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Introduction
0:00:24 Jordan Aired
First Impressions - Phil Fogg
0:11:25 Super Mario 3D All-Stars for Switch
Final Impressions - Tom Towers
0:21:25 Oculus Quest 2
1:08:15 Dirt Rally VR
1:20:00 Tom's Favorite Console of All Time
Final Impressions - Tom Towers
1:32:45 Space Channel 5 VR Kinda Funky News
Trademark Banter
1:43:26 2003 November Top 5 NPD!
Final Impressions - Tom and Phil
1:48:16 One Night Stand
Off-Topic Final Impressions - Tom Towers
2:02:24 We the Living by Ayn Rand
Transcipt
Tom: Hello and welcome to episode 132 of The Game Under Podcast.
00:00:11.660 --> 00:00:17.440
Tom: My name is Tom Towers, and I am joined today by Phil Fogg.
00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:19.560
Phil: Phil Fogg, hello, welcome.
00:00:19.580 --> 00:00:22.680
Phil: Thank you, Tom, for the welcome, hello listeners.
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Tom: And I don't know if you noticed, but on the site, the Jordan B.
00:00:28.580 --> 00:00:32.320
Tom: Peterson Trilogy has now been completed.
00:00:34.580 --> 00:00:38.460
Phil: Now, I was going to ask you, what was the impetus for writing?
00:00:38.480 --> 00:00:39.860
Phil: Who is this Jordan B.
00:00:39.880 --> 00:00:47.440
Phil: Peterson, and what was the impetus for writing this three-part series about his writing?
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Tom: Well, he is, I believe, a Canadian clinical psychologist who became famous for some erroneous commentary on a hate speech bill in Canada.
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Tom: And before this blew up, due to the random shit that I watch on YouTube, I had actually become familiar with his YouTube content.
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Tom: So it was hilarious and quite the ride to see him blow up in the way he did.
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Tom: He became a highly controversial figure for many reasons, some of which are fair and some of which are perhaps not so fair.
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Tom: But it was quite an amusing story.
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Tom: And he's worth writing about, I think, because when you go back to his first book, Maps of Meaning, and also his, and make sure if you have any interest in him, find the clips of him on YouTube from his community television days where he is wearing a fedora as an example.
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Phil: It's always a good start, always a good start.
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Tom: Lots of other hilarious stuff.
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Tom: He is clearly believes himself to be a prophet.
00:02:02.260 --> 00:02:16.120
Tom: And I have not come across any prophet, no matter how steeped in grifting their prophecy is that is not a tremendously entertaining and fascinating figure.
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Phil: You worked for Notch, you know.
00:02:19.840 --> 00:02:21.680
Phil: You talk about prophets, how many prophets are there?
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Phil: I mean...
00:02:22.500 --> 00:02:23.880
Tom: Prophets are a dime a dozen.
00:02:25.120 --> 00:02:26.720
Tom: I think most people are prophets.
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Tom: It's just that some people are willing to be openly prophets in the public eye.
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Phil: Don't you mean truly?
00:02:35.320 --> 00:02:37.000
Phil: What about true prophets though?
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Phil: True prophets are just basically very good at observation.
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Tom: Well, a true prophet is just a prophet who is good, just as most people are artists, but most people aren't necessarily good artists.
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Phil: Okay, so you close out this discussion of Jordan Peterson.
00:02:55.360 --> 00:03:00.520
Tom: With a comparison to another prophet, the rapper Lil B.
00:03:01.300 --> 00:03:02.340
Phil: I've heard of Lil B.
00:03:02.780 --> 00:03:06.840
Tom: Yes, and he has written his own self-help book.
00:03:06.880 --> 00:03:12.120
Tom: And Jordan Peterson's most famous book is 12 Rules for Life, a self-help book.
00:03:12.140 --> 00:03:17.200
Tom: And this was, though I have seen a lot of infomercials for self-help books.
00:03:17.200 --> 00:03:21.780
Tom: I've never actually read a self-help book before I read Jordan Peterson.
00:03:21.800 --> 00:03:25.440
Tom: So I thought I should read another self-help book for comparison.
00:03:25.920 --> 00:03:33.260
Tom: And what better self-help book than Taking Over by Imposing the Positive by Lil B.
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Phil: Is it widely available?
00:03:37.900 --> 00:03:40.920
Phil: I mean, is this his first foray into self-help?
00:03:41.440 --> 00:03:42.940
Tom: Lil B or Jordan Peterson?
00:03:43.540 --> 00:03:44.180
Phil: Lil B.
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Tom: I think this is the, well, much of his music and persona is certainly about positivity and self-actualization in many ways.
00:03:56.980 --> 00:04:01.120
Tom: But I believe this is his only self-help book that he has written.
00:04:01.880 --> 00:04:02.600
Phil: It's puzzling.
00:04:03.580 --> 00:04:05.820
Tom: And I would in fact recommend it.
00:04:05.820 --> 00:04:37.580
Tom: And I learned something from it in fact, and from reading the Jordan Peterson books, because there is an idea out there that things like conspiracy theories essentially a coping mechanism in which you, when confronted with forces, not forces, sorry, events that are out of anyone's control, people will invent a story that turns these events into being within people's control.
00:04:37.720 --> 00:04:45.040
Tom: And for me, I always found that to be a little bit weird because conspiracy theories are usually batshit crazy.
00:04:45.060 --> 00:04:48.840
Tom: And if they were true, I'm not sure in what way they would be at all comforting.
00:04:49.080 --> 00:05:24.540
Tom: But in reading, taking over the positive and 12 rules for life and comparing the two, I can actually kind of see where this may actually be true because in 12 rules for life, everything comes back to essentially being caused by those pesky cultural Marxists who were out there to destroy Western civilization in the most banal and seemingly unrelated ways to politics that you could think of, such as school playground dynamics.
00:05:24.560 --> 00:05:30.720
Tom: And certainly one can make an argument that politics obviously influences public education and so on and so forth.
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Tom: But to be directly attacking it along those lines in the context of it being a cultural Marxist plot in a self-help book is a little bizarre.
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Tom: And the whole conceit of the book, as you can tell from the title, 12 Rules for Life, what is a full title?
00:05:48.280 --> 00:05:54.100
Tom: Something to do with order taking over chaos, protecting yourself from chaos rather.
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Tom: And you then compare that to Lil B's book where you are confronted with banal everyday problems like dealing with arachnophobia, growing up-
00:06:09.300 --> 00:06:10.500
Phil: Everyday problems, yes.
00:06:10.520 --> 00:06:16.900
Tom: Growing up without a father and having to deal with these things when they aren't caused by fucking cultural Marxists.
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Tom: And it's actually a significantly more disturbing vision than the world, than the prophet who is meant to be saving you from the chaotic, despairing universe that he's attempting to present you with.
00:06:30.980 --> 00:06:42.040
Phil: All right, well, this under conspiracy theories in terms of people accepting them and embracing them because they provide an answer for something that they otherwise cannot understand.
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Phil: That's pretty, that's well-worn territory.
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Phil: I mean, it came up with the JFK assassination, people just not being able to comprehend how the leader of the free world, end quote, could be just killed by one person.
00:06:56.260 --> 00:06:57.600
Phil: And so the conspiracy theories come up.
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Tom: The end quote there is because JFK isn't really dead, by the way.
00:07:03.240 --> 00:07:05.720
Phil: So that's pretty, you know, well-worn territory.
00:07:06.200 --> 00:07:15.080
Phil: And, you know, to a degree in talking about religion, you know, some people would say that, you know, Occam's razor just is too obvious.
00:07:15.100 --> 00:07:20.100
Phil: And that's why you've got to come up with concepts of either creation or of evolution.
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Phil: You know, it's, so you can't just have something, something as important as human life couldn't have just randomly happened.
00:07:27.600 --> 00:07:29.060
Phil: Yeah, yeah, it can't be arbitrary.
00:07:29.080 --> 00:07:32.060
Phil: There has to be some, you know, deeper meaning.
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Phil: So in a sense, you know, faith, be it science or religious, is also a conspiracy theory, if you will, if you want to go that far.
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Tom: Absolutely, and certainly, you can take natural selection, you can interpret, and you can also do this with religion, with religion as well.
00:07:53.420 --> 00:07:59.380
Tom: You can interpret natural selection in a totally arbitrary manner, and it is totally open to that.
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Tom: But there sure are a hell of a lot of supposedly, totally rational scientists.
00:08:06.620 --> 00:08:25.920
Tom: There's entire fields based on this that are entirely about coming up with reasons to turn natural selection into a totally arbitrarily thing, where everything has a rational and logical explanation for why things have turned out as they are.
00:08:27.100 --> 00:08:34.960
Phil: If you want to talk about creative design and evolution, the thing is that I said earlier, puzzling, I picked up this pen.
00:08:34.980 --> 00:08:36.660
Phil: It's a government-issued pen, right?
00:08:36.740 --> 00:08:39.600
Phil: It was given to me for free by a government somehow.
00:08:40.540 --> 00:08:42.540
Phil: It's fallen apart in my hands.
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Phil: I've just counted this 13 parts to this pen.
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Phil: I mean, the person who designed this must have been extremely bored, or just had a complete disregard for like plastic and rubber and like, you know, the use of it.
00:08:59.840 --> 00:09:01.460
Phil: Why has it got so many pieces?
00:09:01.920 --> 00:09:04.720
Phil: 13 pieces in a in a in a biro.
00:09:04.720 --> 00:09:08.860
Tom: I think, apropos of what we're discussing, maybe no one designed it.
00:09:09.300 --> 00:09:10.500
Phil: Maybe no, it just happened.
00:09:10.880 --> 00:09:13.960
Tom: And that's why it is has turned out as it has turned out.
00:09:14.240 --> 00:09:15.960
Phil: It's a horrible, horrible pen.
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Phil: So go to game under dot net to to read that.
00:09:20.640 --> 00:09:22.540
Phil: There's a link to it from the front page.
00:09:22.640 --> 00:09:23.600
Phil: Game under dot net.
00:09:23.780 --> 00:09:25.540
Phil: Don't go to gam under dot net.
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Phil: I did earlier.
00:09:27.600 --> 00:09:28.220
Phil: It does not.
00:09:28.300 --> 00:09:30.160
Phil: There's no there's no website there.
00:09:30.180 --> 00:09:31.380
Phil: No one owns gam under.
00:09:31.880 --> 00:09:33.680
Tom: So time for you to buy that domain.
00:09:34.020 --> 00:09:37.280
Phil: Probably, probably buy a snap that one up while I can.
00:09:37.920 --> 00:09:45.520
Phil: Okay, well in terms of anything else you wanted to talk about before we get into the hot games of the week and the hot news of the week.
00:09:45.540 --> 00:09:47.900
Tom: Well, he does apparently have a new book coming.
00:09:47.940 --> 00:09:50.760
Tom: And I think that it was clearly timed.
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Tom: It was announced just after I had published the final part of the trilogy.
00:09:56.760 --> 00:10:00.380
Tom: So I think he's trying to cash in on game under's fame.
00:10:00.580 --> 00:10:05.960
Tom: And judging by the title, which is, and we've got...
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Phil: Just look it up, get it right...
00:10:06.940 --> 00:10:06.940
Tom: .
00:10:06.940 --> 00:10:09.200
Tom: On Air Research, we want to get this accurate.
00:10:09.220 --> 00:10:13.180
Tom: One of his rules for life is to be precise in your speech.
00:10:13.700 --> 00:10:17.080
Tom: So I've got to be very careful in what I say here and get the title right.
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Tom: The next book, as if it is a response to some of my criticisms in those articles, is called Beyond Order, 12 More Rules for Life.
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Tom: And I believe it is partially in response to criticism aimed at his book.
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Tom: And it is in fact about being more creative in a potentially stifling order, I believe, something along those lines.
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Phil: You know, so now he's got 24 rules for life?
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Tom: Yes, he does.
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Tom: And we should add that these 24 rules for life are based on his original 42 rules for life, when he was spreading the message on the open question and answer website Queera.
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Phil: Quora, yeah, so that's 64 life lessons?
00:11:10.400 --> 00:11:20.200
Tom: No, I think there's 42 in total, but I think this is actually whittled down from 72 he originally had, but he posted 42 on Quora.
00:11:21.300 --> 00:11:23.500
Phil: Because, yeah, 64 would have been cool.
00:11:23.520 --> 00:11:31.860
Phil: But anyway, speaking of N64, I'll be talking about Super Mario All-Stars for Switch later in this episode.
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Tom: Why don't you talk about it now?
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Phil: Must I?
00:11:34.620 --> 00:11:35.400
Tom: Yes, you must.
00:11:36.020 --> 00:11:36.560
Phil: Okay.
00:11:36.640 --> 00:11:40.460
Phil: Well, I got it for Switch for myself for Christmas, right?
00:11:42.420 --> 00:11:45.900
Phil: The case did not have any cellophane on it at all, right?
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Phil: So I'm not supposed to have opened this until Christmas, because it's supposed to be wrapped and put under a tree, etc.
00:11:54.100 --> 00:11:54.260
Phil: Yep.
00:11:54.280 --> 00:11:55.380
Phil: I could die between now and then.
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Phil: I don't see the point in this.
00:11:57.140 --> 00:12:00.560
Phil: But it came from the retailer without any cellophane on it.
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Phil: And so I'm like, wow, they're not even trying anymore.
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Phil: You know, there's no manual.
00:12:05.460 --> 00:12:06.920
Phil: Now there's no cellophane around it.
00:12:06.940 --> 00:12:07.340
Phil: Okay.
00:12:07.960 --> 00:12:08.920
Phil: So I just opened it.
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Phil: I put in my copy of Super Mario Odyssey and closed it back up, because no one's going to notice the difference.
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Phil: It's Mario games.
00:12:21.080 --> 00:12:22.800
Phil: And I have all these games already.
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Phil: So if anyone walks by the TV and goes, what's that?
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Phil: I'll just say, it's Mario, you know.
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Tom: Mario Odyssey.
00:12:28.800 --> 00:12:29.140
Phil: Yeah.
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Phil: Yeah.
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Tom: So can you believe in modern graphics?
00:12:33.320 --> 00:12:34.200
Phil: Well, yes.
00:12:34.280 --> 00:12:56.080
Phil: And now the so it basically has Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy One, the original Galaxy, plus the soundtracks for all three, which is pretty cool because some of them have only been released to like Nintendo Club members in Japan in the past.
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Tom: How do you access the soundtracks?
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Phil: On the thing.
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Phil: It's on the thing.
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Phil: And I think there's a way to rip them off as well.
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Phil: It's not only the soundtrack, but it's also all the sound effects.
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Phil: So it's pretty, pretty exhaustive.
00:13:12.420 --> 00:13:15.540
Tom: So there's a lot of soundboard material for you there.
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Phil: Yeah.
00:13:16.660 --> 00:13:17.040
Phil: Yeah.
00:13:17.080 --> 00:13:18.800
Phil: And that's true.
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Phil: And they have a player mode, so that you can just go into the player mode and just put it down and listen to it that way.
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Phil: So it's not chewing up your battery for screen time.
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Phil: So I played them in order.
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Phil: I've just dabbled in each one of them.
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Phil: Super Mario 64 basically looks like the high res versions that have been released on the web by fans.
00:13:47.500 --> 00:13:49.140
Phil: They haven't changed the graphics or anything.
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Phil: It's just very, very clear.
00:13:50.720 --> 00:13:56.680
Phil: And they have actually done some tricks to it and some slight improvements.
00:13:57.760 --> 00:14:04.420
Phil: But ultimately, it's just Super Mario 64, but with no load times.
00:14:04.420 --> 00:14:07.740
Phil: Well, there was hardly any load times before anyway, because it was also on a cartridge.
00:14:08.600 --> 00:14:10.020
Phil: But just really clear visuals.
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Phil: And yeah, it's great with a pro controller.
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Phil: Using the Switch handheld, it's okay.
00:14:19.820 --> 00:14:28.340
Phil: Certainly better than playing Super Mario Sunshine or Super Mario Galaxy in the handheld mode, which is really disappointing.
00:14:29.160 --> 00:14:32.600
Phil: So I've been mostly using the pro controllers for those.
00:14:34.140 --> 00:14:43.400
Phil: Super Mario Sunshine, it is actually a much better play experience than off of the GameCube because you are seeing it in widescreen as opposed to 4.3.
00:14:43.920 --> 00:14:51.200
Phil: And that's much better suited for that game because it was all about discovery and verticality.
00:14:52.480 --> 00:14:59.200
Phil: And so being able to see it in widescreen enables you to see more of the actual levels.
00:14:59.500 --> 00:15:02.040
Phil: So then just convert it from 4.3 to widescreen.
00:15:02.060 --> 00:15:06.480
Phil: You can actually see more than what you would have seen in the original game.
00:15:07.840 --> 00:15:16.740
Phil: And in this case, you do benefit from load times as you do with the Galaxy game because it's on cartridge as opposed to disc.
00:15:18.040 --> 00:15:21.800
Phil: Visually, Super Mario Sunshine looks good, I'd say.
00:15:22.240 --> 00:15:24.140
Phil: Certainly better than on the GameCube.
00:15:24.660 --> 00:15:30.480
Phil: There's no fog or stuttering or any sort of issues whatsoever.
00:15:32.320 --> 00:15:33.800
Phil: Yeah, it looks good and it plays well.
00:15:33.820 --> 00:15:38.760
Phil: So I'm really hopeful about that because I've never actually completed Sunshine.
00:15:39.560 --> 00:15:48.240
Phil: And then Galaxy, I thought it was gonna be the least valuable in the whole set because I absolutely loved it on the Wii and played it to death.
00:15:48.980 --> 00:15:52.300
Phil: It's actually surprising how much I didn't remember about that game.
00:15:52.720 --> 00:15:56.120
Phil: I'm really quite enjoying it.
00:15:57.200 --> 00:16:05.460
Phil: However, as you can imagine, the things that you used the remote for in the original are disastrous in this version.
00:16:05.980 --> 00:16:11.120
Phil: So you know how you're used to wave the Wii mode around so you could collect the star bits?
00:16:11.440 --> 00:16:12.680
Tom: Yep.
00:16:12.700 --> 00:16:14.460
Phil: And shoot the star bits as well.
00:16:15.540 --> 00:16:20.500
Phil: Either to shoot them at enemies or to feed those, what are those things called?
00:16:20.520 --> 00:16:21.160
Phil: Glug glugs.
00:16:23.140 --> 00:16:24.120
Phil: That's not what they're called.
00:16:24.140 --> 00:16:25.240
Phil: They're called something else.
