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Episode 4 - Ready Player Fun with Ryan Kossoudji
10 Plays1 year ago
This week we are joined by the premier chocolate tier in the United States. We learn about the history of the Golden Turtle in this one before squaring off in draft from the best video games of our childhood! We had so much fun in this episode that we didn't want to stop. Hopefully, this brings back some fond memories for our listeners. Remember to go to https://www.copperkettlechocolates.com/ and tell them the Commish sent you and for 1 week you will get 10% off your order of either Toffee or Turtles.
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Transcript
Introduction to Matt and Ryan
00:00:12
Speaker
Gonna find my baby, gonna hold her tight, gonna grab some afternoon delight. My motto's always been, when it's right, it's right while we
00:00:26
Speaker
good afternoon delights this is your host matt latimer and i'm just here trying to bring you a smile on this wednesday but i couldn't do it alone so i had to bring in a very special guest the candy man himself mr ryan kasooji how you doing today cos i'm doing well how are you doing hey can't complain how's life down there in houston texas
00:00:48
Speaker
That's been nice. We had a few weeks of rain. Now we're back to the 70s. Back to sunny. Looking like the podcast here in Houston now. Nice. That's
Copper Kettle Chocolate Factory Insights
00:00:57
Speaker
what it's all about. So for our guest here, Ryan, why don't you give everybody a little bit of rundown of you and your life?
00:01:03
Speaker
Well, you know, I'm doing the same old thing, you know, making chocolate and everything stocked up for Valentine's. Christmas really gave us a good hit. So I got to restock everything. Took a little vacation, so I'm a little behind. But after a couple of weeks of work, I've been getting back to full chocolate resources at the factory. So getting back there.
00:01:22
Speaker
Nice. We all love to hear a big fan of Copper Kettle Chocolate Factory over here. Now, Ryan, why don't you tell the people some of your favorite hobbies? What do you like to do for fun? I spent a lot of time training for different Ironmans that I have coming up. Usually I just do like one half 70.3 every year. I take a couple months off and then I start getting ready for that again. So that takes a good amount of my days.
00:01:44
Speaker
Getting ready for that, you know just went snowboarding with my family Travis and Sean and one of our friends so I do that pretty much every year and Do a little backpacking trip every year pretty active last when I'm but I'm not at work What would you say is the hardest part about getting ready for an Ironman and what's your favorite one that
Ironman and Training Adventures
00:02:03
Speaker
you've done so far? So I do the same one every single year. So it's the Galveston 70.3 in Texas my favorite
00:02:10
Speaker
Event probably in that is the swim because I have to do very little work to get rich for that one Pretty just kind of comes second nature to me to swim a little I don't know. What is it 1.2 miles? So I try to hold off on training for that for a while I'll train for that for about a month or two before so, you know after this when the bike is pretty enjoyable for me I can train for that in my garage try to stay off the roads here in Texas The pickup truck drivers are not kind to us
00:02:40
Speaker
out there in the streets. So I trained for that and my little trainer in the garage with my TV, listening to some podcasts, watching shows, sit on there for a couple hours a week and then run. Easy day outside, do some training sessions and you know, get out there. I'm trying this year to break six hours. Jacob Lawrence, one of our friends just broke that. So now I have to compete against him and get my crown back for the fastest Ironman or half Ironman.
00:03:07
Speaker
in our friend group. That's the goal this year. Not too bad to trade for.
00:03:10
Speaker
Sounds like a lot of fun. I like to say that one day maybe I would train enough to do an Ironman. That's probably not gonna happen. You could do it, man. I believe in you. I'm more likely to train for a hot dog eating contest than an Ironman. I can see that about you too. What are some of your favorite ski runs that you've been on? You mean as far as like mountains? What are the top mountains? You got anything on your bucket
Skiing Escapades and Aspirations
00:03:29
Speaker
list? One of the best trips I've taken is to Whistler in British Columbia, Canada. That's a fun trip to go on. It's pretty difficult to get out there. But now we're
00:03:38
Speaker
My brother has a little house in Mammoth, California. That's our favorite mountain now because we can get out there and stay at my brother's place. It's a nice mountain.
00:03:48
Speaker
Not too bad of a drive to get out there from San Diego. So it's a nice little drive there. And then Breckenridge is always a nice place to go. I think in the future, I would love to go to Japan. That's the number one bucket list is hit the slopes in Japan. Pan's big and skiing? Yeah, they get a lot of snow. Probably get the most snow out in Japan.
Family Chocolate Business History
00:04:06
Speaker
Ryan, you know, we hit on it a little bit earlier, but you do work for the greatest chocolate factory in the world. Everybody out there listening, Copper Cattle Chocolate Factory in Cypress, Texas. Do yourself a favor, order the box today.
