Repo and Inzoi Will Terrify You – For Very Different Reasons

We’re talking REPO. (Not the genetic opera! Not the Emilio Estevez movie!) The co-op horror game blends laughs with thrills by dropping some deeply strange characters into a terrifying world. Plus, we talk Inzoi. Is it a legitimate threat to The Sims?

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

• 0:00Russ Frushtick?

  Griffin, I found myself in possession of 726 Big Mouth Billy Basses and I want to know what you think I should do with them.

• 0:08Griffin McElroy?

  Well.

• 0:09Russ Frushtick?

  And sorry, I messed up. It's actually Big Mouth Billy's Bass. It's like Attorney's General.

• 0:15Griffin McElroy?

  Is that true?

• 0:16Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 0:17Griffin McElroy?

  That's interesting. I think that, first of all, how handy are you with like a pair of, you know, pliers and?

• 0:26Russ Frushtick?

  No.

• 0:27Griffin McElroy?

  Not at all? Okay.

• 0:28Russ Frushtick?

  No idea.

• 0:28Griffin McElroy?

  I was gonna say, like, you could crack all of those open and like, there's probably just trace amounts of rare earth minerals inside of each Big Mouth Billy Bass?

• 0:37Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 0:37Griffin McElroy?

  But it's, you know, you add it all up over time and all of a sudden, you're a very wealthy man.

• 0:43Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, sure. I should mention, I don't actually have physical contact with the boxes.

• 0:48Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 0:49Russ Frushtick?

  It's more, more an assurance or a verbal promise.

• 0:54Griffin McElroy?

  You have a verbal promise from a Big Mouth Billy's Bass supplier?

• 0:58Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, pretty esteemed.

• 1:00Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 1:01Russ Frushtick?

  Out in Hackensack.

• 1:02Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 1:04Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 1:04Griffin McElroy?

  What are they, what are they doing with them now?

• 1:07Russ Frushtick?

  As far as I'm aware, they're just storing them because they've got a warehouse and they, they're really just like looking to unload.

• 1:13Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 1:14Russ Frushtick?

  And they did show me one and it was in very good shape. And then they showed me a bunch of boxes, which I was assured also had Big Mouth Billy's Bass in them.

• 1:23Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, I think they may, this sounds like a shell game. They may be, they may be scamming you a little bit. Where they show you one piece of the, and this happened to, this happened to me.

• 1:33Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 1:33Griffin McElroy?

  With the new Furbies.

• 1:35Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:36Griffin McElroy?

  Where I had a supplier and they were like, yeah, all 600 of these boxes are filled with the new Furbies. Here's one to look at. I was like, hell yeah. I dished out probably $350,000 for that.

• 1:49Russ Frushtick?

  Worth it, worth it, yes.

• 1:50Griffin McElroy?

  But then I opened up the other 600 boxes. You're not gonna believe this. Rocks. In every single one, there was rocks. So.

• 1:56Russ Frushtick?

  Sometimes some of the Furby variants do look like rocks. So it's possible.

• 2:01Griffin McElroy?

  But I was gonna do like, um, my thing with the 601 Furbies was going to be sort of, you know, fetish related, not for myself, but like for production of content for the subscribers.

• 2:12Russ Frushtick?

  For people that like that.

• 2:13Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, for people that, and I'm, I'm not gonna yuck any yum. Actually, I will yuck this one yum.

• 2:18Russ Frushtick?

  Really? The Furby yum?

• 2:19Griffin McElroy?

  I will yuck this one yum.

• 2:21Russ Frushtick?

  Okay.

• 2:21Griffin McElroy?

  Don't, hey, you, put that down. Stop it.

• 2:25Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 2:26Griffin McElroy?

  That's a Furby. There's nothing for you there.

• 2:30Russ Frushtick?

  You can fuck these fish, though.

• 2:32Griffin McElroy?

  What started this? What started this in your mind? You don't have it. You're just shaking your head.

• 2:39Russ Frushtick?

  I, I've been singing.

• 2:42Griffin McElroy?

  Inside the bit.

• 2:42Russ Frushtick?

  I've been singing, "Give me back that Filet-O-Fish. Give me that fish to my son such that now he sings it back to me."

• 2:51Griffin McElroy?

  That's beautiful, man.

• 2:52Russ Frushtick?

  And just, it went from there.

• 2:54Griffin McElroy?

  What a, what a well-adjusted child.

• 2:58Russ Frushtick?

  Go over there.

• 3:19Griffin McElroy?

  My name is Griffin McElroy. I know the best games of the week.

• 3:23Russ Frushtick?

  My name is Russ Fraschigano, the best games of the week. What a quick introduction that is.

• 3:27Griffin McElroy?

  That's fucking right, guys.

• 3:28Russ Frushtick?

  Maybe that should be how it is all the time.

• 3:30Griffin McElroy?

  There's just two, just the two of us, talking about some random games, cuz Justin and Chris fell into the same toilet.

• 3:39Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 3:40Griffin McElroy?

  But that's okay. We're gonna be doing, uh, just a really casual hang sesh, um, with the boys. And we're gonna be talking mostly about two games that Russ and I have been playing this week.

• 3:55Griffin McElroy?

  One is topping the Steam charts, and one almost certainly will top the Steam charts when it officially launches, I believe, next week.

• 4:04Griffin McElroy?

  We are talking about Repo, the survival multiplayer horror.

• 4:12Russ Frushtick?

  Robot people game.

• 4:13Griffin McElroy?

  Robot people game. We're also talking about Enzo, which is also sort of a robot people game. By way of The Sims, but also Unreal 5, and it is pretty wild. We're gonna talk about both of those games after this quick break.

• 4:32Russ Frushtick?

  Repo. Repo is apparently an acronym, and I don't know what it stands for.

• 4:38Griffin McElroy?

  Really?

• 4:39Russ Frushtick?

  It's got periods in the title.

• 4:41Griffin McElroy?

  Pickup orders. Yeah, this is. So, did you play much, what was it called? Not brutal company. Was that what it was called?

• 4:51Russ Frushtick?

  Lethal Company.

• 4:52Griffin McElroy?

  Lethal Company, yes. Did you play much of that?

• 4:55Russ Frushtick?

  I didn't. I do have, for some reason, I have the Fortnite skin, and that's really where my knowledge begins and ends. Not sure why that happened.

• 5:02Griffin McElroy?

  I played it a few times, mostly for like stream with Justin and Travis.

• 5:08Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 5:08Griffin McElroy?

  And I feel like it's important to talk about this before we get into Repo, because it does feel like there's a lot of sort of similarities. My knowledge of this like subgenre, this very specific subgenre of like multiplayer, survival, horror, sort of treasure hunts.

• 5:29Russ Frushtick?

  It's like an extraction.

• 5:30Griffin McElroy?

  An extraction game. Yeah, I guess that is a good way of putting it. It's quite limited, but this game really does feel like it was informed by Lethal Company.

• 5:38Russ Frushtick?

  I think that's right.

• 5:40Griffin McElroy?

  Like Lethal Company, in Repo, you control a little robot guy.

• 5:43Russ Frushtick?

  Wait, you were robots in Lethal Company?

• 5:45Griffin McElroy?

  No, I don't believe so. I think you were just sort of like faceless clones, sort of. In Repo, you play as these little robots, and it is fully a rogue-like. Every run, you start over from scratch. You go into one of a, you know, a selection of levels that are randomly selected for you.

• 6:08Russ Frushtick?

  They've got like, what is it, like a wizard castle? They've got like a haunted mansion.

• 6:14Griffin McElroy?

  There's like a scientific facility. There's all kinds of stuff.

• 6:17Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 6:17Griffin McElroy?

  You and I think up to like six players?

• 6:20Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, Max is out at six.

• 6:21Griffin McElroy?

  Which is wild.

• 6:22Russ Frushtick?

  Seems chaos, but yeah.

• 6:24Griffin McElroy?

