Stream below or right-click and download here You can also listen on Stitcher and iTunes. Why not subscribe to us on RSS ?
Introduction
0:00:12 Halo Infinite Delay & New Consoles Launch
0:03:40 Mario Bros. is Hard
First Impressions - Phil Fogg
0:10:35 Deadly Premonition: A Blessing in Disguise for Switch
First Impressions - Tom Towers
0:33:40 Five Nights at Freddy's
First Impressions - Phil Fogg
0:46:33 Netflix Series, High Score
Final Impressions - Tom Towers
0:49:04 Project Warlock - PC, Switch and everything else
Final Impressions - Tom Towers
1:17:12 Metro Last Light DLC Original vs. HDeification
Tom Towers Reacts to the News
1:31:15 Single Game Studios
1:36:53 Tom's Impression of Stonehouse Orphanage
1:38:45 198fortnite
1:42:24 Call of Duty Black Ops Coldwar Ad
Final Impressions - Tom Towers
1:46:33 Metal Slug X
Transcript
Phil: Hello everyone, and welcome to episode 129 of The Game Under Podcast, Australia's longest running video game podcast.
00:00:19.880 --> 00:00:24.760
Phil: I am your co-host, Phil Fogg, and I'm joined by Tom Towers.
00:00:24.780 --> 00:00:25.220
Phil: Hi, Tom.
00:00:25.420 --> 00:00:26.220
Tom: Hello, Phil.
00:00:27.340 --> 00:00:27.900
Phil: How's things?
00:00:29.080 --> 00:00:34.160
Tom: I believe they are trending downwards in terms of numbers.
00:00:35.500 --> 00:00:36.040
Phil: Oh, really?
00:00:37.880 --> 00:00:39.960
Phil: You were talking to a podcast listener?
00:00:39.980 --> 00:00:40.420
Tom: Yes.
00:00:40.440 --> 00:00:41.080
Phil: Or COVID?
00:00:42.160 --> 00:00:42.840
Phil: Or COVID?
00:00:42.920 --> 00:00:43.260
Phil: Yeah.
00:00:46.180 --> 00:00:47.940
Phil: I can confirm one of those is true.
00:00:48.260 --> 00:00:51.640
Phil: The other one might be just some sort of right-wing lie.
00:00:52.340 --> 00:00:53.520
Tom: It depends on where you are.
00:00:55.900 --> 00:00:56.740
Phil: In Melbourne or...?
00:00:56.760 --> 00:00:57.480
Tom: In the world.
00:00:58.480 --> 00:00:59.320
Phil: Oh, okay.
00:00:59.380 --> 00:00:59.820
Phil: Yeah.
00:00:59.840 --> 00:01:02.100
Phil: As to who's propagating the lie.
00:01:02.860 --> 00:01:06.420
Tom: Depending on whether the numbers are trending down and what those numbers are.
00:01:07.160 --> 00:01:07.940
Phil: Well, that's cool.
00:01:07.940 --> 00:01:11.320
Phil: I mean, this COVID thing has been in the news this week.
00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:21.160
Phil: I don't know if you've noticed because, you know, things like Halo Infinite being delayed and all of these sorts of things.
00:01:21.320 --> 00:01:28.580
Tom: In the case of Halo Infinite, I would bet that that is an excuse after the reception it got.
00:01:29.920 --> 00:01:30.580
Phil: You think so?
00:01:30.600 --> 00:01:33.240
Phil: I've been up on the fence of that one.
00:01:33.880 --> 00:01:35.760
Phil: Because I don't think they're...
00:01:35.920 --> 00:01:43.140
Phil: Well, I mean, it has to be legitimate that it would be difficult to coordinate it between now and then.
00:01:43.160 --> 00:01:51.340
Phil: I think that they probably knew that it wasn't going to come out this year, but they didn't want to put a damper on their big game presentation a couple of weeks ago.
00:01:51.360 --> 00:01:55.360
Phil: So they've kind of let a few weeks go.
00:01:55.380 --> 00:02:01.920
Phil: But we won't know for some time what the actual truth is behind it.
00:02:02.160 --> 00:02:13.200
Tom: Coronavirus may well have interfered with the development in releasing the trailer, for all we know, resulting in the lackluster graphics on display.
00:02:15.540 --> 00:02:23.980
Phil: Well, I was interestingly speaking to a stranger who actually has an interest in video games this weekend.
00:02:24.700 --> 00:02:28.000
Tom: Was this someone you met in a shopping center?
00:02:30.120 --> 00:02:32.160
Phil: Yes, and they were not wearing a mask.
00:02:33.780 --> 00:02:41.940
Phil: And something came up about video games and then they just said, Oh, what consoles are you pre-ordering?
00:02:42.780 --> 00:02:48.780
Phil: And I've got to say, this was not an EB Games or anything, which is where you would expect that sort of question.
