:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, it is fun when games do that, like the fez method where over time you start to actually learn what a secret code means just by dint of seeing.

• 22:18Jason Schreier?

  Or tunic, you know, does the same thing.

• 22:19Speaker 02

  Or tunic, yeah, where just by dint of seeing the symbols over and over, even if they aren't necessarily a language so much as a secret code, you still start feeling really smart over time. I think that can be really rewarding in a way that a game can take advantage of.

• 22:33Jason Schreier?

  All right, next question, Kirk.

• 22:37Kirk Hamilton?

  Let's see. Okay, so this comes from Hussein, who writes, "Math blasters, but as a first-person shooter. Recently, I was imagining what math blasters would look like if it was brought back. I had played it way back on a 2001 PC after my mom bought a copy at Marshall's. In order to progress levels, you'd have to solve math equations and the numbers you'd need would be scattered across the level. I'm not describing it well. I don't know, I think you did a pretty good job, Hussein. That's pretty much math blasters. Hussein continues, "I then thought, what if it got revamped as an FPS where reloading needed math equations? Or you'd have to take down specific enemies. If in order to take down specific enemies, it required knowing what math formula would be needed. Anyways, what

• 23:21Kirk Hamilton?

  classic educational game would you bring back and revamp?"

• 23:26Jason Schreier?

  Oregon Trail, gritty reboot, Oregon Trail, AAA.

• 23:29Kirk Hamilton?

  Isn't that just Red Dead Redemption 2?

• 23:32Jason Schreier?

  I guess so. Well, I guess you get tuberculosis in Red Dead 2 instead of dysentery, but other than that, yeah.

• 23:38Speaker 02

  I mean, the benefit of Oregon Trail is that you could name your party after your friends. So I feel like the gritty reboot allows you to do a full character creator where you can actually make them look like people you know, and you get to like put yourself in the game sim style, but it's gritty, so they can all die of dysentery, et cetera, and you get to see their gravestones. Um, yeah, I actually had like sort of an updated version of Oregon Trail. I think I may have talked about this on our entertainment bonus episode that we did a while back, where we talked about games we played as children that had a pretty complex first-person shooter. Game that was part of the hunting mini game and like the original version of Oregon Trail. You're like barely moving those pixels around and moving the crosshairs over the buffalo. But like my version on my home computer was like a first person shooter.

• 24:23Speaker 02

  And that was like how child me learned I liked those. So I feel like there's a lot of potential there. It's essentially just a hunting, hunting game. So I, I don't know, I don't see why it couldn't work. Uh, it's already been remade so many times that why not one more, right?

• 24:38Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I would also shout out that episode we make, was it a bonus episode?

• 24:42Speaker 02

  I think so. And I think we put it in the main feed eventually because it was a favorite of ours. It's probably.

• 24:47Kirk Hamilton?

  We'll throw a link to that in the show notes because we, we talked about this on an episode. And I'll just throw out there that the Carmen San Diego games.

• 24:54Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 24:54Kirk Hamilton?

  I think could be really cool if they were, you know, done up in a modern style, a kind of either a point and click adventure or like 3D adventure where you have certain spaces all around the world that you're exploring, trying to find clues, interviewing people. I don't know, there's a lot of different ways you could go with it.

• 25:10Jason Schreier?

  Aubrey Dean by way of Carmen San Diego.

• 25:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, you gotta stop the heist, the master of heists.

• 25:15Kirk Hamilton?

  What if it's like a single location? What if it's a where and time as Carmen San Diego? And they really, there's one detailed, single location, but you have a time machine and you're warping through different time periods. So you're learning history, you're learning about what's happening in the outside world, but you're watching this one space kind of change, which could make it a little like less developmentally, like sort of ambitious, like overly ambitious where a time traveling world, like globe trotting mystery game could probably be pretty hard to make. If it was one location, maybe, but a bunch of different eras in time. I think that would, would do a good job of teaching kids about, about, you know, historical periods. That could be really cool.

• 25:50Jason Schreier?

  How about Mario is Missing, uh, remade for modern, uh, for the Switch 2?

• 25:55Speaker 02

  It's just, it's just the same game.

• 25:57Kirk Hamilton?

  I never played Mario is Missing.

• 25:58Jason Schreier?

  Oh man, it is a truly terrible game, Mario is Missing. I actually, I played it for, uh, well, I played it as a kid, but also for Get Played a few years ago, uh, back when that was called, how did this get, how did this get played?

• 26:10Speaker 02

  Back when they did bad games.

• 26:12Jason Schreier?

  I went on the show and talked about Mario is Missing. There's also, there was a series that I enjoyed as a kid called like Dr. Brain, the island of Dr. Brain, the castle of Dr. Brain. Those were always fun. Those are kind of collections of puzzle games, almost like come to think of it, kind of like Professor Layton. I guess that's a modern version of those.

• 26:31Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, and I mean, those games are pretty educational. I mean, Professor Layton is really a lot of like math and pattern recognition and sort of lateral thinking and creative problem solving. Like, they're not teaching you like the stuff you need to pass the standardized tests or whatever, but it's, it is pretty educational. It's more than just teaching you how to play. Like, it's teaching you how to think creatively, which is probably pretty great for kids to play.

• 26:53Jason Schreier?

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. All right, let's keep going. Matty, you want to read this next one?

