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Introduction
0:00:16 Serious business out fo the way first.
Trademark Banter
0:01:21 Cheques for Free
0:02:31 Itch.io Game Bundle - Incredible Value
Final Impressions - Tom & Phil
0:13:00 Work Simulator: The Morticians Tale
Trademark Banter
0:27:06 Gana Mini RCA to HDMI Connector
First Impressions - Tom Towers
0:28:27 Streets of Rage 4
Special Quiz 0:37:16 Gun or No Gun?
News
0:46:25 Sony Playstation 5 Reveal
1:02:30 Tom's Take on the Leak of the The Last of Us 2 Leak
1:05:36 Back to PS5 News
The Morticians Tale - Tom & Phil
1:15:35 We forgot to score The Morticians Tale
1:16:05 Tom forgot to score Sky
An Aural Review by Tom Towers
0:18:35 A Plague Tale: Innocence
Censorship
1:49:10 And Other Topics
Transcipt:
Tom: What on earth are we getting at?
Phil: Sorry, let's do that again with some energy.
Phil: Hi everybody, and welcome to episode 126 of The Game Under Podcast, Australia's longest running video game podcast.
Phil: This is Phil Fogg.
Phil: I'm joined this week by my co-host, Tom Towers.
Phil: Tom, welcome to the show.
Tom: Thank you, I'm glad to be here.
Phil: Yeah, look, I've got to first of all say that if our audio quality is different, for those people who don't usually listen to the show, during these unprecedented times, we are both recording from our home studio, so we apologize in advance for any audio glitches.
Tom: We're social distancing.
00:00:49.100 --> 00:00:52.300
Phil: We are social distancing, and we're social justicing last week.
00:00:52.320 --> 00:01:03.020
Phil: I do want to, in all seriousness, say that we did not record an episode last week to give space to the more pressing issues that need discussion.
00:01:03.260 --> 00:01:17.300
Tom: We missed the Boycott Podcast Day, but unlike certain podcasts that we shan't mention that merely did not release an episode for a day, we didn't release an episode for an entire week.
00:01:17.460 --> 00:01:20.940
Tom: So I think we're, as ever, ahead of the curve.
00:01:21.400 --> 00:01:25.420
Phil: Well, we certainly are ahead of the curve, and that relates to COVID as well.
00:01:26.060 --> 00:01:29.380
Phil: I've got to say, so far 2020 is working out great for me.
00:01:29.680 --> 00:01:34.820
Phil: I got a check from the IRS last week for $1,200 US dollars.
00:01:35.820 --> 00:01:38.220
Phil: And it said on the front, Donald J.
00:01:38.220 --> 00:01:41.520
Phil: Trump financial relief package.
00:01:42.480 --> 00:01:43.200
Phil: I'm not joking.
00:01:43.220 --> 00:01:44.120
Phil: This is not a joke.
00:01:44.540 --> 00:01:46.140
Phil: This year is great.
00:01:46.160 --> 00:01:47.680
Phil: I got $1,200 US dollars.
00:01:47.700 --> 00:01:48.360
Phil: I cashed it.
00:01:48.380 --> 00:01:50.840
Phil: It was like over $1,700 Australian.
00:01:51.620 --> 00:01:54.700
Tom: That's $200 more than the Australian version, by the way.
00:01:55.680 --> 00:01:56.300
Phil: Is that right?
00:01:56.320 --> 00:02:06.360
Tom: I believe the Australian version was $750 and then another $750, which I did not receive, by the way.
00:02:07.080 --> 00:02:08.340
Phil: Well, I didn't receive it either.
00:02:08.360 --> 00:02:09.800
Phil: I haven't received anything from the Australians.
00:02:09.820 --> 00:02:12.860
Tom: That I believe is because neither you or I are parasites.
00:02:13.740 --> 00:02:14.520
Phil: Ah, I see.
00:02:14.580 --> 00:02:24.000
Phil: But just for listeners who don't know, I am also a US citizen and everyone who filed their taxes last year gets a check.
00:02:24.020 --> 00:02:26.400
Phil: So I got a check because I filed my taxes last year.
00:02:26.540 --> 00:02:26.880
Phil: So...
00:02:27.700 --> 00:02:30.860
Tom: Is there a way that foreign citizens can file taxes?
00:02:31.480 --> 00:02:34.640
Phil: That's, well, yeah, no, actually you can't.
00:02:35.180 --> 00:02:35.860
Phil: Unless you're a...
00:02:36.260 --> 00:02:37.200
Phil: Yeah, it is a pity.
00:02:37.680 --> 00:02:43.120
Phil: But the other great thing that's happened, I don't know if you know about this game bundle that's been available on itch.
00:02:44.460 --> 00:02:48.820
Phil: Now itch.io is a, what do you call it?
00:02:48.840 --> 00:02:51.340
Phil: Basically a platform for downloadable games.
00:02:51.880 --> 00:02:58.160
Phil: And it's mostly, in fact, it's probably entirely independent developers that publish their games there.
00:02:59.260 --> 00:03:06.600
Phil: And I know it's been around for a few years now, but I've never bothered to actually go there until I heard about this great bundle.
00:03:06.620 --> 00:03:15.160
Phil: They're giving away over 1600 games, and all you have to do is donate $5 or pay $5.
00:03:15.520 --> 00:03:19.020
Phil: It says donate, which I guess they're giving that to the developers or something.
00:03:19.320 --> 00:03:22.020
Phil: But get this, there's over 1600 games.
00:03:22.040 --> 00:03:24.340
Phil: 1600, this is a gift.
00:03:24.460 --> 00:03:25.400
Phil: This is a mitzvah.
00:03:25.420 --> 00:03:31.360
Phil: This is, I, I've just been enthralled with this since I found out about it.
00:03:32.060 --> 00:03:35.580
Phil: Are you familiar with this great deal?
00:03:35.580 --> 00:03:36.200
Tom: Yes, I am.
00:03:36.220 --> 00:03:37.980
Tom: I actually got it before you did.
00:03:39.180 --> 00:03:40.420
Phil: Well, thanks for the heads up.
00:03:41.620 --> 00:03:46.220
Tom: I was gonna mention it on the show because I knew it would still be going when the show came around.
00:03:47.540 --> 00:03:56.520
Tom: When I bought it, and I assume the rest of the games are included in mine, I hope, but when I bought it, it was only 700 games or so.
00:03:58.060 --> 00:04:01.320
Tom: It's now exploded to 1600.
00:04:01.960 --> 00:04:03.540
Phil: Yes, yeah.
00:04:03.620 --> 00:04:10.300
Phil: In fact, I've been playing, I've downloaded, look, there's a couple of glitchy things about it or things that aren't so great.
00:04:11.360 --> 00:04:19.320
Phil: I've just, for people who aren't into this, go to itch.io, it's not some scam, some scam and pay your five bucks to get all these games.
00:04:19.640 --> 00:04:20.900
Phil: But these are main games.
00:04:20.920 --> 00:04:22.440
Phil: These are not games no one's heard of.
00:04:22.460 --> 00:04:55.920
Phil: I've so far downloaded Celeste, The Space Between, which is, no one's heard of it, but it looks interesting, Cook, Serve, Delicious, The Morticians Tale, 2064 Read Only Memories, Bleed, Pyre, the game from the guys that did Bastion, Quadrilateral Cowboy, which is a game I forgot to get, Glittermint and Grove, Wheels of Aurelia, Kids, One Night Stand, I mean, A Night in the Woods, A Short Hike.
00:04:56.400 --> 00:04:57.680
Phil: It just goes on and on and on.
00:04:58.240 --> 00:05:06.200
Phil: In fact, the hardest thing is to actually find, what games you want out of that big stack of, essentially free games.
00:05:06.440 --> 00:05:08.820
Tom: Even has Walden, a game.
00:05:09.680 --> 00:05:11.020
Phil: I've not heard of that.
00:05:11.080 --> 00:05:17.380
Tom: I have no idea if it's good or not, but that is a hilarious concept for a game.
00:05:18.520 --> 00:05:22.080
Phil: Now, what games have you downloaded of note?
00:05:22.100 --> 00:05:31.080
Phil: Or what really did you go like, I've got to get that or I've, games that you've downloaded that you wouldn't otherwise have been exposed to that you, like Minute is in here?
00:05:31.220 --> 00:05:31.540
Phil: Yeah.
00:05:31.960 --> 00:05:34.460
Tom: That was one of them that immediately stood out to me.
00:05:34.500 --> 00:05:37.020
Tom: Another was, of course, Night in the Woods.
00:05:38.240 --> 00:05:39.280
Tom: Yeah.
00:05:39.300 --> 00:05:48.740
Tom: A Morticians Tale, I had not heard of before getting the Bundle, but reading comments, I thought that sounds like it could be interesting and it is a work simulator.
00:05:48.760 --> 00:05:55.400
Tom: So obviously this being the number one work simulator podcast.
00:05:55.420 --> 00:05:56.360
Phil: Podcast, yeah.
00:05:56.380 --> 00:05:56.940
Tom: Easily.
00:05:56.960 --> 00:06:00.000
Tom: I had to immediately go for that.
00:06:00.020 --> 00:06:06.320
Tom: The other game that caught my eye was the topical Tonight We Riot.
00:06:07.720 --> 00:06:13.760
Phil: Oh, I saw that and I thought it was perhaps a little too, like I just thought it was something that thrown out in last minute.
00:06:13.780 --> 00:06:15.660
Phil: So Tonight We Riot, have you tried it yet?
00:06:16.000 --> 00:06:20.280
Tom: I have played the first level, which is basically a tutorial.
00:06:20.980 --> 00:06:36.300
Tom: And while the music is fantastic, very reminiscent of Hotline Miami, not as rhythmic or funky as Hotline Miami, but a similar sort of vibe to it, and very well done.
00:06:37.080 --> 00:06:43.160
Tom: The opening in terms of gameplay did not make a great impression.
00:06:43.300 --> 00:06:54.540
Tom: It's a very bare bones beat-em-up, which didn't amount to much more than just spamming, attack and aiming the odd Molotov cocktail.
00:06:54.560 --> 00:06:57.500
Tom: But it is essentially a tutorial.
00:06:59.880 --> 00:07:02.500
Tom: So I am reserving judgment beyond that.
00:07:03.680 --> 00:07:11.600
Phil: Well, hey, if people want to friend me on that service, my username is Game Under Phil, which is the same as my Steam name.
00:07:11.620 --> 00:07:16.940
Phil: So I would say, gift me some games, but I don't think there's any games left.
00:07:18.420 --> 00:07:23.420
Phil: Another game that struck out to me, I've heard about was another lost phone, Laura's Story.
00:07:24.320 --> 00:07:28.520
Phil: And a lot of these are warmed up, you know, phone games or adventure games.
00:07:28.520 --> 00:07:39.080
Phil: But you know, to people like us, or people like me, I mean, like, this is incredible, just because there's so many games out there that are interesting on itch.
00:07:40.840 --> 00:07:43.960
Phil: And they're all gonna be unique, and yeah, they're gonna be crap.
00:07:43.980 --> 00:07:49.640
Phil: And like One Night Stand is a game that I'd heard about that I'd completely forgotten about.
00:07:49.660 --> 00:07:51.740
Phil: And that's the great thing, I guess, is the exposure.
00:07:51.940 --> 00:07:55.740
Phil: And then, you know, I'm following the developers as I'm downloading these.
00:07:56.540 --> 00:08:00.560
Phil: It's gonna expose me to some really great creative works.
00:08:00.700 --> 00:08:02.640
Tom: Read Only Memories is on there too?
00:08:03.720 --> 00:08:05.780
Phil: Yes, 2064, Read Only Memories.
00:08:05.800 --> 00:08:07.600
Phil: That's like the second one I downloaded.
00:08:08.160 --> 00:08:10.480
Phil: Night of the Consumers is another one.
00:08:10.500 --> 00:08:11.740
Tom: That is one that stood out to me.
00:08:11.760 --> 00:08:26.840
Tom: I was actually familiar with that before the massive bundle and had been very close to purchasing it for $1.93 US on multiple occasions.
00:08:26.860 --> 00:08:29.040
Tom: But luckily, I held off.
00:08:31.280 --> 00:08:33.100
Phil: Yep, yep.
00:08:33.120 --> 00:08:36.440
Phil: Look at the cover art for the game The Space Between.
00:08:36.760 --> 00:08:41.560
Phil: The game is described as the space between is a surreal narrative experience in three acts.
00:08:42.180 --> 00:08:43.480
Phil: And it looked right up our alley.
00:08:44.620 --> 00:08:46.660
Phil: And then there was a-
00:08:46.680 --> 00:09:09.280
Tom: Another game that just reminds me is I searched for that that is in a, from what I've seen, potentially tremendously either uninteresting or interesting work simulator that's approaching the concept of a work simulator from a very different angle to most of the first person desk based work simulators we play.
00:09:09.300 --> 00:09:12.080
Tom: That is Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor.
00:09:13.280 --> 00:09:13.960
Phil: Oh, yes.
00:09:14.220 --> 00:09:15.560
Phil: Yeah, let me write that one down too.
00:09:15.840 --> 00:09:18.300
Phil: I saw that, and I know I've heard of that before too.
00:09:19.640 --> 00:09:24.620
Phil: But then, wasn't there a TV show about, or a movie about space junk janitors?
00:09:25.680 --> 00:09:33.860
Tom: Yes, there is an anime at least about it, which I have forgotten the title of, but it is an excellent show.
00:09:33.880 --> 00:09:39.180
Tom: One of the best animes of all time, I would argue.
00:09:40.260 --> 00:09:41.940
Phil: Okay, I remember that one too.
00:09:42.060 --> 00:09:46.140
Tom: And I think there's also an OVA unrelated to it as well.
00:09:46.200 --> 00:09:51.540
Tom: The name of which I can remember, which is Pat Labor or Pat LeBour.
00:09:51.780 --> 00:09:53.360
Tom: I have no idea how it's pronounced.
00:09:53.580 --> 00:09:57.060
Tom: I think that is in a similar vein as well.
00:09:57.240 --> 00:09:59.680
Phil: Pardon my ignorance, what is an OVA?
00:10:00.140 --> 00:10:03.740
Tom: An OVA is an original video animation, I believe.
00:10:04.580 --> 00:10:05.740
Tom: That's the acronym.
00:10:05.860 --> 00:10:17.200
Tom: And what it basically means is essentially a three or two or whatever episode mini-series designed for direct to video release, I believe.
00:10:18.040 --> 00:10:23.520
Phil: Okay, and actually now I do remember, it was a manga I used to buy.
00:10:25.020 --> 00:10:26.260
Phil: Gosh, I wish I could remember it.
00:10:26.840 --> 00:10:29.080
Phil: But yeah, it was okay, it wasn't great.
00:10:31.620 --> 00:10:32.960
Tom: Was it Planetees?
00:10:33.940 --> 00:10:37.220
Phil: Yeah, Planetees is how I pronounced it.
00:10:37.800 --> 00:10:42.440
Tom: The show is excellent, but apparently the manga was just okay, sadly.
00:10:43.420 --> 00:10:44.180
Phil: According to me.
00:10:44.180 --> 00:10:44.500
Tom: Yes.
00:10:44.520 --> 00:10:45.480
Phil: Yeah, I remember that one.
00:10:47.200 --> 00:10:51.700
Phil: God, there was a whole period of my life where I read a lot of manga, and I've completely forgotten about it until now.
00:10:53.240 --> 00:11:00.320
Phil: So what about the impact this sale is going to have on other streaming servers, on other platforms?
00:11:02.040 --> 00:11:02.980
Phil: Like Epic Games.
00:11:03.000 --> 00:11:07.160
Phil: I downloaded Epic Games because they were giving away, what's it called, Sludge?
00:11:08.340 --> 00:11:09.040
Phil: Sludge World?
00:11:09.260 --> 00:11:10.180
Tom: I think that's right.
00:11:10.260 --> 00:11:11.400
Tom: Sludge something or other.
00:11:11.980 --> 00:11:15.280
Phil: Yeah, I was playing that just before we started recording today.
00:11:15.300 --> 00:11:17.260
Phil: It's actually pretty okay so far.
00:11:19.300 --> 00:11:24.000
Phil: And so, but what do you think the impact of this is going to be on services like Steam?
00:11:24.020 --> 00:11:29.360
Phil: I mean, if people have access to like 1,600 games, probably 2,000 by the time this is over.
00:11:31.100 --> 00:11:33.880
Phil: Like, I could be playing this for the next four years.
00:11:35.060 --> 00:11:35.540
Phil: You know?
00:11:37.480 --> 00:11:52.640
Tom: When you look at the size of people's Steam accounts, and here's a statistic that I would love to see because we're all familiar with the famous statistic that, you know, 5% of people finish the games they play.
00:11:53.820 --> 00:11:59.620
Tom: I want a statistic on the number of people who play the games they own even once.
00:12:02.200 --> 00:12:03.140
Phil: Yeah, and you know what?
00:12:04.540 --> 00:12:11.540
Phil: Over there at Valve, they'd be able to tell you the monetary figure of money spent on games that have never been opened.
00:12:11.960 --> 00:12:15.040
Phil: And it's probably in the hundreds of millions.
00:12:15.140 --> 00:12:16.220
Tom: Billions of dollars.
00:12:16.940 --> 00:12:18.640
Phil: And how do you sleep at night?
00:12:18.680 --> 00:12:22.320
Phil: I guess, quite well on silk sheets, right?
00:12:23.480 --> 00:12:24.720
Phil: Knowing that billions of dollars.
00:12:24.740 --> 00:12:30.000
Tom: The more money you spent on games you haven't played, the better you sleep and the higher quality of your sheets.
00:12:31.320 --> 00:12:38.280
Phil: But then again, people may well ask, how can I sleep having just purchased 1600 games for five bucks?
00:12:41.800 --> 00:12:42.380
Phil: Quite well.
00:12:42.520 --> 00:12:45.060
Phil: Hey man, they could have put a higher minimum in there.