  You, you go through these different locations and you try to collect valuables and get them to an extraction point where they will be cashed out. And then you get back on your truck that you came in on and you get the hell out of there. And then you get to shop for wonderful little upgrades and tools and weapons and stuff like that. Things that set repo apart, that, that was all true of lethal company too. Things that set repo apart. It is entirely physics based. So if, if you are creeping along and you see one of the many horrible monsters that will absolutely kill you in one, one hit in this game, if you are carrying,

• 7:06Griffin McElroy?

  like, you know, a lamp, you chuck that lamp right at that fucking monster.

• 7:10Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 7:10Griffin McElroy?

  Bonk him right in the head a few times. Maybe you'll kill him. Probably not. You might daze him. I'll tell you what will happen. That lamp's gonna break. That is the other sort of like humor vector of repo is that you are trying to get all of these, these little extremely fragile items into a hovering cart that you can take back to the extraction point. And man, if you bonk anything with them, they are going to shatter and you will lose the money from it. It is hysterically funny when all of these things start happening all at the same time.

• 7:42Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. So, so you've got those, those base gameplay mechanics, but then they also layer in, uh, just like silly voice chat visuals.

• 7:51Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 7:51Russ Frushtick?

  Because you're playing as these characters that are, as Griffin mentioned, they're robots. They kind of look like the alien on the Android logo.

• 7:58Griffin McElroy?

  Hmm.

• 7:58Russ Frushtick?

  That's like the closest I can think.

• 8:00Griffin McElroy?

  Yes. The way that they talk. So this is another sort of lethal company thing is like you are encouraged not to use discord or whatever.

• 8:08Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 8:08Griffin McElroy?

  While you play this game. In fact, I would say it's pretty much necessary that you don't use discord or something like that while you play this game. Uh, because it is proximity chat based with your team. Um, and that, what that means is when you talk like into your microphone, you see the character's mouth move sort of like Terrence and Philip style, uh, just like opening and closing a trash can lid. Uh, but it also means like if someone gets too far away, uh, you can't hear them as well anymore. And so you hear like someone turn a corner in the distance and be like, hey, what's up? And you're like, well, did they just leave my proximity? Or were they just murdered by a monster? Because if it's the latter, you're not going to hear them anymore.

• 8:49Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, if someone gets knocked off a cliff, you'll like hear their... Yeah, it'll trail off automatically.

• 8:55Griffin McElroy?

  It's really, really, really funny. But then there's also lots of stuff where like, some of the treasures do wild shit to you, right? Some of the valuables that you're trying to collect do wild shit. There's like a doll that when you, it's worth a lot of money, but as soon as you pick it up, it starts throwing a fucking crazy tantrum and anything it touches, it will just sort of obliterate as it whirls its arms and legs around, including you or other players.

• 9:19Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I don't even know the strat. I guess you have to like fling it.

• 9:22Griffin McElroy?

  Just yeet it and hope for the best. Yeah, I usually do not pick that one up because usually it does more damage to the valuables I've already collected than it is worth. My favorite is there's an hourglass that when you pick it up, it makes you move very slowly, but it also makes your voice extremely low and slow, which is, when that first happened, when Russ and I were playing together, it was like so unexpected and so fucking funny, that we just like passed the hourglass back and forth for a while, so everybody could hear what it sounded like.

• 9:54Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, there's some other, I looked on YouTube, I didn't know this when we were playing, but there are other pro strats where it's like, if you're looking up, it'll pitch your voice up, and if you're looking down, it'll pitch your voice down.

• 10:04Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, that's very, very funny.

• 10:06Russ Frushtick?

  There's also voice to speech, text to speech. So if you're typing, it'll automatically like use robot voice to like communicate to the other players.

• 10:12Griffin McElroy?

  Yes, I like that a lot. It is, there is a thing about, there's a few things about this like genre of games, these like extraction rogue likes, that do not, I don't know. They don't really light my fire particularly. This is a rogue like, as far as I can tell, there is no progression between runs.

• 10:35Russ Frushtick?

  Not that we've seen.

• 10:37Griffin McElroy?

  Not that I've seen, yeah, maybe I, I mean, I have not played enough of this maybe to speak.

• 10:41Russ Frushtick?

  It seems counter to the spirit. I could see them adding like cosmetics or whatever, but.

• 10:46Griffin McElroy?

  And that's fine, right? Like you don't, I like stuff like that in a game, but since playing Wonderstop, I'm trying to play away my childish thing. No, I, uh, I like that kind of stuff in a game, especially one that is as brutal and difficult as Repo is, because the other thing is the monsters in this game will fuck you up really fast. There's one called the Huntsman, which is just a guy and he walks around and he has a shotgun. And if he shoots you, you die and you run. If you're playing, you know, single player, you run over. If you're playing with other players, they could run in and grab your head so that you can revive. But like, it is a hard, hard game, which lends itself to the fear factor of it, right? It makes every monster encounter

• 11:28Griffin McElroy?

  pretty scary, right? And as you play through the game, you, you get money and you go to a shop between each level where you can buy things. There's exorbitantly expensive stuff like a shotgun, right? Like, that's pretty obviously useful. But then there's like grenades and stuff like, but when you start out, you have very little in the way of defending yourself or, which I understand that there's sort of a power curve to it, but I have had so many runs where just in the first level, I, I turned a corner, there's a huntsman, he shoots me before I even have a chance to like duck and hide under a thing, which is sort of the go-to strat when you start out.

• 12:08Griffin McElroy?

  And then my run's over and that's not especially fun. I don't know.

• 12:15Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I, it does make me wonder if it's a spelunky thing, or even like a Noeda thing. I've been playing Noeda recently, where there are mechanics that we just don't know that will make those earlier runs much more fair.

• 12:31Griffin McElroy?

  Yes, right? Like,

• 12:33Russ Frushtick?

  Like, we didn't know the thing where you could pick each other up.

• 12:35Griffin McElroy?

  Right. Yeah. So you can, there's only certain objects that you can pick up, right? Valuables you can pick up and then items that you can use, like health packs and grenades and whatever. I haven't. Those might be scattered throughout later levels. I have not found any, but you can also, there's a button where you can turn yourself basically into an object that other players can then pick up and throw around and put up on high shelves and do all that stuff.

• 12:58Russ Frushtick?

  You could also launch yourself with that button.

• 13:00Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 13:00Russ Frushtick?

  As like a projectile.

• 13:01Griffin McElroy?

  A tumble dive, right? So there's, as if you're sprinting forward and you hit that. Now, you can use that to damage an enemy or knock them over. It also does damage to you. It is hard, it's hard to pull off, right? There are ways to like counter each of the, each of the monsters that you face, as far as I know. I don't, I'm sure I could watch a YouTube video that could like inform me what to do when that fucking horrible little duck starts following me around.

• 13:30Russ Frushtick?

  I think the point with the duck is that so long as you don't touch it, it's just chill. It's like Psyduck.

• 13:35Griffin McElroy?

  Okay, well, that hasn't been my experience.

• 13:37Russ Frushtick?

  Again, like I think that's, that's sort of my point is like, I think there's a lot that the game does not bluntly explain to you.

• 13:43Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 13:44Russ Frushtick?

  That will like eventually spread through word of mouth.

• 13:46Griffin McElroy?

  Right. That's cool. It is a really funny multiplayer. Like I think that it has its own sort of siloed off, single player mode.

• 13:55Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, I didn't know that.

• 13:56Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, it does. And I, it's not really any different from the multiplayer mode. Except that like, you know, it doesn't make you wait around quite as much, I suppose.

• 14:05Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, sure.

• 14:07Griffin McElroy?

  But it's, it, I don't really like that at all.

• 14:11Russ Frushtick?

  It's not really the point.

• 14:12Griffin McElroy?

  It's, it simply is not the point. The point is like, it is a really funny, stressful game to play with like buddies. And I think it fills that role very, very nicely.

• 14:22Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 14:23Griffin McElroy?

  And I think that that was also true of Lethal Company. But I don't know, this probably speaks more to my own kind of like preference and where I am at with my gaming time and gaming habits. Where like, I don't really spend a lot of time plunked down in front of my computer and microphone, playing online games with a bunch of friends. And so like, I don't know how, how hooked it's going to continue to keep me. Aside from like, I, I can see us streaming this one like on, on Clubhouse and stuff quite a bit.