00:02:49.460 --> 00:03:02.720
Phil: And I sort of said, Oh, well, I'm definitely getting a PlayStation 5 at launch, but I'm not getting an Xbox because there's no real pressure to get it, because there's no incredible exclusives that are available at launch.
00:03:03.760 --> 00:03:12.580
Phil: And he said, Oh, yeah, but backward compatibility, you know, with your 360 and original Xbox, that's huge, you know, for him.
00:03:12.600 --> 00:03:13.860
Phil: So he's pre-ordering both.
00:03:14.500 --> 00:03:16.520
Tom: Were you actually just talking to yourself?
00:03:17.160 --> 00:03:17.840
Phil: No, I wasn't.
00:03:19.680 --> 00:03:27.000
Phil: But this guy also did have an extensive retro collection, including like Atari Lynxes.
00:03:27.200 --> 00:03:33.820
Phil: And I was like, Hey, I might be able to set you up, hook you up, man, because I've grown disinterested in my Atari Lynxes.
00:03:33.840 --> 00:03:38.700
Phil: And then immediately realized that I completely undermined my negotiating position.
00:03:39.880 --> 00:03:40.280
Phil: So...
00:03:40.300 --> 00:03:51.660
Tom: While we're on the topic of retro consoles, before we move on, I've played a little more of Super Mario World.
00:03:52.080 --> 00:03:53.240
Tom: I think that's what it's called.
00:03:53.260 --> 00:03:58.520
Tom: The compilation of NES and SNES Super Marios on the SNES.
00:03:59.260 --> 00:04:00.460
Phil: Super Mario All-Stars.
00:04:00.480 --> 00:04:01.260
Tom: Yes, that will be it.
00:04:01.340 --> 00:04:07.860
Tom: As well as some of new Super Mario Bros Wii U for comparison.
00:04:08.700 --> 00:04:18.800
Tom: And I have to say, why on earth does the Super Mario 2D series not have a reputation as being extraordinarily hard?
00:04:20.580 --> 00:04:22.640
Phil: This is what I've been trying to tell people for centuries.
00:04:23.100 --> 00:04:29.880
Tom: Because, I mean, we all laughed once upon a time at the video of you playing Super Mario Bros.
00:04:30.040 --> 00:04:32.820
Tom: But it is tremendously difficult.
00:04:33.280 --> 00:04:44.360
Tom: It may not be on the level of something like Super Meat Boy, but it is on another plane compared to Rayman and Donkey Kong among others.
00:04:45.960 --> 00:04:47.160
Phil: Yeah, I definitely think so.
00:04:47.180 --> 00:04:54.200
Phil: And I think the reason why I was mocked for decades for not being good at Mario was because I didn't play it at the time that it was released.
00:04:54.660 --> 00:05:02.660
Phil: And of course, for people who played it at the time that it was released, it was their only game for a long period of time.
00:05:03.300 --> 00:05:06.040
Phil: And also people played it a lot because it's a great game.
00:05:06.060 --> 00:05:07.940
Phil: And they are great games, absolutely.
00:05:08.560 --> 00:05:18.920
Phil: Which is why I've played the first probably eight levels of Super Mario World or Super Mario Brothers 3, probably at least 100 hours each.
00:05:19.180 --> 00:05:23.660
Phil: It's just I'm not good at platforming on a 2D plane.
00:05:25.460 --> 00:05:28.540
Phil: So, yeah, I think these games are hard.
00:05:28.920 --> 00:05:34.600
Phil: And I think that people are mocked for thinking that they're hard because they didn't play them at the time of their release.
00:05:34.960 --> 00:05:58.660
Tom: And the interesting thing about the Wii U version is that the difficulty is increased even further, where depending on how you're playing it, if you're trying to be fast, could be on the level of something like Super Meat Boy, the amount of random shit that they're throwing at you compared to the older games is insane.
00:05:58.680 --> 00:06:07.820
Tom: So the other interesting thing about the series is unlike many others, it is one that has actually got more difficult over the years rather than easier.
00:06:09.640 --> 00:06:11.080
Phil: In terms of the 2D?
00:06:11.100 --> 00:06:11.440
Tom: Yes.
00:06:12.380 --> 00:06:14.020
Tom: Obviously not the 3D Mario's.
00:06:14.040 --> 00:06:18.060
Tom: They are tremendously easy, at least Super Mario Galaxy's.
00:06:19.400 --> 00:06:21.440
Phil: The Galaxy's were easy, Odyssey was easy.
00:06:22.800 --> 00:06:24.800
Phil: Yeah, no problems there at all.
00:06:24.860 --> 00:06:38.560
Phil: I think Mario 64 was probably the only one that's somewhat difficult, particularly now if you go back to it, just because the controls are, that were once novel, and at the time you really applied yourself because you were learning a new thing.
00:06:38.740 --> 00:06:45.020
Phil: Now it's been, what, 25 years since then, maybe less, slightly less.
00:06:45.740 --> 00:06:48.960
Phil: So just going back to the single analog is a bit tricky.
00:06:49.220 --> 00:06:50.980
Phil: But no, that's a good observation.