• 26:57Speaker 02

  Sure. This is from Joe, who writes, "Hey, TC gang. Let's try that again. Hey, TC gang. Loved the State of Game Consoles episode. Wanted to offer a take to see if you would be up for debating it. My take: The PS4 Pro disrupted game console release timelines. It was the first console in the 21st century that provided a significant graphical update in a mid-cycle refresh, 1080p to 4K HDR. No other mid-cycle refresh did this beforehand, which is why the PS5's launch felt lukewarm, quote-unquote, comparatively. A wacky way to sum this up: The PS4 Pro is the actual PS5. The PS5 is essentially a mid-cycle refresh, and the PS5 Pro is the PS6 in disguise. Thoughts?

• 27:42Speaker 02

  P.S. Been listening since this was screen days, and you threw your hands down the best video game podcast out there. Would love to go to a live episode if you're ever in Minneapolis."

• 27:51Jason Schreier?

  I love all the suggestions.

• 27:52Speaker 02

  I know. I love these, I love these places.

• 27:54Jason Schreier?

  UK, Minneapolis.

• 27:55Speaker 02

  I feel like we should do like a demographic survey or something, and maybe that would be fun. But hey, what do we think? What do we think of Joe's?

• 28:03Jason Schreier?

  The PS4 Pro is the PS5, and the PS5 Pro is the PS6 in disguise. I think there's something here in the sense that these iterations have just made it way less interesting and exciting to get a new piece of hardware, because the power increase is only so much. Makes it feel more like phone iterations than console iterations. I guess the big difference, though, is that there were no games that only ran on PS4 Pro, whereas there were games, not many, but there were games that ran only on PS5. Similarly, now there's a PS5 Pro. There's nothing that only...

• 28:41Jason Schreier?

  Only runs on PS5 Pro. So without that, that playing into it, it's not really, it doesn't, you can't really make much of a case as far as different iterations of the console. Cause at the end of the day, the exclusives are the only thing that separates these things from like, I don't know, your computer, right? And that's why the Xbox has just fallen off. And that's why they're essentially just making a new computers because they've given up on this idea of exclusives. So it's, it's, it's hard to make much of a case that the PS4 Pro is that significantly different. As much as I appreciate the take.

• 29:18Kirk Hamilton?

  You know, what was the 3DS? There was like a, was it the new 3DS? What was it called?

• 29:23Jason Schreier?

  New 3DS.

• 29:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's literally called the new 3DS.

• 29:26Kirk Hamilton?

  The same era and that had some exclusive games, right? Didn't it? Cause it had that second little nub, like for a thumb.

• 29:32Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, it had like three total.

• 29:35Kirk Hamilton?

  So that kind of fits into this conversation at least.

• 29:38Speaker 02

  Exclusives and it was a console upgrade. So.

• 29:42Jason Schreier?

  There were, there were four physical new exclusive games. Xenoblade.

• 29:51Kirk Hamilton?

  So that is maybe, that's definitely worth talking about.

• 29:54Jason Schreier?

  There were just like a few. It's like less, less than 15, I believe. New exclusive, new 3DS exclusive.

• 30:00Kirk Hamilton?

  So, okay, okay. So now that's.

• 30:01Jason Schreier?

  That was just fucking weird.

• 30:03Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I'm thinking about how that fits in though, cause I think that gives some context to Joe's question. Because here's the thing, there was a new 3DS, but the next Nintendo console was not just another new 3DS. It was the Switch, right? It was a totally different console. Like it was a completely different thing. So as a result, it was like, there wasn't this one unbroken chain, the way that there is with PlayStations. So the question like, doesn't really apply in the same way. You can't say, oh, that new 3DS, well, that was kind of a bridge between the 3DS and the Switch. And that doesn't really feel true because the Switch is just dramatically different piece of hardware. The thing, part of what Joe is getting at, and part of what's going on here is that like, the PlayStation is just kind of always the same at this point.

• 30:45Kirk Hamilton?

  It is just kind of a gaming PC that runs proprietary software and plugs into your TV. And so the four, the four Pro, the five, the five Pro, it's just kind of like, ah, it's all kind of a slightly faster version of the same thing. And because Sony just has this one console that they make in this one line, it feels a lot more like it's all semantics. Well, what are we calling it? Is it the PS5 Pro or is it the PS6? Eh, like it's just kind of down to what they called it.

• 31:10Jason Schreier?

  Well, but it's down to what games play on it.

• 31:14Kirk Hamilton?

  That's true, but there's like, it feels kind of anticlimactic, or it feels sort of disappointing to get this like mid-cycle refresh because it's just a little bit faster. And then we get a new, like the PS6, that'll play all of the old games, like the exclusives on the new console are kind of less of a selling point because the console is like fundamentally mostly unchanged, you know?

• 31:35Jason Schreier?

  Well, so I think what Joe is arguing is that like the PS5 felt lukewarm comparatively, he uses the word lukewarm, because the PS4 Pro came out. And I don't really buy that. I think the PS5 felt lukewarm for a couple of reasons. One is that there weren't a ton of exclusive games for it, so you didn't really need to get one unless at launch you really wanted to play Demon's Souls. And the other thing is that the graphical improvements have not made humongous strides. And like we mentioned a couple of weeks ago, when we talked about the state of consoles, Red Dead 2 is still one of the best-looking games out there, and that runs on the PlayStation 4. And the reason I don't buy this argument is because that game looks just as good on the PlayStation 4 original. Like, obviously, the PS4 Pro makes it look better, but when you're talking about the

• 32:19Jason Schreier?

  lack of graphical improvements, if you compare a Red Dead 2 running on the PS4 original to just a game running on the PS5, a modern game running on the PS5, it is not a huge increase the way it is from, say, the PS3 era to the PS4 era. And I don't think getting a mid-gen refresh that lets you run games at higher frame rates and higher resolution really makes much of a difference there, because we're not really talking about technical specs like frame rate and resolution. We're talking about the actual graphical fidelity and how that hasn't made much of a leap. If anything, the biggest leap was the solid-state drive, as we talked about, and like the faster loading screens, and that really did feel like it distinguished the PS5 from previous consoles.

