Topics: Elite 2 Controller Story, Days Gone Completion (Discussion about Open World Sandbox Games), The Snapstream Firely, Logitech MX Ergo
Hello everybody, this is Shane R. Monroe and you are in the passenger seat hot tub with me. This is passenger seat radio. It is Monday, June 14 2021. And, ah, you know, it was a scorcher today was 114 115 here in Phoenix. And so I uncovered the hot tub as soon as they got under that temperature. And the last couple of days the hot tub has been just a scorcher, but I guess um, I guess it worked out okay, this time because it does not feel that warm in his hot tub at all. It’s like It’s like a perfect bath temperature. And right now I love it. Well, Hey, welcome to the show. Lots of lots of good things to say about the hot tub addition of passenger seat radio, people, people seem to like it. And comments range things like the sound quality, so good, the waters all relaxing to listen to while you’re talking. And your sound a lot more natural. Well, yeah, I’m relaxed in a hot tub. I’m not in downtown traffic, I’m not distracted. It’s, it’s pretty much as good as it’s gonna get. So of course, of course, it sounds nice and relaxed, and I can pay attention and focus to the show. So I was hoping we have some live chat tonight. It seems like these later shows, get a little bit of chat action, but it’s still early. It’s only a minute 40 into the show. So what are we going to talk about tonight, the summer of fun is starting to begin here in the next couple of days. My family takes off to go up to Portland, Oregon to see my daughter, I’ve got too many work commitments or I’d go up. But they’re gonna go out of there for a few days, and chill with my daughter, which will be awesome. And, of course I have to work. So it’s not like I’m going to be having a ton of fun without him. But I do have an opportunity then to shoot pretty much anytime I want during the day. And over the weekend, I’m going to try to kick out a bunch of videos for YouTube. I just released one, it was no big deal. It was just something I thought was kind of timely, was the ability to force your Chromecast with Google TV to let you use stadia on it with a Bluetooth controller. I know a lot of people are excited about it. Because stadia is officially releasing for Chromecast with Google TV when that’s like the longest name ever. I guess you could just say Google TV. But even that’s not really specific enough. You can’t say Chromecast because there’s a million Chromecast out there. But but they’re not Google TV. So I guess Google TV is what I should be saying. But anyway, that’s officially coming on the 23rd. But with a little bit of knowledge, you can hack the stadia in there and you don’t have to have an official stadia controller or anything. So I thought that, why not. I’ll see if I can throw that up there and get a couple of hits out of that. But I’ve really got other really, really sweet content to bring to the channel here, the next next week, so be super cool about that. And then of course after that, hey, there it is. What’s up, Mike, Mike, of the watchmen we have. We have royalty in the house, big fan of the watchmen. And of course, you know, Mike’s big, big, big friend of the show. So it’s nice to have him in. So after after they’re done in Portland. My son is being picked up by my dad, and he’s going to spend the next month at grandma’s house. Yes, yes, yes. So that means we have a full month kid free hot tub debauchery filled month ahead of us. Plus, we have our trip to Vegas, coming up at the beginning of July. So lots of excitement. The summer is finally here. We’re starting to get closed, I can finally start getting excited about summer fun time. And we’ve been locked up for a year and a half. So we’re ready to have some summer fun time. So let me I’ll tell you my elite two stories. So I have spoken many, many times on my favorite controller of all time. Now listen, if we’re talking about old controllers, you know if we want to go back to the eight bit days my absolute favorite controller of course, is the suncom TAC two controller I bet Mike’s a big fan. The tag two controller was for a bit computers it was essentially one fire button but you could play either handed in it had a very short throw highly sensitive ball on the top joystick. And I’ll tell you what, it was perfect for everything maze games. You name it. It was the it was the perfect controller. And I know a lot of people, a lot of people like the epics controller a lot of clicking going on there. I don’t I don’t think I can handle playing. I mean, I did have one. I think I still have one somewhere stored away. But frankly, you know, listen, I love the tag too. And I didn’t like the bad handle. I didn’t like all those other ones. I did like the tag team. That was my favorite. But in modern day controllers and I have had, I’ve had all the Yeah, I think I’ve had all the consoles at one point or another. And, you know, you got to look at the Atari 2600. You talked about the Kleagle vision, the Intellivision, the NAS the soup, I didn’t have a super genius, but I know I mean, I’ve used the controller. And you know, n 64. PlayStation one, the DualShock controller, listen, I put my hands. Either I’ve owned or put my hands on pretty much every single controller. The only one I didn’t have a lot of experience with, of course, was the big Duke controller that came with the original Xbox. And I understand. For those people that had extraordinarily large hands like me, the Duke controller was the shit. Now I never owned one, I still don’t have an original Xbox. I sort of passed on that generation. I had the Dreamcast, I thought I think at that point in time, so I was pretty well set up the Dreamcast had amazing games. And the Dreamcast controller was okay. But let’s let’s be honest, I mean, GameCube, blah, blah, I had them all, I had them all. And I did like the PlayStation DualShock controller, it’s elf hands have a little bit of problems, or I’m sorry, elf hands are great with the ps3 controller, or with the DualShock controller, I know it’s gotten a little bit bigger over time, and they flushed it out a little bit for the bigger hands. And I have not put my hands on a PS five controller yet. But I will tell you as as time has moved on, over and over, I will tell you that I find that the Xbox One controller form factor now that encompasses many, many controllers, my Xbox One, you got this, you got the x, the s, the series s and x. Not a lot of change going on there. You got the Elite controller. And of course, you have the elite two controller. There’s a lot of there’s a lot of controllers that have met the met the moniker of Xbox. So like everybody else who games on a PC who are not dedicated mouse and keyboard disciples, which I am not, and largely I am not. And a lot of people wonder, Well, you’ve got, you’re a PC gamer, you’re not allowed to play with a controller. That’s some sort of blasphemy. If you’ve got a PC, you should be a mouse and keyboard player. That’s just the end of the end of the discussion. Well, here’s the thing. mouse and keyboard would, I could probably adapt to it. Here’s my problem. I don’t use a mouse. That’s right. I am not a mouse user. I’m a trackball user and I have been since the Amiga days. I am not I am not a mouse fan. What I am a fan of and I’ll tell you what I use is the Logitech MX Ergo, trackball. It’s listen it dots all the i’s it crosses all the tea’s it is an amazing piece of hardware. It is unfortunately it is an optical mechanical rollerball, which means yes, it does fall subject to roller type nonsense. Listen, that’s the one thing I do miss about the laser, or the optical mouse is there’s nothing there’s no rollers are anything to get dirty. