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Sam & Max Save The World
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Ben & Jess Pod The Cast
(we talk about the Telltale classic, both the original on Gametap all the way back in the day, and then the recent Skunkape remaster)
Quest Quest podcast is Ben Vigeant and Jess Morrissette.
Editing by Ben Vigeant
Show art by Kevin "WilcoWeb" Wallace
Watch us on Twitch!
Ben: https://www.twitch.tv/ps_garak
Jess: https://www.twitch.tv/decafjedi
Give us a review, they help people find this show! Unless you hated it, in which case, don't.
Talk with us on Discord!
https://discord.gg/ve9fqjgPp2
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Hosts' Backgrounds
00:00:31
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Quest Quest. I'm Ben. I'm back. I'm back. I'm back. He's back, baby. i well let's introduce my co-host first then I'll talk about where i've been.
00:00:45
Speaker
Hey, it's Jess. I'm Decaf Jedi and I am Ben's co-host on this journey we call Quest Quest. I'm PS underscore Garrick on Twitch and YouTube. Um...
Imaginary Adventures and Gaming Inspirations
00:00:57
Speaker
i So, yeah, as you were saying, i was ah canoeing down of the Amazon River ah because I had such a wonderful time in Amazon Guardians of Eden that I had to, you know, kind of I had to I had to experience it ah firsthand. And I did find ah the secret city of the Amazons like they do in the game.
00:01:25
Speaker
and And like in the game, they said, I could never leave. And you know what? I left. Oh, wow. So they just said that? it was just just It's just some shit they said.
00:01:38
Speaker
Is that like just like New York's the city that never sleeps, but there are like millions of people sleeping there at any give a given moment? Or yeah it's just like something they say? That's just a thing they say. Weird. Was it otherwise accurate, though? I mean, was the game...
00:01:52
Speaker
I mean, the the very tip of my canoe would brush against a a rock and then I would die. ah i yeah But fortunately, I did make a liberal usage of the skip button.
00:02:10
Speaker
Excellent. Excellent. Well, we're glad to have you back. You know, I don't know about solo questing. It turns out that, you know, not just being able to throw to you ah makes makes this a lot harder. Over to you, Ben.
Podcast Reflections and Listener Engagement
00:02:23
Speaker
Reactions.
00:02:23
Speaker
we We talked about this, and I i might do this. Keep watching the skies. Keep watching... uh, our, on our discord, which will be in the link.
00:02:34
Speaker
And you can also just follow us uh, Twitch. I might do an asynchronous quest. Uh, this is something I pitched to you and you were like, you know what? Do it.
00:02:46
Speaker
Uh, and so now I'm kind of like, I feel like I have to which is that, had this idea because when I was listening to ah the ah last week's episode,
00:02:57
Speaker
um i like, I was just kind of walking around and like saying responses, like what I would say to you ah if, you know, if we were doing that podcast together.
00:03:10
Speaker
and and then I thought it's like, Oh, you know, why waste, you know, this this moment I'm having with myself when I could make it into content. Gotta make content.
00:03:22
Speaker
I could process this into content. And once it's content, you can monetize that. Yeah, I could get like a whole nickel ah from Twitch.
00:03:34
Speaker
And, uh, the, so... I might on on my Twitch at some point, ah just play your ah podcast and then pause it. And then, you know, i just reply to whatever thought comes into my head while playing like kind of, you know, a game that is not, you know, does not command full attention, you know, like Anabi's number factory, let's say.
00:04:08
Speaker
You know, just to pull back the curtain a little bit, Ben and I have talked about this. When we listen back to these episodes already, and episodes with both of us, frequently I'll be listening to because we record these, you know, sometimes a week or more in advance. Uh-huh. Right. and Ben will say something and I'll think of like a really great rejoinder to that.
00:04:28
Speaker
Yeah. and And the me who had already recorded this a week or two ago says the exact thing I was thinking. I'm like, Oh man, Hey, I'm consistent. My brain uh, is working as intended.
00:04:39
Speaker
Yeah, I like I that is absolutely something that happens ah that has happened to me. It is absolutely happened to be like and that and that was true when I was ah doing my previous podcast, too. I'd be editing episodes and then be like, you know, like I'd think of a joke and be like, oh, this joke would be so good right now. And then I would say it be like, Jesus Christ. i'm Is that upsetting or is it reassuring?
00:05:06
Speaker
Like, I can't decide. Uh, don't know. i think it's six of one half dozen on the other, you know, it kind of depends on but what my mood is at that moment.
00:05:17
Speaker
And whether it was a good joke either time. Yeah. I mean, it's always a good joke when it's for
Nostalgia for Comedy Classics
00:05:22
Speaker
me. Uh, now, we're professional yeah yeah that's what i says on your card yes are you gonna go see uh the naked gun this weekend i have plans to see it monday uh monday afternoon i'm gonna be otherwise ah disposed all weekend but i am very excited ben are you a naked gun person oh yeah oh yeah i've thought you might be oh yeah i i i love i love the naked gun. i love did you ever watch ah Police Squad, like the TV show that it was based only seen clips. I've never watched a full episode.
00:05:59
Speaker
Oh, dude, you gotta... It's it's only six. Only six episodes. Really? It's ah it's a a British season. or ah contemporary season of American television now. Yeah. um ah There are only six episodes of Police Squad because it was a network show that was very strange. And people were like, and no, like,
00:06:25
Speaker
like naked gun was a big, like the, especially the first one, like ah did great box office, but like as a TV show, that same kind of humor just didn't like have a mass audience on like network television.
00:06:42
Speaker
But I mean, you gotta, it's so funny. Yeah. Like our listeners know what naked gun is, right? Like, uh, if, if, if not I mean the movies out, like when we're recording it, uh, this, uh, well actually I think it came out tonight.
00:06:57
Speaker
think it did. And, uh, but, by the time this comes out, uh, the following Tuesday, yeah, uh, naked gun, it's a, uh, uh, cop spoof movie. and yeah people that did airplane the first yeah the first three anyway yeah it's been rebooted ah with liam neeson by uh one-third of lonely island is the director and he did uh um uh pop was it pop star pop star and hot rod i believe
00:07:30
Speaker
Neither of which I've seen, but I know that people are nuts about Popstar. like Yeah, I haven't seen that one. I've watched Hot Rod and it didn't quite click with me, but I've heard Popstar and honestly, Popstar seems more up my alley, but I am so excited for Naked Gun. I watched those where the with my dad growing up and we both just...
00:07:52
Speaker
absolutely love naked gun um ah my daughter is very excited for it uh we're gonna go together just because i mean i don't know she's ever seen a proper comedy in a movie theater since that doesn't exist really anymore right i mean kind of like marvel movies are what we have for comedies now yeah between like between the facts they're saying funny things Yeah, like, and that's like, I'm going to try to find, i ah should I go see, like, I'm planning on seeing it this weekend.
00:08:26
Speaker
I'm going to try to time it like, and i like when I go on, like Sunday is the time I have the free time for it. so I'm going to try to time it to like, that it will have at least like a medium crowd.
00:08:41
Speaker
ah but You want some crowd for a comedy. Yeah, you know, because I watched, did you watch this, Jess? Did you watch Happy Gilmore 2? I haven't yet. Have you? Yes, I did.
00:08:52
Speaker
And I watched Happy Gilmore too. um And I watched it with a couple of friends. And I think that really enhanced the experience. I had a good time. Yeah.
00:09:04
Speaker
wouldn't call myself like a Sandler guy, um but the original Happy Gilmore is a movie I really enjoy. if yeah If there's one of his comedies, I'm going to return to Happy Gilmore would be the one.
00:09:15
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Like I, you know, the, like I was explaining this to someone, I was just like, i it's also like my age i'm in uh 14 days i'll be 39 um um i like you know happy gilmore like the the original came out when i was 10 years old oh so yeah i mean and you're the target demographic for that right
00:09:46
Speaker
Right. And so it's like, it's just a movie that it's like, I don't have like, you know, Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore are are two like really incredible comedies to me, but they're comedies that came out when I was 10, like, you know, young little kid.
00:10:01
Speaker
And, um, and so like, I was like, you know, I i really hate like a sequels and I really hate like, you know, I've got, I've got really into this.
00:10:12
Speaker
And, uh, I think this is probably going to be lazy, but they got my ass with this. Like the cynical calculation that led to this moment i worked for me a person that typically like throws his nose up in the air at this kind of thing like in scoffs you bens a huge you pigs would go to the fucking trough for this garbage yeah but bens but i don't know he yeah I don't know if that comes to through in the podcast but an absolute snob
00:10:44
Speaker
Just like snobbish.
Sequel Debate and Streaming Culture
00:10:46
Speaker
And yeah, he's not going to, he's not going to, you know, lower himself to a legacy sequel, but streaming on an online platform first with a subway plastic cup tie in.
00:11:00
Speaker
But, but here's, here's the thing. You know what? Like, was it, was it, uh, like, was it great? No, it wasn't great, but it made me laugh consistently. It kind of got a little flabby in the middle, which Naked Gun ah in theaters now. 85 minutes. 85 minutes.
