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Intro
0:00:10 Democracy is Dead in Victoria, (Apparently)
Final Impressions
0:05:35 Sludge Life for PC and Switch
0:23:35 Stranger Things 3 The Game & Ready Player One
0:27:51 Sky: Children of Light "Expansion" Season of Sanctuary
0:36:42 Death and Taxes (soilers at 52 minutes)
1:01:21 Beat Cop
Trademark Banter
1:27:45 Metro Exodus and Various Game Store Platforms
1:41:30 Armchair Marxism
Transcript
Phil: Hello, and welcome to Episode 127 of The Game Under Podcast.
Phil: I'm your co-host, Phil Fogg, and I'm joined by Tom Towers.
Phil: Tom, how are you?
Tom: I am surprisingly well, given the cold and wet weather, and that I believe, according to Alan Jones, democracy is dead in Victoria.
Phil: Democracy is dead in your home state?
Tom: Yes, it is, apparently.
Phil: Is that because of the, now you guys have had a bit of a situation with the whole virus thing, SARS-2, is that, have your liberties been taken away from you more so than recently?
Tom: Well, I did not look in any more.
Tom: This was on a YouTube thumbnail featuring Alan Jones.
Tom: So I don't actually want to know why, but I would suspect probably the main reason, according to Alan Jones, that democracy will be dead in Victoria would be the fact that a Labour party was elected some time ago.
Tom: So that would probably be the reason.
Phil: All right, so for our internationalist, Alan Jones, classify him as a conservative talk show host.
Phil: He's on AM radio or FM radio.
Tom: Alan Jones is essentially a polite version of Alex Jones and Australian without the wonderful existential commentary of Alex Jones.
Phil: Yes.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: Well, look, I'm glad to be here.
00:01:40.300 --> 00:01:42.940
Phil: I know that we were very upbeat the last time that we spoke.
00:01:43.480 --> 00:01:47.400
Phil: And then since then, I've been listening to various other video game podcasts.
00:01:47.420 --> 00:01:50.960
Phil: It's been quite dank and dire.
00:01:51.040 --> 00:02:04.560
Phil: There's like a major podcast that opened up in its first like hour was talking about a resurgence of Me Too affecting the game community and entertainment community and all this sort of thing.
00:02:04.600 --> 00:02:10.900
Phil: And I was like, the only place I actually heard about it was on video game podcasts.
00:02:10.920 --> 00:02:14.320
Phil: I didn't hear about it anywhere else in everything else that I listened to.
00:02:14.360 --> 00:02:18.380
Phil: And you know, I listen to copious amounts of media every week.
00:02:19.040 --> 00:02:20.520
Phil: Have you picked up on this at all?
00:02:21.780 --> 00:02:28.140
Tom: I think there's something going on in a few large developers, possibly Ubisoft.
00:02:29.300 --> 00:02:34.740
Tom: And also, I think, again, more things in the fighting game community.
00:02:35.120 --> 00:02:36.740
Phil: Yeah, yeah, I heard about that.
00:02:36.960 --> 00:02:38.820
Tom: But I don't know many details.
00:02:39.220 --> 00:02:44.580
Phil: Yeah, and there's also been some scuttlebutt in the game press as well.
00:02:44.600 --> 00:02:47.660
Phil: And I think that's probably what they were self-flagellating themselves about.
00:02:48.660 --> 00:02:54.800
Phil: But really, ultimately, I just don't get all of the negativity.
00:02:54.820 --> 00:02:59.760
Phil: And people, you know, being freaked out about staying at home for such a long period, I just don't get it.
00:03:00.080 --> 00:03:03.780
Phil: I would love to have an extended period of time at home.
00:03:04.760 --> 00:03:07.160
Tom: The air quality is significantly better here.
00:03:07.580 --> 00:03:08.960
Tom: Less traffic noise.
00:03:09.780 --> 00:03:18.180
Tom: And the people who were able to at least walk around are significantly more relaxed and friendly than usual.
00:03:18.660 --> 00:03:23.420
Phil: Yeah, yeah, because maybe because they're appreciating, you know, walking around more than not.
00:03:23.680 --> 00:03:24.340
Phil: Indeed.
00:03:24.380 --> 00:03:25.160
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
00:03:25.600 --> 00:03:27.220
Phil: Anyway, I just thought that was interesting.
00:03:27.240 --> 00:03:32.960
Phil: And in other bad news or whatever else, The Game Informer continues to collapse.
00:03:32.980 --> 00:03:44.120
Phil: And I guess at this point, I'll just stop mentioning it in the show because it just seems to be a weekly thing where the final video game magazine is going away.
00:03:44.140 --> 00:03:47.920
Tom: Hasn't Game Informer gone away about five times now?
00:03:48.040 --> 00:03:50.020
Phil: Well, they just keep whittling it away.
00:03:50.040 --> 00:03:55.340
Phil: And then finally, their chief editor, who'd been there for 29 years, finally got the picture and left.
00:03:56.000 --> 00:03:58.340
Phil: And then a couple of other people left as well.
00:03:58.400 --> 00:04:00.140
Phil: So I don't know why...
00:04:00.160 --> 00:04:06.400
Tom: As disappointed as you will be when Game Informer finally ceases to exist, I will be equally pleased because...
00:04:06.640 --> 00:04:07.940
Phil: You don't have to hear about this anymore.
00:04:07.960 --> 00:04:08.440
Tom: Exactly.
00:04:08.740 --> 00:04:09.040
Phil: Yeah.
00:04:09.380 --> 00:04:12.980
Phil: Look, the thing is, I don't think they're actually even very good at what they do.
00:04:13.000 --> 00:04:17.700
Phil: In fact, they've been consistently poor with their podcast since inception.
00:04:18.680 --> 00:04:21.520
Phil: Their reviews are poor, their features are poor.
00:04:21.540 --> 00:04:22.620
Phil: I don't know why I care.
00:04:22.700 --> 00:04:27.280
Phil: I guess it's just the tangible magazine, which they cancelled in Australia long ago.
00:04:27.860 --> 00:04:35.240
Tom: Much like Hyper, which has been awful for many, many years, if not perhaps a decade or so.
00:04:36.720 --> 00:04:45.480
Tom: And who knows if it still exists or not, but it would be a pity if it did in fact cease to exist, in spite of its atrocious state of existence.
00:04:45.920 --> 00:04:49.700
Phil: I went into a newsagent last week to get a video game magazine.
00:04:49.720 --> 00:04:52.280
Phil: They had absolutely nothing, like there was nothing.
00:04:52.840 --> 00:04:53.980
Phil: I take that back.
00:04:54.300 --> 00:05:04.560
Phil: There was a magazine called PlayStation 5 that had a picture of the PlayStation 5 controller on the front, and a tagline that says, everything you need to know about the PlayStation 5 controller.
00:05:05.040 --> 00:05:09.820
Phil: And of course, this is two weeks after the actual console has been revealed.
00:05:10.740 --> 00:05:13.600
Phil: And it was about 30 pages long and $17.
00:05:13.660 --> 00:05:14.740
Phil: And so I was just like...
00:05:14.760 --> 00:05:17.940
Tom: So it was more so an advertising pamphlet by the sense of it.
00:05:18.200 --> 00:05:19.940
Phil: Yeah, for $17.
00:05:21.260 --> 00:05:29.060
Phil: But, you know, in positive news, in the small amount of time I have been able to play video games, I've been really quite enjoying it.
00:05:29.200 --> 00:05:38.820
Phil: And I know that we've played a couple of games in common recently, one of which was given away for free on Epic Games called Sludge Life.
00:05:38.860 --> 00:05:44.940
Phil: Now, you're going to have to lead on this one, because I don't know too much about who made it or anything about the backstory.
00:05:44.960 --> 00:05:55.340
Tom: Well, the first thing to mention about Sludge Life, which I have found to be lacking in most coverage of the game, but the soundtrack is by Dose One.
00:05:58.400 --> 00:06:02.780
Tom: And I'm sure you have heard of Dose One and are familiar with his work.
00:06:03.120 --> 00:06:04.940
Phil: Well, he has a very...
00:06:05.480 --> 00:06:08.680
Phil: I can see why you would like him, because he has a very...
00:06:10.720 --> 00:06:11.540
Phil: How would you say it?
00:06:11.560 --> 00:06:19.760
Phil: He's a style that relies heavily on wordplay or just speaking, and he has an interesting voice himself.
00:06:19.780 --> 00:06:26.540
Phil: And I've often wondered if he's got a hearing impairment of some kind in the way that he modifies his voice.
00:06:26.560 --> 00:06:30.420
Phil: But like all good rappers, it works to great effect.
00:06:31.240 --> 00:06:32.780
Phil: And he has a very...
00:06:33.020 --> 00:06:40.540
Tom: And interestingly in this, usually in most of his work, he's got a very high-pitched grating voice.
00:06:40.580 --> 00:06:55.220
Tom: But in Sludge Life, in the few songs in the game where there is any rapping, it is in the DJ screw tape style of slowed down, very deep vocals.
00:06:55.920 --> 00:06:59.700
Phil: Which kind of matches with the visuals of the game, I think.
00:07:00.420 --> 00:07:01.080
Tom: Absolutely.
00:07:01.700 --> 00:07:08.880
Tom: But he is one of the most important indie rappers.
00:07:08.900 --> 00:07:23.500
Tom: He was a co-founder of Anticon, which was the biggest indie rap slash underground rap label of the second wave of it outside of definitive juxt slash deaf juxt.
00:07:24.240 --> 00:07:31.880
Tom: So it's pretty surprising that no one seems to have picked up on this as being a significant thing about it.
00:07:31.900 --> 00:07:46.160
Tom: And certainly a lot of reviews mention how great the soundtrack is, and they will mention who made it, but not his history as one of the most important indie rappers.
00:07:46.180 --> 00:07:54.800
Tom: And he was in Cloud Dead as well, and deep puddle dynamics to very important rap groups.
00:07:54.880 --> 00:08:28.820
Tom: And I have to give a shout out to Bugsy, who put me on to Cloud Dead because he mentioned it when he saw that I was listening to Eskimo by The Residents, a band we've mentioned on here before, and said that it was very similar to that, which is something I don't think many people would notice, but the fake Eskimo speech of Eskimo by The Residents is indeed quite similar to the rapping style on Cloud Dead.
00:08:28.840 --> 00:08:36.640
Tom: And there are obviously similarities in the ambient rap beat style compared to the ambient rock style of The Residents.
00:08:36.960 --> 00:08:40.740
Phil: So the name of the artist is Doseone, that's D-O-S-E-O-N-E.
00:08:41.140 --> 00:08:51.320
Phil: And in looking up this game, I'm just going to read the description of it, but most importantly, and I did say more importantly, the developer is actually listed as Terry Velman and Doseone.
00:08:51.380 --> 00:08:54.120
Phil: So Doseone actually gets a development credit on it.
00:08:54.920 --> 00:09:01.600
Phil: If the game is published, it's no surprise by Devolver Digital, and it's available on PC and Nintendo Switch.
00:09:01.720 --> 00:09:02.860
Phil: So I'm just going to read the description.
00:09:02.880 --> 00:09:03.900
Phil: It's here because it's pretty good.
00:09:04.160 --> 00:09:12.480
Phil: Sludge Life is a first-person, vandalism-centric stroll through a polluted island full of cranky idiots and a vibe so thick you can taste it.
00:09:13.120 --> 00:09:18.600
Phil: Roam a tiny island, stuck on a sludge-covered planet as an upcoming tagger ghost.
00:09:19.920 --> 00:09:22.200
Phil: And that's, so it's first person.
00:09:22.440 --> 00:09:24.960
Tom: So we basically don't need to comment on that.
00:09:24.980 --> 00:09:25.420
Phil: Do anything.
00:09:25.440 --> 00:09:26.800
Phil: No, I mean, that's it right there.
00:09:26.820 --> 00:09:28.760
Phil: I gave it a 7.3 out of 10.
00:09:28.780 --> 00:09:29.240
Phil: How about you?
00:09:29.680 --> 00:09:33.560
Tom: Well, I will have to get the dice out to rate it.
00:09:33.580 --> 00:09:39.120
Tom: And the dice is fittingly a vomitous sort of green colour.
00:09:39.780 --> 00:09:46.720
Tom: But before we do that, what wasn't mentioned other than that it was vandalism-centric was much about the gameplay.
00:09:46.800 --> 00:10:04.400
Tom: And essentially, it is basically a platforming, first person platforming game where the focus is more so on exploration and figuring out how to get things than it is on the actual platforming part of the game.
00:10:04.440 --> 00:10:08.940
Tom: The platforming is very janky at first.
00:10:09.160 --> 00:10:17.760
Tom: It required a fair bit of fiddling around with the mouse sensitivity to get it to a reasonably playable state.
00:10:17.780 --> 00:10:18.980
Tom: But once I did...
00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:19.180
Tom: What?
00:10:19.220 --> 00:10:21.800
Phil: A first person platformer that's somewhat janky?
00:10:21.840 --> 00:10:22.860
Phil: How could this be?
00:10:23.220 --> 00:10:24.640
Phil: I thought they'd mastered this.
00:10:24.660 --> 00:10:25.660
Tom: Which isn't at all janky.
00:10:26.320 --> 00:10:29.080
Phil: No, it's not, but it's also a lot on rails, secretly.
00:10:29.940 --> 00:10:31.300
Tom: I don't think it actually is.
00:10:32.440 --> 00:10:39.900
Tom: When you actually go around exploring and attempting to be as fast as possible in Mirror's Edge, I don't think it is on rails at all.
00:10:40.780 --> 00:10:44.380
Tom: I think that is a slanderous statement.
00:10:45.020 --> 00:10:57.280
Phil: I just thought that there were these massive hitboxes in Mirror's Edge that if you could get your body into, they'd prepare you a little bit around and into the next part, and then you had to jump and hit the next hitbox.
00:10:57.300 --> 00:11:02.260
Tom: There is that to some degree, but I think you were exaggerating it slightly.
00:11:02.400 --> 00:11:03.600
Phil: Well, it's not on rails.
00:11:03.620 --> 00:11:07.780
Phil: It's jumped from rail to rail.
00:11:09.020 --> 00:11:14.120
Phil: Anyway, so you were able to get this working properly after you mucked around with your mouse?
00:11:14.140 --> 00:11:15.280
Tom: Yes, I was indeed.
00:11:16.400 --> 00:11:28.400
Tom: The interesting thing about the platforming is, unlike Mirror's Edge, it does not signpost everything to the same obnoxious degree that gets in the way of the aesthetic.
00:11:28.420 --> 00:11:35.840
Tom: There is certainly signposting, but a lot of the details on how the platforming works isn't really signposted at all.
00:11:35.860 --> 00:11:51.640
Tom: So for instance, there's a climbing mechanic where you are not just jumping up and onto things, but if you have the door of a crate in front of you and it has the bars, you can actually climb along them.
00:11:51.740 --> 00:12:10.160
Tom: And little details like that aren't really explained, which I thought was to its betterment rather than detriment, because it kept things more interesting and it gave it more of a puzzle-solving sense, even though there are only two or three puzzles in the game.
00:12:10.780 --> 00:12:16.120
Tom: But those two or three puzzles in the game, again, I think deserve a lot of credit.
00:12:16.140 --> 00:12:22.940
Tom: They are not at all explained, but how you actually solve them is very, very clever.
00:12:22.960 --> 00:12:26.720
Tom: And once you figure it out, it is extremely satisfying.
00:12:27.220 --> 00:12:30.640
Phil: Was there one where you have to do something with a large piece of celery?
00:12:30.800 --> 00:12:33.340
Phil: Or was that a dream I had?
00:12:33.360 --> 00:12:34.560
Phil: Or was it large carrot?
00:12:35.340 --> 00:12:36.880
Tom: I think that may have been a dream.
00:12:37.080 --> 00:12:38.760
Phil: Okay, with a crane?
00:12:38.780 --> 00:12:40.540
Phil: Crane was involved in some manner?
00:12:40.840 --> 00:12:41.820
Tom: There was a saddle.
00:12:41.840 --> 00:12:51.260
Tom: Well, there are cranes in the game that you can climb to the top of and jump off and use a glider that is one of the items that you find in the game.