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work out with the MX Ergo, pretty easy to pop the ball out clean those little rollers and you’re back in business. But for me, I’ve always had a shortage of desk space. So I didn’t have a lot of running around room for the control or for the mouse to begin with. And then as it turns out, you know, let’s see I’m trying to think of I did have I was a mouse user until a really good trackball came out for the PC, and I remember getting some like not carpal tunnel, because at work I had to use a mouse because I wasn’t gonna be able to get them to buy me $100 Mx Ergo right if I wanted one at work and have to pay for it myself and eventually I did exactly that, because I was tired of using a mouse. But it’s it’s fantastic to avoid carpal tunnel and undue stress and and wear on your hands. I know a lot of people that are my age that you’re the ice cream guy. I cannot believe how loud that is. Every time I’m out here doing the show when the ice cream guy comes by. I’m positive you guys can hear him For me, that mouse the way that the Ergo mouse or the Ergo, trackball sits, the way that you can rotate it like 21 degrees. It’s, it’s, it’s so comfortable. My hand never moves, no carpal tunnel. No undue wear stress, no weird knuckle problems, right, you get to be about my age, you got to start worrying about these repetitive motions and things like that start to chewing up your hands, your wrists, your your forearms, right with all of that work if you spend a lot of time on the computer. So for me a mouse just, it’s not even an option for me. And not even part time. Because I really don’t have the disk space, my desk is situated, right? Don’t need room for a mouse. So mouse and keyboard around. So like every other respectable PC Gamer that plays with a controller, by the way, there’s more of us than you think they just won’t admit it. The only answer is the Xbox controller that that gives you a lot of options. Right? So you can go ahead and get the Xbox controller and the wireless adapter, right, and then you’re good to go. 59 bucks, pick your color. Good to go. And I definitely did that for a period of time. Well, then I decided to treat myself to an Xbox Elite controller. And I’ll tell you what, I loved the elite. I loved it a lot, in fact, and there’s many reasons why I love the Elite controller and I love the elite two for the same reasons. But the elite one controller, let’s be honest, there was some manufacturing oddities, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t almost call them defects. So if you go look online, and look at YouTube, right? The best way you can tell the quality of a product is how many repair videos for it exists on YouTube. That’s a freebie you can write that down. And if you go and look at the Elite controller and, and troubleshooting and brake fixes, you’re going to find all sorts of nasty shit that had a problem with the elite controllers. And all of them are absolutely true. I mean, that’s there’s no, you just you can’t ignore it. There were there were manufacturing costs cut somewhere. And while the controller was hella comfortable, and had a couple of amazing features that should not be looked down upon and not be forgotten. The truth be told they needed them. They needed some help. on PC Mike, Mike wrote on PC, I use mouse, keyboard, mouse for first person Xbox elite for third person. And keyboard mouse is impossible if you have to drive or fly. Yeah, yeah, listen, you know, I don’t begrudge anybody for using the mouse and keyboard. I just don’t use a mouse and since and hence, if you’ve ever tried to play a first person shooter with a trackball, good luck with that. It doesn’t work out no matter how you change the sensitivity, no matter how you set it up. It’s it’s the wrong it’s it’s putting in a nail with a screwdriver was just the wrong tool for the job. So anyway, let me get back to this. So the Xbox Elite controller, I went for one. Because, you know, it was one of those things where it’s like, I’m going to treat myself I want a premium controller. And of course, if you listen to the elite, loyal, they will tell you that the Elite controller is even more comfortable than the Xbox controller. Everybody well, wait a minute. The Xbox controllers like the most comfortable controller I’ve ever used. That’s right. Now imagine even more come from that will shit. I gotta have that and I’ve got disposable income. You know, I’m not living hand to mouth I can. I can afford to get myself a nice controller I play enough. So I got the original Elite controller. And instantly I fell in love with two features. Now first of all, they’re absolutely right it is it the elite controllers more comfortable than the Xbox controller. It’s got that premium grip, rubberized grip around it. Just Just the minor Listen, the Listen, you can make fun of Microsoft all you want for Windows and all that shit. These guys know how to make hardware for the most part. And you know, Microsoft mouse, the most popular mouse ever made, you know, they sold gajillions of those and this is a software company. These guys know what they’re doing. So the lead controller, there were two things that totally but it’s one of those things where it’s like, Why wasn’t this there before. And what I’m talking about, of course are reduced throw triggers, or hair triggers as they’re often called right. And and the rear paddles. Now a lot of people a lot of people are against the paddles. My son, for example. Big gamer. He’s a true Xbox gamer. He’s a console, he’s a console geek. He is not a PC nobleman by any stretch of the imagination. I would let him occasionally fill in for me while I was playing Call of Duty I’m like, try those paddles on the back. And he’s like, What? Do you know those Ooh. And I’m like, no, no. The left one will run the right one is melee. You don’t have to click in. He’s like, I could never get used to that. I can’t I can’t I couldn’t do that. Well, it wasn’t about a week later that he said, You know, I think I might want an Elite controller dad. I’m like, Well, why is that Brian? He’s like, I think I like those paddles. I’m like, bet your ass you like the paddles. The only people who don’t love the paddles are people who’ve never used the paddles or given them a chance to be useful in a particular situation. So there’s four back paddles, I only use two, I only use the two long ones on the back. And I use those to replace clicking in the left analog stick and the right analog stick, or l three and r three. The concept of being able to run or melee without, without having to lose what you’re doing with those analog sticks. And listen, you can say yes, Shane, I can run, I can run and in turn at the same time I can melee, I can melee and look at the same time you can. But it’s not as fast. And listen, when you’re talking about lightning fast. every millisecond counts gaming, you need every possible advantage. All right, that also takes me back to the hair triggers on the Elite controller. So in the Elite controller, there is a single on or off switch for each of the triggers that allow you to reduce the throw of the triggers by about 50%. And you’re thinking to yourself, Why on earth would I want to reduce the throw of the triggers 50% should be plain and simple for those of you who play first person shooters, less time to fire again. So we all know that first person shooters are weighted in a way that automatic weapons with you know, when when I say that I’m talking about you hold the trigger down and bullets come out until you let go. Versus single shot being