Triforce! - A Podcast about Nothing | Triforce #317

Episode Date: April 9, 2025

Triforce! Episode 317! Continuing our trend of talk about nothing we're remembering some great 80s action movies, we take a look at some real box-office poison (like The Rock) and Lewis gets real about Civilization VII! Go to http://turtlebeach.com/TRIFORCE and use code TRIFORCE to get 10% off your entire order. Go to http://expressvpn.com/triforce today and get an extra 3 months free on a 1-year package! Support your favourite podcast on Patreon: https://bit.ly/2SMnzk6 Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pickaxe. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Triforce podcast. Hello, welcome back. Sips? Yeah. Perian? Hello. How you feeling? OK. Can I just check in on the shorts? Are you wearing shorts, Sips? Yeah. Hello. How you feeling? OK. I can I just check it on the shorts. You wearing short steps?

Yeah. You wearing shorts, period. I am. Well, apparently. Whoa, you are one day of sunshine. It's all it takes to make summer happen. Yeah. Wait, was it was it like 21 degrees for you guys yesterday? Oh, it's lovely. Yeah. It was lovely. It wasn't like that here. It was still a little bit cold, but better than it has been.

And definitely warranted getting the shorts out. Did you make the most of it, Sips? Did you go outside? Did you smell the flower? Yeah, I went outside for a couple of minutes. Terry was outside for most of the day, which is, which was really good for him. And yeah, it was, you know, I made the most of it. Did you see a daffodil?

Did you, like, you know? I saw a couple. it. Did you see a Daffodil? Did you, like, you know? I saw a couple, yeah. Stopped and had a little sniff, as you do. Just appreciating the final things. Yeah, the natural world. Yeah. Can we do a little- We all need more of that.

Can we do a little trifles bookkeeping before we go any further? Okay, no, sure. Yes. We have seen the meme, the news article about dildos, and the jersey and twickening were in the top five. We've seen it. Oh, I haven't seen that. Oh my god.

Seriously? Well, I haven't seen that. Okay. So, uh, dildos size by place. So there was an article in the Metro, basically it was Love Honey or Someone said, it's basically an advert for buying dildos online, but basically it turns out that two of the places they listed as places that buy the biggest dildos in the country are Twickenham and Jersey.

Nice! So, number one is Hereford, which I don't think is very far. Which I was last week for my board game retreat. So Lewis was in the dildo capital of the country. I was there last week. Yeah. Jersey is number two. Number three is in Venice, and number four is Twickenham.

So I mean, you know, we're basically, we've got the triangle of the top four, right there. Yeah. Hereford's real close to Bristol. Jersey's there, Twickenham's there. That's crazy. That is crazy, yeah. What a coincidence. An average of 7.09 inches.

I mean, we should have known. We are the ones buying them. Of course. I mean, I must have contributed to that figure to some extent. You know, when I visited you I had some big ones delivered as well. When I'm on holiday I like to order in large dildos. He likes to have a big suitcase full of dildos to take away on his hollybobs. Or to take back with me, yeah.

That's right. Yeah. He buys exotic ones in all the exotic places he goes. And he brings them home. Did your wife see that? I mean, how did the residents react to P-Flax? No, wait, was it in the metro? Cause I don't know, I'm not a metro reader.

Good. It's a piece of shit. But you are P-Flax. A piece of shit? No, I don't know, I don't read the, I'm not a Metro reader. Good. It's a piece of shit. But you are P-Flex. A piece of shit? No, I don't. I am a piece of shit. I got sent that article on Instagram by like 20 people, so I was like, great, well. Oh, right.

I've seen it now. Is that the bookkeeping done? Bookkeeping's done. Other bookkeeping period is here in Bristol this week. We recorded a game site video, a very heated one actually. What, were people getting really shirty? Me and P Fletz were getting really stroppy with each other. Really?

Not seriously. Oh my god. Almost. Like half, seriously. I mean it almost came to blows, we'll put it that way. What kind of blows are we talking about here? Hey! Oh I left my dildo back in Twickenham, so.

Like you guys were sucking each other off? Like, in the game side? It's kind of weird. Nice. Ben was rolling dice to make sure that it kept going. It was all in the old. Okay, you have to blow him big deep this time. I rolled a seven.

You've got a critical success on your blow roll. Oh man, oh man. Oh good. And you did a mystery quest? Did a mystery quest. We need to get you down here, Sips, to just do one of everything. Yeah, I know I need to. The flight timetable is not great.

I'd have to come for like, too long then I can afford to be away, you know what I mean? Otherwise I have to like, take a train and stuff and it's like a bit of a faff, but we'll figure something out. We'll figure it out. Did you hear also local news, P-Flex, don't know if you heard Heathrow had shut down for 24 hours. What happened? Yeah. There was a substation caught fire. Oh, it happens. Yeah, so there's planes going over on this podcast today. Wow.

No, well he's not even home anyway. Yeah, cause I'm not there. More than a thousand flights affected, good god. I think this is certainly relevant Triforce podcast news, seeing as those planes are normally a big part of this podcast. Well, they've become an increasingly large part of the podcast, yeah. As we run out of things to say, it's kind of nice to just concentrate on the planes. Interrupted by... Where's that one going?

I'm so glad that there's something in the background moving that I can comment on because I'm out of stuff to complain about. I don't think we've ever had anything to talk about. No, it's true actually. It's kind of a miracle that we've done this many episodes of a podcast. The joke was in the 90s, like the Seinfeld was the show about nothing. I think our podcast is a podcast about nothing.