00:11:19
Speaker
Beautiful. In and out. This is, I think Happy Gilmore was... 145 somewhere around there it was over 90 but it also had like those netflix credits that just went on forever but i was watching it and i was watching with friends and that definitely enhanced the experience like because we're like you know one of us would laugh and then we would all kind of know yeah um and it it does you know it has a man gang in the balls which is what i wanted
00:11:50
Speaker
It also should have, I mean, like most adventure games, I mean, a laugh track helps. Yeah, that's right. yeah I mean, having people to tell you when something's funny by laughing around you is a great cue to laugh yourself.
00:12:05
Speaker
the Carindia 3 theme.
00:12:09
Speaker
Do you ever stop and think about the fact that they made a Zoolander 2? Or do you ever forget that they made a Zoolander 2 and then you're comprised of evidence with its existence and you're like, oh my god, they made a Zoolander 2, even though you've discovered that like eight or nine times previously?
00:12:24
Speaker
I'm constantly forgetting they made that movie. I've never seen it. I haven't seen it, but also ah and another thing. I think Ben Stiller is very funny in Happy Gilmore 2. He really, he goes all out for like weird Ben Stiller, which is so much fun.
00:12:41
Speaker
and z All right. but But my annoying, like, you know, Zoolander take is I saw that in theaters. it just And I've tried. I've tried multiple times.
00:12:53
Speaker
Just has not... Like, I don't know. Just has not connected for me. but Just like a comedy that I watched and I was like, eh, you know? It just didn't... Like, I don't... I love a weird Ben Stiller, but I don't know if I like...
00:13:11
Speaker
like that for the length of an entire movie. I like it as a spice. Yeah. um And, but anyway, I just back to ah happy Gilmore two for a moment, which is that I would have loved to see that in a theater.
00:13:28
Speaker
Like ah it would have been so much a better movie in a theater. It's such a bummer. Like, watching a movie like that streaming, like I, what like if, if I just like watched that alone, would have been just such a bummer.
00:13:48
Speaker
Um, and then also, ah it has like some kind of Netflixy stuff in it. Like there's just parts where, uh, like,
00:14:01
Speaker
he'll uh like just pause and just restate uh the plot and his current objective to the person he's standing next to which really feels like a we think you're probably looking at your phone or doing your laundry or you know doing whatever honestly yeah Yeah, like, or like that you paused and you left the room. And there's probably like someone at Netflix is like, yeah, according to our data, ah but you know, people usually ah pause around 21 minutes every, you know, like, so.
00:14:37
Speaker
It's also weird how keep saying things like, you know, I've got to get home and watch Nailed It. I love that show. Or does anyone know when the new season of Stranger Things is starting? Like all that dialogue seems really forced.
00:14:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:50
Speaker
you know nailed it is pretty fun though i like i mean it is yeah yeah i mean she's i guess ben the anyway sorry you know you said you know like a movie like zoolander never really hit with are you a zoolander guy i like zoolander like i like i like a zoolander i like moan wilson i'll take moan wilson i'm curious though have any games hit with you lately ben what have you been playing
00:15:21
Speaker
man. Jess, I was wondering if you were winding up to that or not. Yeah, I tried to keep it ambiguous. didn't want you to have time to think of a game. I'm prepared.
Video Game Obsessions and Preferences
00:15:31
Speaker
i'm prepared. i knew. I already knew.
00:15:34
Speaker
Um, I, uh, the game I have is actually game that I've had for a while. It's not from all the Steam sales shit i bought that I was like, you know, i ominously intoned in the past, like, oh, well, you know, I just bought like six podcasts worth.
00:15:52
Speaker
the I have been playing this game that I've had for a bit, but i during my my trip recently, I just really got into playing again.
00:16:05
Speaker
The game Xenotilt. Whoa, Xenotilt. Now, so Xenotilt is a video pinball game that's on Steam and I think everything else.
00:16:21
Speaker
And it is the second pinball game by this designer. I think he goes by WizWar or something like that. And it is like inspired by, I think it was a Neo Geo game, a Devil's Crush or TurboGrafx.
00:16:43
Speaker
There's a TurboGrafx game, I think called Devil's Crush, which I should play just to, so like because I like these two pinball games so much. His, like, so the the first pinball game that he did was like kind of like this dark fantasy aesthetic.
00:17:04
Speaker
This Xenotilt, is done in this dark, like science fiction look.
00:17:14
Speaker
And I gotta say, this game kicks fucking ass. It is so much fun. i have been, like, as I said, I've had it for a while and I would like kind of dip into it and get out of it and just be like, oh, yeah, this is kind of fun.
00:17:32
Speaker
But for whatever reason, when I started playing it on this trip, like on the plane, Like it just for me, you know how that is like hey I guys think I'll play this for like 10 minutes and then you're like, oh, I have fixed this game out and Xeno pilt like the
00:17:55
Speaker
Like the the inspiration, as I said, is this TurboGrafx game. It is excessively
00:18:06
Speaker
like extremely video game pinball. Like there's monsters flying around the team and they they if they're shooting shit out. And it's not like one pinball table, it's three pinball tables stacked up on top of each other. And there's like,
00:18:22
Speaker
a beautiful woman in the center who talks to you in this distorted like you know like video game voice that you could barely understand and there's like uh different objectives and also the thing is is that it is ah almost indecipherable There are it's all like neon lights and trails and shit. And it is very difficult to see where the ball is. Like you have to kind of mess around with the options to make it like clear.
00:18:56
Speaker
Like I turned on in the options that the ball has like a trail. So it's kind of easy to track it, but there's just so much shit going on the screen.
00:19:08
Speaker
And, um, but like, and it also has this, uh, really, uh, enjoyable, uh, I don't know if I'd necessarily call it like a chip tune, like kind of midi-ish, uh, uh, like a 16-bit midi or something like kind of a soundtrack that's really great.
00:19:30
Speaker
Um, and, uh, what really love about it is that I like, you know, as I've said on, you know, previous, if you're a longtime Quest listener, a longtime Quest, no, we're the Quest Quest Questers.
00:19:50
Speaker
Yes. But if you're a longtime listener, you know, I'm ah a big pinball fan. And like have like a belief about video game pinball, which is that it either should be like a straight simulation, either a direct recreation or ah simulation that is pretending it's like of like trying really hard to make a fake pinball machine that is like kind of feasible. ah Like, for example, like the the game Time Shock is a really, really good, like it's a fake pinball game. um
00:20:30
Speaker
Or it should be the absolute opposite. It should be- It couldn't exist in the real world. Yeah, it should be like completely fucking bananas. I would say Space Cadet is a good example, actually, of the first one. Space Cadet is, like, within the limitations of being a pack-in game with Microsoft Plus or Windows Plus or whatever, and, like, Windows XP.
00:20:54
Speaker
Like, it's not, like, if you play Space Cadet, it's not really doing anything that's, like... uh, like fantastical. People have tried to recreate it and you actually can't. Like some of the physics of it are actually apparently impossible or something.
00:21:12
Speaker
Anyway. Um, but Xenotilt is like completely ridiculous, but at the same time it has really good design that I, as a pinball dork, fucking love.
00:21:26
Speaker
It, uh,
00:21:29
Speaker
I realized because I don't think the original pinball tables that Zen Pinball, which is like the largest, like main, they they make pinball effects. I don't think their original tables are good at all.
00:21:43
Speaker
In general, they have like one or two that are fine. But like, and playing a lot of Xenotilt made me realize like,
00:21:55
Speaker
It just has good design that Zen doesn't even like up against like Zen pinball like is like kind of straddles the line between it.
00:22:05
Speaker
Like they'll have like kind of fantastical and kind of not. oh But like Xenotel is entirely about chasing high scorers, which is something I love. And that's what Benigl is all about is that it's an arcade game.
00:22:19
Speaker
First and foremost, it's not made up and the points do matter. Yeah, that's right. And... And it has modes and it has a progression and you can get to a wizard mode, which is the term for if you complete all the objectives and there's like a big final mode.
00:22:37
Speaker
It's awesome. Xenotil. Check it out. And you can also check out Demon's Tilt, which is the first one, which is kind of dark fantasy.
00:22:50
Speaker
And going back and playing that after I played Xenotilt, I'm like, you know, when I first played this, I thought the screen was too busy and confusing. But now Xenotilt is like a whole other level. if There's just like now I'm like, this is too simple. There's not enough.
00:23:11
Speaker
garbage on the screen distracting me. I know exactly what's going on now. Like I'm looking at screenshots of this and the aesthetic that it's giving me is like Shodan got really into neon and 80s hair metal bands.
00:23:26
Speaker
That's right. And honestly, that's a pretty good aesthetic. I'm not mad at that aesthetic. But yeah, that's what I've been playing.
00:23:38
Speaker
fucking love Xenotilt. Check it out. What have you been playing, Jazz? Oh, man. Ben, I have been addicted to my new retro handheld console.