00:12:45.180 --> 00:12:48.800
Phil: I don't know why they were doing this sale anyways, probably to get more itch subscribers, but hey.
00:12:48.800 --> 00:12:52.020
Tom: It's completely out of the blue and for seemingly no reason.
00:12:52.640 --> 00:12:53.720
Phil: Mission accomplished.
00:12:54.480 --> 00:12:56.500
Phil: Oh, I can't stop talking about this.
00:12:56.520 --> 00:12:58.880
Phil: This might take up the whole podcast.
00:12:59.800 --> 00:13:04.040
Phil: And I'm just, anyway, get me on to another topic.
00:13:04.240 --> 00:13:06.820
Phil: I can't believe how great 2020 is turning out.
00:13:06.840 --> 00:13:11.640
Tom: Well, we have actually both finished a game on it, so we may as well talk about it.
00:13:11.660 --> 00:13:13.720
Tom: That is A Morticians Tale.
00:13:14.560 --> 00:13:17.020
Phil: Yes, I'll give you the backgrounder on this one.
00:13:17.040 --> 00:13:22.860
Phil: It was released in 2017 on Mac OS, Windows and iOS.
00:13:23.440 --> 00:13:26.980
Phil: And it's made by a very small team called Laundry Bear Games.
00:13:27.080 --> 00:13:32.720
Phil: I couldn't find a website for them, so I don't know if they've made anything after this, but basically it's five or six people.
00:13:33.680 --> 00:13:40.740
Phil: And as you said, it's a work simulator based on, no surprise, the work of a mortician.
00:13:41.180 --> 00:13:55.200
Phil: And it's based on, according to Wikipedia, based on the work of Caitlin Doherty, who is a mortician, and actually she has a podcast as well.
00:13:55.220 --> 00:14:02.400
Phil: So if you look up her name, D-O-U-G-H-T-Y, you'll probably find a mortician, you'll find a podcast.
00:14:04.360 --> 00:14:07.980
Phil: Very short game, it took about an hour from start to finish.
00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:12.660
Phil: And you view the game in a slightly isometric view.
00:14:13.180 --> 00:14:16.460
Phil: The visuals are very minimalistic.
00:14:16.480 --> 00:14:29.140
Tom: Basically, the isometric view is there when you are walking around the room in which you dress the body for either a viewing or for cremation.
00:14:29.620 --> 00:14:39.940
Tom: And also when you are at said viewing or display of an urn at the mortician's building with the family members there.
00:14:39.960 --> 00:14:52.880
Tom: And you essentially can walk around and click on them and you get a snippet of text of their thoughts and you then go and bow at the coffin or urn and then return to your room.
00:14:52.920 --> 00:15:13.080
Tom: And when you're in your room, you are reading emails and replying to the work-related email which then triggers a top-down view of your working area, which could be either a corpse laid out to be dressed.
00:15:14.300 --> 00:15:27.960
Tom: I mean, that's how it always begins and you will have to do various different things to it, depending on how the body is to be disposed of, which I don't think is the technical term that is used in the industry, but it should be.
00:15:28.580 --> 00:15:47.220
Phil: Yeah, so basically you're in an office-type environment, like a small medical office, and then when you go to actually do the work of preparing the body, it switches, if you think about the Operation Board Game, you know, basically, and then you have to, it walks you through doing these things.
00:15:47.240 --> 00:15:54.540
Phil: If you've played the Wii game or the DS game Trauma Center, which was the Japanese, yeah, Surgeon Simulator.
00:15:54.560 --> 00:16:11.080
Tom: And it does suffer somewhat from the translation from mobile phone to PC, I believe it was originally a touchscreen game, and the things you're doing basically fit perfectly a touchscreen style control.
00:16:11.100 --> 00:16:18.540
Tom: So for instance, when you were making an incision, you have to run your mouse along the line.
00:16:19.560 --> 00:16:24.580
Tom: This would obviously be much more enjoyable and interesting if it was a touchscreen.
00:16:25.020 --> 00:16:30.940
Tom: And they also didn't put in a huge amount of effort into translating it to PC.
00:16:30.960 --> 00:16:40.680
Tom: I assume this was better on the touchscreen because on PC, you can actually click from dot to dot to dot when you're performing any action.
00:16:40.700 --> 00:16:42.500
Tom: So that's a little bit odd.
00:16:43.500 --> 00:16:43.840
Phil: Yeah.
00:16:44.000 --> 00:16:48.700
Phil: Look, in terms of the gameplay itself, it's pretty simple.
00:16:48.800 --> 00:16:56.140
Phil: And in terms of the arc of the game, I respect the fact that the pace was quite quick.
00:16:56.140 --> 00:17:00.840
Phil: I mean, basically, there was no two procedures that were the same.
00:17:01.300 --> 00:17:06.380
Phil: Usually, in a work simulator, you might do something three times, and then they'll change it to something else.
00:17:06.840 --> 00:17:07.820
Phil: So this got moving.
00:17:07.860 --> 00:17:17.000
Tom: But it still simultaneously managed to have that repetitive rhythm of a work simulator that is what makes them so gratifying.
00:17:17.500 --> 00:17:17.860
Phil: Yeah.
00:17:17.880 --> 00:17:21.180
Phil: So I quite quickly picked up what you do.
00:17:22.400 --> 00:17:26.840
Phil: The game is quite graphic in terms of going through what a mortician has to do.
00:17:26.960 --> 00:17:45.700
Phil: So they have to wash the body, shave the body, massage it to combat rigor mortis, moisturize the body, make incisions to drain the body of fluids, and then fill the body back up with, I guess it's the maldehyde, I'm just imagining.
00:17:45.880 --> 00:17:49.040
Phil: I know they use the actual chemical name in the thing.
00:17:50.340 --> 00:17:54.160
Phil: You know, you have to put little eyeball things in because your eyeballs sink.
00:17:54.500 --> 00:17:56.160
Tom: Eyeball caps, I believe they're cotton.
00:17:56.180 --> 00:18:03.060
Phil: Eyeball caps, you've got to put cotton wool in the mouth, then you've got to sew their mouth shut or their jaws together.
00:18:03.480 --> 00:18:06.080
Phil: So for an open casket, you know, the mouth's not agape.
00:18:07.880 --> 00:18:14.240
Phil: And I found that, honestly, to be very impactful because I've never...
00:18:14.260 --> 00:18:16.920
Tom: I have the same reaction to Trauma Center as well.
00:18:18.720 --> 00:18:24.840
Phil: Yeah, with Trauma Center, you were working to help or save someone.
00:18:25.340 --> 00:18:39.840
Phil: But in this, you have to go through all this graphic process for nothing more than to, you know, prepare a body so that it can be displayed or be buried or cremated.
00:18:39.840 --> 00:18:53.580
Phil: So, you know, one of the aspects of cremation is, like the cremulator, we won't spoil it here, but the fact that they use those devices was quite a surprise to me.
00:18:53.620 --> 00:18:54.780
Tom: You weren't familiar with this?
00:18:55.400 --> 00:18:58.300
Phil: No, I wasn't familiar with any aspect of what a mortician does.
00:18:58.320 --> 00:18:58.980
Phil: Interesting.
00:18:59.480 --> 00:19:00.300
Phil: No, no.
00:19:00.320 --> 00:19:12.440
Phil: And I think that if you're going into this game, A Mortician's Tale, then you, and you don't, just like me, you don't know anything about what a mortician does, it's quite impactful.
00:19:14.440 --> 00:19:24.700
Phil: So it would have had more of an impact on me than it would have you, obviously, because it's really telling you what a mortician does.
00:19:24.740 --> 00:19:25.000
Tom: Yep.
00:19:25.340 --> 00:19:27.440
Tom: And it does an exceptionally good job of it.
00:19:28.520 --> 00:19:43.260
Tom: Which I, even if you know how a lot of these things work, it's very, it's nevertheless, I think, an impactful experience when you are being involved in it in the way that you are in the game.
00:19:45.880 --> 00:19:53.520
Phil: And even, you know, to me it was like, oh gosh, well, you know, I'm definitely going to want to be cremated because I don't want someone to have to go through all this hassle, you know.
00:19:54.460 --> 00:20:07.480
Phil: And I won't spoil it, but you know, there's certain things that have to do with cremation, you know, like if you've got a medical apparatus in your body, you know, that sort of thing, you know, the mortician's responsible for dealing with that, not a doctor.
00:20:07.660 --> 00:20:11.840
Phil: Like a doctor's not wasting his or her time on your dead body.
00:20:12.840 --> 00:20:18.800
Phil: So, yeah, so now I thought it wrapped up quite abruptly.
00:20:18.820 --> 00:20:25.080
Tom: Well, I think the whole framing of the narrative was rather awkward.
00:20:25.700 --> 00:20:35.360
Tom: It would probably have been more interesting if it was purely a educational and meditative experience.
00:20:35.380 --> 00:20:43.900
Tom: The subplot about corporations and small businesses was rather on the nose.
00:20:45.520 --> 00:20:47.220
Phil: Yeah, it certainly was.
00:20:47.520 --> 00:20:50.180
Tom: It could well have been worked into the game better.
00:20:50.200 --> 00:20:58.440
Tom: I'm not against that being the theme of a mortician based game, but it felt rather shoehorned in, to say the least.
00:20:58.540 --> 00:21:03.940
Tom: And I don't think it was the sort of game that really needed a story arc like that to it.
00:21:04.400 --> 00:21:22.300
Tom: And certainly the emails between your workmates and your friends were, I think, interesting enough to give the game a strong narrative without having to stick a more traditional sort of plot on it as well.
00:21:23.680 --> 00:21:26.240
Phil: The writer was Caitlin Tremblay.
00:21:26.680 --> 00:21:31.440
Phil: It's very rare that we get to attribute a single writer to a game, so we may as well give her credit there.
00:21:32.100 --> 00:21:35.060
Phil: And it's good to have a game that wasn't written by committee.
00:21:36.060 --> 00:21:41.880
Phil: But yeah, I mean, ultimately, to me, I would have liked this game to probably be at least three hours long.
00:21:43.060 --> 00:21:53.760
Phil: And I think that the gameplay elements, there could have been more to it, but what was there was perfect for a work simulator and something I'd absolutely recommend.
00:21:54.840 --> 00:22:10.480
Tom: I think it worked well in its short length, particularly as a slice of life thing with the emails and also as a meditation on death through the lens of a mortician.
00:22:11.460 --> 00:22:34.860
Tom: But if they were going to have the plot style story occurring simultaneously, it could well have benefited from being a bit longer because there would have been a better opportunity to flesh out the monetary struggles of the owner of the business, for instance, as a lead up to the sale of it and all that sort of thing.
00:22:35.280 --> 00:22:36.240
Phil: Yeah.
00:22:36.540 --> 00:22:44.600
Phil: And there was allusions in the story to upselling or selling funeral services and things like that.
00:22:44.860 --> 00:22:48.420
Phil: If they had added that as a gameplay element, that would have been enjoyable.
00:22:49.340 --> 00:22:59.460
Phil: When the game came to its abrupt end and I found myself in a different room, I thought, oh, yeah, okay, great, now we're going to get into a different kind of management type work simulator.
00:22:59.500 --> 00:23:10.780
Tom: Well, for instance, given the complete change in the style of body disposal, it would have been interesting for it to have actually had you play out the green park burial.
00:23:12.920 --> 00:23:19.220
Phil: Right, yes, I think that I was expecting something there and it never came and that was disappointing.
00:23:19.980 --> 00:23:24.320
Phil: Look, if this game was well received, it got good reviews when it came out.
00:23:24.880 --> 00:23:29.760
Phil: I think from a concept, I'd give the game probably eight and a half.
00:23:29.780 --> 00:23:32.040
Phil: From a gameplay perspective, I'd give it a six.
00:23:32.360 --> 00:23:36.160
Phil: From a value, I paid a third of a penny for it.
00:23:36.160 --> 00:23:43.840
Phil: I did the math, 500 pennies divided by 1600 games gives you 0.31 of a cent.
00:23:44.800 --> 00:23:46.340
Tom: I think that's a 10 out of 10.
00:23:46.500 --> 00:23:48.140
Phil: It's a 10 out of 10 for value.
00:23:48.500 --> 00:24:02.220
Phil: And certainly, if I'm walking away from a game, saying I wanted more from it in terms of, hey, this could have been three times longer, I would have enjoyed it, that's a great sign.
00:24:02.240 --> 00:24:03.840
Phil: I don't know about Laundry Bear Games.
00:24:03.860 --> 00:24:05.680
Phil: I hope they've gone on to do more.
00:24:07.420 --> 00:24:13.040
Phil: And certainly just one of the great outcomes of this itch.io sale.
00:24:13.880 --> 00:24:24.000
Tom: And a lot of people pointed out that of the 1,600 or 700 games, a lot of it is random shit.
00:24:24.200 --> 00:24:28.520
Tom: But for a $5 bundle, I want as much random shit in it as possible.
00:24:29.100 --> 00:24:34.940
Tom: I was on the edge of getting Night of the Consumers, for instance.
00:24:35.360 --> 00:24:53.000
Tom: And many other games, no doubt, I've seen there that were cheap that I was considering getting, but were still sort of, well, it's $2, but is it really going to be worth $2 when you consider Humble Bundle's lowest level, for instance, is often $1.50.
00:24:53.020 --> 00:25:01.060
Tom: To have a range of random stuff that you would not be exposed to otherwise to me is amazing.
00:25:01.100 --> 00:25:03.320
Tom: And the greatest value of this bundle.
00:25:04.500 --> 00:25:10.860
Tom: But there's no way either of us would have played Morticians Tale without this bundle.
00:25:11.540 --> 00:25:11.800
Phil: No.
00:25:11.860 --> 00:25:14.460
Phil: And we've just talked about it for 10 minutes or whatever.
00:25:14.500 --> 00:25:17.280
Phil: And, you know, it's just great.
00:25:17.300 --> 00:25:23.400
Phil: I hope that you and I over the weeks just keep going backwards and forwards with hey, have you played this?
00:25:23.420 --> 00:25:24.340
Phil: Hey, have you played that?
00:25:24.360 --> 00:25:28.840
Phil: Because I can see playing one of these, you know, every other day sort of thing.
00:25:28.860 --> 00:25:29.560
Phil: Yep.
00:25:29.660 --> 00:25:31.400
Phil: Certainly it depends on the length of the game.
00:25:31.600 --> 00:25:50.160
Tom: And just before we move on from The Morticians Tale, the last thing I do have to add is one of the amusing aspects of the email thing is you get a newsletter from, designed for people working in the death industry, which I also believe is not the technical term, but it should be.
00:25:51.580 --> 00:25:56.400
Tom: And it references, refers to, sorry, various traditional burial types.
00:25:56.420 --> 00:26:08.500
Tom: And it includes quite a lot of them, but I was disappointing that it did not include what is a universal and often ignored traditional burial type, which is that of the mass grave.
00:26:08.520 --> 00:26:24.020
Tom: There was no reference to mass grave anywhere, and I found that to be very disappointing because of all the cultural burial practices in the world, the mass grave is probably the greatest sign of our universal and shared humanity.
00:26:27.220 --> 00:26:28.020
Phil: Well, that's a take.
00:26:30.320 --> 00:26:37.880
Phil: Just to close out the itch.io, maybe a game that we can both plan on playing is, as I said, Quadrilateral Cowboy.
00:26:37.900 --> 00:26:40.020
Tom: Yeah, I believe you have that on Steam.
00:26:40.760 --> 00:26:42.740
Phil: Yeah, I do, but now I've got it on itch.io.
00:26:42.760 --> 00:26:44.300
Tom: Which is even better, DRM free.
00:26:44.320 --> 00:26:46.040
Phil: Yep, yep.
00:26:46.060 --> 00:26:48.780
Phil: But this is made by the 40 Flights of Loving People.
00:26:50.080 --> 00:26:52.480
Phil: Blendo Games.
00:26:52.580 --> 00:26:54.280
Phil: So definitely want to get into that one.
00:26:54.340 --> 00:27:01.000
Phil: So, all right, so itch.io, itch.io, farewell.
00:27:01.060 --> 00:27:04.220
Phil: That's the last time we'll talk about it today, I think.
00:27:06.980 --> 00:27:16.500
Phil: Before we move on to the game that you most want to talk about, I do want to thank you for your recommendation of the Ghana Mini, the G-A-N-A Mini.
00:27:18.280 --> 00:27:19.940
Tom: Africa's finest export.
00:27:19.960 --> 00:27:23.520
Phil: Yeah.
00:27:24.240 --> 00:27:25.460
Phil: I picked one up.
00:27:25.600 --> 00:27:27.320
Phil: They're cheaper on Amazon than on eBay.
00:27:27.340 --> 00:27:30.360
Phil: They're twice the price on eBay, so obviously someone's profiteering.
00:27:31.160 --> 00:27:34.980
Phil: But it was less than 15 bucks on Amazon, and it's arriving on Monday.
00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:37.920
Phil: I'm really excited to see...
00:27:37.940 --> 00:27:46.180
Phil: I think I'm going to try it on a Playstation 1 first, and then see how we go from there, but I'm going to have to get another HDMI hub.
00:27:46.200 --> 00:27:48.560
Phil: I currently have 3 of them daisy chained.
00:27:50.020 --> 00:27:52.660
Phil: And I'm all out of HDMI inputs now.
00:27:52.680 --> 00:27:54.680
Phil: I think I've got 12 going into that television.
00:27:55.280 --> 00:27:59.900
Phil: So I do thank you for that recommendation very much.
00:28:01.040 --> 00:28:02.780
Tom: I hope it's as good for you as it is for me.
00:28:02.800 --> 00:28:03.820
Phil: Yeah, it looks amazing.
00:28:03.840 --> 00:28:08.720
Phil: Have you been able to play any SNES games since you were last time?
00:28:08.740 --> 00:28:11.660
Tom: I have been playing a little bit of Super Mario Brothers.
00:28:12.160 --> 00:28:14.160
Phil: And what world are you up to?