00:12:52.520 --> 00:12:53.620
Tom: To fly around in.
00:12:54.440 --> 00:12:57.760
Phil: How would you describe the visual pastiche of the game?
00:12:58.960 --> 00:13:01.620
Tom: A very cartoony visual style.
00:13:01.640 --> 00:13:06.440
Tom: The tradition of indie comics, I would say.
00:13:06.860 --> 00:13:13.060
Phil: Yeah, it's not cartoon-like, but it's got a sort of a fishbowl filter the whole time.
00:13:13.140 --> 00:13:14.840
Phil: So it's sort of...
00:13:14.860 --> 00:13:17.020
Tom: It's more so of a pixelated filter.
00:13:17.320 --> 00:13:17.800
Phil: Yeah.
00:13:18.020 --> 00:13:20.060
Tom: To make it a very low res.
00:13:20.760 --> 00:13:21.200
Phil: Right.
00:13:21.620 --> 00:13:29.320
Phil: And it sort of looks in some manner like a PlayStation 1 game, like Gran Turismo 1, where everything's sort of a bit fluid.
00:13:30.980 --> 00:13:32.160
Phil: But in a way.
00:13:32.460 --> 00:13:33.140
Tom: Exactly.
00:13:33.760 --> 00:13:44.420
Tom: And if you alter the config file, or just look it up on YouTube, essentially the graphics are cell shaded, but there is a filter over it to pixelate everything.
00:13:44.620 --> 00:13:45.480
Phil: That's what I figured.
00:13:45.560 --> 00:13:45.880
Phil: Yeah.
00:13:46.400 --> 00:13:47.300
Phil: I figured as such.
00:13:48.020 --> 00:13:58.780
Tom: And personally, I think the filter greatly improves the visual style, adding to the aesthetic of the experience.
00:13:58.920 --> 00:14:00.400
Phil: It's what you want with a video game.
00:14:00.420 --> 00:14:09.040
Phil: I mean, you see it in motion, and it immediately underscores some of the themes of the games, but it also gives it a very unique identity.
00:14:09.240 --> 00:14:13.620
Phil: I mean, like, you know, there's some games you look at and it could be anything.
00:14:13.660 --> 00:14:21.440
Phil: This particular game, there's no question that once you've associated it with Sludge Life, you could see any frame from that game and go, that's Sludge Life.
00:14:22.620 --> 00:14:23.240
Tom: Absolutely.
00:14:23.620 --> 00:14:26.660
Phil: It does have a vandalism bent to it.
00:14:26.680 --> 00:14:29.420
Phil: I mean, that is pretty much the point of the game, right?
00:14:29.920 --> 00:14:52.080
Tom: Essentially, the goal of the game is to, in terms of the story, to escape the island, and you can escape the island without doing much graffiti or potentially any graffiti at all, because you have to get to a certain area and steal something to be able to escape.
00:14:52.740 --> 00:15:11.180
Tom: Another ending you can also theoretically get to without doing any graffiti, but the best ending of the game, which is known as the weird ending, to get that you do need to hit all the graffiti spots in the game.
00:15:11.200 --> 00:15:13.220
Tom: I think there are 100 in total.
00:15:13.860 --> 00:15:14.980
Phil: Have you got to the end of the game?
00:15:15.120 --> 00:15:15.840
Tom: Yes, I have.
00:15:15.900 --> 00:15:18.140
Tom: I have 100%ed it.
00:15:18.160 --> 00:15:21.400
Phil: So you've got all 100 vandalism marks.
00:15:21.420 --> 00:15:25.720
Tom: Yes, and also all the other side things as well.
00:15:26.020 --> 00:15:32.660
Phil: As you go through the game, does the vandalism change or is it the same throughout?
00:15:33.240 --> 00:15:46.980
Tom: It's the same throughout, but a couple of them require some reasonable feats of platforming as well as reasonable feats of puzzle solving, at least two or three.
00:15:47.860 --> 00:15:57.960
Phil: If they had added different modes of vandalism, like stencils or whatever, would that have hurt the game, you think, or taken away from it?
00:15:59.200 --> 00:16:12.360
Tom: I think the focus is, rather than, say, in getting up, I think the focus here is more so on the platforming than the end point of the graffiti.
00:16:12.400 --> 00:16:23.640
Tom: And I also think it fits better the style of the game that it is about tagging and best throw-ups rather than doing pieces and that sort of thing.
00:16:23.740 --> 00:16:25.600
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
00:16:25.640 --> 00:16:35.080
Phil: A lot of attention, in fact, pretty much all the attention from anyone on this game has been the use of drugs and being under the influence of drugs.
00:16:35.240 --> 00:16:37.180
Phil: I don't know, it didn't seem to...
00:16:38.560 --> 00:16:43.540
Phil: I thought the whole game was already, you know, in a way, a lucid dream kind of thing.
00:16:43.560 --> 00:16:49.100
Phil: So I didn't really think that that added or detracted too much from the game or was a major point.
00:16:50.060 --> 00:16:55.440
Phil: But as the game developed, I mean, that could have been quite good in terms of hallucination.
00:16:55.460 --> 00:17:06.820
Phil: In fact, I mean, one of the mechanics that I found was it helped you navigate upwards and see your surrounds a little bit better, so you could try to figure out how to get to the next part.
00:17:07.680 --> 00:17:08.060
Phil: Did they do...
00:17:08.080 --> 00:17:20.540
Tom: Yes, I thought that was actually, on several occasions to me, the hallucinations where you have an outer body experience and can navigate around was actually very useful.
00:17:20.660 --> 00:17:23.540
Tom: So I thought that was nicely worked into the gameplay.
00:17:23.880 --> 00:17:26.060
Phil: Do you think there was a message or a theme there?
00:17:26.060 --> 00:17:31.800
Phil: You know, I mean about the use of drugs and how it can give you different perspectives and superior perspectives?
00:17:32.300 --> 00:17:33.120
Tom: Undoubtedly.
00:17:35.920 --> 00:17:37.560
Phil: What did you think about the...
00:17:38.120 --> 00:17:42.800
Phil: It's a polluted island, and it's full of workers who are on strike.
00:17:44.120 --> 00:17:45.840
Phil: Those are the people that you're interacting with.
00:17:45.860 --> 00:17:49.480
Phil: There are other people there, fantastical figures as well.
00:17:49.800 --> 00:18:05.000
Tom: There are other taggers and just residents as well, because there is a block of flats, for instance, and there are also people working at restaurants who are not on strike.
00:18:05.840 --> 00:18:13.820
Tom: The strike is specifically about the sludge-collecting industrial activities, I believe.
00:18:14.520 --> 00:18:16.880
Phil: Okay, so for how far into the game?
00:18:16.900 --> 00:18:20.180
Phil: Because I was only about two or two and a half hours into it.
00:18:20.200 --> 00:18:25.120
Phil: How far into the game do you get out of the Sludge Island, or are you always on the Sludge Island?
00:18:25.520 --> 00:18:34.160
Tom: Well, the end goal of the game is to escape the Sludge Island, so you are always on the Sludge Island until you escape, at which point the game ends.
00:18:34.540 --> 00:18:36.940
Phil: Okay, so when do you interact with the restaurant people?
00:18:37.640 --> 00:18:40.720
Tom: Well, the restaurant people are right near the starting area.
00:18:41.880 --> 00:18:43.800
Phil: Oh yeah, you're right, there's a fast food outlet.
00:18:43.820 --> 00:18:44.880
Tom: Yeah, exactly.
00:18:45.020 --> 00:18:45.660
Phil: Yeah, okay.
00:18:46.240 --> 00:18:48.500
Tom: And the block of flats is just next to it.
00:18:49.040 --> 00:18:51.460
Phil: Yep, yep, you're right, yep, okay.
00:18:52.260 --> 00:18:55.260
Phil: Alright, well, anything else about this game?
00:18:56.340 --> 00:19:14.180
Tom: Well, the characters, I think, were great little short skits and added a lot of texture to the experience that really made it more enjoyable than it otherwise would have been.
00:19:15.100 --> 00:19:43.640
Tom: And, for instance, just as a simple example of the quality of humour involved here, and I don't mean that sarcastically, one of the characters you interact with is a B-boy and his friend, and his friend challenged the B-boy that he would not be able to spin on his head for a long period of time.
00:19:44.240 --> 00:19:52.680
Tom: And he has been spinning on his head for the past week, and throughout the game, he's just there spinning on his head, which I found quite amusing.
00:19:53.820 --> 00:19:55.820
Phil: Now, is it a permanent world?
00:19:55.840 --> 00:19:58.120
Phil: So if you go back to that area, is he still spinning?
00:19:58.440 --> 00:19:59.140
Tom: Yes, he is.
00:19:59.760 --> 00:20:07.340
Phil: And I've got to say, when I first played this, I was really bummed out because I thought it was a roguelike, because as soon as you die, you go back to where you started.
00:20:07.360 --> 00:20:20.040
Phil: But as you progress through the game, you come across these portals, for want of a better word, and you can always, what do you say, beam yourself to either of those save points basically.
00:20:20.060 --> 00:20:22.440
Tom: Yep, and you keep all your progress as well.
00:20:22.600 --> 00:20:26.540
Phil: Yeah, so it's not a roguelike at all, which is what I was really concerned about.
00:20:27.520 --> 00:20:31.660
Phil: But in terms of its length, how long was it from start to finish?
00:20:31.680 --> 00:20:34.680
Phil: You obviously completed it, so you're going to have a different experience than most.
00:20:36.240 --> 00:20:45.360
Tom: I think to 100% it, it was probably about three or four hours, maybe longer.
00:20:46.080 --> 00:20:54.700
Tom: Epic Games says six hours that I was playing, but that includes, of course, some time with it just left open and so on and so forth.
00:20:54.720 --> 00:20:59.360
Tom: So let's just say four to five hours to do absolutely everything.
00:20:59.900 --> 00:21:02.380
Phil: And I picked it up when it was free.
00:21:02.400 --> 00:21:06.640
Phil: It's obviously not free now, but certainly worth...
00:21:06.820 --> 00:21:07.780
Tom: I think it still is free.
00:21:07.960 --> 00:21:12.880
Tom: I'm pretty sure that it is, in fact, free for one year after its release.
00:21:14.000 --> 00:21:14.700
Phil: Oh, OK.
00:21:15.240 --> 00:21:15.900
Phil: That's great.
00:21:16.980 --> 00:21:24.560
Phil: I know I picked up Stranger Things 3, the game, off of Epic when it was up there, and I thought that had been taken down.
00:21:24.580 --> 00:21:29.360
Tom: Yeah, those free games, they come and go.
00:21:29.380 --> 00:21:31.560
Tom: That's part of their standard promotion.
00:21:31.960 --> 00:21:42.000
Tom: Yes, the free sale ends on the 29th of the 5th in 2021 at 1am.
00:21:43.260 --> 00:21:43.980
Phil: So get on it.
00:21:44.040 --> 00:21:45.540
Phil: And it's also available on Switch.
00:21:46.220 --> 00:21:47.880
Phil: Do you want to give it a score?
00:21:48.660 --> 00:21:52.120
Tom: I will have to get the dice, and then I will indeed give it a score.
00:21:52.140 --> 00:22:12.260
Tom: Actually, the last thing I will add, just again as an example of the commitment to aesthetic quality and humour throughout the game, when you are gliding along with the glider, if you fart, you speed up a little bit.
00:22:13.560 --> 00:22:31.220
Tom: And the item that helps you find all the graffiti spots is literally the eyes of a master graffiti person or rather a king, I believe would be the correct terminology.
00:22:32.420 --> 00:22:33.680
Phil: Like a real life one or...?
00:22:34.800 --> 00:22:35.660
Tom: A graffiti king.
00:22:39.200 --> 00:22:42.820
Phil: I'm going to say Devolver, man, I did not think they were going to be around for long.
00:22:42.840 --> 00:22:49.840
Phil: They've been around for 11 years now, and just looking through their gameography, they've been a force for good, man.
00:22:49.980 --> 00:22:53.200
Phil: They've done great work, and they've obviously got a very distinctive...
00:22:54.040 --> 00:23:05.280
Phil: They've got an attitude about the kind of games they want to make and back and publish, and I'd say that Sludge Life fits in with the Devolver mode quite well.
00:23:06.320 --> 00:23:09.640
Phil: But yeah, okay, well great, if you want to go get your die.
00:23:09.820 --> 00:23:15.840
Tom: And their PR people several years ago were a pleasure to deal with as well.
00:23:15.880 --> 00:23:18.100
Phil: You had some sort of controversy with them, didn't you?
00:23:19.160 --> 00:23:24.040
Tom: Was it with Devolver or with the Warhammer people?
00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:27.540
Phil: No, you had a controversy with the Devolver people.
00:23:28.040 --> 00:23:28.700
Tom: What was it?
00:23:29.560 --> 00:23:31.120
Phil: Well, I'll have to look it up.
00:23:31.140 --> 00:23:32.160
Phil: It's somewhere on the site.
00:23:32.180 --> 00:23:34.040
Phil: But anyway, there was controversy.
00:23:34.060 --> 00:23:38.680
Phil: I will tell people about Stranger Things 3 The Game if you want to go get your dice.
00:23:39.280 --> 00:23:40.940
Tom: My dice is here and ready.
00:23:41.240 --> 00:23:43.220
Phil: Oh, well, you've saved our listeners.
00:23:43.240 --> 00:23:45.100
Phil: It's a point and click and it's not too bad.
00:23:45.180 --> 00:23:46.960
Phil: It's certainly good enough to be free.
00:23:47.760 --> 00:23:50.600
Phil: And if you've watched the series, it's true to it.
00:23:51.520 --> 00:23:56.580
Phil: I finally watched the last episode of season 3 that I had abandoned for several months.
00:23:56.920 --> 00:23:58.520
Phil: And I was happy with the finale.
00:23:58.540 --> 00:24:03.420
Phil: It actually improved it, because season 3 was pretty average.
00:24:04.260 --> 00:24:17.840
Tom: I watched the first season and the first few minutes of the second season, and I gave up then, because I was not a huge fan of the original.
00:24:17.940 --> 00:24:30.340
Tom: But one thing it did have going for it was that it was not just a pastiche, nor was it entirely based on nostalgia.
00:24:30.400 --> 00:24:39.880
Tom: And the first 10 minutes or so of the first episode of the second season seemed to consist entirely of pastiche and nostalgia.
00:24:40.400 --> 00:24:42.740
Phil: Yeah, yeah, I tell you which doesn't work.
00:24:43.420 --> 00:24:49.820
Phil: Ready Player One finally came on streaming this last week, I think, on Netflix.
00:24:50.400 --> 00:24:52.700
Phil: And it's a game that I was interested in seeing.
00:24:53.400 --> 00:24:54.240
Phil: A game.
00:24:54.260 --> 00:24:55.900
Phil: It's a movie I was interested in seeing.
00:24:56.160 --> 00:24:58.080
Phil: And oh my god, it's terrible.
00:24:58.360 --> 00:24:59.320
Phil: It is so bad.
00:24:59.340 --> 00:25:03.520
Phil: And there were so many times where I almost bought it just to see it, you know.
00:25:05.320 --> 00:25:10.180
Phil: And you talk about just making 80s references for the sake of making 80s references.
00:25:10.240 --> 00:25:12.960
Phil: It is, it's really very poor.
00:25:13.200 --> 00:25:15.060
Phil: It's a very poor movie.
00:25:15.080 --> 00:25:16.260
Phil: But you know, check it out.
00:25:16.280 --> 00:25:16.980
Phil: It's worth seeing.
00:25:17.160 --> 00:25:19.860
Tom: The book had a little bit more going for it than that, right?
00:25:20.240 --> 00:25:23.300
Phil: Yeah, the book was, you know, it's young adult fiction.
00:25:24.520 --> 00:25:32.120
Phil: And you know, it was okay, but again, you'd want to have come from that era to really get into it.
00:25:32.160 --> 00:25:33.760
Phil: And it's a harmless book.
00:25:33.920 --> 00:25:35.760
Phil: It's something you could probably read in a day.
00:25:39.200 --> 00:25:40.560
Phil: And yeah, it's much better.
00:25:41.020 --> 00:25:49.500
Phil: It's popular to trash the book now, but at the time, there's not a lot of books that are set, you know, relating to video games.