00:16:25.260 --> 00:16:32.260
Phil: But anyway, in handheld mode, it's okay, but you have to touch the screen to do all of that.
00:16:32.740 --> 00:16:36.080
Phil: So you have to touch the screen to aim it and collect.
00:16:36.800 --> 00:16:46.740
Phil: And so while you're holding the face buttons and the analog sticks, you've actually got to take your hand off of them to move around on screen, which is not good.
00:16:47.160 --> 00:16:47.860
Tom: That's all good?
00:16:49.080 --> 00:16:52.520
Phil: But it is still slightly better than when you're playing it in docked mode.
00:16:53.340 --> 00:17:06.040
Phil: Because in docked mode, you have to pull down the R trigger, which is the top trigger, and then use the left analog stick to aim and waggle around.
00:17:08.400 --> 00:17:16.160
Phil: So basically, essentially you have to stop moving to aim that thing and collect star bits.
00:17:17.060 --> 00:17:21.880
Phil: Yeah, I was really quite disappointed with the way that they handled that.
00:17:22.800 --> 00:17:25.740
Phil: And there's very little or no trimming, actually.
00:17:26.600 --> 00:17:35.740
Tom: Can you play Super Mario Galaxy using the Joy-Cons detached as if they were Wiimotes for motion control?
00:17:35.740 --> 00:17:37.700
Phil: Yeah, that's actually an excellent point.
00:17:37.720 --> 00:17:38.720
Phil: You can do it that way.
00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:45.840
Phil: And then you can also use your Pro Controller to point at the screen.
00:17:48.100 --> 00:17:51.940
Phil: Even though there's nothing, they're doing it all by tilt, basically.
00:17:52.340 --> 00:17:57.560
Phil: So there's nothing on the front of the Pro Controller that actually pointed the screen that it's picking up on.
00:17:58.480 --> 00:18:11.400
Phil: So that's probably the better way to handle it in docked mode, is to basically use tilt controls to replicate what you'd be doing with a Wiimote.
00:18:13.240 --> 00:18:16.600
Tom: And of course, it must look incredible in HD.
00:18:17.260 --> 00:18:18.700
Phil: Yes, it does, it does.
00:18:20.220 --> 00:18:21.320
Phil: There's no doubt about that.
00:18:21.340 --> 00:18:26.560
Phil: It does look exceptionally better than using component cables on a Wii U, I'm sorry, on a Wii.
00:18:28.560 --> 00:18:41.120
Phil: The graphics really hold up, but that's what you'd expect from Nintendo's games, because they typically have an art style that doesn't age as much as photorealism.
00:18:41.240 --> 00:18:45.920
Tom: And Super Mario Galaxy is one of the best looking games ever, easily.
00:18:46.460 --> 00:18:48.280
Phil: Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely.
00:18:48.460 --> 00:18:55.700
Phil: So yeah, but in terms of the bosses and everything, it is a pretty basic game, even for someone like me.
00:18:55.800 --> 00:18:59.880
Phil: So it's more the fun of figuring out how to get around.
00:19:00.640 --> 00:19:06.700
Phil: Traveling around on the planetoids is an absolute joy, and it's such a high quality game.
00:19:07.220 --> 00:19:13.840
Phil: You see the planetoids in the background, knowing that you're gonna be getting to them eventually as you fly around.
00:19:13.860 --> 00:19:19.720
Phil: And when you get there, it's just a really, that part of it is a lot of fun.
00:19:20.700 --> 00:19:27.060
Phil: But of course, the collection, in terms of its dressing, there's no Super Mario Galaxy 2, okay, whatever.
00:19:27.080 --> 00:19:31.800
Phil: There's no historical stuff.
00:19:32.120 --> 00:19:36.760
Phil: They have a one-pager at the start of each game that says this game was released in 1997.
00:19:36.780 --> 00:19:43.000
Phil: Odyssey was the first game to use a full orchestra.
00:19:43.220 --> 00:19:44.340
Phil: And that's basically it.
00:19:44.360 --> 00:19:46.580
Phil: There's no artwork to unlock.
00:19:46.600 --> 00:19:48.520
Phil: There's no director's commentary.
00:19:48.540 --> 00:19:52.000
Phil: There's no interviews or other materials that have been included.
00:19:52.680 --> 00:20:02.240
Phil: And this is from the celebration of Mario's 35th anniversary, which is perhaps fitting because it's not a major milestone.
00:20:02.280 --> 00:20:08.960
Phil: It's just a way to repackage some of this stuff and give it back to fans of the game.
00:20:08.980 --> 00:20:15.420
Phil: So maybe when Mario's on 4-0, they'll do something more complete.
00:20:17.220 --> 00:20:18.080
Phil: Why did I buy it?
00:20:18.200 --> 00:20:20.940
Phil: I bought it because it is only available for a limited amount of time.
00:20:22.080 --> 00:20:36.440
Phil: And I just knew that the work they'd done on Super Mario Sunshine was going to make it unique enough for me to want and to want to play, because once these things are no longer available, obviously the price on them is going to go irrationally high.
00:20:37.720 --> 00:20:38.300
Tom: Absolutely.
00:20:39.460 --> 00:20:45.580
Phil: That's pretty much all I had to say about Super Mario All-Stars for Switch.
00:20:45.600 --> 00:20:51.040
Phil: I certainly would recommend it if even if you only enjoyed Galaxy in the past.
00:20:52.480 --> 00:21:04.660
Phil: I think being able to play through Mario 64 in HD, as well as have a look at Sunshine in a different manner is worth the buy.
00:21:05.620 --> 00:21:15.840
Tom: It sounds pretty good other than the control issue and the lack of extra content, though the soundtracks probably make up for the lack of trivia, I would say.
00:21:16.420 --> 00:21:20.520
Phil: Yeah, especially if there's a way to get it off of your Switch and onto a PC.
00:21:22.180 --> 00:21:23.160
Tom: You would hope there would be.
00:21:23.580 --> 00:21:24.460
Phil: Yes, I'm sure there is.
00:21:24.480 --> 00:21:25.780
Tom: But it is Nintendo, so.
00:21:26.640 --> 00:21:32.740
Tom: But we will move on to, I think, an exciting announcement.
00:21:33.620 --> 00:21:46.960
Tom: Facebook has released a book for the face, and I have purchased it, which technically puts us into the next generation of consoles.
00:21:47.820 --> 00:21:51.500
Tom: Would you have a guess of what the hell I'm talking about?
00:21:52.640 --> 00:21:54.320
Phil: Facebook's book for the face?
00:21:54.340 --> 00:22:05.660
Phil: Well, Facebook owns Oculus, and they've been de-branding Oculus a fair bit to get it away from Lucky Palmer.
00:22:06.460 --> 00:22:10.840
Phil: So I'm going to suggest that Facebook's book for the face is VR related.
00:22:11.160 --> 00:22:11.740
Tom: Correct.
00:22:12.060 --> 00:22:12.700
Phil: Whoa!
00:22:13.500 --> 00:22:14.500
Phil: That's a pretty good guess.
00:22:14.780 --> 00:22:16.500
Phil: So you have a Oculus?
00:22:17.140 --> 00:22:21.660
Tom: A Oculus Quest 2, to be precise.
00:22:21.700 --> 00:22:23.540
Phil: So it's a PC-based one, right?
00:22:23.780 --> 00:22:32.780
Tom: No, this is the standalone one, but it can indeed be used with a computer as a PC-powered headset.
00:22:33.780 --> 00:22:35.760
Phil: Yeah, but what I'm saying is, it's not one of these.
00:22:35.840 --> 00:22:38.720
Phil: It's not the ones that is on your smartphone.
00:22:38.740 --> 00:22:39.400
Phil: This is like a...
00:22:40.040 --> 00:22:41.380
Phil: this is a proper headset.
00:22:41.780 --> 00:22:42.320
Tom: Correct.
00:22:42.580 --> 00:22:43.660
Phil: This is exciting!
00:22:44.000 --> 00:22:44.640
Tom: Yes, it is.
00:22:44.940 --> 00:22:49.440
Tom: And as I said, you can use it as a PC-powered thing.
00:22:49.580 --> 00:23:20.360
Tom: And since they have gone out of the beta, I think, two months or something after it was actually released, via USB-C you can actually end up with the same quality or thereabouts of using a headset that is run via a direct video feed rather than decoding it after you're technically streaming it to the headset over USB-C.
00:23:20.980 --> 00:23:45.560
Tom: So it is a fully functional PC VR headset and has the huge advantage of also being able to run over Wi-Fi so that you can essentially play PC VR games wirelessly, which is possible with some previous headsets, but you had to get essentially PCIE solutions for that.
00:23:46.340 --> 00:23:49.520
Phil: Okay, this has just scrubbed the rest of the show.
00:23:49.540 --> 00:23:51.000
Phil: This is what we're going to talk about today.
00:23:51.320 --> 00:23:54.120
Phil: So in Oculus Quest 2, I just looked one up.
00:23:55.600 --> 00:23:58.080
Phil: This is magical that you're talking about this.
00:23:59.060 --> 00:24:02.100
Phil: It's $570 in Australia.
00:24:02.140 --> 00:24:04.760
Tom: I think it's $488.
00:24:05.120 --> 00:24:05.920
Phil: Where did you get it?
00:24:06.120 --> 00:24:07.580
Tom: I got it from oculus.com.
00:24:08.180 --> 00:24:08.880
Phil: Oh, okay.
00:24:08.940 --> 00:24:13.160
Phil: Because I was just looking at amazon.com.au and there comes the one I'm looking at.
00:24:13.180 --> 00:24:15.300
Tom: You may also be looking at the high capacity version.
00:24:15.320 --> 00:24:19.620
Tom: There's a 64 gigabyte version and a 256.
00:24:20.040 --> 00:24:21.880
Phil: Yeah, so I'm looking at the 256.
00:24:22.420 --> 00:24:23.860
Phil: Now, what is the difference?
00:24:24.580 --> 00:24:28.880
Tom: The difference is entirely the size of the SSD.
00:24:29.700 --> 00:24:31.060
Phil: In terms of what it can store?
00:24:31.540 --> 00:24:32.220
Tom: That's right.
00:24:32.240 --> 00:24:33.680
Tom: So it's just hard drive space.
00:24:33.980 --> 00:24:36.020
Phil: So that you don't have to hook it up to a PC?
00:24:37.400 --> 00:24:43.140
Tom: Well, you would be hooking up to a PC for using it with PC VR games.
00:24:44.640 --> 00:24:48.600
Tom: So for the games you're storing on the headset because it is a...
00:24:50.700 --> 00:24:55.540
Tom: Essentially the computer that runs the games in it is a mobile computer.
00:24:55.560 --> 00:25:01.560
Tom: So it does not run, unless you're using the computer itself, PC VR titles.
00:25:02.460 --> 00:25:08.080
Tom: So those titles you just get from the Oculus Store in the actual headset.
00:25:09.600 --> 00:25:13.760
Phil: So at that price, that comes with the two little hand thingies?
00:25:14.040 --> 00:25:14.340
Tom: Yep.
00:25:14.340 --> 00:25:15.960
Tom: It comes with both controllers.
00:25:15.980 --> 00:25:20.340
Tom: The only difference is indeed the storage capacity.
00:25:20.840 --> 00:25:21.140
Phil: Okay.
00:25:21.160 --> 00:25:25.840
Phil: So $499 for the smaller one and $570 for the big one.
00:25:25.860 --> 00:25:34.400
Phil: And when you compare that to the price of a new console, which is $700 in a Stryker, that's a real deal because...
00:25:34.420 --> 00:25:38.540
Tom: It's in fact cheaper than them, and it is a functional console.
00:25:38.560 --> 00:25:50.060
Tom: Now, the graphical quality of the Quest games I would put on the level of somewhere between a...
00:25:51.180 --> 00:25:52.520
Tom: Probably not somewhere between, sorry.
00:25:52.540 --> 00:26:06.380
Tom: I would put it on the level of mid-tier PS3 games, except at 4K, as opposed to the awful, awful PS3 resolution output.
00:26:06.680 --> 00:26:24.160
Tom: So it is not exactly a highly powered console, but it is at 4K and at a 72 to 90 FPS refresh rate, depending on what games they are.
00:26:24.180 --> 00:26:27.200
Tom: Because this is the second Quest.
00:26:27.220 --> 00:26:31.940
Tom: The first Quest is only a year old, and that was only 72 hertz.
00:26:32.300 --> 00:26:35.860
Tom: So many games only run at 72 FPS.
00:26:36.640 --> 00:26:48.380
Tom: Many have been updated to run at 90 FPS, and there are obviously new games that are being released on the Quest 2 will also run at 90 FPS.
00:26:48.480 --> 00:26:56.940
Tom: And I don't know outside of VR, but certainly in VR, there is a noticeable difference based on the PC games.
00:26:57.420 --> 00:27:03.100
Tom: I've played between 60 FPS and 70 FPS+.
00:27:03.780 --> 00:27:09.940
Tom: So you would want to be running games at a high FPS in VR for sure.
00:27:10.940 --> 00:27:17.820
Tom: So a 90 Hz compared to the 72 Hz of the original Quest is a huge improvement.
00:27:18.600 --> 00:27:22.640
Phil: So talking about this device as a platform, you made a distinction.
00:27:22.660 --> 00:27:27.200
Phil: You said, well, if you want to play PC VR games, you have to hook it up to a PC.
00:27:27.220 --> 00:27:32.700
Phil: So what VR games would I be playing with it not being hooked up to a PC?
00:27:33.440 --> 00:27:36.960
Tom: Well, you wouldn't be playing PC VR games if it wasn't hooked up to a PC.
00:27:36.980 --> 00:27:47.820
Tom: But the Quest itself has a wide range of games, including ports of PC VR games that have downgraded graphics.
00:27:47.840 --> 00:27:51.120
Tom: For instance, Superhot is on the Quest.
00:27:52.260 --> 00:27:58.220
Tom: And the difference is essentially just in lighting and in a...
00:27:58.700 --> 00:28:07.060
Tom: I would also add not just lighting, but also a small difference in the level of detail in things like textures and backgrounds as well.
00:28:08.460 --> 00:28:13.100
Tom: So that would be an example of a cross-platform title.
00:28:13.120 --> 00:28:29.100
Tom: And many of the games, if you purchase them on the Oculus Store, you get both the Quest version of the game as well as the PC VR version of the game through the Oculus software on the computer.
00:28:30.800 --> 00:28:44.460
Phil: So in terms of a platform, let's say that Facebook gets sick of this in a year and shuts down their Quest Store, would you still be able to use this device?
00:28:44.560 --> 00:28:46.520
Tom: That would depend entirely on their policy.
00:28:46.760 --> 00:29:01.100
Tom: And one would not necessarily be looking too positively in that direction because certainly multiple users who have had their Facebook accounts banned have lost access to everything they've bought.
00:29:02.260 --> 00:29:06.940
Phil: Which is one of the considerations for this device is that you do have to have a Facebook account.
00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:07.720
Tom: That's right.
00:29:08.000 --> 00:29:09.560
Tom: To use it at all, that is correct.
00:29:09.780 --> 00:29:14.580
Tom: And it is users that have been making Burner accounts that have been banned.
00:29:15.300 --> 00:29:18.300
Phil: So you have to use your real identity?
00:29:19.020 --> 00:29:20.460
Tom: That's right.
00:29:20.620 --> 00:29:22.340
Tom: So Facebook will be able...
00:29:22.580 --> 00:29:33.040
Tom: Essentially, you can do nothing more than add your name to it, but obviously Facebook will then be able to apply all of their telemetry and usage data to your real name.
00:29:33.780 --> 00:29:34.080
Phil: Right.
00:29:34.440 --> 00:29:34.720
Phil: Right.
00:29:34.980 --> 00:29:40.240
Tom: But of course, many people would be using their real name with things like Steam and so forth as well.
00:29:41.420 --> 00:29:42.500
Phil: Yeah, and I don't...
00:29:42.680 --> 00:29:44.860
Phil: You know, I'm not hung up on that, I guess.
00:29:46.800 --> 00:29:48.860
Phil: Like, I don't have a Facebook account for a reason.
00:29:49.040 --> 00:29:49.740
Phil: I just don't...
00:29:49.920 --> 00:29:55.920
Phil: You know, it's not political or anything, because I just didn't want a Facebook account before the world turned on them.
00:29:56.380 --> 00:30:00.260
Tom: I have a Facebook account now, which I didn't have before, for this.
00:30:02.720 --> 00:30:07.860
Phil: Well, now, unfortunately, though, they've now ended Farmville's run, so you won't be able to play Farmville.
00:30:09.100 --> 00:30:13.360
Tom: So that's a regrettable decision then, because that was my other reason.
00:30:13.800 --> 00:30:16.020
Phil: Okay, so in terms of the...
00:30:16.840 --> 00:30:25.940
Phil: Even if they did say, okay, we're getting rid of that, like I said, with the PC VR games, that's an open platform, presumably.
00:30:26.460 --> 00:30:27.100
Phil: Yep.
00:30:27.100 --> 00:30:28.260
Phil: Like all PC games.
00:30:28.640 --> 00:30:32.640
Tom: That's via Steam or however you want to get them.
00:30:33.120 --> 00:30:40.900
Phil: Yep, and then you would be able to, even if Facebook packed it in with this Quest, you'd still be able to use that as a standalone piece of hardware, I'm presuming.
00:30:41.060 --> 00:30:47.940
Tom: In theory, you would be able to, because presently you do need the Oculus software as well to be able to do this.
00:30:49.280 --> 00:30:56.080
Tom: But you would hope that there would be some third-party work around for this if that were to occur.
00:30:56.980 --> 00:30:59.120
Tom: Though it is yet to be jailbroken.
00:31:00.460 --> 00:31:02.860
Phil: Okay, that's a surprise.
00:31:02.880 --> 00:31:04.760
Phil: But then again, it has only been six months.
00:31:07.160 --> 00:31:08.560
Phil: Who knows why that is.
00:31:08.600 --> 00:31:15.280
Phil: But, okay, so terms of games, I mean, as a platform, are games affordable on this device?
00:31:15.720 --> 00:31:29.160
Tom: Well, this is by far the worst part about it, is the whole, if you want to get it for stand alone, they are predominantly, the Oculus Store, in terms of pricing, is horrendous.
00:31:29.220 --> 00:31:35.140
Tom: The games are actually more than they are on Steam at their base price.
00:31:35.260 --> 00:31:45.320
Tom: For example, their Black Friday sale, the games were getting massive discounts, like 20% to 30% off.
00:31:46.960 --> 00:31:56.800
Tom: So, from that perspective, clearly they are expecting this to be predominantly a niche, enthusiast, luxury item, I assume.