00:06:51.000 --> 00:06:56.820
Phil: And also observation that you are playing those on the original hardware using a SNES and a Wii U.
00:06:56.840 --> 00:06:57.660
Tom: Correct, yes.
00:06:57.900 --> 00:07:01.820
Phil: Yeah, so you're using the controls, so this is not an emulator thing.
00:07:01.840 --> 00:07:04.480
Phil: It's not like you're playing it as it was intended.
00:07:05.240 --> 00:07:12.480
Phil: Though I do wonder if there's lag because you're at least not, at least with the SNES, because you're playing it through an HDMI.
00:07:12.500 --> 00:07:22.180
Tom: Well, I have played it both through the HDMI connection as well as RCA, and I do not detect a significant difference.
00:07:23.680 --> 00:07:25.280
Phil: No, nor do I, for that matter.
00:07:25.300 --> 00:07:45.020
Tom: But one other thing I will add, which I don't see mentioned anywhere, is that you do see Super Mario being praised for how expressive the jumping mechanics are and that sort of thing, in that there's a lot more control you have over how far you jump, depending on how you press the button.
00:07:45.480 --> 00:07:52.800
Tom: But when you were working out how to play, it honestly just feels completely inconsistent and is tremendously annoying.
00:07:52.820 --> 00:08:14.700
Tom: And when you combine that with the new Super Mario Brothers level design, where there are so many enemies and they do not follow a 100% consistent pathway through the levels and so forth, it again adds to the frustration, rather than adding to the enjoyment.
00:08:15.540 --> 00:08:19.220
Phil: Surely, though, you've got to be progressing further than I had.
00:08:20.440 --> 00:08:23.980
Tom: Well, I haven't been playing them that much, so how many levels are you in?
00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:38.120
Tom: I've completed the first world of the old one and about two worlds or a world and a half of the new one, but I have not been playing them for 100 hours or anything like that.
00:08:38.820 --> 00:08:42.600
Phil: Okay, yeah, so I've gotten significantly further over the years.
00:08:42.620 --> 00:09:03.600
Tom: Which is in fact the other thing that annoys me about other games is the save structure, because to me, they are perfect to play in very short sessions, but because of the save structure where you cannot save until you reach the end of the several levels, it really gets in the way of that.
00:09:04.360 --> 00:09:19.880
Phil: We were talking about the next generation, like Xbox Series X, and I got to tell you one thing that's been bugging me on podcasts is every time I hear someone talking about the new Xbox, they say, yeah, but I don't know if it's going to have Ridge Racing support.
00:09:21.060 --> 00:09:22.120
Tom: Ridge Racing support?
00:09:22.860 --> 00:09:26.520
Phil: That's what I'm hearing, but they're saying Ridge Racing, but I'm hearing Ridge Racing.
00:09:27.420 --> 00:09:28.920
Phil: Rage Racing, Ridge Racing.
00:09:30.120 --> 00:09:33.380
Phil: Maybe it's Michael Cain who's doing the podcast, Rage Tracing.
00:09:33.880 --> 00:09:46.780
Tom: I think at this stage, probably none of the consoles will have Ridge Racing support, unfortunately, but the Xbox Backwards compatibility will actually allow you to play some of the latter Ridge Racing games.
00:09:47.620 --> 00:09:48.280
Phil: I hope so.
00:09:48.300 --> 00:09:49.700
Phil: See, that's the thing I'm asking about.
00:09:49.720 --> 00:09:52.720
Phil: Is it just going to be Microsoft Publish that are backward compatible?
00:09:53.480 --> 00:09:56.760
Phil: Or is it, yeah, anyway, someone will let me know, I hope.
00:09:56.860 --> 00:10:07.160
Tom: I'm pretty sure they're aiming for all games, and they have a target of all Microsoft games at launch and a number of non-Microsoft games at launch.
00:10:07.780 --> 00:10:09.760
Tom: But I'm pretty sure they're targeting all, aren't they?
00:10:10.840 --> 00:10:14.000
Phil: They're targeting all, so we'll see.
00:10:14.100 --> 00:10:18.380
Phil: I mean, there's got to be some games that due to licensing, they're unable to do.
00:10:18.540 --> 00:10:26.860
Phil: But certainly on the original Xbox, they wouldn't have been able to encompass the level of licensing for this sort of future technology.
00:10:28.540 --> 00:10:30.180
Phil: So yeah, we'll find out.
00:10:31.720 --> 00:10:41.620
Phil: Speaking of the original Xbox, actually the Xbox 360, Deadly Premonition has been a game that has featured prominently on this podcast for years.
00:10:43.120 --> 00:10:44.420
Phil: Game by Swery.
00:10:44.440 --> 00:10:46.480
Phil: I'm sure everyone at this point is familiar with it.
00:10:47.580 --> 00:10:49.040
Phil: It's one of your favorite games, right?
00:10:49.060 --> 00:10:49.680
Tom: Absolutely.