00:04:17
Speaker
but um copper kettle was born from a different chocolate factory the golden turtle that your grandparents run why don't you give us like a little bit of a history lesson i don't know too much about the golden turtle how did your grandparents get into the chocolate making business and start this is it has it been passed down from longer through them or is this just something that they decided to start and figured out as they went yes so my grandparents have always been
00:04:41
Speaker
entrepreneurs and they used to have a nursery in Colorado and they got out of that. They sold that business, got out of Colorado, moved to Ohio. They're trying to think of another business to start up. They actually started the golden turtle and the little kiosk in the mall and they were making chocolates out of their kitchen and really just experimenting to see what they can do. Out of the kiosk,
00:05:03
Speaker
I found this little shop in Lebanon, Ohio. It used to be a car dealership. I don't know, probably the 1800s. They bought that building and they've been there for 35 years. I grew up going to their shop every summer, staying with them.
00:05:19
Speaker
and trying to work there. Me and Travis actually used to park cars. They're a little parking lot for the Santa Claus that come into town on a train every year and then also Thomas the Train. So we would park cars there. I would work there, you know, chocolate clusters.
00:05:34
Speaker
different things and then in the summers when I got older my parents already lived in Texas so I would go down to the chocolate shop and work there for the summer because I didn't have any you know family in Ohio other than that. About eight years ago my parents decided they wanted to open a shop called the Copper Kettle Chocolate Factory using the same recipes that my grandparents did and we actually have their old cases that they started with. My parents started the the new company and then I
00:06:02
Speaker
Shortly after I moved down to Texas trying to carry on the family tradition making chocolates and now eight years later I'm pretty much the Main chocolates here there how we're just trying to keep building from there So how did how did your grandparents come up with some of these recipes? Was it just trial and error? How did they think you mean let's be honest if you don't like toffee you get toffee from copper cattle chocolate factory And it's honestly gonna change your life
00:06:26
Speaker
Every other toffee taste and asked for hair to copper cattle toffee. How did they come up with a recipe like that? Did they mean you didn't really have didn't have the internet or anything to be able to just go and look something like that up and then go trial and error based off that so did they just wing it from the start and then you know they struck gold or
00:06:43
Speaker
So with the Toffee, there's a place in Colorado, it's called Instrom's Toffee. It's a big place in Colorado that everyone, if you're from there and around there, you've probably seen it or heard about it. They were just trying to match something of that quality here in Ohio. And 200 different chocolate books that my grandpa probably read every single page of. So he did it the old fashioned way of just reading books and finding out how to make
00:07:07
Speaker
chocolate in the classic way. A very Northeast type of business is chocolate and then we've just brought it down to Texas which you know you can't find around here but it's the old Midwest Northeast recipes that they spent you know 30 years perfecting.
00:07:23
Speaker
Yeah, perfected it. I did. You guys have a lot of other kind of products for you. What's your favorite product that you like to make or get creative? I'm, you know, ahead of my list. I, you know, I spend eight hours a day pretty much just in my own head or listening to a podcast. If I get bored enough, I can come up and do ideas.
00:07:41
Speaker
I have a lot of our stuff at the shop has really never been in the Golden Turtle. You know, like our brownie melts, our caramel macchiato. We have a lot of new recipes. The toffee is actually a different recipe now. I have my own way of doing things, so I try to make things as simple as possible and most efficient, which has changed the way that I make things that they never did or completely new recipes.
00:08:08
Speaker
I think my favorite thing to make is because it's the best thing that we make and also it's the most... I can make such a large amount of it at one time is our almond topping. I like making that the most.
00:08:21
Speaker
I think it's something that most people enjoy a lot, so I enjoy making it. I think my least favorite thing to make is the stuff that's hard to keep everything clean is the clusters, like pecan clusters, almond clusters, peanut clusters, stuff like that, cashew clusters. It takes the most amount of time.
00:08:39
Speaker
It's fairly simple, but it's a favorite by a lot of people, so I have to keep making a lot of it. Have you ever made a product that you just didn't like so much that you didn't even ever put it out for sale? It's hard for me to... Yeah, it's hard because I can't judge my own things. I know people like it, and so I have to keep making it. So there's stuff like, I don't know, horrible bars that I just... I would never... Something I wouldn't eat, but it sells, so I have to just keep making it.
00:09:02
Speaker
And so I can't really trust my opinion on the things I make. Because there's a lot of things that I make that I wouldn't eat myself. So I just I don't trust my own opinion on my stuff. Yeah, that makes sense. I'll be the official copper kettle taste tester. Yeah, I need that because I don't I don't trust my own my own palate.
00:09:20
Speaker
I don't know if you'll be able to trust mine either, because you're just gonna be like, Matt, you can't constantly tell me that it's the best thing you've ever put in your mouth, because that's not helping. But yeah, you do have a lot of good products. You know, you got a lot of big clients too.