It's staggering how much we don't talk about anything. You know? How little we... yeah, how we just meander around nothing. But I mean, hey, look, the most common thing in the universe is nothing. So, there's plenty to talk about. Yeah. But I mean, hey, look, the most common thing in the universe is nothing. So there's plenty to talk about. Yeah. I mean, it's not a very popular podcast either, so there's... It doesn't really matter.

It all balances out, I guess. That's not true. Yeah, we do pretty well, I think, for a podcast about nothing. What are you saying, most of the universe is nothing? What do you mean? What does that mean? There's a lot of nothing out there. It's really big.

Have you seen the universe? Well, but where you might say nothing, in fact, you know, the vacuum has its own, a whole quality all of its own. Nothing implies a lack of something, but in fact, you know, vacuum energy and all this stuff, they put their stuff there. Well, not much. No, there's a lot of nothing out there. It's definitely something. But even inside an nothing out there. It's definitely something.

But even inside an atom it's mostly space, right? There's not much going on. Everything's pretty empty. Yeah, but that has an underlying quality all of its own. Yeah, of nothing! There is a plane taking off from Bristol right now. Do you want to know, guess where it's going? Ooh, Bristol.

Birmingham. Nope, but it begins with B. Uh, it's going to... No. Bahamas. Nope. Beirut. Closer.

Barbados. Closer. Budapest. It's in France. Brest. Nope. Oh, nice guess though. A B in France.

Paris. No. I'm trying to think. Baros de Gaulle Airport. Barres de Gaulle Airport, Barres. Barres de Gaulle Airport, Barres. They love wine. Oh, Bordeaux. I love wine. Bordeaux.

Oh god, I could not think for a minute, my brain just ceased to function there, you know? I wanna be on that plane. I wanna, I wanna, I've never been to Bordeaux. Sounds like it'd be nice. Bordeaux. I was in my Airbnb last night, cause we didn't go out, I watched a movie. And I'm gonna, you guys can guess what movie this is, it's a 1980s movie, directed by Paul Verhoeven, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Oh, really? Yep. Oh, so... So, what was the year again? 1980s. 87. I didn't say 87. I didn't say 87.

1980s. Running Man. What's the one on Mars? Running Man. It was Running Man. Wow. It was not Time for Equal, it was Running Man. What's the one on Mars? Running Man. It was Running Man. Wow. It was not Time for Equal.

It was Running Man. What a guess. Wait, wait, wait. I don't know if that was Paul Verhoeven, actually. I might have misspoken. Let me look. The Running Man. Guess it.

That's a great movie. How did I say 1987 when it was that? I don't know. You're a genius. It was like we cheated or something. We didn't cheat. I did not cheat, by the way. I would admit it if I cheated.

Let's do another one. Paul Michael Glazer. It was Paul Michael Glazer. Let's do another one. What, you want to guess the year of the movie? Guess it. Think of a movie. All right.

Predator. And just to prove that we didn't fix it. Predator was like 1989. 1986. 1987. Well, you can't just say all the days of the 80s it was between 86 and 89 Congrats, it was 1987 all right. What about nice? Twins twins I want to say it was like

1989 1990 88 wow total recall and kindergarten cop Totally that was a nice girl a guess you'd weregarten Cop was 90 and Total Recall is 89. No, they were both 1990. Oh. His run in the 80s was insane. Like, he actually owned it. Schwarzenegger's run in the 80s going into the 90s was nuts. I think the last good Schwarzenegger movie that I personally saw was probably True Lies.

After that, I think Last action hero, which was not very good. Oh, it's bad. And then I think he, oh wait, when was Terminator two? 91? No, I think that was 1999. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, Terminator two, I mean, I say, I say, yeah, true lies. I think true lies was coming to the end to the end of the of Schwarzenegger's like kind of epic run of movies. Yeah, I think I think Terminator two peaked and then kind of kind of petered off a little bit. Yeah, I think that was his his career highlight, really. Yeah, the 80s.

He had Conan the Barbarian, Conan the Destroyer, the Terminator, Red Sonja up to that point. He was kind of like, wow, this guy's really big. Those movies then went kind of cult status after he got really big. Yes. But then you've got Commando, which was great. It's a spin off of Conan. Commando's a banger. Commando was good, yeah.

Never heard of Commando. Raw Deal is not good. No, never heard of that. Raw Deal is- Predator, Running Man, red heat, twins. Sure. And then Total Recall, kindergarten cop. Those are the 80s.

Kindergarten cop, yeah. Kindergarten cop. Yeah. And then... I remember, um, I remember like in, I think I was a kid, so I didn't mind last action here. Was it Commando or Predator that was get to the chopper? That's Predator.

I think it was Commando. Was it? Predator. There was nobody left alive in Predator for him to tell to get to the chopper. Yes there was. Yes there was. That's Predator. Was it? Predator. There was nobody left alive in Predator for him to tell to get to the shop. Yes there was. Yes there was. It was the lad who had the grenade launcher.

That guy, he got injured. That is such a cool fucking movie wasn't it? Predator at the time. The Latina woman, I can't remember her name. She also. It was. It was a great movie. Yeah, it was fantastic.

Predator was the perfect action movie. Oh it was awesome. Absolutely. I loved how each soldier had his own unique thing as well. And then they slowly got culled off as the movie progresses. So fucking good. Almost meme-y though. Yeah.