00:23:51
Speaker
That's right. You've got that. You, did you talk in the solo quest about your Anvernic? I think I did. I think I mentioned that I've been playing a lot of Super Baseball 2020. That's right. That's right. Yes. You talked about that. What are you playing on it now? Well, that's an entry point to what want to talk about because you mentioned Neo Geo a little earlier.
00:24:13
Speaker
Right. I have gotten... deep into the Neo Geo catalog on this thing. I am obsessed with Neo Geo. Did you know anyone?
00:24:24
Speaker
assuming you didn't own Neo Geo, did you? You couldn't have. No. Did you know anyone that had Neo Geo? That was like a fabled machine to me back in the No, no. I didn't know anyone.
00:24:36
Speaker
I, you know, I did know someone with a CDI. Wow. Which is kind of crazy. That is kind of crazy. because there are only a few dozen of those, I would imagine.
00:24:46
Speaker
so But yeah, I mean... I will say when I saw Neo Geo arcade machines anywhere as a kid, I was obsessed with those things. I loved the SNK games. Like that was just something about everything from their design aesthetic to the one million different fighting games they released. I was a big fighting game guy back in the 90s.
00:25:09
Speaker
Like that was very much my arcade genre. And I've been playing so... mini games on my little handheld emulating a little metal slug. The little metal slug three. That's the one I was zoomed in on.
00:25:22
Speaker
Metal slug looks so cool. light It is. It's a baseball stars to have you ever spent any time with like the Neo Geo version of baseball stars to honestly the only Neo Geo games I've spent any like serious amount of time with it are wind jammers and the metal slugs.
00:25:42
Speaker
Yeah. ah Baseball Stars 2 is gorgeous. It has these wonderful like close-up animations of the pitcher and the batter, and you'll get like little cutscenes of guys running the bases.
00:25:56
Speaker
It's just a gorgeous baseball game. I've been playing a lot of the fighting games, all 700 Fatal Fury games. I really locked in on Garou.
00:26:08
Speaker
You're burning through so many games. I know this is, this is, well, I mean, now I have an unlimited number of games to play on this handout. and I can say 12 games I've been playing this week and come back next week and tell you 15 more. You're, you're, you're going to regret having heard through all these. I will never regret it.
00:26:26
Speaker
Uh, Guru. Mark of the Wolves, it's like a Fatal Fury game. I think it's a spin off from that that lot of people say is like one of the more underrated gems of the genre.
00:26:37
Speaker
Just gorgeous. Waku Waku 7, which is just another fighting game. Of course, it's SNK. In that one, all the characters I think are parodies characters from other companies fighting games.
00:26:53
Speaker
Just a really lovely experience getting to go play all these games. A lot of them that remember from the arcade back in the day and others that I never had a chance to experience.
00:27:04
Speaker
Just a shout out to SNK and Neo Geo. I've been just delving into the Neo Geo catalog all week and having a blast with it. All right. Well, you know, Jess, I realized this um just as the theme was playing.
00:27:23
Speaker
Like I was like, oh, do we have any emails?
Listener Emails and Culinary Conversations
00:27:30
Speaker
And we do. I don't know if I'm, if we're going to have time to get through all of the emails that have backed up.
00:27:37
Speaker
Wow. Not too many, but enough that we, we should probably ah not read all of them. If you want to get in the queue, send us an email at quest quest podcast at gmail.com.
00:27:54
Speaker
This is the price of popularity.
00:27:58
Speaker
And all right, here's our first one. It's from Yap. All right. Hi, guys.
00:28:10
Speaker
Sorry to disappoint Ruben and mostly you guys, but I am unfortunately not the yop that Ruben knows. Oh man.
00:28:22
Speaker
Oh yeah. I had to read, like I saw this one and I was like, well, we have to read this one. Oh, I thought we had a great missed connections. I thought we had reunited lost friends and, uh, and here we are.
00:28:36
Speaker
Uh, we blew it. Uh, However, oh, now they're friends. Oh, they met and now they're friends. Okay. We met at a Tim Horton.
00:28:48
Speaker
However, adventure games were featured at my wedding. Oh,
00:28:55
Speaker
details during a skit my uh from my family my mom was wearing a hat with pictures of the dvd cases of siberia 2 and wanted a wild western adventure to make fun of my many collections of including point click adventure games uh and uh uh i'll share a photo uh with you jess um Funny enough, I have never heard of Last in Amsterdam.
00:29:25
Speaker
Seems to be a very obscure game that came with a magazine in 1992. More well-known is the Dutch adventure game Inspector. Now, I might, it's Bannon or Banan.
00:29:39
Speaker
B-A-N-A-A-N. Or might be something else.
00:29:45
Speaker
The game was designed in 1993 by Dutch Torpedo Games on bequest of... Oh, man. This is why you you're supposed to read the emails before you read them. On the podcast.
00:29:59
Speaker
On Devil X. It pertains the kidnapping of the singer star, Babela, and Inspector Banana. He wrote Banana this time. Has to solve the case.
00:30:11
Speaker
The game is situated at famous locations in Amsterdam compared to contemporaries such as Dave, the tentacle salmon max at the road. It is a very buggy and simplified idea. The point and click adventure game.
00:30:24
Speaker
Keep up the great work. Yeah. Thank you. Yet another international adventure game that we weren't able to fit into our overstuffed international adventure game episode.
00:30:37
Speaker
And I will read one more, but, you know, if you haven't read your email yet, have faith. We'll get it. This is from Matt.
00:30:49
Speaker
Matt says, well, catching up after a week away. Of course, I did download after midnight last week.
00:30:59
Speaker
I was listening to the International Games today. In what can only be considered unbelievable coincidencery, coincidencery, I was at an IGA.
00:31:13
Speaker
I'm on vacation and never have never been to one before. What's IGA? You know what that is? IGA.
00:31:22
Speaker
It is a, it's a grocery store. It's an international chain of grocery stores. Indie Game Alliance. Because that's also what I, it's the Independent Groceries Alliance.
00:31:33
Speaker
Well, it could be either one. I'm gonna say probably the grocery one.
00:31:39
Speaker
and stood before an enormous display of cardboard boxes containing every variety of hostess-style just as the discussion reached that point. It was quite literally dozens and dozens of pies put into place.
00:31:54
Speaker
In honor, in a place of honor, in a store. saw people buy them. Anyhow, this isn't relevant to the topic, but thank you for bringing Costa's pies back into my life. Perhaps someday i will have a good cherry pie.
00:32:09
Speaker
Thank you, Matt. love I love that. You know, I had pie just before recording this. so Oh, what kind pie did you have then? i I made ah a earlier this week a a peach custard pie.
00:32:27
Speaker
peach custard pie yeah it's uh it's peach season here and uh when i got back i was literally like rolling my rolly bag through my neighborhood farmer's market i couldn't say no to fresh peaches um like i just couldn't say no to those i also bought uh i also bought uh uh fresh tomatoes because the difference between and like a fresh tomato and a grocery store tomato, at least in the United States. I don't know if this is true elsewhere, but you know, the the grocery store tomato that you get in the United States, it's like, it's a different fruit. It, it's, it, it might as, be that you might as well be eating a bean bag. It's disgusting.
00:33:14
Speaker
um Oh, it's terrible. It's terrible. Like a, like farmer's market, like tomato. Mm-hmm. You know, we grew our own tomatoes for a few years. Yeah.
00:33:25
Speaker
Which was fun. But what happens is you go 11 months the year with no tomatoes. And then for like a week and a half, you have like 60 tomatoes to get through.
00:33:36
Speaker
And just you need a way to stagger your tomato crops a little better. I mean, I guess if I'd played Harvest Moon or something, I know what I was doing. I could probably make a sauce and freeze it. yeah i mean that's what we do but it's not the same do you ever just like eat a tomato do you like like is are you just like straight up tomato eater uh i'll pop a cherry tomato i'll just slice up a tomato and just just eat that tomato well you put like a little oil little so salt just a little salt little salt and pepper i'm good to go
00:34:08
Speaker
and I just got some nice olive oil ah recently. I'm little kiss of that ah to like a sandwich I make. Yeah, maybe get you a little bit of buffalo mozzarella.
00:34:19
Speaker
Ooh, let's not get crazy here. Oh, no, Ben, I mean, a little bit of basil. A little bit of fresh basil crushed on there.
00:34:30
Speaker
Ben?
Sam and Max Series Discussion
00:34:32
Speaker
i What the fuck are we talking about this week? It's been at over a half hour.
00:34:38
Speaker
That's the problem. We're talking about a game. I think we haven't, we haven't actually spoken. Like we, we, we chat, like we text chat, but we haven't like, like spoken, like in like, you know, ah talking about,
00:34:55
Speaker
since like in the last two weeks or whatever, the last time we recorded a podcast together. So yeah we already had like 40 minutes of pregame chat. Yeah. now we're And really like, it's no different that you're like thinking it's like, boy, if they talked for like 40 minutes before the podcast, they must've gotten all their off topic rambling out of their system.
00:35:14
Speaker
Answer is no, it's clearly still a problem. Uh, but, This week, we are going to be talking about a game that think we're both pretty fondly ah fondly disposed toward. We're be talking about ah the first season of Telltale's Sam and Max.
