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A father and daughter discuss life across their generations. Science, medicine, music, and whatever else they choose to discuss are on the table.
Aubrey
00:00
Cause I died in the winter like twice, in the winter area like twice. Cause I just didn't have any clothes. Welcome back. Two generations. I'm one of your co-hosts, Aubrey.
Peter
00:18
And I am your other co-host, Peter.
Aubrey
00:20
How are you, Dad? How you been?
Peter
00:23
Uh I've been doing okay. How about yourself?
Aubrey
00:26
Pretty good, except for the fact that it's so cold you literally can get frostbite in eight minutes if you go outside today.
Peter
00:33
Yeah. You you you didn't have work yesterday because school was canceled, your mother said, because it was so blasted cold.
Aubrey
00:41
Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's crazy. It is a whole Whole new level. Friday, like yesterday was the the worst it's supposed to be. Like today wasn't nearly as bad, but yeah, it was like it was like negative 20, feels like negative 36. like the whole day.
Peter
01:00
And you you got to experience the ice inside the house.
Aubrey
01:05
Yep, the ice inside the window. Um I have a bunch of plants on my window sill in my um bedroom and I like if you get close to the window, it like feels like it drops ten degrees or something inside the room. So as long as I'm not close to the window, that's great. But I had a bunch of plants and they were like the leaves were like freezing, sticking to the window. And I was like, oh no, I got it. So I had to move all of those.
Peter
01:34
Yep.
Aubrey
01:35
Um and yeah, there's like a line of ice like right next to the panels where you can open like slide open the door or the window. Um so yeah that was crazy. Yeah. And luckily the apartment like we're really well insulated. Like I'm not I'm not cold. I wasn't cold as long as I wasn't like sitting directly next to the window. But it was crazy. It was crazy
Peter
02:00
That does sound a little crazy. I remember we would have times like that in New Hampshire, but we don't really get that here in Idaho.
Aubrey
02:06
So Yeah Yeah, it was like walking outside eve like yesterday I didn't go outside at all, but Hayden had to go outside to his car because I had the garage. Um and he didn't want to take my car for some reason. I don't know why. So he takes his car and then he was trying to get a spot in the parking garage at work, but it was full, so he had to park in the parking lot and then walk outside in And so he has like his ski like mask thing on that covers all the way up to so it's just his eyes that are like exposed to the air. And I was like, You're gonna get frostbite. He was like, I'll be okay. It's a less than one minute walk inside. And I was like, No, you're gonna get frostbite.
Peter
02:49
Yeah, it was crazy. Yeah. That doesn't sound like a lot of fun. I think we're gonna get spared from all of this bad weather. You know, we've got a little We got some snowflakes that are falling. Technically it snowed enough that uh I took the the leaf blower and blew the little bit of light fluffy snow off our sidewalk so they were all clear, but that was all I needed to That was all that was required for us. And that's crazy. It's it's really weird. Usually at this time, uh it's It's it's this thing where on the one hand, I know that we need a lot more snow. I j I just know we do.
Aubrey
03:29
Right.
Peter
03:30
On the other hand, usually by the time we get to the end of January, we've had snow for you know, maybe a little bit of August and then all of November, December, and again most of January. And so I'm kind of looking forward to there not being snow. Yeah. So from a timeline standpoint, it's like, okay, we should start getting through the other side of winter. But on the other side, I other hand, the reality of it is we have had so little winter that I'm kind of worried if we don't get more that it's gonna be adjust like we're gonna start having wildfires in like May. And it's gonna be And May till September of just smelling like smoke and horrible air quality and Yeah, that's gonna certainly be rough.
Aubrey
04:21
Yeah. Just a weird winter. It is it is it has been very weird. Yeah. Oh I guess it's still me. Sorry, I forgot.
Peter
04:28
Yeah, it is still you. I'm again. Yeah.
Aubrey
04:31
I was like I was like, all right. Anyway, I am not with it today. Um anyway, we thought today for our topic, um we could chat about our like video games that we like, video games we didn't like, um whatever we're Doing right now. I know you usually talk about games on your other pod, but we haven't really on this pod. Um Yeah, we do.
Peter
04:56
We did sometimes that we pick a game, sometimes we talk about what we've been checking out and playing, but uh Uh but yeah. Yeah. So Yeah, I made a list.
Aubrey
05:05
I got I got my notes app open. I made a whole list of all the video games I could think of that I actually consistently played. 'Cause like I wouldn't consider myself a gamer, you know. I don't like I don't know, I'm not a gamer per se, but There's I've dabbled in quite a few.
