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Introduction
0:00:08
Trademark Banter
0:01:40 South Austrlian Goose Game
0:02:08 Recording from Home Due to Covid-19
Tom Towers Reacts... to the News
0:03:45 The Last of Us Part Two Delayed Forever
0:07:31 The Official XBOX Magazine Shuts Down & Hyper Magazine
Trademark Banter Resumes
0:11:25 Towers Reads Another 100 Books (in 2020!)
0:13:00 Crash by J.G. Ballard
0:25:30 Gaming Sites Aren't Gaming Sites Anymore
0:27:00 Wasting Time Second Guessing Gaming PR
0:36:00 Star Trek and Sky Children of Light
0:44:00 Tom Towers, Segue Assassin
Tom Towers First Impressions
0:45:45 Forza Horizon 4
0:52:00 Gran Turismo's Current Direction
0:59:00 Metropolis Street Racer & Dynamic Weather
1:02:30 Seasons and Weather a Great Addition but...
1:16:30 Spammed with DLC
1:22:45 Two Modes in Seasonal Events
1:28:00 Polyphony Digital
1:29:30 Amazing Lego DLC!
Trademark Banter III
1:41:30 Fogg is Retiring! (At some point)
1:42:30 Towers: Everything is Breaking
1:45:20 Turing Rolls Over in his AI Rendered Grave
1:55:00 99 Cent Lock Vs 99 Cent Hammer
Feature: What Remains of Edith Finch *Spoilers, Lots of Spoilers*
1:58:00 Untitled Swan Game 2:13:45
Gameplay Reductionism - An Important Point
2:23:30 Our Score
End of Game Coverage Here
2:24:15
A Few Book Recommendations from Tom Towers
2:36:00 A Few Book Recommendations from Phil Fogg
2:58:45 Phil Tries to Restore Order (and eat).
Transcipt
Tom: We are pretending to be recording it on April th,
Tom: But when did we actually record it?
Tom: Phil, who is my co-host?
Phil: Well, I'm not quite sure, but I do know when you recorded episodes and
Phil: And I do want to thank Arnie and Gagan for step hosting while I was on assignment.
Phil: I particularly enjoyed both episodes, but episode was pretty good, and Gargadeep Singh from the Endless Backlog did a great job.
Phil: Is there a new podcast for their game of the year has to be posted by now, surely?
Tom: Well, he claimed it would be posted long before our show went up, but the last time I checked, a reasonable length of time ago, there was nothing on the YouTube channel, but I will check live on air.
Tom: The last episode they have posted there is from six months ago.
Phil: So we totally spoiled it in our last episode.
Phil: Apparently, it was a six-hour show, so I won't be listening to that.
Tom: He did say he would be time stamping the relevant part, which is the argument for the game of the year credential for Untitled Goose Game, which is an Australian made game.
Tom: Indeed, a Melbourne made game.
Tom: Oh, really?
Phil: I thought it was from South Australia.
Tom: No, Melbourne, I believe.
Phil: Well, they probably conned the South...
Tom: Including a grant.
Tom: What's that?
Phil: They probably conned the South Australian government into giving them a grant.
Tom: No, I believe the grant is from the Victorian Film Board.
Phil: Because I know we once lost a listener for making a disparaging mark about South Australia, so we shan't be repeating that again here.
Phil: We should probably note for our keen listeners that because of these times, both Tom and I are recording this from our home studio, so if there's any...
Tom: Yes, for the first time on air, we are not recording it in the same studio.
Phil: No, we're not coming to you live from the Stride studio.
Phil: In fact, they've dropped their sponsorship because of these times, so we're recording this from home.
Phil: If you hear any ambient noise, such as cats, children or other sounds of joy, we apologize in advance.
Tom: Cats, children.
Tom: Is that children of cats or children and cats?
Phil: No, cats, children.
Tom: Okay.
Phil: If you do hear any cats, children, let us know.
Tom: There's an Australian composer called Elena Katz-Chernin, so you may have also been referring to her reasonably good music.
Phil: Yeah, she may drop by to borrow a ham hock or something in these troubling times.
Tom: I don't think she's that avant-garde.
Tom: But on these troubling times, by the way, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra has been releasing a number of live streams, some of which are quite good.
Phil: Oh, really?
Phil: They've been doing live streams as an orchestra?
Tom: Yes.
Tom: Well, before the lockdown reached stage three, they were doing some in-studio live concert performances.
Tom: Since then, they have been live streaming some old concerts and possibly doing some performances with fewer numbers of people.
Phil: Well, it's taped to live.
Phil: That's not like our show.
Phil: No.
Phil: Which we record this...
Tom: Well, also broadcast live, originally.
Phil: Every time someone downloads a podcast, we get a text, and we have to do the show again.
Phil: Which one are they listening to now?
Phil: Episode ?
Phil: Where's the script?
Phil: But speaking of these troubling times, I just wanted you to get your reaction to some of the news that's going on.
Phil: It's unavoidable in these times.
Phil: And that is Last of Us has been delayed indefinitely.
Tom: Every cloud has a silver lining, as they say.
Phil: Yeah, well, I'm going to cancel my pre-order.
Phil: I mean, so that's an extra bucks in my pocket, or or however much games cost now, that our dollar is worth cents.
Phil: Yeah, so basically they pinned it on logistics and said that they wanted the game to come out everywhere around the world at the same time.
Phil: So I guess digital distribution wasn't a choice, but it's a very boring answer.
Phil: Had they said that, you know, we're having trouble getting rid of all these bugs while we work from home, or bringing the project to the finish, you know, when our employees are all at home, that would be one thing.
Phil: But they're blaming it on disks and saying that, oh, we could get it to some regions, but not other regions.
Phil: What do you think of that?
Tom: It's a strange PR strategy.
Tom: I don't see the justification of presenting it in that matter, because even if it were the real reason, surely it is win-win to say that they could not continue development as they like to due to social distancing regulation.
Tom: Then they're doing something good for the benefit of humanity and delaying the game.
Tom: Whereas otherwise, if they wanted to continue doing it and not have a worldwide physical release, why couldn't they have a worldwide digital release?
Tom: It doesn't make that much sense.
Phil: It doesn't.
Phil: And I think, actually, you've probably got your finger right on the pulse there.
Phil: It's probably an ego thing, where they're delaying it maybe because of the content.
Phil: The content isn't a good read right now.
Phil: And they're saying, no, we've finished the game.
Phil: We're not blaming this on not finishing the game.
Phil: If you guys want to come up with an excuse, we'll have an excuse.
Phil: But my team did what they were supposed to do.
Phil: The game is coming out, and I'm not having that reflect on them.
Phil: So they can point the fingers.
Tom: Alternatively, it's an even bigger ego thing, and they want the game to be prophetic.
Tom: So they've got all their employees ferreting around the world, attempting to spread SARS as much as possible.
Phil: That would take more coordination and motivation than I think they have.
Phil: But honestly, I'm not disappointed.
Tom: And a greater commitment to their art.
Phil: Yeah, I'm not disappointed.
Phil: I've got plenty of other things to play, and it would probably be a distasteful game to be playing right now anyway.
Phil: Eh, not that that matters to me, but it would have to affect their sales.
Phil: And you know, they might be shallowly just thinking, well, people can't go out of their house to buy the game in the number one market for this game.
Phil: So we're delaying it for marketing reasons.
Tom: Don't a lot of people have internet in the number one market for this game though?
Phil: Yeah, but they've got to reserve that for Netflix in these troubling times.
Tom: Okay, so everything else except for Netflix is being throttled.
Phil: Yes, including critical medical information.
Tom: Yes.
Phil: And online prognosis or diagnosis.
Phil: I don't know what that's called.
Phil: I haven't been to a doctor for a while.
Phil: I'd like your reaction to another thing because every time we record, I have to tell you about another magazine shutting down.
Phil: The official Xbox magazine is shut down in the UK.
Phil: And this is a future publication.
Phil: The future is a massive magazine publishing company.
Phil: But yeah, another one bites the dust.
Phil: It's gotten to the point now where there's no, there's no magazines for me to go and buy in the store anymore.
Phil: I'm actually looking forward to the quarterly hyper, but I think it's been a couple of quarters since they've had a hyper.
Tom: That's if the quarterly hyper still exists.
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
Tom: Which is as to be determined.
Phil: And Hyper is an Australian magazine.
Phil: It was the longest running magazine, along with Game Informer at this point.
Phil: And they were keeping it going quarterly.
Phil: And remember, I got that bundle of them at a charity book show.
Phil: And I actually got to read them on my last holiday.
Phil: And I started to go, okay, I can definitely see the appeal here.
Phil: They, while the quality was diminished because I saw that they were repeating content in this quarterly format and parceling up things, some of the stuff was quite controversial and wouldn't find its way into a regular magazine of its nature.
Phil: So I'm actually looking forward to a new hyper, but you're not sure as to where they are right now?
Tom: Well, their publisher Next Media either went into administration or sold hyper to another publisher.
Tom: And that publisher claims that they are going to release it.
Tom: Some people related to hyper claim that that's the end of hyper, and as yet no new issue of hyper has appeared.
Phil: So I was thinking about Game Informer, because since we last talked, Game Informer magazine has had more layoffs.
Phil: And it's obvious that they're going to fold the magazine.
Phil: And I was thinking, you know, it'd be great for some of the long-term employees of that to try and buy it at a fraction of the cost and keep it going.
Phil: But that's probably a foolish use of employees' money, really, isn't it?
Tom: Probably.
Tom: Particularly given that they're attempting to not have to spend any money on publishing or having anything to do with a magazine that no longer sells enough.
Phil: That's right.
Phil: Yep.
Tom: Yep.
Phil: And it's amazing.
Tom: They seem to go against the entire concept of downsizing or ceasing to publish it.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: I've got some things to go over in Trademark Banter, too, but that relates to that.
Tom: I thought this was Trademark Banter.
Phil: Well, no.
Phil: This is Tom Towers' reacts to the news.
Phil: To the news.
Phil: So, honestly, yeah, well, actually, we can just...
Phil: There is no more news I wanted you to react to.
Phil: So we can just drift into Trademark Banter, which is a real change up from Smugcast Banter last episode.
Phil: Was there anything that you wanted to get off your chest?
Tom: Well, I've got several Trademark Banter subjects, and I'll read through them, and you can pick them in the style that I believe you've asked me to do in the past.
Tom: One is the highlights of the first books I've read this year.
Tom: What Sky and Star Trek have in common, that is Sky Children of Light, the Intel Nook, SARS which we've talked a little bit about already, and the fact that everything appears to be breaking at the moment, unrelated to the SARS pandemic.
Phil: Okay, well, I think I'd probably want to hear...
Phil: First of all, I'm surprised to hear that you've read books already.
Phil: I thought you'd given up on reading.
Phil: I thought that you'd closed the book, so to speak, and had moved on to other intellectual riches.
Tom: Well, the problem is that reading books is essentially, I believe, the height of intellectual richness.
Tom: But you are right that in the Western canon anyway, when you've read the Bible and any Greek philosophy book, essentially there has been zero intellectual progress since then, and it wasn't that much of an exciting beginning either.
Tom: So you're right, I probably should give up.
Phil: So what books have you been reading?
Phil: Like instruction books or instruction manuals?
Phil: How to use a vacuum cleaner?
Tom: That might be a better use of some of my time, but I'll go for the book that I read today to begin with, which was Crash by JG.
Tom: Ballard.
Tom: I think his name is.
Tom: And this book, I believe, is an infamous book published in the s.
Phil: Oh, okay.
Phil: I'm sorry, I thought this was going to be about Crash Bandicoot.
Tom: No, sadly not.
Phil: Okay, that's my confusion with our earlier communique.
Tom: Yes.
Phil: Okay, so this is a book called Crash, and it was released in the s.
Phil: Is it about the stock market or?
Tom: No, it's not about the stock market.
Tom: Peak oil?
Tom: No, sadly not.
Tom: Spaceship Earth?
Tom: There's apparently room in the latter subject there for something a lot more shocking and violent, and indeed erotic than the content of Crash, but sadly it was not quite that transgressive and edgy.
Phil: Is this what the movie was made of?
Tom: Yes, the David Cronenberg film.
Phil: So this book is what that movie was based on?
Tom: Correct.
Phil: I thought it was going to be some deep philosophical thing, and it's a movie about...
Tom: The themes of it are somewhat interesting, which we'll get into in a minute, but it is, I believe, one of the books that Baudrillard, whose Simulation and Simulacra, I unfortunately read recently also, and that's why I read this, highlighted, and Baudrillard is actually, for what he lacks in interesting philosophical thought, but again, he is in the Western tradition, and if you ever, while growing up, wondered why everyone around you was a complete fucking moron, read some Greek philosophy, and it will make perfect sense why everyone is a fucking idiot.
Tom: So, Baudrillard is excused for following the steps of the giants of Greek philosophy.
Tom: Ayn Rand, for instance, massive Aristotle fan, massive St.
Tom: Augustine fan, two of the dumbest fuckwits in the history of philosophy.
Phil: When you said massive, I thought you were going to use a C word.
Phil: But anyway, as you have in the past.
Tom: Yes.
Tom: Okay, so Crash.
Phil: What's the highlighted book?
Tom: Well, I was going to say the subject of the book, it's essentially basically just a long erotic poem in the tradition of hero and liander.
Tom: And I think it's interesting and worth reading because that's all it is essentially.
Tom: And what's fascinating about it is basically erotic poetry from the era of Marlowe and up until essentially the th century when surrealism appeared on the scene and Ballard is very much influenced by the surrealists judging by this book.
Tom: Eros was essentially clouded in one violent metaphors and a lot of rapey stuff, not necessarily in the sense of rape, but there was always, there's usually some sort of violent conflict between the characters going on and a lot of references to Greek mythology and the aesthetic things floating around in the time period throughout the work again until basically the th century such as flowers and all that sort of nonsense as is referenced of course in Bayonetta and my Bayonetta piece for the top on gameunder.net.
Tom: The fascinating thing here is that it uses the modern, what pollutes the modern aesthetic thoughts and modern conceptions of violence, which is a lot less steer.
Tom: So basically the eroticism in the book is the metaphorical stuff is all related to cars and technology and particularly technology based on travel.
Tom: And if you think about cinema, what are these stock images and metaphors that break up scenes and are there as filler as they are in poetry most of the time, rather than for the purpose of meeting or particularly good lyrical quality.
Tom: It's shots of planes landing and taking off when characters travel somewhere, shots of traffic to fill up some time and all this sort of stuff.
Tom: So it makes perfect sense.
Tom: And again, arguably the most important status symbol of the post-Second World War era is the automobile because...
Phil: Because of freedom.
Tom: Yep, not just the freedom, because the majority of people owned property.
Tom: And it's one thing to compare a mansion to a shitty shack.
Tom: One of the most important things then was indeed the fact that everyone could own property in terms of post-war reconstruction.
Tom: So for that...
Tom: Drawing on those sorts of things could be a slightly questionable exposure of class politics, but a car, as you said, is a symbol of freedom.
Tom: So it gives you much more freedom in terms of your aesthetic expression of what it means.
Tom: And you can more easily, without offending people, draw on the differences between a Corvette and a shit box.
Tom: Because a shit box has its own qualities that a Corvette doesn't have, such as it doesn't use huge amounts of petrol, whereas a house that is tiny and decrepit is inherently inferior to a mansion, at least as we understand it.
Phil: So cars, obviously, in the West, at least in the United States, are an expression of your personality.
Phil: And I went through sports cars and everything else, and then I finally settled on a Honda Civic Sedan.
Phil: And in Carrop, says Southern California, I once told a lady, you know, she's like, you know, I said, well, I've had all of that, now I'm just driving a Honda Civic, because, you know, I don't want to make a statement.
Phil: She says, well, actually, that is a statement.
Phil: That's a reflection of your own personal choice, is to have something that isn't a reflection of, you know, of ostentatious, you know, ways.
Tom: The ultimate ostentation is to try and appear not ostentatious.
Phil: Yes, right.
Phil: Well, then I'd drive a Volvo, wouldn't I, or a Subaru.
Phil: I was just actually driving a good car.
Phil: But, you know, the car is a symbol of freedom, mobility.
Phil: But if it wasn't for the personality of the car, you know, you'd only have car types, you'd only have functionality.
Phil: You wouldn't have a Commodore and a Falcon.
Phil: And actually, we don't have those anymore anyway, here in Australia.
Phil: So, okay, so everyone has a house.
Phil: A smaller house could be an inferior house, but with a car, a smaller car is not necessarily that.
Phil: It's accessible.
Phil: Expression of freedom, ownership.
Phil: And so, what happens?
Phil: What's the crash part of it?
Tom: Well, the crash part of it is essentially the protagonist, while having a romantic liaison with, I believe, a co-worker's wife, crashes into another car, killing the male driver, but his wife survives and they end up having an affair based on technological and especially car-based fetishism.
Phil: See, I once had a girlfriend, I had a red sports car with a brand new one, with a license plate that said, I hate me, right?
Tom: You hate what?
Phil: I hate me.
Tom: I see, yes.