00:35:33
Speaker
Sam and Max Save the World, originally released between 2006 and 2007 episodically. Ben, you recently streamed this one. I streamed it maybe a couple of a couple of years ago.
00:35:47
Speaker
ah We've spoken before about our love of the Salmon Max series. We, I mean, some would say it's the best LucasArts game ever made. I mean, it's disputed.
00:36:01
Speaker
Yeah, no, I mean. I'm on record. Yeah, that's right. I mean, I regret everything about that tournament bracket. If I had to do over, things would be completely different right now. I really let you like railroad me on that one.
00:36:13
Speaker
You kind of bullied me toward a result I didn't want. It would not have been number one. Come on. It would have. Let's be real. The finals would have been it and Curse of Monkey Island. And I would have put, i would have put Sam. No, um it's, you had like I would, I would put Curse Monkey Island over Sam and Max unless I didn't.
00:36:34
Speaker
Well, we may to go back and review this. You may very well have argued passionately. I don't know if the two of them were in a bracket together. yeah You may very well have argued passionately to the contrary. I might have. I don't know.
00:36:45
Speaker
And I'll never know. That's been a long time ago. think that was over 60 episodes ago. I'm not sure. I think that was 12 years ago. Yes, it was a while. But no, Sam and Max Save the World ah from Telltale Games, ah originally released on PC, eventually it comes to who are the Wii, the Xbox 360 would be remastered in 2020.
00:37:10
Speaker
um This is, to me, a game that ah but I love. I loved all three. i mean, spoiler alert, I loved all three seasons of Telltale, Sam & Max.
00:37:21
Speaker
Ben, i think you played this one it came out. played it at release on GameTap. Yeah, well, I wanted to talk about GameTap because that's an interesting part of this. yeah yeah This game is originally released on GameTap, which was like sort of the first, I guess,
00:37:39
Speaker
attempt at maybe like a Netflix for games. I mean, I guess you could maybe make the argument that something like the Sega Channel yeah in the 90s was kind of like that, maybe? yeah I don't know. but um but So GameTap, if you're not familiar with it, was, um and I think it was just the United States and maybe Canada, but i I'm not sure.
00:38:05
Speaker
um First off, it was It had some sort of relationship with ah the Turner yeah communications company. think owned by TBS, basically, yeah. Because they also made ah original Space Ghost segments for it. Did you know that?
00:38:26
Speaker
No, I didn't. But so um Game Tap was, yeah, it was this Netflix type... ah ah service i think it would actually be kind of more accurate accurately compared to something like Game Pass yeah because emily'm more of a forerunner there because and and one would say well isn't Game Pass but the and I say that because you uh would download the games like it wasn't was a streaming service of course game pass and some of the ah other services have streaming but it's like a lot of game pass users are are downloading it to their pcs or xboxes or whatever um
00:39:12
Speaker
and And so what it was, was it ah it was a service that had, ah like, you, it had all of these games on it that you could download.
00:39:26
Speaker
And the thing is, well, first off, also, it it was not, Originally, later on, it did move over ah to a website and that sucked.
00:39:37
Speaker
um But ah originally, it it was like this full screen program with its own like funky UI and sound effects and navigation. It was like navigating like a cool DVD menu.
00:39:52
Speaker
It was yeah honestly awesome. And then also... i it had it wasn't just PC games. It was ah collection of games from like the PC.
00:40:08
Speaker
ah Obviously, didn't have Nintendo on it. Oh, no. Certainly not. no, no, Though did have the first three Castlevanias on it for some reason. I don't know how they... There was like a PC release of a PC port of Castlevania 1 through 3, which was emulated NES Castlevania 1 through 3. I have no idea how they made that work.
00:40:28
Speaker
Anyway, but it had... It actually, I think they split it up. It had like DOS and Windows... If I recall correctly, this is, you know, 20 years ago.
00:40:42
Speaker
Oh, my God. And it had ah the Sega consoles, including... had games.
00:40:55
Speaker
Whoa. And by that, I mean, think it just had Knuckles Chaotix and... maybe one other because there aren't that many 32 X games.
00:41:09
Speaker
Um, and then it also had a couple, a Dreamcast games, which is crazy because there weren't like, I don't think you see Dreamcast stuff like show up that much in like, you know, similar services today.
00:41:27
Speaker
um which is just interesting. It had, uh, uh, I forget. You can look all this shit up. But it had a whole bunch of consoles. It had a bunch of, it had a shitload of Sierra games on it, if I recall correctly, at least eventually.
00:41:45
Speaker
um And it just had ton of everything. This was from that period where, like, that that there was, like, this kind of glorious moment.
00:41:57
Speaker
where um and this was true on netflix as well where you're like studios uh and publishers that had like old video game like ip or whatever didn't know value that reselling that had like this because GOG doesn't come along for a little bit I don't think when did when did good old games start um 2008 when did good old games start uh so like they didn't they didn't know that like because you know you think about ah the original Animal Crossing on the GameCube that had like any NES games on it
00:42:48
Speaker
yes and it's like it wouldn't like ah couple years later nintendo would be like wait a minute we could sell this you're gonna have to pay a subscription if you want to play uh super mario one but yeah at the time it and this was like because do you remember early ah netflix streaming where it just seemed like i was so it like like very like Netflix streaming circa like 2010. Oh yeah. It was like an almost like comprehensive collection of, of, uh, films. i mean, you could kind of it was like the one-stop shop to catch almost any movie you might want to see.
00:43:31
Speaker
And it is not that anymore. Um, it's just nailed it. and yeah it's just nailed it and happy gilmore 2 um yeah that's all it no it was a very different world man netflix subscription seemed like too good for the price of it back then like it was like how in the world are they selling this to me at such a reasonable price yeah i remember i remember thinking that uh and yeah anyway and then i so then game tap like realized they're like all right well we got
00:44:05
Speaker
we We got to have like some sort of enticement of like new new stuff on here to kind of draw people in. And so they had a couple, ah game tap originals or things that at least launched on it.
00:44:23
Speaker
Um, and, ah one of them was, uh, the first season of salmon max. Uh, but they also had, there was like this, uh, American McGee's like grim fairy tales or something. Oh, yeah.
00:44:41
Speaker
like I I think I played it like once that was also episodic and for me I mean I didn't I didn't do game tap but I will say they really pushed the first season of Sam and Max as like They're, you know, we're trying to grab subscribers sort of title. This was very much something that all of the gaming magazines were writing about the time.
00:45:06
Speaker
This was a big push for new users. And i will say as far as I got was downloaded the GameTap app. I installed it. I downloaded their free sample of, I think, the first episode of of Sam and Max.
00:45:22
Speaker
Played that sample and said, never paying a subscription for video games. Get out of town. And i installed it. ah So I took my free episode and ran.
00:45:35
Speaker
uh you know and like so yeah so ah sam and max uh and i think they came out uh on a like i think it was monthly the first six episodes like those that first season and uh and ah Yeah, it was, you know, it's really funny because, um and i've remarked on this when i when I was streaming and I was saying this in your chat when you were streaming this, is I remember at the time, i like the first half of the season being a little underwhelmed.
00:46:16
Speaker
um and a little like kind of like um and yeah oh well like and now i love those episodes yeah um i think it takes a little bit of like knowing what you're in for with this uh with this season like once you have a sense of how all of this new supporting cast is going to work into what the game is doing and how these stories are going to unfold. Once your expectations are set to, you know, to calibrate to what this game is offering. Yeah. I feel like those early episodes come back and really hit much better. Like you can't expect it to be like hit the road or you're going to be a little well disappointed terms of like design. yeah
00:47:02
Speaker
Yeah. And read and I, I, And I think that's it. And I also think like this is this is laying track for, you know, this is laying track for what a lot of adventure games like kind of.
00:47:18
Speaker
like made you know would be um yes you know kind of coming and i at least for me like you know obviously this wasn't the very first you know this wasn't the only adventure game coming out at the time we even talked about like other adventure games coming out at that moment But like, and this wasn't even Telltale's first episodic, uh, uh, adventure game, but it was their, their first, like it was their most high profile.
00:47:49
Speaker
Yes. Um, it's got a lot of attention. Sam and Max by 2006 were already beloved characters in the PC gaming space. And,
00:48:00
Speaker
i Like, because I remember I played ah the first, and I think they only did one episode of it, or two episodes, maybe three, of, ah like, they did um a couple episodes based on the Bone comics. Yeah, Jeff Smith, right? Yeah. Yeah, they did two episodes of that, The Great Cow Race, and i can't remember what the other one was called, so. Yeah, but but yeah, this was, think,
00:48:29
Speaker
i think that my like kind of disappointment was it was like, I was like, I'm ready. Because also it wasn't only that, I i wanted salmon max at the road, but I wanted lost Lucas arts, salmon max sequel that was canceled.
00:48:53
Speaker
Yes. That like, you know, it was taken from us yeah that was taken, taken from And, um,
00:49:01
Speaker
If ever meet George Lucas, punch him around his fluffy beard. I'd look him in the eye and I'd say, thank you for American graffiti.