Peter
05:24
It's a really interesting thought in 2026 of what constitutes a gamer. So for example, I guarantee you, your mother would say, I'm the gamer. Yeah. She is not a gamer.
Aubrey
05:40
Right.
Peter
05:40
But if we actually look at the amount of time spent playing a game in a week, because she plays games on her phone, I guarantee you she probably plays like. . orders of magnitude more amounts of actual game time than I put in. Because I don't really play games on my phone. I mean I play there's this one Angry Birds bounce game that I'll play a little bit. But short of that, I play video games on a computer or on a console or something like that. Right. And I probably do that like, I don't know, one day. uh or one or two days a week for fifteen to sixty minutes at a time. So I probably if I look back in a week I'd be surprised most of the time if my gaming was over an hour or two.
Aubrey
06:28
Yeah, that's fair. You don't have much time to really.
Peter
06:31
So it's funny because it's like People think of gamers and they think of, yeah, that you're like locked away in your room peeing into a bottle because you're not gonna step away from World of Warcraft to go You know, use a bathroom or something, but it's like gaming has just become so ubiquitous, especially because of smartphones, that I think people who wouldn't identify themselves as gamers probably have more time logged playing video games yeah than a lot of us who count ourselves as gamers.
Aubrey
07:03
Yeah, that's true. That's true. Yeah, I'm I might be
Peter
07:08
It's an it's an interesting change that we see over you know the last few years and with the advent of technology and everything.
Aubrey
07:17
Yeah, especially with COVID with like people being stuck inside and people just in general got into more video games. That definitely f I feel like I got m more into video games or into video games in general over COVID anyways. Because it's like what else were you gonna do? as like people my age and stuff like that. But anyways, I'll start with the two my two top played I will start with, which I definitely have talked about on the pod before, um, is Stardew and Minecraft. Yep. I have logged many hours on those on those games. On Stardew, I currently have let's count how many worlds I have. So I have A solo world where I already reached perfection, like basically beat the game. Um kind of. There's not really like a beat the game. You could just like go on forever, but I, you know, achieved the perfection status. Um The world with Hayden and I where we also recently just achieved perfection. So those two I don't really play anymore, but I still technically have them. Then I have a world with Gareth, then I have a world with Alex, then I have my newer solo world that I've started, and then the world with all four of us kids. So that is six started worlds that I have. And it tells you the hours on each world. Like when you go to load up the world, it tells you how many hours you've played. Um And it's a lot. The one where I got perfection in my solo world, I think is like 130 hours, 150 hours, or something like that. Um Yeah, obviously the rest just kind of go down for there. But I've locked a lot of hours on Stardew. I love Stardew. It is by far my favorite game I have ever played in my entire life. Um yeah. And Minecraft is pretty close second. Minecraft like there's always the classic like you get in your two two week Minecraft phase. Um, but when Hayden and I were long distance, there was just like a limit of things we could do together that, you know, it's like There's there's just a limit of like activities you can do long distance that are actually like fun. Um and Stardew was one of them 'cause we could just load up a co-op world. That was easy. And then Minecraft. Hayden had to like figure out how to do a server that I could log into because you can't just like open to LAN, obviously, because we weren't together on the same Wi-Fi or anything. Um But we didn't want to like buy the Minecraft server, like the Minecraft Realms or whatever. I don't even know how much those are. Um so Hayden had to like figure out how to like load up a server on his big chunky gaming computer and figured that out, but So those um were just really good to like help us get through. We could actually have like date nights, like long distance date nights and like play the game together, um, which was great for long distance. Um yeah, and in Minecraft we have like longer term worlds. It's not like our two week phase where then we like then start a new world. We have like our long long term worlds. um that we get pretty far in and we get pretty we get pretty industrial in in Minecraft. We're making redstone farms. We're doing crazy like Big builds and stuff like that. We're not good at the at building. We're five we're far from good at building, but it's it's fun. It's definitely like and since I watch so much stinkin' Minecraft YouTube Um I learn a lot from those. Sure. So yeah, those are my those are my top two. Those are my top two.
Peter
11:18
Okay. Yeah. So when I think about my games, uh I and I was thinking about it and kind of making my list. What I realize is for me, games that I really get into kind of fall into four main buckets. So the first bucket I'll say is there's kind of like the simulation games. Yeah. And and those can be fun. And that would be honestly something I think probably like Minecraft and Stardew would kind of fall in there.
Aubrey
11:48
Yeah.