• 14:51Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, that would be very good. I also think when you and I played, obviously just two players, I think it is designed. With the difficulty in my, I think it's designed for like at three or four.

• 15:03Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 15:03Russ Frushtick?

  Cause I could see there's an element of like, I'm going to draw enemies away from the pack to like distract them. Or you kind of gang up on enemies to like, take it out. When it's two people, one person instantly gets killed.

• 15:16Griffin McElroy?

  Right. And the other person just kind of like, well, do I?

• 15:19Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 15:19Griffin McElroy?

  Can I save them or should I just like?

• 15:21Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. And invariably it just ends the run very quickly.

• 15:24Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 15:24Russ Frushtick?

  So that is sort of a pro tip. I, I think from a core, like in the way that Helldivers, I think is a really perfect, like, oh, we've got 45 minutes. No one has been like leveling up their characters. It's not like Destiny where you have to be caught up. I think this fills that role really nicely.

• 15:42Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 15:42Russ Frushtick?

  This is the sort of thing that I could easily see someone filling an evening with, with a bunch of friends. Rather than having to, yeah, again, go through the process of making sure everyone's like ready and kitted out and things like that.

• 15:54Griffin McElroy?

  I, I, I think, uh, if you are familiar with Lethal Company, I, I have been enjoying Repo much more.

• 16:00Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 16:01Griffin McElroy?

  Than that one, because that one was, it felt a lot more, um, like a lot more sort of slow creeping around cautious. You know, maneuvering around different things, trying not to fall down, uh, off a broken bridge and die instantly. And, uh, this one is much more, I don't know, it feel, if a monster spots you, you can run and crouch and hide under a table. And like, the game is pretty tactile in that one.

• 16:28Russ Frushtick?

  Anything. I was kind of stunned.

• 16:30Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, sure.

• 16:30Russ Frushtick?

  Because you can get your body to be so tiny.

• 16:32Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 16:33Russ Frushtick?

  Like at the tiniest little cupboard you can get into.

• 16:36Griffin McElroy?

  And it's also, I think, just because of the physics and the, you know, hiding under a table with someone else and looking at them as they whisper to you and seeing their tiny little robot mouth flapping up. Uh, when Russ and I were playing yesterday, he was like adjusting his headset or something. And it was making this awful, awful, awful racket over the microphone. And while that was happening, his character's robot mouth was just like, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah. It's, it is just a very, very, very funny, very funny game.

• 17:07Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it gives me hope that like people, I mean, this has happened time and time again with a bunch of different genres. Baller Royale and whatever rogue likes, et cetera. That, you know, one installment comes out and it's kind of like a base version of the concept.

• 17:22Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 17:23Russ Frushtick?

  And I'm not saying, I don't know the history well enough to know if Fleetful Company was like the first take on this like micro rogue like extraction game horror thing.

• 17:32Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, that has been a mode I, I know in like lots and lots and lots of different games.

• 17:36Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, getting the fuck out, I think is also similar to that.

• 17:39Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 17:40Russ Frushtick?

  But.

• 17:40Griffin McElroy?

  I cannot believe you said the full name, the full title of that.

• 17:43Russ Frushtick?

  Maybe it's not, maybe that's not what it stands for. I don't know.

• 17:47Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 17:48Russ Frushtick?

  But this one, I think is like just an evolution of that genre in a way that is like very creative. And looks completely different from any other games in that genre. It has like a PS1, 3D.

• 18:02Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, it's more, I would say it's more.

• 18:05Russ Frushtick?

  Early PS2, maybe?

• 18:06Griffin McElroy?

  I don't know. It's a little bit slicker than that, than, than all that. It definitely has like a sort of stylistic kind of grainy, graininess to it.

• 18:13Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 18:14Griffin McElroy?

  That I think, I think it looks great. And also genuinely pretty scary, like in, in the way that like, when you're on a Dark Souls run and you have like, you know, a million souls and you're just trying to get to a bonfire, all of a sudden every enemy that you run into is the scariest thing ever. Like in, in Repo, when you have a cart full of valuables and you turn a corner and, you know, fucking No Face is standing there waiting for you. It's terrifying because you are so stressed out. You're so.

• 18:42Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, this is not good No Face. This is not nice No Face.

• 18:44Griffin McElroy?

  No, this is mid sort of gross frog transformation.

• 18:50Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, he's not riding the subway in this one.

• 18:52Griffin McElroy?

  No, he's not. He's, he's in the baths and he's barfing out gold nuggets.

• 18:57Russ Frushtick?

  My funniest, the funniest moment that I remember was you were in the other room and you're like, oh shit. And I'm like, what? And you were like a giant face and I didn't even see it. And I just like ran away and hid in a cupboard. And you joined me in the cupboards that were chilling in this cupboard. And then we like do a little peek out. And holy shit, it's the biggest fucking face I've ever seen. It's like an android face in a tiny little haunted mansion room.

• 19:22Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 19:22Russ Frushtick?

  So funny. I just like, like they take so many swings with the different monster types. Uh, and you really never know, uh, what you're going to be up against.

• 19:31Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, and I, I, I tell you, I, it feels extremely expandable. This like

• 19:36Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, yeah.

• 19:37Griffin McElroy?

  This concept like there, it seems like there is a lot of stuff you could add into this game. Um, even like new modes and stuff like that. We didn't even talk about the fact that when you are playing multiplayer, if you lose, if everybody dies and you get the game over.

• 19:52Russ Frushtick?

  Which will happen.

• 19:52Griffin McElroy?

  Which will happen over and over and over again. Uh, before the game is like really over, it sends you to this scrapyard arena. Uh, where you and all of your friends drop into, uh, an arena and you have to kill each other. Using the, the tools and objects that you have been, you know, maybe utilizing against the monsters, uh, in the game. And it's really very, very, very funny. Uh, because you could find a tranquilizer gun off the ground and try and pop one of your friends real fast to knock them out. And then you just kind of pick them up and drop them gingerly over the edge. Or you just like, as someone's coming at you with a sword, you can topple a statue over on top of them. Just all of the different.

• 20:33Russ Frushtick?

  But the physics is like so awkward that like trying to do anything deathfully is nearly impossible.

• 20:39Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 20:39Russ Frushtick?

  So it just looks very, very funny.

• 20:41Griffin McElroy?

  Seeing someone hit another person with a baseball bat and watching their tiny little robot body just fly 300 feet into the sky. As they scream like Jesse and James blasting off again. It's, it's, it's truly, truly hysterical and I really appreciate a game where like, I don't know. Humor is so inherent to like all of its different systems.

• 21:01Russ Frushtick?

  And it's fucking $10.

• 21:02Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, sure.

• 21:03Russ Frushtick?

  Like.

• 21:04Griffin McElroy?

  It's great.

• 21:05Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, it's really, really good. I'm glad we played it.

• 21:09Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, me too. That's repo. I think people are gonna be playing this game for a while. I think streamers are gonna be playing this game for a while. And it's 10 bucks. So that gets our seal of approval. I don't know what that means. Like, we don't do that here. And also, it'd be fucked up to give anything the seal of approval without Chris and Justin's endorsement.

• 21:31Russ Frushtick?

  No, I think we can just do it.

• 21:33Griffin McElroy?

  Okay, I guess we have a quorum.

• 21:34Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, we do it.

• 21:35Griffin McElroy?

  We're gonna take a quick break. When we get back, we're gonna talk to you about a wildly different game called Enzoey right after this. Do you know when the last Sims game came out? Do you know?

• 21:47Russ Frushtick?

  So I think it's Sims 4.

• 21:48Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, well, yeah. I mean, okay, so last mainline Sims game, not counting like the mobile one and all that.

• 21:55Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, yeah. So am I right that it's Sims 4?

• 21:58Griffin McElroy?

  Sims 4, yes, is the last mainline one.

• 21:59Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, I'm gonna guess it came out in 2013.

• 22:05Griffin McElroy?

  2014. It came out, that's a long, that's quite a long time.

• 22:11Russ Frushtick?

  Over 10 years, Jesus Christ.

• 22:12Griffin McElroy?

