On this episode of Mega Dads Live Adam is sampling a variety of games this Summer before the Fall gaming onslaught begins!
Mega Dads Live
Mega Dads Live #142 - American Summer Gaming Sampler
- Have you ever taken a shit that you're pretty sure is gonna ruin your day? - I have, when you're in the summertime, you gotta make sure that where you're shitting is a decent environment. Do you ever get stuck in like a hot bathroom? You have to take a shit and you're just like, "Oh my God, you're almost like suffocating yourself." - Yeah, you're trying not to breathe and then it's just not comfortable. Or camping and you're just like, where, what am I supposed to do? Like a bear is gonna come and eat me if I don't bury this shit. - Megadad's live is a mature rated podcast. It's for the Megadads, the Megamobs, but not the Megadkids. So put on those ear muffs and let's go! (upbeat music) - I take my morning dump and I'm a very regular guy. Like I will shit on the dock, right? But like, depending on how much you've been drinking the night before, you have different product. Right? You know what I'm saying? - Yeah, ins and outs. - Yeah, and if you drop your morning deuce and it's just, it's like a vibe thing, right? Like you're just like, I'm not happy with how that went. And it just kind of fucks with your whole day. - Yeah. - What do you consider to be like a successful dump? Like, no, sometimes you walk out of a dump and you're like, fuck yeah, I crushed it. And sometimes you walk out and you're just like, I can't make eye contact with anybody for the next 15 minutes 'cause like I feel it, I feel it in my aura, in my space. - You want a good dump for you. It has to be a clean break. You know what I mean? You want a nice, everything to be nice and orderly, kind of like in its own packaging. But like when this machine gets backed up and it's so like randomized and there's chaos, like no, I need a nice orderly single file line. When it's not single file and it's just like, everybody's trying to rush out to the-- - It's like Black Friday at Walmart and everyone's trying to get through the doors. - Yeah, like order here, order here, I say. Like that's how I am with my chances. - It's Fourth of July weekend. - It is Fourth of July weekend. God bless the stars and the stripes. - Our wonderfully, speaking of orderly, our wonderfully put together country, that just seems to have it all worked out. Let's celebrate the beautiful symbol of freedom that is, I can't, I can't. - It's hard. - What the hell is happening with this goddamn country? - My daughter, like, and I don't know where she got it, but she loves America. And I'm like, you've been in the school system, so something they're telling you-- - They're corrupting you somehow. - She's looking at the flag and she's like, the American flag, the American flag. I love the American flag. And I'm just like, are you a fucking trumper? Like, what the fuck is wrong with you? - My fucking son plays the star spangled banner on the piano, I'm like, stop it. - Yeah, it's wild because, you know, sadly, I don't know why this is, but people who display the American flag and who seem to be hyperly patriotic, unfortunately have kind of like warped it and melded it with some like pretty disgusting racist. - I think we're coming around the stick view, I don't know. - Honestly, I think we're coming around. I think we're on that curve now where people like us, the left-leaning folk, are the patriotic people, 'cause we got like fucking-- - Well, we have to be. - People who are flippin' the flag. - Yeah. - It's like rebelling against him. - The pendulum has gone back because just as you said, it wasn't that long ago where people who had the flag up in the yard were more about the other stuff, the icky stuff, right? - Now they're abandoning the flag for the Trump flag. And it's like, let's fly it upside down. Let's do it, don't tread on me like shit or whatever, or the blue line flag or the, you know, all these flags. - So now I have this whole moral conundrum of like, do I need to put a flag out now to show you know what I'm saying? - What's the flag situation, what's the vibe? - What's our feeling on America right now? - How patriotic are you allowed to be, or should you be, I don't know. I don't know. - In today's a very confusing time all of a sudden. - Yes, it's like, what do I do? Am I allowed to eat a hot dog? You know, is it racist for me to wear my tidy, whitey like theme where the American flag is patterned all over it? - Am I allowed to grill this burger, or does that mean that I am anti-abortion? Yeah, like. - I don't know. - I don't know, can I put a slip inside of my yard, or does that mean I hate gay people? I don't know