pistols, rifles, right? They’re always more powerful. But because they are semi automatics, you can’t fire them as fast. So you really so the net is weighted. Now, imagine if you could fire faster, because you’re because your trigger doesn’t go down as far. I mean, this is this is this is physics. I mean, I’m not making this shit up. This is not some bullshit marketing scam. It trust me, when you have to push the trigger less distance, you can get the net shot off faster. It’s just the way that it is. And if you’re playing games that require the full width of the analog stick, such as driving games where you have to hold, you know where it’s basically an analog trigger that you’re going to pull. Right, then you want the full, probably you want the full range will you flip the switch and you’re back to full range. Or you can do like I do, which is I alter the range, you can go into the Xbox accessories app, and actually alter your zero to 100% range to be half the throw of the trigger. So now you can’t be quite as precise. Now if I were racing game, if I were playing racing games, I probably wouldn’t do that. But for the most part, I’m playing games where I’m riding in a vehicle for a short period of time, like on days gone. I’m not on the motorcycle a long time. So I will adjust the throw of the analog triggers to be about zero to 100 about halfway so I can still ride the motorcycle at full speed. But I don’t have to turn off the hair trigger. So hair triggers unbelievable. Wow, it’s been 20 minutes already, huh? Always know how long the Jets have been on. me see here. wrong one. It turned the other ones on. What What the hell am I doing this blind here? There we go. Alright. So what was I? Oh, yeah. So So yeah, so that is why I love the Elite controller so much. But then I started having the same problems as everybody else was having the grip start to peel off, you start having internal mechanical problems, right bumper starts to split and separate. Yeah, these are all absolutely true. And if you want proof that this is true. Look at Microsoft’s Xbox Elite controller to advertisement. They specifically talk about improving the internal components and so it’s a it’s almost an apology, and it’s played on their website. So when the Xbox so I ended up with 123 different controllers. One of them, I still have somewhere. I mean, it just it just started falling apart. The second one I got was fixable with a motherboard replacement, which Travis good friend of the show did a replacement on it, put it back to normal. And that’s the one that Brian ended up getting, essentially a refurb. And he loves it. He loves him some elite. He loves him some Elite controller. But he’s hard on controllers, like every 14 year old is the plays on a console. And eventually he wore that went into the ground much like I wore my Elite controller into the ground. So when the elite two controller was announced, I’m like, Holy hell, I gots to have it. If I can have what I you know if I can have the elite, but everything kind of fixed inside and and two levels of hair trigger and adjustable and along tension. Yeah, now we’re talking and I get the back paddles, which is great. That’s Listen, back paddles, hair triggers short, short hair triggers I met. So I got the elite two controller and I know I’ve talked about it on this show. I know that I talked about it online, I say nothing but amazing things about the elite two controller. It is 180 bucks, and it’s worth every frickin penny of it. Which is for me to say $200 controllers worth it? That’s rough. But couple of weeks ago few weeks ago, I started suffering from Elite controller itis and my right bumper stopped registering about 60% of the time. Oh no, the micro switch was great. No micro switch was I mean full you know full range full click Enos, I blew it out I contact cleaned it. I did everything to try to restore functionality and the truth of the matter is it has to be a logic board problem. Now I know you’re thinking just replaced the logic board Shane, it’s got to be cheaper. Though. shits hard to get like that. Just buying boards. It took me a took me a while to get a good deal on the elite one logic board that Travis replaced for me. Even that I think was 40 bucks, something like that. 4050 bucks. And I think Travis did it. I think I paid Travis 10 or 20 bucks to do it. So I was in for you know 70 bucks to refurb that elite. Of course they’re out of warranty. They’re always out of warranty when something like this happens. And mine has been out of warranty for six months before the the right bumper started taking a dump. Now, if you’re a first person shooter player, like myself, and you play Call of Duty, that right bumper means a lot. That right bumper is your lethal your grenade. And I’ll tell you what I mean, I’ve got like everybody else I’m sure that plays Call of Duty or these other first person shooters, I have a rhythm. I have a rhythm from hell for how I attack. A lot of times it’s throwing a lethal, maybe throwing smoke than a lethal, right. So I’ve got a pattern of behavior that I do. And when you can’t rely on your grenade to throw makes for a miserable goddamn game. So once I realized that it wasn’t going to clean, there was no way that I was going to get it restored. Um, and I listen, I’m not I’m not going through that logic board shit again, I’m just not going to do it. So I looked at my warranty first, and of course it hadn’t expired for six months already. Great. So how about a replacement? What because Microsoft oftentimes, even if you’re out of warranty, maybe a lot of people don’t know this. Even if you’re out of warranty, they will offer you like a direct replacement for a not a fraction but a portion of what a new one would cost. Now we already talked about this and new elite to controller 190 bucks $180. And guess who does not carry that? $480 Amazon. So if you would like to have an Elite controller to in any reasonable period of time, you pretty much have to buy it off Microsoft’s website and they do a FedEx shipping over three days. So you can get it in a reasonable amount of time. But you know, then there’s tax and tax absolutely sucks in Arizona. It’s almost 10% so you’re looking, you’re looking at a $200 $200 to buy a new controller. It’s like Well, shit. What about what about the Microsoft replacement? Okay, for $99 you ship us your old one, we’ll ship you will ship you a replacement a refurb essentially, it’s like all right, well, 99 bucks is better than 200 bucks. So you put it in the cart. You get to checkout An ad they want to charge you tax. I’m not sure how that works out, but it does. So now it’s $99 plus another 10 bucks on top of that for tax. And if you’d like to get it, so they tell you, it’s going to come within like three weeks after they get it. So you got to box it up. You got to ship it. You got to wait for him to get it. And then you wait, what? 11 to 21 days or whatever that stupid range was. And it’s like, God dammit. What, what’s maruka salt? How does verrucas salt get a replacement Elite controller two, she wants it now. I want the whole world and I want it now. Well, if you want it faster, which was nine to 11 days, you had to throw another $10 on top. Another $10 for expedited handling. So God dammit now we’re looking at the $130 range right there. 