But back then, you didn't have... It's become a big sort of trope since, but I hadn't seen anything like that before seeing Predator. I think Predator kind of was the start of that. I love it. That meme-age. So Paul Michael Glazer directed Running Man. Paul Michael Glazer was in the original Starsky and Hutch. Oh. So he was Dave Michael Starsky. He was Starsky and Hutch. And then he sort of directed some movies and stuff like that. But watching The Running Man, a few things occurred to me. First of all, it's not very good. No, it's not. You remember it being better than it was. But

you have to also take into account at the time, you know, movies being as they were at the time or whatever, it was pretty good. And we were a lot younger when it came out. So it was kind of awesome then too. True, true. So some pointers, I made notes while I was watching it last night. Number one, the depiction of gambling in a lot of films, to me, is written or directed by someone who's never gambled. Yeah. Sorry, I'm back. Sorry, I had to, my son had a phone call.

That's okay. God, it's hectic at the moment. Your son had a phone call? What movie are we talking about? Running Man. So, there's a scene in there, the people on the street bet on who's gonna win the Running Man or who's gonna get the next kill, right? Yeah, sure.

Um, so in those movies, someone will always be like, alright, who's got, you know, bets on so and so, and they all just wave money, and the guy just takes money off them, and you're like, where's the slip? It's like a cock fight, yeah. Yeah, but it's like, you can't just remember who bet on what and what the odds were at the point they bet. You have to write it down. But there's always gonna be... No, I know. But they're trying to, they're trying to portray this like kind of like, uh, like crazy manic, you know,

uh, betting thing, you know, cause it's like, cause running man's like a, like a dystopian future as well. Right. Right. Right. This is like a game show. So I think it's not like, you know, it's, it's not like a fully, fully legalized gambling or whatever. He's just somebody yelling in the road. He doesn't really need to keep track or anything. I think he's just going to do. I think he does. If he fucks up, he's going to get shot. So he didn't even have like a ledger or anything?

Nothing. It was just like, they were just like, he's grabbing money and they're writing chalk on the boards. And after Ben Richards, it's his Schwarzenegger's character, has killed like three of these stalkers, they give him a hundred to one odds to get the next kill. I mean, what are you thinking? No, he's your favorite at this point. He's killed three stalkers and they've never lost.

What are the odds? What are the odds that he's going to kill another one, though? That's why the odds were very, very high. No, I'd say it's slim at that point because it could have just been luck. Dude, let me tell you something. No stalker had ever died to that point because there's a line where he's going to die eventually though. That's the thing. Like, you know, you've got to take into account what if he just died of old age in there?

Stalker, you know, you've got to take into account what if he just died of old age in there? Stalker, you know, I'm just saying. Killian is like, ladies and gentlemen, this is the first time this has ever happened. What a dark day for the running man. And then they go to commercial break. And I'm like, like, they've never had a stalker die. So he's killed like two or three at this point. And the guys are like 100 to one. I'm like, what kind of bookmaker would offer those odds?

Like, that's insane. That is, if it was his first going in, if they took odds on him being the first to get a kill at the start, the show 100 to one is probably not even generous enough. It's a great underdog movie, though. So like, I think that just it kind of cements the whole underdog thing

as well, you know, that he's got these insane odds against him and stuff. I hope you leave enough room for my fist. Break your goddamn spine! It is funny how these movies get made. It's kind of this big Hollywood, like, that movie that came out yesterday on Netflix or

whatever, the one with, um, what's his face? Electric State, is it that one? Electric State. There's one on Netflix that's just come out that's meant to be, it's got Stephen Graham in it. I think it's called Adolescents. That's a little television show. It's good.

It's good. It's meant to be really good because it's kind of like Boiling Point. It's all shot in one shot. You should definitely watch that. It's good. But the Electric State cost, guess how much it cost? It's Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt. So I know, so I'm not going to guess.

Millie, Millie Bobby Brown. I don't know, like 10 million? Hold on, hold on, hold on. Just realistically. Hold on. I don't know, I don't know what it's about, I don't know anything about it. It's a movie. How much does a movie cost?

Like 10 million. Hey man, it's 2025, I don't fucking know, like what's the movie about? Does it have special effects in it? Alright, hold on. 10 million. I don't fucking know. Like, what's the movie about? Does it have special effects in it? All right. Yes. Hold on. Ten million. I mean, what's 21? It's like a sci-fi movie. It's like a sci-fi movie with Chris Pratt and Millie Bobby Brown, two quite popular names at the box office. All right. Two popular names. They're like the two of the most famous actors in the world. It was 320 million for a Netflix movie. Well man, I don't know, fuck it's a Netflix movie. You couldn't make a commercial for 10 million dollars these days.

I don't know man, Jesus. Apparently most of that cost is Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt, right? To try and... Millie Bobby Brown! Why? Who is Millie Bobby Brown? Why does she get paid 320 million? She was in Stranger Things.

She was hugely famous. She was the bald lass in Stranger Things. She was the bald one in... wait, the little girl? Yeah. I guess she's probably an adult now, right? It's been... fucking hell. Yes. It's been. Yes. Yes.

It's been a while. But so Ben was explaining to me the reason that they had to pay the actors so much is because with these Netflix streaming shows, it doesn't have, they don't do a residuals deal so you don't get like a cut of the gross or anything like that. So they pay you upfront to make up for that. So they get paid an absolute fucking fortune, but this is the sort of money that they would have earned over a long tail. You know, like if you released a book or a game or something, you're going to get money

coming in gradually. It's going to be a big spike upfront when the box office receipts come in. And then over time, gradually as it gets put on TV or anytime you get a check. But instead for the way the streaming services do it, they just go, we don't do that or we can't do that. So here is just a buttload of money. And it's equivalent to what you would have made. Had this been a movie is the way they do it. That's crazy.