00:31:57.120 --> 00:32:00.220
Phil: Yeah, well, they consider that you are a captive audience, you know.
00:32:02.800 --> 00:32:16.160
Tom: It is essentially, as far as I am aware, anyway, if your main purpose is to use it as a stand alone device, rather than with a computer, it is basically your only option.
00:32:16.780 --> 00:32:29.000
Tom: I don't think there are any other real competitors that run what are essentially mid-tier PS3 level games at such a high resolution available.
00:32:29.620 --> 00:32:34.260
Phil: I'm going to assume that this was not a gift and that you did not steal it or find it.
00:32:34.400 --> 00:32:38.420
Phil: So, when you were making your purchasing decision, and is that correct?
00:32:38.440 --> 00:32:39.800
Phil: Is that correct, first of all, my assumptions?
00:32:40.940 --> 00:32:41.780
Tom: Yes and no.
00:32:41.820 --> 00:32:43.720
Tom: It was related to...
00:32:45.400 --> 00:32:51.120
Tom: I didn't find it, but it was related to payment for building a computer.
00:32:52.000 --> 00:32:53.620
Phil: Sweet, sweet, sweet.
00:32:53.900 --> 00:32:59.980
Phil: So, you didn't do any research into the different platforms like Steam, VRKit or this or that?
00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:00.540
Tom: Well, I did.
00:33:00.560 --> 00:33:07.840
Tom: I did then, when I was considering getting such a thing, but also had some general knowledge of it.
00:33:08.200 --> 00:33:17.760
Tom: In terms of price, if you were getting this purely as a VR, PC VR headset, there is really no comparison.
00:33:17.780 --> 00:33:25.660
Tom: The closest two competitors are the Rift S, which runs at a significantly lower resolution.
00:33:26.900 --> 00:33:34.240
Tom: And the HP Reverb G2, which is about twice the price.
00:33:34.460 --> 00:33:41.140
Tom: So the Rift S is the same sort of price as the 256 GB version.
00:33:43.620 --> 00:33:50.100
Tom: so even that is more expensive than the Quest 256, 64 GB version, sorry.
00:33:50.640 --> 00:33:53.540
Tom: And the Reverb G2 is twice the price.
00:33:53.540 --> 00:34:00.400
Tom: Then if you are looking at ones like the Index, which isn't available in Australia anyway, that's like $3,000.
00:34:01.860 --> 00:34:07.060
Tom: So this actually has a nearly 4K screen.
00:34:07.500 --> 00:34:20.520
Tom: And the reason you want such a high resolution screen is because you were so close to the actual monitor, though in terms of sharpness, it may not matter that much due to the lenses.
00:34:22.220 --> 00:34:32.200
Tom: You want a tremendously high resolution because of the so-called screen door effect where you can easily see the spaces between each pixel.
00:34:32.900 --> 00:34:35.880
Tom: So that it is as if you are looking through a screen door.
00:34:37.540 --> 00:34:41.400
Phil: So would I I would be able to play Half-Life Alex on this?
00:34:41.420 --> 00:34:42.680
Phil: Yes, you would.
00:34:43.620 --> 00:34:46.160
Phil: Is there a Stanley Parable VR game?
00:34:46.180 --> 00:34:46.640
Phil: Who knows?
00:34:46.700 --> 00:34:47.180
Phil: I wonder.
00:34:48.660 --> 00:34:53.060
Phil: And in terms of watching other media on it, can you watch other media on it?
00:34:53.300 --> 00:34:54.100
Tom: Yes, you can.
00:34:54.380 --> 00:35:02.080
Tom: On cinema size screens and you can also watch 3D videos on it as well, obviously.
00:35:02.660 --> 00:35:06.800
Phil: So just while you're on that topic, the cinema size screens, how is that?
00:35:07.020 --> 00:35:07.660
Phil: Have you tried it?
00:35:08.000 --> 00:35:08.760
Tom: Yes, I have.
00:35:09.000 --> 00:35:15.580
Tom: And a 4K video on a massive screen looks incredible.
00:35:17.180 --> 00:35:28.080
Tom: It is very much just like you are in a cinema, but in a cinema that has a great projector, as long as the resolution of the video you're watching is high.
00:35:28.860 --> 00:35:38.760
Tom: And a lot of cinemas you go to, particularly these days, have horrendous projectors or the people working the projectors are not very good at setting them up.
00:35:39.340 --> 00:35:53.300
Tom: So if you have a high quality video source, then the experience in terms of fidelity is as good as a very well projected cinema.
00:35:54.360 --> 00:35:56.000
Phil: Okay, so now thank you for that.
00:35:56.020 --> 00:35:58.020
Phil: Onto the big questions then.
00:35:59.400 --> 00:36:02.760
Phil: Obviously it's a tremendous value compared to the current consoles.
00:36:03.120 --> 00:36:07.500
Phil: And the current consoles also have prohibitively high pricing for the games library.
00:36:07.520 --> 00:36:08.760
Phil: I mean, you know, so...
00:36:09.880 --> 00:36:14.600
Tom: And this is technically less than their prohibitively high prices at that.
00:36:14.620 --> 00:36:15.000
Phil: That's right.
00:36:15.500 --> 00:36:17.220
Tom: As overpriced as it is.
00:36:18.020 --> 00:36:21.140
Phil: And the Xbox currently has no games.
00:36:22.160 --> 00:36:25.100
Phil: You know, that are killer apps.
00:36:25.240 --> 00:36:26.640
Phil: You know, like, there's nothing out there.
00:36:26.980 --> 00:36:35.260
Phil: The PlayStation 5 is apparently fairly janky, but it has the appeal of their new super cool haptic controller.
00:36:36.600 --> 00:36:38.460
Phil: But still no major killer apps.
00:36:38.680 --> 00:36:47.840
Phil: So, you know, here you've got a complete library of, I'm assuming at this point, tens of thousands of games available to you at varying ranges of value.
00:36:48.780 --> 00:37:07.320
Phil: The reason why I've never bought a VR kit is because I've never tried one, and I didn't want to go out and spend several hundred dollars on something, get at home and find out that it just either doesn't work or it makes me nauseous or you know, so how is it working for you?
00:37:07.580 --> 00:37:30.860
Tom: Well, that was the timing wise, one of the reasons I thought this would be a good opportunity to do it because in spite of the Facebook requirement, this has been massively hyped up and has elsewhere, not in Australia, there was no issue getting it for me, at least in terms of timing, been difficult for people to acquire.
00:37:30.900 --> 00:38:00.020
Tom: So judging by the amount of money that the original Quest were still going for used, I thought that if this did turn out to be totally unusable, it would probably still be possible to resell without too much of a loss, perhaps not over what it would cost to go and try out VR for $20 or $50 at a place in the city that displays VR, for example.
00:38:01.440 --> 00:38:09.900
Tom: So I thought the timing was good on that, and I was very much surprised at how well I have got on in VR so far.
00:38:09.920 --> 00:38:14.200
Tom: And it may be because I am used to living in a state of nausea.
00:38:16.960 --> 00:38:18.360
Phil: Did I bring up the word nausea?
00:38:18.380 --> 00:38:23.280
Phil: Because I was just thinking, you know, this morning it was like incredibly hot here, and it made me feel nauseous.
00:38:23.380 --> 00:38:25.720
Phil: And I've still got a really bad headache.
00:38:26.260 --> 00:38:30.000
Phil: So even thinking about VR at this point makes me want to hurl.
00:38:30.940 --> 00:38:37.700
Phil: So, but you, first of all, so it doesn't have a negative physical effect on you?
00:38:38.280 --> 00:38:39.640
Tom: Well, it depends on what.
00:38:40.240 --> 00:38:47.920
Tom: In things like racing, I do get on sudden acceleration, not so much on anything else.
00:38:48.380 --> 00:38:51.620
Tom: A slight feeling of motion sickness, but it is very little.
00:38:53.020 --> 00:38:54.040
Tom: It is manageable.
00:38:54.500 --> 00:39:00.220
Tom: In some, in free movement, things turning can be an issue.
00:39:00.320 --> 00:39:06.420
Tom: And I have been avoiding those sorts of games to begin with as I continue to acclimatize.
00:39:08.600 --> 00:39:19.920
Tom: Beyond that, other than my eyes getting used to staring at a new screen, even though that isn't really the sensation you have when using it, that is what you're literally doing.
00:39:20.320 --> 00:39:22.160
Tom: I haven't really had many effects.
00:39:22.160 --> 00:39:31.480
Tom: The main effects I've had from it have been from the weight of the device itself and the original strap that it comes with.
00:39:32.240 --> 00:39:35.540
Phil: Yeah, so I was going to ask, the process is on board as well.
00:39:35.560 --> 00:39:37.460
Phil: So surely that creates heat.
00:39:39.020 --> 00:40:03.460
Tom: Yeah, it is so far in my use, because if I am using an energetic game at all, which has usually been the main games I've been playing, my face and head heat up as well, I haven't really noticed much heat, because you are only touching the device directly through the foam surface that is pressed against your face.
00:40:04.460 --> 00:40:13.440
Tom: If you touch the device itself with your hands, you can feel that it is certainly hotter than room temperature, but it's not that hot.
00:40:13.960 --> 00:40:20.780
Tom: I don't think that is particularly an issue, at least if you are liable to warm up when you're actually using it.
00:40:20.840 --> 00:40:35.160
Tom: But in terms of weight with the default strap, it's again another advantage was it is one of the lightest VR headsets, but with the default strap it is that the vast majority of the weight is balanced on the front of your face.
00:40:35.640 --> 00:40:50.220
Tom: So with the default strap, unless you use a trick to push down the sides, the majority of weight for me anyway was basically on my cheekbones near my nose.
00:40:51.480 --> 00:40:57.840
Tom: So that resulted in a reasonable amount of fatigue for my face muscles.
00:40:58.800 --> 00:41:05.220
Tom: Doing the strap thing trick helped a lot, but it then put a lot of the weight onto the neck itself.
00:41:05.700 --> 00:41:13.840
Tom: So I ended up buying the tremendously overpriced elite strap by Oculus.
00:41:14.040 --> 00:41:16.940
Tom: It was simultaneously incredibly overpriced.
00:41:16.960 --> 00:41:18.080
Tom: I believe it is $79.
00:41:19.740 --> 00:41:38.160
Tom: And yet worth it, because that is essentially it replaces the elastic side straps with two plastic arms that are attached to a plastic arm, the back and two rubber cushions, which they're attached to.
00:41:38.440 --> 00:42:13.520
Tom: And you can tighten that using a circle, which you twist in either direction, and that essentially pulls the rigid straps closer and further apart, which being rigid obviously then distributes the weight to the back of your head as well, so that you end up with a much more centred mass, which obviously thus removes the stress from your neck, as well as without it placing all of the weight on your face as well.
00:42:14.060 --> 00:42:29.820
Tom: So if your issue with it is either is, once you have worked out how to get the weight off your face, so it's a little bit more evenly distributed, if you still end up with that having a lot of weight on your neck, then that would be likely to solve that problem.
00:42:30.140 --> 00:42:49.200
Tom: And in looking at reviews of these straps and all of this thing, I am surprised by how little into detail they go as to where the adjustments end up redistributing the weight to, which should be the starting point for all of these things.
00:42:49.240 --> 00:42:59.000
Tom: But clearly this sort of descriptive language is apparently not in the skill set for tech nerds to be able to express.
00:43:00.780 --> 00:43:11.260
Tom: So you have to just judge it by how logically physics would dictate that altering the structure of the device would end up distributing the weight.
00:43:13.020 --> 00:43:22.600
Phil: So in terms of the effect of it, so physically you're fine with it, now you've got the good strap.
00:43:22.820 --> 00:43:26.520
Phil: In terms of the nausea, we've talked about that, doesn't really affect you as much.
00:43:27.160 --> 00:43:34.660
Phil: In terms of it being a game changer for how you interact with games, does it work?
00:43:35.200 --> 00:43:48.240
Tom: Well, before that, we get to that, that would be, I would argue, predominantly the thing that is most taboo in talking about and selling VR to people, which is the controls, and we'll get to why that is in a moment.
00:43:49.340 --> 00:43:53.460
Tom: But we should, I mentioned the high resolution of the screen.
00:43:53.840 --> 00:44:37.560
Tom: The other great thing about the screen is, once you get into the sweet spot of it, unlike many headsets, in my experience anyway, I don't mean my experience with other headsets, but what people have said, once I'm in the sweet spot where everything is properly in focus and there is no colour blending from lens distortion and that sort of thing, if you look around with your eyes to the corners of the screen, they look just as sharp as the centre of the screen, so there is no weird sort of distortion effect, which would be, for me, tremendously annoying and probably results in eye strain.
00:44:40.060 --> 00:44:41.960
Tom: There are two disadvantages to the screen.
00:44:42.000 --> 00:44:44.340
Tom: One is it is LCD, not OLED.
00:44:46.300 --> 00:44:53.600
Tom: So it is very, for brightly coloured games that are very well lit, they look fine.
00:44:53.860 --> 00:45:05.140
Tom: For things that are a bit more grayscale or darker, then it does not look as good as an IPS monitor or an OLED television, as an example at all.
00:45:06.420 --> 00:45:09.280
Tom: The other disadvantage is the field of view.
00:45:10.400 --> 00:45:26.260
Tom: And again, this is subjective because it depends entirely on what your peripheral vision is like and also your IPD, the distance between your pupils, and whether they match up well with the settings on the headset.
00:45:27.700 --> 00:45:46.960
Tom: For me, I have very good peripheral vision, and using it when it's perfectly aligned on the middle setting for the distance between my pupils, it is very much like you are looking through goggles, which is not an issue for me at all, and I actually prefer that.
00:45:47.060 --> 00:46:01.300
Tom: It would be a weird sensation if I had this massive thing stuck on my face, which extends to the corners of my eyes, and I could see beyond where I would actually be able to see with this stuck on my face.
00:46:01.320 --> 00:46:12.980
Tom: I would actually find that more intrusive and that would be immersive and breaking for me, whereas other people might have the opposite effect, but it is a low field of view.
00:46:13.040 --> 00:46:30.860
Tom: So the money, other than the data collected by Facebook, the LCD screen and the small depth of field will be two areas where they are saving a lot of money compared to something like the Reverb G2 as an example.
00:46:33.500 --> 00:46:36.100
Phil: What about the hand controls themselves?
00:46:36.120 --> 00:46:43.660
Tom: Well, that's what we're getting to now, and to me, this is the most exciting part of VR.
00:46:43.680 --> 00:46:51.500
Tom: The immersion of the screen is absolutely there, for instance, if you are playing Superhot as an example.
00:46:52.040 --> 00:46:59.340
Tom: And one other thing I should add is a lot of the reviews are pretty critical of the sound.
00:46:59.480 --> 00:47:19.620
Tom: And absolutely in terms of being a very flat sort of audio with really weak basses, and basically they're like high quality laptop speakers or $100 USB desktop speakers by Logitech or something like that.
00:47:19.640 --> 00:47:27.340
Tom: They are that sort of standard of quality, though they are clearer than those, arguably just because they're right next to your ear.
00:47:27.700 --> 00:47:32.860
Tom: So they have the advantage of being like open headphones in a way.
00:47:33.160 --> 00:47:47.640
Tom: But what is really impressive about them is, given the cheap like quality of them, how well they are able to simulate a really accurate surround sound.
00:47:47.660 --> 00:48:11.800
Tom: So in Superhot, for example, if you are shot at and you dodge out of the way of a bullet, and it goes very close to your left ear, as an example, you can hear it going past your ear and behind you off into the distance in a perfectly natural way, exactly as you would expect the sound to behave.
00:48:11.820 --> 00:48:17.200
Tom: So the 3D audio that comes with it is tremendously impressive.
00:48:17.220 --> 00:48:24.380
Tom: Obviously, if you have decent earphones or headphones of any sort, you would immediately use them.
00:48:24.860 --> 00:48:36.260
Tom: But if you don't, the main thing that you would want out of it is its ability to do 3-dimensional surround sound well, and it does it incredibly well.
00:48:37.700 --> 00:48:43.220
Tom: So that was a huge surprise that it was as effective at surround sound as it was.
00:48:44.100 --> 00:48:47.380
Tom: So that aspect of immersion is fantastic as well.
00:48:47.480 --> 00:48:53.260
Tom: And again, in Superhot, actually a better example is Space Channel 5.
00:48:53.280 --> 00:49:22.480
Tom: In Space Channel 5, when you are being attacked by a comical giant robot, and it is punching you and you have to dodge out of the way, or an asteroid is coming at you, there is definitely the sensation that there is something coming to hit you and in Superhot, as another example at one moment, you have to jump off a building and that was slightly awkward as well.
00:49:23.340 --> 00:49:38.380
Tom: And if you are prone to being frightened of crashing a car, I can imagine that in Dirt Rally, you may have, or other racing sims, that would also be an intense experience.
00:49:39.140 --> 00:49:49.760
Tom: Judging by my bicycle riding escapades and my go-karting, I have no fear of dying in a vehicular car crash.
00:49:50.020 --> 00:50:02.060
Tom: So when I end up rolling in VR or driving into a wall, it is no more frightening or disturbing than it is on a monitor.
00:50:04.160 --> 00:50:07.440
Tom: So, but absolutely that immersion thing is there.
00:50:07.460 --> 00:50:23.220
Tom: But the best part of VR and the thing that I have found most enjoyable is, and is the best kept and most hidden secret of VR, and you can see why this is taboo, it's because gamers are fucking dickheads.
00:50:23.620 --> 00:50:27.520
Tom: VR is the Wii in 4K.
00:50:29.020 --> 00:50:51.600
Tom: The touch controllers, they use inside out tracking, so there are cameras on the headset that are streaming directly to Mark Zuckerberg, as well as filming what your controllers are doing, and the accuracy is on the level of, I would say, the, sorry, better than the Wii Motion Plus.
00:50:53.180 --> 00:51:05.460
Tom: The only disadvantage is, because it is inside out tracking, if you move your hands to beyond the peripheral vision, so called, of the headset, so behind you as an example, you will lose tracking.
00:51:05.480 --> 00:51:18.840
Tom: So if you want to throw something, you can't really move it back behind your head, and throw it over your head as you would naturally, if you were doing a baseball pitch as an example, because you will lose tracking there.
00:51:19.120 --> 00:51:21.500
Tom: That is the only limitation to the tracking.
00:51:22.620 --> 00:51:26.080
Phil: I think another limitation would be, there would be no bowling games.
00:51:26.900 --> 00:51:28.460
Tom: No, there are bowling games, because...
00:51:28.480 --> 00:51:30.640
Phil: Because your arm goes back behind your body.