00:28:14.180 --> 00:28:17.200
Tom: I'm up to the second world.
00:28:17.420 --> 00:28:19.720
Phil: That would be number two, okay.
00:28:19.760 --> 00:28:20.940
Phil: Yes.
00:28:20.960 --> 00:28:22.500
Phil: Yeah, it's a good game, good audio.
00:28:24.000 --> 00:28:26.580
Phil: Now what game is it that you want to talk to us about?
00:28:27.640 --> 00:28:38.320
Tom: Well, we may as well go to what is probably the most timely game of the moment, at least in terms of interest.
00:28:38.320 --> 00:28:40.660
Tom: And that is actually Streets of Rage 4.
00:28:42.180 --> 00:28:53.980
Tom: And I've only just started Streets of Rage 4, but I bring it up because I'm sure we all recall that I reviewed Streets of Rage Neon, I think it was called something like that.
00:28:54.000 --> 00:28:55.220
Phil: Oh, me too, yeah.
00:28:55.740 --> 00:29:25.320
Tom: Yep, and that was okay, but it didn't really live up to the neon, in spite of its title, bombast of at least Streets of Rage 2, which I don't put on the same level, controversially, as the likes of Golden Axe, because Golden Axe is perhaps the funniest game ever, with the exception of Heavy Rain, but this Streets of Rage 4 is an amazing first impression.
00:29:26.060 --> 00:29:37.720
Tom: First of all, the graphics are like a high-fidelity, hand-drawn version of what the iconic Streets of Rage 2 looks like.
00:29:38.040 --> 00:29:48.820
Tom: The sound is bombastic, to repeat the same word, in the perfect, grimy, yet ridiculous and corny way.
00:29:48.860 --> 00:29:52.680
Tom: It is an amazing first impression that it has.
00:29:52.700 --> 00:29:55.420
Phil: A bit of trivia for you.
00:29:55.680 --> 00:29:58.780
Phil: So Streets of Rage Neon, which I love.
00:29:58.800 --> 00:30:00.240
Phil: I think it has a great soundtrack.
00:30:01.120 --> 00:30:02.160
Phil: I looked at it the other day.
00:30:02.180 --> 00:30:07.140
Phil: I played 15 hours of that at some point in my life, which is a lot.
00:30:07.160 --> 00:30:08.500
Tom: I assume you mastered it.
00:30:09.200 --> 00:30:10.960
Phil: No, I got past the second world.
00:30:12.420 --> 00:30:17.840
Phil: But it was developed by WayForward, which is a wonderful developer that did most...
00:30:17.860 --> 00:30:19.880
Tom: That explains why it was so mediocre.
00:30:19.900 --> 00:30:28.020
Phil: Well, you're going to eat your words there, because if I remember my history correctly, it was the guys who went on to make Shovel Knight.
00:30:28.020 --> 00:30:32.740
Phil: That was the last game that they worked on together as a team when they were at WayForward.
00:30:32.840 --> 00:30:36.380
Phil: And then they went out and started Yacht Club Games to make Shovel Knight.
00:30:36.720 --> 00:30:40.540
Tom: Shovel Knight is good, but I wouldn't say wonderful.
00:30:40.560 --> 00:30:43.800
Phil: Yeah, I still haven't beaten that either.
00:30:43.820 --> 00:30:52.660
Phil: But I'll tell you what is wonderful about Shovel Knight is all that downloadable content, they keep pumping it out for free, even on the Wii U.
00:30:52.680 --> 00:30:58.040
Phil: I have the Wii U version, and I put it in the other day, and there's a massive download to give you...
00:30:58.380 --> 00:31:07.920
Phil: If you own the original game on the original whatever, they give you all of the DLC that they've created since then, and same on Steam as well.
00:31:08.100 --> 00:31:10.820
Phil: But anyway, Streets of Rage 4...
00:31:11.440 --> 00:31:12.780
Phil: So the graphics is...
00:31:13.580 --> 00:31:21.400
Phil: Is it close to what it would have been like, or is it just inspired by the Streets of Rage 2?
00:31:22.380 --> 00:31:24.820
Tom: Well, it's not pixelated, if that's what you mean.
00:31:24.960 --> 00:31:25.660
Phil: Okay, so is...
00:31:25.760 --> 00:31:27.240
Phil: Okay, I'm looking at video now.
00:31:27.260 --> 00:31:33.060
Tom: As I said, it's like a hand-drawn, unpixelated version of the original.
00:31:33.060 --> 00:31:34.180
Tom: It looks amazing.
00:31:34.720 --> 00:31:58.220
Tom: It's actually not dissimilar to the translation in style to the Red Alert remaster that was recently released, where somehow they managed to capture the vibe of a very pixelated graphic style, which often does not happen in modern upgrades with graphic styles.
00:31:58.540 --> 00:32:00.880
Phil: Okay, I'm looking at the images now, so...
00:32:01.120 --> 00:32:03.740
Tom: It doesn't look that good not in motion.
00:32:03.820 --> 00:32:05.320
Tom: In motion, it is amazing.
00:32:06.520 --> 00:32:11.460
Phil: I guess a shorthand would be, it's kind of like Street Fighter 4.
00:32:12.840 --> 00:32:16.480
Tom: Yeah, Street Fighter 4 and 5, the reboots of them.
00:32:16.500 --> 00:32:27.380
Tom: I actually played a little Street Fighter 5 recently, and I went from thinking this is perhaps the ugliest game ever made to thinking it looks exceptionally good.
00:32:27.680 --> 00:32:29.820
Tom: So yes, that is a great analogy.
00:32:30.060 --> 00:32:34.880
Phil: So you're playing this on PC with a Xbox controller or a Playstation controller?
00:32:35.200 --> 00:32:38.840
Tom: With a PS4 controller on Xbox Games Pass.
00:32:39.080 --> 00:32:41.620
Phil: Okay, so it's part of Games Pass right now?
00:32:41.740 --> 00:32:42.680
Tom: Correct, yes.
00:32:42.700 --> 00:32:43.120
Phil: Wow.
00:32:44.380 --> 00:32:45.060
Phil: It looks great.
00:32:45.660 --> 00:32:52.120
Tom: It does, and I will definitely be continuing with it, but I have barely played it, so I don't have much more to say on that.
00:32:52.140 --> 00:33:32.600
Tom: Before we move on to Games Pass, I have to mention I was rather refusive with my praise of it in the previous episode, but I would just like to remind listeners that it is made by Microsoft, so while it is exceptional value for money in terms of allowing you to play a wide variety of great games, as a platform, it is worse than Steam was when Steam first came out, and not even in the same level as the original Steam, which for anyone who used Steam at the beginning was often a nightmare with lots of crashing and difficulty in launching games.
00:33:34.000 --> 00:33:44.200
Tom: As I'm sure everyone knows, I've been playing Metro Exodus, and it's taken me a long time to be playing through it.
00:33:44.240 --> 00:33:50.020
Tom: First of all, due to a technical problem that is the fault of the developers themselves.
00:33:50.420 --> 00:34:08.820
Tom: But my playthrough was completely stopped recently because when I think they recently released the Xbox Games Pass, sorry, the Xbox app, and this resulted in a lot of people being unable to launch Metro Exodus anymore.
00:34:09.440 --> 00:34:22.060
Tom: And some people were able to launch it by re-downloading it, but when you re-download it, after about literally one second, the download stops and you just have the option to install it again.
00:34:22.380 --> 00:34:37.540
Tom: To get around this, you had to click Download, then in this literal one second time frame, click the X to cancel the download, and then click OK in one second to stop the download.
00:34:37.880 --> 00:34:42.860
Tom: Then when you click Install again, it would start to download properly.
00:34:43.820 --> 00:34:48.460
Tom: This allowed some people who had this problem to play it.
00:34:48.900 --> 00:34:56.000
Tom: When I did this, it then started downloading to, I think it made it to 267 MB and then froze.
00:34:56.800 --> 00:35:15.080
Tom: This did, however, allow me to uninstall it, whereas even though the Microsoft concluded it wasn't installed, and I had uninstalled it using the uninstall technology in Windows itself and the control panel, it was still installed.
00:35:15.100 --> 00:35:39.640
Tom: So until I had used my ninja-like iHand coordination ability to be able to cancel the installation and therefore actually uninstall the game, I had 100 GB of otherwise completely inaccessible space being used up because Microsoft likes to do things its own way.
00:35:39.940 --> 00:35:41.160
Phil: It's a good thing you're a gamer.
00:35:42.620 --> 00:35:43.000
Tom: Yes.
00:35:44.180 --> 00:35:45.960
Phil: Otherwise you wouldn't have those cat-like reflexes.
00:35:45.980 --> 00:35:50.020
Tom: That's right, it would have permanently used up 100 GB.
00:35:50.500 --> 00:35:52.580
Phil: I disagree, I think Microsoft's awesome.
00:35:52.800 --> 00:35:57.940
Phil: And I've been playing, I want you to, you know, now that itch.io is here...
00:35:57.960 --> 00:36:02.240
Tom: They make a good word processor, but that's basically it.
00:36:02.320 --> 00:36:03.100
Phil: It's incredible.
00:36:03.500 --> 00:36:06.420
Tom: And they deserve full credit for their word processors.
00:36:06.780 --> 00:36:10.760
Tom: But outside of their word processors, I'm not so sure.
00:36:11.300 --> 00:36:22.080
Phil: While you're using Game Pass, I do want you to consider downloading Crackdown 3, because I'm fairly far along in it, so it would be interesting to get your take on it.
00:36:22.280 --> 00:36:23.900
Phil: It is an enjoyable enough game.
00:36:25.440 --> 00:36:27.580
Phil: And have you played any of the prior Crackdowns?
00:36:28.100 --> 00:36:29.980
Tom: No, I have not played any Crackdown.
00:36:30.120 --> 00:36:33.240
Tom: It always looked rather uninteresting and uninspired.
00:36:33.260 --> 00:36:38.500
Phil: Yeah, it's basically an arena fighter set in an open world setting.
00:36:38.840 --> 00:36:45.340
Phil: And your skills, there's five different skills, and you develop them the more you play in a certain style.
00:36:45.720 --> 00:36:50.540
Phil: So if you do a lot of melee, your physical strength increases.
00:36:50.540 --> 00:36:52.500
Phil: If you do a lot of shooting, your shooting increases.
00:36:52.520 --> 00:36:55.440
Phil: If you do a lot of driving, your driving skills increase.
00:36:57.000 --> 00:36:58.340
Phil: And you basically, yeah.
00:36:58.680 --> 00:37:04.000
Phil: It's, I guess, probably just watch a couple of videos of it to see if it's something that you'd be interested in.
00:37:04.480 --> 00:37:08.240
Phil: And I'll probably talk about it later on at another stage.
00:37:09.260 --> 00:37:11.760
Phil: So is that really all you've got to say about Streets of Rage 4?
00:37:11.800 --> 00:37:12.180
Phil: I mean...
00:37:13.460 --> 00:37:14.000
Tom: Yes, it is.
00:37:14.020 --> 00:37:16.440
Tom: Those are my very early first impressions.
00:37:18.960 --> 00:37:22.600
Phil: You know, it's been a long time since we've played the game Gun or No Gun.
00:37:22.620 --> 00:37:23.400
Phil: Do you remember this game?
00:37:24.600 --> 00:37:25.180
Tom: Yes, I do.
00:37:25.260 --> 00:37:25.680
Phil: You do?
00:37:25.680 --> 00:37:29.760
Phil: Where basically I give you the name of a game and you tell me whether there's a gun on the cover?
00:37:31.680 --> 00:37:35.220
Phil: I've got 12 Xbox games in front of me that I grabbed at random.
00:37:36.100 --> 00:37:38.740
Phil: They are the H through K section.
00:37:39.140 --> 00:37:44.580
Phil: You would be surprised at how few games start with the letter H, I, J and K.
00:37:45.500 --> 00:37:51.300
Phil: So I'll just give you the name of the game and then tell me if there's a weapon on the front or an act of violence.
00:37:51.720 --> 00:37:53.480
Phil: And then I'll tell you whether you're right or wrong.
00:37:53.540 --> 00:37:54.100
Phil: Now, do you have a pen?
00:37:54.120 --> 00:38:01.180
Phil: Because you're going to have to keep score because there's a prize if you get more than 50% of these right.
00:38:01.200 --> 00:38:05.660
Tom: I'm not sure I want the sort of prizes you give out, but I'm ready.
00:38:05.860 --> 00:38:07.820
Phil: Okay, The Simpsons, hit or run?
00:38:10.140 --> 00:38:11.960
Tom: I partially remember the cover.
00:38:11.980 --> 00:38:14.060
Tom: I'm going to say definitely no gun.
00:38:14.620 --> 00:38:15.140
Phil: No gun?
00:38:15.300 --> 00:38:18.860
Phil: But is there an act of violence or a weapon on the cover?
00:38:19.180 --> 00:38:19.760
Phil: It's gun?
00:38:20.100 --> 00:38:21.200
Tom: I think there's a rake.
00:38:21.560 --> 00:38:25.480
Tom: There's something like a rake on the cover, so there is a weapon on the cover, I believe.
00:38:25.500 --> 00:38:26.800
Phil: Okay, that is a no.
00:38:27.000 --> 00:38:28.940
Phil: That is a non-violent game cover.
00:38:30.820 --> 00:38:32.760
Tom: I'm going to have to be pedantic here, though.
00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:37.600
Tom: I'm going to have to be pedantic here, because...
00:38:38.120 --> 00:38:39.500
Phil: Are you looking up the cover?
00:38:40.760 --> 00:38:41.120
Tom: Yes.
00:38:41.140 --> 00:38:42.260
Tom: You're not allowed to cheat.
00:38:43.460 --> 00:38:46.620
Tom: It's not cheating if we just said what the game was.
00:38:46.720 --> 00:38:47.820
Phil: The Simpsons Hit and Run.
00:38:48.420 --> 00:38:55.580
Tom: Yes, let me just point out here that there is a tentacle coming out of the sewer...
00:38:55.640 --> 00:38:56.670
Phil: Yes...
00:38:56.670 --> 00:38:56.670
Tom: .
00:38:56.670 --> 00:38:59.340
Tom: spraying some sort of acid.
00:38:59.400 --> 00:39:01.500
Tom: That is an act of violence.
00:39:01.740 --> 00:39:02.880
Phil: There's also...
00:39:03.480 --> 00:39:06.040
Phil: There's also a decapitation of a statue.
00:39:07.400 --> 00:39:07.800
Tom: Yes.
00:39:08.560 --> 00:39:09.280
Phil: So you...
00:39:09.480 --> 00:39:12.640
Tom: So I'm sorry, but that's a yes.
00:39:12.760 --> 00:39:13.560
Tom: I was correct.
00:39:13.580 --> 00:39:14.260
Phil: You are correct.
00:39:14.260 --> 00:39:17.240
Phil: All right, the next game, worst game ever made, Hitman Contracts.
00:39:19.480 --> 00:39:20.020
Phil: No typing.
00:39:20.040 --> 00:39:20.520
Tom: There's gun.
00:39:20.760 --> 00:39:21.720
Phil: Gun, yes, correct.
00:39:22.940 --> 00:39:23.960
Phil: Hulk Ultimate...
00:39:23.980 --> 00:39:25.140
Tom: You told me to keep score.
00:39:25.220 --> 00:39:26.420
Phil: I'm keeping score.
00:39:26.780 --> 00:39:28.360
Phil: Hulk Ultimate Destruction.
00:39:30.960 --> 00:39:31.660
Tom: No gun.
00:39:31.680 --> 00:39:36.200
Tom: I'm going to go with act of violence.
00:39:36.220 --> 00:39:36.660
Phil: Correct.
00:39:37.520 --> 00:39:38.480
Phil: Have you ever played that game?
00:39:39.700 --> 00:39:40.240
Tom: No, I haven't.
00:39:40.260 --> 00:39:41.120
Phil: It's apparently pretty good.
00:39:42.160 --> 00:39:44.000
Phil: It looks fun.
00:39:44.020 --> 00:39:45.140
Phil: Hunter The Reckoning.
00:39:46.900 --> 00:39:49.400
Tom: Yes, gun slash crossbow thing.
00:39:49.460 --> 00:39:50.220
Phil: Exactly.
00:39:50.440 --> 00:39:52.220
Phil: Wow, you know you're a Hunter The Reckoning cover.
00:39:53.460 --> 00:39:56.520
Phil: That was developed by Danger High Voltage Software.
00:39:56.540 --> 00:39:59.480
Phil: Do you know what other notable game they play?
00:39:59.480 --> 00:40:03.900
Phil: What notable game on the Wii did they develop for an extra point?
00:40:06.660 --> 00:40:07.980
Tom: Was it The Conduit?
00:40:07.980 --> 00:40:08.580
Phil: Wow.
00:40:08.900 --> 00:40:09.620
Phil: Shit, man.
00:40:10.420 --> 00:40:11.520
Phil: You should get paid for this.
00:40:13.100 --> 00:40:17.140
Phil: Eye Ninja, which is eye dash ninja, not eye common ninja.
00:40:17.140 --> 00:40:20.000
Phil: It's not like, you know, eye ninja.
00:40:22.880 --> 00:40:23.620
Tom: No gun.
00:40:24.000 --> 00:40:26.840
Tom: I'm not sure if I'm familiar with this game.
00:40:26.860 --> 00:40:33.380
Tom: I'm going to say no gun and maybe some shurikens, but no act of violence.
00:40:33.400 --> 00:40:37.300
Phil: There are three shurikens and a large samurai sword.
00:40:39.040 --> 00:40:41.920
Phil: Actually, ninjas don't use samurai swords, do they?
00:40:42.780 --> 00:40:43.340
Phil: Katana.
00:40:43.420 --> 00:40:46.020
Tom: I believe samurais use samurai swords.
00:40:46.040 --> 00:40:47.360
Phil: So ninjas must use katanas.