00:49:12
Speaker
And then punch him and say, that's for the Sam and Max sequel. That's for Sam and Max. You'd probably be so happy, like sitting on the ground, like saying it's like, hu didn't even mention Phantom Menace.
00:49:25
Speaker
i about in public that that's what it would do be over he would he would see a guy like me walking towards him and be like oh my god this motherfucker here comes talk about pod racing or some shit this that's for that's for that's for canceling Sam and Max asshole Also, I have some questions about Shadows of the Empire. Were you involved in that any way?
00:49:54
Speaker
but What about, what was was it Kyle Katarn? No, it wasn't Kyle Katarn. He was Dark Forces. Oh, who was Dash Rendar? Dash Rendar.
00:50:08
Speaker
Oh, from the depths of my mind comes Dash Rendar. But, like, so, you know this is moving from, like, ah you know, the the Lucas Games had, you know, Lucas Money.
00:50:26
Speaker
And this is from, like, a like a small, medium, you know, a company with not that budget they're working on a very short time scale delivering episodes and like turning these episodes around like ah an unbelievable clip yeah yeah this is and this probably the beginning of telltale just crunching for a decade straight right And um like, ah but like, you know, it was my, my first reaction was a little bit of like, it's like, this is fine, but you know, like where's the voices are different.
00:51:07
Speaker
Like, you know, like a little crossed arm, like, like petulant baby, like it's slightly different. I don't care for this. Whereas like now I'm like the idea so the first three episodes of salmon max uh the um like ah the first season are uh like you know easily completed in like two to three hours right yeah that's about right yeah each episode two to three hours and they're they're all and they're not particularly difficult no maybe like one or two like each one has maybe a puzzle you might be like hmm
00:51:50
Speaker
um but they're all like pretty straightforward and they're all like you look at them you're like okay i know like i know what i have to do i just have to figure out how to do these things um and like at the time i was like no i don't know i want something you know more baroque and now like as like a grown-up uh i'm like
00:52:14
Speaker
Love having this nice, beautifully designed little, ah like, you know, little taste of adventure that's really witty and funny and extremely well put together that I can complete in one evening sitting.
00:52:29
Speaker
What a blessing. What a wonderful thing. And two, it's just like now i I can't help but think it's like, oh, man, thank you for just giving us like 30 to 40 more hours of Salmon Max total telltale. It's like what a that alone. I mean, yeah, at the time, it's easy to be like, yeah, it's not my Salmon Max.
00:52:51
Speaker
But looking back to like, oh, man, these games have some great bits. They are. i mean, this whole i mean not only this this first season, but the the next two seasons go even more bonkers ah with this with this stuff. But no, this first season is... What's the plot of it, Jess? Take take us there.
00:53:12
Speaker
Oh, gosh. What is... Like a very... gen good Like, what's a log line? Like, you know, a couple sentences. The freelance police are back. And this time, they're facing off against washed-up child stars.
00:53:26
Speaker
ah They're competing in an American Idol competition that's also sort of a citywide hostage crisis. There's a giant robot, Abraham Lincoln. Guess he's not a robot, technically, is he?
00:53:39
Speaker
There's like a robot part. Like, I don't, yeah, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. i guess so yeah He's fighting. They're fighting the toy mafia ah and, and diving into cyberspace and stopping a cult leader who had no way should remind you of the church of Scientology, no which this podcast fully supports. Yeah. Yeah.
00:54:07
Speaker
yeah The, you know, i one of I think kind of like part of the idea of it, or at least like how I kind of remember it being ah like kind of pitched was it's like, well, you know, the nice thing about it being episodic is that actually like we will have like a home base And then they'll go to like a couple new locations every week, but we don't have to worry about like rebuilding all of these sets.
00:54:35
Speaker
And so it's like in the first season, and then they kind of break away from this in the subsequent seasons. But in the first season specifically, like you're pretty much pinned to like half of each episode, depending on the episode, it it it kind of breaks away from it as it goes. Um,
00:54:55
Speaker
uh is spent on the block where they're like offices and so that's salmon max is detected like freelance police office uh bosco's inconvenience yeah and simple pandemics uh tattoo slash hypnosis slash like a variety of Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
00:55:17
Speaker
You know, this is one of the things that I think really threw me when I first played Sam and Max Save the World was I jumped into that first chapter that I was able to get for free.
00:55:29
Speaker
And immediately was, know, we get this new supporting cast, including the soda poppers, these washed up child stars that are all over ah the the first first season of this.
00:55:44
Speaker
And the first thing I thought was this game is acting like I should know the supporting cast members already. And I had this real moment of, were they in the Sam and Max cartoon?
00:55:56
Speaker
And I'm supposed to know that they're kind like dropping me into a supporting cast that wasn't in hit the road. mean, Bosco store was there, but you never met Bosco. And that really threw me. I was just like, I feel like I'm supposed to know Sybil already, but I don't remember ever seeing her. And I literally just assumed at the time it's like, these are all characters in the cartoon and I'm so far behind already. i or not.
00:56:20
Speaker
I, I was just like, again, I was just crossed arms. I'm like, I know these are, they're not from hit the road. Where's Conroy bump us. Yeah. please it's like Where's the big foot. This is different.
00:56:34
Speaker
And I don't, course I don't like it. Yeah. Where's Trixie, the draft neck girl. Um, Where's, um but like, ah yeah, the, the, the first three in particular are, are much more like kind of straightforward. The first episode is that you're trying to,
00:56:57
Speaker
uh deal with ah this this weird kind of uh cult leader who has like these like vhs tapes or something that he's like hypnotizing people with or like his tv show uh and also this is an important thing to note and i don't recall if this is the case with ah the latter two seasons but the first season in particular,
00:57:26
Speaker
i yeah um is extremely comedy of the moment, which is very, like, funny. Yes.
00:57:38
Speaker
There are, like, Homeland Security color jokes, and there were a couple other, like, like Dianetics jokes feel very, ah like of the, that moment. Yeah.
00:57:57
Speaker
yeah Yeah. There's like, like American idol jokes are absolutely of the, the moment. Like there, were there were a lot of like, it's, it's just very funny that it, and then obviously like there's, there's a, in the Abe Lincoln must die episode. There's like some, some kind of Bush humor. Yeah.
00:58:17
Speaker
And there's the whole virtual reality, cyberspace-y, early 2000s internet culture thing in episode five. Yeah, i mean, it is very much of its time.
00:58:28
Speaker
Does it age it? Do you think this, I mean, I think it ages it. It ages it, but when I play it, like, i it to me, it's like visiting an old friend. Yeah. You see those kind of jokes?
00:58:41
Speaker
Like, I'm just like... Oh, those jokes. Oh, uh, uh, you know, like, uh, the Homeland security, uh, color code. That's funny. It was funny then. It's funny now. Yeah. Like, it's like, uh, uh, yeah, you know, there's like a lot of, like, some of them are like, just so specific to the moment that it's just like, yeah, this is just not going to make any sense.
00:59:08
Speaker
You know, if you're a 20 year old now, ah but ah But yeah, so the the first one is like this VHS or like this television cult guy. The second one is ah that one's not the the Toy Mafia, right? What's the? back That's the TV show. america yeah as American Idol. American Idol.
00:59:32
Speaker
That's like, yeah, the tized the city, right?
00:59:37
Speaker
And um that that one has a lot of, um like, that that has the the great premise of you're on a TV set, like, or a TV studio. So it's like one room's a sitcom, one room's a cooking show show, one's American Idol, one's a game show.
00:59:59
Speaker
And you're going to have star in all of these along the way. Yeah. That's a really fun premise. The third one is the Toy Mafia, ah which is, ah you know, like ah these guys and these Chuck E. Cheese heads.
01:00:15
Speaker
It has a song in it. first First song. Is that the first song? ah believe so. Yeah. Yeah, because Sam, that series ends up being a series that has a lot of songs in it, which is pretty cool. The music overall ah is excellent in all of the games.
01:00:35
Speaker
um And so those first three are ah a little more straight-laced. The ah puzzles aren't too hard. ah They're a little shorter. And then at that midpoint, and this is a six-episode series, Telltale ends up moving to five.
01:00:53
Speaker
um But this is a six episode one. i The fourth episode is Abe Lincoln Must Die. And that was, and and I could tell you playing it at that that moment too, I was like, oh, something has changed.
01:01:08
Speaker
Ha ha ha ha. Um, that was, that's a switch from, it's like, we're going to be very dedicated to being stuck mostly on this block with like one, like not one or two, but like a handful of other scenes to, uh, like it's a little longer.
01:01:28
Speaker
and little more ambitious i would argue like there's there's more ambition and it's also just outright stranger like it embraces the like that steve purcell uh kind of weird humor uh of sam and max Which that tone is hard to nail down.
01:01:50
Speaker
I mean, it's absurd, but not entirely absurdist. It's weird, but not freaky. Like when Sam and Max is clicking on that, I mean, we've talked before, it very much is just hitting right in my humor zone.