  It's 11 years ago, basically. 10 and a half years. It came out in September. That's wild. Obviously, that whole kind of franchise has become, like, the whole model of it has become different. I just did a, on Wonderful, I did a segment on The Sims. And so like, I was looking at kind of the history of it. And it was wild to see, like, Sims comes out and gets seven little, you know, fun packs. Then Sims 2 comes out, and it gets like eight little fun packs. And Sims 3 comes out, and there's like 10 little fun packs. And then Sims 4 comes out, and then nothing else comes out. And it gets like 38 different DLCs, and eventually becomes, it's free to play now.

• 22:48Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, I didn't know that.

• 22:49Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, so like, obviously, that is sort of the model. And Maxus is working on, I think it's called Project Renee. It's like the next Sims title, but there's like nothing out there about it. And so the market seems pretty...

• 23:05Griffin McElroy?

  Pretty ripe. The soil seems rich.

• 23:08Russ Frushtick?

  It's kinda wild that there just hasn't been anyone that's like really tried to go at The Sims.

• 23:13Griffin McElroy?

  There have been a couple. I don't remember the name of it, but in sort of like playing Inzoi and reading about it, there was one other game that people were talking about as like, you know, aspiring to the throne a little bit. Inzoi is, man, it is pretty wild. It is really, very, very, very Sims. It's extremely, like explicitly The Sims. Insofar as you make little, they call them Zoys. And you have the whole, you got the needs meters, there's a build mode, you can give them jobs, they-

• 23:53Russ Frushtick?

  You gotta shit, you gotta talk to people.

• 23:55Griffin McElroy?

  You gotta shit and wash your hands.

• 23:58Russ Frushtick?

  You don't have to wash your hands, it's optional.

• 24:01Griffin McElroy?

  It's good to, it's good to. So like, if you have played a Sims game, like it is very, very much, very much that. Developed by Crafton?

• 24:11Russ Frushtick?

  Well, published, published by Crafton.

• 24:14Griffin McElroy?

  Published by Crafton, yes.

• 24:14Russ Frushtick?

  The studio that made it is called Inzoi Studio.

• 24:17Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 24:19Russ Frushtick?

  They're kinda kicking off.

• 24:21Griffin McElroy?

  A Korean, Korean game publisher. They publish PUBG and a few other-

• 24:28Russ Frushtick?

  Crafton does, yeah.

• 24:28Griffin McElroy?

  Crafton does.

• 24:31Griffin McElroy?

  The, the bar of quality is like pretty crazy. It's Unreal Engine 5. The game is quite demanding of, of your computer, of your home computer.

• 24:40Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, let me ask you this, Griffin. Have you ever seen more realistic character models in a video game?

• 24:46Griffin McElroy?

  It's hard to say. There is, there is an aesthetic to this game. And it is very striking. And I don't know how to kind of describe it aside from like comparing it to like,

• 25:07Griffin McElroy?

  A lot of kind of like Korean MMOs.

• 25:12Griffin McElroy?

  I'm thinking like, um, uh, God, what's it? Black, Black Desert online. I feel like there is a kind of like soft beauty to like the way that the character creators in those games work that feel very much like this. The facial animations are pretty insane, are pretty crazy.

• 25:31Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. And you can, you can hold, like you could have a webcam pointing at your face.

• 25:37Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 25:37Russ Frushtick?

  And it does a face mapping thing.

• 25:39Griffin McElroy?

  So I don't think it does a, I couldn't get it. I don't know if it does like a face scan and then like the fucking EA game face shit that they had in like Tiger.

• 25:47Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, no, no, no. It doesn't do that. It does your animations. So if you're like opening your eyes or talk, whatever, you could, effectively, it's like a VTuber.

• 25:57Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, right.

• 25:58Russ Frushtick?

  Where you're seeing like your full facial animations within the character model of the game. I wasn't able to get it working for whatever reason.

• 26:04Griffin McElroy?

  It's a single.

• 26:04Russ Frushtick?

  But I have seen videos.

• 26:05Griffin McElroy?

  It's a single player game too. So like.

• 26:07Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, there's no multiplayer? I didn't know that.

• 26:09Griffin McElroy?

  No. So they've talked about like they may add, you know, down, down the line, but like, I don't know why you would want to do a, I don't know. I, I, there's probably people who are deep enough into the like the life sim genre that the idea of face mapping, you know, their facial reactions and stuff into a game that nobody else is going to interact with appeals to them. For me, it just kind of feels like a bit of a flex of like.

• 26:34Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah. I mean, it's also Unreal Hat, like the app already existed. So it's just them taking the data from the app essentially.

• 26:41Griffin McElroy?

  So like, I, I, how, I don't know how familiar you are with The Sims, but like, I feel like.

• 26:45Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, I, I, so I, my experience with The Sims was I played Sims one.

• 26:49Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 26:50Russ Frushtick?

  Probably like 10 hours. I'd like had the loop and that was like very engaging for those 10 hours and then very depressing right when it ended.

• 27:00Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 27:00Russ Frushtick?

  And that's not me nagging people that like The Sims, like fucking do you, you do you.

• 27:04Griffin McElroy?

  Different strokes, right.

• 27:05Russ Frushtick?

  But my, it just like was, I was, any game where I'm like, oh, I'm washing my hands and pooping, like I could wash my hands and poop at home. Like.

• 27:13Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 27:14Russ Frushtick?

  It just doesn't feel like a fantasy to me.

• 27:15Griffin McElroy?

  Sure.

• 27:16Russ Frushtick?

  But I do. Get it like I designing your house and like all that stuff, the Animal Crossing stuff like I totally get.

• 27:22Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 27:22Russ Frushtick?

  So I jumped into this really having almost no context.

• 27:26Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, so you didn't place like two, three, four, anything else. Wow. Okay. So yeah, okay. This will be interesting because I have played all those games. So I'm curious how this.

• 27:34Russ Frushtick?

  I didn't know what to do in this.

• 27:36Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 27:36Russ Frushtick?

  And I don't, it's going to be hard to ask you to, but please, please don't try to judge me for what I'm about to say. I didn't know what to do because it's a life sim and I was like, how can I like, how long is it going to take for me to fuck someone?

• 27:52Griffin McElroy?

  So that's interesting. That is a lot.

• 27:54Russ Frushtick?

  My immediate, because I was like, or I could go to a job.

• 28:00Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, no, I mean, you, you, you have a bevy of options available to you, right? When you create your Zoy. And those, those options include going to work, becoming a volunteer firefighter, or trying to take one of your thousand beautiful neighbors to Pork City. And that's fine that you went that way. I'm not judging.

• 28:18Russ Frushtick?

  Okay, good. I appreciate it. Um, I guess.

• 28:20Griffin McElroy?

  It's not like you hacked, you know, that into the game that is there. It's available to you. It's there. Normal. And you're just, you know, you're, you're a sexual being, Russ.

• 28:29Russ Frushtick?

  Apparently. Okay. So do you want me to talk through my romance?

• 28:33Griffin McElroy?

  I want to talk about actually anything else. Yeah, I did enjoy the, the primer that Russ did send me. You know, like the day we got code and we should point out that we were playing like an early access.

• 28:46Russ Frushtick?

  It's basically what's going to be available to the public in early access next week.

• 28:50Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 28:50Russ Frushtick?

  Felt pretty far along to me.

• 28:52Griffin McElroy?

  Yes, absolutely. Uh, the release date of Inzo is March 28th. So yeah, this is next week.

• 28:57Russ Frushtick?

  I'm going to jest the experience. Uh, so I was walking through the town as my Zoy.

• 29:02Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 29:03Russ Frushtick?

  And, um, I, uh, met someone, I was going, I, I started on a town that looked like, uh, Santa Monica in California.

• 29:12Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, the one with the pier. Okay, cool.

• 29:13Russ Frushtick?

  The pier. And I met, um, a nice lady on the pier and I started talking to her.

• 29:19Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 29:20Russ Frushtick?

  And she didn't seem interested in talking to me because she kept walking by. And let me just reiterate. This is not my MO. I do not stalk people.

• 29:31Griffin McElroy?

  Jesus Christ, Russ.

• 29:33Russ Frushtick?

  I just wanted to see like, how realistic is this going to be? Cause in theory, the realistic scenario is I try to talk to her again. And she's like, get the fuck away from these psychopaths.