00:10:50.540 --> 00:11:00.500
Tom: I believe I reviewed it as well as orally reviewing it on air in one of the best episodes of The Game Under Podcast.
00:11:01.460 --> 00:11:05.300
Phil: I, of course, know exactly when that was, and that was in Episode 8, though.
00:11:05.320 --> 00:11:08.300
Phil: A lot of the early episodes, we sprinkled it throughout.
00:11:09.160 --> 00:11:10.820
Phil: But yeah, it's been a favorite game.
00:11:10.840 --> 00:11:12.980
Phil: And then recently, of course, it's been re-released.
00:11:13.620 --> 00:11:13.960
Phil: Well, not...
00:11:14.020 --> 00:11:14.980
Phil: it has been re-released.
00:11:15.000 --> 00:11:18.920
Phil: There was a director's cut that came out for the PlayStation 3.
00:11:18.940 --> 00:11:19.940
Tom: That's the version I played?
00:11:21.000 --> 00:11:22.320
Phil: Yep, it's the director's cut.
00:11:22.480 --> 00:11:25.580
Phil: And I think that has been re-released for Switch as well.
00:11:25.600 --> 00:11:27.300
Phil: In fact, I know it has been re-released for Switch.
00:11:27.540 --> 00:11:32.740
Tom: And it's also on PC, which would be the place to get it, as I believe.
00:11:32.760 --> 00:11:35.780
Tom: You can actually get the PC version of it running well.
00:11:37.260 --> 00:11:41.020
Phil: And now I've been playing the sequel, Deadly Premonition 2.
00:11:41.900 --> 00:11:45.060
Phil: And it's by the original director, Swery.
00:11:45.980 --> 00:11:53.300
Phil: I've got to say that when I first got this game, I played it for a very long time without having updated it.
00:11:53.400 --> 00:11:58.320
Phil: So it was kind of an interesting experience, because when I first turned on the Switch, I was somewhere where there was no Internet.
00:11:59.000 --> 00:12:04.980
Phil: And immediately, even though I was not connected to the Internet, it said, there is an update available for this game.
00:12:05.000 --> 00:12:05.860
Phil: Would you like to download it?
00:12:05.880 --> 00:12:06.480
Phil: Download now.
00:12:07.960 --> 00:12:13.380
Phil: So right off the cart, they knew that there would be a day one patch that has been written into it.
00:12:13.740 --> 00:12:15.560
Phil: And I just said, no, because I couldn't.
00:12:15.960 --> 00:12:18.320
Phil: You know, I wasn't going to have Internet access for a few days.
00:12:18.340 --> 00:12:20.300
Phil: So I said, no, I don't have access to the Internet.
00:12:20.320 --> 00:12:21.040
Phil: Just let me play.
00:12:21.800 --> 00:12:23.020
Phil: So I've been playing.
00:12:23.340 --> 00:12:36.580
Phil: So when I did get back to Internet land, I found out that there was this massive controversy because as with the original, there is a trans character in this game.
00:12:37.620 --> 00:12:45.500
Phil: And apparently the way that Swery worked with that material in his original script on the unupdated game was insensitive.
00:12:45.540 --> 00:12:52.140
Phil: Now, I don't know what was in that, but that was reason enough for me to go, you know what, I'm not going to update this game.
00:12:53.000 --> 00:12:54.580
Phil: I'm going to keep playing this.
00:12:55.060 --> 00:12:56.560
Phil: So I played probably the first...
00:12:56.600 --> 00:13:03.780
Tom: And the improvements to the frame rate, I believe, have been in the order of just a few frames.
00:13:03.800 --> 00:13:06.540
Tom: So you're not getting much of a performance increase at all.
00:13:06.840 --> 00:13:08.960
Phil: Yeah, well, I'll give you impressions about that.
00:13:09.180 --> 00:13:16.580
Phil: But apparently at a certain point in the game, I was just coming up with so many issues that I went, you know what?
00:13:16.760 --> 00:13:23.500
Phil: As cool as it will be for the podcast, for me to see the original unedited or unupdated version of this, which is probably...
00:13:23.920 --> 00:13:25.700
Phil: Which is most definitely already on YouTube.
00:13:26.300 --> 00:13:27.600
Phil: I have to update this game.
00:13:27.620 --> 00:13:28.540
Phil: So I did update it.
00:13:28.980 --> 00:13:35.560
Phil: And I did get to the part where in the original, he had deadnamed the trans character.
00:13:36.300 --> 00:13:40.520
Phil: So that's the pattern of referring to someone in the...
00:13:41.160 --> 00:13:43.440
Phil: Using the person's old name in their new gender.
00:13:44.240 --> 00:13:46.800
Phil: And I can see why that would be upsetting.
00:13:46.960 --> 00:13:51.340
Phil: If I'd gone through that process and someone used my old name, that'd be upsetting.
00:13:51.580 --> 00:13:52.880
Phil: Understandable, but upsetting.