01:02:05
Speaker
ah And I do feel like it's in this episode that the pieces really fall in place. Like all that groundwork that's laid in the first three episodes. really starts to come together. And I would love to know, I mean, there's probably an internal reason I would think for why episode four shifts. I mean, I can't imagine they had time to get enough feedback to adjust.
01:02:28
Speaker
Yeah. What episode four looked like. I think the lead time on that would be. like or or maybe they were just like okay like now we've we've we've kind of comfortable with these tools yeah like yeah we now now let's show them what we could do know like because that's what it feels like a little bit i mean this does feel like this is a show-offy episode after the first three yeah um and and that like that was when i played like the fourth episode, as I said, at the time. And I was like, Oh, this is actually good.
01:03:05
Speaker
yeah yeah yeah And like, ah and, and now, as I said, I love those first three episodes because I, I love how nice and straightforward they are. Yeah. um But the, so the premise of the fourth episode is that the president of the united states who's this you know kind of country bumpkin kind of george w bush style pastiche guy you know ben i heard a village in texas is missing its idiot is that true uh is our children learning um yes watch this drive ah um uh so
01:03:49
Speaker
I know you love Bush Harry humor. I shouldn't drag you into it. Oh, I mean, you know, shouldn't you? ah You know, like, you know.
01:04:03
Speaker
I mean, you know, there's there's a there's an old saying, Jess. Yes. Yeah. Fooled me once. Shame on.
01:04:15
Speaker
Shame on you.
01:04:19
Speaker
Fool me, we can't get fooled again. ah do you remember when that was the biggest thing we had to worry about? I mean...
01:04:29
Speaker
I'm not going to pretend that George W. Bush is also not a terrible person. Yes. You know, I'm not going to damn him with the faint praise of at least Donald Trump. He's just a war criminal and a few other things. But yeah.
01:04:48
Speaker
But we don't want to get political here. Yeah, yeah. Let's not get political. But this game gets political. It gets very political. Anyway, ah yeah, the the president has been ah hypnotized and ah through a variety of hilarious circumstances, ah ah there ends up having to be an emergency ah extra election.
01:05:09
Speaker
And ah Max runs against ah the reanimated ah sta statue from ahlic memorial at the Lincoln Memorial of Abraham Lincoln.
01:05:28
Speaker
And wins. And for the remainder of the series, Max is president of the United States of America, which just occasionally comes up. Yeah, it's just a ah running gag, which is very good.
01:05:41
Speaker
it is. And this one, and this I remember when said, this has a song in it that has like this elaborate like cut scene and choreography yeah like movement and dancing, ah like the characters dance to it. And I remember seeing it at the time and being like, what am I watching?
01:06:04
Speaker
Yeah. And now hearing how hard it was to do anything in the telltale image involving movement things, that's even more impressive. ah But I mean, this one is just a ton of, I mean, this is, this is always the problem. mean, Ben and I've talked about this before when we stream, you know, great LucasArts games. ah You know, it's like, ah, they're so good. You kind of just like play them and nod along and say, this one's great. This one's funny.
01:06:31
Speaker
That's a good joke. Check out this funny line. yeah and i mean we're probably steering that territory too because i mean this is ah this is a series that i could easily heap praise about yeah i think it's around here that also the voice actors start to be a little more dialed in uh-huh uh you can kind of tell in their earlier episodes like they don't quite have a handle on salmon max though ah the earliest telltale i think it was sam i could be wrong uh like they like there was an original voice like a different voice actor for sam that they swapped out and so actually like when you go and you play like the remaster now or you you even play like if you just bought the the original uh like on steam uh before the remaster i think
01:07:27
Speaker
they had like the, the essentially the telltale Sam. Yeah. i go back and rerecord them. And so like those first two, he's super dialed in. And then it kind of like, you can kind of hear his delivery kind of not have because, you know, it's a dead pan, but you gotta have that right.
01:07:48
Speaker
You know? there's in the tone is not it's hard to pin down a little bit for sam and max but yeah like you could tell like the performances are starting to kind of dial in yeah what their characters are a little better because by the time you get to season two and definitely in season three but like their you know their deliveries are so nice and sharp on the jokes um And so, yeah, like Abraham Lincoln must die.
01:08:12
Speaker
Excellent. Really funny, like just ridiculous and provocative ah episode. I think that was, they had that for free on steam for a while. I think that was kind of their enticement.
01:08:26
Speaker
Like that, that was the one that they were proud of and they should have been because they, And that alone is telling that they would make the fourth episode available for free. I mean, that that really does suggest that they knew this was when they had kind of pulled all these pieces together.
01:08:43
Speaker
ah Next one, Reality 2.0 is also like also really weird, and I love this one.
Digressions into Pop Culture
01:08:51
Speaker
And i again, at the time, I was just like, what the fuck? you know i I didn't like this, and now I do.
01:09:00
Speaker
they are dealing with i they ah like are dealing you know with this ah evil hyper intelligence in a, like on the internet um that ah they have to enter like a VR, like metaverse yeah i ah to defeat.
01:09:26
Speaker
And ah as it happens, this VR metaverse is ah actually looks just like ah their city block, except all Tronized.
01:09:38
Speaker
Yes, what are the odds that they've been digitized Tron style? Yeah, they Tron'd the fuck out of it. But you know what? It actually looks pretty cool. like and Have you seen the trailers for Tron, Ares?
01:09:50
Speaker
I'm not a Tronman. I'm not Tronsman either. um i don't i don't All I like about Tron is the aesthetic. Yeah, the aesthetic's awesome. They're apparently bringing Trons into the real world.
01:10:02
Speaker
like Why would you do that? I guess they're going to use them as super... theyre But no, they still have the aesthetic. Like they're going to be like super soldiers in our world, but like they're still on the light cycles. Only now they're like driving the light cycles down the freeway and cutting other cars in half with them.
01:10:20
Speaker
I know. I saw this preview. Is that Bruce Boxlinger is Tron from Tron in it? my I don't think he is, but Jeff Bruce is. If it doesn't have Bruce, then get in the caboose. That's what you always say. I've heard you say many times.
01:10:33
Speaker
um But I mean, why would you bring Tron to the real world when the only thing good about Tron is the world it exists in? and we're We're going to do a Who Framed Roger Rabbit sequel without any of the those pesky cartoons.
01:10:48
Speaker
First of all, those were expensive to do. Yeah. Yeah. i Get him out Toontown. Just put him in L.A. Like, why... I don't know. First of all, nobody wants to see more Tron.
01:11:03
Speaker
I think people want to see more Tron and then they see him. They're, they're always like, yeah, Oh, yeah. I forgot what Tron's like. Yeah, I think that's it. I think Tron exists more as a beautiful dream than it does as a film.
01:11:17
Speaker
like That's right. What I imagine Tron to be, actually, what I imagine Tron to be is the 1980s arcade Tron game with all the like, but like the many ah games out with like cycle racing and like frisbee tossing. Oh, yeah.
01:11:31
Speaker
And like a breakout style Sam with the frisbees. Like that's, that's what I want trying to be. I want to be in my pizza hut as a kid. I want to first walk over to the jukebox, put in some money and listen to Dolly Parton's nine to five.
01:11:47
Speaker
And then we'll walk over to the Tron machine at my pizza, hu right past the salad bar. I'm pluck a quarter in there. And while i listen to nine to five, we'll play Tron. That's what I want Tron to be.
01:11:59
Speaker
The soundtrack is Dolly Parton's nine to five.
01:12:03
Speaker
Maybe that's very specific. Maybe that's idiosyncratic. Maybe that's just me. Well, you know, we all have our Tron dreams. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. But this, I'm going to call it now.
01:12:16
Speaker
This movie's dumb.
01:12:19
Speaker
Yeah, probably. they didn't use they They got Daft Punk for like, the light do they get Daft Punk for this one? Because that was pretty cool. They got Trent Reznor. Oh, or Nine Inch Nails, depending it. And I will say, soundtracks sound pretty good. Yeah, it was exactly like quite know he does good work.
01:12:37
Speaker
I'm not going to. Yeah, it was like Quake all over again. um but uh but yeah i mean that episode is also and it it has this really uh wonderful and clever uh uh text adventure uh sequence yes uh that another case of like when i was playing it being like can you do this can they do that You can't do that on television. Can't do that on television. That janitor guy is going to get slimed.
01:13:13
Speaker
Was that good? ah Ben, i was so obsessed with You Can't Do That on television. I watched every episode imaginable over and over again. Just like any time was on Nickelodeon. Have you gone back and watched as an adult?
01:13:31
Speaker
A few times. I mean, it's it's a little, like, raunchier than I would have imagined for a kid's show from that era. Probably because it's Canadian. Yeah, those Canadians, they seem very polite, but they're extremely raunchy.
01:13:45
Speaker
That's right. There's, like, lots of lots of bathroom humor, potty humor, yeah, just locker room humor, all those sorts of humors that I don't care for. But, no, I mean, it's pretty good. I mean, I was...