00:51:30.860 --> 00:51:33.600
Tom: But when you were bowling, you were naturally looking down.
00:51:33.840 --> 00:51:36.800
Tom: So because the cameras are in the corners of the headset...
00:51:38.940 --> 00:51:41.880
Phil: Well, you should be looking straight ahead at all times.
00:51:42.120 --> 00:51:43.740
Phil: You shouldn't be looking down when you're bowling.
00:51:44.640 --> 00:51:45.220
Phil: You're not gonna...
00:51:45.600 --> 00:51:49.980
Phil: If you're worried about stepping over the line, then you're not really a professional bowler anyway.
00:51:51.660 --> 00:51:52.980
Tom: But your head is lowered.
00:51:53.460 --> 00:51:55.140
Phil: Your head is lowered, yeah.
00:51:55.400 --> 00:51:57.340
Tom: Listen, think about where...
00:51:57.360 --> 00:51:59.660
Tom: Let me just try this out here.
00:51:59.680 --> 00:52:00.860
Phil: All right, here we go.
00:52:01.600 --> 00:52:03.280
Phil: This is great, great radio.
00:52:05.620 --> 00:52:06.780
Phil: So Tom's now attempting to bowl.
00:52:06.800 --> 00:52:26.720
Tom: No, I can tell you, if you are throwing a baseball pitch, or bowling in cricket, or throwing in cricket to the wicket keeper and so forth, not only is your hand behind your head, you're also arching your back, right?
00:52:27.200 --> 00:52:34.420
Tom: So your hand ends up much further back than your hand ends up in bowling.
00:52:34.800 --> 00:52:40.360
Tom: Whereas in bowling, when you are in a sort of semi-kneeling position, you're talking about ten pin bowling, right?
00:52:40.380 --> 00:52:41.440
Tom: Yep, ten pin bowling.
00:52:42.000 --> 00:52:52.080
Tom: And your head is forward, and your arm is back, you're still your head, what you need to imagine is this.
00:52:52.080 --> 00:52:55.660
Tom: So the headset, the cameras are in the corners of the headset, right?
00:52:56.980 --> 00:52:59.960
Tom: And they can film to some degree behind themselves.
00:53:01.740 --> 00:53:02.180
Phil: Oh, okay.
00:53:02.200 --> 00:53:04.380
Phil: So they're not just forward facing then?
00:53:04.600 --> 00:53:06.540
Tom: No, they're not.
00:53:06.680 --> 00:53:14.780
Tom: Stick your arm out behind you in a bowling position, look with peripheral vision, and you should be able to just see it.
00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:15.720
Phil: Yes, you're right.
00:53:15.740 --> 00:53:21.840
Tom: Now if you do that, if you're in the position of throwing the ball to the wicket keeper, you should not be able to see your hand.
00:53:25.880 --> 00:53:38.180
Phil: Okay, so that's really good, because I imagine that bowling is quite an easy game to replicate, as I know from video games, because it's very simple physics and simple visuals.
00:53:38.820 --> 00:53:45.320
Phil: So I'd love to have a 10-pin bowling alley accessible to me at all times.
00:53:45.680 --> 00:53:48.860
Phil: Except I guess you've got to throw a virtual ball, that's the only downside.
00:53:49.240 --> 00:53:52.220
Phil: Well, you could be holding a real one, or could you with these controls?
00:53:52.800 --> 00:53:56.440
Tom: Well, they do have haptic feedback.
00:53:56.860 --> 00:54:01.860
Tom: it works very well or just feels like rumble depending on the game.
00:54:03.640 --> 00:54:20.120
Tom: And the only disadvantage, I would say, that these controllers have, which make them feel not as sorry, which make them feel as if they may be an area where some money was saved.
00:54:20.140 --> 00:54:21.100
Tom: It's not functional.
00:54:21.920 --> 00:54:23.840
Tom: It is in that they are very light.
00:54:24.100 --> 00:54:32.160
Tom: So when you're picking up heavy objects in VR, it does feel a little bit weird because the controllers are so light.
00:54:32.180 --> 00:54:36.420
Tom: They are lighter than the Wii controllers with batteries in them.
00:54:37.200 --> 00:54:41.000
Tom: Significantly lighter than the Wii Motion Plus controllers.
00:54:41.140 --> 00:54:42.920
Tom: They are really, really light.
00:54:43.860 --> 00:54:49.560
Tom: And the haptic feedback rumble is also not that strong.
00:54:50.640 --> 00:54:51.920
Tom: It is really accurate.
00:54:51.940 --> 00:55:07.120
Tom: So for instance, if you are shooting a bow in death, I think it's called as an example, you will feel the bow string sort of run across your hand in a direction as an example.
00:55:07.180 --> 00:55:10.200
Tom: So in games that make use of it, it has a great effect.
00:55:10.520 --> 00:55:18.580
Tom: But like the weight of the controller themselves, it would be great if the motor was a little bit stronger, but it is still great.
00:55:18.600 --> 00:55:26.580
Tom: And the tracking is absolutely amazing and incredibly impressive for inside out tracking as far as I'm aware.
00:55:26.960 --> 00:55:31.660
Tom: And I have not had any issues in terms of tracking from games.
00:55:32.480 --> 00:55:38.880
Tom: There are awkward things in games themselves that I think come about from the games rather than the tracking.
00:55:38.900 --> 00:55:42.800
Tom: For instance, throwing in super hot is incredibly awkward.
00:55:43.560 --> 00:55:49.620
Tom: If you're just trying to throw something forwards, it feels really random what you end up doing.
00:55:49.920 --> 00:55:59.920
Tom: If you are sort of flicking things like a frisbee in a smooth fluid motion, you can have some degree of predictability in what you're doing.
00:56:01.060 --> 00:56:03.320
Tom: But throwing there is really awkward.
00:56:05.100 --> 00:56:11.240
Tom: There is a demo of a sports, Wii Sports-like game that I tried.
00:56:11.760 --> 00:56:15.960
Tom: And the tracking is really impressive in that.
00:56:16.440 --> 00:56:19.180
Tom: And you can do bowling in that, and it worked perfectly fine.
00:56:19.740 --> 00:56:24.660
Tom: There was a bowling game, and that was a big issue, not unlike Superhot.
00:56:24.680 --> 00:56:36.420
Tom: And again, it is also probably caused, in some degree, by the basic limitations of inside-out tracking without being able to throw with proper technique.
00:56:36.620 --> 00:56:43.380
Tom: But there's a tennis mini game in it, and I am a regular wall tennis player.
00:56:43.420 --> 00:56:57.060
Tom: And unlike Wii Sports as an example, you can actually play tennis properly in it and have totally predictable ball behaviour from how you are hitting it.
00:56:57.060 --> 00:56:59.600
Tom: It is really, really impressive.
00:56:59.820 --> 00:57:00.580
Phil: That's exciting.
00:57:00.680 --> 00:57:01.440
Phil: That's exciting.
00:57:02.140 --> 00:57:03.260
Phil: What about grenade throwing?
00:57:04.360 --> 00:57:05.360
Tom: Grenade throwing?
00:57:05.640 --> 00:57:09.500
Tom: I'm not sure I've played any games in which you were throwing a grenade.
00:57:10.280 --> 00:57:17.160
Tom: Oh, wait, no, I played one second or so of what's it called?
00:57:17.480 --> 00:57:21.760
Tom: Pavlov Shack, which is on SideQuest.
00:57:21.780 --> 00:57:34.140
Tom: And if you do get it, make sure you get SideQuest because essentially there is the Oculus Store, then there is SideQuest, and you have to set up a developer account to be able to access SideQuest.
00:57:34.160 --> 00:57:41.480
Tom: But SideQuest is basically all the non-Facebook approved content that isn't curated by Facebook.
00:57:41.500 --> 00:57:49.880
Tom: So there is a huge amount of other games on there and a lot of other free content as well that is not there on the Oculus Storefront.
00:57:51.360 --> 00:57:58.020
Tom: And yes, grenade throwing in that was awkward like throwing objects in Superhot, though not as bad.
00:57:58.340 --> 00:58:02.420
Tom: And that is one game that I did have some issue with movement in.
00:58:02.760 --> 00:58:07.700
Tom: So I did not play that for much longer and just gone.
00:58:08.500 --> 00:58:27.120
Phil: What about games that where you basically are sitting on a couch and you're using the two hand controls as if it's basically just a PlayStation controller in two parts, but you're using your head to kind of see around, look up and down and all that sort of thing.
00:58:27.140 --> 00:58:28.500
Phil: I mean, is that a thing?
00:58:28.520 --> 00:58:56.820
Tom: Well, the impressive thing is, and for anyone who may be in a wheelchair, don't let that put you off playing VR because contrary to what even the game instructions will tell you, so many games can absolutely be played sitting down, like even something like Beat Saber, because obviously only the Valve Index, I think that's the only VR headset that has full body tracking.
00:58:57.180 --> 00:58:58.980
Tom: So nothing is tracking your legs.
00:58:59.860 --> 00:59:10.700
Tom: So you just calibrate your height to your seated position and you can easily play Beat Saber as long as you can lean left to right and forwards in your chair.
00:59:10.720 --> 00:59:16.920
Tom: You'll be able to dodge to the left, dodge to the right and dodge obstacles that are above your head height.
00:59:17.320 --> 00:59:25.160
Tom: So even games that seemingly would require you to be standing and more movement, you can actually play sitting down.
00:59:26.980 --> 00:59:30.780
Phil: So, I mean, that's an interesting point for people who are in wheelchairs.
00:59:31.200 --> 00:59:37.320
Phil: I mean, this opens up, in a way, a whole different world of experiences, wouldn't it?
00:59:37.560 --> 00:59:41.780
Phil: I mean, or is that just the same as watching a movie sort of thing?
00:59:42.400 --> 00:59:52.100
Tom: Well, it is not at all the same as watching a film because the brain absolutely does believe that it is in the environment that it is actually in.
00:59:54.360 --> 01:00:09.980
Phil: And a game or experience that people talk about Beat Saber as a must play, people talk about Super Hot as a must play, but the experience that I've heard the most about is the Google Maps Street View where you can basically walk around neighborhoods.
01:00:10.980 --> 01:00:11.720
Phil: Have you tried that?
01:00:11.740 --> 01:00:13.720
Tom: I have tried it.
01:00:13.740 --> 01:00:20.040
Tom: I have not walked around neighborhoods, but I have walked around a zoomed out area of the Great Canyon.
01:00:20.460 --> 01:00:21.080
Tom: What's it called?
01:00:21.200 --> 01:00:23.060
Tom: Grand Canyon.
01:00:23.900 --> 01:00:25.320
Phil: And it worked sufficiently?
01:00:25.540 --> 01:00:25.860
Tom: Yep.
01:00:26.500 --> 01:00:31.220
Tom: It is, I think, as a surreal experience, all the more enjoyable.
01:00:32.060 --> 01:00:37.300
Phil: Yeah, because usually people just talk about going to places where they used to go to school or where they used to live.
01:00:38.380 --> 01:00:39.860
Tom: Instead, be a giant.
01:00:40.880 --> 01:00:41.900
Tom: That's my advice.
01:00:44.520 --> 01:00:45.360
Phil: So that's what you did.
01:00:45.680 --> 01:00:46.040
Tom: Yes.
01:00:47.500 --> 01:01:19.520
Tom: And as far as surreal experiences are concerned, I need to look up more games, but I hope that this is being used for the surreal, because probably the best experience I've had on it, and I need to play it more, because I did this at the end of a session where my own natural orthostatic intolerance causing me to be in a state of severe nausea, and motion sickness was already to some degree there.
01:01:19.800 --> 01:01:30.960
Tom: So I couldn't play it for very long, as well as the slight motion sickness effect that I have from certain types of Moon VR, is a game called The Under Presence.
01:01:30.980 --> 01:01:39.060
Tom: And it has, the opening is a really surreal scene, and that's not what's special about it.
01:01:39.080 --> 01:01:43.400
Tom: What's special about it is the way you move in it is totally surreal.
01:01:43.600 --> 01:01:59.540
Tom: So you will essentially be pointing ahead, grabbing a hold of the world in the distance, and distorting it and pulling it towards you, and you will end up where you have pulled the world to you.
01:01:59.900 --> 01:02:04.260
Tom: And it is this amazing surreal effect.
01:02:04.920 --> 01:02:15.360
Tom: So I really hope that there are a lot of surreal indie games out there that may be doing interesting things in VR because it is a perfect effect.
01:02:15.380 --> 01:02:34.460
Tom: It's a pity, in fact, that surrealism has moved to away from random indie stuff that might be making use of this to massive commercial enterprises, such as music videos and K-pop, that would be less likely to be doing stuff like this.
01:02:34.640 --> 01:02:44.440
Phil: Well, look, if you look at the options there for recreating hallucinogenic experiences, installation art, you know, things like that...
01:02:44.460 --> 01:02:52.220
Tom: Well, I have downloaded Anne Frank VR as an example of that, but I'm yet to play it.
01:02:52.400 --> 01:02:52.840
Phil: Okay.
01:02:53.780 --> 01:03:01.680
Phil: Is there a lot of free content that's semi-educational or artistic that's available from governments or galaxies?
01:03:01.700 --> 01:03:02.560
Phil: What are those things called?
01:03:02.600 --> 01:03:03.360
Phil: Art galaxies.
01:03:03.740 --> 01:03:04.400
Phil: Art galleries.
01:03:04.420 --> 01:03:05.280
Tom: Art galaxies.
01:03:06.440 --> 01:03:08.340
Phil: Is there free stuff like that that's available?
01:03:09.680 --> 01:03:17.560
Tom: Well, the under-presence is free, and I'm not sure if that's just a 30-minute demo to a full thing, or if it is a full thing.
01:03:17.760 --> 01:03:19.860
Tom: There's Anne Frank VR.
01:03:19.860 --> 01:03:20.640
Tom: There are...
01:03:21.560 --> 01:03:22.800
Tom: They're outside...
01:03:22.820 --> 01:03:26.600
Tom: That's the two main things I've discovered on the Oculus Quest store.
01:03:26.980 --> 01:03:34.320
Tom: Outside of Oculus, when you go into the realm of PC VR, then there is a huge amount of stuff.
01:03:35.600 --> 01:03:40.400
Tom: So if you can connect to a computer, then there should be...
01:03:40.400 --> 01:03:43.620
Tom: There is absolutely a huge range of random shit.
01:03:44.560 --> 01:04:02.620
Tom: But I have not been able to explore that properly, because I have been playing the version of Space Channel 5 that I have wanted to be playing since I originally played the Space Channel 5 demo that came with a Ministry of Sounds CD.
01:04:04.160 --> 01:04:06.040
Phil: Now, do you want to get into Space Channel 5?
01:04:06.460 --> 01:04:10.620
Tom: Well, we will unless you have any other questions on the headset itself.
01:04:10.660 --> 01:04:12.060
Phil: I have a couple of questions.
01:04:12.900 --> 01:04:18.940
Phil: So right now, one of the great things about the new consoles and the Switch is that you're...
01:04:19.920 --> 01:04:22.100
Phil: Well, this is a lie.
01:04:23.380 --> 01:04:25.180
Phil: Because of updates and things like that.
01:04:26.200 --> 01:04:29.720
Phil: But like, if on the Switch, for example, there's very few updates.
01:04:29.740 --> 01:04:38.960
Phil: So, you know, if you're going into a game, you're usually playing within, I'd say, 15 seconds of turning on the device.
01:04:40.440 --> 01:04:42.740
Phil: Especially if you're in handheld mode.
01:04:43.620 --> 01:04:47.060
Phil: What's the entry process like from...
01:04:47.160 --> 01:04:48.940
Phil: Oh, I want to play a VR game.
01:04:49.480 --> 01:04:53.400
Phil: From that thought to playing the actual game, what's the process like?
01:04:53.860 --> 01:04:55.560
Tom: It totally depends on the game.
01:04:56.440 --> 01:05:01.760
Tom: Some have basically instantaneous loading time.
01:05:01.800 --> 01:05:05.240
Tom: Some will take 20 seconds to load.
01:05:06.000 --> 01:05:11.360
Tom: Once the games have actually loaded though, there usually isn't much loading within the games themselves.
01:05:11.540 --> 01:05:16.160
Phil: But like, boot up time, like you go to turn it on, I assume there's an on button on the device itself.
01:05:16.560 --> 01:05:31.740
Tom: So for the console itself, you stick it on your head, there will be a three dot sign for a few seconds, then it will be on if you have already set up the area in which you're able to move around.
01:05:32.040 --> 01:05:37.500
Tom: So booting up the console itself is very, very quick.
01:05:37.840 --> 01:05:50.180
Phil: So if you're basically going to be playing this device in one area, like your game room or office or whatever, there's no need to recalibrate it every time you put it on?
01:05:50.680 --> 01:05:51.180
Tom: Correct.
01:05:53.800 --> 01:05:55.240
Phil: Have you tried using this outdoors?
01:05:56.480 --> 01:06:07.780
Tom: You're not meant to, which I think is due to direct sunlight potentially getting on the lenses, though how it would be likely to do that through your face.
01:06:08.800 --> 01:06:11.720
Tom: And the plastic of the headset itself, I'm not sure.
01:06:11.740 --> 01:06:14.920
Tom: I have played it in several different rooms.
01:06:14.940 --> 01:06:16.600
Tom: I have not played it outside.
01:06:16.640 --> 01:06:19.520
Tom: I may play it on the veranda at some point.
01:06:20.360 --> 01:06:21.920
Phil: Would you be able to...
01:06:23.180 --> 01:06:31.980
Phil: I wonder if there's a virtual office environment, so you could actually be using Word or Excel or Windows for that matter.
01:06:32.000 --> 01:06:44.540
Tom: There are indeed virtual office environments you can get from it, and I believe some of them can also function as an augmented reality office so that you can see stuff on your desk and so on and so forth.
01:06:44.720 --> 01:06:44.980
Phil: Yeah.
01:06:45.100 --> 01:06:56.800
Phil: And in terms of other applications, like communications or applications, like Zoom or Skype, things like that, I mean, would you know if you were able to use it?
01:06:56.820 --> 01:07:02.320
Phil: Are you able to use vanilla Skype and it's just basically on the screen in front of you if you're having a video conference?
01:07:02.840 --> 01:07:04.160
Tom: I'm not sure about that.
01:07:04.680 --> 01:07:13.060
Tom: There are certainly some of the office programs have video conferencing and collaborative connective stuff available.
01:07:13.060 --> 01:07:24.860
Tom: I'm not sure if you can use standalone stuff though, but you should be able to, I assume, through things like SideQuest because it is just an Android system.