Phil: And I thought, okay, that's kind of clever because, you know, it's a vanity plate.
Phil: And so, you know, you're saying you hate yourself, it's a vanity plate, and it worked on other levels as well, obviously.
Tom: I mean, for a start, you suffer from crippling self-hatred.
Phil: Yes.
Tom: And so it was also a statement of truth, not merely an ironical statement on having a vanity plate.
Phil: Right.
Phil: And even more so at the time.
Phil: And a girlfriend I had, you know, I said, you know, my work made me change it, okay, which I could have sued them.
Phil: But anyway, I'm the one that chose to change it.
Phil: So I changed it to just an expression.
Phil: Aha.
Phil: So I went from...
Tom: Did you change it to I hate meat?
Phil: No, that's too many letters.
Phil: I just changed it to I hate you.
Tom: I've read yet another layer of self commentary there.
Phil: But no, I changed it to a non-statement, which was the words aha.
Phil: And then their work was like, oh, what does this mean?
Phil: What does aha mean?
Phil: It means nothing.
Phil: It's just, you know, it was basically an FU to them because FU was already taken.
Phil: So the girlfriend says, oh, why, you know, why do you have aha?
Phil: And I said, oh, I used to have a plate that said, I hate me.
Phil: She said, God, if I'd seen you driving down the highway in a convertible with a license plate that said, I hate me and I hadn't met you, I would have crashed into you just to meet you because that's my kind of, that's my kind of guy.
Tom: I thought she was going to say, just to kill you, and that was the last time you ever saw.
Phil: That's probably more information than anyone needs to know, but you know, it ties into this somehow, doesn't it?
Tom: Yes.
Phil: And the eroticism?
Tom: Yes, yes, yes.
Tom: And so the other aspect of again, the transformation of mythological references and ascetic metaphors to fill up your own artistic vacuities.
Tom: Yes.
Tom: The rest of the sexual descriptions, all very anatomical and scientific and sanitized, while also simultaneously being pornographic and vulgar, again, very much in line with modern philosophical traditions rather than Greek ones.
Tom: And though I said they were the same in the past, the addition of science to that discourse is one genuine alteration and interesting diversion that has occurred.
Tom: But the most interesting thing about it is, in spite of being one of the first works that fully transforms the erotic poem that had been going along unchanged for hundreds upon hundreds of years until Surrealism, and in Surrealism, it was very much still drawing on, albeit subverting, similar sorts of metaphors.
Tom: And arguably the main difference between Symbolists and Surrealists is that of irony, which may be a little bit of a reduction, but it is partially true, and Symbolists drew on all of that sort of stuff but in a postmodern, self-conscious way.
Tom: But the point is, in spite of it successfully transforming the aesthetic content filler from the previous version of erotic poetry, what we're left with is ultimately completely unchanged from the biblical view of sex, which is non-procreative sex is entirely violent and based on the desire to destroy or be destroyed, yet simultaneously there is, unlike other sexual commentary in the Bible, random, completely decontextualized, erotic joy here and there in and around this horrific, vulgar and violent pornographic collage of sex slash violence.
Tom: So in spite of it seemingly being a transformation of Western erotic poetry, it is ultimately structurally identical to the same shit that's been being written for, I won't say the past years because that's certainly inaccurate, but since the Middle Ages.
Phil: Okay, so the name of the book is Crash.
Phil: Who wrote it?
Tom: Ballard, I believe he's called.
Phil: Is that a pen name?
Tom: I think that's his real name.
Phil: Okay, I wonder what his non-diploma would be.
Phil: If that's his real name.
Tom: Well, in the book, he refers to himself as Ballard.
Phil: Well, no.
Phil: So, okay, now that's the first book of the books you've read this year.
Phil: So we'll go on to book number now.
Tom: Yes, only to go.
Phil: Only to go, then we'll start talking about video games.
Phil: Actually, if it's okay with you, I think we...
Phil: Unless there's something critical, we could probably just slate this and move on to a different matter of Trademark Banter.
Tom: I think there's several critical things, but we may as well intersperse them with other aspects of Trademark Banter.
Phil: Very good, because we are going to talk about some games that we've played together as well, together but apart.
Phil: But I was...
Phil: I get this...
Tom: We play them metres apart, precisely.
Phil: I get this newsletter from GameSpot every morning about gaming news.
Phil: And it's just...
Phil: Fortnite, Destiny, Tiger King, WrestleMania.
Phil: This is this morning.
Phil: Tiger King, it's a Netflix movie.
Phil: WrestleMania, like, you know...
Tom: A Netflix show, I believe.
Phil: Yep, and box office takings.
Phil: And it's just sad.
Phil: It's like there's no news.
Phil: And this isn't just because of now.
Phil: This has been for months and months and months.
Tom: Well, this did not just appear now, but months and months and months ago.
Tom: Contrary to the shock and flabbergastion, which should be a word, but isn't of much of the population, politicians, around the world.
Phil: Yeah, but it's just like, this is like from GameSpot.
Phil: And I go over to IGN, it's the same thing.
Phil: And it's just so boring.
Phil: It is absolutely boring.
Phil: And they'll talk about, oh, here's the deals and this and that.
Phil: If you click on this, we're going to get some money, so click on it and go buy it there and all the rest of it.
Phil: And it's just, it's so sad how diluted it's become.
Phil: And this is what replaced the magazines I was talking about earlier.
Phil: And it's crap.
Phil: But I've been listening to a lot of podcasts as well.
Phil: And for years, and we've been guilty of this long, long in the past, not recently, and that's critiquing the game industry.
Phil: And breaking down, this game sold that, and that game sold this, and they should have done that, they should have done this.
Phil: And that's bad.
Tom: I've certainly only been guilty of that under violent duress.
Phil: Absolutely.
Phil: And I'm much more guilty of that.
Phil: But not so much in recent years.
Phil: But then I've been sick of listening to these podcasts critiquing the PR moves of the gaming companies.
Phil: You know.
Phil: So Sony had a thing where Mark Cerny was talking about his GDC speech, basically, where he was talking about the technical aspects of the game.
Phil: And the night before, they had tweeted out that this was going to be a deep dive with system architect Mark Cerny.
Phil: Right?
Phil: So Sony completely flagged that this is not a reveal.
Phil: You know, we're not going to be showing you the PlayStation for the first time or anything else.
Phil: They said it was a deep dive with a system architect.
Phil: And then everyone complains about how boring it is and how this is a massive fail for Sony in one way or the other, and -minute conversations about how this is bad PR.
Phil: And it's the same thing that happened when Blizzard said at BlizzCon, hey, look, we're not announcing Diablo
Phil: They sent out a press release.
Phil: It says we're not announcing Diablo but there will be news about Diablo.
Phil: Then they announced the Diablo mobile game, and everyone's like, oh, this is the worst move ever.
Phil: What are they possibly doing, you know?
Phil: And it's like, okay, guys, I'm not second-guessing the companies, and I'm definitely not second-guessing their PR companies.
Phil: When there's so many games you could be talking about, like as Children of the Sky, for example.
Phil: One of the games that you were saying earlier, one of the topics I can pick from is Children of the Sky.
Tom: Sky Children of the Light, I believe.
Phil: Sky Children of the Light?
Tom: Yes.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: It was, again, one of your top ten games.
Tom: I think it came sixth, right?
Phil: It was one, two, three, four, five, six, yeah.
Tom: And the top six of my list, I would put among the greatest games ever.
Phil: I'm not going to argue with that.
Phil: The only one I don't have any experience with is your number one, which was Trauma.
Phil: So we'll just list those games.
Phil: Trauma was number one.
Phil: And you can go to gameunder.net to read the wonderful essays that Tom has written about his top ten.
Phil: It's our number one article right now on the front page.
Phil: But number one was Trauma.
Phil: Number two was This World of Mine, which I thought was going to be your...
Phil: It's actually exactly where I thought it would be.
Phil: I knew it would be in the top three.
Phil: Anti-Chamber.
Tom: It was originally going to be third and Anti-Chamber second.
Phil: Anti-Chamber, did you ever run an interview with him?
Tom: No, I don't think I did.
Tom: And that's another Australian-made game.
Tom: And again, I believe another Malburnian, or at least Victorian.
Phil: Well, you'd be interesting catching up with him and seeing where he is, and we could maybe do a retrospective interview, the making of Anti-Chamber, or just something.
Tom: He, like the developer of Trauma, appears to have disappeared since Anti-Chamber.
Phil: Yeah, it's a shame.
Phil: And number four was Bayonetta, which when I saw that, I was like, you know, that really should have made its way into my top ten somewhere.
Phil: And then Children of Light, which is the game from Jenova Chen and his team, is that game company?
Phil: Is that what they...
Tom: Yes, and Children of Light, in fact, is fifth, not sixth.
Phil: That's correct.
Phil: One, two, three, four, five.
Tom: So I amend my statement to the top five, which will certainly be among the greatest games ever.
Phil: And then from there, it's a downward slide, Life is Strange, Metro, Deadly Premonition, Papers, Please and Hard Reset.
Phil: So what was I saying?
Phil: No, rather, what were you saying?
Phil: What's that got to do with...
Phil: What's that mobile game?
Phil: And has it come off of mobile yet?
Phil: Is it on PC yet?
Tom: Well, it's now got on Android.
Tom: I'm not sure if it's on PC and consoles yet, though.
Phil: Okay, so Children of Light, where's the sky come into it?
Tom: Well, you're flying around a lot, so I think that's why.
Phil: Okay, and what's it got to do with Star Trek?
Tom: Well, before we move on to that, your commentary on the sad state of PR...
Phil: Yeah, sorry.
Tom: I would suggest that is due to the specialization of media in the current gaming sphere on the Internet.
Tom: So everything has gone into its little niche, and previously general websites like GameSpot are now general entertainment websites in the vein of Hollywood coverage and so forth.
Tom: And the only things that continue in any sort of form, as they were pre-YouTube and other forms of media that greatly encourage specialization for manipulating algorithms, is maybe just Eurogamer, which has always had its own niche content, which may be why it was able to survive.
Tom: And from what I've seen of Eurogamer, certainly it has less general content than it did in the past, and seems to much more liberally promote things like Digital Foundry and so forth.
Phil: Let me tell you, today when I was putting together the Tom reacts to the news, I went from site to site, Kotaku, Destructoid, IGN, Gamespot, got nothing.
Phil: And then I went to Eurogamer, and I found all the articles I needed and more.
Phil: It was wonderful.
Phil: And they were in the old style.
Phil: They were in the old style of what we would have expected from a video game website.
Phil: So it's really exciting.
Phil: Now the podcast is mixed terribly, but they've rebooted the podcast now for the fourth time.
Phil: I think they're on episode or something like that.
Phil: And it's not a great listen, but it is there.
Phil: So kudos to Eurogamer.
Tom: And another positive aspect of modern games media that is worth mentioning is AskTechnica's War Stories on YouTube, which fits very much into that niche category.
Tom: But it's an interesting complement to things like Sup Homes.
Tom: And I think there was another podcast that one of our listeners suggested that I check out called The Sausage Factory or something along those lines that go in depth on games development.
Tom: The interesting thing about the War Stories videos on AskTechnica are they usually focused on a particular technical issue that a games development was facing at a certain time, and the creative programming way in which they solved that, and sometimes what creative ideas they actually resulted in and how they may have positively altered the direction of a games development.
Phil: Okay, so I've written those down.
Phil: AskTechnica War Stories on YouTube, Supp Homes and Sausage Factory.
Tom: Both those two are very old, and Supp Homes is, I'm pretty sure, hasn't made an episode for many years.
Phil: Yeah, but even so, there's got to be something there.
Tom: Yes.
Tom: He has an interview with Kelly Santiago of previously that game company.
Phil: Yep, yep, yep.
Phil: What's she doing now, do you know?
Tom: No idea.
Tom: Well, she says in that interview what she was doing, but I have forgotten.
Tom: And it is, unfortunately, one of the worst episodes on the series.
Tom: Partially because he is an invertebrate flirt, and his episodes with women are generally not quite as interesting as his episodes with men for that reason.
Phil: It's so cringe-worthy, and I'm just glad that we've gotten over that.
Phil: Whenever...
Tom: Our flirting used to be insufferable.
Phil: Well, just me and you, no.
Phil: I'm talking about when you're listening to podcasts because in the past, whenever a woman was injected into a video game podcast, it was just an endless, unbearable, you know, you know, oh, a woman is here.
Phil: We've got to say yes, we've got to say that.
Phil: So back to Children of Light and Star Trek.
Tom: Yes.
Phil: Is there a particular generation that it's like or is it just the whole Star Trek?
Tom: Well, the only Star Trek I've seen other than memes on YouTube and an episode written by Hal and Alison that was not actually produced, so by that I mean I read the script.
Tom: The only Star Trek I've seen at all is Star Trek Voyager, but one of the important visions for the future of Star Trek, I believe, is the Universal Communicator.
Tom: And on Sky Children of Light, I have at least two friends to whom I communicate entirely through, I assume they're using not Google Translate because they're in China, but some Chinese-made translating device.
Phil: And it works.
Tom: It works about as well as talking to someone with very poor English works.
Tom: So it does work, surprisingly.
Phil: What was the thing in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy called, the Universal Translator?
Tom: Something like that.
Phil: Yeah, the Babblefish.
Phil: Because, you know, the Tower of Babble and all that sort of thing.
Tom: And did not Babblefish name themselves after that, I believe?
Phil: Yeah, they named themselves after the last Hitchhiker in the Universe or whatever it's called.
Phil: But it actually works well.
Tom: Yes, surprisingly well.
Phil: Maybe I should get this so I can understand you when we do these podcasts.
Phil: That's got to be...
Phil: Well, what does that mean to you, on an intellectual level, that you're communicating successfully?
Phil: Now, is it just hi?
Phil: You say hi and it converts it to, you know, Chinese hi or...?
Tom: Well, that's what it does on their end.
Tom: And then they say hi in Chinese and it converts it to English on my end.
Phil: Yeah, it's probably the same thing, you know.
Tom: So they're seeing my writing in Chinese and I'm seeing their writing in English.
Phil: How do you know that it's not like inflaming them, like the Chinese translator is not making you say insidious Western things so that they hate you?
Tom: Well, I may just be an endless stream of capitalist propaganda and they're an endless stream of communist propaganda.
Tom: And neither of us are aware of it.
Phil: You might be their agent.
Phil: I mean, they might be the handler and you're their agent.
Phil: They're not trying to convince you to do anything, right?
Tom: Yet.
Phil: Yeah.
Tom: Is what you're saying.
Phil: Yet.
Phil: Because it didn't make you top and I'm just saying it is a mobile game.
Phil: So it's a bit fishy.
Tom: Well, I did write that before this occurred.
Phil: So it's a bit babble fishy.
Phil: Have you been conversing with people of your own tongue in that game as well?
Tom: Yes, I have.
Tom: And also people from other places who, unlike me, are intelligent enough to speak more than one language.
Phil: Oh, like Palais-vous, Francais, and C'estable, Espagnol, and all that sort of thing.
Phil: I'll get it.
Phil: Yes.
Phil: I'll get it.
Phil: All right.
Phil: Well, look, if we don't mind, I'm going to move things along and ask that we talk about some games that we've been playing or beaten or that sort of thing.
Tom: While we're on the topic of French...
Tom: Yes, I do need to bring up Baudrillard again, because as I said, I read Simulacra and Simulation, which is one of the most infamous philosophy books of the th century, I believe.
Tom: And the general reaction is that it's unbelievably badly written, it's incredibly dense and hard to understand, and it takes very simple ideas, presents them in a ridiculously overblown manner, and is incredibly verbose.
Phil: So it's like an episode of The Game Under Podcast.
Tom: Exactly, but also has some interesting ideas in it.
Tom: I essentially have the opposite opinion of it.
Tom: To me, it certainly did not contain that many interesting subjects, but the writing in it was absolutely endlessly entertaining and absolutely brilliant, but the actual content wasn't particularly interesting in and of itself.
Tom: For instance, my hot take on Crash is much more interesting than Baudrillard's, but his would be much more entertaining to listen to.
Phil: So how would we access that?
Phil: Like if someone actually did want to access that, how would they get to it?
Phil: What's the best way to look at it these days?
Tom: Well, it is on YouTube.
Phil: Okay, and how do you spell Baudrillard?
Tom: I think it's B-A-U-D-R-I-L-L-A-R-D, but I could well...
Phil: Oh, shit, that's my password.
Phil: Why are you giving it out?
Phil: It's got a at the end.
Phil: I didn't know it.
Tom: I have my own opinion on this, but why do you think it is that American philosophers have this seething fury when it comes to continental philosophy?
Phil: Well, there's the child-parent syndrome.
Phil: You know, obviously, America being a child of Europe, so there would be a little bit of a...
Phil: Well, if you were better, you would have moved to America like I did.
Tom: Yes.
Phil: Your ideas are old, where ours are new.
Phil: You're leaning on the past.
Tom: Well, the position is generally the reverse there.
Phil: Yeah, you're leaning on the past, we're breaking the ground.
Phil: You're leaning on socialism.