01:13:59
Speaker
I felt represented by it because it was the first show on television I ever saw that had a Morissette in it. So that was good to see on screen, you know? The, because that was, that was on the air a little bit when I was a kid and it was a little too, like, it was a little too advanced. I found it a little too, like, I found it very off-putting as a small child.
01:14:24
Speaker
it's i mean it likes gross out humor yeah and i mean again that raunchy canadian sensibility yeah
01:14:34
Speaker
you know we're laughing about that but i mean you know one of my absolute favorite shows is kids in the hall and you you you can't get much more raunchy like that's a very raunchy show it's true it's true very very funny yes and uh i saw them live with my my dad and he was not ready for that very and oh wow Best kid in the hall.
01:14:56
Speaker
Best kid in the hall? Yeah.
01:15:00
Speaker
killing me. that's That's like picking... Gun to my head, I'm probably going to say like Mark McKinney. That's a good choice. Because, because so you know, because he's like... yeah The thing is is, I'm like, because he's like the biggest freak, but they're all freaks.
01:15:17
Speaker
ah That's the secret cap. Like...
01:15:22
Speaker
you know they're crowd earlier like like i you know i love dave foley obviously obviously you're a human but yeah i i like you know i have a heart yeah uh and like i i love dave foley and um you know dave foley had this run of being like kind of like a very good street man for a little bit yes um news radio yeah and i mean news radio use this gear that i was about like ah about to say like news radio is great um but like my favorite dave foley is like when he's just like a sick freak like when it's like when he's like just a real degenerate like that's because and and and i think that's his his secret gear is that because of all of them
01:16:15
Speaker
And they're all like, you know, handsome, ah handsome guys, but like he's the most like I would say, like just straightforwardly, like just a kind of ah a good looking guy. You'd like to bring home to mom, you know, like he looks like a nice guy.
01:16:28
Speaker
Yeah, he's got like kind of Jason Sudeikis kind of thing like Jason Sudeikis is like he just kind of looks like. like a nice guy. And so he gets cast in nice guy parts. But if you've ever seen him perform something weird, he can, he has that freak in him.
01:16:46
Speaker
Anyway, um Dave, like I, I love ah Dave Foley is as a freak. Have you ever seen ah ah the wrong guy No, Dave Foley's ah ah like star vehicle.
01:17:00
Speaker
It didn't really, can, it's, it's, I think it's just on YouTube. ah You should watch it. It's really, really funny.
01:17:11
Speaker
um It is a movie. It just like, I guess they fucked up its release or something. Like it just didn't get like a release or something. It's a really, it's a really funny comedy ah that with, and it really shows like Dave Foley ah his, like it really, got good,
01:17:35
Speaker
Dave Foley performance out of it but I love Mark McKinney because you know I love all his like he's I think the best freak on the show who's your favorite kid in the hall is Bruce McCulloch a weird answer?
01:17:49
Speaker
No, there's no wrong answer. There is no wrong answer, but also it's kind of like yours. It's like Bruce McCulloch, but I have to acknowledge Dave Foley as, you know, pretty wonderful. So yeah, I mean, but again, there's no wrong. It feels like, and this ah it feels like picking Dave Foley as being like John Cleese is my favorite member of Monty Python. You know what I mean? Yeah.
01:18:11
Speaker
yeah Like, like, it's like, you obviously like John Cleese is hilarious. You know, Chevy Chase is my favorite SNL cast member. I don't know anything about Chevy Chase. um Oh yeah. You've never actually seen any of his movies.
01:18:23
Speaker
or his sketches or anything maybe one yeah um but uh uh yeah like i don't know something about saying dave foley just is like yeah of course yeah du yeah yeah who's really good at baseball babe ruth yeah michael jordan's really the michael jordan of basketball when you think about it but i yeah i mean kids the hall has no weak links it's it's you know it's all like it's five really funny guys like killer no filler yeah did you watch the the new season of that like no i haven't
01:19:00
Speaker
it's good it's good it's good good and also i'm gonna it's i i think they're funnier i think they're funnier because they're old That is funny in itself. That's what's made me so funny. Because you watch the original five seasons of Kids in the Hall. I think so. And there were these five cute young men. And you're like, oh, look at those cute young boys doing some comedy.
01:19:25
Speaker
And now they're old men. And they're running around and they're taking their shirts off and they're taking their pants off and they're just running around being old.
01:19:37
Speaker
they're really like kind of leaning into, it's like we used to remember us when we were all cute little boys, we're not anymore. And that's even funnier. That's so funny.
01:19:48
Speaker
Something love about kids in the hall that I also love about MTV's The State is it was in this wonderful time in history where you could see a show like that and just wonder. It's like who in the world decided to take a chance on giving these people a TV show?
01:20:02
Speaker
It's almost like the early Conan O'Brien effect, too. It's just like, who thought this guy should host a TV show? They just gave him a TV show that cost millions of dollars to make. And now he's doing it. And the case of two or three of those, it was Lauren. Yeah. That turns out if you have deep pockets and you're Lauren Michaels, you can just say, i grant the, a television show and it happened. Yeah. Like, and then like for the state, it was, it's like, Hey, Hey, ah like you, 20 NYU students with a sketch group.
01:20:31
Speaker
i ah Do you want to, in town do you want to do a show on ah MTV? Sure. How much are you paying? Yeah. not much yeah and they're like great we're 19 it doesn't matter yeah a thousand dollars in an episode you can split it however you want and and it's like will this make all of us famous only pockets of you uh yeah and only yeah sometimes like groups of you together other times alone i mean ben spoiler alert michael e in black has a fairly prominent role in the new superman movie really yes
01:21:07
Speaker
Of all people. Who's your favorite member of the state? And then we'll get back to and Max. But who's your favorite member of the state? I have an answer. Oh my God. Now this is tough. Favorite. I have an answer. Number one with a bullet.
01:21:22
Speaker
Okay. I mean, i kind of do love Michael Ian Black. and Once again, another case of look at all these cute young men. Like, yeah. I mean, yeah. i mean I mean, post but like on the state.
01:21:37
Speaker
I wouldn't say he was my favorite by a long shot. I think post state, it's hard to argue with like a Ken Marino. Yeah. i See, that's the thing. I'm probably because my number one with a bullet is, is Ken Marino. But the thing is, is that I might just be thinking about, uh, him in party down, which is one of the funniest performances of all time.
01:21:59
Speaker
I mean, Carrie Kenny, Carrie Kenny is really good. really good. I mean, show Walter is really, really funny. Yeah. Have I told you my secondhand Showalter story?
01:22:09
Speaker
you Your secondhand Showalter? Tell me about your secondhand Showalter story. a secondhand Showalter story.
01:22:20
Speaker
So my best friend in in the mid-90s went to a Weezer concert. And at the Weezer concert, he realized standing near him at this festival was Michael Showalter.
01:22:39
Speaker
And he was like, oh, my God, I'm a huge fan of the state. And Michael Showalter was there with a date. He went over to him and said, oh my God, Doug from the state.
01:22:52
Speaker
And Michael Showalter said, fuck off, man.
01:22:59
Speaker
You know what? Fair. Yeah. I saw was herring case stand with Michael Showalter. Yeah, no. I feel like we may have drifted off topic here. But yeah, if you don't know, let us explain the state and then we'll explain this Doug character and then you'll appreciate why this is. I'm Doug, your dad.
01:23:16
Speaker
And I'm out of here.
01:23:21
Speaker
Okay, Ben. The last episode. Episode six. Hubelis. sholess I would say this is of the back half. This is probably the weakest one.
01:23:33
Speaker
i would agree. It's, it's, and, and it's still good. It's just not like reality 2.0 and Abe Lincoln must die are both like, you know,
01:23:45
Speaker
Like I would Abeling Can Must Die is like a home run and Reality 2.0 is like ah like a double or a triple. This is ah like a solid RBI single, you know? And and sort of tying together. I mean, you've probably gotten the sense that you've never played these games. These...
01:24:00
Speaker
These are pretty wildly different games from episode to episode with a few threads that are running through them. It's lightly serialized, like, uh, like strange new worlds.
01:24:13
Speaker
Exactly. Yeah. And it's trying to, this last one does a little bit of work to try to pull all that together. So it's got some just like, you know, sort of housekeeping to do at some level. But yeah, you're, you're dealing with ah Hugh Bliss, a ah self-help guru, ah evil mastermind. You go the moon because why wouldn't you?
01:24:36
Speaker
Great joke. They just drive to the moon. Yeah, that's great. I mean, good joke. Yeah. You don't need any more than that. They don't, they don't, they don't like,
01:24:49
Speaker
they don't do anything about it and they don't like they, they make a little bit of like, they do a little bit of comedy with it, but then that's it. Like they don't, yeah they don't have on a hat it.
01:25:00
Speaker
It's just kind of like, uh, yeah. Like we drove to the moon. Just drove the DeSoto to the moon. Yeah. Um, yeah, you know, like this one. So you're, you're facing off against the, the villain who, as it turns out, and you'd been showing up a little bit here and there in the earlier, oh, sorry, spoilers.