• 29:43Griffin McElroy?

  I don't know. I don't know how you built your character. Every conversation I have had in the game, anytime I like the options start to lean towards like compliment their hair. I do that and they're like, no, and they run away. They do leave instantly.

• 29:57Russ Frushtick?

  Okay. So because I knew what my objective was before starting to play.

• 30:01Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 30:02Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, I picked socialite, which is like the social butterfly one.

• 30:06Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, sure.

• 30:06Russ Frushtick?

  Which apparently helped because when I talked to her again, she was really having a good time and we were chatting, chatting, chatting, chatting, chatting, touched hair.

• 30:15Griffin McElroy?

  You touched hair?

• 30:16Russ Frushtick?

  Touch, well, not, we didn't touch hair and hair.

• 30:19Griffin McElroy?

  Slow down, dude. Do like a Navi. Is that what you mean by lovemaking? You did it Navi style?

• 30:24Russ Frushtick?

  So I was like, oh, things are going great. You want to go on a date? We set up a date. This is about six minutes into me talking to her. Uh, we set up a date. We met at the fountain, which was nearby.

• 30:36Griffin McElroy?

  Wait, you set up a date and the date was let's go over to that fountain in four minutes? Like.

• 30:42Russ Frushtick?

  It was in about, yeah. I mean, I think that a Zoi day is like 96 minutes.

• 30:47Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 30:47Russ Frushtick?

  So it was probably like an hour from then in real time.

• 30:50Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 30:51Russ Frushtick?

  So we set up the date. We meet there. We have paninis. I ask if I can kiss her. She says, yes. Then she says, I think we're true loves now and I agree. And then she texts me, hey, things have been going so great. I don't want to forget about our great memories. And I text her back like, yes, I completely agree. Things are going great in these 30 minutes that we've known each other.

• 31:17Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, it's been special.

• 31:18Russ Frushtick?

  And then I go home because it's been a long day. Uh, I poop and then I call her and I say, hey, do you want to come over? And then we smash and then she starts cleaning.

• 31:29Griffin McElroy?

  Did you wash your hands after you pooped?

• 31:31Russ Frushtick?

  No comment. And then she starts cleaning my apartment while I'm asleep after smashing.

• 31:36Griffin McElroy?

  Is it? Okay. This is insane.

• 31:38Russ Frushtick?

  And I have photographic evidence to prove.

• 31:40Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, he sent me a, it was Ferris Bueller's Day Off style, whirlwind romance. It's very strange that that was your experience because my experience of like socializing and, and when I built my Zoy, my ambitions were much more like personal growth and so maybe.

• 32:02Russ Frushtick?

  Be not a fucking monster.

• 32:04Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, and maybe it's a skill issue. Like you are a Lothario.

• 32:09Russ Frushtick?

  I was picking some good, good things, good conversation points.

• 32:12Griffin McElroy?

  My, my experience with like, you know, communicating with the other Zoys in the game. I don't like saying that word.

• 32:20Russ Frushtick?

  No, I don't either. It doesn't feel good.

• 32:21Griffin McElroy?

  Talking to other people in the game, you know, you, you have lots of different conversation topics to discuss and it will like increase or decrease a few different like social meters. So you have like a friend meter and a work colleague meter and a love meter. And I'm really good at the first two, but those things like build very, very slowly. Okay, let's start, let's, I very much enjoyed that that was your experience. Just some brass tack stuff, right?

• 32:49Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 32:51Griffin McElroy?

  There's a needs meter, there's eight needs, your hygiene, your hunger, your, you know. One of them I thought was interesting was validation, is it mean? So like the need to have people kind of like recognize your, your stuff.

• 33:05Russ Frushtick?

  Mission accomplished.

• 33:06Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, I can't imagine any more validating of an experience for a socialite. And so like some of the game is kind of managing that stuff, right?

• 33:16Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, and you can automate it. Like there's AI where it'll just do that stuff.

• 33:21Griffin McElroy?

  There is some AI stuff at the game that is like actual AI and we will.

• 33:25Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, we're gonna get, we'll get to it.

• 33:28Griffin McElroy?

  So like some of the game is managing that stuff. You have moods that you will get into if you are, you know, if you have to shit and you aren't doing it and the meter gets bad, you'll become uncomfortable. Now you have this mood and that affects like your ability to talk to other people or like increase these skills or whatever. So you're also kind of trying to manage. Moods, then there's things like ambitions where you, you know, I want to become a great painter. And I have a few little side quests for that. And you have like little random. I forget what they're called, but just like little, little small goals that you have like flex in front of the mirror that will pop up. That are sort of informed by your, you know, your skills and your values and all of this different.

• 34:13Griffin McElroy?

  It is a, a pretty complex system. That I think is it works, works really well.

• 34:19Russ Frushtick?

  Do you think like that stuff feels very different from The Sims?

• 34:24Griffin McElroy?

  Not, no, that stuff, not particularly.

• 34:27Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 34:28Griffin McElroy?

  What does feel different from The Sims? Is, ah, gosh, it's, it's honestly kind of tough to come up with, with stuff.

• 34:40Russ Frushtick?

  There is. There's a couple of things. One, I had a question. So The Sims, and again, I haven't played one in a thousand years.

• 34:45Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 34:47Russ Frushtick?

  In newer versions of The Sims, are you directly controlling your character or are you using a mouse, mouse to like just give it points to walk to?

• 34:55Griffin McElroy?

  Yes. So you are, it's the latter. In this one, you can, there's like Wazdi controls.

• 35:00Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 35:00Griffin McElroy?

  Weirdly.

• 35:01Russ Frushtick?

  Which I kind of.

• 35:01Griffin McElroy?

  I do like it.

• 35:02Russ Frushtick?

  I like that. It felt a little more direct.

• 35:04Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, you can jump, the, the framing of the game is that you are like this deity that is in charge of a whole city. And like it views that through the lens of The Sims.

• 35:14Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, is that what the cat thing is?

• 35:16Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, there's like a weird metal air of like a magic cat and you're like managing everything through a computer. Anyway. That is reflected in your ability to truly change, like anything about, about the game. There is, you can change elements of the city, right? Like everything like you, oh, that street corner. I want to make it look like dilapidated and that tree should be different. And like, so like you, you have these extremely broad ranging. Sort of powers of customization. There are studio modes where you can.

• 35:49Griffin McElroy?

  Really get granular with like character creation or like home decoration. And then I believe, this is not available in the build that we played, but then you can upload that stuff to what's called Canvas, I think. And then other people can like download these, these prefabs that other players have made. That is also something that is kind of like also in The Sims, but I don't know, the amount of stuff you are able to change, especially with the like home decor stuff, like I want to-

• 36:20Russ Frushtick?

  Or even just clothing, like the idea that you could have any t-shirt and then like the sleeves, there's like six different sleeve options for any shirt.

• 36:28Griffin McElroy?

  You can also, and this is where we start to get into the, some of the like generative AI stuff.

• 36:36Griffin McElroy?

  You can, and I was not able to get this to work and also wasn't particularly interested in it. You can, with your phone linked up to us, you know, this specific, I guess, Enzo app, take a picture of a graphic or a shirt or whatever, and then like get that in a shirt or whatever in the game.

• 36:56Russ Frushtick?

  I didn't even know you could do-

• 36:57Griffin McElroy?

  Supposedly you can like take pictures of objects in real life and then those will, you can put them into the game. I don't know how to do that stuff, but it seems a lot like witchcraft.

• 37:12Russ Frushtick?

  And then the like even more blunt generative stuff is, oh, I want a heart pattern.

• 37:19Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 37:19Russ Frushtick?

  You could type in like hearts for a t-shirt and it'll use generative AI, which-

• 37:25Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 37:25Russ Frushtick?

  This is where things get, oh, sketchy, because I honestly don't know where this is being pulled from. They say it's like-

• 37:32Griffin McElroy?

  They say it's all internal copyright free stuff, right?

• 37:35Russ Frushtick?

  We just realistically-

• 37:36Griffin McElroy?

  I don't know how one fact checks that, but yeah.

• 37:39Russ Frushtick?

  There's no way to know for sure.

• 37:40Griffin McElroy?