Peter
11:49
Where There's kind of a story, but it's mostly a story that you're telling you you're creating the story as you go through and play it. And then there's kind of like the shorter games that are fun little games. Really a lot of them now are what you would put in the category of like uh roguelights or something like that where you know you play until you either finish a level or you die and then you're getting stuff to make yourself stronger. Yep. Then there's kind of the loop-based games, which is gonna be like your Diablos and your Borderlands and stuff like that, where yes, there is a story, but you go back in and you keep playing it. Yeah Specifically to like get more loot, get more gear.
Aubrey
12:36
Yeah.
Peter
12:37
And then for me though, the the key really is my favorite games are gonna be those. single player story-based games. Yeah. With you know it more involved stories and characters and stuff. And so that's really where I would say like my absolute favorite games fall into that category there. And my number one game. Of all time is what I'm gonna I'm gonna cheat a little bit. I'm gonna say it's the Mass Effect trilogy.
Aubrey
13:12
Okay.
Peter
13:13
And the reason I say that's treating is because obviously it's three games, but realistically it's it's three games that are one continuous story.
Aubrey
13:22
Okay.
Peter
13:23
And and so I love those. Uh I look and in Steam, so on the PC with the Mass Effect Legendary Edition, I've put in about 80 hours. But when I played the Mass Effect Legendary Edition start to finish, That was my fourth or fifth time playing all three games.
Aubrey
13:42
Oh wow.
Peter
13:44
So I played the original Mass Effect when it came out on Xbox. And then as soon as Mass Effect 2 came out, I played it. And then when the three came out, I played it. And then it was kind of every few years I would go back and I would play all three of those games again. And so they they unquestionably are are my favorite games of all time.
Aubrey
14:05
Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome.
Peter
14:07
Um and and it's so much because of the story and the characters. That's what gets me. I mean the gameplay's fun and I like trying the different you know, whether you're going a soldier or a biotic or like an engineer type thing or a blend of those things. So I find the gameplay fun, but it really is it's it's spending time with those characters that they just did such a good job nailing And so that's that's really where it it kind of got me. Yeah. Um and there's a bunch of other games that sort of fall into that realm. And I think that when I look at probably the next game or games where I've spent the most amount of time, it really was like the Assassin's Creed Origins and then Odyssey and then Valhalla.
Aubrey
14:55
Mm-hmm.
Peter
14:55
With the caveat that Valhalla kind of got to feel real grindy, so I actually fell off at the end of that one. Uh but I think I you know, I think I put like 180 hours into one playthrough of Assassin's Creed Odyssey. Wow Uh just because I did everything. Like I just had to be able to do that. All the side quests and everything. Exactly. Every side quest. And and I was doing like a very much stealth focus. So it was skulk around, assassinate. Slowly skulk around, assassinate. That kind of stuff. Yeah. And so You know, those are games that that I really enjoy. But at the same time, like I say, the the sad thing about Assassin's Creed is that Valhalla really did start to feel like enough of a grind that I have not gone and play either Mirage or Shadows, which are the two Assassin's Creed games that came out since then. Yeah. So.
Aubrey
15:50
Yeah. Yeah. I've always wanted to get into games like longer form more story-based games like that, but it feels that feels more gamery than I feel like I feel like I'm bad enough at video games. that it might just be frustrating for me, but I do kind of feel like I don't know, I feel like those games are kind of the point is you can yeah, go around, get more loot to get more pa like to get powerful and you know, you're like leveling up skills and stuff like that, that maybe it would be maybe it would be like beginner friendly enough for me.
Peter
16:27
I think, well, and most of these games have enough kind of like difficulty adjustment, difficulty sliders that I mean some of them straight up have a difficulty that's called story mode. Well nice. The idea is you're gonna be able to go in and you're gonna get to experience the story, but it's not really gonna be challenging. Yeah. And a lot of them too let you adjust the difficulty on the fly. So you could start out at normal and if you're like, ah, this is getting frustrating, drop it down. Or if you start out, you know, at a easy level and you're like, I mean, I want a little challenge, you can bump it up. So uh I would say the difficulty in those types of games is not a reason to not dive in. Now, what I would say is also don't listen to your brother who's going to tell you that you should play something like Elden Ring.
Aubrey
17:20
Alex?
Peter
17:21
Alex will tell you that. I don't even know what I'm saying. I mean it's a game that it's it's from a studio, a game studio that is well known for making notoriously difficult games where you basically die over and over and over again until you've memorized Okay, when when I see that other enemy start to do this, I know they're gonna do this and I have to counter with this.
Aubrey
17:49
Oh, I don't like that. I don't think I'd like to do that.
Peter
17:52
I don't either. And so while aspirationally I want to play Elden Ring or I want to play the Dark Souls or the Souls Like games. Yeah. That kind of stuff. I just don't have the time to spend on a single game to get good enough at it.