125. You’re starting to get up there. We’re starting to go dude, just buy a new controller. But then you’re going God, but that’s another 5060 bucks. I could be using that for something else like Vegas money, right? What’s the guy to do? So I said, maybe it’s time for me to try another controller but cheaper controller. Let’s see what there is out there. So I hit the net. I hit Google went through all the different controllers that I could find best controllers for the PC. Two or three of them constantly came up in the top of the charts of the ones that came up. No rear paddles, I’m telling you right now, I am totally screwed if the elites stop being named because I have to have rear paddles. And frankly, I don’t think I can live without hair color hair triggers anymore. Either I am, I am a spoiled little verrucous salt brat. So once you take and put those into the equation, you want back paddles and you want hair triggers? Well, the answer is simple. There’s only one. It’s the razor Tournament Edition something or another. But there’s catch. It’s wired. And it’s 150 bucks. 159 bucks, I think in fact, which makes it only $10 cheaper than elite two. And I was thinking to myself, dude, are you gonna go there? You’re now you’re talking about a difference of $20. And it’s like, well, they offer a few interesting things in here. There’s a couple of new features that this controller offers. And it does have the rear paddles, and it does have the hair triggers. So maybe a wired controller has less latency. Maybe that’s true. Maybe there’s an advantage. And there’s also some other interesting characteristics about this razor controller. It has what they call clicky buttons. They say it takes you what the face buttons are clicking. They say it takes you a while to get used to it. But once you do, you will wonder why all controllers don’t have clicky buttons. And it’s like all right. Well, listen, worst case scenario, I get it from Amazon. I get it next day. And if I don’t like it, I can return it. No harm no foul, easy peasy lemon squeezy. Plus, maybe I can talk about it on the show. Maybe I can do a review of it. Maybe there is an advantage to a wired controller. Let’s find out. So I got I got Mr. razor ultimate Tournament Edition empty squat. And I used it for the entire evening, I played lots of Call of Duty I played days gone, which is my current game single player game. And by the end of the evening, it was wrapped up and put back in the box. The wired part didn’t bother me at all. It just it’s something I could live with. There wasn’t I don’t sit across the living room. There’s no reason I don’t I need to be untethered. But why would you put back paddles on a controller that required you to reach your hand over to the middle rear of the controller to actually push them. One of the beauties of the paddle is you don’t have any range of finger movement to get to them. You want as low latency as possible between the time you think about hitting the button in the time that the button actually responds. The paddles on the back of the Elite controller are literally right where your fingers are already resting. It’s brilliant. It’s a brilliant design. I didn’t realize that those paddles would be so far away on the rear of this razor controller. And what it ended up turning out to be is if you wanted your fingers on those paddles at all time, you had to essentially release part of your grip from the controller meaning you’re only halfway holding it The whole time you’re playing. It’s like, people have lost your fucking minds. This is ridiculous. Now, I will say though, in all fairness, the clicky buttons were pretty cool. And the hair triggers were more like the original elite, a 50%, it was actually more of a 40%. I’m sorry, 60% reduction in poll. So it was better than the elite, but not nearly as good as the elite two, which we’re gonna talk about in a minute. So it went back. And I essentially wasted several days that I could have just sent my controller back or had a new one on order. But listen, sometimes we live a little to learn a little. And so that’s what I did. At that point, I had to decide Am I going to buy a new elite two controller? Or am I going to send this one back, and when push came to shove $130, including tax and expedited shipping was far better than $196 to buy one new. So that’s what I did. And I listened, I got to hand it to Microsoft, the boys turned it around, quit. Now, I don’t know if they would have turned around quick whether I paid the $10 or not. But it was pretty damn quick. I mean, it was it was within the original nine to 11 days. But I would have got without expedited shipping. It came quickly it came by FedEx. Of course FedEx bullshitted. me and said it was going to be delivered on Sunday. I should know better than ever believe FedEx will deliver on a Sunday. But I got my hopes up anyway, yesterday. And I believe that the controller would show up yesterday. And of course, it did not showed up today. But I’ll tell you what, once I put that controller back in my hand, so what am I been doing for the last nine days? What am I been playing with? If I wasn’t playing with that razor controller, how I’d be playing with something I was playing with my original white elite one controller. So I had my back paddles, but I only had that 50% hair trigger. And listen, my frickin Call of Duty game suffered. I died multiple times, multiple times. Because I couldn’t shoot fast enough. I am dialed in with weapons. So essentially what I had to do is instead of using my semi automatic rifles, I went to autos and frankly, I’m not the BEST gamer. It takes even though there’s a lot more bullets, it’s a lot less damage, and you got to aim a lot better, frankly, with the rifle to three bullets dead, dead, dead dead, and I can knock off two or three bullets really, really damn fast when those short hair draggers believe you mean. So once I got my elite, so I played with the elite one controller for the last week, and I was telling myself, maybe I could get used to this again. I mean, I got my paddles. I can run I can melee, I can do that quickly. The form factor is the same, right? So it’s still the same comfort, even though it’s not the premium as premium of the build, right. But yeah, I put the elite two controller back in my hand started playing Call of Duty, my scores instantly went back to where they were. I wasn’t getting snuffed all the time. And it’s because of the because of the short hair trigger. So I’ll wrap this segment, because I’ve been talking forever about controllers. And probably Mike probably nodded off already. And no one else is joining the chat. But yeah, so the lead to controller has two settings for hair triggers, because of one’s good two should be better, right? doesn’t always happen that way. But in the case of the lead to controller, that second hair trigger selection makes all the difference. It essentially goes to like 20% poll 80% trigger reduction. So my son calls it like when you use a shotgun and you tap the button really fast. Yeah, you got to get the vernacular down. It’s spamming the shotgun, you’re spamming the shoddy. Yeah, you can spam the shoddy a lot better when you have a 20% pull hair trick. Same Of course with the rifles. And I’ll tell you what, I love it. I love it. I love it. I love and I don’t think I can I can move. I don’t think I can ever leave these sons of bitches of Microsoft. They’ve got my ass in a sling, I have to have an Elite controller. Now I’m getting to the point where I need a backup I want to have a second one in the box stash somewhere or buy a refurb from Microsoft or something. Just so that I have already serve as spare because you know how it is. Listen, any product that I truly love gets cancelled, gets removed gets altered, something bad happens to everything that I love. And so having a backup I have got. I have got a snapstream Firefly. For those of you who know what that is. I’ve got one new in the box in my storage room in my house because I’ve got four of them in circulation. All