• 33:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, I remember that making a big difference for me, although my problem in evaluating that is that I didn't have a PS4 Pro. So I remember back when I got the PS5, I was playing Assassin's Creed. Must have been Odyssey on the PS4 and then put it on the PS5 and was like, oh my God, finally, the game is loading. I'm not just sitting here waiting to play the game. And I remember feeling like that was really nice, was that I could just play the freaking video game. And like, that was a big difference to me. But it's like, yeah, in theory, it looked, it looked pretty good. I could still play it on the PS4. You could certainly make the argument, I didn't need the PS5, but that was the most noticeable change.

• 33:41Kirk Hamilton?

  For me, I remember the most noticeable change was just that my console didn't sound like a jet engine taking off anymore. That was the big thing with the PS4, where playing God of War, I think it was, on the PS4 Pro, I mean, I'm sure it ran at a higher frame rate, but mostly it was just like, you could hear the game over because the console didn't just have fans running at maximum RPM at all times to keep from melting.

• 34:04Jason Schreier?

  All right, let's get to this next question. This is from Ewen. Ewen writes, "I'm not usually a big nonfiction book reader, but I really enjoy Jason's books, and now I'm yearning for more. Reading for Press Reset in particular, I've been noticing a bunch of parallels in the podcast industry where I work. Maybe that's your next journalistic endeavor. As far as I know, Kirk and Maddie have yet to publish any books. Do you guys have any plans for that? And what would you choose to write about?"

• 34:37Jason Schreier?

  Well, Kirk, Maddie, let's put you guys on the spot.

• 34:41Kirk Hamilton?

  You're first, Maddie, go ahead.

• 34:42Speaker 02

  Oh, but I can't, okay, I don't want to, I will say this, I am working on something, but I don't want to say what it is yet. But I will say, I talked on this show a while back about wanting to write a book and how difficult it seems, and how lonely it is, and how much I really like working with a team of people. It's part of why, when I founded Mothership, I did it with a colleague. And it's why I enjoy hosting this podcast with the two of you, instead of doing something all by myself. And I am working on something by myself and it is very difficult. It's definitely a change, but part of why I'm doing a nonfiction reported project is because

• 35:26Speaker 02

  it means that in my head and my heart, much like Jason's books, it's kind of like a group project in a way. And it isn't like I'm writing it. Like I think writing a novel or a memoir would be even lonelier for me, but I really enjoy talking to people and learning about people. And I'm very curious about a lot of things and that drives me in the work that I do. And Jason, I don't know if you feel this way, but I feel like that's the most fun part of any extended reporting project or book in this case, is getting to talk to people and learn about something I didn't already know about. And hopefully I'll get to say what it is eventually, but for now I'll just say I'm working on it and I'm excited to work on something like this.

• 36:08Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 36:09Jason Schreier?

  What would you, what book would you write about if you, aside from the one that you're currently doing?

• 36:14Speaker 02

  Sure. I will, I can describe a book concept I had that I didn't sell, which was that a few years ago, I really wanted to write about the intersection of Twitch streaming and cam girls and how there's like a pretty straight line between those two forms of work and how we owe a lot of how we see personas online to like very early internet sex work. And I think that's really fascinating. And I still think that's really fascinating. It's like a linchpin of the way the internet works now is that we're all performers. And I think the, the rise of OnlyFans has made that really clear. And like, that's something about internet culture and also games and playing games and, you

• 36:57Speaker 02

  know, the hot tub meta on Twitch, all that stuff that I, I still think is really interesting. And, and like anything else would involve me talking to a lot of people about something that I don't do and that I don't know a lot about, but which I think is really interesting. But yeah, anything I write is gonna, it's gonna have something to do with games. It's like one of my favorite topics to think about and talk about. So there's no real surprise there.

• 37:20Kirk Hamilton?

  I would read that. Have you, Matty, have you read or have you watched Margot's Got Money Troubles, the new Apple show?

• 37:25Speaker 02

  No, I'll check it out. Is that the premise of it?

• 37:29Kirk Hamilton?

  No, it's, well, it's based on a book that Emily just read and we started watching it. But it's about a young woman who starts doing OnlyFans. It's Elle Fanning and like Michelle Pfeiffer. It's like an all-star cast.

• 37:38Speaker 02

  Oh, that's amazing. I love Elle Fanning.

• 37:40Kirk Hamilton?

  But there's kind of like this rise of OnlyFans-centric fiction because OnlyFans has become such a large part of culture.

• 37:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:46Kirk Hamilton?

  And it's really interesting. And that book idea sounds amazing. Like, I would read the hell out of that. You should totally write it at some point.

• 37:52Speaker 02

  It's interesting how much, I mean, we kind of watched in our lifetime, like, perspectives change on sex work for the better, in my view, and also perspectives change on unions for the better in kind of a similar time period and like workers' rights generally. And I think that's like something that five, 10 years ago, I never would have imagined was possible. And it gives me some hope for the world, honestly, to be like, wow, like, times have really changed and people really talk about labor in a really different way than they did five, 10 years ago. And that's neat.

• 38:19Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it is neat. OnlyFans is like, have been a very revolutionary force in a way that is only now being understood, I think, by mainstream culture.

• 38:26Jason Schreier?

  Kirk, what's your answer to this?