00:25:49.560 --> 00:25:51.620
Phil: And in that respect, I thought it was good.
00:25:53.160 --> 00:25:58.240
Phil: Okay, so Sludge Life, I didn't finish it, so I'm not going to give it a score.
00:25:58.880 --> 00:26:01.420
Tom: Well, you said a moment ago you gave it a 7 out of 10.
00:26:01.740 --> 00:26:05.100
Phil: A 7.3, and that's because I was reading the Metacritic description of it.
00:26:06.060 --> 00:26:07.840
Phil: Which is also who gave it a...
00:26:07.860 --> 00:26:08.920
Phil: They gave it a 73.
00:26:09.040 --> 00:26:11.340
Phil: That's the aggregate score from all the Metacritics.
00:26:11.360 --> 00:26:14.920
Tom: Why don't you rate the little blurb that it has?
00:26:14.940 --> 00:26:18.700
Phil: I think the blurb, I'd give a 8 out of 10.
00:26:18.720 --> 00:26:20.800
Tom: I agree completely.
00:26:20.980 --> 00:26:30.220
Tom: And I actually think this, to me, has taken the crown of getting up as the best graffiti game.
00:26:32.680 --> 00:26:42.300
Tom: And I would also argue that the soundtrack is better in the sense that it is a more cohesive whole.
00:26:42.860 --> 00:26:46.760
Tom: But there are certainly some great songs on getting up as well.
00:26:47.280 --> 00:26:49.640
Tom: Basically every song is at least a very good song.
00:26:49.960 --> 00:26:53.520
Tom: But here is the dice roll that we've all been waiting for.
00:26:55.560 --> 00:27:03.540
Tom: And Sludge Life, the best graffiti game, receives a 3 out of 10.
00:27:04.040 --> 00:27:05.280
Phil: Oh, man.
00:27:05.300 --> 00:27:07.800
Phil: That die is unkind.
00:27:08.320 --> 00:27:09.120
Phil: Unkind.
00:27:09.140 --> 00:27:10.520
Phil: So what other graffiti games you got?
00:27:10.540 --> 00:27:13.020
Phil: You got Jet Set Radio, Jet Grind Radio, rather.
00:27:13.220 --> 00:27:13.740
Phil: Same thing.
00:27:14.760 --> 00:27:18.000
Phil: I'd say Grand Theft Auto, San Andreas.
00:27:19.520 --> 00:27:19.980
Tom: Did that...
00:27:20.400 --> 00:27:22.600
Tom: Yeah, that did have a small graffiti mechanic.
00:27:24.980 --> 00:27:26.700
Phil: It was a great, great one.
00:27:27.020 --> 00:27:33.200
Phil: Again, it didn't get very complicated, but it was one of the collectibles in the game if you went around tagging at certain places.
00:27:33.220 --> 00:27:39.400
Phil: So I'd say my favorite game would probably be Getting Up.
00:27:40.240 --> 00:27:41.280
Phil: Contents Under Pressure.
00:27:41.300 --> 00:27:41.820
Phil: Mega Cup.
00:27:42.040 --> 00:27:42.860
Phil: That's what we called it.
00:27:43.680 --> 00:27:44.940
Phil: What was it called Mega Cup for?
00:27:44.960 --> 00:27:46.880
Phil: Oh, Mark Echoes Getting Up.
00:27:47.080 --> 00:27:48.180
Phil: Contents Under Pressure.
00:27:48.240 --> 00:27:48.640
Phil: Yeah.
00:27:49.220 --> 00:27:50.120
Phil: Alright, very good.
00:27:52.300 --> 00:27:58.220
Phil: Now, we sort of finalized Genova Chen's Sky game with a review a couple of episodes ago.
00:27:58.240 --> 00:28:01.080
Phil: I'm still waiting for it to come out for Switch.
00:28:01.460 --> 00:28:03.460
Phil: I'm told that it will come out in summer.
00:28:03.480 --> 00:28:09.020
Phil: Which, for a global release, is a really useless descriptor as to when that game is going to come out.
00:28:10.140 --> 00:28:11.460
Phil: Because I presume that means...
00:28:11.480 --> 00:28:18.520
Tom: Given that it took nearly a year for the Android version to come out, I would not be holding my breath.
00:28:19.160 --> 00:28:22.080
Phil: Well, when it comes out, I'm hoping to get a physical copy of it.
00:28:24.100 --> 00:28:25.800
Phil: Surely there will be a physical copy of it.
00:28:25.800 --> 00:28:26.500
Phil: I really hope.
00:28:26.520 --> 00:28:29.040
Phil: I hope it's not one of those limited run things.
00:28:29.100 --> 00:28:31.820
Phil: But anyway, I'm looking forward to it based on your hype.
00:28:31.840 --> 00:28:37.280
Phil: But there's a new chapter or new episode or they've done something, a new drop.
00:28:37.600 --> 00:28:43.260
Tom: Yep, a new season is releasing tomorrow at the time of recording.
00:28:43.280 --> 00:28:46.800
Phil: And this is Sky, Children of Light, available right now.
00:28:46.820 --> 00:28:50.240
Phil: It's only available on the mobile platforms, right?
00:28:50.440 --> 00:28:54.960
Tom: Correct, it is on the App Store and Android, I believe.
00:28:55.940 --> 00:29:04.020
Tom: And the latest season is the season of Sanctuary, which I played in the beta.
00:29:05.140 --> 00:29:30.200
Tom: And I think we talked about the previous season, and I've already forgotten what it was called, but that was probably the best season since the original in terms of its narrative, and probably the best season in terms of its gameplay since the prior season, which also added a new area.
00:29:31.460 --> 00:29:39.940
Tom: This season also adds a new area, the theme as far as the story is concerned, and also what the outfits look like.
00:29:40.300 --> 00:29:54.280
Tom: I'm not sure they really fit the style of Sky all that much, which is very much in the vein of Journey, with a few more serious moments.
00:29:54.300 --> 00:29:57.660
Tom: There's certainly more humour in Sky than there is Journey.
00:29:57.680 --> 00:30:10.720
Tom: But here, basically, the story is about, as far as one can tell, a group of former spirits on holiday, and it's much more light-hearted.
00:30:10.740 --> 00:30:15.000
Tom: And the items are much more real world.
00:30:15.020 --> 00:30:25.200
Tom: There are sunglasses, for example, and what is like a sort of Jetsons-style science fiction outfit.
00:30:25.220 --> 00:30:31.220
Tom: So that isn't real life, but that is also not necessarily in line with the general aesthetic of Sky.
00:30:31.540 --> 00:30:37.020
Tom: But the area itself is the most ambitious yet.
00:30:37.120 --> 00:30:39.980
Tom: It is basically, it's also the biggest.
00:30:39.980 --> 00:30:53.180
Tom: It is a massive tropical island surrounded by a few small archipelagos that you can fly to, as well as some floating islands in the air.
00:30:53.520 --> 00:31:21.720
Tom: So while the narrative aspects to it, and also the items that you get are a bit disappointing compared to prior seasons, the actual area is really big and makes for some interesting flying, because you have to get between really big distances between islands in the sky and archipelagos and the main island.
00:31:22.420 --> 00:31:34.680
Tom: So for people who have been playing for a while, it is more interesting than most of the new areas, and there's also more to do on the way between areas as well.
00:31:34.700 --> 00:31:45.160
Tom: And the main island has a lot of plants to burn and big candles, which I hope will carry over to the main season.
00:31:45.180 --> 00:31:59.900
Tom: They're currently in the version of the island that is in the main game that a few people have been able to get to, but whether when it is properly released, they will still be there, will of course not be confirmed until it is actually released.
00:32:00.280 --> 00:32:13.600
Tom: So to recap in terms of the narrative and items, it's a bit disappointing, but as an area to explore, it is probably the best additional area to the game yet.
00:32:14.520 --> 00:32:20.700
Phil: And certainly the expectation would be that they're going to populate it with more staff.
00:32:21.380 --> 00:32:21.920
Tom: What do you mean?
00:32:22.360 --> 00:32:24.020
Phil: I mean, they've built this great area.
00:32:24.040 --> 00:32:25.880
Phil: You're saying that it's pretty sparse.
00:32:26.060 --> 00:32:26.520
Tom: No, no, no.
00:32:26.540 --> 00:32:40.700
Tom: I said the area itself has a lot in it and is an interesting area to explore, looking for light and also doing the spirits' stories and collecting their memory fragments.
00:32:41.060 --> 00:32:52.380
Tom: But in terms of the spirits' actual stories, as a story, not as a thing to do, it is a bit disappointing compared to prior seasons.
00:32:53.040 --> 00:32:59.160
Tom: And it doesn't fit necessarily the aesthetic and tone of Sky all that well.
00:32:59.560 --> 00:33:12.960
Phil: Do you think maybe they had a different team, different team members or a different team working on this expansion, so to speak, while, you know, other people are working on, you know, maybe getting the game to different platforms and all that sort of thing?
00:33:12.980 --> 00:33:13.620
Tom: They may well have.
00:33:13.840 --> 00:33:14.180
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
00:33:15.460 --> 00:33:27.220
Phil: But I'm hopeful that this might be in preparation for when they release it on the Switch, and it's kind of like, you know, having as much content as possible right from the start.
00:33:27.240 --> 00:33:37.820
Phil: Do you think if, having said that, do you think if they had all of this extra content that they've been adding and adding and adding right from the start that would necessarily have been a better game?
00:33:38.780 --> 00:33:48.100
Phil: Or does the game benefit from having a long tail where you're slowly, you know, getting these new things to interact with to keep you interested in the game?
00:33:49.160 --> 00:33:54.800
Tom: I think it definitely benefits from having these as additions as you're going along.
00:33:55.440 --> 00:34:11.300
Tom: And I don't think it is necessarily a big issue for new players because the areas that they add they remain there and the only thing you miss out on is some of the items.
00:34:11.500 --> 00:34:19.620
Tom: And the main game itself is a four or five hour experience to do everything in.
00:34:20.140 --> 00:34:37.620
Tom: So I think if they started out with this, it would have been I think a bit of a slog to get through and you would have less of a focus on experiencing the main game which still has the best stories and that sort of thing.
00:34:37.840 --> 00:34:44.080
Tom: So I think it's good that one, if you've been playing for a long time, they're giving you new stuff to do.
00:34:44.680 --> 00:34:54.740
Tom: And two, I think it's good that they're not necessarily taking away from the main narrative for new players.
00:34:55.880 --> 00:35:12.160
Tom: And it allows them to strike a pretty good balance between an MMORPG structure and a more narrative focused game which is one of the unique achievements of Sky.
00:35:13.880 --> 00:35:17.260
Phil: Okay, so is that all you have to say about Sky, Children of Light?
00:35:17.280 --> 00:35:18.820
Phil: What was the name of the new expansion?
00:35:19.300 --> 00:35:21.660
Tom: Season of Sanctuary, I believe.
00:35:21.720 --> 00:35:22.780
Phil: Season of Sanctuary.
00:35:22.800 --> 00:35:27.540
Phil: And do they communicate much about how often they come out with these?
00:35:27.560 --> 00:35:32.720
Phil: Is it a seasonal type thing, or is it really just an out of the blue, here you go?
00:35:33.040 --> 00:35:41.120
Tom: Well, they usually have a bit of hyping up for it, and it also gets into the beta before it gets into the main game.
00:35:42.300 --> 00:35:50.460
Tom: But the actual distance between them and also how long they last, there is usually not that much consistency.
00:35:50.460 --> 00:35:54.680
Tom: So the last season, for instance, I think, lasted two months.
00:35:54.700 --> 00:35:57.320
Tom: Some of the seasons have only been about 20 days.
00:35:59.660 --> 00:36:03.920
Tom: And I think it's been about a month or so since the last season ended.
00:36:04.540 --> 00:36:05.140
Phil: Wow, okay.
00:36:05.160 --> 00:36:05.920
Phil: So it's pretty quick.
00:36:06.300 --> 00:36:10.140
Phil: Their obviously engagement is a massive thing with these kinds of games.
00:36:10.140 --> 00:36:14.820
Phil: So they've got to keep, you know, keep you interested in dropping new things.
00:36:16.920 --> 00:36:18.360
Tom: I have technically finished it.
00:36:18.760 --> 00:36:23.580
Tom: So this is a rating, another dice roll for the beta.
00:36:24.220 --> 00:36:25.420
Phil: All right, let's see.
00:36:25.780 --> 00:36:26.960
Tom: For the record, it's not a rating.
00:36:27.020 --> 00:36:29.640
Tom: It's not a rating of the released version, but the beta version.
00:36:32.600 --> 00:36:33.880
Tom: A 7 out of 10.
00:36:35.060 --> 00:36:41.040
Tom: So significantly better than Sludge Life, the best graffiti game ever.
00:36:42.920 --> 00:36:49.280
Phil: I'll tell you what isn't the best graffiti game ever, and that is a game we played called Death and Taxes.
00:36:49.340 --> 00:36:52.820
Phil: This is another work simulator on the PC.
00:36:54.860 --> 00:37:01.860
Phil: It has a demo that really doesn't do the game much of a benefit, I thought.
00:37:01.880 --> 00:37:04.240
Phil: I thought the demo for it was actually quite...
00:37:06.160 --> 00:37:14.520
Phil: Well, a good demo to me gives you an idea as to most aspects of the game which should leave you wanting for more.
00:37:14.860 --> 00:37:18.840
Phil: But in this demo, they gave you a very limited range of things that you could do.
00:37:22.100 --> 00:37:30.660
Phil: And this game was available as a part of the itch.io offering of 14, 1600 games or whatever else.
00:37:30.660 --> 00:37:32.340
Phil: But I played it on Steam.
00:37:32.640 --> 00:37:33.860
Phil: You played it on Steam also?
00:37:34.660 --> 00:37:35.360
Tom: Yes, I did.
00:37:36.200 --> 00:37:48.260
Phil: And it's a narrative-based game where basically you turn up at an office and your job is to basically select who lives and who dies.
00:37:48.720 --> 00:37:51.260
Phil: You work for Fate, is that right?
00:37:51.620 --> 00:37:52.480
Tom: That is correct.
00:37:53.020 --> 00:37:54.340
Phil: You don't work for the Grim Reaper?
00:37:54.660 --> 00:37:57.420
Tom: No, you are a Grim Reaper.
00:37:58.040 --> 00:38:05.460
Tom: One of many working in Fate's office where who lives and dies is decided by Grim Reapers.
00:38:06.160 --> 00:38:13.260
Phil: And it's a game, I don't know if they've done many more of them, by a company called Placeholder Gameworks.
00:38:13.780 --> 00:38:15.240
Phil: This seems to be their only game.
00:38:16.360 --> 00:38:17.160
Tom: It may well be.
00:38:17.240 --> 00:38:18.440
Tom: I think it is, in fact.
00:38:19.180 --> 00:38:24.620
Phil: And for the most part, the game is received quite positively by those that played it.
00:38:24.760 --> 00:38:28.080
Phil: I had heard a couple of different podcasters talking about it.
00:38:29.120 --> 00:38:33.840
Phil: So it mirrors, the actual playing of it mirrors Paper's Please quite closely.
00:38:33.960 --> 00:38:35.360
Phil: You sit down at a desk.
00:38:35.760 --> 00:38:37.540
Phil: There's things you can put on your desk.
00:38:38.540 --> 00:38:42.080
Phil: Your boss, Fate, will give you some rules.
00:38:42.280 --> 00:38:47.200
Phil: So some days he might just say today you've got to kill three people.
00:38:48.640 --> 00:38:53.040
Tom: And the rules also get more, slightly more complex, but still very simple.
00:38:53.060 --> 00:38:59.240
Tom: So you might have to kill people who work in the grocery industry, for instance.
00:39:00.020 --> 00:39:04.080
Tom: So you then have to read through their profile and look for what their job is.
00:39:04.360 --> 00:39:07.400
Tom: Or it might be, you have to kill people that are related to it.
00:39:07.420 --> 00:39:11.800
Tom: So you then have to look at people that have corollary jobs and so forth.
00:39:11.840 --> 00:39:18.180
Tom: So, while it is very simple, it does get slightly more complex as it goes along.