Phil: Why don't you just get a job, you dirty hippie?
Phil: Yeah, you know, that would be my assumption.
Tom: I would disagree with the past of them being old ideas rather than new because usually the criticism that I've seen, whether it's from conservatives or liberals or left-wingers, it's usually that they are new ideas that are stupid and move away from old ideas such as were supposedly discovered in the Enlightenment.
Phil: Yeah, but if you look at the, we've got to get off this topic, but if you look at the EU now, it's a very, very much an old idea of we've all got to step in order and we've all got to do the same thing.
Tom: The EU is perhaps the newest idea in European history.
Phil: And that is conformity?
Tom: That is that people in Europe should not be engaged in a permanent state of mass slaughter of one another.
Tom: That's basically the most radical idea in Europe in European history.
Phil: In Europe, yeah, okay.
Tom: And the EU is in Europe.
Phil: Yeah, of course.
Phil: Of course, but it's a very conformist perspective or the means by which they wish to achieve it.
Tom: It's certainly not conformist to old ideas.
Phil: It is not.
Tom: That is an unbelievably radical idea.
Tom: It is of the post-war ideas and concepts without question the most radical.
Phil: Yeah, that's just the principle.
Phil: It's not the implementation.
Phil: The implementation is very old, which is basically let Germany run everything.
Tom: Yes.
Tom: Well, that is, again, unbelievably radical.
Tom: After Napoleon was defeated for fucking years, they were trying to stop Germany from running everything.
Tom: So what are you talking about?
Tom: Wrong again, Phil Fogg.
Tom: Wrong again.
Phil: Wrong again, Fogg.
Phil: Hey, they're going to pull our podcast license if we don't talk about a video game, all right?
Tom: I just want to say I agree with your points, except for that, which is totally wrong.
Tom: And I would add another one, which is and would go to what you were trying to say there, but you're looking at the wrong area because the continental philosophers would and are generally against the EU for precisely the reasons you say, not necessarily the concept, but its implementation.
Tom: And just in addition to the reasons you brought up, which is essentially seething jealousy and an inferiority complex, I would add to that fear of a competing conservative ideal.
Phil: Well, I won't argue with that, but if we don't get on to a video game, they're going to revoke our podcast license.
Phil: So have you been playing any video games?
Tom: You're complaining about the...
Phil: Oh, come on, don't make me edit it twice!
Tom: You're complaining about the conformity of the EU, then worrying, cowering in fear, I should say, of some Orwellian big brother-like figure revoking our podcast license.
Phil: Segue again.
Phil: So I've got to edit my segue out twice now.
Phil: Are you done?
Tom: Yes, I'm done.
Tom: For now.
Phil: Well, I don't disagree too much with your point, but again, if we don't talk about The Video Game soon, I think they're going to revoke our podcast license.
Phil: And by them, I mean the EU.
Tom: And I'd just like to point out to listeners, he edited out one of the classic moments on The Game Under Podcast, because he is genuinely afraid of someone revoking our podcast license.
Phil: Yes, the EU.
Phil: They're going to come in here and tell us what to do.
Phil: We're advertising this as a video game podcast.
Phil: If we don't talk about video games, our podcast license goes away.
Tom: We're not wearing the right hand net to record podcasts at the moment.
Phil: That's true.
Tom: Is that what you're saying?
Phil: That's what your precious EU is saying.
Tom: Yeah, so I'm waiting here for you to talk about video games, but you ought to just keep banging on about regulations of the EU.
Phil: I've been playing Forza Horizon lately.
Phil: I don't know if you know, I recently got a new PC, and as a part of that, I got an Xbox Game Pass, which entitles me to download games that I otherwise wouldn't have access to because I don't have an Xbox One.
Phil: And as you know, from my time with Gran Turismo, and I've played Gran Turismo a great deal over the years and enjoyed it greatly, I was particularly interested to see basically what a current generation console slash PC was capable of in terms of a simulation sports game.
Phil: Now, of course, we all know that Horizon is more of the arcade-y element of Forza, and they've wrapped through the first four Forza Horizons pretty quickly.
Phil: And of course, the third one was set in Australia.
Phil: So I just wanted to basically give that a try.
Phil: How are you finding it?
Phil: I find that it doesn't quite have the same feel as if you were playing it on a console.
Phil: There's something about sitting on a couch, four to six meters, four to six feet away from the screen, and just playing it as a console game.
Phil: I mean, it's a console racer, so that's kind of where you want to play it.
Phil: So there has been a slight disconnect to it, but it does have some interesting elements.
Phil: I don't know if you've been playing this game as well?
Tom: I've never even heard of it.
Phil: Really?
Tom: Correct.
Phil: That is very surprising.
Phil: So you haven't played it at all, haven't even heard of it.
Tom: Did you say it was a racing game?
Phil: Yes, yes, racing game.
Tom: That's odd I haven't heard of it.
Phil: Yeah, Forza
Phil: Like I said, it's...
Tom: But I was never as big a fan of the original Forza Motorsport as I was of Gran Turismo.
Phil: That's true.
Phil: But you did like the Forza Horizons that you had played.
Tom: Well, I've never even heard of them, so...
Phil: Oh, okay.
Phil: Well, there was one set in Australia.
Phil: I know you knew about that one because you wrote an article on gameunder.net about it.
Phil: But basically, Forza retains almost everything that made Forza Horizon the best racer in its class.
Phil: And it turned into a game that you didn't know that you wanted, but now you just can't stop playing it once you start.
Phil: It's got a stunning visual quality and sound design, a massive array of automobiles, and that's why I thought you might like it because it harkens back to Gran Turismo.
Phil: And it has an extensive and completely customizable career mode, which has become the hallmarks of the Horizon series over the years.
Phil: You sure you haven't played it?
Tom: Well, you have highlighted three errors that I imagine may exist in the game where it doesn't necessarily live up to what it claims to have in it.
Tom: And the first and simplest one that I would bring up is, yes, the graphics are indeed stunning at times, but there are some very weird and bizarre geometrical renditioning of quite a few cars, which reminds me of Gran Turismo where you had the games that were ported from PSGran Turismos and you had the premium cars that were built from scratch for the PS
Tom: But here it's weirder because the general geometry of the cars in Gran Turismo was still good, but the surfaces, like the textures and the reflections, didn't look as good and there were no interior cameras.
Tom: Here, some of the cars, I think one of the Silvia's is a good example of this, if I remember correctly.
Tom: The geometry of it looks completely off.
Tom: Things like details on them are weirdly shaped and the wrong sort of size.
Tom: And on cars that are more realistically modelled, for some reason in the engine, they look really weird.
Tom: And it's partially, I assume, because of how unphotogenic many cars are today due to modern paint technology and also greater metalworking.
Tom: The greatest example off the top of my head is some of the AMG cars going around today that have a extremely curved and smoothed boot and brake lights and the back of the car, the coupé versions of them, they do not translate into the chase cam and any review of those cars at all in game.
Tom: They look absolutely horrendous.
Phil: As they do in real life.
Tom: But in real life, they make sense.
Phil: I don't know.
Tom: They make sense.
Phil: A lot of these cars now just look like I would describe them as looking completely mediocre rather than awful.
Tom: But here they look absolutely awful rather than mediocre.
Tom: But that's nitpicking because most cars do indeed look very good.
Tom: But the ones that look weird, it's very bizarre, the inconsistent quality because you would not expect that in what is a AAA title and the second biggest racing franchise currently being released.
Phil: Do you think they're actually eclipsed that or are you saying that Forza is the number one, this is the number two?
Tom: I said second biggest.
Phil: Yeah, that's what I mean.
Phil: I didn't know if you were saying that Gran Turismo was still...
Tom: Gran Turismo still is in terms of sales at the very least.
Tom: As far as I'm aware.
Phil: Have you played Gran Turismo Sport?
Tom: No, unfortunately, I have not.
Phil: It's apparently doing quite well.
Tom: Yep, and it looks like a pretty interesting evolution of the physics, still very much in simcade territory, but edging ever closer to a sim.
Phil: May I ask why you haven't?
Tom: Mainly because there's no career mode in it.
Tom: And speaking of the career mode, actually we'll mention one more thing on the cars.
Tom: The other thing is, in spite of the large selection of cars, the group to which this is marketed is in no way car enthusiasts.
Tom: They're outside of, which is one of the highlights of the game, one of the story sections, which goes into the history of ten important British racing cars.
Tom: There is essentially no interesting commentary on the history of cars or car brands, and the general tone and marketing is towards a generic gamer bro that they imagine will be playing the game, not at all marketed towards car enthusiasts, in stark contrast to something like Gran Turismo, which has in-depth histories on shitboxes in the game.
Tom: And essentially the British racing green story, the ten stories in it are basically the car histories that you get on every car in a little text snippet when you're looking at your cars in your garage or in shops on Gran Turismo.
Phil: Okay, so the main format of this game, you're playing it on PC with an Xbox controller?
Tom: With a PScontroller.
Phil: Oh, okay.
Phil: And it's handling quite well, looks great.
Tom: Yep, it works perfectly fine on a PScontroller in terms of the controls.
Tom: And the other thing you brought up before I go into how it drives was the in-depth career mode that is fully customizable.
Tom: And while in theory it's presented as giving you the freedom to play as you want and progress through the career mode as you please, in reality, because it is very much based around the online component of the game where every hour you have an event that you can go and join if you please, where you do three activities such as do a specific jump with other players to get a total distance jumped, or go through a particular speed trap to get a total amount of kilometers per hour that you have accumulated as a team.
Tom: So that's popping up every hour, and you're rewarded with Forza points for that, which is the currency to buy things in the ForzaThon shop where rare, hard to get cars are.
Tom: The other aspect of the online is the weekly seasons, and each season you again have seasonal, time-limited events that you unlock cars in and motocons among other things.
Tom: So while in theory you're meant to be able to progress through the career mode, if you want to unlock particular cars that you're interested in when they pop up in shops and it's the only way to get them or when they are exclusive cars to seasonal events and it's the only way to get them, you're essentially being constantly pushed in the direction of doing this online stuff, which is getting in the way of the supposed freedom of the career mode.
Tom: So, what would appear to be a relaxing jaunt through an open world can become a frantic heroin addiction in an attempt to accumulate all exclusive cars or the cars you're interested in.
Phil: I had forgotten that this is the one that they promoted The Seasons.
Phil: I mean, The Seasons was the big sell for this game.
Tom: Yes.
Phil: What are your impressions of that?
Tom: Well, those are the most negative aspects of the three defining characteristics of the game.
Tom: The good thing about The Seasons, and a lot of people hate The Seasons because it includes winter, and obviously in winter there is very little grip in many areas.
Tom: Not that it really matters because of how arcady the controls are, but it does mean you probably don't want to be driving high-powered, real-wheel drive cars all over the place, including cross-country, as you would be in the other seasons.
Tom: So some people don't like it.
Tom: To me, The Seasons are what made The Game so enjoyable in spite of all its flaws, because the setting of England is exceptional, and England is well known.
Tom: Essentially, the entirety of England is the fantasy that Melburnians have about what Melbourne weather is like, but across the entire country, and in reality, rather than sometimes, you have several seasons in a day.
Tom: There, maybe they won't be in the same day throughout the entire year, but they will be more spectacularly differentiated from one another, including potentially one day.
Tom: So that really adds to not only the atmosphere of the English setting, it also does make the driving interesting because when it's in spring and there is constant rain, that does add a little bit more slippage in the dirt tracks.
Tom: It doesn't really seem to have any effect to me anyway on the tarmac races.
Tom: And when it's winter, the street scene races, for instance, are a completely different experience.
Tom: To when you are racing and it's just raining or it is dry.
Tom: And that adds a much needed variety to the game because the actual roads in it, I don't think they are interesting enough to really justify the hours that you take to go through the entirety of the career mode and get everything done.
Phil: I remember that seasonal weather was introduced in a game quite radically on the Dreamcast from Metropolis Street Racer from Bizarre Creations that went on to make Project Gotham Racing, which also had elements of that.
Phil: Project Gotham was also set in Australia or had elements of Australia.
Phil: And it was really amazing back in the Dreamcast back then because they had real time day cycles, the weather wasn't real time, it wasn't tied into the internet, it was tied into the clock on your console.
Phil: But they also had different radio stations that you could listen to.
Phil: And the other game that does this quite well is Euro Truck Simulator and US Truck Simulator, whatever it's called.
Phil: I own them and I'm addicted to them.
Phil: Honestly, if I had more time, I'd play them.
Phil: As I've spoken before, I particularly like the fact that they live stream radio stations from the countries that you're driving through in Euro Truck Simulator.
Phil: I don't know if they tie the weather into actual weather from the internet.
Phil: That would be interesting.
Phil: And when I was playing Metropolis Street Racer back in the day, I was talking to other gamers and I was like, oh, you know, they could connect to the internet, they could pull in the weather, they could do this, they could do that.
Phil: And now that's like very achievable.
Phil: So it's good to see ideas like that come through in Forza.
Phil: So what I didn't realize is this came out a couple of years ago now.
Phil: It's been a couple of years.
Tom: Yes, this one they have actually been supporting for as a longer installment would appear and they are still adding new content and they're still supporting the weekly events and so forth as fully as they were originally and they're still adding new cars as well as new events on and off.
Phil: Because I remember in Forza the big selling point was late, for DLC later on, they added the Hot Wheels and the Hot Wheels Island where you could drive as a Hot Wheel car, not Micro Machine Styles, but you know, have the big loop-de-loops and all of that sort of thing.
Tom: In this they have two DLC.
Tom: One is a Lego-themed one and the other one is a, I think, Piratical Island-themed one.
Tom: But not as in Cartoon Pirates or anything, it's just an adventure island with buried treasure, I think.
Phil: And is the Lego accessible to you?
Tom: Well, I bought the DLC for the impressive price of $
Tom: Because in spite of the game not being on Steam, I find it unconscionable to purchase a game for anything that is not a Steam price.
Tom: And the DLC is normally, I think, $which is just obscene.
Tom: That's the price of a AAA game on Steam.
Tom: That's just disgraceful.
Phil: That it's the price of a AAA game, or...?
Tom: That it's the price of a AAA game on sale on Steam.
Tom: Yes, that is disgraceful.
Phil: I've got to say, I'm a bit distracted because I've started watching video of the Forza Horizon LEGO expansion.
Tom: Yes.
Phil: And, oh my god, it looks incredible.
Tom: It is.
Tom: Well, it isn't, it isn't, which we'll get to in a minute if there is time.
Tom: But, we can now, I believe, begin.
Tom: So the summary so far was the seasons and weather is absolutely a tremendous addition to the game.
Tom: It would be nowhere near as interesting if that was not there.
Tom: And I can understand why people who do not like the seasons find it to be so disappointing because that is one of the defining qualities of the game and they absolutely nailed it.
Tom: So if you don't like that aspect of it, then the atmosphere will be ruined and a lot of the fun change in driving conditions, which is again mainly just the snow, but that is enough to make things interesting.
Tom: Because, and this absolutely shocked me, as I said, I was never as big a fan of Forza Motorsport as I was of Gran Turismo.
Tom: Granted, I only ever played the original.
Tom: But the reason for that was there were a lot of things to like about the physics in Forza Motorsport compared to Gran Turismo.
Tom: The braking was much more dynamic from what I remember.
Tom: Gran Turismo to me is always a little bit understeery in Forza Motorsport.
Tom: You could actually get around that through how you drove.
Tom: And the tracks, there was a much bigger range of elevation and camber and that sort of thing in the tracks than even in Gran Turismo games up to at least five.
Tom: Gran Turismo Sport seems to be an improvement there, but Forza Motorsport was miles ahead in those areas.
Tom: The thing that I've always found fascinating about Gran Turismo's physics and what gives it the depth that just makes it endlessly playable to me is in spite of it having very static braking compared to something like Forza Motorsport, to me, Forza Motorsport's braking and things like oversteer are closer to sim games.
Tom: The actual momentum of the car and the fact that you are, in how you're driving in Gran Turismo, it is as if you are controlling a moving object that has its own inertia to it and that without braking will not turn.
Tom: So even though things like oversteer are more pronounced in Forza Motorsport, things like weight transfer in previous versions of at least the original Forza Motorsport weren't there to the same degree as in Gran Turismo Sport.
Tom: And again, that might just be because Gran Turismo, not Sport, Gran Turismo, that might be because Gran Turismo is much more understeery, so you need to be even more aware of what you're doing when you're cornering.
Tom: Because of that, then Forza Motorsport, but that completely changes the experience to me and makes improving on times and improving on following the track line endlessly more enjoyable in Gran Turismo Sport in a similar way to how it is in a sim game.
Tom: And the racing in Forza Motorsport with the AI is also more dynamic and interesting than it is in Gran Turismo.
Tom: Here, I think those problems persist, but one big improvement, and again, this is much more arcadey than I assume Forza Motorsport is now.
Tom: But one thing that is really good here, compared to other games, is the balance of dealing with oversteer in this does create the one moment in Forza Motorsport I've played where it feels like you are in an object that is moving forward, that if you don't do anything, will continue in the same direction, just as any object that is moving in motion in reality with, whereas that's not how driving a vehicle in an arcade racing game feels, of course.