Celebrity Clients and Chocolate Popularity
00:09:32
Speaker
Has anybody famous ever walked into copper kettle that you've sold to? Or let's say, who's the most interesting person that you know of that's bought your chocolate? Oh, I mean, you have to go with the, you know, Steven Spielberg.
00:09:43
Speaker
Whoa! Steven Spielberg, the director of Star Wars Steven Spielberg. Yes, that guy. He buys our turtles. Depending on the address that I get that comes through my computer, I can kind of see where they're going. Sometimes it's to his house. Sometimes it's to, I don't know, probably hundreds of different clients that he has in his different studios. And so he's a simple client. He just likes his turtles. I make sure they're perfect when they get there.
00:10:09
Speaker
Other than that, yeah, I don't know where my chocolate's going, so no one through the physical doors yet, but as we grow, hopefully I'll get some famous people. That's a pretty good client to have, I'd say, Steven Spielberg. Maybe one day you'll get to meet him in person coming to the shop.
00:10:27
Speaker
thank you for everything you've done you know you would hope after you know they started with the golden turtle after you know 25 years of how long he's been ordering turtles i i expect a physical visit from here we'll get with fran we'll write a script for a clerk's style movie set inside of copper kettle chocolate factory get it into sundance and then we'll go we'll meet stephen spielberg in person
00:10:51
Speaker
Yeah, I'll send that idea over to him. I think he might like it. Alright Ryan, are you ready for a little afternoon delights place at the table? Yeah, that sounds great. Alright, I'm gonna try and do most of this from memory because in college I took a chocolate science class.
00:11:06
Speaker
Oh, wow. Learned all about it. So give you a little bit of a rundown here on kind of the history of chocolate. So it wasn't a widespread item wasn't too known about most of the chocolate products were grown in South America. We've since come to know that a lot of cocoa is which is actually pronounced cacao was is now in Africa. So these cacao beans, they were kind of used as trade items, but they were hard to forage for.
00:11:31
Speaker
They were very hard to break open. Once the Spanish conquistadors got there, they really started digging into this cacao as a trade product, but pretty much everybody just hated, absolutely hated the cacao and the paste and all of the butter and everything that came for it because it was such a bitter tasting food. But they brought it back to trade anyway and it really actually caught on with Spanish housewives who started mixing it with hot water.
00:11:59
Speaker
So these Spanish housewives in the early 1500s when the Kinky stores came back were the first ones to make hot chocolate. And that's really how it started to catch on in Spain. And then eventually that grew to the rest of Europe and they started figuring out that if you added sugar and milk and everything to it and you made milk chocolate, then
00:12:18
Speaker
would make it really, really sweet. And then that is when chocolate really just started to grow across the world as this popular food item. You know, they learned as with chocolate, the more cacao butter or fat that you add, it's going to leave indents and everything when you touch it. And that kind of indicates that you have a higher quality chocolate. You can touch a piece of chocolate and see your thumbprint. It has a higher cacao butter content inside the chocolate.
00:12:45
Speaker
which means that it's going to taste better. Then if you take just a plain chocolate bar and you break it open and there's a bunch of air bubbles or imperfections or anything in the chocolate bar, then that's going to indicate a lower quality bar of chocolate because you don't want to see that aeration when you pour into the chocolate. That's just some of the things that I learned along the way. Yeah, that's interesting.
00:13:07
Speaker
customers come in asking for our highest percentage chocolate and what I like to do is go back and find some cocoa nibs which is 100% chocolate and I give it to them and they think it's gonna be really good but it tastes like if you took a bite of a piece of chalk and it's terrible. It's supposed to be healthy but it's disgusting. Actually the
00:13:29
Speaker
A byproduct of chocolate is the cocoa butter, which you described, and that is the white chocolate. So if you want to give your dog a treat and dip a little bone in white chocolate, it's okay because there's no cow in white chocolate. It's just a byproduct of the process of making.
00:13:47
Speaker
Yeah, that was gonna be my next tip. White chocolate isn't actually chocolate, just milk and fat. All right, Ryan, are you ready to get into the meat of this episode?
Favorite Video Games Draft
00:13:55
Speaker
Yeah, I'm ready. All right, our draft for this week is gonna be the best video games. Now, this is an insight into the video games that we like really the most as kids. We're gonna try to cover all of it. If you take one game in the series, you get the entire series.