01:07:26.060 --> 01:07:36.280
Phil: Games that, well, indeed a video conference full of people wearing quests on their face probably isn't useful because you just see a bunch of people with quests on their face.
01:07:37.420 --> 01:07:43.660
Phil: Games that have you fly, have you had any flying games like Sky or Children of Light?
01:07:43.680 --> 01:07:50.700
Tom: I have flown in a car to my death several times.
01:07:51.720 --> 01:07:55.140
Phil: Driving, you don't have a gaming rig with a steering wheel or anything?
01:07:56.060 --> 01:08:00.100
Tom: I have a Logitech Driving Force GT.
01:08:00.340 --> 01:08:02.680
Phil: And is this thing compatible with any of those?
01:08:04.300 --> 01:08:05.900
Tom: You can't use it with the Quest itself.
01:08:06.300 --> 01:08:10.220
Tom: You can use it with playing those games via PC VR.
01:08:11.540 --> 01:08:12.400
Phil: Have you tried that yet?
01:08:12.840 --> 01:08:13.580
Tom: Yes, I have.
01:08:13.640 --> 01:08:15.340
Tom: I have played Dirt Rally.
01:08:16.100 --> 01:08:16.400
Phil: And?
01:08:17.340 --> 01:08:18.980
Tom: It works amazingly well.
01:08:19.460 --> 01:08:23.760
Tom: The big advantage to it is corner turning.
01:08:23.940 --> 01:08:46.200
Tom: You can much more easily see when you should be starting to turn due to obviously the night and day difference in depth perception, but also the huge improvement to peripheral vision, because even though it's not as wide as your actual peripheral vision, it's obviously much better than a monitor.
01:08:46.220 --> 01:08:54.860
Tom: To get the same sort of peripheral vision, you would need to be using a 3D monitor setup, and you would not have the depth perception there.
01:08:55.540 --> 01:09:00.220
Tom: In a game like Dirt Rally, this would not be an issue in a track racing game.
01:09:00.440 --> 01:09:22.320
Tom: The big disadvantage to it is it really shows off, which you can feel and see normally, but it doesn't feel viscerally, to misuse the term as wrong, is things like troughs and gutters along the side of the road, half a meter or a meter deep.
01:09:22.340 --> 01:09:23.740
Tom: They're these massive things.
01:09:24.100 --> 01:09:37.020
Tom: If you drop a wheel or two wheels into it, the car will just be a little bit tilted to the side, and you will not be losing that much control of the car, which is okay on a monitor.
01:09:37.320 --> 01:09:51.760
Tom: In VR, it feels a little bit ridiculous and stupid that you're not just falling off the side of the road or rolling, or the car is not at least at a 30 to 40 degree angle and going totally out of control.
01:09:52.100 --> 01:09:59.320
Tom: So that is actually arguably an immersive immersion braking aspect of VR that occurs.
01:09:59.560 --> 01:10:14.240
Tom: But it is amazing to be sitting in the car next to the co-driver, and in terms of if you want to improve your sim racing ability, it massively helps.
01:10:14.620 --> 01:10:23.660
Tom: After doing a little bit of racing in VR, going back to using a monitor, I was actually much better on corner turning.
01:10:23.900 --> 01:10:34.440
Tom: I was much more aggressive and aggressive in a way that didn't result in me entering the corner far too soon and crashing into something.
01:10:34.460 --> 01:10:51.200
Tom: So for sim racing, if you can deal with the motion sickness, which I can as long as I'm not playing for too long, it is absolutely a useful thing to have and it is significantly more fun obviously.
01:10:51.420 --> 01:11:01.400
Tom: But it does for something like Dirt Rally have drawbacks of showing off some of the unrealistic aspects of the physics in the game.
01:11:01.960 --> 01:11:05.260
Phil: That reminds me, I've been meaning to talk to you about cruise control.
01:11:05.280 --> 01:11:09.260
Phil: I'll just break out for a trademark banter here to give your voice a bit of a rest.
01:11:09.920 --> 01:11:19.180
Phil: I've got a fairly new car, a Honda Civic, and I haven't had a new car, like a new car, a new car since like the year 2000.
01:11:19.580 --> 01:11:26.820
Phil: I've had newer cars than a car that's made in the year 2000 obviously, but I haven't had one that's got all the new tech in it.
01:11:27.060 --> 01:11:39.480
Phil: And this car has got a lot of pep, but I've completely gamified my driving experience now because it's got this thing that's telling you how much fuel you're using every single second.
01:11:40.480 --> 01:11:42.720
Phil: And then you can work on lowering your average.
01:11:43.120 --> 01:11:46.080
Phil: So instead of wanting a big number, you want a little number.
01:11:46.100 --> 01:11:53.200
Phil: So I've been using cruise control and just all these different eco modes and everything while I'm driving.
01:11:54.640 --> 01:12:01.420
Phil: It has a sports mode, and the car has incredible acceleration and handling and all the rest of it.
01:12:01.440 --> 01:12:08.620
Phil: But I haven't been using it because I'm obsessed with getting my, my petrol consumption as low as possible because it's a game to me, right?
01:12:08.640 --> 01:12:11.280
Phil: So I'm like going the speed limit and things like that now.
01:12:11.680 --> 01:12:17.560
Phil: And I've got my speed limit, I've got my gas consumption down to 5.4 liters per hundred kilometers.
01:12:18.080 --> 01:12:18.940
Phil: Yep.
01:12:19.560 --> 01:12:27.240
Phil: In the car, when you first get into it, it's saying, oh, you know, like 6.5, and I'm down to 5.4 consistently now, which I'm happy about.
01:12:28.380 --> 01:12:36.640
Phil: And it's funny because, you know, I'm saving, you know, resources, and I'm also driving more safely as a result, which is really unfortunate because it's got a lot of pickup.
01:12:37.620 --> 01:12:46.740
Phil: But one of the things about the steering wheel, which is another thing that's just, you know, it's a 2019 Honda Civic, I think, might be 2018.
01:12:48.140 --> 01:12:58.540
Phil: On the steering wheel itself, it has two directional pads on the steering wheel, as well as five other face buttons.
01:12:59.400 --> 01:13:06.480
Phil: So while you're driving, you've essentially got a game controller that is there that you're controlling with your thumbs.
01:13:06.740 --> 01:13:11.280
Tom: So it's in fact like the Driving Force GT, which has a D-pad on it.
01:13:11.820 --> 01:13:16.200
Phil: Yeah, I guess, but I've never used cruise control to this extent.
01:13:16.220 --> 01:13:20.040
Phil: I'm using it almost compulsively with my foot off the accelerator.
01:13:20.480 --> 01:13:23.760
Phil: Like my foot is just completely away from the accelerator in the brake.
01:13:24.160 --> 01:13:28.360
Phil: And I'm using cruise control pretty much to handle all of my acceleration.
01:13:28.980 --> 01:13:31.780
Phil: Because I have a fairly predictable commute.
01:13:31.800 --> 01:13:33.300
Phil: I go to the same place every single day.
01:13:33.320 --> 01:13:34.900
Phil: I come home from the same place every single day.
01:13:34.920 --> 01:13:40.520
Phil: So I know exactly when to muck around with the cruise control, so I don't necessarily have to brake.
01:13:42.120 --> 01:13:48.640
Phil: But yeah, I just thought, you know, there was a gamification moment, and you just bring up your driving there.
01:13:49.500 --> 01:13:51.820
Phil: Mike, question about, three more questions.
01:13:52.360 --> 01:13:56.000
Tom: Hypermiling enthusiasts are a thing, by the way.
01:13:56.020 --> 01:13:56.420
Phil: Is it?
01:13:57.000 --> 01:13:59.060
Tom: Yeah, that is a popular pastime for people.
01:14:00.280 --> 01:14:01.240
Phil: I can see why.
01:14:01.320 --> 01:14:04.280
Phil: It's very addictive or addicting.
01:14:04.860 --> 01:14:13.180
Phil: Okay, so what is the longest game session you've had with this thing on, and what's the battery life support in terms of gaming sessions?
01:14:13.800 --> 01:14:26.120
Phil: And does it get unpleasant, no matter how comfortable the game is that you're playing, does it get uncomfortable at a certain point where you would stop earlier than if you were just gaming with a traditional controller?
01:14:27.360 --> 01:14:41.500
Tom: Well, the first day of getting it, I probably used it for a total of two to three hours maybe, but that was not in the one session that was broken up.
01:14:42.320 --> 01:14:49.040
Tom: Probably the one single session would be maybe an hour and a half at the most.
01:14:50.120 --> 01:14:54.760
Tom: The battery, I have not run into it running out.
01:14:54.780 --> 01:15:04.660
Tom: I would speculate that it would probably last over two hours at least, up to maybe three and a half hours.
01:15:05.740 --> 01:15:20.160
Tom: I think the general estimate people have is two hours, but in my experience, if I've been playing for an hour, it does not use up 50% of its charge according to the meter.
01:15:20.600 --> 01:15:25.320
Tom: But of course, it may run out faster once you have a lower battery.
01:15:25.580 --> 01:15:28.140
Tom: It also charges extremely fast.
01:15:28.200 --> 01:15:44.900
Tom: I haven't timed it, but I have seen it down in a low range, and it gets to fully charged in under 30 or 40 minutes, I think was the time I went back to it.
01:15:45.260 --> 01:15:47.320
Tom: So it charges extremely quickly.
01:15:47.620 --> 01:15:55.280
Tom: The most impressive thing is the batteries that it comes with and the amount of power the controllers use.
01:15:55.800 --> 01:16:06.180
Tom: After probably a total of somewhere between anywhere between 5 to 10 hours, they are both still at 100% charge.
01:16:06.700 --> 01:16:09.760
Tom: So they appear to not use any power at all.
01:16:12.120 --> 01:16:15.640
Phil: Is it a consumer repairable friendly headset itself?
01:16:15.660 --> 01:16:22.240
Phil: Like if the battery does eventually die, will you be able to put a new battery in it, or would you then just have to have it hooked up to power the whole time?
01:16:23.140 --> 01:16:25.200
Tom: Well, I don't think you can hook it up to power.
01:16:25.200 --> 01:16:28.180
Tom: I think you would probably need to send it to Oculus.
01:16:29.340 --> 01:16:38.020
Tom: It does not appear like the sort of device that would be easy to disassemble or anything like that.
01:16:39.020 --> 01:16:47.820
Tom: And as an example of that, you can get an extra battery that you attach to the Elite Strap.
01:16:48.000 --> 01:16:51.140
Tom: I think you may need to get a different version of the Elite Strap to do this, of course.
01:16:51.940 --> 01:16:56.820
Tom: But that, for instance, you then plug into the USB-C port.
01:16:58.160 --> 01:17:01.960
Tom: So you can't use Link at the same time as an example of that.
01:17:02.120 --> 01:17:03.500
Tom: But that's an example of...
01:17:04.860 --> 01:17:07.680
Tom: It's not like you can replace the battery with a more powerful one.
01:17:07.700 --> 01:17:13.740
Tom: So I would suspect if you did have issues, you would probably require professional maintenance.
01:17:14.040 --> 01:17:19.140
Tom: Certainly aesthetically, they're clearly trying to copy the Apple model.
01:17:19.160 --> 01:17:22.900
Tom: It's not white, but it is a very light gray.
01:17:23.580 --> 01:17:24.540
Tom: It comes in...
01:17:25.500 --> 01:17:27.680
Tom: The inside of the box is white packaging.
01:17:28.220 --> 01:17:32.640
Tom: The outside is a generic gray cardboard.
01:17:34.040 --> 01:17:35.860
Tom: And it is generally...
01:17:35.900 --> 01:17:40.540
Tom: The cover being a printed cardboard that you slide off.
01:17:40.540 --> 01:17:44.080
Tom: So it is very much going for the Apple minimalist look.
01:17:44.920 --> 01:17:50.560
Tom: I would suspect they're probably also going for the Apple awkward to deal with as well.
01:17:51.420 --> 01:18:01.480
Phil: Okay, so the last question I have, and it is unfortunate because, you know, someone who likes to hang on to their consoles like me, there's always a workaround in terms of how the...
01:18:01.680 --> 01:18:02.960
Phil: how you can keep using them.
01:18:03.020 --> 01:18:11.420
Phil: So like the controllers that have dead batteries, you can permanently hook up with a USB and it still work and things like that.
01:18:11.520 --> 01:18:20.180
Tom: And we are entirely speculating at this point because it has not been available for a particularly long period of time.
01:18:20.200 --> 01:18:24.980
Tom: I think the official release was this month.
01:18:25.960 --> 01:18:28.660
Tom: Maybe it was the month before, but it is a very new thing.
01:18:29.100 --> 01:18:40.360
Tom: So for that sort of stuff, we will find out more as it unfolds, just as we will find out about the durability of the next-gen consoles with time as well.
01:18:40.380 --> 01:18:40.820
Phil: That's right.
01:18:40.840 --> 01:18:41.320
Phil: That's right.
01:18:41.340 --> 01:18:47.780
Phil: And I'm sure with a lot of these things, people are like, well, by the time you're under the Quest 5, who cares if your Quest 2 is working?
01:18:47.860 --> 01:19:02.560
Phil: And that's unfortunately, we're supposed to be more environmentally aware, but we're consuming and destroying electronics with disregard, you know, at a rate higher than ever before in history, obviously.
01:19:02.960 --> 01:19:08.340
Tom: The packaging, at least, you can reuse as a case for it quite effectively.
01:19:08.500 --> 01:19:08.960
Phil: Okay.
01:19:09.400 --> 01:19:13.480
Phil: Hey, last question, and then we'll ask for your impressions of Space Channel 5.
01:19:15.060 --> 01:19:18.700
Phil: Fit and finish, does it feel flimsy?
01:19:18.720 --> 01:19:19.860
Phil: Does it feel solid?
01:19:20.820 --> 01:19:22.580
Phil: Does it feel like you're going to break it?
01:19:23.500 --> 01:19:26.500
Phil: Does it actually feel good, the headset and the controllers?
01:19:27.080 --> 01:19:31.080
Tom: It feels a lot better than I was expecting and surprisingly durable.
01:19:31.980 --> 01:19:40.860
Tom: The headset itself, unless you are removing the straps and doing things like that to it, it feels really solid.
01:19:41.040 --> 01:19:48.940
Tom: When you're putting it on and off, if you accidentally push it on very quickly or something like that, it doesn't feel like it's going to break.
01:19:48.960 --> 01:20:20.180
Tom: The only thing there, but it doesn't feel like it is at all flimsy when you're doing this, when you have the glasses spacer in, which I need to have, even though I don't wear glasses, without my eyelashes brushing against the lenses, when I have that on and the strap really tight, if I take it off before loosening the strap a little bit, sometimes the spacer will pop out and I have to click it back into place.
01:20:21.360 --> 01:20:24.180
Tom: Other than that, the headset itself feels really solid.
01:20:24.560 --> 01:20:33.200
Tom: And the controllers, even though they're really light, they feel really solid in your hands and I have bumped into things with them repeatedly.
01:20:33.680 --> 01:20:52.680
Tom: And so far, even though the little halo that goes over the top of the controller, which I assume senses where your thumb is, and is also there probably to protect the buttons and your hand as well from when you hit things, that is totally unaffected.
01:20:52.700 --> 01:20:56.940
Tom: It doesn't even have any scratches on it from bumping into things either.
01:20:57.200 --> 01:21:07.660
Tom: So it is better than I was expecting in terms of durability so far, though it is too early to make any proper judgement on that.
01:21:08.180 --> 01:21:17.120
Tom: And also it feels surprisingly solid in spite of the lightness of both the headset and the controllers themselves.
01:21:17.460 --> 01:21:24.560
Tom: The Elite Strap, on the other hand, does feel like it is going to break every time you are adjusting the strap.
01:21:25.600 --> 01:21:27.140
Tom: That feels really flimsy.
01:21:28.260 --> 01:21:32.000
Tom: And I do believe that a lot of people have had that breaking for them.
01:21:33.160 --> 01:21:39.000
Tom: But it obviously automatically comes with a warranty under Australian Consumer Law.
01:21:41.120 --> 01:21:44.640
Phil: Is the Die of Destiny ready to give this a score for a hardware review?
01:21:45.660 --> 01:21:47.800
Tom: Well, let me get the Die of Destiny.
01:21:49.060 --> 01:21:49.860
Phil: Can you still hear me?
01:21:50.840 --> 01:21:51.520
Tom: Yes, I can.
01:21:51.780 --> 01:21:52.940
Phil: Okay.
01:21:54.260 --> 01:22:04.720
Tom: I have the Die of Destiny here ready to score the Oculus Quest 2 from Facebook.
01:22:07.680 --> 01:22:21.320
Tom: And the Oculus Quest 2 from Facebook, would you believe, and perhaps this is the correct score to give it, given the requirement of a Facebook account, gets a zero out of ten.
01:22:22.160 --> 01:22:27.360
Phil: See, from your review, I was thinking more of an eight, or even an eight and a half.
01:22:27.440 --> 01:22:30.260
Tom: That was zero out of ten.
01:22:30.480 --> 01:22:36.960
Tom: You would have been expecting a high score, given that I called it the Wii in 4K, and the Wii remains.
01:22:37.180 --> 01:22:48.080
Tom: I think with time, the more I think about the Wii, the higher, the more highly I think of it, I think the Wii is probably my favourite console of all time.
01:22:48.440 --> 01:22:58.200
Tom: And now that I have been exposed to VR, I would argue it is the most significant console of all time.
01:22:58.400 --> 01:23:09.880
Tom: Because while obviously one important improvement required for the feasible VR we have now was improvement obviously in processing power and screens.
01:23:10.900 --> 01:23:14.440
Tom: You can't attribute that to any console's influence.
01:23:14.820 --> 01:23:26.480
Tom: The other thing that is the most important to VR being viable and enjoyable and interesting experience is some immersive way of being able to interact the world in which you are in.
01:23:26.840 --> 01:23:43.400
Tom: And obviously motion controls were the catalyst that led us to the solidification of VR as being a genuine niche market at least, even if it's not a mainstream thing like gaming in general is now.
01:23:43.420 --> 01:23:53.800
Tom: So the Wii, I would argue, other than obviously early home consoles, is the most significant console of all time.
01:23:54.160 --> 01:24:02.280
Phil: Yeah, I'd have to think about that, but I certainly enjoyed every single game in my Wii catalog, as I recall.
01:24:02.640 --> 01:24:16.860
Phil: The one thing you never really confronted, and I hate to do this because you've already given a score, but you said, oh, there's this annoying thing that reviewers do, and ultimately you're recommending this device, but you wouldn't recommend it for me necessarily, right?