00:13:53.860 --> 00:13:59.760
Tom: The real question is why you would change your name from Phil Fogg no matter what you were doing.
00:14:00.580 --> 00:14:04.100
Tom: I don't think you could change your name if you were called Phil Fogg.
00:14:05.100 --> 00:14:06.260
Phil: Well, I changed it to Phyllis.
00:14:06.560 --> 00:14:07.240
Phil: Phyllis Fogg.
00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:10.640
Tom: But one would still refer to you as Phil for short.
00:14:11.500 --> 00:14:12.220
Phil: Yeah, that's true.
00:14:12.280 --> 00:14:12.780
Phil: That's true.
00:14:13.040 --> 00:14:47.620
Phil: And so it is hilarious because about, I would say, 20 minutes before the incident that has been now edited out, there is an awkward and hastily put together mini-speech that the lead character, what's his name, York, puts together about how it's so unfair how trans people are treated in some parts of the country and that this is backward thinking and that we need to move together and work together as one.
00:14:47.940 --> 00:15:02.280
Phil: And it is like all of the cut scenes are really poor, like with people like swiveling on as if they're sitting in an office chair, like as they turn, like because they don't have any actual legs, you know.
00:15:03.300 --> 00:15:04.740
Phil: It's just the top part of their body.
00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:08.440
Phil: But this was particularly poor and very obvious.
00:15:08.460 --> 00:15:10.200
Phil: I was like, oh, we must be getting close to it.
00:15:11.260 --> 00:15:12.540
Phil: And then we get to the part.
00:15:14.060 --> 00:15:16.240
Phil: And they've cleaned up the script pretty well.
00:15:16.260 --> 00:15:18.920
Phil: Like it was pretty seamlessly seamless how they did it.
00:15:19.400 --> 00:15:27.760
Phil: But the thing is, like he was, he would have only been dead naming it because it was a revelation in the script as to who this person was.
00:15:28.620 --> 00:15:34.180
Phil: Like it's a big revelation as to who this person in front of you used to be, their former identity.
00:15:34.580 --> 00:15:51.860
Phil: And so because this is the first time you're seeing them, because you never actually saw the person as they were before, you'd only heard about them, like it would be a big leap unless it was set up really obviously to say, Tom, is that you?
00:15:52.300 --> 00:15:54.380
Phil: You know, I mean, that would be the easy moment.
00:15:54.400 --> 00:15:55.280
Tom: Not anymore, Phil.
00:15:56.400 --> 00:15:57.100
Phil: No, not anymore.
00:15:57.880 --> 00:16:10.500
Phil: So but so instead they have to dance around it and say, I can't believe it's you who used to co-host the podcast instead of saying the actual name, right?
00:16:10.660 --> 00:16:10.960
Phil: Yep.
00:16:10.980 --> 00:16:24.060
Phil: So like in a mystery game where there's a big reveal, it would have only been obvious to deadname the person, you know, and so they danced around it and I thought they did it quite well.
00:16:24.440 --> 00:16:26.280
Phil: And, you know, that's fine.
00:16:26.320 --> 00:16:31.240
Tom: In a sense, by making it more awkward, it's actually fitting the tone of Deadly Premonition better.
00:16:32.060 --> 00:16:32.460
Phil: It is.
00:16:32.760 --> 00:16:33.160
Phil: It is.
00:16:34.260 --> 00:16:38.160
Phil: So I just thought I'd mention that, the fact that I've been playing the game mostly unupdated.
00:16:40.020 --> 00:16:58.260
Tom: Just one other thing I'll add on that is his commentary on changing it was very endearing in the way only Swery could be, where he begged people not to dislike York, and that York didn't come up with this dialogue.
00:16:58.420 --> 00:17:00.420
Tom: It was the fault of he as a writer.
00:17:01.300 --> 00:17:04.280
Phil: Yeah, that was pretty good.
00:17:05.200 --> 00:17:09.140
Phil: And I kind of felt bad for Swery, because it obviously was a massive blind spot for him.
00:17:09.660 --> 00:17:15.660
Phil: And instead of just saying, you know, I'm an artist, these are my words, screw off.
00:17:17.400 --> 00:17:22.780
Phil: And because, you know, he's dealt with trans characters in his works before, obviously.
00:17:22.800 --> 00:17:25.200
Phil: So, you know, yeah.
00:17:25.220 --> 00:17:33.200
Phil: Anyway, I thought it was all handled well, but the clumsy speech 20 minutes before it just set it up way too bad.
00:17:33.220 --> 00:17:53.300
Phil: And in a way, I think it was probably included to kind of put maybe insensitive or immature gamers on notice that, hey, you know, if you're thinking that this is something weird or stupid or something to laugh about, you know, this isn't this sort of game and this thing's going to happen in about 20 minutes.
00:17:53.320 --> 00:17:56.380
Phil: So if you don't like that, you know, be prepared.
00:17:57.780 --> 00:18:02.900
Phil: So back to the game itself in terms of its frame rate, I honestly had no problems with it.