00:14:10
Speaker
Me personally I stuck to really just the console games will probably have a different episode where we look into some of the PC games But there's really just way too many games, but I'm ready to get into this one now you elected you would rather draft Second so you're opening up the first pick for me
00:14:26
Speaker
I said it before earlier on this draft, but the best game of all time and the best series of all time There's only one option and i'm taking it with my first pick here. It's halo without a doubt 100% No argument halo is the best series of all time halo 2 is the best game of all time And I will go down until my dying days Arguing fighting against anybody that says anything different a halo 2 served as the top game
00:14:51
Speaker
from the time that I was like eight years old to the time that I was 13. It had one of the longest runs being the top game at the time. It is the game that really started launching professional video gameplay into what it is today. It's the game that launched what online gaming is today. Halo 1 was the first game released with the Xbox.
00:15:12
Speaker
When you bought your Xbox, it came with a Halo disc and that made it one of the most purchased games of all time. So everybody that bought an Xbox has played Halo. It has also sold more games than any other first-person shooter in history. Not only that, but the Guinness Book of World Records
00:15:50
Speaker
just put together a
00:15:59
Speaker
that Halo had levels 1 through 50 and if you were a 50 you were literally a professional game. Like nowadays today your rank doesn't mean anything in any console games it's just however much you play your number goes up. That's really all it is there's a lot of PC games out there where that's not the case but Halo set the standard for this when your rank meant something and I appreciate it to this day.
00:16:21
Speaker
Halo is a good pick. It's not anywhere on my list. I didn't get onto online gaming until late into Xbox 360. So I never really got to join you all on that amazing Halo 2 adventure. I really missed out on that one.
00:16:40
Speaker
You didn't even need Xbox Live for Halo 2 to be great because you had this systemly. You'd go into somebody's basement, you'd run a TV and a 40-foot ethernet cable between two rooms, and you'd have four-on-four playing all night at sleepovers.
00:16:55
Speaker
And I was actually pretty good at Halo 2, especially for a little kid. And to be a nine year old kid and your brother and his friends that are all 12 and 13 are letting you come over and stay at the sleepover because you don't suck at a video game is the greatest feeling. Yeah, I missed out on all that. I was super jealous of all you guys and I probably pretended that it was a terrible game just to make myself feel better.
00:17:18
Speaker
You missed out. It's not too late. Any time that anybody wants to run some 2 on 2 on Xbox Live on the Halo Chief Master Chief Collection, you let me know because I'm still down to game on some Halo 2. I could talk about it for hours and hours and nobody really wants to listen to me. So there's going to be more episodes of me talking about Halo 2, so just get ready for it. But Ryan, let's move on here. What is your first pick in this draft of the best video games?
00:17:44
Speaker
My list just comes down to the most amount of joy that I've had over the years. This game came in three separate eras. It came when I was just in my room in my parents' house when I was young. I think it came out in 2003.
00:18:00
Speaker
I kept playing it in your basement with Chris Latimer and we enjoyed it just as much in there a few years later and then I enjoyed it again with Chris when he was in Florida. I enjoyed that game just as much then. Every single time I play this game it brings me the most joy and that is SSX Tricky. Oh my gosh!
00:18:24
Speaker
That was deep on my list for sure you're right that is such a good game s s x tricky it's way better than any of the other s s x games there's no comparison no that was like one of the first games that i remember where you could kinda like you could customize your characters board and their clothing and everything.
00:18:44
Speaker
And you had to do different levels and win different things with every character to unlock everything. So you just play for hours and hours and hours to try and get the coolest snowboard. That's a great game. Every character has their own personality, great music, a lot of fun to play. They didn't try to get too technical, a lot of fun. If you have a chance to play some SSX,
00:19:06
Speaker
Such a good pick. Alright Ryan, what is your second pick? This kind of goes along the same lines. This is just a game that I spent a lot of time on. It's a giant series. There's a lot of these games. This one just spoke to me the most. The first game everyone knows and it's on every system. This game just came out the right time for me. And it's Tony Hawk's Pro Skater Underground. Ugh.
00:19:32
Speaker
I spent a lot of time on this game. I had all my favorite skaters in it. If I got to take a whole series, Pony Hawk is not a bad one to take. That's another great game. Yeah, and that's this time I was really trying to become a great skater.
00:19:44
Speaker
Never did, but I kept trying. And Underground, I liked it because it got a little bit silly. The missions became a little insane. It wasn't like the original four where it was, you know, paint the yard and all that kind of stuff. It was fun. You go to the zoo, you go to different places in different cities, and it really, it gets true form in Pro Skater Underground.
00:20:06
Speaker
That's a good pick. I'm kind of surprised that you're not taking this one that's going to be my next pick, but I'm taking Call of Duty with my second pick in this draft. It's one of the most popular games around today. I mean, truly, Halo set the standard, and Call of Duty lived up to it. The first three games were mostly campaign-based, set in World War II, and they were all just really, really great campaigns. Call of Duty 3 kind of showed what life could be, but wasn't anything too super special, but when the Xbox 360 released,
00:20:36
Speaker
and Call of Duty 4 dropped Modern Warfare 1, that changed the game. This is the first game where you could really customize all your attachments and everything that you wanted on your weapons. Amazing maps, great gameplay. You had the first offer of like a kill streak, so it was even more important to go without dying. I don't think that anybody had experienced the game like Cod 4 before.