01:24:16.960 --> 01:24:19.800
Phil: Because you can't.
01:24:19.840 --> 01:24:24.740
Phil: Until I've tried it, you can't really recommend VR to anyone.
01:24:27.560 --> 01:24:33.980
Tom: That's true, I would say, but I personally was surprised with how well I got on with it.
01:24:34.060 --> 01:24:49.980
Tom: And as I said, and while this is a joke, it's also not a joke, I may have got on so well with it to begin with due to me already being naturally climatized to nausea and motion sickness and dizziness.
01:24:52.100 --> 01:24:54.900
Tom: So I may not even be noticing the crippling dizziness.
01:24:55.280 --> 01:25:03.900
Phil: So of all the games that you played, all these amazing experiences you've had, you've played some first person shooters, haven't you?
01:25:05.580 --> 01:25:12.940
Tom: Yes, but only briefly because those were some that did actually cause some degree of annoying motion sickness.
01:25:20.320 --> 01:25:28.480
Tom: In things that do cause a slight effect, the more I use it, I am definitely noticing that that does go down with time.
01:25:28.780 --> 01:25:34.300
Tom: So getting acclimatised to it is certainly a real phenomenon.
01:25:34.320 --> 01:25:35.500
Phil: Is it acclimated or acclimatised?
01:25:38.540 --> 01:25:43.100
Tom: I believe it would be a question of cultural usage.
01:25:43.880 --> 01:25:44.880
Phil: That gets you off the hook.
01:25:46.140 --> 01:25:52.880
Phil: We are going to talk about a game later on called One Night Stand.
01:25:52.900 --> 01:25:58.500
Phil: The game doesn't have any provocative imagery, necessarily, it's not risque.
01:25:59.540 --> 01:26:06.760
Phil: But there are certain games like that that I feel uncomfortable playing when other people are around because they walk in the room and they get the wrong impression.
01:26:07.260 --> 01:26:11.000
Tom: And with VR on, you wouldn't even know if they were there.
01:26:11.020 --> 01:26:11.400
Phil: That's right.
01:26:12.420 --> 01:26:16.320
Phil: But could I play One Night Stand on my VR headset?
01:26:18.420 --> 01:26:19.400
Tom: One Night Stand specifically?
01:26:19.420 --> 01:26:20.440
Phil: Yeah, or a game like that.
01:26:21.200 --> 01:26:26.040
Phil: A game that's obviously not built for VR support, doesn't have any features.
01:26:26.060 --> 01:26:29.200
Phil: I just basically want to use my VR headset as a screen.
01:26:31.540 --> 01:26:32.760
Phil: Just use the hand.
01:26:33.460 --> 01:26:39.720
Tom: You can play any game on computer you want on the headset.
01:26:40.220 --> 01:26:48.780
Tom: And if it is a 2D as opposed to a 3D game, you essentially can just play it as if you were playing a game in a cinema.
01:26:48.800 --> 01:26:50.340
Tom: So you can play it on a massive screen.
01:26:50.360 --> 01:26:53.020
Phil: Do you have to use the Oculus controllers or can you use your keyboard and mouse?
01:26:54.340 --> 01:27:02.480
Tom: No, you would in those cases be using other controllers because they would not be compatible with the touch controllers.
01:27:03.260 --> 01:27:06.640
Phil: I told you we should just wipe out the rest of the show.
01:27:06.760 --> 01:27:17.780
Tom: But with One Night Stand, because that is mouse controlled, you actually should in theory be able to play that using the touch controller because you can use that as a mouse pointer.
01:27:18.200 --> 01:27:24.360
Tom: You could even theoretically use your hand with hand tracking on because you can use your hand as a mouse pointer.
01:27:25.240 --> 01:27:27.280
Tom: So you could play it totally controllerless.
01:27:27.300 --> 01:27:28.820
Phil: Well, you've sold me.
01:27:28.840 --> 01:27:42.260
Phil: I guess the one thing we didn't talk about was the social aspect of it, and that is, you know, if there's other people in your household, how has that had an impact on you and your interaction with them, or do they usually not interact with you when you're gaming anyway?
01:27:44.500 --> 01:27:52.900
Tom: Well, one thing to note there is, it is extremely easy to stream this to any television that has Chromecast.
01:27:54.940 --> 01:28:04.280
Tom: And even if you don't have Chromecast, you can stream it to mobile phones, and you can stream it to your browser as well.
01:28:04.280 --> 01:28:24.240
Tom: So how that works then is, obviously the person playing the game sees what's happening in the headset, and what they see is then streamed to the television browser or mobile phone, so that if anyone is watching what the person is doing, they can watch what's happening in the game itself as well.
01:28:24.240 --> 01:28:31.320
Phil: That's good, because if you're watching VR, if you're participating in VR porn, that way when they come in the room, they see it on the big screen TV, they know to leave.
01:28:32.540 --> 01:28:33.960
Tom: And quietly leave, exactly.
01:28:34.220 --> 01:28:34.640
Phil: Awesome.
01:28:34.760 --> 01:28:36.480
Phil: Okay, alright.
01:28:36.580 --> 01:28:38.100
Tom: So that solves that problem.
01:28:38.160 --> 01:28:40.440
Phil: Except for the pants being down, but you know.
01:28:40.860 --> 01:28:41.220
Phil: Now...
01:28:42.580 --> 01:28:44.180
Tom: Just face away from the door.
01:28:44.420 --> 01:28:46.460
Phil: So that's your advice.
01:28:47.900 --> 01:28:49.080
Phil: So of all the game...
01:28:49.840 --> 01:28:52.500
Tom: Not based on experience, just theoretically.
01:28:52.740 --> 01:28:54.140
Phil: So of all the games...
01:28:54.740 --> 01:29:03.040
Tom: But as a social experience, porn or otherwise, VR is hilarious in the same way that the Wii is.
01:29:03.060 --> 01:29:08.960
Tom: I was not expecting that to be the case, given that one person is stuck in the game.
01:29:09.260 --> 01:29:12.640
Tom: But watching someone play VR, even if you can't...
01:29:12.700 --> 01:29:38.940
Tom: Arguably, I would actually add that the most entertaining thing is to watch someone playing VR without it being streamed to something, because it has the same sort of surreal and amusing effect as interacting with someone during a schizophrenic seizure or on some sort of psychoactive drug.
01:29:39.380 --> 01:29:42.560
Tom: It is a hilarious thing to behold.
01:29:42.840 --> 01:29:49.740
Phil: Okay, so of all the games that you've played, you want to tell us in great detail about one of them and it's Space Channel 5.
01:29:51.140 --> 01:29:59.760
Tom: The one last thing I will add on the headset itself is, as I said, you can play PC VR games via Wi-Fi.
01:30:00.260 --> 01:30:11.920
Tom: And using the crappy Telstra 5 GHz router, I was absolutely shocked how well it works.
01:30:13.160 --> 01:30:18.240
Tom: I anyway can play things like boxing games on it perfectly adequately.
01:30:18.540 --> 01:30:27.740
Tom: If I was doing something like sim racing, I would probably want to either try that on a 6 GHz router or use Link.
01:30:28.420 --> 01:30:36.800
Tom: But for anything that does not require the absolutely most precise things, my experience is that it is totally playable.
01:30:37.020 --> 01:30:44.980
Tom: And I would not play something like Half-Life Alex via Link Cable based on my experience with Superhot.
01:30:45.180 --> 01:31:01.460
Tom: The enjoyment you get from playing something wireless in something like a boxing game or Superhot, where you're able to move around with the only limitation on freedom being the space of room you're in, is just incredible.
01:31:02.000 --> 01:31:33.280
Tom: The totally ridiculous things you can do in Superhot, for example, of rolling around on the floor to pick up weapons enemies have dropped that you would not be able to do without this ridiculous freedom of movement, and also the totally absurd way you can dodge things through having the freedom of movement as well, makes playing any game like that with a lead feel just totally unplayable by comparison.
01:31:33.480 --> 01:31:43.700
Tom: And it is worth even on a 5, the just noticeable tiny bit of latency on a 5 gigahertz router, it is absolutely worth that without any question.
01:31:44.140 --> 01:31:55.580
Tom: So that is, to me, one of the things that did greatly put me off VR was actually the fact that you had to be tethered to something while playing them.
01:31:55.680 --> 01:32:00.440
Tom: That seemed to me like it would be a massive limitation and it absolutely was.
01:32:00.940 --> 01:32:41.140
Tom: As a primary VR headset outside of things like SIMS, I would, if you have the same suspicions that that might be an issue, I would argue that this is, without any other option, particularly at the price point, the best PC VR headset because you, through Air Lite VR, which is slightly awkward to set up, but once it's set up, it works perfectly, you can essentially have a high-resolution wireless PC VR headset for $488, which is just absolutely incredible.
01:32:41.900 --> 01:32:42.760
Phil: Right, indeed.
01:32:43.880 --> 01:32:44.720
Phil: So, on to the game.
01:32:46.400 --> 01:32:53.180
Tom: Yep, Space Channel 5, kinder, funky, newsflash VR, I think, is the full title.
01:32:53.980 --> 01:33:02.600
Tom: I, as I said, first played Space Channel 5 on a demo from a Ministry of Sound CD.
01:33:03.260 --> 01:33:12.120
Tom: Ministry of Sound was a long-running, may still be around, compilation of techno songs that was released yearly.
01:33:14.160 --> 01:33:17.700
Tom: And one year they packaged Space Channel 5 with it.
01:33:18.060 --> 01:33:27.440
Tom: And Space Channel 5 is by the original, was made, directed by Mizuguchi, famous for res, among many other things.
01:33:27.920 --> 01:33:44.860
Tom: And to me, Space Channel 5, in terms of the aesthetic and setting, was with the only two other competitors, Vib Ribbon and Parappa the Rapper, the greatest rhythm game ever.
01:33:45.620 --> 01:34:02.560
Tom: The music was this hilarious mix of electronica, basically comedy musical lyrics over the top of it that told you what to do, and had little snippets of dialogue related to the story.
01:34:02.980 --> 01:34:09.960
Tom: And the aesthetic was that of a 60s, 70s disco scene slash pop scene of the 60s.
01:34:10.500 --> 01:34:14.120
Tom: And Ulala was this amazingly charismatic character.
01:34:14.900 --> 01:34:20.220
Tom: The space setting was great, and I believe it also featured Michael Jackson in a cameo.
01:34:21.120 --> 01:34:23.940
Phil: That's right, Space Michael and Pudding.
01:34:24.300 --> 01:34:27.700
Phil: I played and owned all of the Space Channel 5 games.
01:34:27.720 --> 01:34:30.920
Phil: I think the original came out 20 years ago, in the year 2000.
01:34:32.060 --> 01:34:34.220
Tom: I think 1999, so even...
01:34:34.240 --> 01:34:40.020
Phil: I don't think it was that close to launch actually, because remember the system came out in September of 1999.
01:34:40.040 --> 01:34:43.960
Tom: I'm sure it launched in 1999, probably not outside of Japan though.
01:34:44.880 --> 01:34:45.580
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
01:34:45.740 --> 01:34:51.520
Phil: And anyone who's ever played it, all you have to do is say, up, down, up, down, shoot, shoot, shoot.
01:34:53.040 --> 01:34:55.060
Phil: And you'll know if someone's played it.
01:34:55.080 --> 01:34:57.100
Tom: You're immediately pressing buttons in your mind at that point.
01:34:58.020 --> 01:34:59.960
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
01:35:00.640 --> 01:35:01.560
Tom: But the...
01:35:01.700 --> 01:35:02.000
Tom: gone.
01:35:02.300 --> 01:35:07.780
Phil: So this is not a redo of the original, or even the other games that came out on PlayStation 2.
01:35:07.800 --> 01:35:11.100
Tom: No, this is an all new experience made for VR.
01:35:11.900 --> 01:35:13.640
Phil: Is it by Mitsuguchi, who of course is...
01:35:13.720 --> 01:35:17.480
Tom: No, I do not think that he had any involvement in it, unfortunately.
01:35:17.500 --> 01:35:18.700
Tom: I don't think he even produced it.
01:35:19.480 --> 01:35:21.120
Tom: But I could be totally wrong there.
01:35:21.140 --> 01:35:21.700
Tom: Um...
01:35:23.080 --> 01:35:28.400
Tom: As I don't think it has a Wikipedia page, which is my source for all of my information.
01:35:30.420 --> 01:35:48.840
Phil: Um, yeah, that would be a shame if Mitz wasn't involved with it, because obviously he's gone on to do the amazing VR versions of Res and also Tetris Effect for the Sony PlayStation, which I assume is now on PC as a timed exclusive, so...
01:35:48.860 --> 01:35:50.520
Phil: Okay, so is it...
01:35:51.240 --> 01:35:56.800
Tom: and it is on Games Pass, but sadly the Games Pass version of Tetris Effect is non-VR.
01:35:57.860 --> 01:35:58.400
Phil: Okay.
01:35:59.080 --> 01:35:59.720
Phil: Okay, so...
01:36:00.120 --> 01:36:08.080
Tom: But Res and Tetris Effect in the VR form are both available on the Oculus Quest 2.
01:36:08.100 --> 01:36:08.220
Phil: Excellent.
01:36:08.560 --> 01:36:09.000
Phil: Excellent.
01:36:10.200 --> 01:36:11.320
Phil: Okay, so more about the game.
01:36:11.960 --> 01:36:22.140
Tom: Yep, so the one massive drawback to Space Channel 5 that I always had was the music was incredibly infectious and made you want to dance.
01:36:22.160 --> 01:36:27.100
Tom: The characters are dancing in the game, but all you're doing is pressing these fucking buttons.
01:36:28.080 --> 01:36:36.720
Tom: So as soon as the Wii appeared, the game I most wanted on the Wii was a Space Channel 5 for the Wii, and it never happened.
01:36:37.100 --> 01:36:41.900
Tom: Nor did a Kinect version of Space Channel 5 happen either.
01:36:42.900 --> 01:36:56.660
Tom: It has taken PlayStation VR, I'm pretty sure this was originally a PlayStation VR game, for us to finally get a Space Channel 5 game in which, rather than pressing up, down, left, right, etc.
01:36:56.760 --> 01:37:00.260
Tom: you were dancing up, down, left, right, etc.
01:37:00.460 --> 01:37:00.980
Tom: instead.
01:37:01.320 --> 01:37:05.060
Tom: And it works just as well as you would imagine it to.
01:37:06.560 --> 01:37:22.220
Tom: There are some occasions where the tracking, and it's absolutely the game's fault, not the controller's, the tracking is slightly awkward and does not accurately get what you were doing and thinks you've done the wrong move.
01:37:22.380 --> 01:37:30.960
Tom: For the most part, though, that is, and this is why I say it's the game's fault, it's saying you've done the move when you've actually fucked up.
01:37:32.100 --> 01:37:41.600
Tom: And you've started doing the wrong move and ended up sort of half doing the move to try and correct yourself, and it will accept that as being correct.
01:37:41.620 --> 01:37:55.780
Tom: So it is very forgiving to the point where it will take away some of the feeling of tactility from it, but that's a minor thing and doesn't really matter.
01:37:57.340 --> 01:38:18.920
Tom: Being able to dance in Space Channel 5, copying the characters' dancing and dancing with the allies is just a tremendously gratifying and satisfying experience that for me anyway has been waiting to be realized since I first played Space Channel 5.
01:38:20.300 --> 01:38:31.480
Tom: Compared to the original game, I would say the music is not quite on the same level, but it is very much on brand and tremendously enjoyable.
01:38:31.760 --> 01:38:48.200
Tom: The other minus point is it's about half the length of the original Space Channel 5, which was already an extremely short game, but for a rhythm game like this, I don't think the length really matters that much.
01:38:48.220 --> 01:38:54.260
Tom: I've played through the main campaign twice already and will be playing it more.
01:38:55.600 --> 01:39:10.300
Tom: And it has both the Japanese and English dub, which is a massive coup to have, because the singing is worth experiencing, both in Japanese and English, and both have a little bit of a different tone to them.
01:39:10.320 --> 01:39:28.380
Tom: And there's also a very, very long level that goes for like 15 minutes or something, so basically half the full campaign, which is really fun to play repeatedly and try and get a perfect score on.
01:39:29.820 --> 01:39:44.500
Tom: And it is, if you are a fan of Space Channel 5 and have always wanted to be an actual dancing game, which is to me totally logical, and a rhythm game, it is just an amazing realisation of that possibility.
01:39:45.000 --> 01:39:54.560
Tom: In spite of the minor issues like the forgivingness of your dance moves and incompetence and the shortness of the campaign.
01:39:54.940 --> 01:39:58.540
Phil: It's just as fun and funny as the original?
01:39:58.820 --> 01:40:01.420
Tom: It's significantly more fun than the original.
01:40:02.040 --> 01:40:02.820
Phil: Is Pudding in it?
01:40:03.660 --> 01:40:04.660
Tom: Is there Pudding in it?
01:40:04.680 --> 01:40:09.540
Phil: No, Pudding is the brunette from the game series.
01:40:09.860 --> 01:40:11.640
Phil: She was the competing reporter.
01:40:13.340 --> 01:40:15.020
Tom: In this one, I don't think she's in it.
01:40:15.040 --> 01:40:24.740
Tom: In this one, you are actually playing as one of two junior reporters who are understudies to You La La.
01:40:25.380 --> 01:40:26.320
Tom: This is a spoiler.
01:40:26.340 --> 01:40:32.600
Tom: In a very touching moment, she passes on the microphone to you.
01:40:32.920 --> 01:40:34.940
Phil: Is she wearing her usual orange dress?
01:40:35.160 --> 01:40:35.880
Tom: Yes, she is.
01:40:36.640 --> 01:40:43.080
Tom: And can I just add, I'm totally blameless in this, my sister insisted I do this.
01:40:43.240 --> 01:40:43.900
Tom: Upskirt?
01:40:44.240 --> 01:40:47.640
Tom: Yes, you can lie down on the ground and upskirt You La La.
01:40:48.200 --> 01:40:48.740
Phil: I knew it.
01:40:48.860 --> 01:40:50.440
Phil: I knew this is where that was going.
01:40:52.340 --> 01:40:55.240
Phil: I'm not going to ask any follow-up questions relating to that.
01:40:57.540 --> 01:40:59.600
Tom: Sadly, you cannot touch the characters.
01:40:59.620 --> 01:41:01.260
Tom: My sister was very disappointed in that.
01:41:02.420 --> 01:41:09.420
Tom: But in the end credits, another great moment, you get to high-five everyone with haptic feedback.