• 38:28Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, I would write a book about music. I'm not writing one right now. There's a few things I might write. One would be more of a technical book, like an educational book, that's a kind of a music theory thing, like tied to strong songs. I will write this at some point, basically the Strong Songs Music Theory Companion, where at this point, I've made 170-something episodes of that show and I've covered like every like foundational music theory topic multiple times. So if I were to make a music theory book that was kind of explaining all, you know, music theory, just 101, but then to tie it to the show in a way that I could like reference each episode, you know, while the circle of fourths, you know, goodbye Yellow Brick Road has like the circle of fourths is in that. So I think

• 39:10Kirk Hamilton?

  that would be a really fun book to write. That's like, I don't, there would be some, I'd talk to some people for that probably, but it wouldn't be like that kind of book book. It would be more of like a, you know, theory textbook that accompanies my podcast. But I would love to write a book that is just about music. I think maybe, I could imagine starting with something kind of Broader that covers a lot of different aspects of music and understanding and appreciating it. And then just talk to all my favorite musicians and producers and people and get them all in the book. But then again, I know that it helps to have a specific angle. So, you know, picking just like an album or an artist or something to write a kind of definitive account about. And there are so many people that I admire that haven't had that book written about them.

• 39:55Kirk Hamilton?

  Man, I'm, I'm working on an episode right now about Kind of Blue, the Miles Davis album. And I'm reading Ashley Khan's book. This is, Ashley Khan is a well-known jazz historian. He wrote a book, it's just like Kind of Blue, The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece. And he went and just talked to everyone who is still alive. It's an amazing book. I'm like, dude, this is so cool. Like just reading this very detailed account, this really well-reported account of the making of this famous album. And I'm like, man, there could be a book like this about so many different albums. And that would be pretty fun. I don't think that's where I'll start, but I could see myself writing a book like that one day.

• 40:30Jason Schreier?

  Very cool. Just don't make it an oral history. I really, I really don't, I prefer reading narratives to oral histories.

• 40:37Kirk Hamilton?

  No, I did just read an oral history of like this horrible company retreat gone wrong in Honduras. I'll find it in Lincoln in the show notes. It was very great. It was a great read. But I wouldn't write a book.

• 40:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, oral histories can be awesome sometimes, but maybe not a whole book. Jason, Jason, are you gonna tease whatever you're working on since we've all tried to do that?

• 40:55Jason Schreier?

  No.

• 40:56Speaker 02

  No? Okay, fine. Secrets.

• 40:59Jason Schreier?

  Lips are sealed.

• 41:00Speaker 02

  Secrets.

• 41:01Jason Schreier?

  I mean, I've already written three books. You guys need more? Come on, three is enough.

• 41:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, we do. We all need more.

• 41:06Kirk Hamilton?

  No, it's never enough. Endless content, Jason.

• 41:08Jason Schreier?

  Never enough. The grind must go on.

• 41:10Kirk Hamilton?

  You gotta feed the machine.

• 41:11Jason Schreier?

  Let's do one more question. Kirk, is it your turn? Yeah.

• 41:15Kirk Hamilton?

  This is Naomi. Naomi writes, hey, listen, many games have companions or guide characters who travel with you on your adventures and give hints from afar. I'm thinking about Na'Vi from Ocarina, the radio friends in a Metal Gear game, or even a pet like Nyx in Star Wars Outlaws. My question is, if you were forced to have a character like this with you to go about your day, which one would you pick and why? Also, thanks as always for the show. I often make sure I have one saved. As a weekend treat to myself. Well, thanks, Naomi. We're glad you like the show. Yeah. What do you guys say?

• 41:44Jason Schreier?

  I think it would be nice to have the Last Guardian just hanging out with you all the time and just like destroying every building.

• 41:51Kirk Hamilton?

  A luck dragon or whatever.

• 41:53Jason Schreier?

  Destroying every building you walk into, like cracking open doors, just like leveling houses. You just have this massive creature just following you around.

• 42:01Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 42:02Kirk Hamilton?

  As someone who does have a slightly massive creature following me around in my house, it would be awesome if she were even more massive.

• 42:08Jason Schreier?

  And destroying things. How many things does she destroy?

• 42:10Kirk Hamilton?

  So many things, Jason.

• 42:14Speaker 02

  Just by wagging her tail, I'm sure.

• 42:16Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 42:16Speaker 02

  If Appa was the size of a luck dragon and was just identical to the way that she is now.

• 42:22Kirk Hamilton?

  She was the size of Appa, really, from the Last Guardian.

• 42:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was just gonna say Lieutenant Kim Kitzaragi. I feel like I need somebody just quietly calling me out for various spoils.

• 42:33Kirk Hamilton?

  To be your moral compass.

• 42:34Speaker 02

  My life. I think that's not dissimilar from the person I married in a lot of ways.

• 42:39Jason Schreier?

  Just be like, Matty, come on. Matty, what are you doing?

• 42:41Kirk Hamilton?

  He just shakes his head in disappointment.

• 42:43Speaker 02

  Wearing a cool jacket.

• 42:47Kirk Hamilton?

  That's a good one. I think I would pick Ghost from Destiny, but specifically Peter Dinklage Ghost, not Nolan North Ghost, because I want that kind of melancholy vibe that the Dinklebot brought to early Destiny. And Ghost is also really convenient, the opposite of the Last Guardian, because he just materializes when it's time to talk to you.

• 43:05Jason Schreier?

  Also, he can bring you back to life. I mean, that's a pretty nice.

• 43:09Kirk Hamilton?

  That I'm an immortal undead soldier, but just to have him kind of, you know, I'm like hiking up Mount Tabor, and he just appears and says, "Ah, Tabor. In the day, this used to be a space station, as far as the eyes can see." Sort of waxing poetic about whatever I'm looking at.

