Game Under Podcast 126

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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.

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Tom: So I think we're, as ever, ahead of the curve.

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Phil: Well, we certainly are ahead of the curve, and that relates to COVID as well.

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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.

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Phil: And it said on the front, Donald J.

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Phil: Trump financial relief package.

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Phil: I'm not joking.

00:01:43.220 --> 00:01:44.120

Phil: This is not a joke.

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Phil: This year is great.

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Phil: I got $1,200 US dollars.

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Phil: I cashed it.

00:01:48.380 --> 00:01:50.840

Phil: It was like over $1,700 Australian.

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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.

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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?

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Tom: Yes, I am.

00:03:36.220 --> 00:03:37.980

Tom: I actually got it before you did.

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Phil: Well, thanks for the heads up.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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?

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Phil: Yeah.

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Tom: That was one of them that immediately stood out to me.

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Tom: Another was, of course, Night in the Woods.

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Tom: Yeah.

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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.

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Phil: Podcast, yeah.

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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?

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Tom: I have played the first level, which is basically a tutorial.

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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.

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Tom: The opening in terms of gameplay did not make a great impression.

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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.

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Tom: But it is essentially a tutorial.

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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.

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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.

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Phil: And that's the great thing, I guess, is the exposure.

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Phil: And then, you know, I'm following the developers as I'm downloading these.

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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.

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Phil: And it looked right up our alley.

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Phil: And then there was a-

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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.

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Phil: I saw that, and I know I've heard of that before too.

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Phil: But then, wasn't there a TV show about, or a movie about space junk janitors?

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Tom: Yes, there is an anime at least about it, which I have forgotten the title of, but it is an excellent show.

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Tom: One of the best animes of all time, I would argue.

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Phil: Okay, I remember that one too.

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Tom: And I think there's also an OVA unrelated to it as well.

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Tom: The name of which I can remember, which is Pat Labor or Pat LeBour.

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Tom: I have no idea how it's pronounced.

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Tom: I think that is in a similar vein as well.

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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.

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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.

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Tom: The show is excellent, but apparently the manga was just okay, sadly.

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Phil: According to me.

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Tom: Yes.

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Phil: Yeah, I remember that one.

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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.

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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.

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Phil: It's actually pretty okay so far.

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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.

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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.

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Tom: I want a statistic on the number of people who play the games they own even once.

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Phil: Yeah, and you know what?

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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.

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Phil: And it's probably in the hundreds of millions.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.