  They also say it's all client side, so it is not like-

• 37:43Russ Frushtick?

  Right.

• 37:44Griffin McElroy?

  The things that you are generating are being, you know, uploaded for other people, I guess, unless you share it on Canvas. I don't know. It's, it is-

• 37:54Russ Frushtick?

  What's weird, here's, here's where I feel, obviously, the generative AI, like art generation stuff, like I want human beings designing shirts for this. There's also the like horror show scenario that The Sims has fallen into, which is, oh, you need to pay $6 for a fucking dustbin.

• 38:11Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 38:12Russ Frushtick?

  Like upgrade. So like, I don't know. Those are probably two different things, but like.

• 38:17Griffin McElroy?

  I think so. We're what this is. I think there's a lot of when you start talking about generative AI, especially how it is utilized in games or media in general. There's like a few different angles to it. How is it trained? Is it's just full wholesale stealing shit from other artists and then using that to like, train its AI? They say no, but who fucking knows? Um, the other thing that gets like, kind of weird is like, it is being used specifically for user generated content, which is its own kind of like kettle of fish. Right? Like, I think that user generated content is very cool because like, especially in a sim game like this,

• 38:56Griffin McElroy?

  it gives you the, the tools to, you know, uh, create. And that is very satisfying in a way that just, uh, interacting with the thing is not. And so if the generative AI is being used on the user generated content side, uh, the question becomes like, is it replacing, uh, you know, an artist who would be working for this game developer? Right?

• 39:20Russ Frushtick?

  Right.

• 39:20Griffin McElroy?

  That's the big question. Is it, is it taking away a job from a human being? And because it is being sort of like utilized for UGC, it's like, I, you know, it get, it gets weird. If, if you say yes to that, then the question is like, well, does user generated content in general, take work away from people, which right? Like, it gets very, very, it spins out very, very wildly. There is also like a reality where you could play this game without fucking with that stuff.

• 39:47Russ Frushtick?

  I honestly didn't know, which is not good, uh, reporting for me. I was clearly focused on a specific task, but I didn't know that there was the AI stuff until Griffin mentioned it to me.

• 39:56Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 39:57Russ Frushtick?

  Which isn't, again, uh, that, that was my fuck up, but like, it did seem like the offerings, uh, just like the base game without touching any of that stuff was pretty fucking robust.

• 40:07Griffin McElroy?

  Yes.

• 40:07Russ Frushtick?

  So if you don't want to touch any of that stuff, but again, you are still supporting a company that is very much engaged with AI stuff. So that is. It's really, again, very tough to talk about this stuff, but we want to kind of give you the full picture.

• 40:18Griffin McElroy?

  Especially because we are not smart men. We're not, we aren't.

• 40:22Russ Frushtick?

  We are, one of us is a Lothario, but beyond that.

• 40:26Griffin McElroy?

  And my shit was all about like self-improvement, which basically meant I sat in front of my computer. I built a, I built my own house. That was cool. I genuinely enjoyed.

• 40:34Russ Frushtick?

  Like your real life house?

• 40:35Griffin McElroy?

  No, not my real life house, but like, you know, I got deep in the gully works of the, of the build mode.

• 40:40Russ Frushtick?

  You did.

• 40:40Griffin McElroy?

  Which is sort of, um, true to form, kind of like how I also played the Sims games. Like I would create these wonderful villas for myself and sometimes my family, but mostly myself to live in. And I really love getting in there and really making a space my own. Um, but I did something fucked up where like my Sim wouldn't sit down to eat anywhere except my desk in my office.

• 41:05Russ Frushtick?

  Oh no, that sounds realistic.

• 41:08Griffin McElroy?

  Which felt like the game clocked me in a way that I was not like really comfortable with.

• 41:13Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 41:14Griffin McElroy?

  Whenever I would like have a gathering of other Sims, like they would only go into my office with me. Like there was some weird shit, uh, that got very annoying. One reason why I didn't pursue a lot of social activities is because, um, when you're like having a conversation with somebody, you can sort of switch topics at will from this huge list.

• 41:32Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 41:32Griffin McElroy?

  Sometimes it'll like suggest stuff in the list to the, that, you know, would be a smooth transition to the next topic. But sometimes when you pick an option from that list, both of the characters who are talking will stop and then turn around and sit down in a chair and then they will do that part of the conversation. And then they will stand up and kind of walk in a circle and then stand somewhere else and then continue that part of the conversation. Like there's a lot of

• 41:58Griffin McElroy?

  kind of weirdly clumsy stuff. Anytime I cooked anything, anytime I cooked anything in my kitchen, I would make the food and I would have this plate of, you know, uh, of English breakfast. And then I would walk into my living room and I would set it down on the coffee table and then I would walk away. And every single time I'd be like, no fucking, you gotta eat that. And he'd be like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And he would walk over, he'd pick it up off the coffee table, walk right into the fucking office, sit down at the desk to eat his English breakfast. It's, it's, there's, there's some like, I don't know. That pathing shit.

• 42:29Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:30Griffin McElroy?

  Is the. Is the, is the difficulty of making a game with this like, uh, complex system of, uh, interactions and stuff, it feels like they're, I ran into a lot of that shit, but.

• 42:44Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I, it doesn't feel, again, if, assuming that the public build is the, which I'm pretty sure it is, the build that we played, it doesn't feel like rough, rough in the way that like a lot of early access stuff, right? When it launches is rough, but it definitely doesn't feel like a 1.0.

• 42:59Griffin McElroy?

  No, it, yeah, it really doesn't. And especially insofar as like, I don't know, I've played a lot of Sims and I spent my first hour and a half, two hours of this game, like absolutely spinning my wheels because I was not, there was a lot, there was just enough that was kind of different from how the Sims worked.

• 43:14Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 43:15Griffin McElroy?

  That I was having to kind of, I also haven't played the Sims in a while.

• 43:18Russ Frushtick?

  Right.

• 43:19Griffin McElroy?

  Full disclosure. Um, but I was having to kind of like relearn how like a lot of this stuff worked. And it really drops you into these big cities with very little guidance. And so like day one, you feel this paralysis of like, well, should I go to the fucking job?

• 43:35Russ Frushtick?

  I didn't have that problem.

• 43:36Griffin McElroy?

  No, you didn't, did you?

• 43:37Russ Frushtick?

  No.

• 43:37Griffin McElroy?

  Fucking perv. Um, I, it's, I think it's too soon to tell. I think that it is, uh, it is gorgeous. It is, it is a, a.

• 43:47Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, I couldn't, for what it's worth, I had to run it on low.

• 43:50Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, did you?

• 43:51Russ Frushtick?

  With ray tracing. Yeah. My, my computer's getting there. So I'm, I'm due, but, uh, uh, yeah, a few, my, my setup's a few years old and to get a stable, stable frame light, I had to run it on low. But I'm sure if you jack it up.

• 44:04Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 44:05Russ Frushtick?

  It looks, I've seen video and it looks fucking stunning.

• 44:07Griffin McElroy?

  Um, I got, I, I didn't have to do that. My load times were pretty bad, pretty gnarly.

• 44:13Russ Frushtick?

  Where were you seeing load times though? Cause it's all fluid, right?

• 44:16Griffin McElroy?

  Um, sometimes, uh, transitioning like between build mode and like city mode, or like looking at one plot and then leaving and going to another plot. Sometimes it instantly loaded. Sometimes it did not. I don't know why. And maybe it was like a, you know, caching textures or something. Um, I'm not a smart man. Uh. So yeah.

• 44:36Russ Frushtick?

  I'm glad we really showed the range of possibilities within inside between the two of us.

• 44:41Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, right. You can live a sort of like Aramite existence where you build shitty puzzle apps on your laptop while you eat an English breakfast by yourself, or you can go out and fall in love and boink in this.

• 44:56Russ Frushtick?

  Well, let's not go crazy on the love part, but yeah.

• 44:58Griffin McElroy?

  Well, it sounded like you guys made a really deep connection.

• 45:01Russ Frushtick?

  Well, one of us did.

• 45:02Griffin McElroy?

  Geez, Russ. It is. Yeah, I don't know. It's too soon to tell. I feel like it's it is a game that a lot of people are going to. A lot of people with more experience in this realm are going to have a lot to say about.