00:20:58
Speaker
And I think the me that me and Chris together on our Xbox account combined played something like 38 total days of our life maybe you played for two hours it would say you've played for two hours enough to get like 38 days of our life on just Call of Duty truly just everybody playing it all the time it had the great missions and everything to
00:21:18
Speaker
to go out and get the custom paints for your gun making sure that you get headshots. It was really just a great time and it just kept releasing straight bangers. I mean it followed with Modern Warfare 2 that was amazing. World of War came out and introduced zombies. Black Ops really brought a renewed love to the franchise. I mean I think some of it had become a bit stale and more recent games. Stuff being rushed to market. There's fewer maps. There's really not a ranked system anymore but you can't convince me that Call of Duty doesn't deserve to be on this list.
00:21:48
Speaker
Yeah, that was definitely my next pick. That's my introduction to online gaming other than what was the game with the chainsaw at the end of every gun? That's my next pick. Oh, okay. Well, you get to that one, but I remember that game when you're about to pick and Modern Warfare or Call of Duty was my introduction to online gaming.
00:22:10
Speaker
I spent hundreds of hours in your house playing with Chris, because I couldn't play online yet. But yeah, that's pretty much my introduction to online gaming was Call of Duty. So it's great. All right. And with my third pick, I'm taking Gears of War. There it is. Gears of War is easily the best third-person shooter of all time. It's an Xbox exclusive. It was released with 360. I mean, this game, especially in Gears of War 1,
00:22:40
Speaker
before they started coming out with different game modes, it was extremely hard. Very hard to get good at the game and you had to play safe. These rounds is, you know, a game would be best of seven and you get one life per round. So if you messed up, you played bad, you were dead and you were screwing up your team and you had to get good and you had to get good quick, you had to get accurate, you had to play smart. Gears of War made you better at other games.
00:23:03
Speaker
And then it really just kept getting better in my opinion through all three of the games. I love Gears of War 3 online. The other cool part about Gears of War is just how you can kill people. You can shoot people with a shotgun and they just blow into a thousand pieces. You have a Lancer, which is a machine gun that has a chainsaw on the end of it and you cut people in half. And then every gun
00:23:23
Speaker
has like a different execution so in Gears of War you can get downed and a teammate can help you up but if they don't get there in time somebody can come up with their weapon and do some type of freaking awesome execution and I mean if you just want to be an absolute roided out thug just
00:23:38
Speaker
Super beast building buff machine. That's every single character in Gears of War. It's overarching story from the first game to the third game is maybe the best campaign of all time. You really get to learn to develop and fall in love with the characters behind the scenes. I mean, there's just nothing not to love about Gears of War.
00:23:55
Speaker
That's an underappreciated video game. I remember my favorite weapon in that game was the I think it was a bow or a crossbow with like a bomb at the end of it. Yeah, it was fun to use. And I think it was like one or two. It was great. I enjoyed that one. All right, Ryan, what is pick number three for you? I'm trying to stay somewhat relatable in my
00:24:16
Speaker
my picks here but I'm going down my list. You just got to be true to yourself. Be true to yourself in these picks and tell us what brings you back to your childhood and we're going to find somebody else out there that loves it just as much as you do. Yeah, if a few thousand people is in this pod maybe they'll agree with me on this one. This is the first game that I beat
00:24:38
Speaker
by myself with no help from my older sibling or cousin. This game I played alone as probably I think it's PlayStation 2. I actually got to the end credits. I accomplished my first goal in life and that is Ace Combat 4. That is a fighter jet video game where
00:24:57
Speaker
you just, you know, you're part of the Air Force or Navy and you're taking on aerial fights and air to ground fights with your really cool jets. I can honestly say that I've never played that game. You got to get your hands on one. I mean, I feel like I need to. It sounds pretty cool. It's kind of has like a battlefield feel to it as battlefield, but all you do is
00:25:20
Speaker
hang out on your jet. Pretty fun. I'd play it right now if I could find it. Yeah, I definitely see you playing that style. All right, Ryan, what's pick number four? All right, so this is a more recent game that I talk about all the time, talk about living in this lifestyle. This is my everyday life. If I can one day go into the virtual world, this is where I'll be, is where you can find me. And that is in
00:25:46
Speaker
Red Dead Redemption 2 I just want to ride on my horse into the sunset there's a lot of beautiful cutscenes if you just ride third person on your horse let it go to your next location it'll zoom out it'll play you an amazing song it'll let you see the sunset and you can ride your horse all day long and you
00:26:05
Speaker
You just can live the life that we were meant to live. And that is in Red Dead Redemption 2. Yeah, you're definitely not alone in that pick. I think I liked the first one more than the second one. I barely played the second one. The reasons that you love it is why I hated it. I hated sitting on a train for five minutes and just watching your character ride a train and do nothing, but it was one of the best visually put together games of all time.