Aubrey
18:10
Yeah, that's super fair.
Peter
18:11
So that's kind of why I've never really dived into those.
Aubrey
18:15
Yeah. Yeah, there's a couple games Two that I've wanted to get into that just like aren't available on Mac so then I usually just don't but Hayden has a gaming computer so I don't know I'm just making excuses at this point Because he got one in college when he was doing the building a race car, you know, and he needed a different computer to run whatever it what was it?
Peter
18:40
I mean I'm sure it's because he needed a great works card.
Aubrey
18:43
Yeah. He needed to be able to run SolidWorks. Right. And so then because he was in the poor kids' club, they paid for him to get this nice computer Um and he still has it. And like that's what runs the Minecraft server and I play a couple other like I play another game on it that I'll talk about too. So I'm like, okay, I have no excuse. I should just I should just get into it. Cause I feel like I could really get into my gamer era if I wanted to. I just yeah, I just gotta do it. But yeah, the other game That I think I talked about this in the last episode. The other game I fully completed is Cult of the Lamb. That I I wa I'm proud of that one because I didn't do it on the easiest difficulty. I think it was just the normal one. But still it was like Again, I don't necessarily consider myself a gamer, so I was proud of myself for being able to actually complete it because it is hard. The last like boss fight, it's like, oh, you think you I'm not gonna spoil it 'cause Hayden's sitting right there and hasn't finished the game, but um you like think you're gonna finish it and then you don't. And then something else happens and then you're like, oh, that was so hard. I'm so low health. I'm literally gonna die. Thank goodness I just finished it wrong. You didn't. And then you're gonna die again and have to restart. But when I finished it, I was so proud of myself. And there's another difficulty. I also think I talked about this too, but um that you can like once you complete the game the normal way you can do it again but where you have to eat and sleep and if those like bars get all the way to zero, you die and lose the world. So like kind of like hardcore, um, a little bit. Like, um and I started doing that And then got real overwhelmed really quick. And so I kind of stopped. I kind of stopped doing that because I like just couldn't I didn't it was hard to get good enough food for it to actually keep the hunger bar high enough I could like fight any monsters. So I was like, okay, I need a break from this. But It's a really fun game. And like I again, like I mentioned last episode, they they came out with a new like big old extension DLC. I think I think it's called like Frosthaven or something. I don't know. Um but it it fully it's out on Steam now, so I kinda wanna I kinda wanna get into that. But that's like the only other game I've actually finished, funnily enough.
Peter
21:16
So I tend to, I mean, if you look at my Steam library, I don't finish hardly a fraction of the games in my Steam library because I'm just a sucker. But I I'm very much, for the most part, kind of a find a game, play that game, see the story, and then move on. Yeah. And so that's where it's like, you know, I played Assassin's Creed Origins once. I played Odyssey once. I played it. Uh all the Dragon Age games, Dragon Age Origins, Dragon Age 2, and Dragon Age Inquisition, I I played through those stories once. Yeah. You know, uh Avowed, which is a recent game came out last year. I loved it. And I've thought about going back and playing it, but I play it once because I'm like, okay, I've seen the story and I have all these other games I should go through and I should play those. Yeah. And so I don't play, I don't come back to games very often, which is why the Mass Effect trilogy is such an outlier for me to have come back to it multiple times. Because again, a lot of what I'm looking for in a story or in a game is that is a story.
Aubrey
22:26
Yeah.
Peter
22:27
And kind of the interactive storytelling nature of it is one of the things that I do really like.
Aubrey
22:32
Yeah.
Peter
22:33
Um Yeah, I don't know. Like what other games have you played that you've kind of maybe bounced off or something like that?
Aubrey
22:41
Yeah, this one's kind of sad and this is just because I get frustrated easily when I don't know how to figure something out on a video game Um his Tears of the Kingdom. Um because Hayden got it f when he got when I got him his Switch. Um that was one of the games I think someone gifted him. Um, so neither of us have played Breath of the Wild, y um, which maybe I should do that one first. So I tried to jump into Tears of the Kingdom and I got so frustrated. Have you played it before?
Peter
23:15
No, so I started playing Breath of the Wild and it just I don't know. It didn't grab me. Yeah. And so I never did play Tears of the Kingdom.