00:39:18.800 --> 00:39:23.880
Phil: And yes, so in this very simple case, you might get six portfolios put in front of you.
00:39:25.260 --> 00:39:32.940
Phil: And you have to decide, okay, well, you've been told, spare anyone who works in, is related to the real estate industry today.
00:39:34.080 --> 00:39:42.120
Phil: So you've got to really read into them a little bit because it might, the details, it won't just say this person works in real estate or this person's a realtor.
00:39:42.440 --> 00:39:47.120
Phil: Sometimes you have to read into the details and that sort of thing.
00:39:47.160 --> 00:39:54.340
Phil: So someone who might be a lawyer as his header, but then when you read it, it says something like he specializes in property law or something like that.
00:39:54.600 --> 00:39:56.800
Phil: Now that's a completely made up scenario.
00:39:58.300 --> 00:40:16.800
Phil: And so basically, you take the papers and you put all the people you're going to spare over there, you put all the people you're going to kill over there, and at the end of the day, you go up to the top floor to see Fate, where Fate will evaluate your work on the basis of how well you follow the instructions or not.
00:40:18.900 --> 00:40:20.480
Phil: And then you get currency.
00:40:20.500 --> 00:40:24.160
Phil: So you get paid for your day's work.
00:40:24.600 --> 00:40:30.960
Phil: If you accumulate enough money in the basement, there's a dealer down there where you can buy various things.
00:40:31.660 --> 00:40:32.720
Tom: A pirate merchant.
00:40:33.260 --> 00:40:36.680
Phil: Yes, yes, and you can buy various things.
00:40:37.160 --> 00:40:42.000
Phil: Some of them are just goo guys for your desk or from your home.
00:40:42.560 --> 00:40:46.820
Phil: You live in a small room somewhere between the boss and the office.
00:40:47.800 --> 00:40:57.320
Tom: Most of the items are just decorative, but a few of them actually have a function in your day-to-day activities.
00:40:58.780 --> 00:41:05.340
Tom: So some of them, for instance, might reveal information about what you've done and that sort of thing.
00:41:05.800 --> 00:41:16.600
Tom: One of the items as well, for instance, allows you to erase your stamp so that you can change your mind on whether someone should live or die.
00:41:17.400 --> 00:41:20.720
Phil: Yep, and then what about the items that you can use in your home?
00:41:20.760 --> 00:41:22.380
Phil: Could you elaborate on some of those?
00:41:23.780 --> 00:41:27.460
Tom: Were there any items that you could use in your home other than outfits in the mirror?
00:41:27.900 --> 00:41:28.840
Phil: That's about it, yeah.
00:41:32.220 --> 00:41:34.180
Phil: And they didn't really have any impact, did they?
00:41:35.340 --> 00:41:54.580
Tom: I was really disappointed because we should say at the end of each day, you talk to Fate, who like a Bond villain has a pet cat, and this will be a minor spoiler, but at some point, Fate isn't there, and so your interview, your daily interview, takes place with the cat.
00:41:54.960 --> 00:42:06.480
Tom: And I had the cat outfit, and I was hoping that this would allow me to understand what the cat was saying, but it didn't, so that was tremendously disappointing.
00:42:06.960 --> 00:42:10.780
Tom: So essentially, the outfits are indeed completely useless.
00:42:11.400 --> 00:42:16.980
Phil: I've got to say, I was pretty deep into the game, and I like being a gamer, right?
00:42:17.060 --> 00:42:22.140
Phil: If the game gives me rules and something to do, that's what I'm going to try and do.
00:42:22.600 --> 00:42:25.340
Phil: So, you know, surprise, surprise, right?
00:42:26.080 --> 00:42:44.660
Phil: So like when I was playing Papers, Please, you know, the typical example, which is another work simulator, the seminal work simulator of the decade by Lucas Pope, there's this, you know, you're basically letting people, you can decide who comes over the border and who doesn't.
00:42:45.280 --> 00:42:54.380
Phil: And, you know, there's a husband, and he's got all of his paperwork, and it's perfect, but then he tries to bribe you so that you'll let his wife through whose paperwork is forged.
00:42:54.840 --> 00:43:03.760
Phil: And so, of course, you know, when I'm playing a game, I'm doing it in the voice of the character that I'm playing, so, you know, in that instance, it was easy for me.
00:43:03.920 --> 00:43:08.700
Phil: Well, my job is to check paper, and that's about it, and if the papers are wrong, I'm not letting the person in.
00:43:09.160 --> 00:43:11.980
Phil: And so that's how I played Death and Taxes as well.
00:43:12.820 --> 00:43:22.440
Phil: I made sure that I stuck to it, and, you know, they'll do all the stupid stuff, like put sob stories in, or, you know, this person's a really great person, look at all the charity work they do.
00:43:22.460 --> 00:43:28.320
Phil: And I was like, well, that's fine, but they don't work in real estate, so I'm not sparing them, you know?
00:43:28.340 --> 00:43:34.720
Phil: And there was only a few times where I deviated between, you know, who to kill and who not to kill.
00:43:36.580 --> 00:43:48.940
Phil: But when you go up to talk to Fate, he is genuinely disinterested, and it doesn't seem to really matter whether you pay attention to the rules or not at a certain point, or perhaps ever in the game.
00:43:50.280 --> 00:43:53.780
Tom: I think what you do has an effect on what ending you get.
00:43:54.160 --> 00:43:56.960
Phil: Yes, yeah, and there are several endings you can unlock.
00:43:58.260 --> 00:44:07.000
Phil: But like, and then, you know, they do throw some things in there, like, you know, like there was only a couple of times where I killed people because of their occupations.
00:44:07.400 --> 00:44:16.960
Phil: So there was a climate change researcher, and I'm just like, the world doesn't need any more climate change researchers, and what a useless job, you know?
00:44:18.120 --> 00:44:27.420
Phil: If climate change is real, then you researching it isn't going to change anything, and if it's not real, then you're just a waste of space, so I'm killing you, you know?
00:44:28.740 --> 00:44:37.020
Phil: But ultimately, I was really kind of disappointed that none of it really kind of mattered, and obviously that's going to be, you know, there's different endings in everything.
00:44:38.240 --> 00:44:52.880
Phil: But a part of doing these kind of work simulators is if you're doing a good job, you know, there should be some sort of rewards other than going down to the basement talking to a pirate about a new kind of desk lamp or a snow globe.
00:44:54.140 --> 00:45:03.760
Phil: And I really think that ultimately, the game on its own doesn't really warrant replays to go through all of those endings.
00:45:04.920 --> 00:45:05.860
Phil: At least not for me.
00:45:06.580 --> 00:45:18.520
Tom: Well, I certainly won't be replaying it, but I don't really agree that what you were doing didn't make any difference to how the story unfolded and how it ended.
00:45:19.400 --> 00:45:30.860
Tom: What you maybe mean is that there, other than getting fired, which I think is indeed possible, there isn't a fail state, whereas in Papers, Please, there were multiple ones.
00:45:30.880 --> 00:45:31.660
Tom: Is that what you mean?
00:45:32.560 --> 00:45:33.400
Phil: Yes, yeah.
00:45:33.640 --> 00:45:36.180
Phil: I mean, you're going to get to the end in this game regardless.
00:45:40.800 --> 00:45:44.300
Tom: Yeah, it's very difficult to be fired.
00:45:44.840 --> 00:45:46.880
Phil: Yes, yeah.
00:45:46.960 --> 00:45:53.500
Phil: In fact, I didn't even know that was an option, but that may be because I was such a rule follower, you know, for the first two-thirds of the game.
00:45:54.260 --> 00:46:10.200
Phil: I've got to say, though, you know, killing the climate change researcher has got the game into some trouble, because you sent me the most profoundly hilarious link to a thread, which must have been on the Steam community.
00:46:10.400 --> 00:46:11.280
Tom: It was, indeed.
00:46:11.300 --> 00:46:22.500
Phil: Between the developer and people who had an issue with the kinds of people that you can kill in this game, and they just assumed that the developers were some insane right-wing people with a political agenda.
00:46:22.520 --> 00:46:26.600
Tom: No, no, no, no, they assumed they were insane left-wing people with a political agenda.
00:46:26.800 --> 00:46:27.500
Phil: Oh, okay.
00:46:27.520 --> 00:46:28.420
Phil: See, I just don't...
00:46:30.280 --> 00:46:32.580
Phil: I don't see much of a distinction anymore, but...
00:46:33.380 --> 00:46:37.600
Phil: and it was hilarious, genuinely hilarious.
00:46:38.640 --> 00:46:42.640
Phil: But, I mean, what was the developer's response?
00:46:42.660 --> 00:46:44.000
Phil: Basically, that other people...
00:46:44.020 --> 00:46:46.120
Phil: he threw someone else under the bus, didn't he?
00:46:46.620 --> 00:46:49.760
Phil: So there was a lot of people had to write those job descriptions.
00:46:49.780 --> 00:46:50.800
Phil: You know, it wasn't just me.
00:46:51.080 --> 00:47:01.860
Tom: I think his response, I can't remember what it was, but it was perfectly reasoned and fair, and the person they were responding to even took it amiably.
00:47:02.460 --> 00:47:03.240
Phil: Yes, yes.
00:47:03.800 --> 00:47:06.180
Tom: So they responded very well indeed.
00:47:06.200 --> 00:47:22.400
Tom: I think the issue was that essentially killing off certain sorts of people had the logical outcome you would expect, and this was taken to be political bias.
00:47:23.720 --> 00:47:28.440
Phil: Okay, well, look, I think that it's a good first game from that team.
00:47:29.380 --> 00:47:34.060
Phil: They copied Papers, Please, but it wasn't an exact copy.
00:47:34.080 --> 00:47:40.660
Phil: Like, there were elements of it, but there was enough individual, you know, of their own imprint on this game.
00:47:40.940 --> 00:47:50.600
Phil: I think it was just too shallow, ultimately, in terms of the mechanics, and it just didn't click with me.
00:47:52.080 --> 00:48:00.820
Phil: And I know that a big part of it has some ridiculous number of endings, something like 20 different endings, and I just don't know why you would go back and want to see them.
00:48:01.920 --> 00:48:09.680
Phil: The game just wasn't compelling enough, because ultimately, it's you, Fate, and his cat, and the pirate, and the files.
00:48:09.940 --> 00:48:13.480
Phil: And as with Papers, Please, there was some humanity there.
00:48:13.480 --> 00:48:19.360
Phil: It wasn't just the pieces of paper, you know, you actually had to look at the people in addition to their paperwork.
00:48:19.380 --> 00:48:22.220
Phil: So, you know, there was very many different elements there.
00:48:23.180 --> 00:48:26.140
Tom: I would take the complete reverse analysis here.
00:48:26.140 --> 00:48:35.700
Tom: I think the major flaw in the game was not in terms of the characters or narrative, but was in the gameplay itself.
00:48:35.920 --> 00:48:42.340
Tom: And I don't think it really did a good job of copying Papers, Please as well.
00:48:42.600 --> 00:48:53.840
Tom: Papers, Please, other than the extremely tactile, aesthetic quality to the gameplay, in terms of what you were doing, it was significantly more complex.
00:48:53.940 --> 00:48:58.600
Tom: There were many more elements to it, and you had to pay a lot more attention as well.
00:48:58.620 --> 00:49:05.360
Tom: I think that is where the great superiority of Papers, Please comes from.
00:49:06.620 --> 00:49:14.680
Tom: The narrative in Papers, Please is certainly alright too, but I don't think it is really that much better than Death and Taxes.
00:49:14.680 --> 00:49:26.040
Tom: It's just a completely different tone, but the magic of Papers, Please comes from the minute-to-minute gameplay, which is not what is there in Death and Taxes.
00:49:26.060 --> 00:49:35.600
Tom: And I don't think that a fail state would really make a big difference because of the inherent shallowness of the mechanics in the first place.
00:49:37.060 --> 00:49:39.800
Tom: But I ended up enjoying it nevertheless.
00:49:40.320 --> 00:49:44.260
Tom: I think we should move into spoiler territory here.
00:49:45.740 --> 00:49:47.840
Tom: Because I do wonder what...
00:49:48.500 --> 00:49:57.120
Tom: We also should add the basic structure is, before we move into spoilers in terms of the story, is your discussions with fate as you're going along.
00:49:57.540 --> 00:50:26.700
Tom: And if you take it as just an interaction between the character of fate and his own existential crisis, as well as a character that appears in your mirror, who is essentially fomenting a rebellion against fate, I think the story is amusing enough to make the game worth playing, rather than necessarily making the gameplay more complex, even though it is a major flaw.
00:50:26.700 --> 00:50:46.740
Tom: One thing I think that would have made the minute-to-minute gameplay more interesting without having to come up with a better gameplay design would have been more interesting ongoing storylines within the character profiles themselves, because there were a couple of instances of this.
00:50:47.000 --> 00:50:58.460
Tom: For instance, there was a pair of green shoes going around that had an effect on all the people who found it that you could react to, which was very amusing.
00:50:58.480 --> 00:51:00.680
Tom: I wish there had been more things like that.
00:51:00.700 --> 00:51:10.700
Tom: I think that would have made the minute-to-minute experience of it much more enjoyable as you're waiting to find out what's happening next with Fate and his existential crisis.
00:51:12.280 --> 00:51:13.900
Phil: Yeah, I agree with that.
00:51:14.060 --> 00:51:16.300
Phil: I've just been talking about that, though.
00:51:16.340 --> 00:51:25.720
Phil: I was kind of hoping that there would be some coworkers or other grim reapers or maybe in your room where you live.
00:51:25.860 --> 00:51:29.040
Tom: For instance, there was a bar visible and you could never visit it.
00:51:29.320 --> 00:51:34.020
Phil: That's exactly right, which is just painfully tantalising.
00:51:34.420 --> 00:51:36.260
Phil: So a bar would have been great.
00:51:37.180 --> 00:51:45.220
Phil: If they wanted to make it more simple, they could have put a laptop in your room and a grim reaper net was the only thing that you could access.
00:51:45.440 --> 00:51:51.260
Phil: Basically a social network thing for fellow grim reapers or a chat room or something like that.
00:51:53.480 --> 00:51:56.120
Phil: I think that there could have been something else there.
00:51:57.640 --> 00:51:58.160
Tom: Definitely.
00:51:58.280 --> 00:52:00.800
Tom: So let's move into spoilers.
00:52:01.240 --> 00:52:01.540
Phil: Yes.
00:52:02.880 --> 00:52:04.780
Tom: So what ending did you get?
00:52:07.420 --> 00:52:10.980
Phil: Basically the end of the world and it came down to picking between two people.
00:52:12.060 --> 00:52:13.900
Tom: What was the state of the world?
00:52:14.600 --> 00:52:15.180
Phil: Destroyed.
00:52:16.500 --> 00:52:22.900
Tom: Because another complaint on the forum was someone got a destroyed world but thought they shouldn't have.
00:52:23.420 --> 00:52:27.360
Tom: My state of the world, of course, was essentially a utopia.
00:52:27.620 --> 00:52:28.080
Phil: Wow.
00:52:30.220 --> 00:52:31.680
Phil: Because I didn't think there was...
00:52:32.200 --> 00:52:34.440
Phil: See, for me, I was somewhat of a nihilist.
00:52:35.480 --> 00:52:40.940
Phil: I just figured that nothing I did had an impact on the outcome of the world.
00:52:41.580 --> 00:52:51.960
Tom: See, I think perhaps one of the issues with your experience with the game was your own inherent nihilism and hatred of humanity and apathy.
00:52:53.460 --> 00:52:55.640
Phil: Yes, possibly.
00:52:55.660 --> 00:53:01.860
Tom: So perhaps it's to the game's credit that it allowed you to express this and destroy the world.
00:53:01.880 --> 00:53:08.340
Phil: Because my whole point going into the game was I don't really care who lives and dies, and I don't really care.
00:53:08.480 --> 00:53:15.040
Phil: Is there a way where you could pick the kind of people, the researchers, or the scientists?
00:53:15.080 --> 00:53:27.780
Phil: I guess there was, because the profiles would come in front of you and it would be like, this 36-year-old woman is working on a solution to fix the problems in the world, and fate had told me to kill anyone with a science background that day, so I killed them all.