00:26:30
Speaker
Oh, it's the most beautiful games ever made, and if Call of Duty 6 can do half of what they did in RDR2, I will be escaping into that world as well. I'm gonna be honest, I thought that you were gonna take a couple more of my picks, so now that I'm at the end of my list, I'm like... There's a lot to choose from. I'm not gonna get to the other ones, and now I'm like, do I move up some of these... That's what I've been dealing with, yeah.
00:26:55
Speaker
All right, I'm gonna go with my fourth day. I'm very amazed that you didn't take this one, but I'm taking Skyrim, the Elder Scrolls series. I think people would be mad at me that it's not higher up on the list. You talk about a visually pleasing game and it's definitely this one. I mean, Skyrim was such an amazing game. I remember just watching Chris play it for like eight hours.
00:27:12
Speaker
I wasn't even the one playing, just watching it and it was still amazing. I didn't really play many of the other Elder Scrolls games, but Skyrim was the game that really introduced me to the genre of open world. Like, truly open world. You know, you don't have to have any load screens or anything to just ride around. It had side quests that were so detailed that it was almost like an entire nother game inside the game. You know, the story would change a little bit based off the decisions that you made. One game of the year
00:27:42
Speaker
There's so many other games that try to cop. Red Dead tried to copy a little bit. Elden Ring, Dragon Age of Inquisition. You'd say Skyrim over Elden? Yeah, Skyrim over Elden, for sure. At least for me. Yeah, I loved Elden, but it was a little bit too scary for me. Yeah, it came out two years ago. It was still too scary.
00:28:00
Speaker
Elden Ring was scary. It was way harder than Skyrim 2, which I do love challenging and difficult games, but there is like a threshold. But I'm taking Skyrim at number four. At number five, it's really anything to do with Mario. So this was the tough one. But I'm going to go Mario Kart. I would go Mario Kart as well in any Mario universe.
00:28:20
Speaker
Yeah, all the Mario Kart's across the board are just great. They just keep getting better. I mean, the last Mario Kart's been out for like 10 years and I'll still play it all the time and it's amazing. It's the easiest game when you're a kid and you have a bunch of friends over at your house or you go somewhere else to rotate through all these players. Like you have 10, 12 kids and you can make a tournament and it's no biggie. Each race takes about three minutes. You do four races per time. So every 15 minutes you can cycle through four new people.
00:28:46
Speaker
You got new models of cars, new transportation, tons of maps, different characters every time something comes out but there's just still that like lovable fear of getting hit with a blue shell. The adrenaline rush of like coming around the corner and somebody throws a red shell at you but you pick up a banana just in time to throw back and block it and cross and finish it first.
00:29:05
Speaker
It's a game that you can start playing Mario Kart when you're four years old There's not many games that you can do that with so you can start when you're so young and then just keep Playing your entire life and that's that's why I love marker. Yeah, I've continued to play Mario Kart on the switch Yeah, as far as little kids go I mean they've really it really dumb that game down the younger crowd at least they're they're trying But um, yeah, I love Mario Kart
00:29:29
Speaker
I can't think of maybe Mario 64. I never hadn't done 64 or GameCube, but my cousin did, so I got to enjoy that. We're going past five. I want you to give me five and six. I'm having too much fun reliving my life through video games. Give me five and six, Ryan. All right, here we go. We're going to go with
00:29:51
Speaker
Ratchet and Clank.
00:30:13
Speaker
You go around with your cool friend. There's really cool weapons. You can shoot cheap at people. You can do a different thing. Every single weapon has different fun attributes. You go around with a really cool setting and space. I remember there were a lot of fun missions. Ratchet and Clank. As far as probably 2005 it goes, you can't get much better than Ratchet and Clank. With my sixth pick,
00:30:37
Speaker
Ratchet and Clank is a great game. I didn't have the PlayStation 1, so I would always play it at my friend Colin's house. Was that a PS1 game? It was on PS1 and then they had sequels on PS2. For sure. I mean, I think they even just made a new one for the PS1. I was looking for it for my nephew to get them for a Switch or something. Yeah, it's still going strong. Still a great game. It's got that Banjo-Kazooie vibe. That's what I used to play because I had the N64. I remember that, yeah. Both of those are great games.