Aubrey
23:27
Yeah, I I got so frustrated at like the very beginning. when there's like in on like the first island thing that you're on, you spawn in you got no clothes, you got no anything, you're in like your link in a loincloth. You gotta go gather all your stuff. And I got so frustrated because you have to like go find these three different like Now I can't even remember because it's been so long. Like these three different what? Temples. Temples. And Obviously as you like you're not meant to find the temples quickly. You're meant to like go around and kill things so you get better food and you know how to like cook food and you get clothes. Like you're not meant to go do it quickly, but I was just trying to go do it quickly. And so I'm like trying to go to this other temple and you have to go through this winter part. But obviously you're naked so you freeze to death. And I froze to death and I was like, I'm rage quitting. I'm not doing this. Like I fully rage quit and I was like, I can't do this. I'm not because I died in the winter like twice, in the winter area like twice. Cause I just didn't have any clothes and I was like I can't do this. I'm not I'm not but maybe now that was a while ago and maybe now I I will have a little bit more patience to do more like side questy things to like get the gear that you need so that you can actually c complete the tasks you need to complete. But I just wanted to like I tend to want to just like kind of speed run the story because I want to know what happens. Um, and that it was to my own detriment. So I I've heard really good things about Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, but I don't know. They seem like very long form games that I kind of just lost. I kind of just lost interest pretty quick.
Peter
25:18
Yeah. Like I say, those are ones that I've, I mean, everybody, you know, so many people love them that I think the same. I'm like, how am I uh gamer with a capital G gamer, you know. But I haven't played those games. And so I did. I tried to I tried Breath of the Wild and I got into it a little bit, but I don't know. It just didn't. It didn't something about it wasn't clicking for me and I never came back to it. Yeah. Um And that's where, like I've played other things that are kind of sort of Zelda-like in that, you know, you're going around and you're doing stuff and then you gotta explore so that then you can get to other places and that sort of thing. But something about uh something about the those Zelda games just I don't know. I keep telling myself I wanna play it and It's weird. Like Nintendo is one of those companies that people just desperately love Nintendo.
Aubrey
26:16
Yeah.
Peter
26:17
And a lot of their stuff doesn't do a lot for me. Like I don't find any of the Super Mario games fun. I don't really enjoy the Super Mario platformer games at all. Okay.
Aubrey
26:27
Okay.
Peter
26:29
And I think Mario Kart's fun. Yeah. To play with other people. Right. But I don't think Mario Kart is a fun enough game that I'm gonna play it alone. No, definitely. Whereas Other racing games, like I love to play Forza all the Forza Horizon games alone. And I've played a bunch of other racing games uh on my own that I've really enjoyed. But you know, Mario Kart is like when we're all together, we're gonna play that one.
Aubrey
26:53
Yeah.
Peter
26:54
I mean, the only one that I really played, honestly, the only Nintendo game in the last many years that I played and was stuck with it was I had a ton of fun this past year playing Donkey Kong Country. Yeah. because or excuse me, Donkey Kong Bonanza. Because of the destruction of the environment and all this kind of stuff. Like I just had a fun time with that.
Aubrey
27:15
Yeah.
Peter
27:16
At the same time, like I finished it and I've had zero desire to go back and play it.
Aubrey
27:22
again. Yeah.
Peter
27:23
Because I'm like, yeah, okay, I saw what you were doing and it was fun and I kind of figured it out and I'm good. Right. And and I look at the size of the world in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom and how long and I go, I don't like it enough to spend that much time.
Aubrey
27:40
Yeah.
Peter
27:41
Which is a little weird because, like I said, Assassin's Creed, I'm very much one of those where a lot of times what I can find is that I often end up overpowered for the main story quests because I'll go and do every side quest that I can. Yeah. And if it's something where you do you're getting XP or gear, it's like I have so much XP. I've leveled up to the point that, oh, I've overleveled what the main story is now. Yeah. But yeah, I don't know. Just Something about something about the Zelda games just I just bounced off them.
Aubrey
28:18
Yeah. Yeah. On the the Wii the Wii Super Mario Bros. Yeah. The like classic Wii one that we had like in New Hampshire. That one was fun. Um because I could actually do it, but the Super Mario Bros. the the Galaxy one, the new Galaxy one. Um I am not good at and it feels like a little overwhelming to play and I don't really want to play it that much, even like with people, because like I tried to play with Gareth and Hayden, like Like last year's, I don't know, it's one of the times we were over there. And I was just so bad at it. I just like kept being in the bubble. And everyone just kept having to Save me and I was the one dragging everyone behind and I was like, I don't even this is not even fun for me. I'm just frustrated because I just can't And I don't feel like I'm that bad of a gamer, I guess, where especially the Super Mario Bros. games, like, I don't know, they they're not like that hard and I also feel like they're not supposed to be that hard. Like but even like the easier levels I just couldn't do. And it felt like there was so much too that I just didn't even understand. Like We were just jumping into random levels and I was like, where are we? What's happening? I what is our objective here? Oh, we have to go get this weird gem thing. Oh, Aubrey died again. Like it was just like a nod. It was just kind of frustrating. So I didn't really have any desire to play to play that. The f the first one though just felt very classic. and iconic like the moment when you think you saved Peach and then it's not actually Peach. Oh, that was a good that was that's a good moment for sure. Yeah And I know Gar like have you played the Galaxy One much, like with Gareth at all? No. Yeah. Uh yeah, that one was just not Yeah, I don't know. I don't know about that one.