in varying degrees of wear and tear. Now that there’s no fares to chew the buttons off anymore, they’re lasting a little bit longer. But I have family that drops them on the floor. And frankly, they it does start to wear. But I’m going to brand new and sitting in the box paid 50 bucks. And this was new old stock, because they stopped making these things a decade ago. But I got a brand new one in the box waiting for the time that I need to bust it out. I when I love something, and I can’t live without it. That’s another thing, man. Let’s talk about that for a second. So that’s the elite two controller story we’re done with that one, the elite two is going to be my forever controller until I get arthritis and I can’t play anymore. It’s just gonna be the way that is I don’t I don’t think there’s no other controller that can beat it. Hands down, even if even if what’s that very elaborate custom controller config? Oh, yeah, yeah, I don’t know if it was that one that I tried. But I did try. There was another commercial version of keymapping. For the controller, and that is let me let me talk about that for a minute. So Mike is alluding to, essentially allowing you to map keystrokes to controllers. And frankly, you don’t need to do that. I mean, for what I need it for anyway, I don’t need to do that, because the elite two controllers are fully programmable. However, it’s worth mentioning that the elite Elite two controllers can only remap existing controls. So you’re going What the fuck good is that? Well, the good of that is, if your right mouse button or your right bumper starts to fail, you can map that button to one of the rear paddles, for example. That’s just one idea. But for me, it’s all about getting rid of those l two, or the L threes and our three inputs. But yeah, so what he’s talking about, if I’m, if I’m not mistaken, is the ability to run a little app in your sis tray that interprets your joystick controls and maps them to keystrokes. Which Yes, if you’re playing games designed for mouse and keyboard, but they hammer fisted in controller support for assholes like me, that bitch about it until they put it in. But then half the controls are on the keyboard anyway. God, wouldn’t it be nice if you could remap? Yeah, that’s exactly what that’s for. Fortunately, speaking, the last game that needed something like that was not even the forest fixed itself. The early days of the forest were like that. It had partial partial controller support. But if you really wanted to play the game properly, you needed you needed some keyboard too. Now, I am not opposed like Val Haim. I will play 90 98% on the controller. But because I’m sitting at my desk anyway, if I’m going to do inventory management, I’ll pull the mouse. I’ll pull the I’ll use the trackball. So I’m not opposed to mix controls. Not at the same time, though. I know there are people that use, you know, WI SD with the left hand and use the controller for the right hand. And they actually even made like a half controller at one point for that. I can’t remember who made it. But there were there was a there was a market for that at one point totally batshit. Crazy. Sorry, I needed to drink here. We’re getting a little dry. But yeah, no, I used to I used to use that before the PC became so ubiquitous with with PC gaming, it used to be that like half the games worked with controllers, and the other half didn’t. And that was because of the x input direct input. So snafu, and I can’t remember which one came first, I think it would direct input was first an X input came second. But some games supported one and not the other. So you had half the half the opportunities for your controller to actually work. And so having a tool to map shit out like that, or flat out a keyboard only game you learned to play with the controller. You needed to be able to map the keyboard to it. So yeah, I don’t remember which one I ended up paying for the one there was a there was a freebie one if I remember, right, this goes way back though. There was a open source GitHub version, which is probably what you’re talking about, I think, because that name isn’t as familiar to me. And then there was the commercial version that somebody like somebody tried to make a living, making sure that it constantly had new profiles. It was like it always had new features. It was always made being made a little bit faster. And listen, as you know, I’m not opposed to paying for quality software. If something does the job better, I’m willing to pay for it. Most of the time. There is a there is a limit to how much I’m willing to pay for the best of the best. And that was one I think everybody had a pirated copy of but then eventually you felt guilty for using it pirated and you paid the guy that 10 bucks it wasn’t even like it was expensive. Well, another 20 minutes has come and gone. Wow. All right. Go let my wife know how cool this waters, she’s going to be totally thrilled to be able to come out here a little early. Um Yeah, so, so the snam stream Firefly, for those of you who have not listened forever, because I know I’ve talked about it, but probably 2025 years ago, 15 years ago, maybe. And I have a home theater PC. Yes, that’s right. I I do not have a streaming set top box plugged into my TV. I have a full blown windows 10 computer running a full blown version of Kodi with a Plex plug in. And my controller of choice to control that media center is the snapstream Firefly. Why that shame for crying out loud. There are millions of remotes that work on televisions that you can easily replace it with. Hmm, you’d be surprised how many PC remotes I’ve attempted to purchase. And that and one my family will have none of it. Because it needs to look at and behave like an actual remote. It can’t look like a weird partial keyboard, the trackpad, right? A lot of those I’ve got I got like 100 of those in a box somewhere. It needs to look and feel and act like a real remote. It has to be comfortable to use. It has to be durable, because they mean so. So you’re thinking well just use a harmony or something like that. Yeah, yeah. You don’t want $150 harmony in my family’s hands. I constantly hear clatters from in the living room of these controllers being dropped. No, no frickin $150 harmony is gonna go in the living room. So what else do you got? Well, there’s plenty of nice cheap, you know, PC htpc remotes, but their line of sight their IR. So now you got to point at the snap stream. Firefly remote is the frickin bomb. It feels like a real remote. It’s super responsive. It’s RF. So you can be like two rooms over and still control the TV. Right. And it is 100% programmable like this stuff Mike was talking about. There’s an XML file that you can attach that reads the window name. So if you’re using Windows Media Player, if you’re using via VLC, if you’re using Kodi, if you’re using Plex for Windows, whatever you’re using, the Firefly software watches what window is active, whatever window is active, it uses that XML file to map the controls, you can have a completely different remote experience for every single app that you might use. on the computer. Now, I only use one app Cody and Cody’s controls pass through the Plex plugin. So that’s not a huge sales point. But if you use one or if you use two or more apps on the PC that you need to remote for being solved the RF things big right? No line of sight. And quite frankly, at the time, when they were being closed out, I could pick him up for 20 bucks a hit. These were $99 remotes, I think when they came out. And by the time that snapstream was getting out of the consumer, home theater, business, home theater, media business, these things were