00:53:29.680 --> 00:53:33.380
Phil: So that's probably why the world ended up being destroyed.
00:53:33.400 --> 00:53:37.060
Phil: So I just figured that killing, it didn't matter who I killed and who I didn't kill.
00:53:37.440 --> 00:53:46.160
Tom: So I think that's greatly to the game's credit, particularly given the existential crisis of fate and his growing apathy.
00:53:46.320 --> 00:53:57.880
Phil: Okay, so now that's where it could have been turned around, or perhaps in another realm it is, because if I was doing exactly what fate was saying, now it was pretty clear that fate had lost interest in it.
00:53:57.900 --> 00:54:00.980
Phil: He was trying to write a book and doing all this other stuff and goes...
00:54:01.340 --> 00:54:03.780
Tom: And just let me say this before I forget it.
00:54:04.120 --> 00:54:28.940
Tom: At the end, I killed fate, and this was taken as being a morally bad thing, but I would just like to point out that once you usurp the highest status individual above you, it is very important as a status display to, if not kill that person, at least kill their followers and some other people surrounding you.
00:54:29.940 --> 00:54:39.400
Tom: So from a pragmatic viewpoint, I did the right thing, but my main motivation here was actually as euthanasia, because this guy...
00:54:39.420 --> 00:54:40.320
Phil: Mercy Killing...
00:54:40.320 --> 00:54:40.320
Tom: .
00:54:40.320 --> 00:54:51.800
Tom: was spent fucking several months pontificating about writing a novel and how he's going to leave his job to get his dream of writing a novel.
00:54:52.140 --> 00:54:53.300
Tom: Now, let's be honest.
00:54:53.560 --> 00:55:14.760
Tom: If someone is talking endlessly about writing a novel and that they're going to leave their job and write a novel, when they leave their job, they're never going to write a novel and just end up even more depressed and despairing than they were before, when they were failing to write their novel with an excuse, when now they're not writing their novel without an excuse.
00:55:15.100 --> 00:55:15.440
Phil: So...
00:55:15.460 --> 00:55:17.180
Phil: You did the right thing.
00:55:17.820 --> 00:55:20.740
Tom: Not only the pragmatic thing, but the morally correct thing.
00:55:20.800 --> 00:55:21.680
Phil: Compassionate thing.
00:55:23.580 --> 00:55:26.920
Phil: What I would have liked then, just a little bit of steering from the game.
00:55:27.300 --> 00:55:35.480
Phil: Like if I went up and talked to Fay, it would have been good for him to say, hey, you know, man, you're really following these rules here pretty tightly.
00:55:35.500 --> 00:55:38.140
Phil: Have you even noticed what's going on in the outside world?
00:55:39.340 --> 00:55:54.940
Phil: And it's important, a game mechanic is important to note, is that at the start of every day, you have a Twitter feed on your mobile phone or whatever it is that basically tells you the repercussions of what had happened from you killing the people and sparing the people from the day before.
00:55:55.680 --> 00:56:03.080
Phil: So I guess in a way, the game is telling you, hey, what you're doing is actually having an impact.
00:56:03.420 --> 00:56:11.380
Phil: But I found that Twitter feed thing to be so dumb that I just really just clicked through it and didn't even read it after a while.
00:56:12.320 --> 00:56:15.700
Phil: And I guess this is the whole nihilism and apathy thing coming through again.
00:56:17.460 --> 00:56:22.140
Tom: This discussion has actually made me appreciate the game a lot more than I did.
00:56:22.160 --> 00:56:23.360
Phil: Yeah, me too.
00:56:23.380 --> 00:56:24.480
Phil: I didn't know that...
00:56:25.240 --> 00:56:32.320
Phil: Actually, you know, I don't know if I could play the whole bloody thing again, but I probably could if I didn't have 1600 other games to play right now.
00:56:34.160 --> 00:56:38.060
Phil: But yeah, I think it probably is worth it.
00:56:38.080 --> 00:56:38.900
Phil: I just wish there was...
00:56:40.020 --> 00:56:45.940
Phil: It's, you know, I'm saying, I wish there was more, but I only played one of the endings and there's 19 other endings, so I just have no interest in playing them.
00:56:46.240 --> 00:56:53.580
Phil: So it must be horrible for the developer to have to hear me go through this, and I certainly know what he'd do with me if he saw my portfolio.
00:56:54.000 --> 00:56:55.020
Phil: Podcaster, huh?
00:56:56.780 --> 00:56:58.180
Phil: Neolus Podcaster.
00:56:59.660 --> 00:57:03.920
Tom: I killed every single content creator I came across.
00:57:04.440 --> 00:57:05.100
Phil: Oh, good move.
00:57:07.260 --> 00:57:12.040
Tom: So we both had our vices, but my vice was to the betterment of humanity.
00:57:12.460 --> 00:57:26.940
Phil: Hey, look, when I was given the choice where it said you've got to kill four people, two of them have to be in the food industry, I did go through the other profiles, and if there were two scumbags, I would kill them and spare the good people.
00:57:26.960 --> 00:57:31.820
Phil: So it's not just I went, okay, I've killed the two people in food industry, and I'll just kill two other people.
00:57:32.960 --> 00:58:02.380
Tom: We should add as well, and I think this is also to the game's emblematic of the quality that is hidden beneath the surface at times, is one thing I think it managed to strike a good balance between, and there were a lot of people reviewing it or posting that didn't agree with this, but that's not true to my experience, and with my discussion with you, and I think there's further evidence this was the case.
00:58:02.680 --> 00:58:31.840
Tom: I think it's managed to present things at a simplistic level where killing certain people and certain people surviving would logically result in what you would expect it to, as well as throwing in a few wrinkles of unexpected things so that you did have to pay attention to the people you were killing and second guess what you were doing as well.
00:58:33.340 --> 00:58:35.120
Tom: And I suggest that...
00:58:35.200 --> 00:58:46.860
Tom: Because I was unsure whether this was the case or not, but given my utopian world and your apocalypse, that would suggest that this was actually the case.
00:58:48.280 --> 00:58:49.560
Phil: That's right, yeah.
00:58:49.580 --> 00:58:53.300
Phil: And in fact, there's a lot more to it than obviously what I had thought.
00:58:56.080 --> 00:58:57.760
Phil: So, any other spoilers before we...
00:58:58.300 --> 00:59:00.800
Tom: No, I think we're ready to give it a score.
00:59:00.840 --> 00:59:02.940
Phil: Okay, well again, the game is Death and Taxes.
00:59:02.960 --> 00:59:07.340
Phil: It's available on PC, on Steam, or itch.io, wherever you want to get it.
00:59:08.240 --> 00:59:09.060
Phil: Not a cheap game.
00:59:10.080 --> 00:59:14.440
Phil: I got it fairly affordably, I believe, but it's currently $18.50 AUD.
00:59:14.460 --> 00:59:19.700
Tom: It was tremendously cheap in the God bundle, though.
00:59:19.720 --> 00:59:20.260
Phil: Yes, it was.
00:59:22.120 --> 00:59:32.680
Phil: So it's basically $20 right now on Steam, but I think they've got a sale coming up, or 33% off or something, and it's developed and published by Placeholder Gameworks.
00:59:33.380 --> 00:59:48.960
Phil: I've got to say, in its appearance, it looks like a Flash game, which is a dated reference, but I think that didn't help it as well, because a certain type of person like myself looks at that kind of graphics.
00:59:49.580 --> 00:59:57.840
Phil: But it had a woodcut element to it that kind of obviously elevated it to a more pleasing appearance.
00:59:58.080 --> 01:00:04.480
Phil: But I was going to give this game a 6, but now I feel like that would be unfair.
01:00:05.100 --> 01:00:16.220
Phil: I think the game's obviously a lot more complex than I thought, so I do want to probably withhold, refrain from giving it a score and probably see what the replay experience is like.
01:00:16.300 --> 01:00:22.420
Phil: Hopefully they've streamlined it so that it doesn't take as long as the original game, which I think took about 6 or 7 hours.
01:00:23.520 --> 01:00:25.740
Tom: I think it took me maybe half that.
01:00:26.240 --> 01:00:27.300
Phil: I could be mistaken.
01:00:27.560 --> 01:00:30.880
Tom: I don't think it was that long at all.
01:00:30.960 --> 01:00:32.400
Phil: You want to get old 6ie out?
01:00:32.680 --> 01:00:37.560
Tom: Yeah, it's a die 10, but I'm ready to give it a score.
01:00:40.040 --> 01:00:42.000
Tom: It gets an 8 out of 10.
01:00:42.000 --> 01:00:44.400
Phil: Wow, that's a pretty good score.
01:00:45.380 --> 01:00:48.020
Tom: That's the highest score today so far.
01:00:48.640 --> 01:00:52.600
Phil: That's actually on par with how Steam users rated it.
01:00:53.080 --> 01:00:55.760
Phil: Most people are giving it the 8 out of 10.
01:00:56.200 --> 01:01:00.200
Tom: When I played the demo, I was flabbergasted by the positive reaction.
01:01:01.340 --> 01:01:02.440
Phil: Yeah, the demo did not.
01:01:02.500 --> 01:01:04.260
Phil: You agree with me the demo didn't sell a game.
01:01:04.600 --> 01:01:06.580
Tom: You were much higher on the demo than me.
01:01:07.500 --> 01:01:15.200
Tom: When I played the demo, my reaction was, and you went on to play the main game, I believe I said to you, I'm not going to play this.
01:01:15.240 --> 01:01:16.100
Phil: Yes, you did.
01:01:16.380 --> 01:01:16.780
Phil: You did.
01:01:16.840 --> 01:01:18.080
Phil: And now you've given it an 8.
01:01:18.260 --> 01:01:18.820
Phil: That's incredible.
01:01:18.840 --> 01:01:19.260
Tom: Correct.
01:01:20.660 --> 01:01:21.580
Tom: What a turnaround.
01:01:21.940 --> 01:01:33.020
Phil: If you want to talk about another work simulator, I've got to an ending of Beat Cop, which is kind of a controversial game, I imagine, right now.
01:01:34.400 --> 01:01:35.020
Phil: Well...
01:01:36.900 --> 01:01:46.800
Tom: We have to go there, because I saw today, Libertarians are one of our hobbies, one of my hobbies that gets into the podcast.
01:01:47.360 --> 01:02:14.280
Tom: And I saw one of the modern geniuses of political coverage today in the internet sphere, who I won't name, who was tremendously confused and outraged that the Libertarian Party, and I was actually shocked as well that the Libertarian Party was living up to some of its Libertarian values, had endorsed the Black Lives Matter movement.
01:02:14.300 --> 01:02:24.540
Tom: Because for some reason, this commentator thought that the Libertarian Party should be pro-police for some reason.
01:02:25.940 --> 01:02:26.860
Tom: I'm not sure why.
01:02:26.880 --> 01:02:31.660
Phil: Well, I think if anyone wanted to defund the police, it would be a Libertarian, wouldn't it?
01:02:32.080 --> 01:02:32.680
Tom: Exactly.
01:02:32.780 --> 01:02:37.240
Phil: I mean, you want freedom, and you don't want to pay for anything, so defund the police.
01:02:37.360 --> 01:02:41.280
Phil: I would assume that Libertarians would be all about that, not law and order.
01:02:41.340 --> 01:02:45.120
Phil: But apparently not.
01:02:46.000 --> 01:02:47.120
Phil: They wouldn't want justice.
01:02:47.440 --> 01:02:48.940
Phil: Libertarians wouldn't want justice.
01:02:48.960 --> 01:02:49.820
Phil: They'd want freedom.
01:02:51.200 --> 01:02:53.420
Phil: So, I've got to say...
01:02:53.820 --> 01:03:01.620
Phil: Well, anyway, in the game, you play a beat on the cop in New York in 1986, I think.
01:03:02.100 --> 01:03:03.380
Tom: It's sometime in the 80s.
01:03:04.940 --> 01:03:13.420
Phil: And it's a retro pixel art style adventure, according to the developer, inspired by 80s cop shows.
01:03:13.420 --> 01:03:15.580
Phil: And I'd say that they've done a very good job of that.
01:03:16.160 --> 01:03:22.120
Phil: In terms of its graphics, it appears like Police Quest when it was at its crest.
01:03:22.620 --> 01:03:26.540
Phil: Police Quest was a spin-off of the Space Quest games.
01:03:27.760 --> 01:03:28.160
Phil: I don't know.
01:03:28.180 --> 01:03:30.900
Phil: Have you had any experience with Space Quest or Police Quest?
01:03:31.700 --> 01:03:37.160
Tom: No, I have not, other than playing the introduction to one of the Police Quests.
01:03:38.880 --> 01:04:03.280
Phil: Daryl Gates was the Chief of Police in Los Angeles during and shortly after the Rodney King civil uprising and presided openly over a police department that didn't really have much consideration for appearing to be correct or woke.
01:04:05.180 --> 01:04:11.380
Tom: I think what you mean, I believe it was one of the more racist and brutal police departments.
01:04:11.580 --> 01:04:17.300
Phil: Well, Wikipedia says he took a hardline aggressive paramilitary approach to law enforcement.
01:04:17.720 --> 01:04:21.020
Phil: He's credited with creating SWAT departments or SWAT teams.
01:04:22.320 --> 01:04:25.840
Phil: And yeah, the LAPD was a paramilitary organization.
01:04:26.240 --> 01:04:32.060
Phil: I think he said that drug dealers should be lined up against a wall and shot.
01:04:33.060 --> 01:04:35.160
Phil: Or he may have even been talking about drug users.
01:04:35.500 --> 01:04:38.740
Phil: Or, I don't know, people of different ethnicities.
01:04:38.760 --> 01:04:43.200
Tom: I think people generally don't make much of a distinction who have had opinions.
01:04:43.600 --> 01:04:48.720
Phil: If you've seen the show LA Noir, was LA Noir a game or a movie?
01:04:49.100 --> 01:04:50.720
Phil: LA Confidential, yeah.
01:04:51.020 --> 01:04:59.900
Phil: If you've seen LA Confidential, the chief of police in that, played by the guy that's in Babe, the pig movie.
01:05:01.340 --> 01:05:02.000
Phil: You know the guy.
01:05:02.020 --> 01:05:05.220
Tom: The guy that played the pig?
01:05:05.340 --> 01:05:10.560
Phil: The guy that played the farmer with the pig, who was named was Babe, pig in the city.
01:05:11.820 --> 01:05:14.940
Phil: In any case, the chief of police in LA Confidential played the pig.
01:05:14.960 --> 01:05:19.180
Tom: That was right there for you to say that the pig was playing the pig.
01:05:19.180 --> 01:05:19.940
Phil: He missed.
01:05:20.740 --> 01:05:21.660
Phil: Hey man.
01:05:22.640 --> 01:05:24.500
Phil: I don't call cops pigs.
01:05:25.500 --> 01:05:27.900
Phil: Anyway, it's based on Daryl Gates.
01:05:27.920 --> 01:05:40.920
Phil: Anyway, Police Quest actually came out with, but this is before the whole controversy, Police Quest actually came out, and it was a Sierra game, the Sierra point and click games, came out with a Daryl Gates Police Quest.
01:05:41.200 --> 01:05:44.160
Phil: And if you can find videos of this, it's hilarious.
01:05:44.540 --> 01:05:51.280
Phil: Now, I bought it at the time to play on my 386, and I found the game play to be absolutely riveting.
01:05:51.940 --> 01:06:00.460
Phil: And the graphics in this game simulate that era of PC game quite clearly, much like Papers, Please attempted to.
01:06:01.440 --> 01:06:10.120
Phil: So in the game, you play as a cop on a beat, and basically, you're a little stick figure type guy.
01:06:10.140 --> 01:06:15.600
Phil: I encourage people just to do an image search for beat cop game, and you'll see exactly what we're talking about.
01:06:16.300 --> 01:06:24.800
Phil: And you're in New York, and you've got this basically a very small city block, which is your beat, and you've been demoted.
01:06:24.820 --> 01:06:37.920
Phil: You were a detective, and you've been being investigated for a corruption charge, and basically demoted down to basically walking the beat as a New York City cop.
01:06:38.320 --> 01:06:44.300
Phil: So you can go into stores, you can write tickets, you can arrest people on the run.
01:06:45.660 --> 01:06:46.380
Phil: You can...