Peter
30:16
No, like I say, I I just it's weird. I just kind of they they they bounce off me. And and part of it is because Again, I'm looking the but and I've realized the thing that I'm looking for is either for the most part It's a compelling story. Yeah. Or it's a compelling progression. Yeah. So that's where things like Ball Pit or Vampire Survivors and all of those other games in that same family They don't you know, the paper thin story, but it's the progression. It's it's you're getting stronger, you're getting more gear, you're doing all these things so that each time you go and play it, you're a little bit more powerful. And that I find very interesting. And that's where things like the Diablo games are fun as well, because the story in Diablo's kind of whatever. Yeah. They're never amazing stories. They're often fairly predictable. But at the same time. Because you're getting stronger and you're finding new gear and every once in a while you find uh gear that compliments how you're playing the game. So now it's useful. It's exciting. And it's just enough of like a dopamine kit every now. I don't even want to say it's like a drip in Diablo. It's like You know, it's like a big enough hit, and then it's like you're gonna go into withdrawal until you get the next hit, and that's how they keep you coming back.
Aubrey
31:42
Yeah.
Peter
31:43
But But there's none of that really in the Super Mario, like in the Mario games. So much of that is like you're playing to where you'll get better at the game. Right. And and it's probably more fun in that regard. But I just don't want to spend the time doing that. Yeah. Um, so like I say, it's either I either need I either want a compelling progression to the game or give me a compelling story.
Aubrey
32:10
Mm-hmm.
Peter
32:12
And then short of that, again, there's times where maybe all I want to do is I just want to like listen to a podcast or an audiobook and sort of vegetables Then I'm gonna fire up a simulator game like Power Wash Simulator or City Skylines or like a Sim City or Forza Horizon or something like that. and and just enjoy that. But but most of the time, you know, I I'm looking for I'm looking for a little more substance to the game just because that's how I like it. Right. And substance in a different way. Substance in terms of again stories or characters or that sort of thing. Yeah. Uh just because uh that's what interests me.
Aubrey
32:49
Yeah, yeah. And a different um a different kind of game I thought I would Um or just like a different type of game that I'm used to playing is the Starbirds game. Um, the Kurds Kazot game. I don't really know how to say their you know, whatever it's called. 'cause it's German or something. Um, but I've always loved their animation style and like their s their videos are like some of my favorite videos to watch. Um they do tons of like space videos, it's very science, you know, just sciencey videos with a really gorgeous animation style. Um and yeah, they came out with a game and Hayden got it for me for my birthday or Christmas, whichever Um and I love it. It is so fun because it is a space game, so of course I would love it no matter what, but You like there so there and there is like an over overarching like story that you're trying to kind of figure out and go along with but along the way you can do tons of other quests to like gain materials and gain, you know, other things and just kind of level up a little bit. Um but you it is so fun because the music is so pleasant and Okay. Lovely to listen to. It is very nice and just relaxing. And of course the animation style is gorgeous. And you just land on these little asteroids. and you build like infrastructure on these asteroids to like extract materials and then you have to like build these other machines to then make other materials that make other materials that make other materials so you can finally get to these other materials that will help you kind of move along the story. Um but there's like long lines of those um you need a material that makes this material that makes this material. Um there's those that just like strings so long that things can get kind of like buggy and so then you have to like go back and debug it and that is so fun to be like okay how can I optimize like this extremely long string of this material building thing. Um and 'cause then there's different aspects of each, like asteroid where you can send materials to other asteroids 'cause maybe you have a machine. That needs, like for example, it needs to be placed on a small crater. So you have to find an asteroid that has a small crater that you can put this machine on. So then you have to reroute these other materials from this other asteroid over to that one and then reroute it to the like it's it's so fun to just kinda like It feels like I'm actually I'm challenging my brain a little bit um to like optimize it and figure out the best way to just do the tasks and it's It's very satisfying and very nice. It is pretty new, so it's it's like short. Like I'm almost done with it, which is kind of sad. Um but they just came out with I think the first big update, like yesterday
Peter
36:02
Um okay that's called the Flora and Fauna update.