00:40:48.500 --> 00:40:52.820
Phil: It's a kiddie platformer game with really good graphics, as I recall.
00:40:55.380 --> 00:40:58.380
Phil: Indigo Prophecy, known as Fahrenheit in some territories.
00:41:01.060 --> 00:41:03.880
Tom: I believe there is definitely no gun on the cover.
00:41:04.020 --> 00:41:06.600
Tom: If there was a weapon, it would be the knife.
00:41:07.980 --> 00:41:21.540
Tom: And I am going to go with the knife is there, because I can't remember if it is merely him in some sort of meditative stance, or him also looking down at the bloody knife, wondering what he's done.
00:41:21.900 --> 00:41:25.960
Tom: And given that's the most melodramatic and ridiculous possibility, I'm going to go with knife.
00:41:26.060 --> 00:41:29.720
Phil: Wow, you actually just exactly described the cover of that game.
00:41:29.880 --> 00:41:30.920
Phil: So you are correct.
00:41:30.940 --> 00:41:32.380
Phil: You're currently seven out of seven.
00:41:32.900 --> 00:41:34.280
Phil: I'm going to speed this up a little bit.
00:41:34.300 --> 00:41:36.400
Phil: Deus Ex, Invisible War.
00:41:38.540 --> 00:41:42.360
Tom: That's actually got a similar cover to Fahrenheit.
00:41:44.640 --> 00:41:46.560
Tom: Wait, no, no, that's the second one, right?
00:41:46.580 --> 00:41:46.800
Phil: Yes.
00:41:47.280 --> 00:41:49.000
Tom: I was thinking of Mankind Divided.
00:41:50.040 --> 00:41:51.300
Tom: Now that's more difficult.
00:41:52.260 --> 00:41:55.400
Tom: I am going to say no gun.
00:41:55.680 --> 00:42:01.720
Tom: There's definitely no act of violence, but I'm going to say no gun, but that may be wrong, but I'm sticking with that.
00:42:01.740 --> 00:42:03.380
Tom: But there's certainly sunglasses.
00:42:03.580 --> 00:42:05.100
Phil: No, no sunglasses.
00:42:05.120 --> 00:42:07.200
Phil: This is amazing.
00:42:07.220 --> 00:42:11.460
Phil: Yes, there's a massive Mako gun or Mako pistol.
00:42:11.480 --> 00:42:16.100
Phil: It probably takes up 25% of the front cover, and it's pointing at us.
00:42:16.780 --> 00:42:24.440
Phil: Actually, there's some sort of rule that they can't have the gun pointing at you, I think, in Europe, so it's kind of pointing down to the side, but it's there.
00:42:25.300 --> 00:42:26.860
Phil: So that's the first one you've gotten wrong.
00:42:27.480 --> 00:42:28.420
Phil: Iron Phoenix.
00:42:28.440 --> 00:42:29.800
Tom: I got that very wrong indeed.
00:42:30.440 --> 00:42:32.120
Phil: Sega's Iron Phoenix.
00:42:32.940 --> 00:42:34.680
Phil: It was developed by Sega Sammy.
00:42:38.220 --> 00:42:40.140
Tom: I have no idea what this game is.
00:42:40.200 --> 00:42:43.600
Phil: It's the first ever 16-player online fighting game.
00:42:44.160 --> 00:42:47.240
Phil: The most innovative game of E3, according to Team Xbox.
00:42:48.600 --> 00:42:50.220
Tom: I'm going to go with Act of Violence.
00:42:50.740 --> 00:42:54.240
Phil: There are massive acts of violence and massive swords and weapons.
00:42:55.760 --> 00:42:56.640
Phil: So you are correct.
00:42:58.660 --> 00:42:59.300
Phil: Almost done.
00:42:59.580 --> 00:43:02.480
Phil: Jade Empire from Bioware.
00:43:03.540 --> 00:43:04.240
Tom: No gun.
00:43:06.980 --> 00:43:11.420
Tom: I think maybe some sort of dagger or something to that effect.
00:43:12.000 --> 00:43:15.640
Tom: And I do not recall there being an act of violence, but I could well be wrong.
00:43:16.020 --> 00:43:19.260
Tom: And there are multiple covers for this game, I believe, in any case.
00:43:19.300 --> 00:43:23.880
Phil: Yeah, I'm holding the limited edition and there is a massive sword, a flaming sword.
00:43:24.000 --> 00:43:27.160
Phil: It is a horrible cover, comically bad.
00:43:27.620 --> 00:43:31.520
Phil: Okay, Jet Set Radio Future.
00:43:34.180 --> 00:43:49.540
Tom: Well, now this is a controversial thing because some people, for some reason, believe that a spray paint can, could be a weapon and that spray painting something could be an act of violence.
00:43:50.400 --> 00:43:52.400
Tom: So we'll have to define our terms here.
00:43:52.420 --> 00:43:56.360
Phil: I don't think it's a weapon.
00:43:56.380 --> 00:44:00.180
Phil: I don't think for the purposes of this, we will say it's not a weapon.
00:44:00.660 --> 00:44:02.400
Tom: Okay, then there is no weapon.
00:44:05.180 --> 00:44:14.120
Tom: And I also will say no act of violence because I would add that spray painting something.
00:44:14.140 --> 00:44:19.040
Tom: Unless you're spray painting a person, which is not occurring on the cover, is not an act of violence.
00:44:20.340 --> 00:44:22.860
Phil: And the last game, this is a tough one.
00:44:22.920 --> 00:44:28.920
Phil: It's from Avalanche Studios, published by Eidos, later got bought out by Square.
00:44:28.940 --> 00:44:34.280
Phil: It's rated M for Mature, and a game you're probably familiar with, Just Cause.
00:44:36.200 --> 00:44:41.600
Tom: I am indeed familiar with Just Cause, and I believe there is a gun on that cover.
00:44:43.380 --> 00:44:44.380
Phil: Incredibly not.
00:44:46.500 --> 00:44:47.880
Phil: There is a bullet hole.
00:44:49.940 --> 00:44:54.080
Phil: So I'll let you decide if that counts.
00:44:54.100 --> 00:44:55.460
Phil: But yeah, incredibly there's not a gun.
00:44:55.480 --> 00:44:59.280
Tom: Given my success throughout the rest of the list, I'll put that down as a failure.
00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:05.280
Phil: Okay, well, out of those games, you've got 10 right and 2 wrong.
00:45:05.560 --> 00:45:07.780
Phil: So congratulations.
00:45:07.800 --> 00:45:08.800
Phil: You know your covers, man.
00:45:08.820 --> 00:45:11.600
Phil: You know your 2000s era games.
00:45:11.620 --> 00:45:14.200
Phil: That's pretty impressive.
00:45:14.220 --> 00:45:16.740
Phil: What's my prize?
00:45:16.880 --> 00:45:20.100
Phil: I am going to share a game with you on itch.io.
00:45:20.480 --> 00:45:23.380
Phil: You can pick from one of 1600 games available.
00:45:25.240 --> 00:45:26.960
Phil: So what's my prize?
00:45:27.900 --> 00:45:31.000
Phil: Is there any game in that stack that you played?
00:45:31.020 --> 00:45:31.880
Phil: Simpsons Hit and Run?
00:45:32.640 --> 00:45:34.140
Tom: I've played that briefly, yes.
00:45:35.240 --> 00:45:36.920
Phil: The Horrible Hitman Contracts game?
00:45:36.940 --> 00:45:37.360
Phil: I don't know.
00:45:37.380 --> 00:45:40.220
Tom: I think I have played a tiny bit of that as well.
00:45:41.840 --> 00:45:43.940
Tom: I've played a tiny bit of Deus Ex.
00:45:44.040 --> 00:45:49.880
Tom: I have played and completed to a high level at that Jade Empire.
00:45:50.800 --> 00:45:51.340
Phil: Really?
00:45:51.540 --> 00:45:51.800
Tom: Yep.
00:45:51.840 --> 00:45:55.880
Tom: That I would put down as probably my favourite Bioware game.
00:45:57.120 --> 00:46:05.080
Phil: Well, that one's backward compatible with the Xbox One, so I will put that in and install it, because I remember falling off that game.
00:46:06.540 --> 00:46:11.700
Tom: Like all other Bioware games, it has an absolutely awful opening.
00:46:12.760 --> 00:46:13.100
Phil: Yeah.
00:46:13.400 --> 00:46:14.600
Phil: It's not great.
00:46:15.020 --> 00:46:16.480
Phil: Anyway, sorry to spring that on you.
00:46:17.060 --> 00:46:20.540
Phil: There was some other news as well as Gun or No Gun.
00:46:21.680 --> 00:46:34.720
Phil: Yesterday in Australia Time Friday, Sony had their massive reveal where they showed 37 games that were playable on Playstation 5 software, and of course they revealed the hardware.
00:46:35.840 --> 00:46:40.520
Phil: There's an old digital version and a traditional disc-based version.
00:46:41.240 --> 00:46:43.360
Phil: Obviously everyone's seen it at this point.
00:46:43.380 --> 00:46:45.920
Phil: What did you think about the design of the console?
00:46:46.240 --> 00:47:09.580
Tom: Well, I was very pleased that someone at Sony was listening to my description of a double banana style console, and I think that's the closest with the sort of futuristic industrial look that they were going for, that you can get to a double banana motif.
00:47:09.880 --> 00:47:23.400
Tom: And I might add, if anyone thinks that's a ridiculous claim, I will point out the pretty much exact banana silhouette painted on the controller in its double colour style.
00:47:24.320 --> 00:47:30.420
Tom: So I think that's surely the most influential thing we've done on our podcast.
00:47:30.440 --> 00:47:37.900
Tom: We've had massive effects on the podcast movement in gaming as a whole, where consoles have been plagiarised.
00:47:38.420 --> 00:47:54.720
Tom: But I think directly influencing the design of a major console is beyond anything we could have imagined when we began.
00:47:55.680 --> 00:47:59.960
Phil: I agree, this probably is the most consequential thing we've done.
00:48:00.340 --> 00:48:05.360
Phil: It's particularly impressive that they were able to get the industrial design done in a week.
00:48:06.980 --> 00:48:09.120
Phil: After hearing our show, it is amazing.
00:48:10.060 --> 00:48:16.580
Phil: You've got to wonder if this is a bull shot, and this is just renders, because there's no way they could have fabbed it up in that time.
00:48:17.860 --> 00:48:18.720
Phil: I like the look of it.
00:48:18.800 --> 00:48:21.080
Phil: It looks like a piece of sushi.
00:48:22.420 --> 00:48:24.460
Phil: I'm not a big fan of the look of the controller.
00:48:24.480 --> 00:48:26.380
Phil: I'd like a monochrome controller.
00:48:27.780 --> 00:48:35.520
Phil: But the actual look of the console itself, if laid horizontally, I don't really have an issue with.
00:48:35.540 --> 00:48:36.340
Phil: I think it's okay.
00:48:37.420 --> 00:48:39.940
Tom: I think horizontally it looks fine.
00:48:40.180 --> 00:48:49.620
Tom: Vertically, it looks too much like a bad version of an extravagant PC case.
00:48:52.000 --> 00:48:57.700
Tom: If it had more RGB to it, it could possibly pull off that ridiculous look.
00:48:58.120 --> 00:49:01.660
Tom: But there's clearly not enough RGB for that to work vertically.
00:49:05.000 --> 00:49:08.000
Phil: Now, what do you think about the Xbox's design?
00:49:09.540 --> 00:49:10.820
Phil: Compare and contrast.
00:49:11.460 --> 00:49:12.480
Phil: You've seen that, obviously.
00:49:12.500 --> 00:49:25.240
Phil: It's a big rectangle with a concave top to it, which I think is evocative of the inhale design element of the 360.
00:49:25.300 --> 00:49:27.660
Phil: You remember that they said, oh, it's like an inhale.
00:49:28.900 --> 00:49:31.160
Phil: It has like a dip in the top of it.
00:49:31.180 --> 00:49:32.540
Phil: I think it's quite attractive.
00:49:32.660 --> 00:49:40.580
Tom: I think the Xbox Series X, at least vertically, blows the PS5 out of the water.
00:49:41.740 --> 00:49:42.700
Phil: Yeah, vertically, yeah.
00:49:43.040 --> 00:49:51.560
Tom: Yeah, it is still very much, I suppose, it looks sort of like those spy devices people put in homes.
00:49:53.940 --> 00:50:01.860
Tom: I'm not sure what their other purpose is other than to give information for advertising analytics, but you know what I'm talking about.
00:50:01.880 --> 00:50:05.540
Phil: Oh, the talking, yeah, the microphones, yeah.
00:50:05.760 --> 00:50:06.500
Tom: Yes.
00:50:06.660 --> 00:50:09.080
Phil: Yeah, the spying devices, yeah.
00:50:09.120 --> 00:50:09.520
Tom: Exactly.
00:50:09.540 --> 00:50:10.060
Phil: Yeah, you're right.
00:50:10.600 --> 00:50:12.000
Phil: You're right, but it's bigger than that.
00:50:12.020 --> 00:50:26.380
Tom: That's the closest design thing it looks like, but it has its own thing going on with the perforated top, which makes it stand out, and the vertical line looks really good too.
00:50:26.400 --> 00:50:28.320
Tom: I think that's on a level of its own.
00:50:28.340 --> 00:50:40.120
Tom: That's probably of the recent consoles perhaps going as far back as to maybe the original Wii and PS2.
00:50:40.140 --> 00:50:46.720
Tom: I think that's probably the most striking console design since then, arguably.
00:50:47.380 --> 00:50:50.640
Phil: Yeah, gotta leave Switch out of it because it's its own thing.
00:50:50.660 --> 00:50:52.320
Phil: It's really just a handheld in a dock.
00:50:53.200 --> 00:51:04.520
Phil: Not to denigrate the system itself, it's probably my favorite system right now, but it also, the Xbox could just, like I think it, if you set it horizontally, it could just look like a woofer.
00:51:04.720 --> 00:51:07.900
Phil: Actually, even in its vertical stance, it could just look like a woofer.
00:51:09.280 --> 00:51:09.940
Phil: But I like it.
00:51:09.940 --> 00:51:13.620
Phil: I think it really goes well with the Xbox branding of, you know.
00:51:14.120 --> 00:51:44.660
Tom: And with the current futuristic nostalgia design that is popular wherever there is metal that can be melted into a certain shape that's going on today, I think the Xbox Series X, where it basically looks like a Blade Runner skyscraper or something like that, is much better than the 1950s science fiction fantasy art throwbacks that the PS5 would fit into that are all over the place now.
00:51:44.760 --> 00:52:00.260
Tom: And the only other design that stands out as much as the Xbox Series X in the current futuristic fashion that I can think of is the Tesla Cybertruck by well-renowned pedophile...
00:52:01.180 --> 00:52:01.960
Phil: He's not.
00:52:02.080 --> 00:52:03.560
Phil: He accused the other guy of it.
00:52:04.000 --> 00:52:05.020
Tom: He is a pedophile.
00:52:05.420 --> 00:52:06.300
Phil: You're not saying that.
00:52:06.660 --> 00:52:07.380
Tom: Yes, I am.
00:52:07.880 --> 00:52:12.680
Tom: And the court precedence is that I can accuse him of being a pedophile, I believe.
00:52:13.260 --> 00:52:15.440
Phil: Oh, because he got away with it.
00:52:15.760 --> 00:52:16.700
Phil: Did he get away with it?
00:52:16.980 --> 00:52:17.360
Tom: Yes.
00:52:17.680 --> 00:52:19.000
Tom: It was not defamation.
00:52:19.020 --> 00:52:22.860
Tom: So I think I can call him a pedophile.
00:52:23.680 --> 00:52:24.500
Phil: Well, those in...
00:52:24.800 --> 00:52:25.780
Phil: okay, now.
00:52:25.800 --> 00:52:27.700
Tom: I hope I can anyway, because I am.
00:52:28.040 --> 00:52:31.360
Tom: But anyway, the pedophile's Cybertruck...
00:52:31.380 --> 00:52:32.280
Phil: The truck design.
00:52:33.140 --> 00:52:33.920
Tom: Yes, yes, yes.
00:52:34.640 --> 00:52:39.560
Tom: I was just saying, that's the only other futuristic nostalgia thing that stands out.
00:52:39.840 --> 00:52:45.140
Tom: But it is really on the nose, to say the least, in its 80s inspirations.
00:52:45.160 --> 00:52:57.660
Tom: This Xbox Series X has some class to it, but I give the Cybertruck some credit for going for the 80s rather than the 50s futuristic craze going on at the moment.
00:52:58.400 --> 00:53:07.180
Phil: It's crazy that you had those references, because I saw that truck for the first time last night, and I also finished watching the original Blade Runner for the first time last night.
00:53:07.440 --> 00:53:11.480
Phil: So, next I'm going to be watching Blade Runner 2049.
00:53:12.800 --> 00:53:18.920
Tom: Prepare yourself for a lot of Xbox Series X's clouding the Los Angeles skyline.
00:53:21.380 --> 00:53:22.780
Phil: I think you've inspired me.
00:53:22.800 --> 00:53:28.200
Phil: I think tomorrow I'm going to do an article at gameunder.net that goes over the history of Sony's hardware.
00:53:29.260 --> 00:53:33.760
Phil: So I'll just put together a pictorial and some comments on that, because it is interesting.
00:53:33.900 --> 00:53:35.940
Phil: I love the look of the original Playstation.
00:53:37.800 --> 00:53:41.640
Phil: I like the Playstation 2 mini with the slim, as it was called back then.
00:53:43.820 --> 00:53:48.900
Phil: Playstation 3 was a bit of a bit of all over the place with the various versions.
00:53:50.520 --> 00:53:56.600
Phil: I was never a fan of the original launch, Playstation 3, with that curved top.
00:53:58.680 --> 00:54:02.120
Phil: That's the George Foreman grill was the most common comment.
00:54:03.280 --> 00:54:07.620
Phil: But besides the hardware, obviously they revealed a great many games.