• 43:26Jason Schreier?

  And then the hive got here.

• 43:28Kirk Hamilton?

  Right. And I'd be like, "Oh, I have to get back to record for Triple Click. It's almost time." And he'd say,

• 43:32Jason Schreier?

  "Time?"

• 43:33Kirk Hamilton?

  "Time?"

• 43:33Jason Schreier?

  "That can't be right."

• 43:37Kirk Hamilton?

  And it would be wonderful. So that's my pick is it would be Ghost from Destiny.

• 43:41Jason Schreier?

  Okay, great. All right. That is it for the Mailbag. Once again, you can send us questions at [email protected] for future episodes. We're gonna take a little break where we talk about Max Fun and how cool it is and why you should support us for Maximum Fun Drive, and then we'll be back with one more thing.

• 44:04Jason Schreier?

  All right, Kirk, Matty, it is maximum fun drive. This is the final week of our annual pledge drive that our network does. For those of you out there who don't know, we are a listener supported podcast. We're part of the Maximum Fun Network and that means that we make the show. The show is only possible because of people out there who subscribe. And this is a particularly good time to subscribe because not only do you get our normal perk, which is bonus episodes every single month about all sorts of things, including one where we just ran about The Sopranos, season two and three, which is very fun.

• 44:40Kirk Hamilton?

  A mega sized Sopranos.

• 44:41Speaker 02

  Super sized.

• 44:42Jason Schreier?

  You also get a bunch of cool stuff. If you pledge, if you join at or upgrade to $10 a month, you get a triple click keychain, which is super cool, designed by Tom DJ. It's really awesome and it's a keychain. We had a bunch of pins that we made in the past and now we're doing a keychain. It's really cool. I'm excited to get one.

• 45:02Kirk Hamilton?

  Gradually, we're taking over all of your like your pockets.

• 45:04Jason Schreier?

  Yes.

• 45:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, we can take over even more depending on what other levels you might choose to join at.

• 45:10Kirk Hamilton?

  That's true. You could have your bag.

• 45:14Jason Schreier?

  Definitely, definitely don't think of this as that you're paying to become a walking advertisement for triple click. Definitely don't, don't think about it that way.

• 45:23Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no. Actually, you shouldn't anyway, because really what you're paying for is for all of us to have significantly more complicated taxes, which is something that we've been talking about.

• 45:32Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, don't pay because we don't want.

• 45:34Speaker 02

  Any week. No, no.

• 45:36Jason Schreier?

  You should definitely support us. So yeah, the bonus episodes are great. And then you also get this keychain. The higher you get, the more cool stuff you get. $20 a month, you get a canvas travel bag or Pfizer. $35 a month, you get a water bottle. But realistically, I think $10 a month is probably where most people want to go. That to me feels like a good sweet spot. You get a keychain, you get bonus episodes. Pretty cool, I gotta say.

• 46:00Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes.

• 46:00Speaker 02

  Pretty cool.

• 46:00Kirk Hamilton?

  You're a supporter of the show.

• 46:01Speaker 02

  A bargain in my view.

• 46:03Jason Schreier?

  Yeah.

• 46:03Speaker 02

  For all this wonderful, wonderful work we do for you.

• 46:06Kirk Hamilton?

  Do you think that anyone has ever seen a keychain that someone is carrying for, with like a podcast name on it and been like? What's that? I'm gonna go check that out. And they get on their phone and like Google it.

• 46:17Speaker 02

  Yes, all the time, Kirk. Every day, multiple times a day, it's happening.

• 46:22Jason Schreier?

  I've seen people like with stickers on the back of their laptops and be like, oh, that's a funny name. Like, what is, what is that thing that they're like advertising there? Keychain is hard to see because how often are, like, how much time do you actually get to spot someone's keychain unless they're leaving their keys on the table while they're sitting and doing something? Otherwise, usually you just kind of take out your keys for a second. So it's not really something you would get.

• 46:45Kirk Hamilton?

  That's a good point. I guess I'll probably just like attach mine to my bag and won't even put my keys on it.

• 46:49Speaker 02

  You could put a keychain on a zipper on your bag and then make it easier to zip and unzip. That's something I, I like to do with extra keychains.

• 46:56Kirk Hamilton?

  I'll do that as the, the ongoing triple click blingification of my bag.

• 46:59Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 47:00Kirk Hamilton?

  It'll like just eventually just be covered in shiny triple click things.

• 47:03Speaker 02

  It's funny to do that with your own podcast's merch. Like, I do feel like for our listeners, it's like cooler because they're repping that they're fans of the show, but like for us doing it, it's like, yeah, I make this. I make my own jokes.

• 47:15Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes, it's, it's less cool with each one that I put on.

• 47:17Jason Schreier?

  Well, you're a fan of the show too.

• 47:18Speaker 02

  I'm just kidding. It's really cool. It's really cool. We are in the band and we're wearing our own band t-shirt to our own concert.

• 47:25Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. Well, I mean, what are you gonna do? And yeah, and you get all these bonus episodes. We have dozens of bonus episodes that we've recorded over the years. You can check those out. We talk about shows and books and movies and all sorts of cool stuff. We talk about cooking and life and sometimes we do silly things like try to figure out which, in which is the best October in, in history for video games.

• 47:48Kirk Hamilton?

  It was a classic, a classic.

• 47:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, the hunt for the best October.

• 47:51Jason Schreier?