anymore. - I wish that our country was more of what we grew up to be, like the ideals, it's like we're good guys. - It didn't seem as complicated when we were kids. - Yeah, I mean, we were brainwashed a little bit, but it's like, sure, and there are good things about the country and our system is supposed to work, but it's being broken, and we all have to do our part. Let's get out there, let's vote. Let's stand up for being sensible, and the ideals that we had as children, the ideals that we know, America's supposed to be, you know, welcoming of people from different backgrounds. We're supposed to be accepting. We're supposed to be, you know, the land of plenty where you can make it if you, you know, work hard, et cetera. But so much of this shit has been warped and corrupted, and it's time for us to take it back. If we're just lazy ass, like, pessimists about it, it's not gonna change. So we gotta do it, do it for the fucking kids. Let's do it for the kids, Adam. - Let's talk about some video games. This is the summer season, and as we're just talking about hot dogs, burgers, brats, things like that, I've been doing a video game sampler. - Yeah. - I've been playing so many things a little bit, and just trying a little bit of everything. I've been gorging myself, getting my big fat American belly full of some great video games. So I'm gonna walk through some of the things that I've been playing. Feel free to chime in if you played any of these, or if you're interested in doing so. The first game that I wanna talk about is one that we provided a code from Nintendo. It's called Princess Peach Showtime. Now, my kids have been playing this mostly because this is a game that is geared towards the kids, the younger set. This is like Mario Light for your youngins. Very easy, very streamlined, but it's got kind of a cool hook and aesthetic where you play as Peach in this theater setting and all the levels are different acts. They're different plays or different shows. Kind of like, honestly, this is kind of a running theme with Mario games and with Nintendo, where they have like very theatrical like senses. So there's like a Wild West town and Peach where it dresses up as a cowboy and your weapon is a lasso. There's like a ninja warrior one or you're a shinobi and you're more stealth-based and you're crawling to the glass. There's one where Princess Peach is a baker and it's all mini-games about making cakes and stuff. Very family-friendly and very much geared towards the kids. My daughter loves it. She is a very not skilled gamer. She likes playing with the family, but she gets frustrated easily when we play games like Mario or Sackboy together. So this is a very low-stakes kind of game that she can play and not get that frustration of getting killed or beat down or not being able to beat the boss because it's just very simple mechanics and it switches it up a lot. Kids have small attention spans. So to change the formula of the game like every other level is fun for them. So we thank Nintendo for that code. The kids have been enjoying it quite a bit and I like watching it 'cause it's got that Nintendo flair of like they're doing a lot with a little, like Switch is not a very powerful device, but they can come up with some pretty cool looking aesthetics and work around that. Have you seen anything of this game? Have you, obviously this is probably not your type of jam. - Yeah, it's sad that it hasn't gotten like the amount of attention that it probably deserves 'cause it looks like a pretty polished game and I had played some Peach-centric game on the 3DS, I believe it was where she had our emotions. I forget which one. And I played that and I liked it, I enjoyed it. I think this is a good kind of a beat title thing. I think it's cute that she changes her outfits and goes into the different levels. So I see that there's a lot here. It got decent reviews, I would say. So there's a demo that's available and I didn't realize that. So I think it's got me to try the demos. - Your daughter might like it. It's very, very easy to pick up and play. And like I said, my daughter just loves it 'cause it's kind of like Mario, but Barbie a little bit too with all the dress up mechanics and stuff like that. So she loves the Peach, baby peaches for jam. So yeah, this is cool. Okay, great. - Next game that I've been playing just came to PlayStation Plus with a little bit of controversies. Tomb Raider Legend, this is my favorite Tomb Raider game. Tomb Raider has undergone two different reboots. So there was like the original series on the PlayStation 1 and then moved to PlayStation 2. And then they rebooted it into Tomb Raider Legend. We had Tomb Raider Anniversary and