00:54:07.720 --> 00:54:10.100
Phil: Not all of them are going to be exclusives, of course.
00:54:11.080 --> 00:54:11.940
Phil: Were there any games?
00:54:12.240 --> 00:54:18.360
Phil: Obviously the first game that I saw that I thought of you immediately was the new Oddworld game.
00:54:18.700 --> 00:54:27.680
Tom: Which was, I think, the other than Little Devil Inside or whatever it's called, I think that was without question the best trailer.
00:54:27.720 --> 00:54:33.200
Tom: Nothing came close to that as far as the thematic trailers were concerned.
00:54:33.660 --> 00:54:37.020
Phil: Well, it was the first trailer I saw and I wanted to play it.
00:54:37.020 --> 00:54:40.480
Phil: I looked at it and I went, that is an amazing use of the technology.
00:54:41.400 --> 00:54:44.540
Phil: Basically, we'll call it a 2D platformer.
00:54:45.400 --> 00:54:45.980
Tom: Which it is.
00:54:46.520 --> 00:54:47.160
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
00:54:47.240 --> 00:54:48.660
Phil: And I thought it looked great.
00:54:48.680 --> 00:54:50.340
Phil: And I was most happy to...
00:54:50.440 --> 00:54:56.180
Phil: I knew that Lorne Lanning was working on something, but I didn't know he was working on a new Oddworld game.
00:54:56.520 --> 00:55:05.600
Tom: It's technically a remake of Exodus, but it is a remake of Exodus doing what he wanted to originally do with Exodus.
00:55:06.680 --> 00:55:07.580
Phil: That's outstanding.
00:55:08.680 --> 00:55:11.640
Phil: I like Lorne Lanning in the interviews I've heard with him.
00:55:12.640 --> 00:55:13.540
Phil: I like his vision.
00:55:14.420 --> 00:55:16.960
Phil: And that's just great to me.
00:55:16.980 --> 00:55:20.820
Phil: Because, you know, Oddworld was an Xbox 360 exclusive.
00:55:21.880 --> 00:55:23.180
Phil: Then it had Strangers Wrath.
00:55:23.180 --> 00:55:25.900
Tom: It was the original Xbox exclusive.
00:55:26.680 --> 00:55:31.380
Tom: That's when it was exclusive with Munchers Odyssey and Strangers Wrath, not Xbox 360.
00:55:31.740 --> 00:55:39.400
Tom: They released a remaster of Strangers Wrath for 360 and PS3 and other consoles.
00:55:39.420 --> 00:55:42.500
Tom: The exclusivity was the original Xbox.
00:55:42.920 --> 00:55:43.480
Phil: That's right.
00:55:43.500 --> 00:55:43.960
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
00:55:43.980 --> 00:55:45.760
Phil: And of course it got its start on...
00:55:45.780 --> 00:55:47.680
Phil: To me, it got its start on Playstation.
00:55:47.840 --> 00:55:50.460
Phil: So, as a Playstation 1 game.
00:55:50.480 --> 00:55:51.900
Phil: So it was great to see it coming back.
00:55:51.920 --> 00:55:56.140
Tom: It was originally a Sony exclusive with Odyssey and Exodus.
00:55:56.160 --> 00:56:01.680
Tom: Then for Xbox, it was an exclusive with Munch's Odyssey and Stranger's Wrath.
00:56:02.520 --> 00:56:03.400
Phil: That's it.
00:56:03.620 --> 00:56:06.460
Phil: So that's the game that struck out to me.
00:56:06.480 --> 00:56:21.460
Tom: My one area of trepidation with it, which still looked like it might suffer from slightly, judging by the trailer, but the gameplay is meant to be a complete re-imagining compared to the normal series.
00:56:21.480 --> 00:56:39.320
Tom: So it may not be an issue, but the remake of Abe's Odyssey they did was really floaty and imprecise, which was very awkward given that the standard design of Abe's Odyssey was all about very precise movements.
00:56:39.680 --> 00:56:55.460
Tom: So this looks to have a more dynamic and floaty sort of movement to it, but given that it is meant to be a new direction for the series, hopefully that will not be an issue like it was in their remake of Odyssey.
00:56:55.940 --> 00:56:57.580
Phil: And I'm hoping for a physical release.
00:56:59.180 --> 00:57:01.360
Phil: There was 37 games, as I said, shown.
00:57:01.440 --> 00:57:03.940
Phil: Was there any other games that really struck you?
00:57:03.960 --> 00:57:07.080
Phil: Obviously there were plenty for me, but...
00:57:07.800 --> 00:57:09.740
Tom: Yep, there were quite a few that did.
00:57:10.200 --> 00:57:23.320
Tom: I'll go through them all, but before that, I'll just mention the only two that were actually exclusive to the PS5, which is the Demon's Souls remake.
00:57:24.280 --> 00:57:25.820
Tom: And it's currently exclusive.
00:57:25.840 --> 00:57:29.060
Tom: Hopefully it will have a PC release at some point.
00:57:30.280 --> 00:57:35.400
Tom: And also Sackboy, which you would expect not to be released on anything else.
00:57:35.420 --> 00:57:48.200
Tom: But I thought that was a pretty good trailer for what should actually work better than the 2D LittleBigPlanet games.
00:57:48.840 --> 00:57:58.420
Tom: I think the physics engine they have, it looked pretty similar to the LittleBigPlanet games, will be slightly less frustrating in 3D than it is in 2D.
00:57:58.440 --> 00:58:01.260
Tom: So I thought that was one of the highlights.
00:58:01.280 --> 00:58:09.840
Tom: The other games I'm interested in, none of which are exclusive for PS5, was Resident Evil 8, which I've seen a lot of criticism for.
00:58:10.120 --> 00:58:11.480
Tom: I have no idea why.
00:58:11.780 --> 00:58:26.460
Tom: The idea of playing a first-person Resident Evil style game in some cold backwater village setting, a la Resident Evil 4, sounds incredibly fun to me.
00:58:27.080 --> 00:58:30.760
Tom: Ghostwire looks absolutely fascinating.
00:58:31.340 --> 00:58:31.980
Tom: Stray.
00:58:33.880 --> 00:58:52.560
Tom: And the highlight of the show, without question, actually Pragmata also looked interesting, albeit the trailer was rather hard to follow as to what the fuck the game was going to be, but the highlight of the entire show to me was Little Devil Inside.
00:58:53.660 --> 00:58:57.080
Phil: That's one I missed.
00:58:57.100 --> 00:58:58.300
Phil: So, Little Devil Inside?
00:58:59.880 --> 00:59:00.860
Phil: What sort of game is it?
00:59:02.900 --> 00:59:07.140
Tom: It appears to be a combination of game styles.
00:59:07.460 --> 00:59:19.200
Tom: It will at least be, from what one could tell, your classic indie side-scroller, but there also appeared to be sections that were 3D as well, so it could have been all over the place.
00:59:19.900 --> 00:59:27.940
Tom: And the hook, from what one could tell from the trailer, looks tremendously endearing and fascinating.
00:59:28.640 --> 00:59:48.940
Tom: You appear to be simultaneously playing an old man, possibly a butler, going about his daily life, as well as playing a character inside him doing various fantasy-style interactions related to bodily functions.
00:59:50.400 --> 00:59:55.860
Phil: Okay, well, I'm at their official website, and they haven't updated it for some time if it's the same game.
00:59:55.880 --> 00:59:56.440
Phil: It has to be.
00:59:56.460 --> 00:59:58.860
Tom: It's apparently been in development for five years.
00:59:59.380 --> 01:00:08.240
Phil: Well, it's going to be available for Windows, Linux, Mac, Playstation 4, Xbox One and the Wii U.
01:00:08.280 --> 01:00:11.360
Tom: Now it's apparently a PS5 and PC game.
01:00:12.260 --> 01:00:18.800
Phil: Okay, now from this website, it looks like you've got a Lego-type minifig kind of guy.
01:00:20.460 --> 01:00:21.880
Phil: So has it changed from that?
01:00:23.160 --> 01:00:26.600
Tom: That's kind of the graphic style, if that's what you mean.
01:00:27.880 --> 01:00:29.500
Phil: Well, it looks charming.
01:00:30.580 --> 01:00:34.880
Phil: Now for me, you weren't interested in Gran Turismo 7.
01:00:34.900 --> 01:00:40.940
Phil: I was really surprised and happy to see a numbered entry in the series.
01:00:41.640 --> 01:00:49.880
Tom: I'm glad that there is a Gran Turismo 7, but the trailer itself was rather disappointing for two reasons.
01:00:50.080 --> 01:00:57.920
Tom: One, since Gran Turismo 3, it's impossible to be excited about how a Gran Turismo looks like.
01:00:57.940 --> 01:01:04.880
Tom: Probably the biggest step forward since Gran Turismo 3 are the colours in Gran Turismo Sport.
01:01:06.540 --> 01:01:09.260
Tom: There didn't appear to be a huge jump from that.
01:01:10.380 --> 01:01:15.600
Tom: And from a gameplay perspective, it looked a lot like Gran Turismo Sport.
01:01:16.160 --> 01:01:23.440
Tom: And they didn't tell you how many cars there were or go into many details on the career mode.
01:01:23.460 --> 01:01:29.240
Tom: So outside of being pleased, there is a numbered Gran Turismo entry.
01:01:30.520 --> 01:01:35.720
Tom: I don't think the trailer itself did much to garner attention.
01:01:36.760 --> 01:01:42.560
Phil: I feel like my time of my life that I would play Gran Turismo has passed.
01:01:42.560 --> 01:01:54.620
Phil: And if I did want to go back and play Gran Turismo at this point, I'd probably want to go back and play two or three and get that nostalgia as opposed to any of the new entries.
01:01:54.620 --> 01:02:02.440
Phil: So yeah, it's also difficult to get excited about it when it's in a low res presentation.
01:02:05.200 --> 01:02:08.540
Phil: But how else are we going to see what it looks like until it comes out?
01:02:08.560 --> 01:02:20.260
Phil: So Gorilla Games, makers of Killzone and Horizon, announced their next new game called Horizon Forbidden West.
01:02:20.540 --> 01:02:23.460
Tom: Which I believe is a spiritual successor to Enslaved.
01:02:23.520 --> 01:02:25.300
Phil: Okay, is that right?
01:02:26.880 --> 01:02:27.660
Tom: That's what it looks like.
01:02:27.680 --> 01:02:29.740
Phil: Well, that's the last of us.
01:02:30.240 --> 01:02:36.300
Phil: Speaking of, I've got to get The Last of Us, I've got to play it next week, but all these other games I've got to finish yet.
01:02:37.660 --> 01:02:59.040
Tom: While we're on the topic of The Last of Us, can I just say the leaking of The Last of Us 2 and the reaction of The Last of Us 2 is one, I mean the leaking whatever, but the reaction to the leaking is one of the most shameful and disgusting things I have ever seen the games community do.
01:02:59.220 --> 01:03:00.020
Phil: Whose reaction?
01:03:02.380 --> 01:03:03.680
Tom: A lot of people's reactions.
01:03:05.620 --> 01:03:06.620
Tom: It was a big thing.
01:03:06.640 --> 01:03:08.060
Phil: Yeah, I know.
01:03:08.080 --> 01:03:09.840
Phil: But I want to know your take on it.
01:03:09.860 --> 01:03:16.440
Phil: The reaction, like I've seen everything from people just totally reading it and loving it.
01:03:17.120 --> 01:03:25.220
Phil: I remember when it first came out, they're like, oh, this was a disenfranchised employee who released it.
01:03:25.240 --> 01:03:29.480
Phil: Then they immediately came out the next day and said, no, it wasn't a disenfranchised employee.
01:03:30.280 --> 01:03:32.040
Phil: It was just basically a security leak.
01:03:33.640 --> 01:03:33.900
Tom: Yep.
01:03:34.480 --> 01:03:37.680
Phil: So what reaction did you have a reaction to?
01:03:37.700 --> 01:03:48.820
Tom: Well, the reaction I thought was disgusting, but it applies equally to the positive reaction, one could argue, except the positive reaction, obviously less obnoxious.
01:03:48.840 --> 01:04:12.880
Tom: But the people who took great, who thought it was terrible and hated it, to me that is just absolutely pathetic and disgusting, that you are going to base your opinion on a fucking game, on the story of the game, on stuff that has been taken out of context.
01:04:13.160 --> 01:04:15.900
Tom: That to me is, what the fuck is wrong with you?
01:04:16.600 --> 01:04:40.820
Tom: I don't understand how the fuck, you can have a snippet of a story, and I don't care how ridiculous the snippet of the story is, and conclude this is something that requires slews of outraged and disgusted posting about how this is destroying the games industry and stuff like that.
01:04:41.000 --> 01:04:42.420
Tom: I don't get that at all.
01:04:42.480 --> 01:04:53.940
Tom: That to me is not only ridiculous and disgusting, it goes against being the audience of any form of art.
01:04:55.000 --> 01:05:07.740
Tom: How can you be an audience member in something if you were going to take something out of context and react on that basis and dismiss this thing, which you don't have access to in full?
01:05:07.760 --> 01:05:11.160
Tom: That's just utterly insane to me.
01:05:11.180 --> 01:05:12.520
Phil: Oh, yeah, I agree.
01:05:12.540 --> 01:05:17.500
Phil: I mean, it is insane, and I'm glad that that was your reaction.
01:05:17.520 --> 01:05:29.880
Phil: I just, you know, I failed to be outraged by any internet activity at this point, but you're absolutely right when you're talking about it in terms of an audience member.
01:05:31.380 --> 01:05:33.720
Phil: Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right.
01:05:33.740 --> 01:05:36.380
Phil: It is, you know, but what do you expect, you know?
01:05:37.680 --> 01:05:43.720
Phil: Not to be too much of a downer, but Guerrilla Games, you've never played Horizon, have you?
01:05:45.220 --> 01:05:45.720
Tom: No, I haven't.
01:05:45.740 --> 01:05:47.040
Phil: Their departure from Killzone.
01:05:47.060 --> 01:05:53.300
Phil: It's now available on Steam, so maybe that'll give you an opportunity to play it.
01:05:55.180 --> 01:05:59.720
Phil: Well, the sequel to it, the one that I've been working on, is coming out, so alright, that's great.
01:05:59.900 --> 01:06:05.440
Tom: And just last thing on the sequel, I mentioned the reference to Enslaved.
01:06:05.700 --> 01:06:06.020
Phil: Yes.
01:06:06.480 --> 01:06:20.960
Tom: And I do have to say, for that reason, I am not as interested in playing that as the original, because the original had its own thing going on for it, aesthetically.
01:06:20.980 --> 01:06:26.620
Tom: This is really very much similar to Enslaved, the sequel.
01:06:27.180 --> 01:06:31.140
Phil: Okay, so Enslaved was the video game based on Journey to the West, which is...
01:06:31.160 --> 01:06:33.000
Tom: Yes, we did it at a big show on it, I believe.
01:06:33.740 --> 01:06:35.520
Phil: Yeah, we did, with The Monkey Tale.
01:06:35.580 --> 01:06:36.840
Phil: Are you serious?
01:06:36.860 --> 01:06:39.680
Phil: So they've actually said this is based on Journey to the West?
01:06:39.700 --> 01:06:42.000
Tom: No, they haven't, but it looks identical.
01:06:42.480 --> 01:06:43.780
Phil: And it's called Forbidden West.
01:06:44.360 --> 01:06:44.940
Phil: Yes.
01:06:44.960 --> 01:06:46.040
Phil: So, yeah, okay.
01:06:47.520 --> 01:06:50.700
Phil: Other than that, I was really happy to see Ratchet and Clank.
01:06:50.700 --> 01:07:00.180
Phil: The remake that they did of Ratchet and Clank for the Playstation 4 was really well done and enjoyable, even though I hadn't delved into the games prior.
01:07:01.640 --> 01:07:09.660
Phil: So, and then Spider-Man, that was a game that I sort of enjoyed, but didn't, I mean, it was impressive, technically.
01:07:09.680 --> 01:07:12.140
Phil: I didn't think much of the game itself.
01:07:12.160 --> 01:07:17.380
Tom: It was a game that was fun to fly around in, and nothing else about it was fun, from what I remember.
01:07:17.920 --> 01:07:18.780
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
01:07:18.920 --> 01:07:22.840
Phil: So, all in all, I've got to say Sony completely nailed it.
01:07:22.860 --> 01:07:24.780
Phil: That was the best presentation I've seen.
01:07:24.800 --> 01:07:37.480
Phil: The best, next best presentation Sony did at an E3-type setting was the one where they did nothing but have that live orchestra playing along with the trailers.
01:07:38.720 --> 01:07:41.440
Phil: That was like three years ago, maybe even four years ago now.
01:07:42.220 --> 01:07:44.660
Phil: But I thought this presentation was outstanding.
01:07:45.660 --> 01:07:48.940
Phil: And I guess now all that we need to wait for is the price.
01:07:49.720 --> 01:07:56.400
Phil: I have a number I'll write down here that what I think it will launch at in Australia, the disc version.
01:07:57.740 --> 01:08:01.080
Phil: I'd be surprised if they release the digital only version in Australia.
01:08:01.440 --> 01:08:02.520
Phil: But anyway, we'll see.
01:08:03.900 --> 01:08:06.280
Phil: How much do you think they're going to charge for this monster?
01:08:07.660 --> 01:08:10.180
Tom: I'm going to go with $750.
01:08:10.760 --> 01:08:12.240
Phil: $750, okay.
01:08:12.280 --> 01:08:16.900
Phil: I wrote down $699, so you're thinking $749.
01:08:19.500 --> 01:08:24.660
Phil: Yeah, so neither one of us are expecting this to be cheap or affordable even.
01:08:25.680 --> 01:08:32.900
Tom: You wouldn't expect so, and I would assume that the Xbox console will be similarly expensive.
01:08:34.060 --> 01:08:35.580
Phil: Just to put that in the context for our unit.
01:08:35.600 --> 01:08:40.940
Tom: When you look at the hardware in it, it would be amazing if it was less than that.