Yeah. 320 million. Um, so, uh, is it good? No, it's been very badly reviewed. It's terrible. They say, they say, oh, you know, where are the days of Hollywood taking risks and stuff? Well, it's back, I guess. 320 million for a flop?

Or has it even flopped? It doesn't matter if it flops, because Netflix don't judge things based on that. You can, Netflix has this, they throw it out immediately, there's no trailers, there's no advertising, people just load up the Netflix, they press it, and they just don't care. Sometimes stuff is review terrible and is terrible, but still people watch it, and if enough people watch it and are glued to it, that they keep their Netflix subscription going. That's kind of weird though, because there's no advertising or anything, you're more likely

to click on it, to try it out, think, oh, maybe this is good. But then I guess, past a certain point, that doesn't work. Because if it's shit, and everybody's talking about how shit it is, then I would assume that views just drop off a cliff. If that's what they're measuring it against. I don't know, because I think a lot of people don't read reviews at all. And I think they just turn on Netflix or whatever streaming service they're're on and click on the stuff that's on the front page. I really do.

And if it's right there, they just go blog. And they build the front page with algorithms that they fill it with stuff that you'll click on. You know, you've watched Stranger Things, you've watched, I don't know, whatever. I've watched 750 hours of Ben and Holly's Magical Kingdom on Netflix. What do you think they're recommending to me? Wait, so here's my question. How do you know how many hours of it you've watched? Is there a way to find out? I wish I could find out because steam has like those played

played on games. I want it for Netflix. I use Netflix through an Apple TV. I don't know if the Netflix apps are different across different devices or whatever. But in the settings for the Netflix app on Apple TV, there's like nothing. There's just absolutely no information and there's nothing. All it has is like the app version or whatever and a sign out button. That's it. So, I don't know. Mason- The way that these things are done, you have to all assume it's on purpose, right? They don't want to have reviews on Netflix. On purpose.

Well there is a rating system built into Netflix, right? Yeah, but it's kind of hidden behind the scenes. I don't know if anybody really uses it. And it's more of, like, people who liked this also liked this. It's kind of very... I watched the first episode of White Lotus this week. Oh, of the first series? Yeah.

That series one is so good, man. Did you watch it with your wife? Yes. We liked it, but we were... It's a bit of a trip that show, isn't it? You don't know if it's... I feel like some of the writing is, like not mocking people, but it's like really trying to tell you something about a certain class of people kind of thing.

Oh, of course. It's weird though, because it's like- It's not gentle with all the- all of the people in it are assholes. Yeah, yeah. Every single person in that show is a dick. Yes. Yeah. It's good though. I mean, the first episode is really good, so we'll keep on with it for sure.

Yeah, they're just doing a new... I think the new one's going at the moment in... So the first season... Each season is set in these fancy hotels, right? Yeah, but there's nothing to do... The first season and the second season don't connect in any way. It's completely separate stories, people, everything, right? I think there is a character in both. One character goes to this...

Because they go to this chain of hotels. But finding that out would be a spoiler, I guess. Okay. It's good so far. I think it's something that we would watch. No pacing. We all have an idea of what a fancy hotel is like, right? And the kind of people who go to it. And I think it's just, yeah, it's nice to see rich assholes have a horrible holiday. I think a lot of this stuff kind of exists out there too. I think people's expectations of what should be like a very

luxurious experience or whatever. I feel like in the White Lotus and maybe other places, it's almost like the best gift you can have is putting people off something. It's like not saying no, but saying no. You know what I mean? You're not outright just saying no, you can't do that, but there's like just saying no, you can't do that. But there's like a million reasons why you can't do all of these things. Like, you know, like when the guy's asking if him and his son could do anything and there's, it's just like, no, you can't really do that. No, it's not the right time of year.

Uh, no, you'd have to wake up early and stuff. And he's just like, Oh, can we go snorkeling? You know what I mean? It's just like, he's like, he's got like five or six things that he really wants to do and like none of them are even possible. Like I don't know. It just seems crazy that you would spend that much money to go to a place and just not really be able to do any of the things that you want to do. But I feel like that's kind of true to real life as well. There's always some excuse for why something hasn't been done or something hasn't been done to

like the standard that you expected, or whatever. It's interesting for sure. This is it, right? I've been to some fancy hotels, and you can tell that they have to skimp in places, and it's either in... there's some elements that, like, you want it to be this perfect situation, where everything's perfect, but there's always cracks, right? Because it's run by people who are being paid the bare minimum, or you know, it's somehow exploiting the place that it's in, or it's in, I don't know, you know, Germany. There's always something shit going on, right? And I don't know, it's a great show,

though, White Lodes, you're going to enjoy it. Yeah, yeah, no, I'm looking forward to watching more of it for sure. Going online without ExpressVPN is like leaving your laptop unattended at the coffee shop while you run to the bathroom. Most of the time, you're probably fine. But what if one day you come out of the bathroom and your laptop and everything else in the world is gone? That's why you need a VPN. Every time you connect to an unencrypted network, your online data is not secure. Any hacker on the same network can gain access to and steal your personal data such as passwords,

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dedicated IP service engineered with innovative zero-knowledge design. Not even ExpressVPN can trace an IP address back to the user. What the hell are you waiting for you dummy? Uh, secure your online data today by visiting expressvpn.com slash triforce. That's Well, before we go on, I just want to tell you guys about the Stealth 700 headset that we received from Turtle Beach. My eldest pounced on it immediately. She needed a new pair of headphones for her gaming. Popped them on her head, played Minecraft and she couldn't hear me when I was calling her down for dinner. But in her mind this was a great success.