  And this year, we've done, we've talked about Resident Evil Requiem. That was a really fun bonus episode. Like I mentioned, we've been talking about The Sopranos. So most recent is season two and three. So yeah, become a member, upgrade, help us out, make this show possible. We don't do ads here at Triple Click. We just do listener support and we appreciate our listeners out there who make it possible for us not to do ads and still make this show financially viable for us. So thank you out there.

• 48:20Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes, thank you all.

• 48:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, thanks.

• 48:22Jason Schreier?

  All right. Let's get back to the show.

• 48:27Jason Schreier?

  And we are back. It is time for One More Thing. Maddie, start us off.

• 48:33Speaker 02

  Sure. So my One More Thing is a very funny movie that I watched. It's directed and written by a woman named Gillian Bell, first time director, and it's really funny. It's called Summer of 69, like the song. And it is about a very socially awkward high school girl who has a crush on a boy, a very popular boy, football player boy, and she has zero sexual experience. But she hears through the grapevine that this, this popular boy's favorite position is 69-ing.

• 49:08Jason Schreier?

  Ah, is it 1969 in this movie?

• 49:11Speaker 02

  No, it's the present day.

• 49:13Jason Schreier?

  Okay, okay.

• 49:13Speaker 02

  It's the present day. And so she, despite having never so much as kissed a boy, is like, I am going to somehow figure out how to become so sexually experienced as to seduce and 69 with this boy. And it is so funny. It involves kind of a series of madcap events whereby she becomes very good friends with this woman who is a professional stripper and hires this woman to teach her about sex and to teach her sex education. And these two women have this kind of like older sisterly, younger sister relationship that develops over the course of the film.

• 49:55Speaker 02

  It's like, I mean, it's directed and written by a woman, so it like comes with a lot of heart and care about like how that relationship could be really positive. And like, it's not a mockery of the idea of like this young girl really wanting to learn these things. And it's like, I don't know, it's like respectful and also really, really funny at the same time in a lot of ways that surprised me. And it's just, it's, it's really endearing. I thought all the performances were great. It has kind of like an indie movie vibe. It's like very few characters in it and pretty straightforward. If you like sex comedies, especially like a woman centric, girl, girlhood centric sex comedy, you'll, you'll really enjoy this.

• 50:37Speaker 02

  It was really hilarious. Um, it's called Summer of 69. And I recommend it. I think we watched it on Hulu, which, uh, yeah, Hulu also distributed it. So that's probably where it still is. It's great.

• 50:50Jason Schreier?

  Sounds silly.

• 50:51Speaker 02

  Recommended.

• 50:52Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, that sounds good.

• 50:53Jason Schreier?

  Kirk, what's your one more thing?

• 50:55Kirk Hamilton?

  My one more thing is a very funny TV show that we just finished watching, the second season of Deadlock, which is streaming on Amazon. And I believe that I made Deadlock season one my one more thing back when I watched it.

• 51:08Speaker 02

  You did, yeah.

• 51:09Kirk Hamilton?

  And, um, yeah, so hopefully some people out there watched it.

• 51:12Jason Schreier?

  Not to be confused with the Valve game that has not been announced yet.

• 51:15Speaker 02

  It's spelled differently, so.

• 51:17Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes, this is Deadlock, L-O-C-H, which the first season took place in Tasmania. This is an Australian comedy. The first season took place in Tasmania in, I think, a fictional town called Deadlock. And the second season does not take place in that town, but they just kept the name. And so, yeah, this is partly to endorse season two, which is very, very funny, and also just to endorse the show for anyone who hasn't watched it yet, because Emily and I watched season two, and I was just reminded of like how wildly funny and kind of crazy this show is. So, uh, as I said, this is an Australian, I would say, murder mystery comedy. It is a madcap comedy, a joke-a-second.

• 51:56Kirk Hamilton?

  Um, the, the logline could be kind of like a much gayer Hot Fuzz, where it kind of has that feeling that Hot Fuzz has, only many of the characters are gay women in particular, and there is a lot of gay humor and sort of like, that is very much the like center of the sort of storytelling. It is created by two women known as the Kates, I believe in Australia, Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan, whose humorous last names I think I have already acknowledged on the show, but it is wild that their names are McCartney and McLennan.

• 52:29Jason Schreier?

  So funny.

• 52:30Kirk Hamilton?

  And they are, I think, a fixture in Australia. They're like, they go way back, they've been doing sketch comedy and all kinds of like writing and comedy together. They are really funny. I mean, the, just watching a show like this, it's one of those joke-a-minute. Just like constant, constant, like, kinds of cursing you've never heard. Like, one of the two characters on it, the character Eddie, is just like inventing new kinds of, like, blue language that I just would never have thought of, like, every second. It's just like a million different ways of like, you know, the ways of saying fuck, basically. And she's just like totally out of control. So like, that kind of show, I don't know, I don't see them that often, because it's a really high effort kind of writing. You've got to just fit so many gags into every single line of dialogue. And

• 53:15Kirk Hamilton?

  they, they never run out of ideas. Like, it never stops being funny. So this is a, this tells the story of two detectives, that they became friends in season one, working together on this murder case down in deadlock. Their names are Dulce and Eddie. Dulce is played by Kate Box, an underrated comedian, because Madeleine Sami, who plays Eddie, is the like, you know, super rambunctious, she's the character who's cursing all the time, who's like a mile a minute. We have to turn on subtitles to understand half of what she's saying, because there's so many jokes, and her accent is like really strong. Where Dulce is the kind of straight laced, you know, upright, she's married to this very, you know, like, kind of touchy feely, like, earth mother kind of lady, who like, they have like a very healthy relationship. Well, I don't know about that. Okay, they have

• 54:00Kirk Hamilton?