01:08:41.440 --> 01:08:49.480
Tom: At those prices, it's already an amazing deal, but if it was even less than that, I can't see that happening.
01:08:50.240 --> 01:08:55.120
Phil: Well, they're making money on the services, you know, so you've got to look at that subsidized.
01:08:55.140 --> 01:08:55.920
Phil: But just to...
01:08:55.920 --> 01:08:57.040
Tom: Well, that is true.
01:08:58.820 --> 01:09:04.920
Tom: Consoles that have impressive hardware still historically have been expensive.
01:09:05.460 --> 01:09:07.940
Phil: Yes, yep, yep.
01:09:07.960 --> 01:09:14.980
Phil: For our international listeners, my estimate of $699, I just did the translation, would be $479 US.
01:09:15.880 --> 01:09:18.840
Phil: So that pretty much would be...
01:09:18.860 --> 01:09:23.500
Phil: I think you would be probably closer, because I think this is going to launch in the US at $499.
01:09:23.540 --> 01:09:25.880
Tom: I would say $500 US.
01:09:25.900 --> 01:09:30.360
Phil: Yeah, so $750 Australian is $514 US.
01:09:30.360 --> 01:09:35.280
Phil: So, yeah, I think it's going to be somewhere in between our two estimates.
01:09:36.480 --> 01:09:48.220
Phil: If I were to pick a console on day one, I'd have to say if it was based on visuals, I'd go with the Xbox, in terms of how the console looks.
01:09:49.240 --> 01:10:25.960
Phil: I've got to say that the proposition for me, with Microsoft saying that all of the games that they release, at least for a time, are going to be playable on the Xbox One and on PC, obviously everything that Microsoft releases is on PC simultaneously with Game Pass, gives me an excuse to make that the second console I'd buy, just because there's no urgent pressing console exclusive that I'm going to be missing out on by not getting an Xbox One Series X, Xbox One Series X is ridiculous.
01:10:28.240 --> 01:10:38.440
Phil: You know what I'm saying, but whereas with the Playstation 4, I'm going to have the opportunity to access new technology and some exclusives at the same time, so that's probably what I'd opt with.
01:10:39.700 --> 01:10:48.060
Phil: But everyone knows buying a console on day one is a dumb thing to do, the best thing to do is to wait until they get all the technical kinks ironed out.
01:10:50.180 --> 01:10:56.060
Phil: But I still will be really hankering to get a new console when they come out later this year.
01:10:58.380 --> 01:10:59.940
Phil: Would you have a consumer preference?
01:10:59.960 --> 01:11:11.900
Phil: I mean, you've just invested a massive amount in a PC upgrade and you've just been given 1600 games, so I'm assuming you're not hankering for a new piece of dedicated gaming hardware?
01:11:11.920 --> 01:11:12.320
Tom: Not at all.
01:11:12.660 --> 01:11:44.740
Tom: And to me, I would be however inclined, if it's between Xbox and Playstation, to lean towards the Playstation, because if you do have a reasonable PC, with the Xbox app as bad as Microsoft programming is, that does mean you can probably play most Xbox exclusives, whereas there are still, well so far, two Playstation exclusives that are not as yet coming to PC.
01:11:45.100 --> 01:11:54.280
Tom: But even Sony games more and more have been popping up on PC, so maybe that will not be the case by the end of this generation.
01:11:54.300 --> 01:11:59.720
Phil: Yeah, I think they're giving people a taste, just to try and get them interested in some of Sony's IPs.
01:11:59.740 --> 01:12:17.960
Phil: It is a waste to see IP language on an exclusive console, because even highly popular games like The Last of Us, and Uncharted, do get exposed to a limited number of players, because they are on an exclusive platform.
01:12:19.440 --> 01:12:23.080
Phil: But yeah, I think you're dead right there.
01:12:23.100 --> 01:12:29.180
Phil: If you've got a good PC, you're going to stick with why would you buy the console?
01:12:29.200 --> 01:12:31.280
Phil: I think that's Microsoft's attitude as well.
01:12:31.300 --> 01:12:43.800
Phil: We've often talked over the years how, at their root, Nintendo is a toy company, Sony is a electronics company, and Microsoft is a software and services company.
01:12:44.300 --> 01:12:48.780
Phil: And I don't think Microsoft cares if you buy the new Xbox, as long as you can subscribe to Game Pass.
01:12:48.940 --> 01:12:52.500
Phil: However, that's what they're interested in.
01:12:52.620 --> 01:12:55.360
Phil: And obviously with Sony, they're interested in selling electronics.
01:12:55.680 --> 01:13:00.180
Phil: So their emphasis is on making a powerful box with exclusives.
01:13:01.400 --> 01:13:02.580
Phil: But yeah, very interesting.
01:13:02.600 --> 01:13:06.820
Phil: So were you as impressed with the presentation as I, or?
01:13:07.320 --> 01:13:09.080
Tom: Well, I didn't watch the presentation.
01:13:09.460 --> 01:13:12.180
Phil: Well, it was basically, and that was all it was.
01:13:12.340 --> 01:13:14.340
Phil: So it was just trailer after trailer.
01:13:14.640 --> 01:13:20.600
Tom: If I could pick out that many games, I mean, that was, must have been like seven or eight, something like that.
01:13:21.140 --> 01:13:24.400
Tom: Or at least even five, that's a good presentation.
01:13:25.140 --> 01:13:25.780
Phil: Absolutely.
01:13:26.620 --> 01:13:33.820
Tom: The one thing I will add though, just the one thing I will add, remakes are the new sequel.
01:13:34.880 --> 01:13:35.140
Phil: Yeah.
01:13:36.060 --> 01:13:44.460
Tom: The amount of remakes that are constantly popping up everywhere is pretty ridiculous to me.
01:13:44.680 --> 01:13:54.000
Tom: And often it's for absolutely no reason other than to merely have another version of the game to sell.
01:13:54.220 --> 01:14:02.480
Tom: Demon's Souls is actually an example of where a remake is a good idea because of how poorly the original ran.
01:14:02.900 --> 01:14:17.840
Tom: But I do find the high quantity of remakes to be even more uninteresting than the high quantity of sequels that they are replacing this trend.
01:14:18.940 --> 01:14:19.540
Phil: Yeah, it is.
01:14:19.560 --> 01:14:23.000
Phil: I mean, Kingdoms of Amalor remake got announced this week.
01:14:23.940 --> 01:14:30.160
Phil: It is ridiculous, which is what's making indie games and original games all the more appealing.
01:14:31.420 --> 01:14:44.600
Phil: Having said that, though, a very long time ago, we talked on the podcast about how you can go into a DVD store, wow, and get movies from 40 years ago and 30 years ago and 10 years ago.
01:14:44.620 --> 01:14:45.420
Phil: And they're all there.
01:14:45.440 --> 01:14:48.060
Phil: They're all constantly in print.
01:14:48.740 --> 01:15:00.400
Phil: And we bemoaned the fact that you can't do that with gaming, that really you've got to, other than with a PC, you've got to really try hard to go back and go through back catalogs.
01:15:00.940 --> 01:15:09.160
Phil: And in a way, these constant remakes are, you know, making these games available more easily.
01:15:09.180 --> 01:15:11.100
Phil: And I appreciate that.
01:15:12.760 --> 01:15:16.660
Tom: I prefer the Xbox model of backwards compatibility you're a fan of.
01:15:17.620 --> 01:15:18.400
Phil: Oh yeah, me too.
01:15:18.480 --> 01:15:19.440
Phil: Yeah, absolutely.
01:15:19.460 --> 01:15:20.440
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
01:15:21.260 --> 01:15:23.100
Phil: Oh boy, maybe I will get an Xbox first.
01:15:23.500 --> 01:15:25.260
Phil: I just want to hear them say the words.
01:15:25.560 --> 01:15:30.360
Phil: You can put any original Xbox disc in the thing and it will work.
01:15:30.380 --> 01:15:32.720
Phil: And that will make it a day one purchase for me.
01:15:35.320 --> 01:15:42.680
Tom: Now, I just realised that we forgot to rate, using my pattern and dice technique, A Morticians Tale.
01:15:43.460 --> 01:15:43.940
Phil: Oh yes.
01:15:43.960 --> 01:15:49.940
Tom: So before we do anything else, we will have to unleash the dice.
01:15:53.480 --> 01:15:57.500
Tom: And Morticians Tale, I am giving, unfortunately, a 3 out of 10.
01:15:57.520 --> 01:16:02.220
Phil: Okay, you're giving it a 3 out of 10 and I gave it a...
01:16:02.800 --> 01:16:07.640
Phil: I'm going to give it a 6 out of 10, which means it only gets a 9 out of 20.
01:16:08.460 --> 01:16:08.860
Tom: Yes.
01:16:09.440 --> 01:16:10.660
Phil: That doesn't seem very fair.
01:16:10.840 --> 01:16:11.140
Phil: Yeah.
01:16:12.240 --> 01:16:14.520
Tom: That that's how the dice rolls.
01:16:14.940 --> 01:16:16.360
Tom: And in the previous...
01:16:17.340 --> 01:16:23.640
Tom: In the previous episode, we forgot to rate Sky as well, even though that was my final impressions.
01:16:24.180 --> 01:16:24.580
Phil: Really?
01:16:25.260 --> 01:16:26.440
Tom: Yes, but I will briefly...
01:16:26.460 --> 01:16:29.960
Phil: I've got to put this on our review archive at gameunder.net.
01:16:30.140 --> 01:17:27.720
Tom: Yes, I will just briefly add, given that the opportunity has arisen, my true final impressions, just one of the other most impressive things about Sky is the fact that it managed to be a narrative, a satisfying and successful narrative game in the sense of Journey, a enjoyable grinding slash flying game, like Pilotwings crossed with an addictive MMORPG structure, and a game where, due to the feature of being able to fly friends around, that you can easily talk to your friends while playing, as well as all the other social interactions, it's got to be probably the only MMO that I've played it anyway that has a genuinely good narrative in it, that is enjoyable, as enjoyable as a single player narrative.
01:17:28.440 --> 01:17:29.580
Tom: So it is time...
01:17:29.580 --> 01:17:31.960
Phil: Are you going to give it a die roll score?
01:17:31.980 --> 01:17:33.400
Tom: Yes, I am.
01:17:33.400 --> 01:17:35.560
Tom: Everything is a die roll score now.
01:17:36.140 --> 01:17:36.560
Phil: Okay.
01:17:38.840 --> 01:17:44.580
Tom: And it gets the fifth best game of the last decade, it gets an 8 out of 10.
01:17:45.060 --> 01:17:45.700
Phil: Wow.
01:17:47.220 --> 01:17:49.120
Phil: You're not using a weighted die, are you?
01:17:51.160 --> 01:17:52.220
Tom: No, I don't think so.
01:17:52.880 --> 01:18:06.100
Phil: In the last episode, 125, we gave our refreshed opinions on and views or impressions of Journey from that game company, and at the end I spliced in our impressions from episode 22.
01:18:06.600 --> 01:18:08.180
Phil: Did you have a chance to listen to that?
01:18:08.200 --> 01:18:11.120
Phil: I don't think it was episode 22, but did you have a chance to listen to it?
01:18:12.040 --> 01:18:13.280
Phil: Yeah, it's worth a listen to.
01:18:13.280 --> 01:18:20.420
Phil: It was actually quite interesting to hear us say in some ways almost the same thing seven years ago.
01:18:20.440 --> 01:18:23.460
Phil: It was very interesting indeed.
01:18:23.480 --> 01:18:25.740
Phil: In fact, we both did give the game a score back then.
01:18:26.760 --> 01:18:35.260
Phil: So, the next game though, I haven't played this game, and I don't know much about it, but you've been playing or have you finished this game?
01:18:35.680 --> 01:18:47.120
Tom: I have finished A Plague Tale, Call On Innocence, which is a very topical game, I believe, in these unprecedented times.
01:18:47.140 --> 01:18:56.280
Tom: It is set during other unprecedented times to be precise a plague outbreak in the 14th century.
01:18:58.320 --> 01:19:01.940
Tom: And it is by the French de Val-Gone.
01:19:02.420 --> 01:19:04.380
Phil: I was just putting that together.
01:19:04.400 --> 01:19:06.560
Phil: So this is a game set in the 1300s?
01:19:07.240 --> 01:19:08.060
Tom: Yes, correct.
01:19:09.460 --> 01:19:11.120
Phil: That's just hard for me to visualise.
01:19:11.800 --> 01:19:16.400
Tom: During a plague outbreak, and it is by Asobo Studios.
01:19:16.540 --> 01:19:36.380
Tom: And this should be right up your alley, this game, because Asobo Studios is a company that was primarily making licensed products until they made Fuel, a racing game published by Codemasters.
01:19:37.540 --> 01:19:37.940
Tom: Then...
01:19:37.960 --> 01:19:40.620
Phil: Okay, yeah, yeah.
01:19:41.080 --> 01:19:43.020
Phil: I've played and beaten one of their games.
01:19:43.040 --> 01:19:46.000
Phil: I played the very mediocre Wall-E game.
01:19:48.560 --> 01:19:49.960
Tom: That would be a licensed product.
01:19:50.340 --> 01:19:51.020
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
01:19:51.680 --> 01:19:56.720
Phil: And when looking at other games they've played here, they're currently working on Microsoft Flight Simulator.
01:19:56.740 --> 01:19:59.640
Phil: So that's actually a release that I'm excited about.
01:20:01.460 --> 01:20:02.960
Phil: But yeah, they did The Crew.
01:20:04.700 --> 01:20:05.620
Phil: Disneyland Adventures.
01:20:06.560 --> 01:20:11.080
Tom: So The Crew 2, they were not the developer of the original.
01:20:11.100 --> 01:20:16.520
Tom: So this would make A Plague Tale Innocence their second original title, I believe.
01:20:17.440 --> 01:20:23.760
Phil: So are you telling me that Garfield, A Tale of Two Kitties wasn't their original game, their original IP?
01:20:23.780 --> 01:20:25.320
Tom: I don't think so.
01:20:25.340 --> 01:20:25.920
Tom: That's shocking.
01:20:26.220 --> 01:20:27.020
Tom: I don't think so.
01:20:27.200 --> 01:20:28.700
Phil: What about Monopoly Plus?
01:20:30.060 --> 01:20:30.380
Tom: No.
01:20:30.980 --> 01:20:32.420
Phil: They, you know what?
01:20:32.520 --> 01:20:33.840
Tom: I stand corrected.
01:20:33.860 --> 01:20:36.080
Tom: They did develop the original crew, in fact.
01:20:36.540 --> 01:20:40.100
Tom: So this would be their third original title.
01:20:40.820 --> 01:20:52.520
Phil: I'm having a bit of fun here, but I've got to say, I have so much respect for working studios like this that just keep themselves busy and occupied and, you know, turning out good stuff.
01:20:53.000 --> 01:20:55.020
Phil: You know, even turning out mediocre stuff.
01:20:55.040 --> 01:21:01.160
Phil: I just love to see a healthy, independent studio with doing these kinds of games.
01:21:02.100 --> 01:21:03.300
Phil: It's just, I like it.
01:21:03.340 --> 01:21:03.780
Phil: I love it.
01:21:04.100 --> 01:21:06.380
Phil: So, Asobo, what country are they from?
01:21:07.060 --> 01:21:08.140
Tom: They are from France.
01:21:09.980 --> 01:21:12.300
Phil: Okay, and what sort of game is A Plague Tale?
01:21:13.200 --> 01:21:21.280
Tom: Well, A Plague Tale is clearly very much inspired by The Last of Us and Uncharted.
01:21:22.460 --> 01:21:30.860
Tom: So it's basically an adventure game with its primary gameplay being stealth and puzzle solving.
01:21:31.060 --> 01:21:49.440
Tom: There is a shooting mechanic using a slingshot, but it is, being a slingshot, it's a complicated mechanic where you hold down fire until you get the crosshairs reduced to a certain size to be able to hit your target.
01:21:49.460 --> 01:21:56.540
Tom: So it's obviously designed primarily around stealth and around puzzle solving.
01:21:57.200 --> 01:22:04.440
Tom: Both the stealth and the puzzle solving for the first two-thirds of the game is very rudimentary.
01:22:05.600 --> 01:22:11.320
Tom: The puzzle solving is usually just as simple as moving.
01:22:12.380 --> 01:22:23.940
Tom: Really, it's barely a step up from Resident Evil, except that there are a few puzzles that require some real-time manipulation to be able to do them.
01:22:23.960 --> 01:22:35.260
Tom: Beyond that, it's essentially Resident Evil level puzzle solving where you're basically moving lights to face certain directions and things like that.
01:22:35.900 --> 01:22:44.280
Tom: It is a bit more complicated in that it also makes use of the crafting system in the game because to you...
01:22:45.180 --> 01:23:07.540
Tom: We'll get to all the stories, but basically you're creating various alchemical concoctions which do various things like light fires or put fires out, melt enemies' helmets because you cannot injure enemies with your slingshot unless you get to a certain upgrade level if they have a helmet on, so you have to get the helmet off them, and that's how you do that.
01:23:07.940 --> 01:23:20.840
Tom: So while there's a greater variety of the things you're doing compared to something like Resident Evil, the level of the puzzles you're solving is very much on that really basic sort of level.
01:23:22.360 --> 01:23:26.520
Tom: The stealth is a little more interesting than that.
01:23:26.540 --> 01:23:32.440
Tom: You are able to attract enemies' attentions with your slingshot.
01:23:32.460 --> 01:23:44.160
Tom: If there's anything metallic you can hit with stones, you can pick up pots to throw to get the enemies to walk towards them and that sort of thing.
01:23:44.480 --> 01:23:55.260
Tom: But it is very basic, and there's not that much room for creativity, which is what makes stealth games so fun most of the time.
01:23:55.480 --> 01:24:09.700
Tom: The only game that is less creative that I think does stealth exceptionally well is the Metro series, and that requires a high level of execution from the player to make it interesting.