Aubrey
36:05
So I'm excited for that because it added like more sectors. Like basically if you once you complete the portion of the story, you like move on to a different sector um and do, you know, the next thing. So that one has been super, super fun to do. Um I because it it's just a different kind of game than the other games. I've played like Stardo and Minecraft and stuff like that. So that one is definitely like a a favorite. That's just been a little different. So yeah. I really like that. I really like that one.
Peter
36:37
Well, one other game that I'm gonna mention because I think it may end up going down as one of the greatest games ever made.
Aubrey
36:49
Okay.
Peter
36:50
But I'm also gonna say it's a little tough to play.
Aubrey
36:54
Oh.
Peter
36:54
And that is Cyberpunk 2077.
Aubrey
36:57
Okay.
Peter
36:58
Absolutely incredible game. I mean it was buggy as crap when it came out, but over the years, CD Project Red really got it to a place. It's an amazing game. It's a very rich, realized world, but it is it it is a dark kind of messed up world.
Aubrey
37:18
I see.
Peter
37:19
So it is it's a game that is challenging to play in that There is no, there's no good, there's lots of bad, and most things are somewhere in between bad and not so awful. And you're trying to navigate it all. But it really is. I mean, it's an incredible game. But it was one of those that it's like I finished it and part of me wants to go back and play it again because it really was such an incredible game. But the other part of me is like, I don't know if emotionally I'm ready for that.
Aubrey
37:56
Yeah. So oof.
Peter
37:58
But it's a good game, but it's one that's tough to recommend.
Aubrey
38:02
Because that's fair. That's super fair. You know. Yeah. Have you played have you ever played It Takes Two
Peter
38:10
So I watched uh Jess and Georgie play it when we were here. Yeah. And I have not played it because I just, I don't know. Like both that and the same this follow-up from the same company or studio, split fiction, I I would like to play. Yeah. But I just don't have enough you have to play those with two people.
Aubrey
38:33
Right, right. Yeah, that's the point. I feel like it'd be fun for you and Gareth to play it. I think Gareth has already played, he might have already played it takes two, though. Maybe.
Peter
38:42
I don't know who he would have played it with.
Aubrey
38:44
I don't know either, but he was like, Yeah, it's a darker story than you would think or something. And I was like, how do you know?
Peter
38:51
Could just be because we sat here and watched Georgie and Jess play it for hours on the on the couch over uh whenever they were here. I think it was was it around?
Aubrey
39:00
I think they did it when Hayden and I were gone on one of the days um over the holidays, I think. Um Yeah, Hayden and I started playing it like when we first moved here, like in the summer, and it I'm bad enough at it that I kind of have to play it in like short bursts, otherwise I get really frustrated with it. Sure. Sure. But because that one's not the one it's it's also not a one where you like gain XP and like gain materials and like kind of get better. It's just like you need to get better at the game, at playing the game. Yeah. Um so it's a little frustrating in that regard where I Like, especially during boss fights, like if one of you dies, the other you have to just yell at the other, don't die, don't die, don't die. Because then if the other dies, it resets and you go back to the beginning of the boss fight. Oh, and it's it's a little frustrating in that in that regard. But I'm interested in the story because we we are we aren't super far into it, but I'm interested in the story. I I want to know how it goes, but It I kind of have to do it in in short bursts so I don't like rage quit. It's kinda like one boss fight at a time. I can't like sit and binge, you know, f like doing it for a long time because I will just I will just get frustrated. But I do really like the games that are like the big group games like Mario Kart or like Boomerang Fu. Um Those ones are fun to play. I know you played Boomerang Fu with us like one time or a couple times. Yeah. Um I like uh those those are fun bigger group games. Definitely it's not like a sit and play it for a really, really long time because it can just get monotonous and a little boring. after a while, but I do like those and I know you don't like this game, but I kind of do, uh Super Smash Bros.
Peter
40:56
No, I know I was gonna say I knew what the second you said, I knew what you said.
Aubrey
41:00
Yeah. I know you don't like it, but I like it.
Peter
41:05
Zero interest. And that's just for me. Like I'm just not a fighting game person. Yeah. Like I never got into the Street Fighters or Mortal Kombats all that much because I don't I mean it's the same idea behind the Dark Souls games and and Elden Ring and stuff where I don't want to have to figure out, okay. I'm watching this frame of animation and here's where I need to parry or here's where I need to counter or all that kind of stuff. Yeah. Again, I I'm I for me gaming is not really a social thing. Yeah. So it's more a a solo thing.