00:31:06
Speaker
Can I get me number six? I'm going to go with another game that this is we're going PC now we're going to this is actually I guess this is my this is my first online gaming experience and it's Counter-Shrake Counter-Shrake with guys that are six years older than me I was probably six or eight hanging out with way older people than me playing Counter-Shrake
00:31:27
Speaker
This is when you start actually worrying about ADR. This is heavy-duty gaming and that's Counter-Shrek and that's online only. A lot of fun. It's classic maps. They're probably still playing the same maps right now and that's then Counter-Shrek. That's a fun game to play when you're growing up.
00:31:42
Speaker
Yeah, I never played Counter Strike, but I do know a lot of people that did, so gonna have to take your word on that one. That's heavy duty. Yeah, I tried to do all console games. This one isn't technically a console game, but it does have console games. There's too many other PC games out there that I could have picked. That'll have to be a whole different draft for me. But my pick for this one, because you can't get past it if you were born in the 90s, I'm taking Pokemon. Not just the card game, but the video game. Now, when I was a- I was never allowed to play that game. No?
00:32:10
Speaker
No, my uh, my older brother would make fun of me if I got into Pokรฉmon, so...
00:32:14
Speaker
You're the worst older brother in the world. I would send the silence for that one. Mine played with me all the time. I mean, it's a personal favorite. It honestly deserves to be, deserves to be higher. When you were a kid born in the 90s, catching them all was a way of life. You know, you've gotten a Game Boy Color, you have the link cable so you could come to school and you could hook the link cable between you and your friend's Game Boy Color and you could, you could duel each other or trade Pokemon. I mean, it was a wild time. It was the wild west. It was everything as a child.
00:32:41
Speaker
I was more of a Digimon guy. I love Digimon too. I love Digimon too, but Digimon was more of a show. Did you have a little square Digimon? Oh yeah.
00:32:50
Speaker
But Pokemon had the card game, it had the Gameboy game, it had the show, it had N64 Battle Stadium, it had Pokemon Snap, you just couldn't go wrong. But I mean, I played hours, hours, hours on the Gameboy game of Pokemon. I would still play today. It's amazing. You would go through and you would catch every single Pokemon, you'd spend 100 hours on it. And then at the end of it, you would just shrug your shoulders, restart the game and just pick a different starter Pokemon.
00:33:15
Speaker
Do it all over again now today's pokemon is a lot easier and it's extremely upsetting because today's kids when they're running around in the grass they tried to make it more realistic so you can actually see the Pokemon the games are visually amazing but when I was a kid and you were running through the grass the Pokemon that came up were random so if you were looking for a specific one
00:33:33
Speaker
You might spend half an hour just walking around the grass trying to find a Pokรฉmon. And then today's day, they got XP sharing. So your Pokรฉmon that aren't battling are getting leveled up as well. In my day, if you were having trouble beating the level 40 Psychic gym leaders, Alakazam, you had to go all the way back to the second town. You had to catch a level 12 Gasly Ghost type Pokรฉmon because that's what could defeat a Psychic Pokรฉmon. And then you would spend three days training that thing
00:33:58
Speaker
to get it to a level 40 so that you could go and beat the psychic gym that was the way of life that was pokemon and it will never be replicated again that's why it's on my list you mean pokemon go is not the same pokemon go is not the same but it's fun it's it's i mean it's i haven't played it recently i don't think you can battle people but i guess it's it's similar ish it's it's a good way to get out and be active all right ryan give me uh
00:34:19
Speaker
Let's just keep going on the list. Let's keep going. Okay, I got I got two more on my list that I really want to get to. So if you've got two more, give me two. I have plenty more. Yeah, I just I want to mention it. I didn't forget just one. I know GTA, obviously, great game. It's just too close to RDR2. So I'm gonna go with roller coaster tycoon. Oh, that is a great pick. Great pick. That is a game you can spend 12 hours playing. I play this I'm actually waiting for a
00:34:47
Speaker
a game right now. It's called Cities Skyline. It's kind of like a SimCity, but it's a little more in depth.
00:34:52
Speaker
I still play these games to this day. I fancy myself an engineer or whatever people, a city planner. So I'm still into these games, but RollerCoaster Tycoon is just another game I played in your, probably your kitchen in your, on your PC in the family room. You just can't go wrong with RollerCoaster Tycoon. Creating new rollercoasters, trying to keep the place clean, trying to, you know, create a fun environment. Destroy your theme park.
00:35:21
Speaker
destroy your theme park and create it, try to make some money, or try to just launch people off the edge of a roller coaster. That's a wonderful time. It really is. That's a great pick. All right, Ryan, give me your last pick of this draft. I don't even know if we're at the same number as last one.
00:35:37
Speaker
I'm going to go with Splinter Cell. This is the introduction into a sneak up type of game. You gotta keep quiet. You can throw things to a different direction. Kind of a puzzle game in disguise. You're still like a cool spy or seal or whatever. It's a tough game, but it kind of gets you into that combat world. And don't you dare say Golden Eye next.