Tom: Anyway, when you are managing oversteer, there's this beautiful moment where you are on the limit and your car is sort of moving on a slight angle as you're turning in, and feels like an object that is going forward and you are fighting the natural momentum of it to get it around the corner at high speed, and that is exceptionally good.
Tom: And I bring that up because the dirt physics in this are some of the best dirt physics because of how that oversteer is handled that I've played in any game, and I was not expecting that at all.
Tom: The dirt tracks in the main game in particular, they become a bit repetitive, and often one of the big issues with the design of the world is even though you have several different areas that have little hairpin sections in mountains, the length of them, in spite of where they are, are usually pretty similar.
Tom: So you'll be going up and down a mountain that has a similar number, not a similar number, a similar angle of hairpin turns in a row, and the difference will just be the surface.
Tom: So in spite of the massive size of the map, it doesn't feel like the individual sections are designed in that great of a detail.
Tom: So that's an issue.
Tom: But the dirt physics are so good that the less interesting track design that I would have hoped was there doesn't matter.
Tom: The dirt racing in it is just absolutely brilliant because of this, whenever you're taking a corner, you're balancing this wonderful oversteer mechanic as you're going through it.
Tom: And the one issue is, apparently, no one seems to have realized that the entire basis of the dirt racing is just balancing that oversteer.
Tom: And you can go through corners at an amazing speed because the AI, unlike on the tarmac, is really awful on dirt.
Tom: And other players generally are awful on dirt as well.
Tom: So I may be the only person who enjoys it.
Tom: And given that a lot of people complain about the snow, that may well be the case.
Tom: But to me, these are some of the most enjoyable and easily accessible yet consistently fun because you can always get a little bit better at managing that oversteer and a little bit quicker as you play through the career and go over the same dirt tracks again and again and again.
Phil: So would you draw a comparison with that mechanism with a drift kind of thing?
Tom: Yes, well, it is the same as drifting essentially, except unlike drifting because you're on dirt, it is to go faster rather than slower.
Tom: And the drifting as well is actually something that...
Tom: I wouldn't say it is as good as that because it is significantly easier, but the drifting is much more enjoyable than in the very understeery Gran Turismo.
Tom: In Gran Turismo, to me, I could never manage to drift properly, but I could do power slides vaguely okay, but it was never satisfying like it is in Forza Horizon
Tom: And like the dirt racing in it, it's something you can easily get into, but as you go along, you can get progressively better and do more and more ridiculous things.
Tom: So the drifting and the dirt racing absolutely stands out.
Tom: The cross country is, to me, which again is mainly dirt racing, but being cross country, you do go through tarmac sections as well.
Tom: That to me is a little bit disappointing, and the reason is, again, the track design.
Tom: Some of the cross country tracks are absolutely brilliant, and they take you through hilarious terrain where you're going up just ridiculously sharp inclines, then a hairpin down straight back down the mountain you went up and doing ridiculous stuff like that that is really enjoyable.
Tom: Some of them just feel like an awkward combination of mediocre to bad dirt tracks and road tracks that are in the game.
Tom: So, and that's, I think, an issue with the sometimes not very interesting roads that are in the game.
Phil: Any of the tracks based on real world or like in other Horizons, are they just a inspired by type thing?
Tom: I think they're inspired by, but I don't actually know.
Phil: See, I was kind of, the only Horizon, Forza, or Forza Horizon I've played is the second one, which was set in the EU.
Phil: And I just felt that it was too tightly controlled and held my hand the whole time.
Phil: Which kind of...
Tom: You're constantly getting shouted at by people telling you to do something.
Phil: Yeah, exactly.
Tom: And not only that, the other issue with the career mode is there is literally zero sense of progression because if you want a particular car, it might be locked behind either a random spin or a weekly event or an auction house, and you need to save money for it if it's an expensive thing, or a seasonal event.
Tom: So the progression is basically you just being bombarded with random spins to give you random cars.
Tom: And there are things like you get different levels in the different types of racing, and there's a massive event at the end, which I'll get to in a second.
Tom: But you're just spammed with so many constant cars.
Tom: And when you unlock cars, each car has a car mastery thing with their own little levels that you unlock by spending car mastery points that you get by doing things like drifting, and overtakes, and jumps, and that sort of thing.
Tom: And some cars' car mastery levels will give you another car, and lots of them will give you a spin, which will give you another car.
Tom: So you're just constantly bombarded with so much crap that there's no sense of progression, and often the crap isn't stuff you're fucking interested in.
Tom: And because it's not like a car enthusiast thing, when I get a random shit box in Gran Turismo, I feel like I'm getting something that will be interesting and enjoyable, because Gran Turismo is a game that absolutely loves motorsport and cars.
Tom: So a certain amount of love is put into a completely random car.
Tom: Whereas if I'm getting a car I'm not interested in this, I just don't care.
Tom: It's just sitting in the garage, and it's there just for me to look at to see if it has any money in its car master, that's going to give me, or any wheel spins and so on and so forth.
Phil: And that was the best thing about Gran Turismo was the progression.
Phil: And you get something and it's like, oh, it's only horsepower, but if I put this muffler on it, I do this and I do that, and I save up some points, you know, and you know, that was a fun part of it.
Tom: Well, the car customization is something that is, again, I'm not sure if I would call it better than Gran Turismo, because due to the whole atmosphere of car enthusiasm, and again, the details it goes into when you are modifying your car is also great in its descriptions of what you're doing and so on and so forth.
Tom: That isn't there here, but what you can do is drive, train and engine swaps, and there is a very light visual customization feature, which could be a lot better, but it is better than what is in Gran Turismo.
Tom: And the drive, train and engine swaps result in your ability to make some absolutely ridiculously fun cars.
Tom: You can basically turn anything into a supercar in the game, which is tremendously enjoyable.
Tom: And you can do things like make a Golf GTI rear wheel drive drift car with kilowatts.
Tom: And it is tremendously enjoyable just coming up with ridiculous cars.
Tom: And you can't do that in Gran Turismo, because ultimately the engine you begin with will have a limited amount of induction upgrades that you're able to do, and therefore you will not be able to reach certain levels of horsepower.
Phil: I found in Horizon also that there was constantly a question of things being offered, and I wasn't sure if it was downloadable content I'd have to pay for or something I could compete for.
Phil: Is that in this game as well?
Tom: No, I don't think that it really offers you things like that.
Tom: When you get to certain points, it does have a play trailers for the DLC.
Tom: But that would be the closest thing to that, I believe.
Phil: So in terms of them advertising DLC, it's pretty clear, you know, that this is an online thing, that's not an online thing.
Phil: Have you tried any of the online elements?
Phil: Like, is there an online multiplayer scene for this game?
Tom: Yes, there is.
Tom: And I mentioned them earlier, how you're constantly getting spammed with them.
Tom: And there are basically, other than the Forzaathon Live, which is every hour where you do several things with everyone in your game world that is driving around with you, because random people are driving around when you're in the main world, driving to and from races, or doing speed traps and drift zones and so forth, which are blattered all over the map and ask you to drive through a speed trap at a certain speed or score a certain amount in drifting over a few corners and that sort of thing.
Tom: That is actually a very enjoyable and amusing mode where you have, particularly when you get a lot of people, where you have a whole bunch of people usually just sitting around at the beginning or doing burnouts and so forth while they're waiting for it to begin, then you have that number of people driving repeatedly through a speed trap or drift zone or jump sign or whatever else is going on.
Tom: It's just a completely ridiculous and absurd distraction that makes the drift zones and so forth that they get you to go through much more enjoyable than when you're doing them on your own.
Tom: The other thing that is the online mode, other than events, you can set up yourself to play with other people.
Tom: And you can also do all the races, either in co-op or against other drivers as well.
Tom: So the online has quite a lot of depth to it, but the ones that are related to the seasonal events consist of you racing against unbeatable driver cars, which is the hardest difficulty setting.
Tom: And I have to bring up the AI because I can't tell any difference between how good the AI is on pro and unbeatable.
Tom: The only difference that I can tell is that you are starting further down the grid on unbeatable compared to pro, which is disappointing because the AI is...
Tom: and it could also just be because the AI is fucking bizarre.
Tom: The AI is supposedly an algorithm based on people playing the game and especially your friends, if you have any friends on Xbox Live, which I don't.
Tom: So they're all random people to me.
Tom: But the AI, presumably because it's based on other players, is completely and hilariously ridiculous.
Tom: Once I...
Tom: and must also be partially based on how I'm playing as well, I assume, because as I got better and better and started figuring out how much I could crash into other cars without damaging my car too much and that sort of thing, the AI suddenly got really super aggressive and would start swerving into me and doing stuff like that, as if it is a battle racing arcade game, which actually made things significantly more interesting than it was to begin with.
Tom: But as well as this really super aggressive AI, random shit happens like you would have online where they just suddenly disappear and they're gone.
Tom: And they'll also just do random shit like suddenly drive off the track, drive directly into a wall and lots of ridiculous things like that.
Tom: So it is one of the most bizarre AI systems I've raced against and I wouldn't say it usually results in particularly good racing, but it is tremendously entertaining throughout.
Tom: And the other thing I forgot to mention on the physics in terms of its simcade feel is, again, the braking in it is so good.
Tom: If you turn off ABS and you're using a controller with reasonable triggers, if you nail the braking, the difference in braking distance that you can make up without ABS on, if you nail it, is %, depending on what car you're using.
Tom: And it is tremendously enjoyable and satisfying when you get that right and pass someone.
Tom: And the other thing that is very impressive, particularly for a open world racing game, and it's the only open world racing game that I've played that has anything like simcade physics, and I wish more did, because it makes the racing much more enjoyable.
Tom: Basic principles like making corners as straight as possible, basically just aiming for the apex of the corner and getting the entry and exit right, make a huge difference in the speed that you're able to carry through the corners and also how fast you're able to get through the course.
Tom: And also there's a big emphasis on slowing down enough to get corner exit right and therefore greater acceleration out of the corner.
Tom: Again, something completely alien, something that feels completely alien in an open world racing game, but would be naturally there in any simcade game.
Tom: And that makes things really enjoyable and satisfying.
Tom: The only thing to consider is that the AI is tremendously aggressive as are online players.
Tom: So they're basically braking incredibly late and unless it's a very wide corner, you'll probably have to be braking late and just attempting to barge your way past them because of how aggressively they will block you.
Tom: So that doesn't necessarily apply to passing, but if you are playing against aggressive races in a sim as well, that logic would also apply.
Phil: Well, it sounds interesting.
Phil: In any case, the AI system, I wouldn't be surprised if they're just taking snippets of paths that actual other players have done and then dropping them into your game randomly.
Tom: Yep, potentially.
Tom: Anyway, so there are two modes in the seasonal events.
Tom: One, as I was saying, you're racing against unbeatable driver cars and the other one is a Battle Royale style of game.
Tom: Not Battle Royale, sorry.
Tom: It's called Playground Games, rather, and you're basically doing team-based, objective-based driving challenges.
Tom: So one, for instance, is capture the flag with one team defending an area where a flag is delivered to and the other team attacking it.
Tom: Another mode is zombies, where you have to infect the entirety of the other team by crashing into them, and you can heal teammates if you're being infected by crashing into them.
Tom: And the third mode is King of the Hill, where there are four crowns, and the team who manages to hold those crowns for the longest wins.
Tom: Now, while you're learning to play the game, these are endlessly frustrating, and not at all fun, particularly the playground games one.
Tom: And it is a mercy that basically, whoever wins after a team wins the first game, the majority of the other team quits, which is wonderful because then it's over fast.
Tom: But once you actually get good at it and you're as good as the better players, these actually become enjoyable because you're basically going to be right at the top or beating all of the opposing AI.
Tom: And again, when you're not good, the co-op is incredibly annoying because, in the racing that is, because your teammates often don't seem to realize that it's not a good idea to be blocking a teammate who is much faster than you going through a corner.
Tom: And they also even, not just blocking through corners, don't seem to realize it's a good idea not to drive into you and try and push you off the track or push you out of being able to go through a checkpoint.
Tom: So they apparently don't realize that it's a cooperative race half the time.
Tom: But once you actually are good enough to beat unbeatable AI, that actually becomes a surprisingly enjoyable and satisfying racing mode just because the co-op adds an interesting wrinkle to it, just as the standard races of course become more enjoyable when you're playing against or with other players than the AI.
Tom: And even playground games, when you have two evenly matched and competent teams, can become an enjoyable affair.
Tom: And obviously as you get better and your ranking improves, you're matched against other higher ranking players as well.
Tom: So you get less idiots who don't appear to be aware that your race is cooperative, not against one another.
Tom: And who understand the rules of the game that is being played in playground games.
Phil: And people wonder why the game Onrush failed.
Phil: That's the Codemasters game that was a racing game, but not really a racing game?
Tom: Yep, I remember it.
Phil: Yeah, look, even though it's a two year old game, this game is still expensive.
Phil: It's selling new for a hundred bucks, and on eBay it's selling for like sixty to seventy bucks.
Tom: And I was very lucky to get that DLC for ten dollars.
Phil: Yeah, because I see some of them are selling it on eBay, like the code for it, with the original game, like starting bid was like fifty five bucks.
Phil: So, don't know how you wrangled that, but yeah, at least down here in Australia, it's still an expensive game, whereas you can pick up the Forza for forty bucks new at retail.
Phil: So, which we were talking about the Lego thing.
Phil: If you're...
Phil: one question I had was, is the multiplayer sticky for you?
Phil: Is it something you'll go back to?
Phil: Is it going to prevail?
Phil: Or was it just really you just wanted to see what it was about and play?
Tom: Well, it has prevailed for about fifty or sixty hours.
Phil: Okay, that's great.
Tom: Beyond this now, I will be mainly just doing the seasonal stuff if there's a particular car that I'm interested in unlocking.
Tom: Because they introduce new cars they're adding to the game through the seasonal stuff.
Tom: For instance, the much anticipated and long awaited Toyota Supra was added to the game in a seasonal event.
Tom: And the Toyota GTwas one of the current seasonal events that has just finished.
Phil: What year Supra?
Phil: What year?
Tom: I think the first one.
Tom: But I could be wrong.
Tom: Do you mean what model year?
Tom: Yeah, no, the Mark
Tom: That's the last one, right?
Tom: Yeah.
Tom: Or is that Mark ?
Phil: I thought it was the Mark
Tom: But the last one, the one that everyone has heard of.
Phil: Yep.
Phil: Yep.
Phil: That's cool.
Phil: That's great, man.
Phil: I mean, Hours Multiplayer.
Phil: I mean, what am I talking about?
Tom: Well, that's Hours Single and Multiplayer.
Phil: Oh, okay.
Phil: Because I was going to say, like, you know, one of the things of the generation has been the fact that Polyphony hasn't released a proper Gran Turismo.
Phil: I mean, there's a studio just sitting there for eight years.
Phil: And even though the content that they're providing for Gran Turismo Sport has been great by all accounts, it does feel, you know, in some ways, like, you know, we didn't get a new Gran Theft Auto this generation.
Tom: Um...
Phil: Polyphony didn't really release a proper Gran Turismo.
Phil: And, you know...
Tom: Given the state of Gran Turismo and Gran Theft Auto I think that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Phil: Yeah, I know, but it's still...
Tom: And full credit to Polyphony for taking what was becoming a stale vision and moving it in a very interesting direction.
Phil: Yeah, yeah, I'll give them that.
Phil: But I liked your idea of a battle royale for a sim arcade racer.
Phil: So you have a hundred cars in a bus...
Tom: Yes.
Phil: And then the cars just jump out of the bus.
Tom: A hundred cars in a bus, that sounds like a scene from Crash.
Phil: A hundred cars in a bus.
Phil: I heard a joke the other day.
Phil: What do you call Australians?
Tom: What?
Phil: Four weddings and a funeral.
Phil: Ba dum bum.
Tom: I'm not sure I understand that joke.
Phil: Because in Australia, because of the times that we're in, you're only allowed to have...
Phil: I think five people per wedding and ten for a funeral.
Tom: I get it now.
Phil: So Australians is four weddings and a funeral, which is the name of a video movie thing.
Phil: So let's over explain the joke.
Tom: Video movie thing, that's what the kids are calling it these days.
Phil: That's the joke.
Phil: All right, finally, can we...
Phil: I've been watching this video of this Lego on loop.
Phil: It looks absolutely incredible, like it could be a standalone game and I'd buy it.
Phil: It's incredible.
Phil: How did you only get it for ten bucks?
Tom: I can't remember the name of the CD key selling website, but On The Green Market is the answer to that.
Tom: And I have no qualms with buying keys from CD avenues because I am a free market capitalist and they should learn to compete rather than relying on the crutch of intellectual property.
Tom: So that would refer more so to piracy than trade agreements.
Phil: But there is also a piracy theme.
Phil: That's the other DLC that you can download that you haven't...
Tom: Well, there's a piracy...
Tom: On the beach, there are pirate ships, so...
Phil: See, they're just asking for it, you know?