  a, they have a marriage. And Dulce is like ostensibly the more kind of by the books cop. And then Eddie is the loose cannon. And they wind up working together. And that, it's that familiar dynamic. In season two in particular, Kate Box, so they've relocated up to Darwin, which is in northern Australia, which, if you think about hemispheres, northern Australia is kind of like the Florida of Australia. That's crocodile country. And this is very much a croc country story. This is, there's a crocodile-related murder, crocs and like croc, like tour, you know, croc farms, where people, tourists come to see the crocs. They're on this river, where there's like crocodiles on the river. That plays a very important role in the story. Where in season one, there weren't really any crocodiles, because that's, there, I don't know if there are any down in Tasmania,

• 54:45Kirk Hamilton?

  because Tasmania is far to the south of Australia. So it's very, very different in terms of the climate. So, you're in kind of Australia's Florida, and the Characters are just like, it's like Florida man, mostly Florida women, actually, but just these absolutely wild characters who run these croc farms and are completely unhinged, screaming at each other in these really thick Australian accents. Sometimes I was watching the show and because I'm not from Australia, I was like, is this insensitive? Like, it's like, should I, like, are some Australians offended by this? I don't know, I can't really, I don't think so. I think it's mostly like, because the Kates are so keyed into Australian cultural signifiers and jokes, they're like, they're so funny and in a way that I can just tell is deeply Australian.

• 55:30Jason Schreier?

  I mean, are you offended by Florida, like, jokes?

• 55:33Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, I think there can be depictions of like Florida, like, like Florida white trash, to put that in quotes, that I think can be insensitive.

• 55:40Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, put a pin in this until November of this year and we can talk all about that.

• 55:45Kirk Hamilton?

  Right, it can be a kind of, right, I guess, right when GTA 6 comes out.

• 55:49Jason Schreier?

  Grand Theft Auto 6, yeah.

• 55:50Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, this actually could be an interesting primer for GTA 6, since there are these crocodiles, there's this kind of swamp crime vibe to this show. But yeah, I don't really know, I don't get that sense. And I do get, I love this feeling, I also had this feeling with Dairy Girls, for example, of just a little bit of tourism, where it's a culture I'm not, you know, firsthand familiar with, there are just jokes, where I can just tell this is a very Australian thing, they get in the car and they turn it on and some song fires up, and it's a song I've never heard in my life, that just sounds like some 80s like sing-along bar jam, and I'm like, this has to be, to the Australian fans, like, the funniest thing in the world, like, what just happened, that this song started playing? Because there's a whole world of music in Australia that like, never quite made its way overseas.

• 56:33Kirk Hamilton?

  So there's a lot of that, and really just, I mean, it's a compressed season, the first season was eight episodes, this season is six. I, I think in both seasons, there was a pretty good mystery, that's like, very complex and complicated, there's a million characters, there's a lot of red herrings, you're just meeting all these colorful characters, there's a lot of great, like, horrible, like, body parts and stuff, you know, like, crocodiles, like, eating a guy, so they're recovering pieces of his body throughout the season. At one point, they just find, like, I think they call it the cock and balls. Because it's just like his butt and his like penis. And that's it. And it's like severed at the top and the bottom. So then they just have it like in a medical examination and they're just having to examine this like hilarious prosthetic that their props department made.

• 57:19Kirk Hamilton?

  So there's a lot of that kind of humor. And it's just, it's just very, very funny. And it moves so fast that by the end I was like, I almost think they needed another episode to kind of stretch out. You know, spend a little more time with the side characters. Luke Hemsworth, one of the Hemsworth brothers turns up in this as a very, very funny character. I wanted a little more time with him. But in the end, it's almost like, I don't know, being left wanting a little more isn't such a bad thing. And it's so dense with jokes. It's moving so fast that I was like perfectly satisfied and just laughing and laughing the whole time. So I really endorse it. It's great. And if you haven't watched Deadlock, if you have Amazon Prime, I really just, the show is awesome. Like more people should watch it. It is, if you just want to laugh and laugh and laugh at something that's very different and very funny, I highly recommend it.

• 58:04Kirk Hamilton?

  So that's Deadlock, season two on Amazon Prime, a fantastic and very funny show.

• 58:09Jason Schreier?

  Cool. All right. My one more thing is season two of Beef, which is a show we've talked about on this show before. Beef is a show on Netflix and the first season was about two people who got in a road rage incident and spent an entire season of television just trying to sabotage each other's lives. And that first season was so good and also so self-contained that it made a lot of people wonder like, what could they possibly do with the second season? Those characters' stories were over. So like, there's nothing you could really do there. Fortunately, they figured out what to do with the second season, which is introduce a new set of characters and a new thing to get angry over.

• 58:50Jason Schreier?

  And so they got a phenomenal cast of characters for season two of Beef, including Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, a guy named Charles Melton, who I wasn't familiar with, and Kaylee Spaney, who was the lead in Civil War, that movie from a couple of years ago and has also been in a bunch of other stuff since. And they play, so Oscar Isaac. And Carey Mulligan are a couple and then Charles Melton and Kelly Spani are a couple. And there is this generational feud between them. The Melton and Spani characters are very Gen Z, very like early twenties. Communicate in that Gen Z way are almost unrealistically stupid in some cases.

• 59:35Jason Schreier?

  And they're just kind of lack of understanding of the world around them. And then Isaac and Mulligan's characters are more, I would say probably Gen X rather than like elder millennial. They're a little closer to like, like a little bit older than Kirk.

• 59:50Jason Schreier?

  And it is fantastic. I've, I've watched five episodes out of eight so far, so not, I haven't seen if they stick the landing, but loving it so far. Just very entertaining.