01:41:09.460 --> 01:41:12.540
Phil: Sweet.
01:41:12.880 --> 01:41:15.880
Phil: Has You La La aged 20 years?
01:41:16.380 --> 01:41:18.680
Phil: Is she now 50 something?
01:41:19.100 --> 01:41:19.440
Tom: No.
01:41:20.020 --> 01:41:23.540
Tom: Though she may be a very young-looking 50-year-old.
01:41:24.020 --> 01:41:27.980
Tom: It is of course a very cartoony graphic style, so it's hard to tell.
01:41:28.120 --> 01:41:31.760
Phil: Because newsreaders usually age out when they're 26.
01:41:33.360 --> 01:41:35.860
Tom: That's because they begin looking tremendously old.
01:41:36.600 --> 01:41:47.800
Tom: Because they're trying to look so young that the stress of it results in tremendous worry lines, and basically their entire nervous system is destroyed.
01:41:47.820 --> 01:41:51.400
Phil: I think the stress comes from reading the garbage I have to read.
01:41:52.560 --> 01:41:53.880
Phil: Gosh, I had one more question.
01:41:53.900 --> 01:41:58.000
Phil: No, I guess I'm going to have to just fold on that.
01:41:58.080 --> 01:42:01.400
Phil: So, okay, well, that sounds tremendously great.
01:42:02.740 --> 01:42:04.560
Phil: I really just want to get one of these things now.
01:42:04.760 --> 01:42:07.360
Phil: Are you going to really recommend that I get one without using one?
01:42:09.520 --> 01:42:16.920
Tom: Well, it depends because if you are willing, able to resell it, I would say yes.
01:42:16.940 --> 01:42:17.800
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
01:42:18.300 --> 01:42:18.940
Tom: Absolutely.
01:42:18.960 --> 01:42:19.620
Phil: That's a good idea.
01:42:20.140 --> 01:42:25.060
Tom: Just confirm that the resale prices are good on eBay.
01:42:25.860 --> 01:42:28.700
Tom: If there's anyone reselling them and I would say go for it.
01:42:28.900 --> 01:42:30.740
Phil: And would you think, well, they're not hard to get.
01:42:30.920 --> 01:42:32.440
Phil: I went to amazon.com.au.
01:42:32.460 --> 01:42:36.600
Phil: They said they had two new and one used available.
01:42:38.300 --> 01:42:47.040
Tom: They must have been restocking it because on Amazon for the smaller version, at least, when I purchased that was available.
01:42:47.220 --> 01:42:49.900
Tom: The only place in Australia was officially from Oculus.
01:42:53.000 --> 01:42:58.380
Tom: And if you do go the Oculus route, the postage from Ireland is surprisingly fast.
01:42:58.580 --> 01:42:59.100
Phil: What?
01:42:59.280 --> 01:43:00.400
Phil: They come from Ireland?
01:43:00.660 --> 01:43:03.620
Tom: It shipped directly from their tax haven to your door.
01:43:04.400 --> 01:43:06.920
Phil: How's that work in this COVID society where there's no planes?
01:43:07.800 --> 01:43:11.480
Tom: I don't know, but it got here within a few days from Ireland.
01:43:11.620 --> 01:43:12.840
Phil: Maybe they use Zucker Boots.
01:43:12.960 --> 01:43:24.440
Tom: And bear in mind, actually, Ireland has been one of the places that has been dealing with COVID competently, so that would probably help with the fast shipping.
01:43:26.800 --> 01:43:36.460
Phil: Just speaking about the early 2000s, I've got the latest issue of Retro Gamer in front of me, and I'm looking at the top five games for PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube.
01:43:37.500 --> 01:43:39.960
Phil: I'll just go through them, and you can just tell me if you remember them or not.
01:43:39.980 --> 01:43:49.980
Phil: But what's interesting about them is that there's only one game in common between the PlayStation 2 and the Xbox, and there's one game in common between the Xbox and the GameCube.
01:43:50.000 --> 01:43:56.400
Phil: But besides that, out of these 15 games, they're all completely unique games for the different platforms.
01:43:56.420 --> 01:44:01.260
Phil: And of course, if you look at game sales today, there's just basically Destiny, Fortnite.
01:44:01.320 --> 01:44:06.440
Phil: It's just these blanket games that are across every single category, and there's a few exclusives.
01:44:07.120 --> 01:44:20.200
Phil: And I do think that exclusives are good for the consumer, ultimately, because it forces developers to produce something that requires some thought for some reason.
01:44:20.240 --> 01:44:25.680
Phil: So, like PlayStation 2, the number one game we talked about last time was Itoy Play.
01:44:26.900 --> 01:44:29.180
Phil: The number two game was a game called The Great Escape.
01:44:30.600 --> 01:44:31.560
Phil: Have you ever played that?
01:44:32.540 --> 01:44:33.560
Tom: No, I haven't.
01:44:33.780 --> 01:44:35.400
Tom: It's not related to the film either.
01:44:35.420 --> 01:44:36.160
Phil: No, it's not.
01:44:36.180 --> 01:44:44.820
Phil: It's really somewhat, in terms of its appearance, crappy World War II game where you're a prisoner of war and you're trying to escape.
01:44:46.060 --> 01:44:47.840
Phil: It's actually a very good game.
01:44:47.860 --> 01:44:53.200
Tom: There's also The Great Escape and Infinity Runner as well.
01:44:53.220 --> 01:44:55.960
Phil: Yeah, this one's called The Great Escape from SCI.
01:44:56.060 --> 01:44:58.380
Phil: It was released in November of 2003.
01:45:00.120 --> 01:45:01.980
Phil: In any case, that's the number two game.
01:45:02.120 --> 01:45:04.260
Phil: Number three game I have never even heard about.
01:45:04.280 --> 01:45:07.120
Phil: Well, I'm pretty sure I have, but I've never played it.
01:45:07.160 --> 01:45:12.400
Phil: Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb for PlayStation 2 from LucasArts.
01:45:13.980 --> 01:45:15.060
Tom: I've not played that either.
01:45:15.080 --> 01:45:15.920
Phil: Yeah, me neither.
01:45:16.540 --> 01:45:18.820
Phil: Number four, Tomb Raider, Angel of Darkness.
01:45:18.860 --> 01:45:20.200
Tom: Did you say PS2?
01:45:20.200 --> 01:45:20.540
Phil: Yeah.
01:45:21.180 --> 01:45:29.720
Tom: Because there was also that PS3 Indiana Jones that was one of the most hyped games ever that fell off the face of the earth.
01:45:29.740 --> 01:45:31.380
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
01:45:31.620 --> 01:45:34.560
Phil: Yeah, so Tomb Raider, Angel of Darkness, I think that's one of the bad ones.
01:45:35.240 --> 01:45:38.720
Phil: And number five was Socom, US Navy Seals.
01:45:39.320 --> 01:45:45.680
Phil: So on Xbox, there was Star Wars Kotor, the original Knights of the Old Republic, which was an exclusive.
01:45:46.440 --> 01:45:49.980
Phil: Ghost Recon Island Thunder, which I don't remember.
01:45:50.900 --> 01:45:56.640
Phil: FIFA 2003, The Great Escape and Medal of Honor Frontline.
01:45:58.800 --> 01:45:59.860
Phil: All good memories there.
01:46:00.060 --> 01:46:02.920
Phil: And on the GameCube, number one was Star Wars Rogue Liga.
01:46:03.420 --> 01:46:04.680
Phil: Rogue League leader.
01:46:06.000 --> 01:46:09.320
Phil: Number two, Medal of Honor Frontline, that's the one it has in common.
01:46:09.780 --> 01:46:11.180
Phil: Number three, Wind Waker.
01:46:11.720 --> 01:46:14.820
Phil: Number four, Sonic Adventure DX, which is horrible.
01:46:15.420 --> 01:46:18.900
Phil: And number five, PNO3, starring Vanessa Schneider.
01:46:20.280 --> 01:46:24.480
Phil: So, yeah, I just was taken aback by the diversity of games there.
01:46:24.660 --> 01:46:27.040
Phil: So 17 years ago, hard to believe.
01:46:27.880 --> 01:46:30.080
Tom: And a lot of them weren't exclusives.
01:46:31.320 --> 01:46:33.000
Tom: I thought you said a lot were exclusives.
01:46:33.020 --> 01:46:33.660
Phil: Well, a lot.
01:46:33.720 --> 01:46:37.760
Phil: Wind Waker, Star Wars Rogue Leader, PNO3.
01:46:37.780 --> 01:46:38.560
Tom: PNO3.
01:46:38.580 --> 01:46:45.100
Tom: There are a lot of GameCube exclusives here, but once you go outside of Nintendo, there's far fewer.
01:46:45.120 --> 01:46:52.820
Phil: Yeah, like the Xbox certainly only had Kotor as an exclusive, and Itoy, I'm not sure how many of those.
01:46:52.840 --> 01:46:53.760
Tom: Well, that's an exclusive.
01:46:54.100 --> 01:46:57.480
Phil: Yeah, well, Itoy and Socom are definitely exclusives.
01:46:59.100 --> 01:47:00.520
Phil: So, but very diverse.
01:47:00.780 --> 01:47:03.040
Phil: Like, you know, I guess the people that were playing on a different...
01:47:03.640 --> 01:47:08.500
Phil: Back then, I mean, it really did reflect the different type of gamer on the different type of consoles.
01:47:10.160 --> 01:47:19.620
Phil: And of course, you still have that sort of separation with the PC switch, but you certainly, I don't think you have that separation anymore between the PlayStation and Microsoft cams.
01:47:20.800 --> 01:47:41.380
Tom: That reminds me, the one last thing I would add on VR is during my research, not unlike my experience in mobile gaming, it is very noticeable and weird the higher quantity of women involved in VR commentary and information.
01:47:44.760 --> 01:47:52.820
Tom: And I would suggest that the reason for that is the crossover with general tech interest.
01:47:54.380 --> 01:48:15.640
Tom: So for instance, in mobile phone stuff or even laptops and things like that, tech coverage, you would find a lot more women doing commentary than you do in pure gaming PC style hardware and obviously games console coverage.
01:48:17.520 --> 01:48:29.140
Phil: Okay, well speaking of a game that is available on pretty much everything, in one that both you and I picked up in Itch's Sale of the Century, is a game called One Night Stand.
01:48:29.160 --> 01:48:37.380
Phil: It's available on Windows, Mac, Linux, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, which surprised me how ubiquitous it is.
01:48:37.400 --> 01:48:43.440
Phil: It's a game that came out originally for Windows in 2016.
01:48:44.380 --> 01:48:51.400
Phil: It's a visual novel, but made by a developer that I don't know that they've done much more, if anything, called Kinmoku.
01:48:52.180 --> 01:48:55.360
Phil: And I don't even know anything about them, where they're from.
01:48:56.620 --> 01:49:10.300
Phil: But basically, it's a very short visual novel with the point-and-click adventure motif, and it's made for multiple playthroughs.
01:49:12.240 --> 01:49:14.020
Phil: I guess I'll do the setup for it.
01:49:14.280 --> 01:49:22.400
Phil: You basically wake up after what appears to be a night of heavy drinking, and you don't know where you are.
01:49:22.460 --> 01:49:35.960
Phil: You look around, and there's a lady in the bed next to you, and you have to try and figure out who she is and how you got into that situation by looking at clues that are available to you in the room.
01:49:37.160 --> 01:49:57.080
Phil: She will leave every now and then, which lets you explore the room a little bit more, and then there's a different outcome depending on how you interact with her on the basis of what you've discovered and where you want to take the relationship or not want to take the relationship.
01:49:57.080 --> 01:49:58.420
Phil: Is that a pretty good setup?
01:49:58.680 --> 01:50:01.560
Tom: It is, and I will just interject with Wikipedia here.
01:50:02.260 --> 01:50:18.160
Tom: It was developed by specifically Lucy Blundell, and it was her first game, in fact, or rather an iteration on a game she made with a friend at a game jam.
01:50:18.320 --> 01:50:25.220
Tom: And she was inspired by a young man she saw in a disheveled state on public transport.
01:50:25.240 --> 01:50:30.680
Tom: And she imagined that he was in this state after a drunken one night stand.
01:50:32.540 --> 01:50:34.940
Phil: Imagination is a wonderful thing, isn't it?
01:50:35.000 --> 01:50:35.540
Tom: Yes, it is.
01:50:35.560 --> 01:50:39.660
Phil: And this game does lead you to think differently.
01:50:40.220 --> 01:51:01.260
Phil: Certainly if you take it on face value, the story is you went out, you left the drinking partner you were with, your mate, to go and spend time with this woman, and then you both ended up in bed together, and now you've woken up, and are going to have a brief interaction and go home.
01:51:01.280 --> 01:51:04.160
Phil: I mean, on the face of it, that's pretty much what's going to happen.
01:51:04.180 --> 01:51:15.420
Phil: But as you start to look at some of the clues, they indicate that perhaps that's not the straight story, which compels you to want to play through this thing multiple times.
01:51:15.440 --> 01:51:18.480
Phil: And you've certainly played it through more than I.
01:51:19.260 --> 01:51:23.380
Phil: I've really only played it through, like, one and a half times before I was interrupted.
01:51:24.940 --> 01:51:33.060
Phil: So you could probably give a fuller account as to the game play and also the different outcomes.
01:51:34.400 --> 01:51:43.880
Tom: I've unlocked about 50% of the outcomes, ranging from the amicable to the comically disastrous.
01:51:45.560 --> 01:51:53.040
Tom: And when you wake up, there's basically two objectives, both of which are optional.
01:51:53.820 --> 01:52:00.520
Tom: One is to get the hell out of there, and the other is to find out what's going on.
01:52:00.540 --> 01:52:11.800
Tom: So to achieve both, if you want to get out of there, you wake up naked, so you have to find your clothing or other clothing that will fit you in one of the comical moments of the game.
01:52:13.900 --> 01:52:39.440
Tom: And to find out what's going on, essentially you look around, there are things in the room that are highlighted that you can click on and look through for more information on the female protagonist, as it is her room, and that will help you in one, finding stuff out about her, and two, trying to work out what happened the previous night.
01:52:40.080 --> 01:52:56.380
Tom: And the most enjoyable part of the game to me was definitely looking around the room and inspecting all the items, rather than the figuring out part of it or trying to get a specific outcome.
01:52:57.000 --> 01:53:08.000
Tom: One of the most enjoyable parts of any adventure game is looking through everything that you find on a new screen and figuring out what's happening.
01:53:08.320 --> 01:53:25.380
Tom: And given the setting of this, it does have the feeling of intimacy, but also weirdness given the situation you're in of having no memory of how you ended up there, of being in another person's room or even another person's house in general.
01:53:25.920 --> 01:53:30.560
Tom: And the curiosity that that naturally engenders or at least does in me.
01:53:31.420 --> 01:53:34.320
Tom: So that part of the game is really enjoyable.
01:53:34.660 --> 01:53:39.800
Tom: And the characters, at least to begin with, are pretty amusing.
01:53:40.280 --> 01:53:44.780
Tom: And you have some control over how your character comes across.
01:53:45.900 --> 01:54:00.680
Tom: For instance, you can, when you're texting your friend about what happened, if you tell him that you've woken up in bed with a random woman who won't believe you because you are not apparently usually very good with the ladies.
01:54:00.960 --> 01:54:11.500
Tom: So you have the option of very creepily taking a photo of her and texting it to him, which results in some potentially interesting permutations if you do that.
01:54:12.880 --> 01:54:21.040
Tom: And looking through a room, you can find stuff like romance novels and things like that and talk to her about them.
01:54:21.560 --> 01:54:30.280
Tom: And you can also look at stuff that she wouldn't want you looking at and also ask her about them, leading to some comical conversations.
01:54:31.380 --> 01:54:34.520
Tom: So that part of the game is very enjoyable.
01:54:34.580 --> 01:54:39.840
Tom: And I played to unlocking about half the endings.
01:54:40.160 --> 01:54:57.900
Tom: But once I had ended up inspecting everything in the room and going through most of the dialogue options, I don't think the characters are really that interesting enough for me to continue playing to try and unlock the rest of the endings.
01:54:58.200 --> 01:55:14.240
Tom: And that's partly due to the good environmental storytelling because lots of the character stuff comes through from the room of the protagonist rather than the dialogue, which makes it all the more enjoyable.
01:55:14.460 --> 01:55:27.080
Tom: But it does then mean that it's less interesting trying to find different dialogue options to get different endings once you have found everything in the room itself.
01:55:27.140 --> 01:55:28.560
Tom: At least for me, that was the case.
01:55:29.380 --> 01:55:31.080
Phil: Is there a real ending?
01:55:31.120 --> 01:55:34.500
Phil: Or is there a good ending?
01:55:34.520 --> 01:55:36.380
Phil: I mean, you know what I'm saying?
01:55:36.400 --> 01:55:38.340
Phil: Or is it just...
01:55:38.360 --> 01:55:42.400
Phil: They're all equally good endings insofar as the developer is concerned.
01:55:42.420 --> 01:55:42.980
Tom: Well, I was...
01:55:43.360 --> 01:55:45.600
Tom: To me, they're all equally good endings.
01:55:45.620 --> 01:55:52.940
Tom: And given the creative inspiration for it, I think any ending would fit the theme of that.
01:55:53.320 --> 01:56:02.120
Tom: But I assume that the hardest ending to get anyway would be a romantic relationship beginning from this.
01:56:02.140 --> 01:56:09.680
Tom: And that that might be not necessarily the canon or proper ending, but the main ending that you're meant to try and figure out how to get.
01:56:10.140 --> 01:56:13.540
Tom: The closest to which I've got is friend-zoned.
01:56:15.040 --> 01:56:32.620
Phil: And now this is not a spoiler because this is speculation, but is there an ending in which she has drugged you and then interfered with your contraception so that towards the goal that she wanted a surrogate child but no relationship with the father?
01:56:33.780 --> 01:56:34.840
Tom: Well, I hope there is.
01:56:35.800 --> 01:56:36.480
Tom: But I don't know.
01:56:36.520 --> 01:56:41.220
Tom: And there are suspicious tablets on the bed stand.
01:56:41.580 --> 01:56:43.380
Phil: That's what led me to think this.
01:56:44.420 --> 01:56:50.160
Phil: And as the guy was walking away from my ending, he thought, oh, well, at least I use protection.
01:56:50.160 --> 01:56:52.380
Phil: And then I thought, dun, dun, dun.
01:56:53.060 --> 01:56:53.740
Tom: Or did I?
01:56:54.000 --> 01:56:54.880
Phil: Or did I?
01:56:54.900 --> 01:56:57.220
Phil: And this certainly...