00:36:03
Speaker
No, Golden Eyes, it was going to be further down my list, but I actually like the other James Bond game on PS2 more. 007 Agent Nightfire. That's what me, Jason, play all the time. Such an amazing game. Play split screen on it. So much fun. You play his odd job, throws the hat, knocks somebody's head off in one kill, but no.
00:36:21
Speaker
There were just too many games, and ironically, I had a game similar to Splinter Cell on my list, but before I get to that, I'm taking Fable. Specifically, Fable 2 and Fable 3. I'm taking the Fable series from Xbox 360. I don't know if you ever played it. No, never. This is one of my favorite games of all time. It's on Xbox Game Pass, so it's got good fun cartoonish animation. Back then, it was actually really cool. Now, it's a little bit outdated, whatever. It's got comedic fighting style. It has an amazing story. It has a really
00:36:48
Speaker
long like campaign and side quests and everything that you can do. It's cool because your character's actions are like directly reflected in its appearance so you can make evil choices and good choices and slip between the two and like as your bar moves if you become completely good you can get like angels wings and if you become completely evil
00:37:06
Speaker
You can get like devils wings horns and everything you can like buy properties and rent them out for money you can collect like a billion different weapons and stuff you can get married in the game do all kinds of different things and then when you die in the game it would actually like your character would come back and then it would get like a star on space on his arm or something like that.
00:37:26
Speaker
So every time you died you'd get a different scar so you know how many times you died in the game. And then it's really replayable. More games were planned and then unfortunately Lionsgate folded and they were cut off. There's rumblings about a new Fable 4 coming out this year and I'm pretty excited. And then my last pick, similar to Splinter Cell, this is a sneak around game. I'm going with the Assassin's Creed franchise. Assassin's Creed Ubisoft came out swinging and they just pitched straight gold for a decade. It's the first game that I remember where you had all the climbing, the stealth,
00:37:53
Speaker
accents. It was more important to be invisible and strong. It sparked a whole new genre of game. Assassin's Creed 2 came out and encompassed really the next three games were all the same continuation of story with Ezio out of the Thore as the assassin taking place in Italy and all around the world. I mean, it was really brought up to where like this looked exactly like Italy looked like in like the Renaissance period. Then Assassin's Creed Black Flag. I mean, that's the like the only game that I know about where you can go around on a seafaring ship with pirates and actually like fight and shoot cannons and sink other ships and stuff. I don't really
00:38:25
Speaker
I love Black Flag, yes. All right, Ryan, really quick. Are there any that we didn't get to that you want to list as an honorable mention? I'll list a few. We got Guitar Hero. We got Ghost Recon. I still play that with my cousin. Yeah, I'm sure there's a bunch of games that we're missing, but we'll keep building our lists and maybe next year we can come back to those lists and talk about them again. Oh yeah, we could do this all day. All right, Ryan, now we are to Afternoon Delights Book Club. Do you have a book or series that you'd like to recommend as a part of the book club?
00:38:45
Speaker
any other game like that.
00:38:54
Speaker
Oh sure, probably got me into sci-fi reading. I enjoyed this book. It was actually an easy book to finish for me because I liked it so much it's forever war. I read it so many years ago but basically they're fighting this war on a distant planet and by the time they're able to reach get back home with their battle plans and what they've learned the
00:39:16
Speaker
uh with the time slippage and all that the enemy is able to just completely change everything that they've been planning for and uh able to change technology because you know it's a hundred years later or whatever it takes for us to get back to that planet it's a fun ride it has a pretty enjoyable ending so i i
00:39:35
Speaker
Suggest anyone that wants to get into sci-fi a little bit is enjoy a forever war. All right It's on the list now ride really quick for the people that love copper kettle that want to follow and see what you do You're gonna tell everybody what your tick-tock handle is. Oh Yeah, so I just recently created a tick-tock that you know, I put my my videos on I think it's you can find in copper kettle chocolates and then also my personal page is what I pretty much post all of my stuff on also I
00:40:05
Speaker
Yeah, so TikTok is copper.kettle.chocolate. Instagram is Hisuji29 or something, or Copper Kettle Chocolates. It's pretty easy to find, but I'm on there, and once I get some time, I can really focus on making some new videos, but I make all this stuff by myself, so it takes a little bit of time.
00:40:23
Speaker
Alright, we appreciate everything that you do, Ryan. Thank you for coming on and being a guest today. I had a great time talking about video games. So did I. Thank you out there to everybody listening. I'm your host, Matt Latimer. Just reminding you, keep on smiling.
00:40:52
Speaker
So long, farewell, I'll be your St. Andrew. I do, I do, two year Andrew Andrew.