going for 2025 bucks. Now of course they’re scarce. And if you want to pick one up, you’re going to pick one up that’s that’s used to shit. Or you’re going to pick up a new one in box. Occasionally if I don’t snipe it from you off eBay first, you’re going to pay 5060 bucks. I go up about once a year and see if I can get a really good deal. Listen, I got a new one in box sitting in the back. I don’t have to have it. But if I saw one new inbox for 30 bucks done and done. So we are a very particular family about controllers and interface devices. Just like listen, if I have my choice, I’ll always use a trackball. I’m going to always use the MX Ergo trackball unless something better comes. But frankly, I’m not sure what better better. Listen, if you could give me that trackball, that was totally optical with no rollers or mechanical crap to get junk in. I’d be there in a second but I don’t know if you can do that or not. I don’t I don’t know if it’s possible to make a trackball. Totally frictionless. I don’t think that’s going to happen. Listen, I am just fine. Taking the ball out of that thing once a month running you know blowing off those little rollers and putting the ball back in it doesn’t kill me and I will trade all of the amazing features of that controller has to not need to have to clean that ball no problem Yeah, so there you go. That is the that’s the story of unusual not unusual I guess but controller and device dependency and loyalty in this household? Absolutely true. So um, let’s put the closing gun it’s 44 minutes already Damn. Let’s put the closing the closing nails on the day’s gone coffin. So last couple Bullet shows. In the last month or so I’ve been telling you about this game that just got released for the PC. It’s like a three or four year old PlayStation game called DayZ dawn. And essentially it is Horizon Zero Dawn with bikers. And instead of robots, you get you get zombies or mutants. They’re zombies. But you think of zombies as slow dumb things. You think of humans as fast, intelligent things. And these are fast, mostly intelligent creatures that you’re fighting in days gone. So I picked up the game for 4199, I think. So that’s the beauty by the way of PC gaming. You console people can can can talk about your console, your console, game pass, and all that shit. Great. I’m telling you never paying retail for a game, a new game day one game, never paying retail. There’s there’s value in that. So I got it for what 27 27% off in a pre order or something. And I watched some videos, and it’s like, Listen, I need a new single player game. I got call of duty to play with my friends. And I need a single player game to fill in the gaps. So I was looking at it. And it’s got sort of the Sons of Anarchy field to it because it’s got the bikers, and the patch and the cuts in the you know, all the biker lingo and all that stuff in the trailers I’m going yet. I kind of by that, but you know, how many post apocalyptic zombie games can we really handle in the market? But listen, the biker slant was new. And based on everything that I was looking at, it looked like my sort of game. So I’ve been playing it. And once or twice, it’s gotten a little fetch questi To be sure, once or twice, they almost lost me because the story wasn’t progressing fast enough. And for those of you who have no clue what the hell I’m talking about, right? days gone is what I would consider a modern sandbox game. And when I say that, there’s a couple of characteristics that a modern sandbox game has. When I say modern sandbox game, I’m talking Witcher three. I’m talking Assassin’s Creed. I’m talking about the newer far cries are the same sort of way. I’m talking Red Dead Redemption two. Right? I’m talking Horizon Zero Dawn. These are all modern sandbox open world games. And you can tell what they are. A couple of very simple facts. There’s a definitive main storyline that runs through the entire game that you can finish in a set period of time. No, you know listen Death Stranding ruined it for me two ways. One, the overhyping of that game immediately made me not want to look at it. And two, I absolutely hate the actor that is playing the lead. And if I have to look at that asshole, the entire time I’m playing the game. I want to put a bullet in my head. So no, I have not tried that. And listen, I know those are completely superficial reasons not to be playing the game. So at some point, I may go back and look at it again. Depending on if I can find another single player game to fill days Dawn’s needs or not. I’m eyeballing a couple of them now we’ll see. And you know, and listen. So So part of it is so part of it is I like the I like the modern sandbox template. And as much as I complain about it, I don’t complain. I like to talk about it. Where days gone is just another Horizon Zero Dawn, which is just another Witcher three, which is just another Assassin’s Creed. Yeah, they’re all the same game. They really are. I mean, if you were to, if you broke it down to wireframe, no story, looking at pure mechanics, they literally are all the same game. Sometimes that’s not a bad thing, if that happens to be what you like. So days gone. Like I said, the modern the modern sandbox has, has a main storyline that takes you anywhere between 30 and 50 hours to complete. If it’s done within the context of a normal game, typically speaking, the main storyline if you ignore everything else can be done between 10 and 15 hours. So that’s a good indication. Second, there’s always fanatic side quests in these open world sandbox games. They are not they are they are things to do that aren’t required to finish the storyline, but still fall within the context of the game and its storyline. In other words, they’re not blatant brain dead fetch quests. There’s a you’re serving a purpose by doing them, but it’s not the main purpose. Then you also of course, have the filler, which is the option that goes by many names. But essentially, these are literal fetch quests that have that have really no bearing to the game at all. You do these when you’re bored out of your mind, or you need to grind a little bit. And you don’t want to you don’t want you can’t get further in the story, or whatever. So you use these really shitty, non story driven filler optional missions to pad your bottom line. But they literally most of the time you used to ignore because you don’t need them. Right. So though, that is one indicator, and of course, there’s always the other stuff, simple crafting of weapons, or items. And of course, skill tree points, right, you have to unlock this point to unlock other points that you can then access with the skill tree. These are all cut, cookie cutter games, folks. Horizon Zero Dawn days, days gone. Witcher three, all of these games are all the same. They’re all the same game. And I’m going to admit that to you now. But I love that kind of game. That’s what I want to play. And so I played Assassin’s Creed origins, loved it, finished it. Right? Assassin’s Creed Odyssey felt way too. I mean, even the theme was the same. I mean, at least give me a different a new, a new theme. So I played about 10 minutes of Odyssey or maybe I didn’t play that one at all. And I basically said nope, we’re gonna find something else. So anyway, those are the games that I like. And I like a game that I know that I’m going to get more than $5 an hour out of in this case, I only had to pay play what six or seven hours eight hours to get my money back. So even if I burned through the game top to bottom not playing any side missions, I probably would have got my money out of it. That’s how I know that the game is the game works for me. So what did I