I got some as well and actually I plugged them in and I was watching back one of our videos and I noticed how much better the quality was than the crappy pair of headphones I was watching back one of our videos and I noticed how much better the quality was than the crappy pair of headphones I was using from before. I just want to say thank you very much Turtle Beach for sending us their brand new headset. It's a Stealth 700. It's apparently got 80 hours of battery life, which I didn't even realise. And yeah, I'm really impressed by its modern and cool features. It's got 3D spatial audio, 80 hours of battery life, which I didn't even realise. So you

can head to turtlebeach.com and use the code TRIFORCE for 10% off your entire order. That's 10% off your order at turtlebeach.com with promo code TRIFORCE. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them and you can support our show by telling them we sent you. Get the ultimate immersive gaming experience with Turtle Beach today. Get over there right now. Come on, head on over to turtlebeach.com and use code triforce for 10% off. On with the show. On with the show. I feel like this is the same thing with games though, right?

Like I was, for some reason I saw, I was talking to a person about Stalker 2 yesterday and I couldn't get into it. Oh, did you play it? Well, I've been playing a few games from the best games of 2024, right? Like there's this, there's this like, it was like, I was either Eurogamer or Guardians top 100 games. I like to go through them the next year. And I feel like, so worried like, oh, I didn't play any of these amazing games.

So I downloaded them, I play them, and I'm always sort of slightly disappointed. Right. Because I feel like some people who make these lists, they don't play, they don't play enough games. I actually think they play too many. Well. If I may. I think a lot of these, if you're a reviewer of games, you can't spend hours and hours and hours and hours playing your favorite game. You have to play fucking everything. So I don't think you get the depth. And I just think also that they always have to

include like here are all the best games. And therefore that means like every platform. So these are all these great games on PlayStation. And if you're playing tons and tons and tons of games, quite often, I think you're not really seeing the best of that game. And maybe you're just like, oh, wow, yeah, that there's I put three or four hours into it done. I'm not saying that's all reviews. A lot of reviewers will actually finish a game or play loads of it before they do the review. But if you're writing a daily fucking column on the website about games, you're going to

play a lot of fucking games. You do have to play a lot of games. Yeah. I think you're kind of, it's weird. You know, we're talking about like nobody reads movie reviews, but I think gaming reviews are read a lot. You know, like it's a completely different thing, right? Like a lot of people will judge a game based on like the reviews that it gets

or bad reviews that it gets. And it matters to like the sales of the game, how many people are playing the game. Like it's a big ecosystem, right? But I think when you play a lot of games, I think it's good for people. I think the thing is like we assume that most gamers are just playing as much as we do. But I don't know if that's strictly the case. It's not even close. There's loads of people that play a game like a couple hours a week, you know, between working

and having a hundred kids and all this stuff like we're we're we like playing games, but we're fortunate enough where we can just play loads of games all the time. We are total outliers. Yeah, I think at the same time. The only people that compete would be people who are unemployed or very young. Yeah. Because if you have a job, you'll get up and get ready for work. You come back, you have dinner, maybe eight, eight thirty, nine o'clock.

You're ready to start playing games. You play for a few hours, two, three hours. And then you're like, fuck, I got to go to bed. Go to work. Is that? Yeah. I mean, it's. Yeah.

Yeah. So most people, you know, that's why games like, you know, football manager and save and stuff like that appeal to people who don't really have time to play a lot of games. The single player, you can play a few turns job done. None of the weekend you can maybe play something else. And then like games don't even fit most people's lifestyle. Look at fucking talk of.

I mean, you know, it's fucking hours. It's something like Dota. Like, yeah, I don't. You can't play Dota for like an hour or two a week. You'd struggle, right? That's like two games. You just never get better at the game. I don't know. You watch a really good TV show, or a really good movie, and it stays with you, you really feel like, oh my god, I should watch more movies, I should watch more TV shows, right? And then you end up watching so much mediocre crap. There's a lot of games that are mediocre crap is what I'm trying to say. Like, I feel like, like, Stalker 2 is just so mediocre. Like I played this game, Kunitsu Gami. It's like a Capcom tower defensive

thing. I thought I'd like it. I didn't really like it. And just didn't grab me. And I played a few other games lately as well that I just didn't quite, didn't quite the edge. They weren't quite there. And it's not like they're early access or they're not quite done. But I think I'm still reeling off the disappointment with Civ 7. And I think it's like, knocked me a bit in gaming. I found that I'm like, been disappointed a couple of times by things I've made an effort. And it's like, what do you spend salty quid on a game or whatever? even in Steam. Is Civ 7 not good? Cack. No.

Absolute cack. Is it? The first age of it is good, and I think it will be good, given another year or two. I always say this when a Civ game comes out, it takes a couple of DLC, like a couple of years, a couple of big patches to get it fixed. And they're scrabbling to fix it for AXIS, don't worry. I mean, they know that this is their big ticket item. But currently on Steam, more people are playing