Tomb Raider Underworld. And then most recently they rebooted it again to the Survivor Trilogy, right? The real gritty Lara Croft. But Tomb Raider Legend is like what I love about Tomb Raider in that whole 90s feel action movie where it's over the top and really tongue-in-cheek and silly and you're doing backflips and dual-wielding oozies and fighting dinosaurs and shit like that. The controversy comes in in the fact that this game is not optimized. It is very much a PlayStation 2 game. Looks like a PlayStation 2 game. And some people are up in arms about that because there was a PS3 version of this title and it's on Steam and it's a much more up-res version. This looks like you're playing on your PlayStation 2. Now, I don't really understand why they would go that route, but it's the same game. This is how I played it. I played it on PS2. So like personally, this is how I remember the game. So I'm having a great time with it. It's a lot of fun. It's very simple. It's got the whole the summer movie blockbuster action theme going on, but like you're still doing puzzle solving and going into tombs. There's really cool motorcycle levels in this game. So like that was one thing that Lara always had in the games as her chopper, but you couldn't really drive it until Tomb Raider Legends. So there's a whole section where you're going through these desert sequences and there's a caravan, think like uncharted style. All these big trucks are throwing explosive barrels out at you and there's motorcycles zooming around you and you gotta shoot the guys and go up jumps. So I just, I love this version of Lara before she got- - This looks great. - Before she got too serious and too gritty. I love this game so much. So I'm playing this one right now. You ever play this? - No, I didn't. And you know, Tomb Raider up until like one, two, three, like once it got to this level, I actually didn't play it. I don't know if it was not, you know, hyped up too much at the time, but you know what I think would be good? A remake of something like- - Of this, yeah. - In this style, yeah. I think this should be really good. - I actually picked this up for a buck a couple of months ago on Steam. So I have this on Steam as well. - Ah, the good deal. - So if you're interested, it's super ass cheap on Steam and apparently it's a better version than what's on PlayStation Plus right now. It's a bummer that it's not a higher fidelity, but it's still a great game. The next couple of games that I want to talk about are VR titles. Now, I know you've poo-pooed me about this PlayStation VR- - Yes, absolutely. - And rightly so, because it is grossly under supported by PlayStation, but there's been a recent push recently where they're starting to add PSVR2 titles to PlayStation Plus. And one of these games is on PlayStation Plus right now as part of their. It actually got me to be up to premium. It's available only on the premium tier. And they dropped before your eyes, which is a fantastic game. They dropped Ghostbusters, Rise of the Ghost Lords, which is not a great game. I'm not going to talk about that one. And then this one is called Synth Riders. It is a Beat Saber-like game. - Ooh. - Now, Beat Saber is all about your hitting notes, kind of like rock band-like or guitar hero-like, but you're actually physically hitting them with your hands 'cause of course it's VR. And it's all done by, there'll be an arrow on the icon, which way you want to hit it. You have to swipe down, you have to swipe up, left, right, so forth. But Synth Riders does something differently that makes the game feel less like drumming and more like dancing. Now, the way Synth Riders does it is it's got the same thing. Your left hand has a color and your right hand has a color. And there's certain notes that you have to hit on this highway. But the way Synth Riders does it is instead of hitting an icon, you have to ride a ribbon. So you're still going down a highway. - Ooh. - But there's a ribbon that kind of curves up or down and left, right, overhead. And so rather than hitting an icon, your hands are moving in a more organic fashion. - Wow, I see the video now, I finally found it. Okay, this is great. So you're just like swooping your hands. - Yeah, so there are still like icons within that ribbon that you definitely have to hit. But if your hand rides the wave, you feel like you're dancing. - This looks cool. - It's honestly a lot more game-changing than I thought it would be. Just looking at a video, it might not register how that feels so much different than Beat Saber. But Beat Saber, you're whacking stuff and you feel like you're drumming, you're hitting on the beat. But in Synth Riders, you're just constantly