01:06:46.920 --> 01:06:49.080
Phil: Well, that's probably a basic enough description of the game.
01:06:49.100 --> 01:06:50.220
Phil: Have I missed anything there?
01:06:51.200 --> 01:06:51.880
Tom: I don't think so.
01:06:51.900 --> 01:06:59.960
Phil: And then obviously there's some choice in the game where you can side between two criminal groups.
01:07:01.200 --> 01:07:14.120
Phil: One group is your Italian American Mafia type, and the other is an urban American street gang who are black in ethnicity.
01:07:15.540 --> 01:07:34.400
Phil: And you've got to kind of balance doing your daily quota work, which is what the police chief has given you, or your sergeant, your desk sergeant has given you, doing or not doing favors for either of the criminal elements, and then also being cool to people in your neighborhood.
01:07:34.420 --> 01:07:37.640
Phil: So that means going in, talking to people in their shops and restaurants.
01:07:38.700 --> 01:07:42.920
Phil: You can also be cool, so to speak, with people you're writing tickets for.
01:07:42.940 --> 01:07:47.620
Phil: You can choose to not write them a ticket or not tow their car and that sort of thing.
01:07:47.640 --> 01:07:48.800
Tom: And accept their bribes.
01:07:48.920 --> 01:07:50.080
Phil: You can accept their bribes.
01:07:50.780 --> 01:07:58.820
Phil: And then at the end of the day, you get scored on what you were able to achieve against each of those goals.
01:08:00.100 --> 01:08:13.280
Phil: In terms of the homage to Papers, Please, at the bottom of the screen, you've got a digital watch that tells you what time it is, a Motorola radio, handcuffs, a gun and a notebook.
01:08:13.520 --> 01:08:17.440
Phil: And the notebook basically keeps you on track as to what you're doing on a day by day basis.
01:08:18.200 --> 01:08:26.460
Phil: And those work extremely well and look just like they were done in Papers, Please style.
01:08:28.340 --> 01:08:32.920
Phil: The game was developed by a company called Pixelcrow.
01:08:35.200 --> 01:08:38.080
Phil: And I think I'm not quite sure where they're from.
01:08:38.100 --> 01:08:43.460
Phil: I'm pretty sure it's in Eastern Europe, but I could be mistaken there.
01:08:43.920 --> 01:08:45.260
Tom: I think they might be American.
01:08:45.680 --> 01:08:47.320
Phil: No, I really don't think so.
01:08:47.340 --> 01:08:48.380
Tom: I think they may be.
01:08:50.080 --> 01:08:56.620
Tom: I'm pretty sure I watched an interview with them on SUP Homes in the very early days of production.
01:08:57.460 --> 01:09:00.580
Tom: And I am not sure that they are not American.
01:09:00.700 --> 01:09:03.600
Phil: Okay, well if you could check that out for me, that would be good.
01:09:03.620 --> 01:09:04.720
Tom: But I could well be wrong.
01:09:04.740 --> 01:09:06.040
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
01:09:06.520 --> 01:09:10.440
Phil: So in terms of how it depicts, everyone in this game is depicted horribly.
01:09:11.600 --> 01:09:18.560
Phil: You know, the game has cultural stereotypes in it.
01:09:19.420 --> 01:09:23.360
Phil: And some of them are just, I think, unnecessarily in the game.
01:09:23.580 --> 01:09:25.040
Phil: I'm not overly sensitive.
01:09:25.060 --> 01:09:29.400
Tom: It's an homage to 80s police films and shows.
01:09:29.420 --> 01:09:30.800
Phil: TV shows, exactly right.
01:09:30.840 --> 01:09:33.220
Tom: I think they are perfectly on point.
01:09:33.600 --> 01:09:39.760
Phil: I don't remember seeing an 80s TV show where a black person was sitting on their front step eating a watermelon.
01:09:43.160 --> 01:09:45.540
Tom: Maybe not a television show.
01:09:45.560 --> 01:09:45.900
Phil: Yeah.
01:09:46.500 --> 01:09:50.600
Phil: I don't know that that particular cultural reference was necessary.
01:09:52.500 --> 01:09:55.320
Phil: And the game is particularly verbose.
01:09:55.380 --> 01:09:58.920
Phil: I mean, there's a lot of text to click through.
01:09:58.940 --> 01:10:08.000
Phil: And I think that that probably hurt my game experience because I don't know if you had, like, it was never really explained to me how to handcuff someone.
01:10:09.660 --> 01:10:14.560
Phil: Like, basically, if someone's on the run and you're chasing after them, there's a way...
01:10:14.580 --> 01:10:15.560
Tom: I think they did explain it.
01:10:15.640 --> 01:10:19.300
Tom: And you basically just get near to them and press the button.
01:10:19.320 --> 01:10:21.260
Phil: Press the handcuff button, right.
01:10:21.280 --> 01:10:25.920
Phil: Well, when you get close to them, a handcuff insignia appears next to the person.
01:10:26.200 --> 01:10:27.820
Phil: So I was clicking on the insignia.
01:10:27.820 --> 01:10:29.600
Phil: I wasn't clicking on the actual handcuff.
01:10:31.320 --> 01:10:32.020
Phil: You know, that's just...
01:10:32.040 --> 01:10:35.840
Phil: I'm just going to blame myself for that because I did click through a lot of the text.
01:10:37.340 --> 01:10:39.520
Phil: Because it was, I mean, just endless.
01:10:39.540 --> 01:10:40.740
Phil: It just went on and on and on.
01:10:43.780 --> 01:10:48.520
Phil: One of the limits of the game, I thought, was the actual police work that you did.
01:10:50.020 --> 01:10:54.420
Phil: How did you find the size of the gameplay area that was available to you?
01:10:54.980 --> 01:10:59.860
Tom: Well, I am going to refrain from going into too many details until I have finished it.
01:11:01.280 --> 01:11:06.740
Tom: But it depended on the day, essentially, and how much you were meant to be doing.
01:11:10.220 --> 01:11:11.020
Phil: I personally...
01:11:11.100 --> 01:11:15.700
Tom: I don't think there was an issue with the actual size of the area or the game.
01:11:15.740 --> 01:11:23.240
Tom: It more so was about what your tasks were and what random things appeared.
01:11:23.260 --> 01:11:30.520
Phil: And I thought for me that the game, the actual job of the cop was pretty mundane and repetitive.
01:11:30.540 --> 01:11:44.300
Phil: I mean, basically, 99% of what you do is write tickets for parking violations and calling cars to be towed, or variations thereof, you know, so you might have to check cars.
01:11:44.580 --> 01:11:48.360
Tom: I would say you're only mainly doing that on days where not much is happening.
01:11:49.020 --> 01:11:51.140
Phil: Which I found was every day.
01:11:52.200 --> 01:11:54.820
Phil: I mean, if you did engage...
01:11:54.840 --> 01:11:56.060
Tom: Did you do all the side things?
01:11:56.120 --> 01:11:56.980
Phil: I didn't do all of them.
01:11:57.000 --> 01:11:57.320
Tom: Every day?
01:11:57.320 --> 01:12:01.500
Phil: I didn't do all of them because I did find that those did become too challenging.
01:12:02.020 --> 01:12:14.880
Phil: Like, if you accepted every side quest, there was absolutely no way you could get all the side quests done on most days, and still meet your quota, and follow up on the overarching storyline of which there is.
01:12:15.700 --> 01:12:24.740
Tom: Well, I could, and it was a very stressful and pressurized experience in a good way.
01:12:25.560 --> 01:12:37.700
Tom: So I think you need to commit to what's going on, and take everything and attempt it to really get out of the game what they're going for, I think.
01:12:37.880 --> 01:12:38.620
Phil: Yeah, I think so.
01:12:38.640 --> 01:13:04.360
Phil: I mean, like, if you were able to get that tension where you're actually feeling stressed and nervous about getting everything done, obviously that's an element of, you know, tower defence games or another of my favourite work simulators, which is an air traffic control game, you know, where you have to go through these set motions and eventually that stuff just keeps stacking up and stacking up and stacking up.
01:13:05.000 --> 01:13:08.840
Tom: And you've got to strategise on how you're doing your tickets.
01:13:09.560 --> 01:13:09.920
Phil: Yes.
01:13:10.120 --> 01:13:31.820
Tom: And choose when to do them and when to focus on them and whether, as you're on a way to a destination, you should ignore all parked cars or cars with lights broken or worn down tyres or whether, as you're on your way to a place, you should give out a few tickets and that sort of thing.
01:13:32.740 --> 01:13:34.740
Phil: And the game does have some tells.
01:13:34.760 --> 01:13:47.660
Phil: Like, so over time you can say, you know, this isn't a spoiler, this is a helpful tip, but basically, like, if a car's tyres are at the point where you should be writing it a ticket, you'll see skid marks behind where the car is parked.
01:13:47.680 --> 01:13:53.180
Tom: Yep, and if they've got broken lights, you will see a spark on their lights.
01:13:53.360 --> 01:13:53.740
Tom: Really?
01:13:54.860 --> 01:13:55.560
Phil: I thought you had to...
01:13:55.620 --> 01:13:57.660
Tom: It's very hard to see, but it is there.
01:13:57.760 --> 01:13:58.200
Phil: Okay.
01:13:59.720 --> 01:14:09.780
Phil: And there's also cool things that you pick up on in terms of, they give you kind of hints, so there are hints as to possibly there's some days where you could take bribes and get away with it and some days you couldn't.
01:14:10.920 --> 01:14:35.640
Tom: My strategy so far has been essentially if there is a difficult ticket quota to get through all the tickets ignoring all bribes, then if there is time, accept every single bribe following that because if you accept a lot of bribes, you will end up making more money than you will get docked for accepting bribes if you get noticed.
01:14:36.360 --> 01:14:44.140
Phil: Yes, but ultimately, someone could be watching you and that could come back to bite you later on as the game develops.
01:14:44.160 --> 01:14:47.420
Tom: It may well, but I am all for the money.
01:14:47.560 --> 01:14:47.920
Phil: Yes.
01:14:49.600 --> 01:14:52.900
Phil: I thought that the characters inside the stores were well written.
01:14:53.860 --> 01:15:10.380
Tom: Can I just ask, I know that the American job structure is extremely totalitarian in many ways, but why is your alimony payments part of your job at the police force?
01:15:10.400 --> 01:15:12.460
Phil: Yes, that's actually true in Australia as well.
01:15:12.740 --> 01:15:13.620
Tom: Okay, is it?
01:15:13.640 --> 01:15:18.780
Phil: Yes, if you have child support payments, the government docks that directly out of your...
01:15:20.680 --> 01:15:25.580
Phil: that's something that they do with your employer to deduct it directly out of your payroll.
01:15:26.100 --> 01:15:35.980
Phil: So, yes, in this game, your alimony payments are one of the main financial stresses on your life, and you have to have a certain amount of money at certain intervals.
01:15:36.580 --> 01:15:39.400
Phil: And, yes, but believe it or not, I didn't...
01:15:39.440 --> 01:15:48.660
Phil: obviously, I've never been in this situation, but I've been around now and overheard enough things where, yes, that becomes your employer's business, sadly.
01:15:50.000 --> 01:15:52.880
Tom: Fascinating.
01:15:53.840 --> 01:16:03.760
Phil: The overarching story, I found it, without going into spoilers, I found it difficult for long periods of time to progress that plot.
01:16:03.940 --> 01:16:05.940
Phil: Am I again missing something there?
01:16:06.600 --> 01:16:10.320
Tom: A lot of the main story is actually completely optional.
01:16:10.440 --> 01:16:20.920
Tom: So if you don't make phone calls at certain times and don't go and meet up with people, then I think you will be missing out stuff on the main story.
01:16:21.080 --> 01:16:23.000
Phil: Yeah, and I really tried to progress it.
01:16:23.020 --> 01:16:26.720
Phil: So I tried to make all of those phone calls and meet certain people.
01:16:27.360 --> 01:16:34.340
Phil: And I think in some cases, I really would have appreciated an instant replay.
01:16:35.020 --> 01:16:47.180
Phil: Just go back 30 seconds, because sometimes I click on the person I was supposed to meet, and then immediately, because I'm so used to just going through the text, hit the wrong response and then they'd leave, and then that was never followed up on.
01:16:48.260 --> 01:16:56.860
Phil: The game does have a rewind option, or a turn back time option rather, but you have to start from the start of a certain day.
01:16:57.140 --> 01:17:01.380
Phil: It's not like you can turn back time half an hour or an hour, or that sort of thing.
01:17:03.800 --> 01:17:07.700
Phil: The level of detail in the game is quite extraordinary, and I do appreciate that.
01:17:08.040 --> 01:17:10.720
Phil: I also greatly appreciate the aesthetic of the game.
01:17:13.420 --> 01:17:33.320
Phil: And obviously I must have been missing the point somewhere along the line, because I did get to a fail state by about day 16 or 18, where it is possible to have such poor relationships with one group or another, where the game will end, regardless of what you want to do or try to do.
01:17:35.160 --> 01:17:42.140
Phil: And then I went back and rewinded a day, and apparently they just immediately got rid of me again.
01:17:42.160 --> 01:17:47.160
Tom: Can you rewind further or only to the previous day?
01:17:47.180 --> 01:17:52.560
Phil: I wish I could tell you, but honestly by that time, the game had worn out its welcome for me.
01:17:53.940 --> 01:18:00.200
Phil: I was already kind of sick of the game and my inability to really progress the story properly.
01:18:01.160 --> 01:18:03.120
Phil: I was doing really well on my police work.
01:18:03.440 --> 01:18:12.080
Phil: I was doing enough of the side stories that I was keeping one group happy, but apparently I didn't keep the Italian Americans happy enough.
01:18:13.100 --> 01:18:15.100
Phil: I found them to be completely unsympathetic.
01:18:15.680 --> 01:18:25.300
Phil: And so I just kind of just didn't play the game that way, but you've really got to keep everyone on balance to get to that good ending or series of good endings, I guess.
01:18:25.980 --> 01:18:34.820
Phil: Also, I screwed up because of, as what I just described, I was supposed to meet someone and when I met them, I gave them the wrong response accidentally.
01:18:35.580 --> 01:18:38.080
Phil: And again, I was just so sick of the game at that point.
01:18:38.100 --> 01:18:39.640
Phil: I could have replayed that whole day.
01:18:40.000 --> 01:18:45.420
Phil: But the whole thing is like, each day takes a fair bit to get through.
01:18:45.440 --> 01:18:49.760
Tom: Depending on how much stuff there is, they can last 20 to 40 minutes.
01:18:49.780 --> 01:18:50.760
Phil: Yeah, exactly.
01:18:50.880 --> 01:19:02.720
Phil: And so if you're towards the end of that period, going back and replaying that whole day where everything is clockwork, I mean, the exact same stuff will happen.
01:19:03.220 --> 01:19:04.400
Phil: To a degree, to a degree.
01:19:04.420 --> 01:19:09.760
Phil: I mean, the traffic changes, the cars and their parking seems to be fairly pseudo-random.
01:19:11.500 --> 01:19:16.920
Phil: And I actually really liked the actual arresting people and that sort of stuff.
01:19:16.920 --> 01:19:24.760
Phil: I just think that it was, mostly the police work was so strongly centered around a single activity, which was traffic violations.
01:19:25.180 --> 01:19:32.340
Phil: I just wish there were more other police-type work that you could be doing other than just liaising and the side stories.
01:19:34.980 --> 01:19:39.080
Phil: I probably found the church side stories to be the most interesting ones.
01:19:40.700 --> 01:19:46.860
Tom: They've been just starting to get more amusing for me, where I'm up to.
01:19:48.800 --> 01:19:54.780
Phil: I think the early appearance of the Russian cop was really spot on.
01:19:54.800 --> 01:19:55.560
Phil: I loved that one.
01:19:58.620 --> 01:20:00.740
Phil: There's a lot of elements to this game I really enjoyed.
01:20:00.880 --> 01:20:08.400
Phil: Probably, if I could do anything, would shorten the length of the days and have more diversity in terms of the kind of police work that you're doing.
01:20:09.840 --> 01:20:21.700
Tom: I think, to me, the police work doesn't really need more diversity, because if you are doing the side stuff, that gives you a greater variety of things to do.