Civ V right now than Civ VII. And that says something. That really says something. I mean, Lewis, you guys already found that Civ VII multiplayer is just as dogshit as it's ever been, right? Well, of course. But, I mean, no one plays Civ games multiplayer. Yeah, we were talking about this the other day. It's like nobody... You can't find these games, right? I think, I don't know, I've been playing a few games that I've just never, I haven't gotten into any of them lately. And I don't know whether that's because my taste has changed or what I want out of the games changed. But I know a lot of people play games with TV on in the background. They play a mediocre game and watch mediocre TV

and that somehow gives them quite a nice experience. And you know, when both of them get boring, you go on your phone and you open some Pokemon packs or something. It's like, I'm becoming like a 13 year old over-stimulating boy. I've got a question about that. Yeah, that's true. I've got a question about Civ 7. So I've played as far as the end of the Second Age and then I quit. The First Age you just explore like your little square island, apparently they're all square islands, and then you get your boats and you start to explore the world and you find like the New World and there's already civilizations

there like the Spanish Empire was there. So it doesn't have that technically sort of essentially undiscovered land. That is the new world. Did they just get there faster than you? No, it's like they're already there. Oh, they're just so so you like even if you went like day one, they would already be there established. You couldn't get there day one. Your ships cannot cross the ocean. So then you get to the Second Age and you can cross the ocean, you get there and there's already, the entire

place has already been colonised by some other empires. Here's the design philosophy of Civ, okay. It's a forex that is expand, explore, exterminate and exploit, right? Or whatever. And as a result, Civ has always had this great starting game where you reveal the map, you explore the map, you find a couple of guys, maybe you attack them, maybe you go peaceful, you exploit the land, you build your thing. And then there's this long, slow mid game where you either say, Oh, I'm going to have to slog across the entire world and annihilate absolutely everyone, which would be really tedious and slow. Or I just press and turn a bunch and I win a science victory, right? Or a culture

victory or religious victory or whatever victory you've pressed. And it's pretty, that's it. That's the game. Okay. And what a lot of games have tried to do, old world, humankind is add this kind of mid game interesting twist. And so this is what Civ 7 is now that they've not provided an alternative to this. You have to do it. After Antiquity, so like, you know, not too far into the game, certainly before Gunpowder, the game ends, okay? And you sort of, everything gets reset back to a point where your cities get sort of turned, everything kind of gets, the playing field gets leveled a little bit. Like maybe instead of you're massively ahead, you're still going to be ahead, but not, you get brought back to sort of a level of where you're

kind of starting again. Okay. And then the second age is the same. So it's explore. And the idea of exploring is you explore the new world. And the idea of exterminate is you can exterminate these new AIs that you found instead of the existing ones. Maybe you were friendly with the first ones and you're going to kill these ones, or maybe you killed the first ones and you're going to be friendly with these ones. Whatever, right? And the idea is to explore the new world a little bit like colonialism. And then that is a good idea on paper, okay? It's a fun idea. And you think it will be fun, but it's kind of a little bit tedious in its implementation and it's a little bit half-arsed. And then the third age, they just sort of thought, oh no, we haven't got a plan for this. And then they actually originally planned a fourth age and

they realized, oh crap, we don't even have a plan for this at all. So they merged the fourth age into the third age and now it's all cack-handed. And the third age I don't even want to talk about because it has none of the X's, it doesn't make any sense and it's just bad. I don't know how they're going to fix it and it's not my job, thank God. But I think that their design philosophy was to try and counter this slow mid game, which you always get in these grand strategy games where you've unlocked everything, everything starts to become a bit complicated and overwhelming and boring and you've lost that initial excitement of the, oh, let's explore and make some cool decisions and see stuff growing from one to

two. When stuff is going from 25 pop to 26 pop, who cares? Right? You know, when you're, it's not as, it doesn't feel like a game anymore. It feels like some sort of simulator. Yeah. Right. At least when you're doing like the small numbers, it feels like it's not as, it doesn't feel like a game anymore. It feels like some sort of simulator. Yeah. Right. At least when you're doing like the small numbers, it feels like it's a board game and you can finish it and go again. And that's why I've been enjoying this antiquity era because it does feel like a complete game in its own. But Civ have had this legacy of telling the whole tale and they can't release Civ 7 without making some improvements, right? Or at least including things from previous years. And so, you know, they added like, volcanoes are in the game. The way Civ does it is like,

people will complain. Of course volcanoes were in Civ 6. People will complain if they're not in Civ 7. So they put volcanoes in, right? And they kind of half-arsely put some things in from the previous game, just to kind of keep everyone happy. But it just results in a disappointing experience in general. When you borrow something fun from a previous game, but only include 1% of what made it fun, it's not fun anymore. So I don't know. I'll be honest with you, I think quite a few things have disappointed me lately. I don't know why. Just kind of loads of things come out and I'm just like, oh, that wasn't good.

Some things have really impressed me. What? And I have had real good time with them. What? What? What? I played Recycling Center Simulator. That is amazing, by the way. Really good one. I'm with you on that. I played a couple of good ones recently. I played fast food simulator. If you can find a bunch of people to play it with is actually really good. Played that enjoyed it only out its early access, but it's pretty good. It's pretty fun. Um, what else have we played? We played, uh, we played that we put, Oh,

contract bill is really fun with a group. So you just go around and demolish old houses and build new houses. And you build up like a contract. You could do like cleaning, haulage. There's like also let me ask you guys a question. Do you think that you guys are going to put thousands of hours into those games the way that you have into like civil something? No. But where is the next game like that is what I'm saying, is I want a game that I'm like, I love this so much that I'm just gonna keep playing it and playing it and it's got endless replayability and depth.

Oh, that would be like, you know, it would be like Deadlock or like Valorant or something, you know, something like that. Do you still play Valorant? I've never played Valorant. Right. Something will come along. I was playing Marvel Rivals for a bit. That could have been like a play for a very long time.

It's a 6v6 hero Overwatch-like, but it's all Marvel superheroes. It's pretty fun. Again, if you can get a group of people and play it, it's pretty fun. But um... I feel like I need to knock up some sort of evening gamer group to do co-op shit with. I've been doing that. I've got a group that I've been doing co-op stuff with recently. We just moved on to Farming Simulator 25 yesterday.