00:18:04.020 --> 00:18:05.800
Phil: I had problems with the load times.
00:18:06.340 --> 00:18:11.280
Phil: Like, you know how there's a loading animation on the screen usually when you're loading something?
00:18:12.980 --> 00:18:22.880
Phil: This was loading so poorly that the frame rate of that is what I noticed, is that the little twirling swirl would get caught up.
00:18:23.660 --> 00:18:30.060
Phil: But in the game itself, it was more an issue of texture pop-ups, but not frame rate.
00:18:31.660 --> 00:18:33.700
Tom: I believe one of the ways...
00:18:33.720 --> 00:18:35.220
Tom: You have updated now, haven't you?
00:18:36.000 --> 00:18:36.480
Phil: I have now.
00:18:36.500 --> 00:18:39.220
Tom: Because I think one of the ways that they lowered...
00:18:39.960 --> 00:18:49.300
Tom: Sorry, they raised the frame rate, was actually lowering the draw distance and how close things were when they rendered it.
00:18:50.300 --> 00:18:56.340
Tom: Previously, the frame rate may have been a little bit worse, but things would have loaded earlier.
00:18:57.440 --> 00:19:03.700
Phil: The draw distance, even on a texture as mundane as a city street, is ludicrous.
00:19:04.400 --> 00:19:07.620
Phil: And it was not improved or changed, that I could tell.
00:19:08.020 --> 00:19:10.680
Phil: And honestly, I can't tell any changes in the frame rate either.
00:19:10.680 --> 00:19:17.140
Phil: So it's not something that I'm particularly sensitive to, but I am also playing it in handheld mode almost exclusively.
00:19:17.420 --> 00:19:20.520
Phil: And you also have to factor in that, you know, I've been gaming for a long time.
00:19:20.580 --> 00:19:30.000
Phil: So in terms of I've seen, I've been around games that have janky graphics for a long time, and I'm not particularly off put by them.
00:19:31.160 --> 00:19:38.280
Phil: Having said that, people have said that this looks like a PlayStation 2 game, which is completely unfair and inaccurate.
00:19:38.680 --> 00:19:44.280
Phil: It's more like a DS game in terms of its graphics.
00:19:44.380 --> 00:19:53.020
Tom: It looks like the original Deadly Premonition remaster, really, which looked like a bad PS3 slash 360 game.
00:19:54.060 --> 00:19:54.380
Tom: Yeah.
00:19:54.400 --> 00:19:58.700
Tom: So I think DS is a bit harsh, or does it look worse than the previous game?
00:19:59.240 --> 00:19:59.960
Phil: It looks worse.
00:20:01.100 --> 00:20:11.320
Phil: And certainly from the stills that you see, it sort of looks like a DS game, but with some cell shading going on around the edges to cover up graphical flaws.
00:20:12.560 --> 00:20:13.900
Phil: The game is quite poor.
00:20:14.280 --> 00:20:17.700
Phil: I mean, it doesn't look like a current gen or even a last gen game.
00:20:17.900 --> 00:20:19.200
Phil: I'll leave it at that.
00:20:19.620 --> 00:20:25.320
Phil: And there certainly were several PlayStation 2 games, if not most PlayStation 2 games, that looked much better.
00:20:25.720 --> 00:20:28.680
Tom: I mean, Killzone was a PlayStation 2 game.
00:20:29.260 --> 00:20:30.700
Phil: Yeah, God of War, God of War 2.
00:20:30.720 --> 00:20:31.460
Tom: Yep, another one.
00:20:32.360 --> 00:20:35.920
Phil: So, you know, there were some really great-looking PlayStation 2 games.
00:20:36.280 --> 00:20:36.960
Tom: Fahrenheit?
00:20:36.980 --> 00:20:39.680
Phil: But, uh, Fahrenheit, yeah, indeed.
00:20:40.240 --> 00:20:42.540
Phil: But having said that, it doesn't detract from the game.
00:20:42.840 --> 00:20:51.100
Phil: What my concern was going into it, having looked at, looking at the stills, was that this was not going to be a deadly premonition game.
00:20:51.120 --> 00:20:52.960
Phil: Like, this wasn't going to be a true sequel.
00:20:53.080 --> 00:20:55.240
Phil: It was going to be some stupid side story.
00:20:56.840 --> 00:21:05.940
Phil: And I was starting to worry that it might be like Flower, Sun, Rain, the game by Suda 51, which covers a similar sort of territory.
00:21:06.020 --> 00:21:16.340
Tom: And the original Deadly Premonition's ending, if I recall, did in fact provide some foreshadowing of what could have been a sequel.
00:21:17.400 --> 00:21:18.640
Tom: So is it building on that?
00:21:19.380 --> 00:21:22.640
Phil: Well, first of all, yes and no.
00:21:22.660 --> 00:21:24.600
Phil: But I'll say this first.
00:21:25.060 --> 00:21:29.360
Phil: The great thing is, this sticks to the original formula 100%.