Tom: There's a piracy theme in the game itself, and there's buried treasure in the other DLC.
Phil: So how does this manifest itself?
Phil: Do you just scroll through the cards and go, oh, that's a LEGO one?
Tom: You're given a LEGO mini at the beginning of the game.
Phil: Like a mini-fig?
Tom: Yes, and there are very few LEGO cards in it.
Tom: Unfortunately, the total is, I believe, four or five now that a LEGO Bugatti Chiron, I think it was a Chiron, has been added to it.
Tom: So there are only four or five cars in it.
Tom: You get the mini to begin with.
Phil: Wait, so you're talking about a mini-fig?
Phil: Like the LEGO...
Tom: No, no, mini, as in a Mini Cooper.
Tom: The car.
Tom: The classic rally vehicle.
Phil: So it's a mod, it's a mini for a mini-fig.
Phil: I wonder if that was intentional.
Tom: Potential.
Phil: Are there other characters or like...
Tom: And that also is, as far as I'm aware, the only LEGO car in the game that bears any resemblance to an actual LEGO version of a car.
Phil: Because all the rest of them, like with the McLaren, looks very LEGO-ish.
Tom: Yeah, but I don't think there is a LEGO version of it that you can buy.
Phil: Oh, I getcha.
Tom: Whereas the LEGO Mini that is available is the same as the LEGO Mini in the game that you get at the beginning.
Phil: Well, while I'm watching these LEGO cars, so a chat window has now opened, we are currently working with dealers to clear a high volume of new car stock.
Phil: What make and model are you interested in?
Phil: I'm going to respond, Forza...
Tom: A LEGO Mini.
Phil: For LEGO Mini.
Phil: And let's see, you keep talking, we'll see what he comes back with.
Tom: Yeah, so the other cars are the aforementioned Bugatti, which was added as DLC.
Tom: So as soon and you get that for free.
Tom: Sorry, not added as DLC, that was added after the original DLC came out.
Tom: So as soon as you go to the LEGO Valley, you can do a race in the real car against the LEGO version.
Tom: And if you win, then you get that car.
Tom: Conversely, the two other cars, two of the three other cars to unlock, you unlock as you go through the career, a race again against the LEGO car in the real version of the car.
Tom: And in that case, you get both the LEGO and the real version of a car, if I remember correctly.
Tom: The last car, I should say that's the LEGO Fand I've completely forgotten what the other one is.
Tom: But the next one, which is, I won't say what it is because it's technically a spoiler, you find in a barn find.
Tom: And throughout the map in the main game, there are barn find cars that you find, then they get repaired, and you can use them and modify them as you please.
Tom: So that's basically like a treasure hunt thing.
Tom: And so the first disappointment is the lack of LEGO cars in it.
Tom: That being only five in total.
Tom: The second disappointment is parts of the map are amazing and everything in them, except for the road usually, is LEGO.
Tom: Other parts of the map are a combination of LEGO vegetation and normal vegetation, which is a little bit weird.
Phil: Well, I noticed they've got the LEGO tree, you know, like the cone LEGO tree and the round LEGO tree.
Phil: And the environments are destructible, right?
Tom: Yep, but so in parts of the map, you will have LEGO trees and non-LEGO trees.
Phil: Like proper LEGO, like proper trees?
Tom: Yes, like they look like in the main game.
Phil: Oh, that's lame.
Tom: Yes, so the consistency and quality aesthetically is a little bit disappointing.
Tom: The other thing is, of course, like every other LEGO game, in spite of being a LEGO game, and in spite of the story mode progressing as you become a LEGO master builder and unlock additions to your estate, you don't build anything, of course, at any point.
Tom: In spite of you racing to become a master LEGO builder.
Tom: But that's to be expected in LEGO games, unfortunately.
Phil: Have you played much of this?
Phil: Incidentally, I did get a response to the people that were trying to sell me a car.
Phil: I told them I was interested in a Forza LEGO Mini, and they responded, We appreciate your visit, but we will now enter other chats connected to the business.
Phil: Thank you, and have a pleasant day.
Phil: Thank you for contacting us.
Phil: Chat session disconnected.
Phil: See?
Phil: Internet's fun.
Phil: You get to interact with people.
Tom: They just lost your business.
Phil: They just lost a customer.
Phil: Damn it.
Phil: I was going to buy a LEGO Forza LEGO Mini.
Phil: Anyway, it's their own stupid business for advertising their stupid chat on a gaming website.
Phil: Anyway.
Phil: So are you engaged with this?
Phil: Have you played it much?
Phil: Or is it just the shallowness of the models that has truncated your enjoyment of it?
Tom: Well, I've gone through the disappointments of it.
Tom: And all the LEGO cars do look absolutely phenomenal, as you can see in the trailer, as do the fully LEGO areas.
Tom: And the thing, though, that stands out about it, and makes it absolutely excellent and well worth $
Tom: I'm not sure I would want to pay $for it due to the aforementioned flaws, and also where the main game is about to hours, and $to $at full price.
Tom: For $it does feel a little short.
Tom: Compared to what you're getting in the main game.
Tom: But the thing is, what you're getting is of significantly higher quality.
Tom: The area is obviously significantly smaller than the main game.
Tom: It's equivalent to one of the aesthetic areas.
Tom: So it's of a similar sort of overall size to say Edinburgh and its surrounding area, or the seaside trail part of the map.
Tom: But not as elongated, obviously.
Tom: So it is small.
Tom: But unlike the main game's map, the quality is absolutely exceptional.
Tom: I've done probably about % of the races.
Tom: And every single one has been an excellent circuit that has had a great variety of corners, a wonderful variety of inclines, declines and cambers.
Tom: And they've been tremendously engaging to drive.
Tom: And because of the greater condensity and the higher quality of the areas, the cross-country here lives up to the promise of what the cross-country should have been in the main game.
Tom: The transitions between different types of terrain here are absolutely brilliant.
Tom: When you end up from cutting through the countryside on a path you never would have thought of taking normally to driving through a section of the city or the roads, because there's so much better design than the main game, it is so satisfying and it is really enjoyable experience going from surface to surface.
Tom: And it also features something that, as far as I'm aware, has not been in any other Forza Horizon game, and that is a racing track.
Tom: And the racing track itself has several different configurations, and it is including a high-speed corner, which features one of the most fun speed zones and speed traps in the game.
Phil: Yeah, that's the one they featured in the trailer.
Tom: Yes.
Phil: Which also had destructible environments.
Phil: Not really.
Phil: I mean, you go through a finished thing.
Phil: But are there destructible environments?
Tom: Well, it's destructible as the rest of the game, where you can knock down trees, knock down fences, and that sort of thing.
Tom: But it has the added advantage of having a crunchy sound of plastic hitting each other.
Phil: Plastic on plastic violence.
Tom: Exactly.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: Anything else to say about Forza Horizon ?
Phil: It sounds like you've thoroughly enjoyed it.
Tom: I have.
Tom: It's certainly got some massive flaws both in the DLC and in the main game.
Tom: But due to the Sim-K physics and that oversteer mechanic I was referring to, the braking as well, and the dirt physics, it is ultimately an excellent experience.
Tom: And the dirt racing is genuinely one of the best arcade dirt racing games I've ever played.
Tom: And the LEGO DLC, the quality of the tracks, the circuits, courses I should say, in it are absolutely exceptional, as is the general design of the area.
Tom: It has its aesthetic flaws, absolutely, but it is a racing game, so the most important thing to me anyway is the racing you do in it, and it is absolutely phenomenal.
Tom: If the rest of the, if England was as well designed as the LEGO area is in terms of the racing, it would be, in spite of its flaws, an absolutely phenomenal experience.
Tom: But it is still nevertheless hugely enjoyable.
Phil: Yeah, despite the lack of time I have to play games, you've sold me on it.
Phil: I always felt bad for not buying Horizon but I think I'll probably just skip it now and go straight to
Phil: The last game that I played, it sounds like what you're describing, it was Need for Speed Hot Pursuit for the PlayStation which I ranked very highly.
Phil: It was one of the criterion games when most of the team was still together.
Tom: Yep, this was essentially the burnout team making a new burnout, but simply with the Need for Speed license.
Phil: Yeah, exactly, and it was a brilliant game.
Phil: And everything you're telling me about this, I've heard about the mud physics in this game as well, and as a selling point.
Phil: So you've definitely, I definitely want to give that a try.
Phil: I've got to say, before we move on to What Remains of Edith Finch and why it wasn't on our top list for the best walking simulator of the s, as many people claim it should be, just to break in with a little bit of Trademark Banter, I've recently had my gaming room repainted, so I had to take everything out of there again and put it all back in.
Phil: And I've got to tell you, I'm looking forward to retirement one of these days because I've handled so many games, whereas I've got to play this, I'm looking forward to playing it.
Phil: And it's really rekindled my love of the backlog that I have.
Phil: But at the same time, I've been playing some modern and new games as well that we'll probably get into in the next episode once I've finished them.
Phil: I just wanted...
Phil: There was one Trademark Banter topic that we didn't cover earlier that was one of yours that I was particularly interested in.
Phil: And that was, everything is breaking.
Tom: Yes.
Phil: Is your computer breaking?
Phil: I mean, I thought, as you said recently, you buying your computer when you did now seems like a genius move.
Tom: Yes, it does.
Tom: And particularly since the specs for the consoles have been released, because they're essentially what my computer is.
Tom: Now, obviously, they don't have the oversight of a Windows operating system, and they also have superior versions of GDR and so forth.
Tom: But I was expecting significantly better specs than they are.
Tom: They're impressive and good, but I was expecting something that would be superior to my computer.
Phil: Yeah, but even so, they're going to retail down here in Australia for five or six hundred bucks, and you paid significantly more than that.
Tom: No, they're absolutely an exceptional deal if you want to consult.
Tom: What I mean is for the longevity of my computer keeping up with them, I was expecting them to be significantly better than the specs that were there.
Phil: Yeah, we'll wait and see if they come out even at this point.
Tom: Yes, so from that perspective, I'm also pleasantly surprised.
Tom: The other interesting thing is how amazing DLSS is becoming, which is one huge advantage of having got a ray tracing video card.
Phil: DLSS, that's like deals?
Phil: I mean, there's a lot of good deals.
Tom: That is dynamic something or other, something or other scale.
Phil: Dynamic, loss, so it's a graphics term?
Tom: It's resolution scaling, essentially.
Tom: So basically you have your internal resolution at a lower resolution than what it is upscaled to, to the monitor.
Tom: And the latest version of it before that, it looked significantly and noticeably worse than if you weren't doing that.
Tom: Now it is getting genuinely close to what the native resolution looks like and in some areas actually better than the native resolution in spite of not requiring anywhere near the computing power that you would need to be playing at the native resolution.
Phil: This sounds stupid, but like, so what is DLSS?
Phil: This is from the Nvidia site.
Phil: DLSS is Deep Learning Super Sampling.
Tom: There we go.
Phil: Nvidia RTX technology that uses the power of AI to boost your frame rates in games with graphically intensive workouts.
Phil: And it's based on the work of, what's his name, Turing.
Phil: So there you go.
Phil: He invented it.
Phil: And because he's dead...
Tom: This is precisely what he had in mind.
Phil: We can use his name.
Phil: So DLSS is Deep Learning Super Sampling.
Tom: There you go.
Tom: But essentially, it's a resolution scan.
Tom: But it works.
Tom: Yes, and it is now, in the latest iteration, a genuine, viable alternative.
Tom: And that is important for longevity because if, for instance, I'm still using a p monitor years in the future, I can be outputting at p and be getting a p image.
Tom: And outputting at p will drastically lower the amount of power required to be keeping up with what games are wanting.
Phil: Have you noticed any blurry frames with DLSS?
Tom: I have not actually used it.
Phil: Oh, you haven't?
Phil: Okay.
Tom: I've done the reverse of that, where I've had the native resolution at K instead of p for a basically unnoticeable improvement in the bad textures of foliage.
Phil: I mean, that's understandable.
Phil: I think running at K is beneficial when it comes to image quality, as the number of input pixels are high.
Tom: Yes.
Phil: No, I'm not reading this from Nvidia's website.
Phil: Anyway, I was going to ask you why you don't just use the upscaled TAA instead, but anyway, we're running...
Tom: TAA is significantly worse.
Phil: But that's not your Trademark Banter.
Phil: I asked you if your computer was breaking, because your topic was everything was breaking.
Tom: Yes.
Tom: Well, my computer wasn't breaking.
Tom: My mother's computer broke, though.
Tom: And another Trademark Banter topic there was the Intel NUC, which stands for, I believe, Next Unit of Computing.
Tom: And they're basically a miniature computer kit that comes with a extremely small motherboard and case and pre-installed CPU, which you cannot change.
Tom: And you can add to it a, depending on which one you get, a -inch hard drive, even, if it's slightly larger, or a -inch SSD.
Tom: And I just used a MNVMe SSD and RAM.
Tom: And it was a fascinating experience building a computer where all you're doing is adding the RAM and SSD.
Phil: It probably made a big difference.
Tom: Yes.
Tom: Well, you're basically doing the easiest part of making any computer.
Tom: Yeah.
Tom: But the other interesting thing about it is as a product, it is certainly for the amount you pay for it.
Tom: The cheapest one of the current generation is I think around $to $depending on how cheap you can get it for.
Tom: And that comes with a mid-range current gen iin it.
Tom: If you were spending, say, you add to that GB of RAM plus a reasonable size SSD, you're probably going to be at $to $if you want to go to GB of RAM depending on what deal you're getting on the SSD.
Tom: For that amount of money, you could build a slightly more or reasonably more powerful small form factor PC, or if you're doing a mid-tower, a significantly faster model than that.
Tom: But compared to buying a pre-built PC, it actually ends up being extremely expedient and a significantly better deal because not only will you be assured of being able to get reasonably priced yet reasonable quality RAM and SSD, you are also getting a mid-range iwhereas if you're spending $on a pre-built PC, you'll be getting a very low-range iand a similar amount of RAM and probably not an NVME SSD, but a slower SATA SSD.
Tom: So compared to building a computer from scratch that is small form factor or mid-tower, it is pricey, but compared to buying a pre-built PC, and this is significantly easier than actually building a PC, it ends up being quite a good deal.
Tom: And for general computing and even light gaming, believe it or not, and even light video processing and more CPU intensive sorts of things, a mid-range iof the current gen is actually reasonably good.
Phil: Isn't that crazy?
Tom: Yeah.
Phil: Isn't that crazy?
Phil: I just got a new laptop.
Phil: It's an iGeneration or something like that.
Phil: And we used to just dismiss is and is and stuff like that, but yeah, I mean, it's just that the progression of the chips has definitely slowed, and they're certainly functional and serviceable.
Tom: And they would have been slowing even more if not for the last gen of AMD chips.
Phil: And when you brought up Nook, I thought this was going to be some sort of Animal Crossing reference, which our audience at the VG Press would absolutely lap up.
Tom: No, thankfully it's NUC.
Tom: But on top of that, you'll recall, I think of the last episode, the inner tube of my BMX had failed, right?
Tom: Yes, the inner tube of my other bike failed.
Phil: Of your other bike?
Tom: Is this like the Phoenix ?
Tom: This bike does have a name, actually, which is Same Hat, because it is by the prestigious electric Chinese bicycle manufacturer, Same Hat.
Phil: Okay, all right.
Phil: Now we see where you're an agent.
Phil: You've been...
Phil: This is the big...
Tom: Now it's all making sense.
Phil: This is the long game.
Phil: This is the long con.
Phil: And here we are doing an ad for a Chinese bike company.
Tom: Yes, yes, yes.
Tom: And Same Hat is one of the greatest manga blogs ever.
Tom: Sadly, no longer publishing new content, not publishing new content for about a decade, but it is still a treasure trove of hard to find and interesting manga.
Tom: That's where I discovered Shintaro Kago, Junji Ito among, and Junji Ito among many others.
Phil: And earlier he was criticizing people for not speaking a second language.
Phil: Have you heard the expression big hat, no cattle?
Tom: I think so.
Phil: Yeah, so big hat, no cattle basically means someone who's, you know, walking the walk but they can't talk the talk.
Phil: You know, they wear the big cowboy hat but they haven't actually got it.
Tom: Is this further commentary on my monolingual statement?
Phil: No, no, but you were talking about one hat or man hat or big hat or whatever hat.
Tom: Yep, but the inner tube on that bicycle also failed.
Tom: And this time rather than when it was sitting at home, it failed five kilometres from home in the city.
Tom: But luckily, being a very cheap Chinese bicycle, that means it's a folding bicycle so it could fit in the boot of a taxi.
Tom: But even more impressive than yet another...
Phil: Again, touting the Japanese bike and its efficiency.
Tom: Yes.
Phil: What other benefits does this Chinese bike have?
Tom: Even more impressive than the industry failing was the failing of a product that I don't think was made in China.
Tom: But it was certainly not a Chinese company, and I also don't think it was made in China, but you don't quote me on that.
Tom: Somehow, the bike lock that I use with it.