And it's fun. Did you get keys for it? Did I what? Did you get keys for it? Yes, thank you. I got the keys. We all got the keys. And I rented a server for us, so that it's like, on all the time.

And it's a bit frustrating, because it's one of those games, you know. It's quite complicated to get into, but frustrating because it's one of those games, you know, quite, quite complicated to get into. But I think everybody's sort of gelling with it now and figuring out things. And we're just going to try to build up a big farming empire and buy the whole map. But the whole thing with our group is we're called the hundred percent boys. So we hundred percent of game and then move on. But we've never a hundred percent of the game. But then we always say, yeah, we a hundred percent of the game halfway through, but then we always, but then the joke is we always turn around and say, yeah, we a hundred percent of it offline.

Like we got sick of streaming it. It's so dumb, but it's fun. I struggle with this all the time, right? Like even like recording games for the Civ channel or like playing games in my spare time, you know, someone or some place something and people start getting bored and then, you know, people will stop turning up or something will go on, like someone will be on holiday for a week and it just, it dies. It needs constant. Yeah.

I really admire people who've kept their D&D groups going for... Yeah. I feel like what we're doing is a bit like a D&D group, but we just so happened to all like crappy games, you know, like these mundane task games, like power washing or lawn mowing or whatever. And if there's some sort of like overarching, you know, company thing with it, you know, where you can build up a company and make money and stuff, everybody seems to be quite happy with that. That's fun. I mean, there's like road craft coming out.

There's a bunch of stuff coming out that we can play and it's great. It's good fun. It is. I wish I had like a more... Well, you can join us if you want to play some dad games, you know? We're not exclusive. Yeah. I got something I want to talk to you guys about. These are the huge, biggest box office bombs of the last few years. Okay. Some of these films I had never heard of.

I don't remember any kind of promotional marketing or even who was in them. And they've lost fucking tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. Really? OK. So Joker folio, lost between one hundred and twenty five and two hundred million dollars. I haven't seen it. Yeah. The Marvels.

Did you know this movie? No, never heard of it. It's a Marvel movie, lost about 245 million dollars, which is insane. That's a lot of flash. That's the DC movie about the flash. One hundred and sixty million lost. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. That was the new the latest in. Oh, I didn't even realize there was another one.

I thought Crystal Skull was the last one. They did. This one lost one hundred and fifty million dollars. A thought Crystal Skull was the last one. No, dude. This one lost 150 million dollars. A film called Wish, a Disney animated movie that somehow lost 135 million. We tried to watch it a couple of times and it's just not, it doesn't, it doesn't grip you, you know, like, uh, it's not, it's not, it's not the Lion King. I'll say that. Right. Haunted Mansion?

Oh, Haunted Mansion. That's the... Owen Wilson, Danny'll say that. Right. Haunted Mansion. Oh, haunted mansion. That's the only way to any devito. Yeah, it's based on the Disney ride, right? Haunted ride. Lost one hundred and thirty million dollars. Strange world. No. Did you hear about this? It's a Disney animated movie.

Never heard of it. Lost nearly two hundred million dollars. Turning red. No. Which was actually pretty good. That was not a bad film. Somehow still lost 180 million. Moonfall, Roland Emmerich film where the moon falls into the earth. Lost 150 million. Sounds awesome. Is it good? No, it's terrible.

The Buzz Lightyear movie. Lightyear. No, it's garbage. I saw Lightyear. We went to see it in the cinema. It was lost 130 million. That wasn't great. I mean, it was OK. Like my kids wanted to see it.

So yeah, the only movies I've seen are just was okay. My kids wanted to see it. The only movies I've seen are just movies that my kids have wanted to see. And some of them have been great, and some of them have just been... I just judge movies now by if they can keep me awake or not. Lightyear I fell asleep a couple of times during, for sure. So that's okay, is it, that one? Yeah. Sometimes you want to move it.

Honestly, I'd love a movie to put me to sleep. I mean, I'm at the point in my life now where I'm like, well, I got a little bit of sleep, so I can't knock it too hard. I managed to have a little rest at the movie theatre, so... Nice. Paid twenty quid for the privilege. Paid twenty quid for a nap, yeah. For a sleep.

There's a film called Amsterdam, came out three years ago. Christian Bale, but show the people in it. Lost a hundred and sixteen million quid. Devotion, was about some, it was a World War Two fighter thing. Right. I wanna watch, I wanna go through and watch all of these bad movies. Yeah, lost a hundred million dollars. Black Adam, which was heavily marketed.

I would, if you could make a streaming service that only had Flops on it. Yeah, it's called Netflix. Flop TV. What was the sequel to The Quiet Place? I haven't seen that. There's been three sequels, I think. Has there? At least two, yeah.

The original, remember when we went to see the original when we were in Seattle, Lewis? I really liked it. I thought it was good. Yeah, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. It was a good, perfectly good action movie. Yeah. Yeah, it was fine. But then they make the sequence.

Good. I think the Quiet Place was they didn't call it an even quieter place, which I wish they had. No, they had like the didn't they have like one of them was kind of like the the days leading up to like all the attacks, like on the general population. That's the that's the most recent one. Right place day one. All right. Is that any good? Which is extremely mid, exceptionally mid.

Right. OK. The most mid mid thing you could imagine. That's it. Whereas Jungle Cruise starring the rock. Right. It's an absolute piece of shit. Oh, what? Dude, I don't understand why the rock is in so many things. He is box office fucking poison, this guy.

He makes so many movies that cost so much money and they're all dog shit. I do not understand it. The Carrot Top actually made money though, when he was... When he was... I think as a stand-up he did. When he was active? I don't know. He probably made enough.