moving your arms in a more organic way. And as that music pulsates, and this is like synths music, right? This is like 80s retro synths wave kind of stuff. It just feels like a much more fluid experience. It's not radically different. You're still doing the same basic thing. But the way they have you ride the wave, it's fun. It's a lot of fun. This is free as part of, not free, but it's part of PlayStation Plus Premium right now. And I really dig it. And it's got one of my favorite bands on there. The Midnight. I've talked about those guys before. A lot of really great like 80s inspired synths wave music. Same kind of thing with Beat Saber. You can get DLC and buy new tracks and things like that. But it's a fun experience, especially at no additional cost. I really dig it. My kids like it quite a lot too. They're huge Beat Saber fans. And this mixes it up just enough that it provides a different kind of experience. Sweet. Last game that I want to talk about. I'm at work the other day. My kids are off of school for the summer. And my Apple watch vibrates with a notification that Resident Evil Village VR is ready to play. And I say to myself, self you're not at home downloading games on your PlayStation. So that only means my 10 year old downloaded Resident Evil Village. How much was that? Free. Okay, good. I gotta say before I jump into the actual game, the fact that Capcom has given their last three main entry Resident Evil games the full VR treatment. Seven, eight, and then four remake in VR for free. A full fucking game. That's outstanding. Especially with Resident Evil 4 because that's not a first person perspective game. They rebuilt that game for VR for free. So getting back to this experience, I text my son and I said, are you out of your mind? You're going to pee your pants. He's played Resident Evil with me. He's played six. He's played four. And those are more like action movie experiences. I don't know if you've played Resident Evil Village, but this shit is fucking scary, right? Yeah. And then you put that in VR. Werewolves. In your face jump scares shit just jumping out of the shadows at you, vampires, things like that. I come home from work and he's like, he's already a good two, three hours into the game. He's going through it. So when did he get brave? What happened? So he's like, he's showing me that he's like, can I show you where I'm at the game? And I'm like, he's going to be in the opening area. There's no way. He's already in Lady D's castle. The big tall, nine foot tall vampire lady. He's in her castle, which is a considerable portion into the game. And he's playing it and he's exploring the dungeon, the wine cellar, which if you've played this game, you know, it's inhabited by fucking sickle, wielding monk vampires. Just super creepy, right? And he's playing this segment and I'm watching him and his hand is trembling. And he's got the headphones on and he's scared to death. Exactly like I thought he would be. And he pauses it and he's like, can you do this for me? And I look at it and I'm like, fuck, no, I'm not doing this. Are you out of your mind? Yeah, I didn't sign up for this. But he's like, I really want to play through the game, but I'm just, I'm too scared to do this part. So I'm like, all right. This is how you play a horror game in VR. So I put the headset on, I don't put the headphones on. And I proceed to blaze through this level like I am on cocaine. I am running as fast as I can. Oh, but he's like trying to get through it. You don't want to like it. I'm not giving this game a chance to jump scare me. Hell no, anything comes out at me. I'm pulling my pistol out and I'm cracking jokes and I'm Will Smith and bad boys, right? Like I'm topping this motherfucker and I'm taking my knife out and I'm jabbing him in the butthole with my knife. I'm playing it like it's a comedy. Got it. And once he realized that you have to play a horror VR game on your own terms, now he's just blazing through this game and he's got no problem. He's cracking jokes. He's making it silly and fun. No headphones to allow the atmosphere to get to you. But what I'll say about this game and what's so impressive is just how great the feeling of being in that combat situation in a Resident Evil experience in VR. Pulling the shotgun off your back and popping a zombie at point blank range and watching his head explode. And then eating the shotgun shells in and pumping it up and grabbing your pistol and aiming down the sights, grabbing your knife off of your wrist. All of the Resident Evil stuff that you love. But in VR, it is so solid and it's a thrill. It is an absolute thrill ride to be in 3D in VR to have guys get in your face. And people forget