Tom: While attempting to lock it up on the way to an arts festival, following the orders of the Prime Minister to go out and function normally just as the outbreak began, while attempting to lock the bike up, but luckily failing to, sorry, the proceeding stage of unlocking it from the bike as it was locked to it mid-transit, the key snapped in the lock.
Phil: Where did you get this key?
Tom: From the bike lock manufacturer.
Phil: Where did you get the bike lock from?
Tom: A shop in New South Wales, I believe.
Phil: Wow, until you went out of state.
Tom: Yes.
Phil: Let me tell you a funny story about defective locks.
Tom: I cannot believe that a fucking key, from gently twisting it in one smooth movement, smooth move.
Tom: Yes, somehow snapped, offering such little resistance that I could not even react.
Phil: I think it's your manful forcing of the key that causes that.
Phil: Let me tell you a funny story about a lock.
Phil: Now, here in Australia, we have something called cheap shops.
Phil: Is that what they call them down there as well?
Tom: $shops, I think they're called.
Phil: And in America, it's called the -cent store.
Phil: So, when I first discovered the ..
Tom: cents is essentially $a string.
Phil: So, when I first discovered the -cent store, you go in there, and not everything's cents.
Phil: A lot of things are for...
Tom: This was $
Phil: For your lock...
Phil: Again, you're devoting for my very interesting story.
Phil: I went into the -cent store.
Phil: I bought a box of expired Canadian candy bars.
Phil: They were expired, but they were cents.
Phil: And it was a whole box.
Tom: And they're basically % sugar, so that should be fine.
Phil: Should be fine, that's fine.
Phil: I bought a lock because I needed a lock.
Phil: I bought a hammer because I needed a hammer.
Phil: And I bought other paraphernalia because it was cents and it was cheap.
Phil: So those Canadian candy bars I put in the freezer, I ate them for a year.
Phil: I offered them to people.
Phil: They didn't like them.
Phil: And I blamed it on the Canadians.
Phil: I didn't tell them they were expired or that they had been sitting in a freezer for six months.
Phil: They were kind of peanutty.
Phil: I liked them.
Phil: I grew an attraction to them much like a raccoon would.
Phil: But the lock, right?
Phil: I had the lock and it was locking up my garage on my apartment.
Phil: It was a public lock out in the public, dangling around.
Phil: And I also broke off the key.
Phil: So it's a common issue for men of much manly, powerful force.
Phil: So I said, that's fine.
Phil: So fortunately, I have a hammer.
Phil: So I went and got my cent hammer.
Phil: And I figured I would just, you know, it's a cent lock.
Phil: I mean, it's got to be easy to break, right?
Phil: So on the first swing, I swing my cent hammer against the cent lock and the hammer broke in half.
Phil: So I looked at the broken lock, at the whole lock.
Phil: And I said, touche.
Phil: And I forget how I got out of that gym.
Tom: And you've never entered that garage again.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: When I moved, I actually left the garage unlocked and the local legals stole everything out of it while I was moving my other stuff to the thing.
Phil: But anyway, that's another story.
Phil: But anyway, a cent lock versus a cent hammer, bang on the lock.
Phil: That's my...
Phil: Don't bang on the lock, bank on the lock.
Tom: So does this mean a $lock will be easily breakable?
Phil: Oh, no.
Phil: No, no.
Phil: I've got some superior locks now.
Phil: I think you're going to break them.
Phil: But anything else breaking?
Phil: I mean, you've got inner tubes, foil keys.
Phil: You're not breaking down emotionally.
Tom: Okay.
Tom: That was everything that broke.
Phil: Okay, good.
Phil: Well, with that, I think we can now get on to What Remains of Edith Finch.
Phil: I recently beat it, and I believe you played it.
Phil: I don't know if you beat it yet.
Tom: Yes, I did, long before you heard, even heard of it.
Phil: Okay, well, What Remains of Edith Finch is apparently the best walking simulator of the s.
Phil: It was released in by Giant Sparrow.
Tom: The makers of That Unfinished Swan, or The Unfinished Swan.
Phil: Is that an Australian game as well?
Tom: Not that I'm aware of, but I could well be wrong.
Phil: That is from That Gaming Company, though.
Phil: That's the one they did after Journey.
Tom: No, it isn't.
Phil: Yeah, I knew it because...
Tom: It's completely unrelated.
Phil: And a different company, because their name is Giant Sparrow.
Tom: Yup, but it was in The Unfinished Swan anyway.
Tom: I don't think it was with Edith Finch.
Tom: Basically one dude's passion project.
Phil: I remember that.
Tom: And it was produced by Terry Gilliam and featured him doing voice acting for the king in the game.
Phil: Terry Gilliam, of course, of Monty Python fame, and he was the animator that did all that cool stuff as well.
Tom: And then went on to surpass Monty Python with Jabberwocky and Brazil and The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.
Phil: And Monkeys, I think he was the director on that as well.
Tom: Correct.
Tom: He directed many great films, but those three the best.
Phil: He was a visionary, definitely.
Phil: I haven't seen the Don Quixote, but...
Phil: So anyway, this is a video game.
Phil: I played it on PC with an Xbox controller.
Phil: You probably played it on PC with a PlayStation controller or WASD.
Tom: I think I played it with a mouse and keyboard, yes.
Phil: And I've got to say, basically you play as Edith Finch, who is going back to a family home to discover things.
Phil: Something's about your past, you haven't been there for a long time.
Phil: Something is happening to you that has made family important, which is a massive spoiler for the game, but I knew from the first minutes of the game the quote reveal at the end.
Phil: Did you twig on to that?
Tom: That you were, in fact, in the end playing as her child?
Tom: Yes.
Phil: Did you pick it up that early?
Tom: I don't know if it was minutes, but once it was apparent she was pregnant.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: It's very early on, it's a tell, so spoilers and we'll flag it earlier.
Phil: But basically, you go through this house and you discover how this poor family, this cursed family, has had a bunch of people in their lives that die.
Phil: Am I being too glib in my description?
Tom: Repeated?
Phil: You go room by room and as you go room by room, you discover how this unfortunate group of a family have come to that untimely demise.
Tom: Yes, because they have a family curse.
Phil: So of course, it's in the first person thing.
Phil: I honestly, I'm not someone who usually gets motion sickness in the game.
Phil: I could only play this game in short spurts of no more than minutes because it actually made me nauseous.
Phil: I don't know, did you have the same experience or?
Tom: Not at all.
Phil: Okay, good.
Phil: And it feels to me like a game jam.
Phil: It's much better than, what was that?
Phil: Going home or gone home.
Tom: Gone home.
Phil: That was terrible.
Phil: But this one at least was very, very interesting.
Phil: And it felt like a game jam where basically you had different people in a room and sat down and went, okay, here's the theme.
Phil: Here's what we're gonna do.
Phil: You've got your own room.
Phil: Come up with a family member and a gameplay element that's unique and how they're gonna die and go for it.
Phil: All operating within the same engine and aesthetic in terms of visuals.
Phil: But basically, as you go from room to room, there's a little bit of traversal and platforming in between each room, like how you're gonna get there, you know, slight puzzle holding, very slight, basically just figuring out how to get into the room or not.
Phil: It has a very interactive controller, you know, type thing.
Phil: So to open a door, you pull the analog stick towards you to open a door or push it forward to close it.
Phil: And there's all sorts of levers and things like that in this.
Tom: Would be great on Wii or in VR.
Phil: Yep, would be, definitely.
Phil: And so that's essentially it.
Phil: And what is, that's the intro to the game.
Phil: Obviously some levels are better than others.
Phil: Some of them are very short, like seconds.
Phil: Yep.
Phil: And some of them are a little longer.
Phil: Some of them have-
Tom: And some of them are thematically a lot more interesting than others, like the awful comic book level compared to the bathtub scene or the shark scene.
Phil: Yeah, so Milton was the level with the comic book level and it's over in seconds.
Phil: It's basically you operate a flip book.
Tom: No, no, no, no, not that one.
Tom: Oh, Barbara.
Tom: Yes.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: Look, no, like Barbara was great.
Phil: And so in that one, you're playing like a-
Tom: I greatly disliked that one.
Phil: I liked it because it had a Tales from the Crypt type theme that I thought was quite good.
Phil: And it stole from the Sega Genesis game, Comic Zone, so if you can imagine Tales from the Crypt plus Comic Zone, you're walking through this world.
Phil: The character herself, Barbara, was like one of the more vanilla characters in the whole thing.
Phil: But I enjoyed it as a post.
Phil: And then Gregory, which was the guy in the bathtub, that was probably the best, but I'd have to have another look.
Phil: I thought you were talking about the flip book comic, which was Milton.
Tom: No, no, the, the, uh, Barbara was the one I thought was, uh, one of the least interesting.
Tom: And the reason is, to me, and it was something that was there in, um, The Unfinished Swan as well.
Tom: And this game, having played The Unfinished Swan, was very disappointing because I wouldn't necessarily say that I liked The Unfinished Swan very much or greatly enjoyed it, um, because it, it was very slow and some parts were really annoying, uh, not in terms of difficulty, but in terms of boredom to get through.
Tom: But it, the underlying themes of it were relatively interesting and presented in an interesting way, if extremely slowly.
Tom: And it was also clearly something that the the people making it or person making it was very passionate about and interested in.
Tom: Um, I didn't get that the passion, uh, sense to the same degree in this.
Tom: And I did not find the underlying themes, um, quite as interesting.
Tom: And with the exception of, uh, Milton and his brother, um, they were much more obscured than they were in, um, The Unfinished Swan with a lot more stuff, uh, stuck on top of them to make them more palatable.
Phil: I've got to say, you know, our descriptions of this game are going to be for people who've already played it.
Phil: And, uh, to me, my favorites were, uh, like from a point of humor, I liked Sam, which was the hunter.
Phil: Um, I think that was the best demise of them all.
Phil: In terms of touching, I think that Gregory in the bathtub with his frogs, uh, was the most touching.
Phil: Would you disagree with that or?
Tom: I thought that was great, yep.
Phil: I'd say in terms of artistic, you've got both Barbara, which is more of a kitsch, um, kind of thing.
Phil: And it's kind of disqualifying, but the whole field of a childhood actress and his other elements to it, like, you know, that could be a Quentin Tarantino mini movie really.
Phil: Um, but I think probably if you're looking at the artistic scale, um, Lewis in The Fish Factory is probably the one that was trying to be the most profound.
Phil: Um, and to me had the best gameplay element, uh, because you're doing two things at the same time.
Phil: Uh, that's, that's the guy in The Fish Factory for everyone playing at home.
Tom: And as you are cutting the heads off fish and throwing them on to convey abouts, you are simultaneously moving a character around his imaginary world.
Phil: Yeah, in a little King story.
Phil: They've got a little King story.
Phil: Uh, I think you'd agree with the, with that description of the RPG.
Tom: It may well have been, uh, influenced by that, but him, as well as the Milton Flip book, are direct references to and arguably take place in the world of the Unfinished Swan.
Phil: Oh, okay.
Tom: With Milton's demise being that he goes into the world of the Unfinished Swan.
Phil: That's right.
Tom: Essentially.
Phil: That's right.
Phil: And I've got to say, my earlier confusion about that game company, um, and Giant Sparrow was both of them actually worked at Sony Santa Monica inside their studio.
Phil: So this was part of Sony's indie movement where they let small independents work inside of their massive commercial God of War studio.
Phil: And not only did they have the resources available to them of a large developer, but also they could consult with people that had been, you know, making quote, you know, commercial games for so long.
Phil: So I think other notable ones was Calvin, but to a much lesser extent and also Gus.
Phil: So Calvin was the space...
Tom: I certainly do not remember the names of who was who, so you will have to...
Phil: No, that's fine.
Phil: So Calvin was the space boy on the swing who wanted to swing high.
Tom: Yep, that was a lot of fun.
Phil: And then Gus was the one that could control the wind in a Katamari style way to disrupt the wedding.
Phil: And, you know, in each of their own special way, they were enjoyable.
Tom: And I still would also rank the shark one highly.
Phil: Yes, which prompted me to think of what are the top five shark games, but maybe that can be one of our lists.
Tom: That should be an article you write.
Phil: Was that Molly that was at...
Phil: one of the earlier ones, wasn't it?
Tom: Yeah, it was possibly the first one, I think.
Phil: It was, yeah.
Tom: And it was a good start, and it set the theme of the oppressive atmosphere of the family and the eccentricities and mental problems that spread throughout in the manifestation of the supposed family curse.
Phil: The last character we have to talk about is...
Tom: And which was gradually referenced throughout, where until you finally discover more about the grandmother who is ultimately getting the majority of the blame, sorry, with her essentially setting up a very controlling family atmosphere and cashing in on the whole family curse essentially.
Phil: Right.
Phil: And I think that there is this connective tissue that is supposed to be there with this overriding narrative, which I think is good, or at least it's notable.
Phil: But really the grist of this game is going from room to room, becoming the people that you are going to see their demise of or being someone close to them who's going to see their demise.
Phil: And man, I just keep going, as good as Lewis is, and that one, which is the Fish Factory one, where you're having to do one mechanism with one analog stick and another mechanism with the right stick, I can't remember a game that required that of a player.
Phil: And I was surprised by how easy it was to me because it was just a monotonous action.
Phil: So I could just be doing this one thing with my left and then the other with the right.
Phil: But then, as Gagan would say, I like work simulators.
Phil: That's why Papers, Please was my top game of the s.
Phil: It has to be the best.
Tom: Why don't you just go off to a non-existent Soviet country and become a border guard?
Phil: Yeah, or just live my existing life.
Phil: So, you know, I'd love to be doing these podcasts daily, but I have a real job as well.
Phil: But at the border.
Phil: The thing that was surprising me was when I played this game, I'd heard from more than one critic that they were emotionally moved at the end of the game to the point where they were sobbing uncontrollably and had to play the game a second time.
Phil: So they could show their partner that, you know, you got to check out this game, you know, it's moving, it's game of the decade and all the rest of it.
Phil: But really, the demise of Edith Finch to me was the least interesting and least surprising component of this.
Phil: And ultimately, I was happy when the game was done.
Phil: You know, it was like they have different family members that were followed through.
Phil: And Edith was the one that we haven't talked about yet, and I didn't really need to talk about it.
Phil: I just didn't have that emotional resonance with it, and maybe that's a personal thing.
Phil: But did this game reach out to you in a way that other walking simulators or other games didn't?
Tom: Not really.
Tom: To me, it was an interesting series of novelty stories and the allusions to the oppressive nature of the family and the attempts that failed to break away from that by some of the people or giving into it by some of the people was interesting, but less so than the themes in The Unfinished Swan, some of which were explored here in Milton and Lewis.
Tom: Was that the name of his brother?
Phil: Yes.
Phil: Well, Milton was the comic strip guy, and Lewis was the fisher.
Tom: Yep.
Tom: But it never really did anything with them, and it just became rather than a possibility to think about those things, merely an exercise in working out what was going on in terms of plot, rather than an emotionally effective thing or a thematically fascinating thing.
Phil: One of the things I know you mentioned about this was gameplay reductionism, and I was interested for you to expand on that.
Tom: Yes.
Tom: Well, one thing, one position I have always found to be very silly, but never previously articulated why, is the position essentially that the only thing that matters in games is the gameplay.
Tom: And I should say never articulated beyond the self-evidently idiotic nature of that statement, given that there are things other than gameplay in games, so why would it follow that gameplay necessarily matters?
Tom: And you'll find that there are very few critics in film, though there are some, but it is a niche movement that is in no way the general opinion or widely accepted over other forms of film criticism, that the only aspect of film that should matter is the visual aspect.
Tom: To me, that's a similarly idiotic statement.
Phil: Well, John Carmack famously, you know, said that story in games is like story in porn.
Phil: No one watches porn movies.
Tom: And I famously said to Igor Bobovich, and I'm very proud of stunning with embarrassment and self-repression a Serbian living in Holland, he said that to me and I said to him, no, he asked me, well, do I watch pornography of the stories?
Tom: To which I responded, I do watch pornography of the stories.
Tom: Why do you watch it?
Tom: And he was speechless.
Phil: Yeah, I think I also chimed in.
Tom: That was one of my favorite moments on a podcast.
Phil: And I think also I chimed in and said, I only watch it for the story.
Phil: I think it's one of the things missing these days.
Tom: Yes, but further to this point, I just realized it was a funny moment of a revelation.
Tom: The game playing games fucking sucks.
Tom: What game is as good as chess?
Tom: None.
Tom: Scrabble?
Tom: None are in the same league.
Tom: No, video game.
Tom: What video game is comparable to chess?
Tom: Nothing.
Phil: River Raid.
Tom: What video game?
Tom: What's that?
Phil: River Raid for the Atari
Phil: Half Life
Phil: Half Life
Phil: Yuck.
Tom: Please, no.
Tom: But seriously, what game is as good as chess?
Phil: Killzone
Tom: What game?
Tom: No.
Tom: What game is as good as football?
Tom: What game is as good as ping pong?
Tom: The answer to all those questions is none.
Tom: As games, video games are fucking awful.
Tom: If you remove the non-gameplay elements from games, they would suck.