• 45:15Russ Frushtick?

  It seems crazy to me. Again, this is me speaking with very little context because I haven't played. It seems crazy to me that Sims people wouldn't definitely at least try it and not find this to be like a pretty significant like enhancement to what they've been playing for many, many years.

• 45:32Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 45:33Russ Frushtick?

  Like it just.

• 45:34Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, I don't. Okay, here's the thing. If we're gonna get into that. If you have been playing The Sims 4 for many years and you have the 38 expansion, like the amount of content available to you is unimaginable. It's it's so much shit and this doesn't.

• 45:50Russ Frushtick?

  But I think the argument is there's a lot of stuff in here that like is either in a lot of those packs that you had to pay for.

• 45:55Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 45:55Russ Frushtick?

  Or.

• 45:56Griffin McElroy?

  You can make it, right?

• 45:57Russ Frushtick?

  Or you can make it. There's shit in here where like you can make a movie theater and then upload a video file and then watch videos in your movie theater.

• 46:05Griffin McElroy?

  You can make cutscenes in the game? Like you make a room and then you can put characters in it and kind of like make a cutscene? Like it's it it truly gives you the keys to the kingdom.

• 46:17Russ Frushtick?

  You'll eventually be able to drive like cars, like GTA, like actual driving, not just like teleporting places.

• 46:22Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, really?

• 46:22Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 46:23Griffin McElroy?

  I didn't know about that.

• 46:24Russ Frushtick?

  Pretty fucking wild. Again, I don't know, but I think I think it's my guess is it's gonna be a huge fucking deal. I think it's really gonna like do incredibly well for them.

• 46:34Griffin McElroy?

  It is certainly going to be. I believe in in, you know, South Korea where the publisher is based. I do believe it is going to be a pretty big smash hit. There is something very neat. I will say this to sort of like cap this off.

• 46:49Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 46:52Griffin McElroy?

  There is an element of like Korean kind of culture and sightseeing almost. I guess depending on like which city you live in. I lived in, it sounds like we lived in different places. There were only two cities available in the build that we played. And you went with the one that is like a, you know, beachy.

• 47:10Russ Frushtick?

  California, basically.

• 47:11Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, boardwalk town. And I went with one that is like a, like a metropolitan Korean city.

• 47:18Russ Frushtick?

  I think it's meant, yeah, like inspired by Seoul.

• 47:20Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah. And like, it's cool. That's not really an experience I ever had in, in The Sims.

• 47:26Russ Frushtick?

  And I think the other city that's in there is also an Asian city. I don't know what it's.

• 47:31Griffin McElroy?

  A more rural, it looks like, but I don't believe.

• 47:34Russ Frushtick?

  But that's, yeah, that's, that's cool that it's, because all the Sim stuff, as far as I'm aware, at least a lot of it is very Western centric.

• 47:40Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 47:41Russ Frushtick?

  So it's cool that they are.

• 47:42Griffin McElroy?

  I'm sure that there's DLC packs and stuff that like, but I don't know. That, that has been an element that has like, kept me kind of coming back and playing is like, it's just kind of neat. It's just kind of neat to go in and play and explore. And like, that is, I think, the appeal of sandbox games. For a lot of people is that like, yeah, it's just kind of neat to hop in there and see what they do. You, you can set up a schedule for your, for your Sim, which I really like. You can say like, okay, every day at two o'clock, we're gonna go, we're gonna go to Central Park or, you know, whatever. You can augment that schedule however you want to sort of like automate the process.

• 48:14Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 48:15Griffin McElroy?

  Like that stuff's really neat. It has a lot of really, really good ideas. It does not, it has not hooked me in the way that I remember The Sims doing, where it's like, well, I gotta get back home so I can, you know, as soon as I get home from school, I'm gonna boot up the computer and play Sims 2. Like, I don't, I don't necessarily feel that way about it.

• 48:37Russ Frushtick?

  That's more of a you. It's just like a where we are in our lives thing than it is.

• 48:42Griffin McElroy?

  Maybe, but like, I don't know. I play a lot of other Sim simulation games that I, that I very, very, very much enjoy. It feels like you kind of need to understand this game to like have a have a great time with it and it feels like there is a bit of a learning curve here.

• 48:58Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I think that's I think.

• 48:59Griffin McElroy?

  And that's maybe even putting it generously, but yes, again, Enzo, a game I think people are going to be talking about for for a while. I will be paying attention to how the kind of like AI conversation shakes out about the game. Because I don't know, I could understand any level of skepticism and distrust around this entire conversation based on some of the bad actors who have been using AI in gross and unethical ways.

• 49:35Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 49:37Griffin McElroy?

  But I think there's going to be a lot of things that people talk about when they talk about this game for probably quite a while. So, you know, get ready for that, I guess.

• 49:47Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 49:48Griffin McElroy?

  Do we have anything else, Russ?

• 49:50Russ Frushtick?

  We could do some honorable mentions. If you got anything, I've got a couple of things to talk about.

• 49:53Griffin McElroy?

  Ah, I've been playing a I've been playing a lot of a game that we can't talk about yet.

• 50:03Griffin McElroy?

  That.

• 50:04Russ Frushtick?

  Is it publicly even that it is? Oh, I know what it is.

• 50:08Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 50:08Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, we can't talk about it yet.

• 50:09Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, I think there's a demo out on on Steam. If that's true, then I think I could talk about it a little bit.

• 50:15Russ Frushtick?

  I don't even want you to talk about it, quite honestly.

• 50:17Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, wow.

• 50:19Russ Frushtick?

  Because I will say the only way this game has been described to me as like a new animal well.

• 50:25Griffin McElroy?

  Okay, yeah.

• 50:26Russ Frushtick?

  That's kind of the extent to which I want to know about it before I actually start playing, but the embargo is not up for another three weeks. So.

• 50:31Griffin McElroy?

  You're right. Okay, then I'll just say I've been playing a game called Blueprints.

• 50:36Russ Frushtick?

  Yes.

• 50:37Griffin McElroy?

  And that's all I.

• 50:38Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, I just got the pun. Did you get the pun?

• 50:40Griffin McElroy?

  Holy fucking shit, Russ! I've been playing this game so much and no, that is the fir- that's the first time I've said the name of the game out loud.

• 50:51Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, okay, so it's blue, B-L-U-E, prince like a king, like royal prince.

• 50:56Griffin McElroy?

  Like a royal prince.

• 50:57Russ Frushtick?

  But it, but it also has a secret meaning.

• 50:59Griffin McElroy?

  I think there's a demo.

• 51:00Russ Frushtick?

  See if you can figure it out.

• 51:01Griffin McElroy?

  I think there's a demo on Steam.

• 51:02Russ Frushtick?

  Uh, we will talk about it, but it's, again, the embargo doesn't lift until mid-April, so it's gonna be a few weeks.

• 51:07Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, gonna be a while. Uh, I have also, it is the Max Fun Drive, uh, it's Max Fun Drive time. This is not technically a Max Fun podcast, so I'm not gonna make the pitch here, but...

• 51:16Russ Frushtick?

  You can do it.

• 51:17Griffin McElroy?

  Part of, okay, maximumfun.org.

• 51:18Russ Frushtick?

  Wait, Jordan, Jesse, go, what do you got? What else, what else is on there?

• 51:21Griffin McElroy?

  I mean, my brother, my brother, I mean, Taz.

• 51:23Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, that's a, by the way, a pretty good one.

• 51:25Griffin McElroy?

  Um, part of that is we, like, stream every day and, um, twice over the drive, I do a DJ set in Fuser. And I, I don't know, I feel like every besties around this time of year, like, I talk about Fuser because I get, like, insanely deep into it, where it's like all I can think about, um, because I-

• 51:47Russ Frushtick?

  I did see a clip on social media of you being a DJ.

• 51:49Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, it's, I, it's just a genius, brilliant, you know, DJ game from Harmonix that, um, you know, has been delisted. It is not, it is not available, but-

• 52:00Russ Frushtick?

  My understanding is there are some features of Fuser, maybe not one-to-one, that are now in Fortnite, or at least some element of that.