01:25:18
Speaker
Um, ah but showing up, this is not, if you're going to be upset, yeah I'm getting mad at a person I'm making up, but this is not really a game that you can spoil. it doesn't well yeah you're not there's not really yeah like There's a plot, but you don't care about the plot.
01:25:34
Speaker
You probably aren't playing for the plot. yeah i mean yeah if if You're playing for the beautiful girls in it. um Yeah, like Sybil Pandemic. um But... um the uh uh so yeah you're you're you're you're facing off against uh hugh bliss uh the uh like who it turns out is the the guy that's been behind all the evil schemes uh up to this point and yeah it's just not as good but it's fine like like i mean it's fine
01:26:08
Speaker
Yeah, taken as a whole collectively, this is ah really strong season. I mean, and would lay so much groundwork for everything that Telltale is going to do moving forward, both with Sam and Max and just in general with their games. I mean, of course, eventually we'll see the shift toward the more narrative, less puzzle focused, you know, Walking Dead series.
01:26:31
Speaker
But I feel like they cut a lot of those narrative chops in the Sam and Max games. yeah yeah i'm curious i mean is it like i played i didn't play these originally other than the first episode i went back and played the 2020 remaster i think the remaster looks fantastic right i mean the remaster looks extremely and here's the like i remember at the time thinking like oh this looks pretty good like yeah
01:27:03
Speaker
for 3d yeah within like i mean i i knew like playing it like i was just like yeah this is this is lower budget and you can also tell because there's not too much like you know there aren't too many screens or like but you know i thought it looked fine at the time um Yeah, but I mean, it did have the limitations that a lot of the stuff that initially was released, like in GameTap is digital distribution and download sizes were still a concern in the mid
Game Remasters and Future Wishes
01:27:32
Speaker
2000s.
01:27:32
Speaker
It eventually goes to WiiWare, which, of course, I think a WiiWare game could only be 28k total. You really have to compress the files. Yeah, yeah.
01:27:44
Speaker
Yeah, they like ah we were you actually you didn't actually download that. What you did was you had to purchase a ah five and a quarter floppy add on for your.
01:28:01
Speaker
They deliver it in a truck. He's like, here's your Sam and Max. but yeah The remaster, um like, takes those games, which at the time looked fine, and makes them look extremely, like, it's interesting what, and I mean, they did a lot more than just this, but it's interesting what, like, a really good modern lighting pass does on a game. Yeah.
01:28:27
Speaker
Because they've made like the lighting in every scene, like a lot more dramatic. Yes. Shadows and colors, but never too much. Like, you know, it's not like somebody's first quake map or whatever.
01:28:42
Speaker
no No, it still feels like the game, but everything just looks better. I mean, you throw that in a little bit of anti-aliasing on the models and all of a sudden it is a really gorgeous game. Like it's...
01:28:55
Speaker
It's funny because some of it looks like how I remember it looking. And then i went back and watched on YouTube. Like actually after the last time I played it, and went I went watched on YouTube the original being played being like, oh, no, that's not what it looked like at all.
01:29:12
Speaker
uh you know now am i mistaken here or can still if you buy the remasters those come with i believe the original and i believe that they do especially as because you know some people were they they they modified a couple jokes that they weren't happy with and they recast bosco which they you know decided uh they they wanted to redo um both of which i think are perfectly like you know they didn't this wasn't uh you know to go back to our old friend george uh this the the the changes that they uh made in the remaster were all pretty additive um like you know they didn't they monkey with the game uh like or the jokes uh or whatever like too much they just they just modified you can find a list they even released it like you can
01:30:02
Speaker
find it yeah they very transparent about this and just like in a game we're releasing in 2020 we just do not feel comfortable releasing having these jokes anymore and i was like good for you yeah but i would do the same thing given that opportunity if i had bits i regretted yeah um but yeah they look really great and you can play it on everything so uh even though we we spoiled who the bad guy is yeah it was you bliss this whole time yeah and uh the the whole game is really a mystery and uh there aren't that many jokes um uh i you know uh i i give it a buy rating yeah i think yeah i mean go out there mean this thing goes on sale for next to nothing all the time i mean if you catch this at like 14.99
01:30:50
Speaker
you're not going to spend a better $15 out there. It's, it's a fantastic, especially if you love Sam and Max, you know, it, uh, it gives you more of these characters and honestly just spending another 10 or 12 hours hanging out. These characters is, uh, is a real treat. Uh, I'm not going to nitpick the details.
01:31:12
Speaker
And, and also, ah you, you have to get it because I don't know. I mean, I don't know if they've even said, have like the the people at skunk ape the the company of former telltale people that that put the copy uh the the remasters together have they said if they are thinking like were the three masters it are they like all right we did it we're done goodbye like or or do we know because what i'm i'm saying is because i want a remaster of tales from monkey island and
01:31:45
Speaker
that would i mean that out there i'm just saying that i'm just saying that please please please yeah two and i understand misery owns it and it's a very complicated whole thing blah blah blah but yeah playing these remasters you know gives me hope for cat to dream projects one obviously would be a season four mean of sam and max yeah that'd be awesome fantastic um and yeah doing this with tales monkey island i feel like it's a game that really the limitations of the WiiWare format and some of the just you know it's also a little buggy now a little buggy it's got some problems in it I feel like it recently had a bunch of like crashes and unintentional like dead end things which required like some monkeying with files to fix yeah
01:32:35
Speaker
No, that would be fantastic. Either one of those. And I think they have hinted. I mean, they haven't come out and said about either of those, I don't think. But i do get there's that general sense that pervades the video game industry of if you buy this thing we made, we might get a chance to make other things you might enjoy, too.
01:32:54
Speaker
Which I imagine more Sam & Max or a remastered Tales from a Gowland have to be Maybe like a Homestar Runner, the remaster of that, because I mean the rights for that.
01:33:07
Speaker
I'm, I'm sure the brothers chaps are probably easy to work with. Like I don't know. Like, I mean, I haven't seen their net worth currently, but bet at least, yeah, you're not dealing with the, with a mega corporation like Disney and, and sort of sorting out their eyes, but no, I mean, that's a fantastic series too.
Nostalgia and Internet Culture
01:33:25
Speaker
I think that yeah i realize those I've never played those. Maybe that's a future stream. They do really well. I mean, I don't want turn this into a review of that, but I will say if you love Homestar Runner, they feel as close to sort of interactive versions of that cartoon as I can imagine. mean, it really does nail the tone.
01:33:45
Speaker
OD'd in high school on Homestar Runner, like to the point where like I had to like put it away because like I was just like, this is the greatest thing I've ever seen my entire life. And I'm going to.
01:33:56
Speaker
like sit at my lunch table yeah uh and just like quote it all the time and then like one day i was like all right i i've done too much like yeah i have to put away a homestar runner and i just haven't like other than like the occasional like you know when they do the april fool's day every now and again i haven't really gone back and looked at any homestar runner uh uh stuff like i mean i think i really love it i it i i had that period i was a little bit older you know if you're probably at the uh yeah and i was probably in like a fine italian restaurant uh but you know yeah just i was you know older more sophisticated uh like smoking a cigarette
01:34:43
Speaker
I'm a mess cigar. um But yeah, i mean, i got obsessed with Homestar Runner too. And I got like deep dive, quoting it constantly and everything. And I have to say, I've gone back in the last year or so and watched a lot of that stuff.
01:34:57
Speaker
It's still kind of the greatest thing ever. Homestar Runner was good. So, and that's Telltale series is very good too.
Podcast Promotion and Humor
01:35:02
Speaker
All right Well, yeah. Is there anything else you have to say on Salmon Max Season 1? A good game.
01:35:09
Speaker
A good game. I mean, hey, go out there and buy it, guys. Get this game. All right. Well, this has been Quest Quest, the adventure game podcast. ah Please rate and review.
01:35:25
Speaker
that's how You got to do it. Helps people find us. uh you know all right share us online um you know share us on on friendly forums and know those those shitty ones you know don't put us on your asshole reddit channel or whatever reddit channel yeah that's what they call them 100 years old reddit channel don't put it on your reddit don't put it on your your roblockx yeah jack can so roblox don't roblox our podcast okay
01:35:57
Speaker
Our next, have you, everybody, like I've listened to like two or three podcasts on the last day, like video game podcasts. I listened to you talk about grow a garden. Does your daughter, does she do Roblox?
01:36:08
Speaker
Yeah, she does. Does she play this garden game? need to ask her. I've heard a whole bunch of other podcasts talk about. No, I don't know she does. I'll have to ask her because i mean, she and her friends spend a lot of time in, in Roblox, probably doing things they shouldn't be.
01:36:25
Speaker
yeah well I mean, I was doing things I probably shouldn't have been on ah the Imagination Network. oh That's true. Playing boogers. I was playing boogers. I was playing Red Baron.
01:36:38
Speaker
ah Shadows of Usurbius. Yeah, Shadows of Usurbius. Anyway. that sound like You can watch us on Twitch and YouTube, DecafJedi and PS underscore Garrick.
01:36:51
Speaker
And you can join us next week. for our discovery of the state, the game. And now I'm Ben and you're Jess and I'm out of