01:24:10.160 --> 01:24:23.920
Tom: And while there is a high level of execution here in some of the areas during the stealth, when you get noticed or killed, you end up basically just back at the same spot you were before you were spotted.
01:24:24.160 --> 01:24:34.860
Tom: So while you need to know what you're doing, in the hardest sections of it, you still aren't really pushed back far enough for it to really matter at all.
01:24:35.680 --> 01:24:50.840
Tom: Things do improve in the final third of the game, which I will get to at the end, but unless you have any other questions about the gameplay, I will start talking about the setting and the story.
01:24:50.860 --> 01:24:58.260
Phil: Well, I've got to say, just looking at images here, it does look a lot like The Last of Us.
01:25:00.160 --> 01:25:02.300
Phil: And I'm surprised that I hadn't...
01:25:03.060 --> 01:25:10.640
Phil: Obviously, maybe it's the generic nature of the name of the game or something like that, but this one had completely skipped by me.
01:25:12.020 --> 01:25:16.900
Phil: And it's available for Playstation 4, Xbox One and PC.
01:25:17.020 --> 01:25:18.260
Phil: What are you playing it on right now?
01:25:19.160 --> 01:25:20.820
Tom: Xbox Games Pass.
01:25:21.300 --> 01:25:23.260
Phil: Okay, okay, so you're playing it on PC.
01:25:25.480 --> 01:25:29.600
Phil: So, no, I don't really have that many questions about the actual gameplay.
01:25:29.680 --> 01:25:31.080
Phil: It's pretty well described by you.
01:25:32.260 --> 01:25:53.020
Tom: Yep, and the structure is like Uncharted or The Last of Us or any modern adventure game, minus the platforming where you're just going through a series of set pieces interspersed with narrative story sections, sorry, in between.
01:25:53.040 --> 01:25:55.620
Phil: It was quite well received by the looks of it, too.
01:25:55.640 --> 01:26:00.940
Phil: It got a lot of note for its story, so hopefully you'll touch on that.
01:26:01.540 --> 01:26:05.280
Tom: I was going to say, I noticed it just because of the ridiculous title.
01:26:05.780 --> 01:26:20.940
Tom: Otherwise, I had not heard of this game, so when I saw the ridiculous title and then looked it up, I was surprised to see that it has been so well received, because in spite of it being so well received, it had somewhat flown under the radar to some degree.
01:26:22.120 --> 01:26:27.280
Phil: Yeah, yeah, and obviously the developer, you know, it's a French game, the developer's not very well known.
01:26:27.300 --> 01:26:36.300
Phil: Yeah, it's a real shame, but I mean obviously we must be the only ones who ignored it, because plenty of other people have given it awards and good scores.
01:26:38.060 --> 01:26:44.140
Phil: Looks like IGN gave it a 7 out of 10, which is not a bad score at all, but mostly 8.
01:26:44.520 --> 01:26:47.860
Phil: So yeah, I'm really interested in this.
01:26:48.420 --> 01:26:53.880
Phil: In terms of the story, are you able to cover the story?
01:26:54.400 --> 01:26:59.720
Tom: Yes, I will, and I will attempt to avoid spoilers, so it should be possible.
01:27:00.040 --> 01:27:15.840
Tom: But I went into this basically completely blind outside of the title, so I had no idea what to expect, but based on the title, I was expecting it to be about the plague during the Middle Ages.
01:27:17.120 --> 01:27:21.560
Tom: And the beginning of the game is really good.
01:27:22.980 --> 01:27:32.840
Tom: You're basically just wandering around with some dude older than you who is apparently your father, but he's pretty young.
01:27:33.540 --> 01:27:35.600
Tom: But then again, it is the Middle Ages.
01:27:35.920 --> 01:27:53.860
Tom: So anyway, I should also add, you're playing as basically an older teenage girl, and you're wandering through the gardens outside your middle class estate, that is medieval middle class estate.
01:27:55.420 --> 01:28:00.160
Tom: And you're just going around learning how to shoot your sing-sot, i.e.
01:28:00.180 --> 01:28:03.420
Tom: going around showing off to your father and things like this.
01:28:03.800 --> 01:28:12.500
Tom: Then your hunting dog runs off into the woods, and the tone and atmosphere change completely.
01:28:12.980 --> 01:28:23.940
Tom: And you're running through the woods looking for your dog and black gloopy stuff in the classic Japanese slash French style.
01:28:24.540 --> 01:28:55.560
Tom: And you don't literally see this so much in French stuff, French visual art or film where you have these mutations and black gloopy stuff going everywhere as some sort of metaphysical dread, which is clearly a post-World War II thing in Japanese art, and I think we've mentioned this before, but you do get that in French literature, at least in terms of the atmosphere.
01:28:56.660 --> 01:29:04.440
Tom: And French art and Japanese art have obviously been very much intertwined since the 1800s.
01:29:05.680 --> 01:29:09.040
Tom: But at that point, the atmosphere changes completely.
01:29:09.060 --> 01:29:16.820
Tom: It goes from a jaunty stroll with your father to basically a horror game, which was not what I was expecting at all.
01:29:16.880 --> 01:29:35.080
Tom: And it ends with you finding your dog and also a black gloop nest, essentially, at which point you return to your house and you just wander around and decide you need to tell your mother what's going on.
01:29:36.200 --> 01:29:52.780
Tom: And to cut a long story short, by the end of this day, you are off with your brother running away from the Inquisition with rats flying everywhere and not at all what I was expecting the game to be.
01:29:52.800 --> 01:30:11.280
Tom: While there is a plague going on, it is very much a magical plague of millions of rats running around everywhere rather than a medieval plague of a tick-borne disease potentially spread by rats.
01:30:12.020 --> 01:30:20.340
Tom: So I was expecting a historical game and got a semi-horror game instead.
01:30:21.800 --> 01:30:24.260
Tom: But that wasn't what I was expected.
01:30:24.340 --> 01:30:35.220
Tom: Once I got over the disappointment of it being something completely different, it turned out to be really a very enjoyable experience.
01:30:35.580 --> 01:30:51.960
Tom: As I said, you're playing as the elder sister with your younger brother, attempting to escape the Inquisition as your younger brother has magical powers potentially related to his blood that may be related to the plague.
01:30:52.300 --> 01:31:08.100
Tom: So the local bishop, I can't remember his exact position, I think he's a bishop or archbishop, is attempting to track you down for his own uses in regards to the plague and the political machinations that are going on at the time.
01:31:08.500 --> 01:31:12.620
Tom: So it's very much like The Last of Us in that sense.
01:31:13.600 --> 01:31:26.940
Tom: What could have been a very uninteresting and even annoying relationship between the two characters due to the excellent performances of the two voice actors playing them?
01:31:27.400 --> 01:31:34.900
Tom: And it is mainly a vocal performance because a lot of the dialogue is in game rather than during the cut scenes.
01:31:36.440 --> 01:32:05.940
Tom: So that is where I think the best character interactions occur during the little bits of banter and discussion as you're going through the level, which is to the credit of both the writers and the actors, thanks to them, they make it a very endearing and easy to empathise with story about attempting to face the odds in a sibling relationship.
01:32:06.600 --> 01:32:18.220
Tom: And the setting, while again a little bit disappointing compared to what it could have been, as a semi-horror setting in the Middle Ages is brilliant.
01:32:18.380 --> 01:32:21.280
Tom: The game looks amazing.
01:32:21.640 --> 01:32:28.020
Tom: The villages you're going through are suitably filthy and caked in mud.
01:32:28.660 --> 01:32:30.960
Tom: Everyone doesn't bathe.
01:32:31.320 --> 01:32:35.100
Tom: And I should add that people in the Middle Ages did bathe.
01:32:35.520 --> 01:32:37.700
Tom: They particularly washed their faces.
01:32:37.920 --> 01:32:39.940
Tom: They washed their hands before every meal.
01:32:40.760 --> 01:32:52.660
Tom: So the aesthetic that is throughout games and films and media of Middle Ages people being absolutely filthy is completely false.
01:32:54.480 --> 01:33:04.500
Tom: So it's hilarious seeing these middle class characters that you begin as with filthy faces the entire time before they're on the run.
01:33:05.540 --> 01:33:15.840
Tom: But as hilariously ridiculous from a historical perspective as the filthy Middle Ages is, the filthy Middle Ages is nevertheless an extremely fun setting.
01:33:15.980 --> 01:33:17.860
Tom: The villages are filthy, as I said.
01:33:17.880 --> 01:33:21.940
Tom: The countryside areas look beautiful.
01:33:22.000 --> 01:33:24.140
Tom: The foliage is wonderful.
01:33:24.160 --> 01:33:26.260
Tom: The flowers are colourful.
01:33:26.840 --> 01:33:31.280
Tom: And the lighting really stands out as does the particle effects.
01:33:31.620 --> 01:33:42.480
Tom: The snowflakes, for instance, are not just dots, but they are literal flakes of snow in that general sort of shape.
01:33:42.940 --> 01:33:45.760
Tom: So the attention to detail is exceptional.
01:33:46.320 --> 01:33:58.880
Tom: And it's the first game I have played other than Metro Exodus, where upscaling makes a really noticeable difference to what the game looks like at 100% resolution scale.
01:34:00.840 --> 01:34:08.140
Tom: You can really see that the textures in the background are low res.
01:34:08.320 --> 01:34:18.920
Tom: When you raise the upscaling so that they're at a high resolution, they look sharper and there is a noticeable difference and everything ends up looking smooth.
01:34:19.380 --> 01:34:25.640
Tom: So not only aesthetically, but technically it is graphically very impressive.
01:34:27.400 --> 01:35:05.520
Tom: And while the gameplay pacing doesn't reach the heights of something like the best moments of The Last of Us, which is really, to be fair, only the final third, or Uncharted 2 which is a bit more consistently well paced, the aesthetic changes in the scenery do reach those heights and the narrative, once you get past the first half as they're introducing more and more characters, once the characters have been introduced and start to interact with one another, they also become interesting as the protagonists are.
01:35:06.000 --> 01:35:23.700
Tom: And I haven't mentioned much about the Inquisition or the rats, but the Inquisition as an antagonist is, as you would expect from a French thing, the French anti-Catholic sentiment is unmatched in the world.
01:35:23.760 --> 01:35:30.100
Tom: No one does evil popes and evil bishops and evil archbishops like the French do.
01:35:30.700 --> 01:35:34.480
Tom: And this lives up to what you would expect from that.
01:35:34.500 --> 01:35:51.520
Tom: The major antagonist of the game is essentially a drug addicted, disease ridden figure who looks like the Catholic dude from Resident Evil 4 crossed with the Emperor from Star Wars.
01:35:51.600 --> 01:35:56.020
Tom: It is an absolutely brilliant cartoony figure.
01:35:56.700 --> 01:36:12.020
Tom: And the rats, while they look ridiculous, I don't know if you're very familiar with rats, but rats are one of the most flexible and acrobatic as well as squishy animals in existence.
01:36:13.800 --> 01:36:35.300
Tom: The rats, and you can have hundreds or thousands of rats on screen at once, they basically have the flexibility of a leather slash rubber shoe, and not like a barefoot shoe that you can squash in half, a relatively firm shoe.
01:36:35.600 --> 01:36:37.240
Tom: So the animation is hilarious.
01:36:37.260 --> 01:36:44.080
Tom: For them to turn around, it's like a car doing a really awkward U-turn, but at high speed.
01:36:45.540 --> 01:36:52.200
Tom: So what is meant to be a menacing, frightening thing just looks completely ridiculous and hilarious.
01:36:53.180 --> 01:36:56.400
Phil: If you didn't know much about rats though, would you pick up on it, do you think?
01:36:56.500 --> 01:36:59.220
Phil: Like your average gamer who hasn't seen a real rat?
01:37:00.380 --> 01:37:12.680
Tom: Well, I hope you would at least think it looks ridiculous, because you surely have seen rats in films, and that they're capable of turning in a circle without doing a three-point turn.
01:37:15.340 --> 01:37:16.820
Phil: Yeah, like most animals can.
01:37:16.840 --> 01:37:26.080
Phil: The reason why I was stuck on the rats is because obviously it's a big part of the game in terms of its theme.
01:37:26.440 --> 01:37:33.040
Tom: Yep, and I will mention, I will go into a bit more detail on the gameplay here, because they are a major part of the gameplay.
01:37:33.300 --> 01:37:42.900
Tom: So basically another element going on, as well as the stealth sections and the shooting, and when the game is at its best, it combines all three elements.
01:37:42.920 --> 01:37:44.880
Tom: There's also the avoiding rat element.
01:37:45.240 --> 01:38:01.680
Tom: Now, the rats are deathly afraid of light, so essentially they can go anywhere where there isn't light, and if you get too close to them, they will eat you, and you will then reset to wherever the checkpoint is essentially.
01:38:02.060 --> 01:38:32.160
Tom: So to deal with rats, you have to be lighting things using your alchemist potions, changing where lamps are pointed, or extinguishing flames, and as you're playing, you also unlock further alchemist skills that allow you to direct where rats are, which you can use to kill enemies, and all sorts of permutations like that.
01:38:32.560 --> 01:38:44.080
Tom: And when those elements are all used at once, there is actually some room for creativity, and the game does become engrossing and enjoyable on a gameplay level.
01:38:44.320 --> 01:39:07.780
Tom: By the end of the game, you have even more control over what rats can do, and I won't spoil it, but it is one of the best ever moments in a game where they have you being pushed back and being killed by something, but eventually you get to...
01:39:07.800 --> 01:39:21.760
Tom: It's difficult to avoid spoilers here, but it is worth playing without being spoiled, where you no longer have to deal with that problem at all in one of the most satisfying ways in any game ever.
01:39:21.780 --> 01:39:27.440
Tom: The last few levels in the game also use all three elements at once throughout the whole thing.
01:39:28.420 --> 01:39:38.720
Tom: They also level the areas themselves, become a little bit more open and a little bit more complex in their architecture, so that there is even more room for creativity.
01:39:39.060 --> 01:39:55.660
Tom: So, like The Last of Us, the final push in the game is really, really enjoyable and is super satisfying after it hasn't really lived up to its mechanical potential early on.
01:39:56.000 --> 01:40:20.120
Tom: And the final boss is not only hilarious from an imagery perspective, from a gameplay perspective, it takes these disparate elements and slightly awkward things that you wouldn't think you could put together into an exciting 3D Mario-style boss battle and absolutely nails it.
01:40:22.600 --> 01:40:24.900
Phil: Yeah, I'm looking at the...
01:40:25.280 --> 01:40:27.660
Phil: and I'm glad you didn't spoil it because I do want to play this game.
01:40:27.740 --> 01:40:34.700
Phil: It's still a full-price game, and the stupid thing about it is, while we've been talking about it, I've had to look up its name like four times.
01:40:36.760 --> 01:40:38.160
Phil: The name kills this game.
01:40:38.160 --> 01:40:41.560
Phil: It's such a horrible name.
01:40:41.580 --> 01:40:42.760
Phil: It's so unmemorable.
01:40:44.060 --> 01:40:45.440
Phil: The name of the game is A Plague Tale Innocence.
01:40:45.460 --> 01:40:51.500
Tom: It is an awful game, but in its defence, this caught my eye because the title was so awful.
01:40:53.100 --> 01:41:01.080
Tom: If it had been called something cool like Uncharted or The Last of Us, it would have been up to you to notice it.
01:41:02.760 --> 01:41:05.220
Tom: It would have blown right past my radar.
01:41:05.400 --> 01:41:06.460
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
01:41:06.460 --> 01:41:07.700
Phil: It's such a bad name.
01:41:09.220 --> 01:41:17.500
Phil: Now, I'm interested that you said that the dialogue was good, but it's a French-made game, so do you think that's more to do with localisation than the original writing?
01:41:17.520 --> 01:41:20.200
Phil: It's no way for us to know.
01:41:20.220 --> 01:41:30.560
Tom: I think they focused on the English version of the game as being the real version of the game, quote, real, end quote, real.
01:41:32.660 --> 01:41:41.020
Tom: As far as I'm aware, that's where they put their focus in terms of their direction and presumably writing as well.
01:41:41.320 --> 01:41:58.480
Tom: And it's noticeable in the dialogue, sorry, in the acting, because I did play a reasonable amount of it in French because the French, like the Russian dub in Metro games, absolutely fits the atmosphere.
01:41:58.500 --> 01:42:04.340
Tom: And as an atmosphere experience, and atmosphere is one of the best things in the game, the French fits it perfectly.
01:42:04.860 --> 01:42:16.820
Tom: But I went to the English because the interaction between the two protagonists was on another level in the English dub to what it was in the French.
01:42:17.440 --> 01:42:28.840
Tom: And having finished the game, looking up, English is the language they wanted the game to be played in and where they put their efforts.
01:42:29.980 --> 01:42:40.140
Tom: So I don't think it's a case of the localizers doing anything that was not the intention of the people making the game itself.
01:42:43.400 --> 01:42:44.580
Phil: So you've obviously finished it.
01:42:44.600 --> 01:42:45.660
Phil: You beat the last boss.
01:42:46.100 --> 01:42:46.360
Tom: Yep.
01:42:47.100 --> 01:43:02.300
Tom: And I will add the highlight of the game, though, is not any of that, which is, some of it that I mentioned is exceptional, as I said, but the highlight of it is, some of the imagery of the game is really great.
01:43:02.320 --> 01:43:23.120
Tom: The battlefields of, again, just the traditional body disposal that wasn't mentioned in The Morticians Tale, the battlefields of mass graves look amazing that you have to walk through to get to some place that you're going to.
01:43:23.540 --> 01:43:30.420
Tom: The fields of slaughtered animals that have been slaughtered due to the plague are brilliant.
01:43:30.500 --> 01:43:43.660
Tom: And the horror imagery as well in some of the more dreamlike sequences where you are crawling through a tunnel of corpses that are reaching for you is fantastic as well.