I mean, as a stand-up comedian in 80s, 90s America, I think he was certainly very popular, but all his movies were great. I see a lot of memes where it's like, you know, how I know not to go see a movie and there's like a grid and it's got like Chris Pratt, Jack Black, The Rock, and a couple of other people who just seem to be like in every movie, like you're saying. But like some of them are okay. And then some of them are not, I guess. Right. Uh, I don't know. Um, I mean, I will tell you that it looks pretty good. No, it does not.

I'm going to get so much sleep. I can't wait. I do not understand how he made this much money. Is like Skyscraper is terrible, but apparently made money. Jungle Cruise is terrible and lost a lot of money. Black Adam is terrible and lost a lot of money. Red One, which is this film that came out and has been awful, like really, really badly panned that lost a lot of money. If you take out his appearances and things like Moana, which he was in. Yeah. Right.

He wasn't like quite like Moana. No, he was a big character in it, though. Yeah, but it's not. It's just his voice. Yeah. Yeah. What I'm saying is a lot of the films he's in San Andreas, there's another film. Fucking awful. I don't understand why Dwayne the Rock Johnson is seen as this superstar. He makes a lot of movies that lose a lot of money. Yeah. An awful lot of money. And of course, they're remaking Moana as a live action fucking movie, I believe.

So these are a lot of these these Disney remake movies have feature all of the original music, like, you know, from the animated ones. So like the little mermaid, the live action one would have had like under the sea. I haven't seen it, but it would have had like, you know, all the classic songs from the original animated movie from like 1991 or whatever it came out. I think it's kind of bold to do that. I think it's hit and miss all that. Some of the live action ones I think have been okay from what I can tell.

I think the only one I've seen is Beauty and the Beast because it was on at Christmas. But I don't know, it seems mad. It seems like a trip. But it's weird because like my kids, I've got a three-year-old and a nine and they should, you know, technically be into this, into this stuff, the old animated movies and whatever, but there's something aesthetically about them that just, they don't like them.

They'll, they'll opt for like new, like, you know, like, you know, CGI stuff over the old hand-drawn cartoon animation stuff. Like every single time they, they, they detect that it's old or something and they just are like, no, I'm not interested. They just won't watch them. It's crazy. But kids do traditionally like animation more than anything else. I think it's just what they're used to. I mean, the most popular fucking stuff always seems...

Yeah, it's because it's easy to make kids' shows that are animated. Yeah. Or easier. A lot of the stuff that they watch now, it looks okay, you know? Like it's colorful. It's easy to make kids shows that are animated. Yeah. Or easier. A lot of the stuff that they watch now, it looks OK, you know, like it's colorful. It's like, yeah, you know, like they imagine if Peppa Pig was just an actual pig. Yeah, but live action Peppa Pig. It was just a family of pigs and they filmed them and like CGI little mouths talking and shit.

It would never have been as popular as it is. But animation is the way to go. Peppa Pig is a good example that goes against what I just said though, because it is, it looks like it's drawn with a crayon, like, you know, like it's for very little kids. It is, but like they'll still, it's still more watchable than like the, the older Disney animated movies. Like they just switch off.

But if I may, Peppa Pig episodes are about 10 minutes long. True. yeah. Getting a kid to watch a two hour movie. Yeah, I suppose there is that about it. When it's very simple, it allows kids to fill in the gaps with their imagination. If you provide too much- Kids don't have an imagination. It's a myth. It's an absolute fucking myth. They do not have an imagination.

I'm not even kidding. I think we all do. I think we all fill in the gaps. It's, even with something as simple as South Park Animation Star, right? It lets you... It has your... I think it is the secret to Minecraft too, and Lego. People can see these simple shapes and understand that that is a house, without it being, have to have, you know, real world level detail. It's escapism

and it enhances the idea that you're in a different world, that you're in a disconnect. It's the same world but safer and different. I want to go back to children not having an imagination. People might think that's unfair. Let me state my case, if I may. When was the last blockbuster movie written by a four year old? If their imaginations are so good, where is the production? Their imaginations are, they do have imaginations, but their imaginations only work when they're sitting in the living room playing with like dolls or whatever. You know what I mean? Like they're

unable to formulate a full, the same way they can't watch a two hour movie. I don't think they could produce one either. I don't think they could. And where would they get them backing? Who's going to give them money? True. You know what I mean? Good point. The meeting is going to be a disaster.

Good point. Yeah. Yeah. I just think like this idea that the children have the imagination that we lose it when we're adults is absolute bollocks. Yeah. Because most of the time when kids have to imagine things, it's because they're born out of their minds and they still just basically, if you watch the way kids play, they replicate

things that they've seen in the real world with their toys. Yes. So they'll have like tea parties, or they'll have like mommy and daddy the dolls, and they're very nice to the kids and they give them presents and the kids are always very well behaved and all that. Yeah. Like they immediately recreate stuff they've seen, or they take real-world scenarios and just act them out.

And it's a very important form of play, facilitating ideas in their head and working things through. I'm not saying it's not. My imagination now. The idea that they have this mystical, the imagination of a child, fuck off. Yeah, no, my imagination now, as a 44-year-old man, is insane. Oh, God, yeah.

My I'm physically limited. I can picture anyone. I can't. Yeah, that's his superpower. We've already covered this. Well, listen, we have to cut the podcast slightly short today. Apologies. We all have places to go and people to see. So thanks so much for listening. We'll see you next time. Bye.

Thank you next time. Bye! Thank you everyone! Goodbye!