Aubrey
41:43
Yeah, that's super fair. Yeah, I I used to be when I was really, really bad at Smash Bros. , it was frustrating because I would just always die. And it's just not fun when you're like bad at the so bad at the game that you're just literally never going to win But now I am I'm good enough with certain characters um that I can beat Hayden. And that's all I need is to beat Hayden on occasion. Um There you go. And it's fun to play with like Gareth and like friends and stuff like that. Um, when I was on the Alaskan cruise, there was a Smash Bros. tournament. Um in like the gaming room and me and my friend who took me on the cruise, um, we were like, should we go check it out? And we're like, yeah. And I low-key did really well. It wasn't like a super formal. They didn't do like a bracket or anything like that, but um it was just kind of like a bunch of people, our age, um, smash bros, and then we just kinda like trade off the controls and stuff like that, but it I look he did really well and I was like, all right, the the time playing with Incineroar time try and get really good it has paid off that is like if I want to win and be really annoying I will play as incinerar and I will probably win Cause he has the side B move is this grab move where he grabs you, throws you against like the ropes of a boxing ring and then chucks you in the air. But the reach on the move is crazy Huge. Like way bigger than it should be. So and I can like grab people through for through their like shields too. And yeah. So I'm really annoying with With that character, but hey, maybe it's just a skill issue for everybody else.
Peter
43:43
There you go. The final thing I'll mention is there's this one big group of games that I always wish I liked more and spent it's like I I buy I'll just Civilization. And those kind of big term-based strategy, brand strategy games, where I'm like, I wish I spent I wanted to spend more time. Every time a new Civilization game comes out, I buy it. And I buy all of the exp I always get the ultimate edition, all this stuff, and then I just don't really play them. So I keep wanting to get into them so I think it would be good for me to, I don't know, learn, you know, think better about these things and strategize more. Uh I used to love real-time strategy games and I've kind of fallen off those. It's not really something I'm into anymore. So kind of the the bigger strategy games are ones that I wish I was more interested in, but alas I am not.
Aubrey
44:43
Yeah, and I feel like my attention span just isn't long enough for me to get into like long intense, long form intense games like that, which maybe is a problem. problem I should fix, but whatever.
Peter
44:59
You know, that's not that important. So there you go.
Aubrey
45:03
Yeah, there you go. The other game I will say I've played in the past. Um that now I have absolutely no desire to play uh is Fortnite.
Peter
45:14
Yeah. I remember when you guys were into that.
Aubrey
45:16
Yeah.
Peter
45:17
I was okay when when that craze passed.
Aubrey
45:20
Yeah, me too. I like got second place like one time, but never actually won first and was very frustrated. So I was like, okay Never mind. I just don't I just don't like it. It's just like a fad. Yeah.
Peter
45:40
They've never interested me. When it comes to shooters, again, I'm more of like a a single player shooter. I mean, I like the Halo games. I played those. We used to play them together, like I don't know, every one once every couple of years in residency and stuff. And it was fun when we'd get a bunch of people in the same room and we'd all play together. But never wanted to play them online. Same thing with Gears of War. I loved the Gears of War series. At least the original trilogy, because I did never play any of the others, but But again, didn't really play them online. Um, you know, I've played Doom and Unreal, all those games, but never really got into the online aspect of them. Yeah. Uh so You know, again, that's just not what I'm looking for. I don't ever want to my brain doesn't want to stick to a single game long enough to get good enough at it. Yeah. To not hate my time plane with other people online.
Aubrey
46:37
And that's fair. That's fair.
Peter
46:39
So That's why I'm really just a I'm a single player gamer.
Aubrey
46:44
Yeah, that's super valid. That's super valid. Yeah, I've just I uh have played so much solo stardew and so much co-op stardew. Like I've just played so many hours of Stardew that when I f when I think of myself as a gamer, I'm like I feel like I'm just a Stardew gamer. Like I feel like I'm not a gamer in general. I'm just a Stardew guy. 'Cause we'll play with like Yeah, we'll play with like all all four of us. kids and anyone has a question, I'm like, I know because I have the entire of this, you know, aspect of the game memorized. They're like, oh do we need this fish for the community center? Nope, that actually is only you can only fish that one up in summer when it's raining. So we have to wait for summer until it's raining and then you could fish it up. And then he also needs to be in between six AM and seven PM Like I feel like I like I have so many things memorized at this point that I just I can identify as a Stardew gamer, I think. So there you go. Anyways. Anyways, this was fun to chat about. Um It was fun. But yeah, we'll be back in a couple weeks with another topic. And we will see everyone next time.
Peter
47:52
Bye