00:21:30.800 --> 00:21:32.360
Phil: There are less characters in the game.
00:21:33.300 --> 00:21:43.940
Phil: The area that you're covering is probably slightly smaller, but it follows the same exact game, gameplay as the original.
00:21:44.380 --> 00:21:49.580
Phil: So if you enjoyed the original, there is no reason why you wouldn't enjoy this sequel.
00:21:49.600 --> 00:21:55.020
Tom: With a smaller cast, is there a better consistency in character quality?
00:21:56.740 --> 00:22:00.940
Phil: No, the character quality I found in the original to be quite good anyway.
00:22:00.980 --> 00:22:10.360
Tom: It was, absolutely, but there was a noticeable difference between the characters directly involved in the main plot and those less involved in it.
00:22:11.120 --> 00:22:16.640
Phil: Even the minor characters in this one are still interesting and are still well written, I would say.
00:22:16.740 --> 00:22:17.160
Tom: Excellent.
00:22:18.080 --> 00:22:27.760
Phil: Certainly, the dialogue in Deadly Premonition is always a shining star, and certainly you could possibly say that the inner dialogue is the shining star.
00:22:28.680 --> 00:22:37.380
Phil: The conversations between York and Zack are still there, and that probably answers your question.
00:22:37.400 --> 00:22:44.560
Phil: So this is actually, interestingly enough, you play most of the game as a prequel to the happenings at...
00:22:45.360 --> 00:22:46.560
Phil: I can't remember it right now.
00:22:48.600 --> 00:22:53.040
Phil: But most of the game is played as a sequel, and then in between the chapters...
00:22:53.920 --> 00:23:03.820
Phil: Most of the game you play as a prequel, and then in between the chapters, there are these smaller chapters that are after the events of Deadly Premonition 1.
00:23:04.560 --> 00:23:07.240
Phil: And they're all linked together quite well.
00:23:07.900 --> 00:23:15.660
Phil: So you're seeing Francis York both before the first game and then also after.
00:23:15.680 --> 00:23:17.940
Phil: And I think it's been...
00:23:18.180 --> 00:23:20.160
Phil: The setup for it is really quite good.
00:23:21.080 --> 00:23:35.060
Tom: So that's pretty impressive that a sequel like that is managing to live up to the original and also sounds like it has reasonable justification for existing.
00:23:36.160 --> 00:23:37.060
Phil: Yes, definitely.
00:23:37.120 --> 00:23:45.840
Phil: Now, I've got to point out that, without spoiling it, that the sequel components are limited to a single room in which you're talking to two other parties.
00:23:46.220 --> 00:23:47.250
Phil: So it's not like a...
00:23:47.250 --> 00:23:51.970
Phil: and as I said, they're shorter sequences, but...
00:23:51.970 --> 00:23:57.560
Phil: and they're referring back to the incident that happened before Deadly Premonition 1.
00:23:58.620 --> 00:24:06.100
Phil: But even so, like you never feel like, oh, when you're in those sections, you're not like, oh, let me get back to the main game.
00:24:06.680 --> 00:24:13.180
Phil: And when you're in the main game, you're like, oh, you know, I wonder what's going to happen at the next episode break sort of thing.
00:24:14.260 --> 00:24:17.460
Phil: And those episode breaks are probably about 20 to 40 minutes long.
00:24:17.480 --> 00:24:19.180
Phil: So they're not, they're not sure.
00:24:19.200 --> 00:24:20.780
Phil: It's not like a little interstitial.
00:24:21.740 --> 00:24:23.460
Phil: They're a significant part of the game.
00:24:23.880 --> 00:24:30.460
Phil: And they reflect back into when you go back into the other time period.
00:24:30.940 --> 00:24:34.160
Phil: Now, I do want to point out here that there is no time travel.
00:24:34.600 --> 00:24:37.220
Phil: Okay, so this is all memories and things like that.
00:24:37.220 --> 00:24:39.360
Phil: So there's nothing hokey going on.
00:24:40.440 --> 00:24:40.780
Tom: Yet.
00:24:40.800 --> 00:24:42.060
Phil: But, yet.
00:24:42.780 --> 00:24:57.920
Phil: But you play as York, and you're basically going into this southern region in Louisiana to investigate the distribution of a dangerous drug called Saint Rouge, which plays into the game that was to follow this.
00:24:58.760 --> 00:25:00.280
Phil: And it's a murder investigation.
00:25:01.360 --> 00:25:03.620
Phil: I don't think it's a big spoiler to indicate that...
00:25:04.180 --> 00:25:15.060
Tom: Have you noticed as an aside that drugs in popular culture all have names that sound like intelligence or military operations, not like drugs?
00:25:16.520 --> 00:25:18.400
Phil: Oh, well, can you think of any other examples?
00:25:18.840 --> 00:25:19.860
Phil: I'm stuck here, but...
00:25:21.000 --> 00:25:26.360
Tom: I can't think of any other examples, but that's what they're generally like.