01:43:44.220 --> 01:43:54.100
Tom: And the use of Christian imagery, the cathedral sections look just absolutely beautiful.
01:43:54.780 --> 01:44:06.800
Tom: In terms of imagery, it is genuinely great and worth playing for the imagery alone if you are interested in games from an aesthetic perspective.
01:44:08.080 --> 01:44:15.900
Phil: Well, as I said, Asobo is now working on more, I guess you could say, down to earth material.
01:44:15.920 --> 01:44:27.120
Phil: They're working on Flight Simulator, which is a rather big job because Flight Simulator hasn't had a release since Flight Simulator 10, and that was about 10 or 11, 12 years ago at this point.
01:44:27.340 --> 01:44:40.500
Phil: Obviously, they've impressed Microsoft enough to be given the duty of bringing that back, but it is rather uncreative and mundane compared to what you're telling me about this game.
01:44:40.920 --> 01:44:43.340
Phil: Let's hope there's a sequel.
01:44:45.420 --> 01:44:47.880
Phil: Would you want a sequel?
01:44:49.400 --> 01:44:52.640
Tom: I would like an entirely new work from them.
01:44:54.780 --> 01:44:56.700
Tom: But I think it's time that we give it a score.
01:44:57.600 --> 01:44:59.260
Phil: Okay, so break out the die.
01:44:59.920 --> 01:45:00.760
Tom: I just have.
01:45:01.580 --> 01:45:02.400
Phil: The die of truth?
01:45:03.640 --> 01:45:04.000
Tom: Yes.
01:45:04.260 --> 01:45:21.700
Tom: Unfortunately, the game with genuinely great imagery that is worth playing for its imagery alone, with a finale that is similar to The Last of Us in its ability to thrill, gets a 5 out of 10.
01:45:23.280 --> 01:45:29.780
Phil: So this to me is one of the most positive impressions you've given of a game since the last podcast, Sky.
01:45:31.880 --> 01:45:34.560
Phil: I'm really happy that you found this game.
01:45:34.920 --> 01:45:37.160
Phil: I'm not sure what format I'm going to be playing it on.
01:45:39.180 --> 01:45:42.660
Phil: Certainly, it would take a pretty specced up PC, I'm sure.
01:45:44.460 --> 01:45:45.400
Tom: Probably not.
01:45:45.400 --> 01:45:54.280
Tom: It is an Unreal Engine game, and I do believe that it should easily scale down to low settings without an issue.
01:45:55.040 --> 01:45:56.560
Phil: Okay, and the name of the game again?
01:45:57.200 --> 01:45:59.640
Tom: The name of the game is Plague Tale Innocence.
01:46:01.060 --> 01:46:11.420
Tom: And looking up the minimum requirements, I think you could probably get away with playing it on the lowest settings just barely.
01:46:11.980 --> 01:46:27.200
Tom: It only requires an i3-2120, which I think actually is your CPU, if I recall correctly, and a Radeon HD 7870, which is possibly your video card?
01:46:28.260 --> 01:46:29.000
Phil: Sounds familiar.
01:46:29.620 --> 01:46:32.400
Tom: Or do you have the 7770?
01:46:32.420 --> 01:46:35.600
Phil: The 7770 actually sounds better.
01:46:35.900 --> 01:46:41.940
Tom: Well, then that is a big gap, video card-wise, but it would probably run.
01:46:43.500 --> 01:46:57.100
Phil: The cheapest way for me to get this would probably be, well, obviously getting Game Pass would be one option, but the cheapest way for me to get this would probably be used, which looks like you can pick it up on eBay for about 50 bucks, if you're lucky.
01:46:58.700 --> 01:47:04.080
Phil: But yeah, it's still pretty expensive everywhere, but I'm real excited about that.
01:47:04.100 --> 01:47:13.920
Tom: It seems to be selling well and have a positive reception, so in spite of its title and us having never heard of it, it seems to be a success.
01:47:14.460 --> 01:47:24.000
Phil: Yeah, well, the true measure of any video game success is if it's been used or turned into some sort of digital pornography, so I'll check on that later.
01:47:26.300 --> 01:47:27.000
Phil: I mean, I'm just...
01:47:27.020 --> 01:47:28.040
Tom: Alas, go on.
01:47:29.020 --> 01:47:36.920
Phil: If you do an image search for any video game, you can tell it's popular or not if you have Safe Search off, because yeah, okay, yep.
01:47:37.820 --> 01:47:40.860
Tom: It is about a brother and sister relationship, so...
01:47:42.040 --> 01:47:43.560
Phil: Yeah, I'm not going to look.
01:47:43.960 --> 01:47:45.000
Tom: It writes itself.
01:47:45.480 --> 01:47:47.200
Phil: Yeah, I'm not going to look.
01:47:47.980 --> 01:47:48.940
Phil: Anything else on this one?
01:47:49.920 --> 01:47:55.100
Tom: Yeah, I just wanted to say the other notable thing about it is this is a genuine mid-tier game.
01:47:56.420 --> 01:47:57.160
Phil: Oh, yeah, yeah.
01:47:57.200 --> 01:47:58.340
Phil: So, you know, for me...
01:47:58.360 --> 01:48:16.020
Tom: Published by Focus Home Interactive, by a developer who makes their career, clearly makes their real money, which allows them to have made a couple of original titles from their hack work on licensed titles.
01:48:16.040 --> 01:48:19.620
Tom: So, it's nice to see that these are still going around.
01:48:19.880 --> 01:48:22.360
Phil: It is, and I'm glad I now know about Asobo.
01:48:22.420 --> 01:48:24.700
Phil: That's great, so I'll be keeping an eye on them.
01:48:24.720 --> 01:48:45.320
Tom: And it's doing what you want out of mid-tier game, because while gameplay-wise it is very much inspired by Our Charters and The Last of Us, structurally, in terms of the way it interprets that, it's doing something pretty interesting and original, albeit it only really works towards the end.
01:48:45.680 --> 01:48:51.900
Tom: And setting-wise, it is classic mid-tier creative freedom.
01:48:53.140 --> 01:48:53.980
Phil: Which is what I love.
01:48:55.580 --> 01:49:04.220
Phil: Obviously, when I first looked at it, I got vibes of The Order, which would kind of fit that bill as well, even though it was produced by Sony, it was made by a small developer.
01:49:05.780 --> 01:49:07.560
Phil: Yeah, so alright, well thanks for that.
01:49:10.320 --> 01:49:23.780
Tom: While we're on the topic of Inquisitions though, I do have to bring up the social Inquisition, which has hilariously afflicted a lot of comedy, works of comedy going around at the moment.
01:49:24.440 --> 01:49:37.820
Tom: I believe Chris Lilly's work, Little Britain, and The Mighty Bush have been removed from various streaming devices.
01:49:38.840 --> 01:49:58.580
Tom: And I bring this up just because it is absolutely hilarious that Summer Heights High would be removed on the basis of blackface and racism, when Summer Heights High does indeed feature Chris Lilly playing an islander.
01:49:58.880 --> 01:50:01.600
Tom: But I believe you've seen Summer Heights High, right?
01:50:02.900 --> 01:50:03.580
Phil: Yeah, I have.
01:50:04.040 --> 01:50:07.100
Phil: I'm familiar with it, and I know the character you're talking about.
01:50:07.560 --> 01:50:07.860
Tom: Yep.
01:50:10.860 --> 01:50:12.200
Phil: It's an Australian-based...
01:50:12.960 --> 01:50:22.340
Phil: Well, basically, there's a comedian named Chris Lilly who is good at doing, or is noted for doing, what do you call it, character work, I guess, where he'll play multiple...
01:50:22.360 --> 01:50:23.420
Tom: I would say he's good at it.
01:50:23.660 --> 01:50:35.600
Phil: Yeah, he'll play multiple characters in a single episode, and typically they're done in the style of The Office, so there's a lot of, you know, staring at the camera, break the fourth wall.
01:50:35.620 --> 01:50:37.140
Phil: Yeah, mockumentaries, exactly.
01:50:38.200 --> 01:50:40.020
Phil: And so that's been removed.
01:50:40.400 --> 01:50:45.880
Phil: I had heard about Little Britain being removed from the BBC streaming.
01:50:47.000 --> 01:50:51.260
Tom: Yes, I believe Chris Lilley's shows have been removed from Netflix.
01:50:52.220 --> 01:50:53.160
Phil: Okay, wow.
01:50:54.480 --> 01:50:57.500
Phil: That's because they feature Blackface.
01:50:58.680 --> 01:50:59.040
Tom: Yes.
01:50:59.920 --> 01:51:05.260
Tom: Well, they don't really feature Blackface, because here's something that I think has been missed.
01:51:05.280 --> 01:51:12.200
Tom: Blackface refers to an American vaudeville tradition.
01:51:13.520 --> 01:51:21.220
Tom: Blackface does not refer to anyone playing someone of a different race, or at least it shouldn't.
01:51:21.340 --> 01:51:29.820
Tom: And if it does, one can only be against someone playing someone of a different race on the basis of races.
01:51:29.840 --> 01:51:32.740
Tom: It's my understanding of the concept of racism.
01:51:33.180 --> 01:51:42.840
Tom: I can understand being against blackface, given that blackface was an anti-black racist depiction of black people.
01:51:43.580 --> 01:52:05.800
Tom: But being against someone playing someone of another race implies that it is impossible to empathize with other races and creatively depict them in a manner that may be enlightening or interesting, which is entirely a racist perspective.
01:52:06.560 --> 01:52:21.900
Tom: But that's not why I bring up the hilarity of Summer Heights High being removed from things, because Chris Lilly's character Jonah in Summer Heights High had several friends who were all played by islanders in the show.
01:52:21.920 --> 01:52:47.300
Tom: So on the basis that this is blackface, and I presume probably most of this group of people also would have wanted greater representation for minority groups on scene screens, you were removing a show that had multiple islander characters, certainly more than any other Australian show that I can think of off the top of my head.
01:52:47.940 --> 01:52:59.000
Tom: And in terms of the content of the show and certainly the depiction of Jonah, there's literally no way for anything to be interpreted as being racist.
01:52:59.300 --> 01:53:01.700
Tom: If anything, it is certainly anti-racist.
01:53:01.920 --> 01:53:21.120
Tom: And the other notable thing about Summer Heights High in particular is, while The Castle is a famous depiction of poor people, and Kath and Kim, for instance, as well, in the Australian mental spirit, they're working class, those depictions.
01:53:21.320 --> 01:53:25.020
Tom: But The Castle, for instance, they're certainly not poor.
01:53:25.040 --> 01:53:28.080
Tom: They've got a holiday home, multiple cars.
01:53:28.400 --> 01:53:31.140
Tom: They're obviously a well-off working class family.
01:53:31.480 --> 01:53:37.660
Tom: Summer Heights High in Jonah is a positive, empathetic depiction.
01:53:38.640 --> 01:53:55.020
Tom: And not only a positive, empathetic depiction of someone who is actually poor, but someone who is persecuted, often unfairly, by an institution, in this case, public education.
01:53:55.540 --> 01:54:00.920
Tom: And this is apparently something that should not be shown because it is racist.
01:54:02.160 --> 01:54:03.840
Tom: I do not really understand that.
01:54:06.500 --> 01:54:10.700
Phil: Well, you can file all of that sort of activity as absolutely missing the point.
01:54:10.840 --> 01:54:13.000
Phil: And context is everything.
01:54:14.700 --> 01:54:17.440
Phil: And I don't want to live a life without context.
01:54:18.260 --> 01:54:18.900
Phil: And I don't.
01:54:19.200 --> 01:54:23.320
Phil: But, I mean, all this is doing is highlighting people's ignorance, really.
01:54:23.820 --> 01:54:26.300
Phil: And to me, there's nothing more deplorable than ignorance.
01:54:28.580 --> 01:54:30.860
Phil: Yeah, so really sad way to end out the show.
01:54:31.540 --> 01:54:35.860
Phil: Surely you've got something more positive to share.
01:54:36.920 --> 01:54:47.780
Tom: Well, the only more positive thing that I would have to share would be my thoughts on whether Mine Camp or Leviathan is worse.
01:54:48.060 --> 01:54:55.500
Tom: And which is the best of The Turner Diaries, Submission and The Camp of the Saints.
01:54:56.820 --> 01:55:01.240
Tom: So I think that would probably not be a more positive way to end the show.
01:55:03.820 --> 01:55:11.780
Phil: I have no idea what you're talking about with the second instance, but in terms of Leviathan, and that was of course what we know.
01:55:11.800 --> 01:55:15.460
Phil: We're not going to get into it at this point.
01:55:15.680 --> 01:55:16.820
Tom: We will in the next show.
01:55:16.840 --> 01:55:21.760
Tom: I also began Grid, the 2019 version.
01:55:22.600 --> 01:55:23.580
Phil: Oh, let me write that down.
01:55:24.700 --> 01:55:33.860
Tom: And that would be a more positive way to win the show, but that deserves more in-depth first impressions than I believe we have time for.
01:55:33.880 --> 01:55:36.220
Phil: Well, I think Leviathan...
01:55:36.780 --> 01:55:42.820
Phil: Clearly Leviathan is the worst of the two because it is the genesis of it, and MineCamp does not exist.
01:55:43.260 --> 01:55:43.900
Tom: Exactly.
01:55:44.480 --> 01:55:47.260
Phil: Without Leviathan to start with.
01:55:48.020 --> 01:55:55.860
Tom: MineCamp can basically be summarized as Leviathan plus Hitler randomly mentioning the Jews.
01:55:57.080 --> 01:55:58.020
Tom: That's basically...
01:55:59.320 --> 01:56:03.560
Tom: And also taking 800 pages as well.
01:56:04.460 --> 01:56:10.300
Phil: It's basically like a cheap pulp fiction paperback version, you know, rip-off.
01:56:10.760 --> 01:56:11.960
Phil: The guy wasn't a good painter.
01:56:11.980 --> 01:56:13.900
Phil: He wasn't a good writer.
01:56:19.160 --> 01:56:20.640
Tom: I think he was an okay painter.
01:56:21.680 --> 01:56:24.520
Tom: He was an okay painter.
01:56:24.800 --> 01:56:28.240
Tom: He was an interesting writer.
01:56:29.420 --> 01:56:32.600
Tom: I wouldn't say good, but I think there is merit to his writing.
01:56:33.160 --> 01:56:36.420
Tom: And as a leader, he was obviously one of the greatest ever.
01:56:36.460 --> 01:56:38.440
Tom: I think that's undeniably the case.
01:56:40.100 --> 01:56:42.380
Tom: But he certainly had not a single original thought.
01:56:44.540 --> 01:56:46.780
Phil: You want to talk about hack writers?
01:56:46.800 --> 01:56:48.100
Phil: Mussolini was a hack.
01:56:49.040 --> 01:56:50.020
Tom: He didn't write anything.
01:56:51.020 --> 01:56:53.220
Tom: His book was ghost-ridden.
01:56:53.240 --> 01:56:54.900
Tom: And he's absolutely hilarious.
01:56:55.700 --> 01:57:01.480
Tom: If you read one fascist book, read Mussolini's book on fascism.
01:57:01.880 --> 01:57:03.840
Tom: It is a laugh riot.
01:57:04.120 --> 01:57:05.100
Tom: It is a laugh a minute.
01:57:05.320 --> 01:57:05.900
Tom: Read that.
01:57:06.240 --> 01:57:15.240
Tom: But the one thing I will say about Hitler, and I've been reading a lot of racist stuff, so when I say Summer Heights High isn't racist, I know what I'm fucking talking about.
01:57:16.280 --> 01:57:38.400
Tom: The thing that I like about Hitler, and it's the one thing I like about Hitler, he's possibly the only racist that I've come across who is unashamedly racist, admits he's racist, and admonishes other people for not being racist, and at no point does he call anti-racist or liberals the real racists.
01:57:40.700 --> 01:57:48.060
Tom: Whereas that's the go-to for racist people, is everyone is racist except for racists.
01:57:49.740 --> 01:57:56.260
Tom: No matter how racist they are, no matter how acceptable racism in the era, they're from, they are not racist.
01:57:58.300 --> 01:58:02.000
Phil: Well, thanks for, that is actually a better point to leave the show on.
01:58:02.000 --> 01:58:05.840
Phil: Thank you everyone for listening to episode 126 of The Game Under Podcast.
01:58:05.980 --> 01:58:09.540
Phil: I have been Phil Fogg, you have been Tom Towers.
01:58:09.580 --> 01:58:14.560
Tom: And for the record, the winner of the fiction is Submission.
01:58:15.300 --> 01:58:24.360
Tom: The Camp of the Saints is the, probably the most disgusting and vile fiction book ever written, but it makes literally no sense.
01:58:24.380 --> 01:58:26.660
Tom: Read the Wikipedia plot summary.
01:58:27.040 --> 01:58:29.420
Tom: It is that nonsensical in the book itself.
01:58:29.860 --> 01:58:39.960
Tom: Submission is a plausible, logical, interesting, absolutely terribly written, mediocre, banal book, but it makes sense.
01:58:40.980 --> 01:58:43.780
Tom: How France got to that point makes absolutely no sense.
01:58:43.800 --> 01:58:56.480
Tom: So the book itself, beyond its depiction of the events that actually occur in the book, doesn't make any sense, but that's one step above The Turner Diaries and, sorry, The Camp of the Saints.
01:58:56.500 --> 01:58:58.400
Tom: So Submission is the winner there.
01:58:59.840 --> 01:59:01.940
Phil: Okay, we'll have to come back to that one definitely.
01:59:04.900 --> 01:59:05.380
Phil: Let's see.
01:59:05.400 --> 01:59:12.560
Phil: Okay, so we'll be recording another show soon, I guess, but we've got to get through some of those 1600 games first.
01:59:12.640 --> 01:59:14.380
Phil: So with that, good night everybody.
Tom: And please look forward to Grid 2019.
Tom: Death and Taxes, Sludge something or other, and who knows what other weird indie shit.
Phil: Sludge life, yeah.
Phil: Right on.