end up spending on days gone? closing credits 50 hours five zero 50 hours for 4199 bucket bucket our a little bit less $1 an hour. Great ROI. I had a ton of fun. Yes. I it is not it is not beat Horizon Zero Dawn which is number two Witcher three. So for me the hierarchy if you’re wondering if you’re just wondering how this works on Witcher three remains the definitive game for me. Right underneath it and I’m talking like I’m talking just a notch down not even a ton of notches. I’m just talking one notch down from that is Red Dead Redemption to totally amazing game. Right under, take a few notches down from there. And you’re talking Horizon Zero Dawn. Take another notch or two down from there. You’re talking the assassin, the modern Assassin’s Creed games. And then take another couple of notches down and you got bass guy. So we’re talking top five. That’s all right. I’m sure days guns developers would take top five of my favorite game type of games. So there you go. So the ending rather lackluster. It did tidy up nicely. I enjoyed the ending. And it just wasn’t wasn’t what I you know, it wasn’t any sort of big long grind or challenge. You know, a lot of these games the very last guy is completely impossible. And you spent all this time trying to get their neck. Now it was pretty turnkey. I play everything on normal. By the way, I don’t plan easier casual. I play on these I play you know, usually it says this is the way the developers intended you to play the game. That’s the that’s where I play the game. So yeah, so days gone. 50 hours. It didn’t it didn’t. It didn’t unseat any other games. Any other games have that type of game. But I had a really good time with it. If you Yeah, yeah, you know, Skyrim i think you know, Skyrim is almost a lateral move. And I’ll and I’ll explain what I mean. Skyrim there’s, I mean, how do I explain it? So the other piece? Hey, what’s up? Sorry to interrupt. Are you doing all right? Yeah. No, I’m good. Thanks, Tom. Hey, tell mom, the hot tub is cool. She should come out. I don’t know why it’s cool. But it’s cool. Okay, just let her know that she can come in any time. It’s cool. So Skyrim always has that honorary place of being the first the first of its kind. So you can’t that can’t be knocked down by anybody else. And honestly, to be honest, Skyrim almost isn’t Skyrim is the last as a last generation sandbox game. It doesn’t even belong in that same category as these games. Because it doesn’t quite fit the formula. It’s, it’s it lies a little bit more into the role playing genre, so I would not call it a modern open world sandbox game. Because it doesn’t feel it’s not part of the template. And that’s not a bad thing. In fact, it puts it into a different realm. I mean, I’ve played Skyrim all the way through, twice, like full front to back Skyrim twice. I haven’t played Witcher three, all the way through twice. I haven’t played any of these open world sandbox games, all the way through twice. Right? I have played Skyrim on four different platforms. I have not played Witcher three or these other sandbox games on four different platforms. So Skyrim Well, it doesn’t get mentioned in this. Yeah, well, yes. Skyrim Skyrim is released. It was What 2005? Is that right? You know, I’m just throwing that number out there. Is that is that right? I wanted to say that it was 15 years old. Last I checked, so that could have been a while ago. So yeah, trivia is what is what was Skyrim? Is release date. No, looking it up. For those of you playing at home on the replay? I’ll be curious. My guess was 2005. I know there’s a 22nd lag in this episode, the show. So if you’re alluding to the fact that it’s old, and so that’s why it doesn’t have all these things. It doesn’t matter. It had its own speciality. And in fact, the fact that it has been reborn in VR makes it even more impressive with how it’s lasted over the course of time. Skyrim has staying power, so does Witcher three. But listen, Witcher three is going to be talked about for another 10 years Skyrim is going to be talked about for another 10 years. You know what’s not going to be talking about for another 10 years. Sasson screed origins days gone. Horizon Zero Dawn, honestly as good as Horizon Zero Dawn is, no one’s talking about that in 10 years guarantee Skyrim whatever next device there is we’ll have a Skyrim released for it, it will get reborn again. There’ll be Skyrim AR mods. To me, you’re going to be able to take the world of Skyrim and play it in AR in your back yard. Because someone will modded that’s what Skyrim means to the industry. So all of this great talk about modern open world sandbox games, I assure you bear no malice whatsoever to Skyrim I have I know I know my history while I don’t know what data came out. So obviously I don’t know my history. But I can tell you that Skyrim is immortal. In a way even Witcher three is not quite as immortal as Skyrim I know somebody’s gonna say oh my god he said it now I’ll say it I but thanks to thanks to the Witcher TV show thanks to Witcher four which think thankfully cyberpunk to be shit. Which means we’re going to see we’re going to see you know Witcher four come a lot sooner thanks to that. Which are four comes out and we see what Witcher three essentially looks like in a brand new modern gaming engine krycek people are still modding Witcher just like they’re still modding. Skyrim You know, this game has incredible staying power. And I think it will continue to have incredible staying power. Because frankly, I don’t think there’s another game that has the tapestry. Skyrim doesn’t. And that’s the closest next guy. If you want to look at characters and story and the palette, the rich palette to be used. There’s nothing there man. There’s nothing that touches Witcher three you can say I don’t like how Witcher three controls. You can say I don’t like the alchemy. You can say I don’t like this and that. Yeah, that’s that’s a personal opinion. But I could not place another game of any type that has the rich character and story building the Witcher three has, and that means something that means something it does. So again, don’t want to say anything bad about Skyrim again Skyrim staying power is legendary to be sure. Let me see what else did I have to talk about? I talked about days gone. Now, let me tell you one more thing about before I before I lay days gone to rest. So I don’t think there’ll be any DLC or anything for days gone. So I think that that’s it. But once the credits were done rolling, it appears that the story isn’t over. So I don’t know. I’m gonna have to explore this a little bit more and get back to you. But it looks like once you’re done With the main story arc, there are still Tales for you to follow up on. Much like DLC. It’s like, it feels a lot like Witcher in that respect where you finish the main game, you’ve killed the big bad guy. But But now there’s a new, there’s a new story, there’s a new element, but it seamlessly slips into the world that you’ve already explored. So as soon as I got done and it got I don’t want to ruin anything in case you do play days gone. But the next the next storyline that pops up after the game comes up and says, congratulations, you finished the game. But there’s still more to do everything Yeah, yeah, go finish up all those shit side quests. No thanks. But then I waited and when I landed into the game, it put me into a storyline there was like Oh shit, I want to do that. I will tell you what it is because it’s a spoiler but it’s like you’re going to be Wait a minute. I might actually want to play that so I’m not necessarily done with days gone, even though I’m officially done with the story. And frankly when I’m