that VR is 3D, right? So like to have that monster come at you in first person is it's an absolute trip. If you can get over the scares, this game is very scary. Immersive gaming is just-- it's great. It is great when they can do it all that like all your senses, your peripherals, the audio, the 3D audio. That is sweet, yeah. It is also just an absolute shame that we have this excellent platform that is being underserved. Like Capcom has given us some really great experiences on it. We need more stuff like this. He's Eliot's playing through it. He's having me help him every once in a while. And I immediately downloaded Resident Evil 4 VR because once we're done with 8, I can't wait to experience Resident Evil 4 in VR, which is just a bombastic action experience. What's your take on the new Resident Evil Remakes? And would you do something like this in VR? I've played less and less with Resident Evils that were the village, but the remake Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil 2, that is awesome. I don't know if I could handle that intensity in VR playing with the VR. It's a lot. I get spooked enough with the atmosphere of playing on just the standard screen in front of me. I don't know if I'd be able to do that. I love a good zombie game. I love the intensity and the action, but it almost gets too much. I'm like, OK, do I want to put myself in this feeling like I have a life or death situation coming at me that's just so visceral? Do I want that? Is that enjoyable for me? I sweat bullets when I'm playing an intense part as it is on console, so I'm not sure. I'm not sure if it's for me. It's also, it adds that extra challenge of-- when you're playing Resident Evil proper, you push a button to reload. When you're playing it in VR, you have to eject the magazine, pull it off of your hip, slide it in, then cock the chamber, before you can start shooting again. That gets intense when you've got a lot of monsters barreling down on you, but Capcom has really delivered an excellent experience. So if you do like that kind of thing, these are free updates for the base game, so they're outstanding. So that's been my summer, man. Like you said, not that long ago. It's kind of like a lull period. And I was looking for that next thing to play after Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. And I've just been sampling. You ever do that where you just jump around a little bit, see what's going on over here, what did I miss? And I thought that there was going to be things that were available now. And like surprise, this thing is out in June, but July, August, it looks like a lot of stuff is coming holiday. A lot of stuff is coming holiday and early next year, if you believe these release dates. So a good time right now to catch up on a backlog or try something new, something that Adam recommends, this is a good time. Do you have any game paths, like quick recommendations for people to sample? Because that's like the ultimate way to sample, right? Well, yeah, I've been going on and playing things here and there. There's this game called Little Kitty Big City. Oh, yeah, that's cool. It's like a sandbox where you play as a cat and you have the basic abilities of like jumping around and scratching at things and it's almost like a cross between an untitled goose game and like a sandbox adventure platformer. And you're collecting things. You're doing cool cat things, like just messing with people and knocking stuff down, trying to hunt a bird. And just there's something about the gameplay, the solid controls that hooked me. And just the cute kind of like all you're doing is throwing these pots on the floor. Yeah, doing little kitty stuff and it got me. Like you can do more and more and unlock more of the city and you're trying to get back home. But it's more about the distractions along the way and the little mini games that you're supposed to accomplish. And it's good. I would say that it is a good game, especially maybe for the younger crowd. And it kept my attention for a good three hours. I was like, I was doing kitty stuff before I walked away from it for quite a bit. So big kitty or little kitty, big city. Big kitty in the city. In the kitty cities. All right. Well, that sound is the caboose. That means it's the end of this episode. Already. Wow. We're breezing through it, man. It's so much fun. I mean, I got to go out and celebrate America. I can't beat them all day. Yeah, absolutely. My recommendation for you. I'm not a guy that has ever been good at cooking. Ever. No. I'm terrible at it. I don't like to do it. But I've recently discovered. The microwave. What's that? The microwave. No, I've recently discovered that it's kind of