Tom: No one will fucking play them.
Tom: And that is a fact.
Phil: If you remove the gameplay, yeah.
Phil: Yeah, there's no reason.
Tom: No, if you remove the elements that aren't gameplay, no one will play them.
Tom: If you remove the gameplay, no one will play them.
Tom: But the point is, games like film and many other mediums are a medium that are based on the conglomeration of all their parts.
Tom: And to reduce them to any one part is an exercise in futility because they suck at every single part that they have.
Tom: It's the combination of the parts that they have that makes them in any way enjoyable, interesting.
Tom: And that implies to...
Tom: applies just as much to the gameplay as any other element.
Tom: If you want to say video game stories suck compared to a novel, that's true, but so does film, so does television.
Tom: But guess what?
Tom: Games suck as games.
Tom: Again, I challenge anyone to present me with any game that is in any way comparable to a board game, or again, chess, fucking chess, nothing comes close to it, or any sport, and you will be left wanting.
Phil: Look, I think you're correct, and that's why we have such limited elements of play in our games.
Phil: And describing this game as an agglomeration is exactly right, because they give you little snippets of different kinds of gameplay.
Phil: But most of the gameplay elements are still, you know, landing heavily from card games like Magic, or board games like Dungeons and Dragons, or shooting.
Phil: You know, we haven't elevated beyond, you know, Target Hunt with some of the most popular games.
Phil: You know, gameplay is all that games really have as a driving element, but they still land heavily on things from the human experience.
Phil: And in some ways, if you look at VR, it's leaning...
Tom: My point is merely, well, gameplay might be the driving force of any game by definition, including non-games.
Tom: And again, if you want to take it from a reductionist manner of interaction, objectively speaking, Dear Esther is not less interactive than Bayonetta.
Tom: It may be less complex in its interaction than Bayonetta, but it is not less interactive.
Tom: It is not less interactive, more interactive or less.
Phil: It's less demanding.
Tom: It's less complex, but it is not less interactive.
Tom: If you do nothing in Dear Esther, the game does not progress.
Tom: If you do nothing in Bayonetta, the game does not progress.
Phil: So you're defending walking simulators.
Phil: I'm not saying that tongue in cheek.
Tom: I'm defending any sort of game on the basis merely that games as games suck, just as much as games suck as stories.
Phil: I don't think games as games suck.
Phil: Vertical scrolling shooters, if you don't do anything.
Tom: If someone told me I had to choose between playing Gunstar Heroes, one of the greatest games in terms of pure gameplay ever made, and chess, I'm going to fucking choose chess.
Phil: Gunstar Heroes is terrible.
Tom: Gunstar Heroes is great.
Tom: I don't know what the hell you're talking about.
Phil: What controller were you using when you played it?
Tom: I was using a PSor PScontroller.
Phil: You're absolutely right.
Phil: Gunstar Heroes came out for the Sega Genesis, or whatever it was called in other territories, and the controller sucked, and it sucked.
Tom: Yeah, but so the controller sucked.
Tom: The game was exceptional, and still is.
Phil: How could you know if the interaction wasn't there?
Phil: It's like saying play chess while you're wearing oven mittens.
Phil: See how much fun that is.
Tom: Well, I think there's a sport like that, but it's boxing gloves.
Phil: Do you like You Know?
Tom: I'm not even sure I've played You Know.
Tom: I've seen a pack of You Know cards, I can recall that much, but I don't know if I've ever played it.
Phil: Put it on your bucket list.
Tom: But I'm just saying, people gush about Tetris, like it's some god's gift to gaming.
Tom: Tetris fucking sucks.
Tom: There's chess, please.
Tom: And that's coming from someone who loves Tetris.
Tom: But let's be real.
Phil: All right, let's be real.
Tom: That's all I'm saying.
Phil: That's your box quote.
Tom: Yes.
Phil: What Remains of Edith Finch.
Phil: Let's be real.
Phil: Tom Towers, out of
Tom: Play chess instead.
Phil: Is there anything you want to say more about this game?
Tom: Just merely, it's disappointing that, unlike The Unfinished Swan, which while still very much attempting to obscure its themes and avoid making a non-ironical point, there was a meaty and interesting commentary on escapism and imagination there.
Tom: That's why Terry Gilliam did a cameo, I assume.
Phil: I think with this game, the gameplay elements outweigh everything else.
Phil: It's a gimmick, it's a game jam.
Tom: I was just gonna say, but here, while that is there in a snippet version, and those parts of it are interesting and worth playing, the overarching plot and theme, it's disappointing that it ultimately amounts to not really being interesting thematically or emotionally, but really just being approachable on the level of a mystery and solving a mystery.
Tom: Which is fine, but given that the previous game made by these people managed to do that as well as handle the theme, interestingly, it was disappointing for me that they only managed one of those two things here.
Phil: Yeah, look, I've got to say it wasn't emotionally anywhere near what I was expecting, given what people had said.
Phil: From a gameplay element, it was way better than what I was expecting.
Phil: That is true.
Phil: But even so, is an experience I would have sought out had I known what I had experienced at the end of my experience?
Phil: No, if given the choice, having gone through it, I wouldn't play it.
Phil: If you like video game theory and, you know, that sort of thing, and can pick it up for an affordable price, I'd say, yeah, go ahead, it's a must play, just so you can use it as a reference point.
Tom: I think given its length, it's worth playing for the shark scene, the bath scene, the beach scene, the hunting scene, and the fish scene.
Phil: So from a value perspective, I'd probably give it a or out of
Phil: From a taken as a whole, I'd probably give it a
Phil: But it is more interesting than most games, I'll give it that.
Tom: I do not regret playing it.
Phil: Definitely not.
Phil: I think that's going to be a new scale.
Tom: Do we regret playing a game?
Phil: Or do we not regret playing a game?
Phil: I'm about to finish Pokemon Shield, and I so far do not regret playing the game.
Phil: But we can cover that off.
Tom: Making it one of the best games ever.
Phil: Pokemon Shield?
Tom: According to our scale.
Phil: Well, I'm glad that we both agree that it's a game that's worth playing.
Phil: Rather than end this podcast, because I haven't eaten in hours, or had more than hours of sleep, I couldn't...
Phil: The earworm that I couldn't get away from...
Tom: That's how hard it is to buy toilet paper these days.
Phil: Yeah, in these troubled times.
Tom: You've been all across the state.
Phil: Come on, man, we got almost through this without any reference to that thing.
Phil: So...
Phil: But one thing which, to me, is disappointing in this podcast, as we approach the hour mark, is that we only got through % of the books that you've already read in the first months.
Phil: And if we don't make it to %, and we don't do a podcast tomorrow, I'm gonna walk around here, you know...
Tom: For another hours on hunger strike.
Phil: On a hunger strike, so...
Tom: You may as well make it a hunger strike now.
Phil: I can do what I want to do, you know, but the point is, if you can please tell us at least one other nugget, because I know you've got a couple of nuggets, about one of the other books that you've read.
Phil: And, you know, maybe we can close the podcast out with that, and I'll be at ease.
Tom: I will do precisely that.
Tom: I've got a few book recommendations, which should be fast, but one, another massive broad generalization to hopefully create some outrage so that someone actually listens to the show.
Phil: You just got to say China a lot of time.
Tom: China.
Phil: You know what the problem is with China?
Tom: China.
Phil: Yeah, China.
Phil: You know what the problem is with China?
Phil: Okay, we just got another downloads.
Phil: We love China.
Phil: That's the problem with China.
Phil: We love it too much.
Phil: Now that's out of the way.
Tom: I've recently...
Tom: I've been reading, among other things, the early Anglo-Saxon myths, such as Beowulf.
Tom: I don't know if they're...
Tom: Beowulf would...
Tom: That is Anglo-Saxon.
Tom: I was thinking of...
Tom: What's the Norse one?
Phil: Odin.
Tom: Yeah, but the stories...
Tom: It's the Edda, that's it.
Tom: Yes, reading the Edda and Anglo-Saxon myths, there's a general idea going around, not unrelated to the noble savage, but it's still an acceptable viewpoint in modern anthropology, as opposed to suppositional anthropology of the late s, which didn't really base any of its ideas on research.
Tom: Essentially, savages are more peaceful than civilisation and so forth, which is not a viewpoint I either subscribe to or do not subscribe to, but as someone who has read a lot of Aboriginal myths, both in second-hand and first-hand accounts, comparing them to Anglo-Saxon and Norse mythology, which is in terms of its creation stories and mythological viewpoints and transformations, coming from a very similar place.
Tom: There is one massive difference between them, which is the mind-blowing level of violence.
Tom: The most violent Aboriginal story I can think of is one where...
Phil: No, I know this one.
Phil: It's where the rainbow serpent goes to Aldi and he forgets that they don't have any plastic bags and they just leave him there with like different items and no way to carry them home.
Tom: And no toilet paper on the shelves.
Phil: Yeah, well, there's a modern take on it.
Tom: Yes.
Tom: No, it is related to the giants of the past who were essentially killed in a massive genocide, basically.
Tom: Genocide is every second fucking story in this stuff.
Tom: And there's a stark difference as well between the Norwegians, the Norse and the Anglo-Saxons and the Welsh.
Tom: Like the Merlin story, the King Arthur stories of the Welsh compared to the Anglo-Saxons.
Tom: The Anglo-Saxons are just a long-ending series of massacre after massacre after massacre with a few creation stuff stuffed in there and a little bit of Christian mythology as well.
Tom: The Welsh stuff features some brilliant symbolism and amazing scenes as well, like this incredible visionary scene of, I think, King Arthur and some other dude playing chess or some other game in a field of crows circling overhead.
Tom: In the Anglo-Saxon version, there's just a lot of fucking killing shit, basically.
Tom: And I don't mean that necessarily as a criticism, but it is a hilarious and interesting massive difference.
Phil: It sounds like we're at video games have gone, really.
Tom: Yes.
Phil: It's like the description of Anglo-Saxon video games.
Phil: It's just killing.
Tom: Is there a spear on the cover of the folio?
Tom: Yes, every single time.
Tom: That's the equivalent to guns on covers, I believe.
Tom: That's your theory.
Tom: But that's the end of my hot takes.
Tom: And we're now just going to go into some book recommendations.
Tom: The first is a book by James Elkins, which is called What Heaven Looks Like.
Tom: And the book itself isn't worth reading for the writing.
Tom: The writing is fine, but it is printed to a similar size.
Tom: The paintings by a, I think, unknown th or th century artist, or it might have been earlier, I can't recall.
Tom: But this is with Al Greco, the greatest paintings ever made.
Tom: They're basically a series of visions that this unknown artist sensibly had in their alchemical practices with a log that they saw in a log, and they then painted whoever they were, and they are just absolutely astounding and indescribably amazing and well worth looking at.
Phil: Knowing your aesthetic and looking at the Google images or Bing images, rather, of this, I can totally see where it would be up your alley.
Tom: Yes, well, it's the only thing in visual art that I've come across that is equal to Al Greco.
Phil: It's very folk art, I've got to say.
Tom: Is that a problem?
Phil: Nope.
Phil: I'm a big fan of folk art.
Phil: Most of the art...
Tom: I don't like it due to its folk art in this, though, just as I do not like Al Greco due to its classical, yet completely non-classical style.
Phil: Maybe for another podcast, I think there's a lot more truth to folk art than other forms.
Phil: Not all forms, but...
Tom: I think it depends entirely on the artist.
Phil: Exactly right, as with all things.
Tom: So there you've got Al Greco, the greatest of the artists who are employed by people and who produces very high-polished and high-level stuff.
Tom: And there's a folk art that is aesthetically equal and thematically equal to it.
Phil: So other book recommendations?
Tom: Yes, is Calocane, or I think that's how it's pronounced, by Karen Boy, who was a Swedish novelist.
Tom: And this is, without question, the greatest and arguably only good as a novel, dystopian book I've read, with Brave New World being the only in any way elucidating dystopian novel that makes any interesting political commentary.
Tom: This doesn't make any interesting political commentary.
Tom: I actually know there's a third one that is well worth reading, which makes some interesting cultural commentary, which is Swastika Night, which may or may not have been mentioned on the podcast before.
Tom: I think I didn't mention on the podcast in an article, and that was from last year, but it's worth mentioning again.
Tom: But Calicane is by Karen Boy, and it is of no political interest, not really of any interest as a dystopian, other than the non-ridiculous oppression of it, because, sorry to say, such dystopians do not exist in reality.
Tom: You need your population to be getting some basic level of care, even if you've got a large number of people starving to death, because otherwise your society is likely to collapse or disintegrate.
Tom: And again, what's the point of having an underclass if there isn't an overclass?
Tom: And for there to be an overclass, some number of people must logically be happy with the society, and it's probably not going to be literally just the dictator and the dictator's family.
Tom: It will probably be a slightly larger number of people than that.
Phil: This is a common theme of many religions, which is to take care of the least of them, which is kind of a backhanded insult, really.
Tom: The meek shall inherit the earth.
Phil: From the least of them, even under the greatest of them, even one, you know, and all that sort of thing.
Tom: Not that this has anything to do with this book.
Tom: This book is well worth reading.
Tom: As I said, not as a dystopia, but it is a genuinely good novel, which cannot be said of any other dystopian book that I've read.
Tom: And it has two of the greatest monologues in fiction and one of the most bleak and crushing monologues on love that I've ever read.
Tom: It is absolutely astounding and well worth reading.
Phil: And the name of that book again?
Tom: Calocane by Karen Boy.
Phil: Karen Boy is probably the easiest way to find it.
Phil: May I make a book recommendation?
Tom: Yes, you can.
Tom: You know, while we're on the topic of love, I have to bring up one of my favourite lines of The Game Under Top series, which was, From Dido to Dante to the dildo in GTA.
Phil: I remember when I wrote that, and I was just like, wow, you know, Tom's really going to like that.
Tom: Well, I bring that up just because the metaphor in just, again, amazing transformation by William Blake, Dante's famous metaphor for lust of people being blown around by the wind, again, is this stupid fucking Greek nonsense.
Tom: Again, it should not be people being blown around by the wind.
Tom: It should be people as the fucking wind, better than my slight transfer, alteration suggested to Dante there, which is absolutely apparent in his wonderful illustration.
Tom: Again, beating this fucking hack Dante's bullshit.
Phil: I just got to recommend...
Tom: But I took it.
Tom: What was your recommendation?
Phil: Well, I've got a couple.
Phil: One is an old associate of mine.
Phil: I wouldn't call him a friend, but Patrick Hickey Jr.
Phil: was recently on the Player One podcast talking about his games, which is the Mind Behind series.
Tom: And...
Tom: Yes.
Phil: Are you familiar with it?
Tom: No, I'm not.
Phil: Well, Patrick Hickey, I knew him from GameSpot, and we had a lot to do in common with each other.
Tom: Actually, yes, I am, I believe, familiar with this.
Phil: Yeah, Patrick Hickey Jr.
Phil: And he's got a successful series of very good interview background books about different kinds of video games.
Phil: So...
Tom: There's another good Red Bull podcast series in this vein.
Tom: I have no idea what it is called, but it is for musicians.
Phil: And as Forbes described, The Mind Behind Games reads like a personal voiceover for a for documentary on every classic video game discussed in the book.
Phil: And I've read a couple of them now, and I'm honored that I knew Patrick, and we were close buds, and I'm sorry that we drifted apart.
Phil: The other book that I'm...
Tom: Particularly now will make Clout Chasing all the more difficult.
Phil: Yeah, I think we could probably get him on this podcast too, but I don't want to make him wake up at o'clock in the morning to do it, because we're on the other side of the world.
Phil: The other book I'm reading is called Showstopper, which is about the development of Windows NT by G.
Phil: Pascal Zachary.
Phil: This is a business book, much like Masters of Doom was, and obviously in a completely different direction of the books that you're recommending, but hey, there's a lot of books.
Phil: Someone's got to recommend them.
Tom: Well, that does bring us into our non-fiction section of recommendations.
Tom: And I believe you're a massive fan of Roosevelt, right?
Phil: Which one?
Tom: The first one.
Tom: What's the difference between the two?
Phil: Teddy Roosevelt is more of a pure merit-driven kind of dude.
Tom: He's more of a social Darwinist.
Phil: He is a social Darwinist.
Tom: And he's a social Darwinist, not the politically correct version of meritocracy.
Tom: And you denied that, but I'm factually correct.
Tom: What's the beginning of meritocracy?
Tom: The beginning of meritocracy is figuring out how to implement socialist Darwinist policies of race without referring to race.
Tom: So an example of that is voting based on merit, such as you have to pass a certain intellectual test to do it.
Tom: Immigration based on language tests, rather than based on openly stating race, so that you don't offend the Japanese, for instance.
Tom: That's the beginning of meritocracy.
Tom: It is quite literally turning social Darwinism politically correct.
Phil: I think the beginning of meritocracy is M.
Phil: Mm, mm, mm, sounds good to me.
Phil: So, yeah, no, I'm a fan of Teddy, though.
Phil: Let's, you know, I mean, like, he also drew us into World War I.
Tom: You know, he was a massive lover of war, I believe, like his son.