01:20:23.940 --> 01:20:26.600
Tom: My experience of it, I may as well mention now.
01:20:27.180 --> 01:20:33.800
Tom: I would agree with your general description of how the days unfold.
01:20:34.000 --> 01:20:37.400
Tom: But I think the main goal is two things.
01:20:37.620 --> 01:20:41.340
Tom: One, accruing as much money as possible.
01:20:41.460 --> 01:20:45.980
Tom: And the way I've been doing that may at some point prove my downfall.
01:20:46.740 --> 01:20:56.200
Tom: But, for instance, I am usually about $1,000 above my alimony payments.
01:20:57.120 --> 01:21:08.900
Tom: But the whole point of the game, I think, is one, to do as much side stuff as possible, because that serves two functions.
01:21:09.040 --> 01:21:15.600
Tom: One, the main story stuff is actually presented as a lot of the side stuff, so that's important.
01:21:16.100 --> 01:21:30.540
Tom: And two, the side stuff is really how you're able to balance your relationship with the police, the gangbangers, the mafia, and the local business owners and residents.
01:21:30.700 --> 01:21:39.540
Tom: So when you're doing all of that stuff, it has the same sort of tension of Papers, Please!
01:21:39.560 --> 01:21:45.020
Tom: and other great work simulators, where you feel like you're doing too much stuff at once.
01:21:46.440 --> 01:21:54.180
Tom: And you've also got this basic, really repetitive thing to do, which is the tickets that you have to do as well, which serves two purposes.
01:21:54.340 --> 01:22:05.580
Tom: One, adds to the stress of what you're doing, but two, also acts as a sort of crutch to help you navigate around and keep you grounded.
01:22:05.600 --> 01:22:36.100
Tom: So for the first 10 days, for me, I think it has really struck an excellent balance of how it is structured as a work simulator, and it is tactically somewhat satisfying as well, giving out the tickets, and as you're learning how to look for lights and so forth, before you can more easily notice the sparks, things like checking the lights is very tactilely satisfying as well.
01:22:36.120 --> 01:22:40.220
Tom: So I think I'm definitely much more positive on it than you are.
01:22:40.680 --> 01:22:52.560
Tom: And as an homage to American police shows and cinema of the era, I think it is extremely good.
01:22:52.580 --> 01:23:07.400
Tom: And you are indeed correct, it is certainly not American, it is Polish, which explains why the watermelon scene is in there, and also why it is such a great homage.
01:23:07.400 --> 01:23:26.720
Tom: Because I think if it is American, then it won't have things like the watermelon thing in there and will probably be downplaying how extreme a lot of 80s police related stuff was, if not in its open imagery, in its subtext.
01:23:27.460 --> 01:23:34.020
Phil: Yeah, and in chat I just sent you a picture from Daryl Gates' Police Quest game.
01:23:35.120 --> 01:23:41.000
Phil: As you can see, the graphical style is kind of sort of there, and that's a screenshot that I wouldn't put on our website.
01:23:43.140 --> 01:23:45.280
Phil: Right now, I don't think you could get away with that anymore.
01:23:45.960 --> 01:23:47.180
Phil: But you can see...
01:23:47.200 --> 01:23:48.320
Tom: Well, I certainly would.
01:23:48.320 --> 01:23:49.240
Phil: Yeah, I know you would.
01:23:49.280 --> 01:23:50.620
Phil: And they've got the...
01:23:50.640 --> 01:23:52.440
Phil: See how they've got the tools there along the bottom.
01:23:52.460 --> 01:23:58.740
Phil: So I really do think it's probably more of an homage or copy back to Daryl F.
01:23:58.760 --> 01:24:01.000
Phil: Gates' Police Quest.
01:24:01.320 --> 01:24:06.140
Phil: And again, I strongly encourage you to do an image search for that game.
01:24:06.160 --> 01:24:08.060
Phil: Well, I'm glad you...
01:24:08.480 --> 01:24:14.440
Tom: The lighting also topically looks like one of the characters is wearing a surgeon's mask.
01:24:15.160 --> 01:24:15.700
Phil: What's that?
01:24:16.540 --> 01:24:26.040
Tom: The lighting in the image you have sent me, which if you don't post the front page story for this episode of the podcast, will be on the front page.
01:24:26.060 --> 01:24:30.540
Tom: So please look forward to that if Phil Fogg is lazy listeners.
01:24:31.400 --> 01:24:36.000
Tom: But the lighting looks like the detective is wearing a mask.
01:24:36.420 --> 01:24:37.580
Tom: Yeah, it does.
01:24:37.580 --> 01:24:38.320
Phil: It does.
01:24:38.340 --> 01:24:39.020
Phil: In fact, he may.
01:24:39.040 --> 01:24:40.980
Phil: I forget the actual plot line.
01:24:41.200 --> 01:24:42.080
Phil: But you see how the...
01:24:42.500 --> 01:24:43.980
Phil: This is boring for people who can't see it.
01:24:44.160 --> 01:24:47.120
Phil: But you see the light on those cans near the door.
01:24:47.140 --> 01:24:48.380
Phil: You see the light on the hat.
01:24:48.400 --> 01:24:53.100
Phil: You can see how that comes through in Beat Cop, certainly.
01:24:56.020 --> 01:24:58.340
Phil: So I'm glad you enjoyed it.
01:24:58.360 --> 01:25:03.160
Phil: I thought this was a game that came out recently, but it's actually an old game from 2017.
01:25:03.960 --> 01:25:07.740
Phil: It has tremendously high feedback on Steam.
01:25:09.600 --> 01:25:13.540
Phil: Rightfully so for me so far.
01:25:15.160 --> 01:25:15.500
Phil: Yep.
01:25:15.520 --> 01:25:16.620
Phil: So I'm not going to give it a score.
01:25:16.640 --> 01:25:22.120
Phil: Again, just like with Death in Texas, I think you're giving me a reason to really revisit my experience with it.
01:25:22.140 --> 01:25:23.920
Phil: I spent a lot of time with this game too.
01:25:25.640 --> 01:25:26.000
Phil: But...
01:25:26.620 --> 01:25:38.940
Tom: I think it may be too stressful for you if you put in the amount of commitment that is required to really enjoy it.
01:25:39.200 --> 01:25:42.940
Tom: It may be too stressful.
01:25:43.060 --> 01:25:43.900
Phil: I don't know about that.
01:25:43.920 --> 01:25:49.900
Phil: I mean, because I really like stressful work sims, like the air traffic controller game.
01:25:49.920 --> 01:26:01.720
Phil: But I think probably for me, the downfall for probably this and Death in Texas is the environment in which I have to play this, which is very short periods of time with a lot of distractions going on.
01:26:02.260 --> 01:26:08.280
Phil: And I think this game would benefit from having your full attention when you're playing it, not something that you're doing.
01:26:08.300 --> 01:26:09.700
Tom: Yeah, it definitely needs that.
01:26:09.720 --> 01:26:15.540
Phil: Yeah, and that's obviously something that's lacking in my life right now.
01:26:15.680 --> 01:26:23.840
Phil: My PC game is in a building that at night is very nice and quiet and isolated, but also very cold.
01:26:24.700 --> 01:26:28.060
Phil: So I typically play console games in the winter.
01:26:29.300 --> 01:26:31.780
Phil: So maybe we'll revisit a lot of these later on.
01:26:32.840 --> 01:26:33.660
Phil: Okay, well, great.
01:26:33.680 --> 01:26:36.240
Phil: And you're going to obviously persist with the game then?
01:26:37.240 --> 01:26:37.860
Tom: Yes, I am.
01:26:38.080 --> 01:26:38.500
Phil: Very good.
01:26:38.520 --> 01:26:39.080
Phil: Glad to hear it.
01:26:39.100 --> 01:26:44.360
Phil: And again, there's so much detail in the game that's just really remarkable and wonderful.
01:26:44.880 --> 01:26:48.000
Phil: And I really do appreciate the graphical style of it, that's for sure.
01:26:49.820 --> 01:26:51.520
Phil: But that's enough of this indie rubbish.
01:26:52.400 --> 01:26:58.860
Phil: Surely one of us has been playing a AAA game that's relevant to these times as well.
01:27:00.340 --> 01:27:02.100
Phil: Have you been playing Last of Us 2?
01:27:02.900 --> 01:27:03.620
Tom: No, I haven't.
01:27:04.300 --> 01:27:24.580
Tom: But I have been playing Metro Exodus, and I'm not going to talk about the actual game itself, but we discussed previously on the show that my Windows Store version of the game committed suicide, and I had to get it on the Epic Games Store for $27.
01:27:24.720 --> 01:27:36.060
Tom: And I don't know if you noticed this, but in the Steam sale, here's an example of the free markets competition resulting in positive things for the consumer.
01:27:36.360 --> 01:27:48.580
Tom: The much-maligned Epic Store in its sales has been offering coupons for users that give like $10 or sometimes even $15 off their purchase.
01:27:48.800 --> 01:27:51.560
Tom: And that can even be on games that are like $20.
01:27:51.580 --> 01:27:59.280
Tom: So you can essentially get $50, 50% off cheap games on the Epic Store during their sales.
01:27:59.340 --> 01:28:05.500
Tom: And if there's a good price on a game, you can get more off due to their coupon system.
01:28:05.520 --> 01:28:20.760
Tom: I ended up managing to pick up Metro Exodus with all of its DLC as a result of this coupon for $27, which as I projected would be cheaper than the best price on Steam in the upcoming summer sale, which was $38.
01:28:21.080 --> 01:28:28.440
Tom: And their coupon, which was only for $8, was only applicable if you were spending $45 or more.
01:28:29.360 --> 01:28:39.560
Tom: But there is an example of a better sales practice of Epic influencing Steam and forcing them to implement their own coupon system.
01:28:40.540 --> 01:29:01.200
Tom: So it's very good, lucky that the people who are in a consumerist cult for Steam are not large enough to kill off Epic Games as yet, because it is resulting in a positive effect on Steam, at least so far.
01:29:01.200 --> 01:29:02.040
Phil: Yeah, definitely.
01:29:02.060 --> 01:29:06.840
Phil: And I don't understand the corporate cult that's behind them.
01:29:07.760 --> 01:29:09.680
Phil: Just a piece of news that came in.
01:29:09.700 --> 01:29:10.780
Tom: Well, it's not just Steam.
01:29:11.020 --> 01:29:14.460
Tom: It's general gaming and fandom culture.
01:29:14.480 --> 01:29:27.620
Tom: For instance, Tencent announced a cyberpunk-themed game, and there are sways of people suggesting that it is a cyberpunk 27.7 ripoff.
01:29:27.860 --> 01:29:37.840
Tom: And I hate to break it to CD Projekt Red fans, but there is literally nothing original in Cyberpunk 2077.
01:29:37.860 --> 01:29:38.460
Phil: Absolutely.
01:29:38.520 --> 01:29:39.420
Tom: Literally nothing.
01:29:39.740 --> 01:29:40.880
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
01:29:40.900 --> 01:29:43.940
Phil: Just some news about Epic and Tencent and all the rest of it.
01:29:44.120 --> 01:29:48.160
Phil: Sony spent a quarter of a billion dollars investing in Epic this week.
01:29:48.180 --> 01:29:49.980
Phil: So $250 million.
01:29:50.720 --> 01:29:53.560
Phil: Bought them a 1.5% share in Epic.
01:29:55.940 --> 01:29:58.260
Phil: So I don't know why you would do that.
01:29:59.320 --> 01:30:00.860
Phil: Maybe it's, who knows?
01:30:00.980 --> 01:30:01.400
Phil: I don't know.
01:30:01.420 --> 01:30:07.300
Phil: Maybe they're going to do some exclusive content with Fortnite, and that's the cost of doing business.
01:30:07.480 --> 01:30:08.760
Tom: They may well be.
01:30:10.140 --> 01:30:12.080
Phil: Tencent owns 40% of Epic.
01:30:13.280 --> 01:30:18.700
Phil: So for what it's worth, I've always liked Epic as a company.
01:30:18.720 --> 01:30:22.420
Phil: I've loved the products that they produce mostly.
01:30:23.780 --> 01:30:27.120
Phil: And I don't see any downside to the Epic store whatsoever.
01:30:28.980 --> 01:30:45.960
Tom: I think it is a great positive to the online game store ecosystem because it is literally the only other competitive steam because GOG is in its own niche, as is Humble Bundle.
01:30:46.820 --> 01:30:55.000
Tom: And then outside of that, all you have are the key resellers, which are obviously in their own niche, even further apart.
01:30:56.460 --> 01:30:57.800
Phil: I'd say itch.io is the best.
01:30:57.820 --> 01:31:04.120
Tom: And obviously itch.io is also another alternative, but again, in its own niche.
01:31:04.760 --> 01:31:06.860
Phil: I don't have any tattoos right now.
01:31:08.440 --> 01:31:12.000
Phil: If I had already had a few, I'd probably get an itch.io tattoo.
01:31:12.020 --> 01:31:14.000
Phil: I figured I'd owe them.
01:31:14.260 --> 01:31:16.120
Phil: It could just be there along with the rest of them.
01:31:16.140 --> 01:31:17.840
Phil: People would be like, dude, what's that for?
01:31:17.860 --> 01:31:21.360
Phil: I'm like, oh, in 2020, they gave me 1600 games for $5.
01:31:23.120 --> 01:31:24.260
Phil: It's the least I could do.
01:31:25.780 --> 01:31:31.040
Phil: But hey, so Metro Exodus, Metro, who develops Metro?
01:31:31.800 --> 01:31:37.100
Tom: 4A Studios, but we're not here to talk about the game itself in terms of any of its content.
01:31:37.120 --> 01:31:39.420
Tom: We're here to compare the two different versions.
01:31:40.000 --> 01:31:58.100
Tom: And again, I was shocked by the differences in the Caspian, the lighthouse scene, where on the Windows Store version, I had regular constant crashes that took me a long time to navigate through.
01:31:59.180 --> 01:32:06.360
Tom: That was not there at all, and the entire level generally ran about five frames per second faster.
01:32:07.180 --> 01:32:18.680
Tom: And outside of the Caspian on the Windows Games Store version, the game crashed several times.
01:32:20.800 --> 01:32:26.120
Tom: On the Epic Games Store version, so far I have crashed once in total.
01:32:26.120 --> 01:32:26.620
Tom: Why?
01:32:27.040 --> 01:32:27.900
Phil: How could this be?
01:32:28.640 --> 01:32:40.220
Tom: So I don't understand why or how, but apparently Windows Store versions of games are potentially as bad as their reputation would suggest.
01:32:41.620 --> 01:32:54.880
Tom: And the way in which the Metro Exodus Windows Store version committed suicide, I would highly suggest not getting a game on Windows Store if another option is available.
01:32:55.160 --> 01:32:57.240
Tom: Their prices are usually worse as well.
01:32:57.520 --> 01:32:58.620
Phil: It's just astounding.
01:32:58.640 --> 01:33:01.900
Phil: I just don't understand how it could be the same game, same computer.
01:33:01.920 --> 01:33:03.900
Phil: I mean, it should be the same install packet.
01:33:03.920 --> 01:33:05.680
Phil: I just don't get it.
01:33:05.800 --> 01:33:16.440
Tom: There must be some differences because, for instance, where the saves go, the Windows Store version goes into some completely esoteric and ridiculous place as well.
01:33:16.460 --> 01:33:20.400
Tom: So who knows how and why?
01:33:21.600 --> 01:33:23.660
Tom: But there appear to be differences somehow.
01:33:24.820 --> 01:33:35.180
Tom: And the other thing, last thing on Metro, is I actually just finished reading today the Metro 2033 novel.
01:33:35.640 --> 01:33:38.080
Phil: Oh, should I be getting a pen to write this down?
01:33:38.080 --> 01:33:38.840
Phil: Is it any good?
01:33:39.700 --> 01:33:42.760
Tom: Well, shockingly, it was extremely good.
01:33:43.220 --> 01:33:46.180
Tom: I was expecting it to be complete and utter shit.
01:33:46.740 --> 01:33:47.280
Phil: What's it called?
01:33:47.300 --> 01:33:48.520
Phil: Metro 2033?
01:33:48.540 --> 01:33:57.580
Tom: Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky, who was involved in the writing of both 2033 and Last Light.