fun to source out recipes and dink around with them. And I made an interesting concoction that I think people might try. And it's good for the 4th of July. I made a Big Mac hot dog. What the hell? I was able to make Big Mac sauce. Homemade Big Mac sauce. Oh, okay. Yeah. And I diced up some onions. And if you put Big Mac sauce and diced onions on a hot dog, that's really freaking good. I'm discovering that I like less and less to put traditional stuff on my burgers and my hot dogs. Yeah. I like special sauces. Yeah. I like lots of different fixings. Maybe a little spice on there. Yeah. Maybe a little jalapeno. Try some new stuff on whatever you're grilling this weekend. Sourcrowd. And I don't know about that part. You're a Chicago guy. I'm sure you put all sorts of stuff on your hot dogs. Yeah. So this, this 4th of July weekend. Trying something a little different. I'm going to mix it up. No ketchup. No mustard. Make something different. Just explore something that's a little bit more traditional. Like you can make a boring ass hot dog into something more fun if you just do a little bit of research. What's in your caboose? Here's my recommendation, everybody. Firework safety. Okay. Go to a show where you're, you know, very far and let someone else do the fireworks for you and watch them from afar. And you don't have to do the work. You don't have to get in there with the fire and try not to blow your hand off or anything like that. It can be dangerous, especially with the little ones. You know, they watch us and see how we do things. And then, you know, sometimes you have your, your grilling, you're having a couple beers and then you're going to go try and blow off some fireworks. Just be careful with it. Make sure that you have plenty, plenty of space between you and the young-ins. I would not shy away from using a little protective eyewear. Your eyes are very sensitive. You know, just everybody walk away safe this year. Unfortunately, the ERs are jam-packed every single fourth of July from people who just slipped up. So don't do it. Be careful. I will tell you a story about last year's Independence Day. We picked up some fireworks on the way home from my in-laws last year and we don't normally do this. Like, we don't, we're not fireworks people. Um, but we're like, let's do it. Let's just try it out. Yeah. And my, and we go in the cul-de-sac and everybody's out of town. Nobody's around. Thank God. My wife puts this firework on the ground sideways. Mm-hmm. And she lights it and it proceeds to spin in circles and shoot out projectiles like a fucking helicopter. Right? I don't know what it was going to do. Shit. Well, first of all, you're supposed to put it right side up. She didn't know which way right side up was. So she accidentally laid it on its side. And this thing just starts spinning and shooting, shooting fireballs into our neighbors driveway. It shot one right at me. I jumped and like probably three inches away from this thing hitting my ankle. I jumped. This thing just fucking zoomed right by me. Wow. My wife, like, she's like, I'm done. I'm not lighting another one. You handle it the rest of the night. We're not doing any more of these going forward. It was fucking hilarious because she just about burnt down the whole neighborhood. Yeah. Yeah. And you ain't joking. Like, people should not be allowed to buy this stuff. I'm an idiot. I don't know how to do this. Totally burned down the neighborhood. So, I saw a video yesterday of this guy. He's sitting at a table with a tiki torch like thing. And it's just sitting there. It's like on the table, tiki torch, like, you know, small. And then it's starting to get bigger. And he's like, he's like reading or something next to it. And all of a sudden, boom, this thing blows up, shoots in the air. And he's just like, whoa, like startled. And then it comes right back down and it just explodes all over the table. And if you believe the comments, which I did believe the comments, they're like, oh, yeah, this manufacturer who does tiki torches, but also other things with like flammables got an order wrong and put the wrong mix in the wrong thing. And then this house supposedly caught on fire and burned down over this thing. So you just never know. Like with fireworks, sometimes you don't know if it's going to spin, shoot up, explode, you know, do a color. Like it's just not good. If you look at the packaging, it's all in like Chinese or whatever. You got to be careful people. Be safe. Be safe. That is our message. Please be safe. We want to see you back here again for the next episode of Mega Dad's Live. We'll have a good one. Bye Antonio. I love you. Bye. I love you. Have a good one. America. [MUSIC]