done with a story like Horizon Zero Dawn or assassin’s creed or any of these other sandbox games, I’m done with them I put them away and they’re done but I may continue with days gone and that says something good about it. I think I think I’ll let you know it could just be bullshit but I’ll let you know. I’m not I’m not gonna I’m not gonna butter it up any Yeah, the next is starfield by Bethesda and they’re saying it’s Skyrim and space, which is sad because frankly, I know I’ll look at Listen, they get it they get a free purchase, just like cyberpunk was a free purchase for CD Projekt RED. When you impress me with something I will buy your next product sight unseen. Because you’ve earned it. Listen, I put 250 hours into Witcher three, they get more of my money. And they got it with CD Projekt RED and I finished that too by the way. But Dana wage noticing any project or notice that cyberpunk did not hit the top five they got knocked down by Assassin’s Creed origins. Bad news for CD Projekt RED Hmm, I really am not interested in Skyrim in space I’m not interested in general in space related fantasy I just the way it is i’ve i’ve been that way since the beginning. There’s been some first person shooters that have been space oriented that I’ve endured. A lot of people give Call of Duty Infinite Warfare, a lot of shit. And I don’t think it was completely warranted when I’ve talked about this on the show before zombies in Spaceland, the zombies and infinite warfare are absolutely the best zombies that have ever been made. And Infinite Warfare his campaign was incredibly satisfying. And you know whether or not the multiplayer was broken Listen, all Call of Duty multiplayer is broken. It’s only a matter of dates. Because Call of Duty multiplayer is broken the first three months of play, and the last four months of play. It’s always been the way that it is the cheaters the bots the balancing. Listen, you can say the Call of Duty Infinite Warfare is multiplayer was shit. I played the living crap out of it. I’ve got like, I got like 500 hours in infinite warfare. 500 hours. You want to talk about ROI? Yeah, there you go. But they had space. I mean, it was it was a space force, if you will. And and it was okay. I was okay with that. So I will be more than happy to look at the fez does release of Skyrim in space? Absolutely. I will. I will. I will buy it sight unseen. Of course, I’m not going to pay full price for it. Because I’m a PC gamer. And I will get my 27% preorder off of that. But to be honest with you, Bethesda has been batting zero with me lately with regards to their releases. So listen, if it’s Skyrim in space, I’ll take a look at it. You know if it’s Fallout in space or Fallout, 76 Spaceland version? I didn’t kiss my ass. I was not a big Fallout fan. The thing is, is I’m not really into again, I’m not into I like the post apocalyptic part. Not so much into the the cyber tech space stuff. Just isn’t my thing. Love me some fantasy. Give me a sword. Let me cast spells. Let me mix potions on your bitch. flying around in a spacecraft. Robots, right? Not my thing. And yes, I’m spraying robots wrong because it’s funny as hell. And I love it. Dr. Rudi wells called FEM bots robots. It was crack me up. I love that Ben. Chris is listening. You’ll get it. But anyway, yeah, so I’ve been kind of watching and following the gaming news and there just hasn’t been there hasn’t been a shit ton that has jumped out and gotten me yet. But I haven’t I haven’t gone through everything. I’ve been really busy with work, trying to get myself caught up and ahead of the game, so that I’m ready for my summer of fun and debauchery. Yeah, so that eldin rings looks like that elden ring looks okay. Since even the gameplay trailer trailer looked like a bunch of bullshit. It’s it’s kind of hard for me to actually decide if that game is going to be good or not. But the good news is, I have all the rest of the year to get information on it. Because it seems like nothing is actually coming out this year. for gaming. Everything is in you know, 2022 probably q2, q3 of 2022. We’ll see. But, yeah, yeah. Well, listen, you had over an hour show here. I hope you enjoyed it. I’m going to go and hit the lights on out here. It’s very, very dark. These nice lights strung around my gazebo. It looks really nice at night. Right now it’s kind of dark and sinister and almost a little spooky. So I’m going to go and get my light switch and get everything turn the TV on, she’ll back maybe watch a little in search of until the wife comes out. And we’ve been watching them real quick. I’ll talk about it because I don’t always talk about what we’re watching these days. I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube, I’m big 32 fan. That’s one of my favorite channels these days. I mean, listen, watching all of his older stuff. Big fan of 30 to 42 here. So I’ve been watching a lot of that a lot of a lot of fascinating horror. I think I talked about that. But for television, we’ve been going back to the old series from the early 2000s called the dead zone, loosely based on the Christopher Walken movie, starring Anthony Michael Hall. And we started it like back when it was new. And somehow it fell off the radar, we never got back to it. And now we’re kind of, we’re kind of bingeing it front to back. And, you know, I barely remember the original deadzone movie, I mean, I can. It’s been parodied, and, you know, made fun of and talked about endlessly. So everybody understands what it’s really about, but like the underlying story, which by the way, that story arc is being carried out as part of this longer running series of the dead zone. But unfortunately, I guess they canceled the last season of dead zone. So there is no actual ending to the series, which kind of sucks that even a closing to our finale movie, which quite frankly, I think, personally, that if a show gets greenlit for season two, there should be a clause somewhere. And Mike maybe knows more about how this works or how this would work. I don’t know who would dictate that the show runner. I don’t know who that is. But as soon as Season Two gets greenlit, there should be monies put in escrow. Something put to the side, that for a two hour production to allow the to allow the whether it runs two seasons, or 22 seasons, there needs to be a pot in escrow somewhere that says when you choose to cancel this show, we have this money to shoot a final 90 minute, whatever episode to tidy everything up. I think that would only be fair, a lot of shows would have benefited from having that little final movie in escrow scenario. So I’m not looking forward to seeing the end without an end. But it we’re really enjoying it so far. some really interesting lessons hitting this right? There’s some really boring episodes, but the concept of what you could do if you can see the future, they explore in some interesting ways. In some cases, they explore it like that movie. Next with Nicolas Cage. We can see two minutes into the future. They played off of that on one of the episodes which I thought was really really cool. And then they just did they just they have a good time with it. They explore it I love that I love I love anything with pre cognition and changing the future. I love all that stuff anyway. Alright, that’s it for me. You got another five minutes out of me. Blah blah blah blah blah. That guy doesn’t know how to shut up. Alright, this is shade darman row, passenger seat radio hot tub edition. It’s really quiet without these jets on and we’ll see you next time. Take care, everybody. Thanks, Mike for thanks for joining in. appreciate having somebody live to chat with. Take care, everybody.