Phil: Massive bloodlust.
Phil: If you have a word for him, it's bloodlust.
Phil: So I don't respect him as much as I once did, but I respect him much more than FDR.
Tom: But I bring him up because apparently one issue in the historiography, according to what I read, and I want it to be true.
Tom: And the modern world suggests it is true, because if there's one thing that Australia offers to the world in political influence, and if there's one area that Australia is not willing to kowtow to world standards in politics rather than everywhere else, it's willing to be spat on, walked upon, and loves it.
Tom: It is in the areas of racism.
Tom: And apparently a man by the name of Pearson, who is of course like other great Australians, not Australian, but he did come to Australia and was greatly influenced by his time in Australia, he wrote a very famous book, which is now not so famous, but was massively influential at the time.
Tom: And he was the missing link in Roosevelt's turn towards a social Darwinist view of world politics that is not there in the American historiography, according to this book.
Tom: And I want to believe it, and it is believable given the massive shit storm Australia was kicking up in the lead up to the First World War over such matters.
Tom: And again today, Pauline Hanson, while here she is an obscure, ridiculous figure.
Tom: She is a massively loved and important figure in a lot of racialist political movements outside of Australia.
Tom: Yep.
Tom: And another one, Fraser Anning and Eggboy, are two symbolic people in the meme area of world politics.
Tom: And Australia has its own Florida man who is even more extreme.
Tom: And best of all, we have the second most successful right-wing terrorist as well.
Tom: So it's fair to say that it's believable that an Australian was important there, given that we have a long history of important figures in this area of politics.
Phil: Yeah, because like Theodore Roosevelt, a lot of Australians are rich kids, relative to the world, who got everything they wanted.
Tom: But most importantly, Australia is, by world standards of developed countries, has a terribly high level of wealth inequality, and always has, but unlike many other places, it has some degree of social mobility, except for the area where there is the greatest degree of wealth inequality and health inequality and one of the lowest levels of mobility in the world.
Tom: So in terms of our relationship to people in the country as well, we are one of the world's greatest.
Tom: It's not just internationally.
Phil: We're a Norwegian country, in essence.
Phil: Not as much as New Zealand, but a lot.
Phil: But okay, well, with that, if...
Tom: But I bring all that a lot, because I would recommend, yes, I'm recommending a book, Drawing the Global Color Line.
Tom: When men's countries, white men's countries, on the question of racial equality, it is unbelievably bad.
Phil: I'm not buying it.
Tom: As you can tell from the title.
Tom: And I hate history books, for one reason, because biography is the worst fucking idea in history, since The Diary.
Tom: And so many history books, they bring up this fucking person, and you learn every fucking detail about his life, and it adds absolutely nothing to anything about their ideas, or anything that they fucking did in relation to history.
Tom: But it's an interesting book, because this is following the history wars in Australia, or maybe that's still going on.
Tom: I don't know if people consider that to be still going on.
Phil: I think people are more concerned about whether they're going to live tomorrow or not.
Tom: Well, what's the point of living tomorrow if we can't have history back to that?
Phil: Well, that's my point.
Phil: That's why I want to be a history professor.
Phil: I'm in the minority.
Tom: Anyway, I recommend this book just because, one, it is an interesting subject, because there is, one, it will help you understand a lot of the discussion on concepts of white supremacy that are completely nonsensical and reference absolutely nothing.
Tom: And two, there is actually not much history.
Tom: The reason there is controversy about history like this that actually does reference stuff is because this is the beginning of the historiography of th century politics and racial politics.
Tom: So it is in the vanguard and is a fascinating book for that reason.
Tom: And it's also interesting because, and also depressing, regardless of whether you are pro-racial politics or anti-racial politics, is a hundred years ago, fucking idiots, regardless of the site, believe exactly the same shit.
Tom: China is about to fucking take over the world.
Tom: They've got millions of people.
Tom: Chinese people could fucking walk to Australia and swamp us on, oh my god, all this dumb shit, a hundred years ago.
Tom: These fucking morons, same shit.
Phil: Yeah.
Tom: Well, what do you expect?
Phil: I mean, an animal can only evolve so much in a hundred years when they're fed on papilla.
Tom: No, the issue is, an animal who is dumb enough to listen to a stupid idea, repeat it for a hundred years, is a fucking idiot who won't evolve.
Phil: Absolutely.
Tom: That's my point.
Tom: But anyway, so that's, in spite of its atrocious writing worth reading, a slightly better written book is Best We Forget, which is a much needed book on the Anzac myth.
Tom: And again, it is absolutely hilarious.
Tom: And it's essentially on Australians managed to convince themselves and mass support for the war was not just mobilized around anti-German sentiment and anti-imperialist sentiment, but pro-White Australia policy sentiment.
Tom: And essentially the theory was...
Phil: Wait, wait, wait.
Phil: White Australia policy was or years after World War I.
Tom: Wait for it.
Tom: This is...
Tom: You're about to find out why it was to years after that.
Tom: And you'll find that to years is the lead up to the Second World War, right?
Tom: What's the noticeable difference in the lead up to the Second World War geopolitics and the geopolitics of the First World War?
Phil: The US was more influential in Australia than the United Kingdom.
Tom: Not at all.
Phil: Well, that is the number one influence.
Tom: No, it isn't.
Tom: The number one difference...
Tom: You think Australia is important to geopolitics?
Phil: I think that Australia went into...
Tom: I said, what's the important change in geopolitics?
Phil: Australia went into World War I, in my view.
Tom: Not to Australia.
Tom: Not to Australia.
Phil: And they went into World War II to impress the US.
Tom: Wait, wait, wait, wait.
Tom: Stop.
Tom: Why did they want to impress Britain?
Phil: Because they had just got this newly found independence, but they still wanted to show that, hey, we still like you and you guys are good.
Tom: No.
Tom: But again, first of all, I want the question asked, what's the important geopolitical difference?
Tom: Because you're on the wrong continent.
Phil: Right now, I'm in Australia.
Tom: It's Japan.
Tom: First World War, Japan is a part of the West and is an important military ally of Great Britain.
Phil: I just got to say for our listeners, if you stop listening now, no one's going to hold you to blame, because we're not going to talk about video games.
Tom: The Second World War.
Phil: I would say that Japan in World War II, and again, thank you for listening to The Game Under Podcast, Japan was more of a threat in World War II than Turkey was in World War I.
Phil: I mean, they were literally bombing the Northern Territory.
Tom: Listen, neither of them, no country except for Great Britain has ever been a threat to Australia, because no country except for Great Britain has had a large enough military difference to the native people, in this case, all Australians at this stage, to be able to invade such a massive landmass.
Tom: Australia may not have the...
Tom: What are you talking about?
Phil: We've been invaded by the Yanks like for years now.
Phil: And now they're just going and building bases in our country.
Tom: Peacefully.
Tom: They built army bases here.
Tom: We want them.
Tom: We love America.
Phil: And you're expanding them under Obama.
Tom: We don't like the Japanese.
Tom: But I'm saying, first of all, at no point did Japan ever intend to invade Australia.
Tom: That's a fact.
Tom: And secondly, that was known during the war, but it was not a good mobilizing argument.
Phil: Why did they bomb us?
Tom: Because we're a military ally.
Phil: Oh yeah, fair enough.
Phil: Yep.
Phil: He was a pokini like.
Tom: They're not fucking idiots.
Tom: They're not going to fucking try and invade Australia.
Tom: Again, this was known...
Phil: No, they weren't invading Australia, but...
Tom: This was known at the time.
Tom: Japan at no point intended to invade Australia.
Phil: No, why would they?
Tom: That's a fact.
Phil: There's nothing here, except for sheep.
Tom: Exactly.
Phil: Particularly back then.
Tom: Now listen, just listen.
Tom: The important point is, First World War.
Tom: Why Australia policy?
Tom: Why couldn't it be implemented?
Tom: Because you would offend the Japanese, who were a part of the League of Nations and an important world power.
Tom: That's post-World War.
Phil: That's
Tom: Yes.
Tom: What's your point?
Tom: They were, before the First World War, they were allies and an important part.
Tom: Yeah.
Tom: And you could not offend them.
Tom: This is common, this is not just from this book.
Tom: This is standard.
Phil: Common knowledge.
Tom: To me anyway, common knowledge.
Phil: Common knowledge to me and you.
Tom: I don't know if it is to the average Australian, but it is to me.
Tom: And I recommend reading, if you've read anything from the era, and I've only read stuff in Victoria, but these idiots were fucking terrified, absolutely terrified of Russian invasion, Japanese invasion, invasion from the motherfuckers in the Eureka Stockade in Ballarat.
Tom: They were shitting themselves.
Tom: Absolutely shitting themselves.
Phil: Or was that just political gain?
Tom: Well, lots of people were writing about it and saying that.
Phil: Yeah, but look at what they're writing now.
Tom: A lot of people are shitting themselves.
Tom: People are really idiots.
Phil: It doesn't mean there's a motive behind it.
Tom: Shut up.
Phil: Because I'm making too much sense.
Tom: People were not only shitting themselves about invasion, they were certainly shitting themselves about the continuation of the white race and the white race as dominance in Australia, particularly in regards to immigration from the non-whites Chinese, non-white Germans, non-white Irish, non-white Hungarians, non-white Europeans in general.
Phil: But again, look at what's being written today.
Tom: Listen.
Phil: I'm just listening.
Phil: I'm just saying, look at what's being written today.
Tom: So I'm saying the white Australia policy, if not for the Japanese, would have been implemented in the First World War because Britain would not let Australia do it because it would piss off Japan.
Tom: This is all well documented.
Phil: I agree with that.
Tom: Yeah.
Tom: So the argument put to the public is that if we fight on the side of the British Empire, there will be two great benefits.
Tom: One, we will racially purify ourselves because all the dumb fucks that we now memorialise.
Tom: Do you realise we memorialise weak pieces of shit that deserve to fucking die because they were weak cunts?
Tom: If you can't, the fucking soldiers are Gallipoli.
Tom: These dumb fucks died.
Tom: They deserve to be fucking forgotten in the racial purification of the white race.
Tom: Fuck them.
Tom: They lost.
Tom: They're dead.
Tom: Why memorialise?
Tom: Where are the fucking memorials for the great examples of the race who survived?
Phil: It's a big lump of sandstone.
Phil: Who cares?
Tom: But anyway, the point is, there were two important aspects, as well as anti-imperialism, as well as anti-German sentiment.
Phil: But no one is memorialising it.
Tom: Listen, another two important things are, one, racial purification by killing off your weak idiots who aren't good enough to win a battle, and two, appeasing, showing Britain you're willing to sacrifice in blood so that maybe they'll let you implement White Australia policy at the end of the war.
Tom: And again, I'm not suggesting, nor is the book, that this is the only motivation for these things, either in terms of propaganda or morally, but merely that they are important factors in the thinking of the politicians and the propaganda strategies.
Tom: And they were, that's pretty undeniable.
Tom: And it's a rollicking and hilarious read.
Phil: What's the name of the book?
Tom: Best We Forget.
Phil: And is it well written or poorly written?
Tom: For a history book, it is well written.
Phil: When was it published?
Tom: Ah, possibly.
Phil: It sounds like a worthy read.
Phil: I would just say that politicians years ago, or today, are living minute by minute to hang on to the power that they've got.
Phil: And I don't think anything has changed in human nature.
Phil: I don't think there's grand sweeping themes behind anything other than persons trying to hang on to the job that they've got.
Tom: I agree.
Tom: But simultaneously, people believe things as well.
Phil: I don't believe that people...
Tom: That doesn't necessarily alter what happens.
Tom: For instance, if anyone was going to predict before the Second World War who would attempt to exterminate the Jews, you would pick France or somewhere like that.
Tom: You would not pick Germany.
Tom: If you were to predict who would attempt to, on a large scale, not just sterilise, but exterminate the weak and infirm, you would pick America, not Germany.
Tom: So again, idea is one thing, what happens is another.
Tom: And what's the difference here?
Tom: Through doing those three things, Germany gets to attempt to build a massive land empire.
Tom: And again, why do you think fucking America was fighting the fascists for the freedom of the world?
Tom: No, Britain as well, obviously.
Tom: They were fighting them because all of a sudden, what's the difference between Belgium killing million Congolese to build an empire?
Tom: No one gave a shit, but they're just going to build a nice little city, and that's it.
Tom: Germans, as a corollary, massacre million Jews, starve million Slavs, starve or so million other prisoners of war and other various people around the area.
Tom: Well, now we care, but we don't care because they're doing that.
Tom: We care because they're potentially building a competing empire, in my opinion anyway.
Tom: And I think it's a fair supposition, given that there was a simple solution to the Holocaust and the persecution of the Jews before the war, and only a few South American countries and other obscure countries agreed to it.
Tom: And only a few countries during the fucking Second World War agreed to the simple solution of what happens when people are going around massacring people or persecuting them on a massive level.
Tom: They run away, but they don't get to run anywhere if the people won't let them in.
Tom: And while simultaneously apparently fighting to stop the world domination and mass atrocities caused by the Nazis, no one bothered attempting to divert any war effort in the direction of where they were doing those things.
Tom: The territorially important areas where those things were directed.
Tom: Nor did anyone see fit to even fulfill their Jewish immigration quotas, for the most part.
Phil: No, they didn't.
Phil: And that brings us to, I mean...
Tom: Which is another hilarious...
Tom: What I love about politics is basically % of it can be reduced to projection.
Tom: And one of the most fundamental complaints I've seen in history lectures by anti-German historians is complaints that the German people should have known what was going on and how could they not know.
Tom: Let's remember what happened to people who...
Tom: Literally children who were plastering their school with information on death camps and the massacring of civilians.
Tom: What happened to them?
Tom: They were decapitated.
Tom: So I think there was a pretty good program against one, suppressing that information while simultaneously Hitler was talking about it.
Tom: No one listens to what politicians say.
Tom: Wasn't that the case then?
Tom: Isn't the case now?
Tom: Even when they're an amazing performer like Hitler.
Tom: And two, where was this propaganda that was talking about the atrocities that the Nazis were committing, where was that not suppressed?
Tom: In the countries fighting the Nazis, what did they do?
Tom: Didn't even fill Jewish quotas, didn't project any war effort towards actually stopping any of these atrocities.
Tom: Even things like that is just wonderful projection.
Phil: I agree.
Phil: And when you look at other things that are being kept from us, like even now, like Nintendo is going to be celebrating the th anniversary of Super Mario Bros.
Phil: by apparently re-releasing a whole slew of Mario games for the Switch.
Tom: They're re-making Sunshine on Galaxy.
Phil: Which is a true atrocity against humanity.
Phil: So we'll talk about that more on the next Game Under Podcast.
Tom: And we've got one last...
Phil: No, no, you're done.
Tom: I'm not.
Tom: The Sexual Revolution by Wilhelm Reich.
Tom: This is the man responsible for Make Love Not War.
Tom: And another book worth...
Tom: anything worth reading by him, anything written by him is worth reading, judging by what I've read.
Tom: He is an absolutely enigmatic figure and an hilariously entertaining writer.
Tom: He is just brilliant.
Tom: But The Sexual Revolution is an absolutely fascinating book because as well as summarizing in much shorter, a lot of the stuff in The Mass Psychology of Fascism, which is his other best book that I've read, and he's already by this stage as angry as he is in Listen, Little Man.
Tom: So it's got those two elements in it.
Tom: It's of great interest to anyone who is fascinated by communism and the Soviet Union like I am.
Tom: And my experience of the internet, in spite of it apparently being a sphere of cultural Bolshevism filled with communist propaganda, have to look very carefully for communist propaganda.
Tom: But this book is worth reading because a lot of it is devoted to describing events happening during and in the immediate aftermath of the social revolution from communes, s style to sexual law reform and reactionary backlash.
Tom: It's absolutely fascinating.
Tom: And that's the end of the show.
Phil: We've got another episodes to cover the rest of the books you've read already this year, or ?
Tom: It will probably be by the time we record it.
Phil: We've got another episodes.
Phil: So what was the name of that book?
Phil: The Sexual Revolution by...
Tom: The Sexual Revolution by Wilhelm Reich of Make Love, Not War.
Phil: Of the six books that you've recommended today, what would be the number one that you'd just say, go to that book first?
Tom: I would have to be able to remember the six, but I would say non-fiction, probably The Sexual Revolution by Wilhelm Reich and fiction, probably Calocane.
Phil: Calocane.
Tom: Or Calo, but it's by Karen Boy.
Tom: K-A-R-I-N-B-O-Y-E.
Phil: Excellent.
Phil: All right.
Phil: Well, thank you very much, Tom Towers.
Phil: It's been a wonderful episode.
Phil: I've thoroughly enjoyed it, and look forward to our next episode of The Game Under Podcast.
Phil: In the interim, you can go to gameunder.net, see all of our top ten lists.
Phil: I might come up with our top five shark games by the time this podcast is produced.
Phil: And on the part of our regular listeners, I hope you're all doing well and keeping safe.
Phil: I'm Phil Fogg.
Tom: And let me just say, I'm Tom Towers.