• 1:00:00Kirk Hamilton?

  Given how hard that first season stuck the landing, it would, I, I might, I would bet on them.

• 1:00:04Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, a hundred percent. And it's a lot of the same like creative core behind it, including the director Jake Schreier, no relation to me. Even though my wife kept being like, oh, you directed this. Oh, cool.

• 1:00:17Jason Schreier?

  And I don't even, I'm not going to say what like causes the feud because it's very fun to just watch it unfold.

• 1:00:23Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, say, say less. Yeah.

• 1:00:25Jason Schreier?

  There is a fun like kind of fake out moment at the beginning where there's like almost a car crash. And instead of the, what's happened in season one, the two like drivers are like, you go, no, you go. And then we'll just like.

• 1:00:39Jason Schreier?

  But no, but it's very much, it's like, it's a season about relationships and these two couples just kind of like finding different ways to navigate their respective relationships. It's also about money and who has money and who doesn't. A lot of the story, most of the story takes place at this country club and everybody involved has like works at the country club and is not, and has to service all these extremely wealthy clientele, including a rich Playboy dude played by William Pinter, who is also great in this. William Pinter is, is long, like veteran actor who's been in a million different things at this point. And yeah, it's, it's, it's very fun. It's a very fun season of television from what I've seen so far.

• 1:01:24Jason Schreier?

  I don't, I'm not going to get into any more specifics than that, other than it's just very fun to watch, just like the first season was. I would say as good, if not better than season one of Beef.

• 1:01:34Speaker 02

  Cool.

• 1:01:34Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm super excited because we're rotating away from Netflix, but I have a few weeks left and I'm definitely gonna watch this.

• 1:01:40Jason Schreier?

  You're rotating? What is rotating away from Netflix?

• 1:01:42Kirk Hamilton?

  Like, we cancel our Netflix for a while because it's so friggin' expensive and there's nothing that we're watching.

• 1:01:46Jason Schreier?

  Oh, and you switch, so you switch like with other services?

• 1:01:49Speaker 02

  I get it.

• 1:01:50Kirk Hamilton?

  Kind of streamer rotation.

• 1:01:51Speaker 02

  You gotta cycle through the streaming services these days.

• 1:01:53Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes, keep them on their toes, make them give me the deals to entice me back.

• 1:01:57Speaker 02

  Make them work for it. Yeah.

• 1:01:58Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I feel like the first season was really, it was about a lot of things, but it was a lot about class. Like, it had a lot of really interesting stuff to say about money and class, so it's cool that they're sticking with that, with that theme.

• 1:02:09Jason Schreier?

  Oh, man, I forgot to say, so, yeah, I mean, the first season is very Korean. This season is also very Korean. One of the chief creatives, um, let me pull up his, I'll pull up his name, um, who, the creator and showrunner is Lee Sangjin, who is, uh, Korean. This one, I forgot to mention that it star, or one of the characters, not a star, but one of the characters in it is played by Song Kang Ho, who is the lead character in Parasite, the dad of the, uh, the lower-class family in Parasite.

• 1:02:39Speaker 02

  Incredible actor.

• 1:02:40Jason Schreier?

  A lot of, a lot of Korean art is about the class divide between the rich and the poor, as we've seen for Parasite and many other things. And this is very much exploring that same sort of thing. One of the, kind of the owner of the club is this billionaire Korean woman, um, who has their own story and character traits and interesting quirks. And the, uh, the, the Gen Z dude, Austin is his name, is half Korean, and that plays a key role in the story as well.

• 1:03:08Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, man. I'm so excited. I'm so excited to watch this. I can't wait.

• 1:03:11Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, it's really cool. It's really, yeah, class and class and money plays a big role in it, just like in the first season. It's kind of the undercurrent that fuels a lot of what is going on. But the beef itself is, is very fun to watch and it's very fun to watch. What's interesting about this one as opposed to the first season is that, um, these characters already had a relationship before the kind of the beef started, and so they already know each other, and so they're not like trying to track each other down or like get to know each other or anything like that. And also that it's kind of like two couples working against each other as opposed to just a man and a woman working against each other. It's, it's just very entertaining. It's, it's very good. It's very well done.

• 1:03:52Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, I can't wait. I'm psyched to talk to you about it when I, when I've watched.

• 1:03:55Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, um, hopefully I'll get to finish it before I start traveling, but we'll see. But yeah, let me know when you start watching and we'll chat. All right, that is that for this week's episode. And Maximum Fun Drive is about to end, so now is your last chance to get a bunch of cool perks and sign up. And also, we'll be doing a stream. Don't forget, as I mentioned earlier, on Friday, May 1st, the day after this airs, at 8:00 PM on our YouTube channel, at TripleClickPod. And otherwise, things will get back to normal. Next week, we'll be talking about Saros. So, check out that game if you're curious about it and you want to hear, like, you want to have played it before we talk about it. Otherwise, you can just wait and we'll tell you if it's good or not.

• 1:04:39Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, we'll tell you.

• 1:04:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, we'll let you know.

• 1:04:41Kirk Hamilton?

  Cool. Well, yeah, I will, I will see you both at the stream, and then I'll, I'll see you next week after that.

• 1:04:47Jason Schreier?

  See you next week.

• 1:04:48Speaker 02

  Bye.

• 1:04:51Kirk Hamilton?

  TripleClick 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. TripleClick 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.

• 1:05:49Speaker 03

  Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network.

• 1:05:51Speaker 04

  Of artist-owned shows.

• 1:05:53Jason Schreier?

  Supported.

• 1:05:54Speaker 03

  Directly.

• 1:05:54Jason Schreier?

  By you.