• 52:07Griffin McElroy?

  There, uh, that's, I mean, that's being extremely generous, I think, to, to what is available in Fortnite, um, like, you can do some of that stuff, like, you can do a jam sesh, where you have, like, different parts of different songs, but it, you know, the tools available to you to, like, modulate that stuff, uh, in Fuser and throw some shit together in the fly is, like, unparalleled. Fucking, just amazing little toy box. Really, really, really amazing little game to play with music in and, uh, it's, it is-

• 52:39Russ Frushtick?

  You can't buy it anymore.

• 52:40Griffin McElroy?

  Can't buy it anymore. It's, it's a fucking tragedy, right?

• 52:42Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 52:43Griffin McElroy?

  Uh, this is, this is- There's a community of people who build custom songs for Fuser.

• 52:49Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 52:50Griffin McElroy?

  And that is what has kind of like fueled my interest in it, you know, for these, for these streams every year. Because it's, it is, uh, this community is quite small, but they are quite enthusiastic. And so there's like deep cut shit. I like, and you will find people in this community, like there's someone who has done a lot of, custom songs based off of music from the Hotline Miami soundtrack.

• 53:14Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, sick.

• 53:15Griffin McElroy?

  That shit all goes very, very hard.

• 53:17Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 53:17Griffin McElroy?

  And then like you can mash that up with, um, it's a piece of cake to bake a pretty cake.

• 53:22Russ Frushtick?

  Yep.

• 53:23Griffin McElroy?

  From Lazy Town, like, the, the tools are obscene and they are so brilliant. And I genuinely, it is hard to think of a bigger tragedy in like, the loss of, of games history than, than the fact that this game that is like the most fun that I've had playing with music in a video game is just like, you just can't get it.

• 53:42Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 53:43Griffin McElroy?

  Anywhere. And I get that there's like licensing issues and shit, uh, that make that quite difficult, but.

• 53:48Russ Frushtick?

  At least there's sound shapes.

• 53:50Griffin McElroy?

  That's an insane comparison.

• 53:53Russ Frushtick?

  I mean, they're music games.

• 53:54Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah, but yeah, yeah, they're wildly different music games, I guess.

• 53:59Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 53:59Griffin McElroy?

  Um, yeah. You got anything?

• 54:01Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I wanted to mention two things. One, Josh Johnson, who's a correspondent on The Daily Show, also has a YouTube channel where he's been posting his like, sets, his comedy sets.

• 54:15Russ Frushtick?

  I am fucking blown away by the talent of this gentleman. He is doing like full 45 minute sets on like, current events from like the last three days.

• 54:27Griffin McElroy?

  Wow.

• 54:28Russ Frushtick?

  That feel like produced in a way that like, these are like special ready, like you could go up on HBO and I wouldn't be surprised. I'm like, he explains the like, um, the Drake and, uh,

• 54:41Griffin McElroy?

  Kendrick Lamar.

• 54:42Russ Frushtick?

  Kendrick Lamar rap battle in a way that is like, fucking hilarious and also like incredibly informative.

• 54:48Griffin McElroy?

  I prefer that. I prefer that.

• 54:49Russ Frushtick?

  Picked at the edge.

• 54:50Griffin McElroy?

  I do prefer the Chet Hanks, uh, uh, explanation of the Kendrick Drake.

• 54:54Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, I haven't heard that one.

• 54:55Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, fuck, man. I'll send, I'll send you it later.

• 54:59Russ Frushtick?

  But hi, his stuff is great. And there's like tons of free shit on you on his YouTube at length. And new stuff is going up every day. So his stuff is awesome. The other thing I want to mention, I mentioned it briefly earlier. I started playing Noeda again, because I've been on this like action rogue like kick. Where I played Gungian, Enter the Gungian for a while, and now I'm playing this. Noeda, in case you don't remember, was the wizard side scrolling action rogue like where you like all of the pixels are generated. Such that they can like be set on fire, or you could have pools of water. There's like all sorts of fluid dynamics things. And then you're crafting wands using these different spells to like get you further in levels.

• 55:42Russ Frushtick?

  The game is like punishingly difficult, maybe even harder than. Spunky when you're starting out, just because it's so complex.

• 55:49Griffin McElroy?

  Right.

• 55:50Russ Frushtick?

  I did go into the Steam Workshop and downloaded two Steam Workshop mods that I found to be. Make it a lot more approachable.

• 55:56Griffin McElroy?

  Okay, I'm curious to hear this because I have tried Noeda a bunch of times and I have never cracked it.

• 56:01Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, one of them adds a mini map, a small top, top right corner mini map.

• 56:07Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 56:07Russ Frushtick?

  That just gives you a little more visibility into like what is around you at any given time. You frequently get like one shotted by like a random ass guy across the map, and this kind of helps alleviate that a little bit. And the other upgrade or the other mod I installed was. Adds just like random health drops occasionally.

• 56:26Griffin McElroy?

  Okay.

• 56:26Russ Frushtick?

  Normally you have to go to the end of each level to like fully heal up. And this just allows you to get deeper into the game. And experience like the true magic of the game, which is again, the wand crafting, which doesn't happen until you. Get to like those level breaks.

• 56:42Griffin McElroy?

  I am, I am so like, after my experience getting deep into Binding of Isaac. Using some like straight up quality of life.

• 56:51Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 56:52Griffin McElroy?

  Like I cannot play that game without the item descriptions.

• 56:56Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah.

• 56:57Griffin McElroy?

  Mod that like tells you like my experience after that, I don't know, has become so much more on the side of like. This shit should be available, like, this shit should be available. It helps you play and enjoy the game that you otherwise would not play and enjoy it. People who hardline, you know, say like, "Oh, you're ruining the intention." Like, yeah, but I didn't like that.

• 57:20Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, honestly, and I've seen this with Binding of Isaac, I've seen this with Noed's community as well. Those people, those snobs that are like, "You're ruining the pure experience", I think are in the minority. I think the majority of the people that love the game and love the community also love the fact that people can make changes to the game in ways that not only prolong the game's lifecycle, but also make it more approachable for new players.

• 57:43Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 57:43Russ Frushtick?

  So I think that stuff is great. I will say, like, my patience for, like, doing non Steam Workshop games mods is very, very low.

• 57:51Griffin McElroy?

  Sure.

• 57:51Russ Frushtick?

  Like, I'm not gonna, generally speaking, do that, although I did, I did replace the missing songs in the GTA remakes. That was like the extent of my willingness.

• 58:01Griffin McElroy?

  That's great.

• 58:01Russ Frushtick?

  But any game that has Steam Workshop, I'm almost always dipping in there and seeing, like, "Oh, what are people, like, what's the most popular mod right now?" And that invariably, like, there's gonna be two or three quality of life things that'll just make the game a lot more fun.

• 58:15Griffin McElroy?

  Yeah.

• 58:16Russ Frushtick?

  So.

• 58:17Griffin McElroy?

  That's great.

• 58:17Russ Frushtick?

  Those are my things.

• 58:19Griffin McElroy?

  Um, I think that's gonna do it for us this week.

• 58:21Russ Frushtick?

  Yeah, I want, real quick, let me just thank some new members of the Patreon over at patreon.com/thewesties. We have John, we have Dave the Birder, we have Trenton, and we have Russ, no relation. Uh, thank you for being supporters of Patreon and us, and thank you to everyone else who's been, uh, great supporters. We have, uh, a new Resties coming to you on Tuesday. We also have a new Bracket Battles episode coming to you in the beginning of April to look forward to. Uh, what are we doing next week?

• 58:51Griffin McElroy?

  Patreon.com/thewesties is the link.

• 58:53Russ Frushtick?

  Oh, yeah. I thought I said that.

• 58:55Griffin McElroy?

  Oh, I don't know. Next week, we are putting on the cowl and grabbing our blades to play Assassin's Creed: Shadows. And, um, hopefully we'll have the whole crew back together for that. Thanks for sticking with us as we ran a lightweight ship this week. Um, we hope you enjoyed yourself and learned something, and stick around next week for the besties, because shouldn't the world's best friends? Play the world's best games?

• 59:53Griffin McElroy?

  Besties!