01:56:57.460 --> 01:57:11.740
Tom: There is a condom wrapper on the ground, but they did not decide to go the graphic confirmation route of a used condom, which you could test, just to be sure.
01:57:13.020 --> 01:57:15.760
Phil: I looked up Lucy Blundell.
01:57:15.780 --> 01:57:16.940
Phil: She is still developing.
01:57:16.960 --> 01:57:19.440
Phil: She's currently working on a game for Memories.
01:57:19.780 --> 01:57:21.960
Phil: And yeah, she looks like the character.
01:57:22.440 --> 01:57:24.700
Phil: She roughly looks like the character in the game.
01:57:24.720 --> 01:57:29.960
Tom: Well, it is rotoscoped from her own performances.
01:57:30.080 --> 01:57:32.760
Phil: Yeah, so I did not know that it was from her own performances.
01:57:32.780 --> 01:57:39.880
Phil: So rotoscoping would be familiar to most people from that movie, music video from the 80s by A-Ha, Take On Me.
01:57:41.180 --> 01:57:43.540
Phil: That's pretty much what it looks like.
01:57:43.560 --> 01:57:46.160
Tom: So also Prince of Persia.
01:57:46.820 --> 01:57:50.040
Phil: Yeah, rotoscoping, yeah, from Prince of Persia in a different style.
01:57:50.060 --> 01:57:59.260
Phil: I mean, yeah, the art style is basically hand drawn, lead pencil style looking thing with maybe some light pastel work.
01:58:01.020 --> 01:58:03.580
Phil: But yeah, look, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
01:58:03.600 --> 01:58:04.300
Phil: I thought it was good.
01:58:04.880 --> 01:58:07.980
Phil: It was nominated for an IGF award, whatever that is.
01:58:08.000 --> 01:58:09.800
Phil: It has a 73 on Metacritic.
01:58:11.660 --> 01:58:12.780
Phil: Very, very short game.
01:58:13.220 --> 01:58:21.800
Phil: And well, it doesn't necessarily have to be, but I imagine if you went full hog and tried to get all the endings, it's probably more like a three or four hour experience.
01:58:22.680 --> 01:58:23.380
Tom: I'd say so.
01:58:23.400 --> 01:58:30.660
Tom: I've unlocked half the endings that I said, and I've played for about an hour or two.
01:58:31.280 --> 01:58:34.720
Phil: And once you've played through it once, you can fast forward through the dialogue.
01:58:35.380 --> 01:58:42.620
Tom: That's right, but that is something that I had one issue with, is that the fast forwarding is not nearly fast enough.
01:58:42.620 --> 01:59:00.040
Tom: It would be great if you could literally skip between dialogue threads, where you need to make a decision that might lead in a different direction in just a single click, rather than having to sit there and watching the dialogue scroll through at a fast pace.
01:59:00.160 --> 01:59:05.780
Phil: I'm not sure if you shared my experience, but one thing that was frustrating for me was that the mouse clicking was not...
01:59:06.280 --> 01:59:07.800
Phil: you didn't have to be precise with it.
01:59:08.120 --> 01:59:13.300
Phil: So sometimes I was clicking through the dialogue, and then it would automatically just...
01:59:13.500 --> 01:59:20.420
Phil: as soon as the dialogue ended, it puts up the dialogue, the choices of response, and it would just pick one of them for me.
01:59:22.020 --> 01:59:22.820
Phil: I don't know, because I was...
01:59:23.360 --> 01:59:26.080
Phil: because I wasn't trying to click anywhere near the dialogue choices.
01:59:26.100 --> 01:59:28.360
Phil: I was way up in the top corner of the screen sort of thing.
01:59:28.940 --> 01:59:30.560
Tom: I did not have that issue, I don't think.
01:59:30.580 --> 01:59:32.760
Phil: Yeah, it happened to me a couple of times, so...
01:59:33.680 --> 01:59:38.260
Phil: Okay, anything else you want to say about The Game before we close out the podcast?
01:59:39.820 --> 01:59:50.320
Tom: That's probably it, but I do hope that there is a potentially disturbing subplot available as one of the endings, but sadly, we're unlikely to find out.
01:59:51.720 --> 01:59:54.660
Tom: We should of course add that we got this, even though it is free.
01:59:57.000 --> 02:00:00.200
Tom: I'm personally more pleased to have you here today.
02:00:00.260 --> 02:00:03.660
Tom: We've got this in the sale of the century, Dan have played it for free.
02:00:04.060 --> 02:00:04.820
Phil: Yes, me too.
02:00:05.020 --> 02:00:09.540
Phil: I feel like I've given the developer, given back to the developer and the development community.
02:00:09.720 --> 02:00:14.500
Tom: And it is in fact $2.25 on Steam now, 50% off.
02:00:14.520 --> 02:00:16.640
Tom: So apparently it's not free anymore.
02:00:16.700 --> 02:00:22.800
Phil: Yeah, it's available on Switch very recently, and it's currently, according to a Twitter feed, 20% off.
02:00:23.240 --> 02:00:26.120
Phil: So now's a good time to try it, and it has my recommendation.
02:00:28.280 --> 02:00:31.200
Tom: Are we going to give it a score from the Dice of Destiny?
02:00:31.220 --> 02:00:34.260
Phil: Well, I haven't got my cat sound effects machine.
02:00:36.840 --> 02:00:39.460
Tom: Make some cat noises yourself.
02:00:39.600 --> 02:00:40.860
Phil: Okay, I can try that.
02:00:40.880 --> 02:00:43.060
Phil: Why don't you get the Dice of Destiny while I get the cat noises?
02:00:43.080 --> 02:00:44.380
Tom: My die is ready to go.
02:00:44.400 --> 02:00:46.000
Phil: Okay, so...
02:00:47.420 --> 02:00:48.520
Tom: Well, that's unfortunate.
02:00:49.160 --> 02:00:51.840
Tom: The Dice of Destiny has not been kind today.
02:00:52.420 --> 02:00:54.080
Tom: It gets a one out of ten.
02:00:55.020 --> 02:00:56.000
Phil: A one out of ten?
02:00:56.380 --> 02:00:57.260
Tom: One out of ten.
02:00:57.860 --> 02:01:00.260
Phil: Okay, let me get the cat thing here.
02:01:00.620 --> 02:01:07.480
Tom: So, it is officially better than the Oculus Quest 2, and it does not require a Facebook account for you to be able to play it.
02:01:07.960 --> 02:01:08.420
Phil: Okay.
02:01:09.860 --> 02:01:11.800
Phil: Let's see, I'm gonna roll my cat.
02:01:16.460 --> 02:01:17.000
Phil: Okay.
02:01:19.180 --> 02:01:19.660
Phil: So, that's...
02:01:21.160 --> 02:01:23.720
Phil: My cat gave it eight and a half meows out of ten.
02:01:24.740 --> 02:01:27.060
Tom: I think I heard about two and a half meows.
02:01:27.080 --> 02:01:31.320
Phil: Yeah, but you've got to expand a scale out into a ten-point scale.
02:01:31.340 --> 02:01:35.280
Tom: So, in cat years, you're saying the meows go by cat years.
02:01:35.480 --> 02:01:40.300
Phil: Look, I'd give this game a solid five out of ten on my own scale.
02:01:40.380 --> 02:01:40.880
Phil: How's that?
02:01:42.760 --> 02:01:50.080
Phil: It's well executed, it's a good idea, but there's not enough there to really sink your teeth into.
02:01:50.360 --> 02:01:58.720
Phil: It's a good fun development project, but I wouldn't call it a fleshed out game that I'd pay a whole bunch of money for.
02:01:59.120 --> 02:02:03.800
Tom: Yep, and it's not expensive, so it is certainly worth playing for a few dollars.
02:02:03.920 --> 02:02:05.420
Phil: Yeah, yeah, it's worth your time.
02:02:05.440 --> 02:02:08.640
Tom: For a few cents as it is valued in the sale of the century.
02:02:08.660 --> 02:02:09.540
Phil: Yes, yes.
02:02:09.780 --> 02:02:21.520
Tom: But I believe the final score for you then is either two and a half meows out of ten, or eight and a half meows out of ten in cat years, or five out of ten on the human scale.
02:02:21.540 --> 02:02:24.400
Phil: On the Phil Fogg scale, right.
02:02:24.420 --> 02:02:26.040
Phil: So anything else before we close out the show?
02:02:27.340 --> 02:02:30.020
Tom: Yes, I read We the Living.
02:02:30.760 --> 02:02:34.120
Tom: So I've now read every single Ayn Rand novel.
02:02:34.420 --> 02:02:35.620
Phil: Oh, okay, yeah.
02:02:36.580 --> 02:02:42.960
Tom: And like reading Jordan Peterson and Brandon B.
02:02:42.980 --> 02:02:59.420
Tom: McCartney's self-help books, I learned something from it that had been bothering and confusing me about this style of rugged individualism and might-make-right that is popular not just in Ayn Rand but all over the place.
02:02:59.560 --> 02:03:02.080
Tom: But reading We the Living, it finally clicked in my head.
02:03:02.360 --> 02:03:12.920
Tom: Because in these books, and it's not as bad in her later novels, though it is there in a slightly different way, the protagonists are usually total losers.
02:03:13.640 --> 02:03:15.320
Tom: Like they're crap at what they're doing.
02:03:16.180 --> 02:03:18.320
Tom: Again, this doesn't apply to Atlas Shrugged.
02:03:18.500 --> 02:03:24.020
Tom: They're crap at what they're doing, and they usually end up failing in the end in some way or other.
02:03:24.040 --> 02:03:42.460
Tom: And that does apply to the founded head of Atlas Shrugged, where all of those people, while they seemingly succeeded in their goals as individuals in the case of the conglomerate of individualists, they didn't succeed as individuals.
02:03:42.580 --> 02:03:44.280
Tom: They succeeded as a group of individuals.
02:03:44.920 --> 02:04:00.120
Tom: And in the case of the great architect, the visionary maverick artist, he was a total fucking failure because he required the outside validation of a court of law through a jury to be able to feel that he had succeeded.
02:04:00.140 --> 02:04:16.580
Tom: So again, as a moral tale in defense of individualism and pure belief in oneself and one's own strength to cope with the world and achieve things, they show that you can't do that.
02:04:17.020 --> 02:04:46.740
Tom: And in this book, which is set in a dystopic description of the Soviet Union, which specifically just after the revolution, so in the early 1900s, and can you believe that in the Soviet Union, things must have been so bad because the character, the protagonist, is a struggling university student dealing with things like unsupportive teachers.
02:04:48.020 --> 02:04:52.320
Tom: She's living in semi-poverty as a university student.
02:04:53.180 --> 02:04:54.360
Tom: Can you imagine?
02:04:55.580 --> 02:04:56.740
Tom: Can you imagine that?
02:04:56.840 --> 02:05:02.100
Tom: It's just horrifically disturbing that this could have occurred in the Soviet Union.
02:05:03.380 --> 02:05:07.860
Tom: And it ends with her, spoiler alert, failing to escape.
02:05:08.980 --> 02:05:10.140
Tom: Failing to escape.
02:05:10.420 --> 02:05:13.240
Tom: So as an individual, she fucking fails.
02:05:13.640 --> 02:05:29.600
Tom: But I realize that in these books, which are all ultimately about self-pitying and whining and begging someone else to tell you that you have value, and I believe, I'm happy to tell Ayn Rand that she has value.
02:05:30.180 --> 02:05:38.400
Tom: She's a really honest artist, and she is, read her short books, because you don't need to read the long ones, but they are interesting.
02:05:38.740 --> 02:05:43.280
Tom: We The Living is shorter, short enough to read, and Anthem is really short.
02:05:43.300 --> 02:05:43.980
Tom: Just read that.
02:05:44.280 --> 02:05:46.200
Tom: It contains everything and all the other writing.
02:05:46.800 --> 02:05:58.460
Tom: But so the protagonists are losers, and they're begging for outside validation, but they're not getting it because everyone thinks they're crap, because they are crap, right?
02:05:59.540 --> 02:06:03.420
Tom: And they fail in the end and do not get rewarded because they fail.
02:06:03.740 --> 02:06:07.140
Tom: And that's the vision that Ayn Rand has of the world.
02:06:07.500 --> 02:06:09.160
Tom: So how can you solve this?
02:06:09.600 --> 02:06:22.900
Tom: Well, the obvious solution to this is to reject that you need outside validation and that other people's standards should dictate what you define as success.
02:06:23.200 --> 02:06:40.280
Tom: But Ayn Rand and other individuals like this do not have either the moral fortitude or the personal strength to actually do this because obviously validation is rewarding and a very human thing and something that most people require to various degrees.
02:06:40.520 --> 02:07:24.600
Tom: So their solution rather than that is essentially to have a character that losers can relate to and set them in a world where they don't get the praise and validation from other people that they deserve, but say rather than it's because you obviously are a failure, which you have to be a failure so that failures can relate to you and become invested in the story, it's because it's in a collectivist society, the Soviet Union, so somehow their validation doesn't matter because you're an individual and your failure doesn't matter because, well, that's never explained.
02:07:24.720 --> 02:07:38.200
Tom: But the basic point is, I finally now understand why in all her books the protagonists are losers and total failures in the end according to their own personal standards.
02:07:38.220 --> 02:07:58.160
Tom: And it is because they have to be relatable, one, to herself and her own personal character, and two, to the audience of the books that are going to be into this, which explains why, supposedly anyway, teenagers are one of her main audiences.
02:07:58.420 --> 02:08:07.460
Tom: Because if there's any period in most people's lives that people require a huge amount of validation, it is certainly when they are teenagers.
02:08:07.640 --> 02:08:18.080
Tom: But simultaneously, teenagers, with all the shit they're dealing with, are total fucking idiots a lot of the time and complete and utter losers.
02:08:18.760 --> 02:08:21.820
Tom: So, unlikely to be receiving validation from anyone.
02:08:23.420 --> 02:08:25.100
Phil: That's actually a very good insight.
02:08:25.740 --> 02:08:30.300
Phil: Not just about teenagers, but I mean about her audience in herself.
02:08:31.540 --> 02:08:34.180
Phil: Okay, so here I thought you were going to be nice to old Anne.
02:08:35.460 --> 02:08:38.420
Tom: Well, that book I would recommend to people.
02:08:39.120 --> 02:08:40.040
Tom: What's it called again?
02:08:40.060 --> 02:08:44.360
Tom: Again, it's only like 300 pages, as opposed to 3,000.
02:08:45.220 --> 02:08:49.740
Tom: So it won't waste weeks of your life.
02:08:51.220 --> 02:08:57.020
Tom: And the writing in it is actually, I think, other than Anthem, her best writing.
02:08:57.080 --> 02:09:00.860
Tom: It's before she goes pure pulp.
02:09:00.880 --> 02:09:05.820
Tom: The characters in this are somewhat interesting and their interactions are somewhat believable.
02:09:06.220 --> 02:09:13.240
Tom: And the depiction of the Soviet Union, I think is actually, it's written in a naturalistic realist style.
02:09:13.260 --> 02:09:14.600
Tom: It's really atmospheric.
02:09:14.860 --> 02:09:16.580
Tom: It has a proper sense of place to it.
02:09:16.600 --> 02:09:19.380
Tom: That aspect of the book is really enjoyable.
02:09:20.240 --> 02:09:29.680
Tom: The weird sadomasochistic romance in it like she has in all her books, it's less erotic and pornographic than it is in her later works.
02:09:30.000 --> 02:09:41.240
Tom: But it is, other than with the chick in the architect book, it is a much more interesting exploration of a relationship like that.
02:09:41.260 --> 02:09:48.360
Tom: The woman in the architect book, though, is such a batshit crazy character that in terms of the romance, that is so good.
02:09:48.540 --> 02:09:51.860
Tom: But this book is worth reading for its literary quality.
02:09:52.220 --> 02:10:11.000
Tom: And as a pro-Soviet propaganda book, it is also really effective because its depiction of the Soviet Union as being as much a shithole but no more of a shithole than 1920s England or America is really effective, where you've got a...
02:10:11.900 --> 02:10:14.080
Tom: It's like reading of human bondage.
02:10:14.300 --> 02:10:30.780
Tom: It's absolutely like that sort of depiction of university life or the For Love Alone by Christine Stead, set in Australia in the same era, and London depicting university life.
02:10:30.800 --> 02:10:34.300
Tom: And one can't really tell the difference, honestly.
02:10:36.000 --> 02:10:42.560
Tom: So as a pro-Soviet propaganda book in the socialist realist style, it is absolutely worth reading as well.
02:10:42.880 --> 02:10:48.860
Tom: And I also think, again, I actually like Aang Rand as an example of that.
02:10:49.340 --> 02:10:52.640
Tom: She has the rare quality of honesty as an artist.
02:10:53.020 --> 02:11:05.720
Tom: And to me, her life is something of a tragedy, because when she was writing The Fountainhead or whichever the architect book was, she took a lot of anthetamines and became addicted to them.
02:11:06.120 --> 02:11:17.700
Tom: And in that book and from that book onwards, there is a notable decline both in her ability to write, particularly in characterisation, but also in just the basic prose.
02:11:18.340 --> 02:11:26.520
Tom: And also in her non-fiction, her logic and ability to be logically consistent massively drops off as well.
02:11:26.720 --> 02:11:42.620
Tom: Before that, to me, she is a really entertaining, provocative, not in the sense that she is coming up with provocative ideas, but as someone just being deliberately provocative and being edgy is what I mean.
02:11:43.620 --> 02:11:57.680
Tom: She is an amusingly edgy thinker, and she is irreverent and totally earnest and sincere, which is really rare for at least intellectuals with those kinds of ideas.
02:11:57.700 --> 02:12:03.020
Tom: It's certainly not rare for random people with those ideas, but it is rare for intellectuals with those ideas.
02:12:03.040 --> 02:12:04.560
Phil: And the name of the book again?
02:12:05.180 --> 02:12:06.900
Tom: The name of the book is We The Living.
02:12:07.020 --> 02:12:07.760
Phil: We The Living.
02:12:08.360 --> 02:12:08.800
Phil: Okay.
02:12:09.460 --> 02:12:14.580
Phil: Okay, well, with that, I think we'll close out episode 132 of The Game Under Podcast.
02:12:15.100 --> 02:12:22.120
Phil: Please do go and check part 3 of Tom's writing on Jordan Peterson, Peterson at gameunder.net.
02:12:22.700 --> 02:12:25.640
Phil: And thanks for joining me this day, Tom.
02:12:26.920 --> 02:12:32.100
Tom: Thanks for having me, Phil, although I am the host and you the co-host, so technically you join me.