01:33:58.180 --> 01:33:59.140
Phil: How do you spell his last name?
01:33:59.160 --> 01:33:59.820
Tom: Not Exodus.
01:34:00.600 --> 01:34:01.500
Tom: Glukhovsky.
01:34:02.180 --> 01:34:03.220
Phil: You don't know how to spell his name.
01:34:13.080 --> 01:34:13.340
Phil: S-K-Y.
01:34:13.360 --> 01:34:14.680
Phil: And it's Dmitry D-M-I-T-R-I.
01:34:14.700 --> 01:34:16.420
Tom: Not Dmitry D-I-M.
01:34:17.380 --> 01:34:18.380
Phil: Yeah.
01:34:18.940 --> 01:34:20.260
Phil: Well, that's amazing.
01:34:20.340 --> 01:34:21.080
Phil: It's actually good.
01:34:21.720 --> 01:34:22.340
Tom: Yes, it is.
01:34:22.360 --> 01:34:56.160
Tom: And I bring it up because in the original game in Metro 2033, and also Last Light as well, Last Light was much more focused on the metaphysical themes that were in 2033, but I mentioned how extraordinarily Russian it was in that the stations you were exploring, the people you were interacting with were all basically mouthpieces for various political or philosophical ideologies.
01:34:56.960 --> 01:35:00.200
Tom: And it created this exceptional atmosphere.
01:35:00.220 --> 01:35:13.600
Tom: In the book, of course, this is much more exaggerated, and the metaphysical elements of Last Light that were downplayed in Metro 2033 is at the forefront as well as the philosophical and political stuff.
01:35:13.960 --> 01:35:27.700
Tom: So it's basically those two thematic bases combined into the one package, and obviously there's more room to expand upon it in the book compared to the game.
01:35:28.260 --> 01:35:54.960
Tom: But even more impressively, and I don't know if this was deliberate or not, but according to one internet profile of him, he is a critic of modern Russia's politics, so it may well be deliberate in the game there other than as being part of the Russian writing tradition and even Soviet writing tradition as well.
01:35:55.260 --> 01:35:57.800
Tom: This didn't really change during communism.
01:35:59.200 --> 01:36:45.100
Tom: Other than those elements being there basically just as a traditional way of telling the story, the way the whole of the Metro setting is presented and the philosophy and the political discussions are presented is very, very, very much comes across as being commentary on the propaganda style of the Putin government and his absolutely amazing, the people who does his stuff, where you're basically going around this new world that has appeared in some time before 2033, i.e.
01:36:45.140 --> 01:36:54.280
Tom: in the modern era, after a massive change in society completely collapsing the accepted way of understanding the world.
01:36:54.340 --> 01:37:14.620
Tom: And in replacement of this is basically a lapping version of previous ideologies and philosophies, all presented simultaneously, openly as coming from the source of government funding and propaganda.
01:37:15.200 --> 01:37:30.700
Tom: And you're left with a world where you are presented with all these openly false ideas, and you have to navigate it in this nihilistic setting.
01:37:30.980 --> 01:37:41.120
Tom: And while this is very much in line with all the anti-Russian propaganda that is out there, I do recommend people go out and read Alexander Dugan.
01:37:41.240 --> 01:37:47.180
Tom: And I've forgotten the name of the more interesting PR people in the Russian government.
01:37:47.440 --> 01:37:58.280
Tom: The former theatre director and the novelist and short story writer is very much in line with their own propaganda as well.
01:37:58.480 --> 01:38:12.500
Tom: So I was not expecting that, and it may not even be intentional, but merely be accidental coming from a writer who unconsciously has absorbed a lot of the culture in which he lives.
01:38:12.580 --> 01:38:37.680
Tom: But regardless, it is a step up from the games, which I was not expecting, and a fascinating depiction and way of modern day Russia, and a way of presenting it in the metaphor of the metro system, where you are literally going from important Russian location to important Russian location.
01:38:38.220 --> 01:38:40.780
Phil: Do you follow 4A games at all?
01:38:40.800 --> 01:38:44.580
Phil: I mean, in terms of, you know, outside of metro and...
01:38:46.740 --> 01:38:48.800
Tom: Outside of metro, not really.
01:38:48.820 --> 01:38:49.520
Phil: Yeah, okay.
01:38:49.540 --> 01:38:51.460
Tom: Do they do anything outside of metro?
01:38:51.740 --> 01:38:52.500
Phil: No, they don't.
01:38:52.500 --> 01:38:55.420
Phil: I mean, they've been doing metro for almost 10 years now.
01:38:55.800 --> 01:38:58.100
Phil: Well, they have been doing metro for over 10 years now.
01:38:58.560 --> 01:39:00.200
Phil: It's the sole thing that they do.
01:39:00.200 --> 01:39:09.100
Phil: And like, it's a very well-respected game and probably must be highly successful if they're still doing it after 10 years.
01:39:10.340 --> 01:39:18.580
Phil: I certainly know that the marketing of the game has been entirely sensitive and thoughtful over the years.
01:39:18.600 --> 01:39:26.900
Phil: So I just hope that they can continue doing what they want to do, but I'd also like to see something a little bit different out of them.
01:39:28.720 --> 01:39:33.260
Tom: Well, they did something a little bit different with Exodus, so they weren't just repeating themselves.
01:39:33.700 --> 01:39:34.820
Phil: No, they certainly did.
01:39:34.980 --> 01:39:38.660
Phil: And I remember the response to that wasn't that great either.
01:39:39.460 --> 01:39:45.140
Phil: But I did think that what they were doing with Exodus was enough of a departure.
01:39:45.160 --> 01:39:51.100
Phil: I'm just saying, are they going to get out of the world that they're in and do something else?
01:39:52.160 --> 01:39:52.640
Phil: Who knows?
01:39:52.660 --> 01:39:57.280
Phil: I mean, if they're making money and they're selling games, then, you know...
01:39:57.360 --> 01:40:02.120
Tom: I believe they have made a VR game that is unrelated to Metro.
01:40:02.140 --> 01:40:04.380
Tom: So they have technically done one other thing.
01:40:04.980 --> 01:40:09.900
Phil: The only reason they made the VR game unrelated to Metro was because people kept having to take off their...
01:40:10.200 --> 01:40:13.160
Phil: kept taking off their VR goggles to clear the steam.
01:40:13.180 --> 01:40:14.120
Tom: To get a new filter.
01:40:17.380 --> 01:40:18.140
Phil: All right, well...
01:40:19.120 --> 01:40:20.080
Tom: And I should add this.
01:40:20.820 --> 01:40:31.560
Tom: I would put this Metro 2033 well above Roadside Picnic, which is the source material for the stalker games and also the stalker film.
01:40:31.760 --> 01:40:34.780
Phil: Right, which is also still on my reading list.
01:40:34.980 --> 01:40:35.340
Phil: Actually...
01:40:35.920 --> 01:40:41.380
Tom: With the hierarchy for stalker, it goes the film is obviously incomparable.
01:40:42.360 --> 01:40:49.740
Tom: Then there is the game and then there is a long distance between the game and Roadside Picnic.
01:40:49.980 --> 01:41:10.040
Tom: But I would recommend reading Roadside Picnic and Metro 2033 because Metro 2033 very much comes out of Roadside Picnic and it is fascinating comparing the two and the different cultures from which they come from.
01:41:10.660 --> 01:41:19.300
Tom: Yet their consistency with the tradition of the Russian novel, even though they are both obviously genre works.
01:41:22.500 --> 01:41:29.500
Phil: Okay, well, I'm looking forward to what they do next, and I'll certainly pick up that book and give it a read.
01:41:30.100 --> 01:41:31.680
Phil: Thank you very much for the recommendation.
01:41:34.040 --> 01:41:43.460
Tom: And just before we move on from Communism, I believe in a previous episode of the show, you called Marxism very armchair.
01:41:44.960 --> 01:41:45.420
Phil: Did I?
01:41:45.440 --> 01:41:46.920
Tom: I think so.
01:41:47.320 --> 01:41:57.700
Tom: And I have now read Das Kapital, as well as several Austrian and classical economic works.
01:41:57.900 --> 01:42:00.580
Tom: And I would have to question that analysis.
01:42:01.220 --> 01:42:05.360
Phil: I don't know under what context I said it was armchair.
01:42:05.380 --> 01:42:08.120
Tom: I think this was in our discussion of cultural Marxism.
01:42:08.140 --> 01:42:29.820
Tom: Maybe you're referring to Marxist, because one interesting thing that I've noticed about American Marxists, and it explains why American Marxists are so tolerated in America, and they managed to successfully survive the communist purge, whereas many other left-wing movements did not.
01:42:29.960 --> 01:42:34.920
Tom: And American Marxists are essentially conservatives.
01:42:36.820 --> 01:42:42.460
Tom: Their commentary on the recent protests are absolutely astounding.
01:42:43.260 --> 01:43:01.100
Tom: Many of them are in the first place against them because they're scared of slogans like defund the police, and others completely dismiss it solely because they think there is no class criticism in it.
01:43:01.120 --> 01:43:11.320
Tom: Now, there is certainly a non-class criticism at the center of it, but they apparently have not had any exposure to it.
01:43:11.380 --> 01:43:27.600
Tom: They haven't had any exposure to the protests outside of, to use a much abused term, the mainstream media, because there are many people involved in the protests who do have a very economic reason for protesting and rioting.
01:43:28.540 --> 01:43:39.440
Tom: And they're there merely to comment and dismiss it and not even attempt to use it and reframe what is going on.
01:43:39.820 --> 01:43:44.640
Tom: It's absolutely astounding and explains why Marxism still goes on.
01:43:44.660 --> 01:43:56.900
Tom: But Das Kapital, as opposed to Marxists, I do not think you can describe that as an armchair analysis at all.
01:43:57.280 --> 01:43:57.900
Phil: I don't know.
01:43:57.920 --> 01:44:00.060
Phil: Yeah, I don't know what I was talking about there.
01:44:00.080 --> 01:44:03.020
Phil: I know we were talking about Mussolini and how much of a hack he was.
01:44:05.140 --> 01:44:07.540
Phil: We got into Stalin a little bit, I thought, but...
01:44:07.760 --> 01:44:16.140
Tom: Well, I have read a Stalin book as well, and Stalin's understanding of dialectical materialism is very much...
01:44:16.820 --> 01:44:28.700
Tom: It's like reading a blog, essentially, an absolutely terrifying blog interpretation of Marxism.
01:44:28.740 --> 01:44:37.140
Phil: It is incredible to me how Marx got to the position he was, but you could say that about a lot of historical figures from that period.
01:44:38.000 --> 01:44:43.620
Phil: I guess there's just a very shallow pool of applicants, really.
01:44:44.720 --> 01:44:46.820
Tom: I think Dars Kapital is...
01:44:47.580 --> 01:45:12.160
Tom: I'm yet to read Adam Smith, and he is my greatest hope for some classical economics that is in any way applicable to reality and is not entirely based on mathematical equations and school textbook style thought experiments, which unfortunately Dars Kapital has a lot of in it.
01:45:12.180 --> 01:45:18.280
Tom: But Dars Kapital is, I think, completely worthy of its reputation.
01:45:19.280 --> 01:45:28.120
Tom: It certainly needs an editor because 50% of it should be deleted that falls into the trap of mathematical masturbation.
01:45:28.560 --> 01:46:03.880
Tom: But a lot of it is a genuine attempt at applying empiricism to economics with detailed descriptions on how jobs actually function, how interactions between different people in the economy actually functions in real events, as well as very, very detailed and high quality descriptions of labour conditions and so forth, which is supported by a wealth of other empirical evidence from the era.
01:46:05.220 --> 01:46:17.920
Tom: So my reading of it was that it was the complete opposite of an armchair analysis and a genuine attempt at looking at economics empirically.
01:46:18.420 --> 01:46:24.420
Tom: And most other economics that I've read, the reverse has been true.
01:46:26.920 --> 01:46:31.440
Tom: But I would not recommend people read Das Kapital or Stalin.
01:46:32.120 --> 01:46:42.020
Tom: My recommendation for left-wing political figures, which Marx obviously wasn't, but Stalin was, would be The Green Book by Gaddafi.
01:46:42.720 --> 01:46:52.160
Tom: It features a tremendously entertaining section on the dictatorship of sports, and is well worth reading for that alone.
01:46:52.800 --> 01:46:56.280
Phil: He was big in the polo scene, as I recall.
01:46:56.300 --> 01:46:58.280
Phil: I think he was also an avid footballer.
01:47:00.440 --> 01:47:01.940
Tom: I don't think he was an avid footballer.
01:47:01.960 --> 01:47:03.320
Tom: He was very much against football.
01:47:03.880 --> 01:47:04.760
Phil: I've got him wrong then.
01:47:04.800 --> 01:47:06.960
Phil: But I know he played polo.
01:47:08.140 --> 01:47:10.120
Phil: But so where do you get a copy of the green book?
01:47:11.360 --> 01:47:13.800
Tom: I read mine on archive.org.
01:47:13.900 --> 01:47:16.060
Tom: It is widely available on the internet.
01:47:16.560 --> 01:47:23.320
Phil: See, there's a book by Moun Sharif Parev, I think, was his name, the guy that was in charge of Pakistan.
01:47:24.580 --> 01:47:31.840
Phil: And I bought that book immediately when it was available because I was like, oh, it immediately became a bestseller because the CIA went out and bought them all.
01:47:32.380 --> 01:47:33.740
Phil: And then purged them.
01:47:35.140 --> 01:47:38.820
Phil: And I'm always interested in reading what goes on in these people's minds.
01:47:38.840 --> 01:47:43.460
Phil: And yeah, he was not sane.
01:47:44.820 --> 01:47:47.220
Phil: But yeah, okay, well...
01:47:47.460 --> 01:47:51.100
Tom: Gaddafi, I would categorise as sane but eccentric.
01:47:51.240 --> 01:47:51.600
Phil: Yes.
01:47:51.780 --> 01:47:54.940
Phil: Okay, so archive.org is a good place then to get some of this stuff.
01:47:56.940 --> 01:47:58.200
Phil: What's the readability like?
01:47:58.220 --> 01:47:59.860
Phil: What do you get, like a PDF or...
01:48:01.400 --> 01:48:02.460
Tom: They have their own.
01:48:02.660 --> 01:48:06.360
Tom: You can read it just as a blank text document, if you prefer.
01:48:06.440 --> 01:48:15.340
Tom: Or you can use their book style reader, which you can arrange as a multiple page view, a double page view or a single page view.
01:48:16.080 --> 01:48:19.460
Phil: Do you read most of these on screen, like on the PC or...?
01:48:20.000 --> 01:48:21.160
Tom: Most of them I listen to.
01:48:21.180 --> 01:48:26.320
Tom: They have an automatic text-to-speech program.
01:48:26.700 --> 01:48:40.040
Tom: And if you can get the female voice on there, you can speed it up to being extremely fast, so you can read at least 100 pages per hour.
01:48:40.040 --> 01:48:40.920
Phil: Wow, okay.
01:48:41.240 --> 01:48:44.080
Tom: If not more, depending on the density of the text.
01:48:44.100 --> 01:48:45.000
Phil: Well, there's a good tip.
01:48:46.400 --> 01:48:51.200
Phil: I think with that, we'll probably just have to close out Episode 127 and pick up where we...
01:48:51.360 --> 01:48:53.760
Phil: what we left on the table for the next episode.
01:48:55.260 --> 01:49:00.180
Phil: I, for one, enjoyed your article on Call of Duty Modern Warfare.
01:49:00.840 --> 01:49:04.100
Phil: I really wanted to talk to you about it on this show, but we'll pick that up in the next show.
Phil: But just go over to gameunder.net, see Tom's pictorial and commentary and all of our other stuff.
Phil: Mr.
Phil: Towers, thank you for joining us.
01:49:14.960 --> 01:49:15.840
Tom: Thank you, Hammeh.
01:49:15.860 --> 01:49:23.780
Tom: And please look forward to our conclusion on what is the best Neo-Nazi novel in the next episode.
01:49:23.840 --> 01:49:24.460
Phil: Absolutely.
01:49:24.480 --> 01:49:27.240
Phil: And also my final impressions of Last of Us 2.