00:25:26.980 --> 00:25:27.380
Phil: So...
00:25:28.660 --> 00:25:30.500
Tom: Saint Rouge, there's an example.
00:25:30.500 --> 00:25:31.540
Tom: Do you need more than one?
00:25:32.040 --> 00:25:32.900
Phil: No, that's good enough.
00:25:32.920 --> 00:25:33.260
Phil: Thank you.
00:25:34.400 --> 00:25:48.180
Phil: So you're basically, like in the old story, original, you're going into a small town that's slightly odd, meeting people that are slightly odd, and they may seem insignificant at first, but then they become a part of the game.
00:25:49.200 --> 00:25:58.680
Phil: So you do have to be at certain parts of the town at certain times of the day to continue the main storyline, and there's plenty of side quests as well.
00:25:59.960 --> 00:26:06.460
Phil: Driving was a contentious point in the original game, so they've replaced the driving capability with skateboarding.
00:26:07.220 --> 00:26:09.260
Phil: So you skateboard around town now.
00:26:09.740 --> 00:26:14.860
Phil: You can skate quite fast, so it's about the same speed as if you were in a vehicle.
00:26:15.780 --> 00:26:22.680
Phil: But it is perplexing because you're obviously skating by several vehicles, hundreds of vehicles, as you go through the town.
00:26:24.220 --> 00:26:32.260
Phil: And you're aiding the police in an investigation, and you have ample funds so that you would be able to rent a car if the police were not able to give you an undercover car.
00:26:33.360 --> 00:26:37.380
Phil: But obviously it adds a quirky fun component to the game.
00:26:38.420 --> 00:26:39.160
Phil: In terms of...
00:26:39.360 --> 00:26:41.840
Phil: This game is generally described as a survival horror.
00:26:41.840 --> 00:26:43.260
Phil: I'd say that's completely wrong.
00:26:43.860 --> 00:26:45.380
Phil: Most of the time you spend your time...
00:26:45.780 --> 00:26:48.620
Phil: Most of the game you spend your time traveling around, talking to people.
00:26:49.840 --> 00:26:56.100
Phil: And then there might be some mini quests, like a bowling-type challenge or something like that.
00:26:56.680 --> 00:27:01.140
Phil: As in the original, you do have to change your clothes, shower, sleep, eat.
00:27:01.960 --> 00:27:04.680
Phil: You know, there's those elements of it, but they're not onerous.
00:27:04.700 --> 00:27:06.120
Phil: They don't get in the way of the game.
00:27:06.600 --> 00:27:15.300
Phil: Saving is done quite easily at any telephone booth around town, but they also generously autosave a fair bit as well.
00:27:15.700 --> 00:27:22.220
Tom: So does that mean that there are not the third-person shooter horror sections that there were in the original?
00:27:22.240 --> 00:27:24.300
Phil: There are, but they're not a big component.
00:27:24.320 --> 00:27:42.560
Phil: So typically for each episode, and these are large episodes, large chapters, at the end it will culminate in you going into a building and then dealing with these singularities, which is basically a warped perception around you.
00:27:43.060 --> 00:27:47.740
Phil: And there are enemies just as hokey as in the original for you to shoot.
00:27:48.920 --> 00:27:53.760
Phil: So that would be the survival horror, but it's not really survival horror, it's more of a shooting gallery.
00:27:54.020 --> 00:28:02.640
Phil: You walk into a room, there's four enemies, you put five bullets into them, they die, and that opens the next room.
00:28:02.900 --> 00:28:08.900
Phil: And the shooting is quite disappointing, as you can imagine, and unsatisfying.
00:28:09.160 --> 00:28:10.700
Tom: Well, it was in the original too.
00:28:11.300 --> 00:28:19.140
Phil: Yeah, you're using rubber bullets, and then there is a stun, like a charged laser-type weapon that you do unlock later on.
00:28:20.320 --> 00:28:31.640
Phil: In the community, you can shoot squirrels, crocodiles, birds and other things, but, and in fact people as well, but you are using rubber bullets.
00:28:32.560 --> 00:28:35.020
Phil: So that really describes the game.
00:28:36.280 --> 00:28:46.300
Phil: Obviously, as a part of your investigation, you've got these components where you might have to solve a small puzzle, but it's really more of a, this is a scenario now.
00:28:46.400 --> 00:28:47.940
Phil: Here's four clues in front of you.
00:28:48.320 --> 00:28:50.440
Phil: Which one do you think is the most pertinent clue?
00:28:51.260 --> 00:28:56.060
Tom: So it sounds like, as we were saying before, it actually lives up to the hype.
00:28:57.020 --> 00:28:58.940
Tom: Did you have anything else to add?
00:28:59.840 --> 00:29:16.840
Phil: Look, the only thing I would say is it does have some super frustrating parts where you will go into the next place that you're supposed to go into, or in fact you might go up to the building where there's an indicator saying you need to go into it and you can't get into that door because it's not open.
00:29:19.360 --> 00:29:26.880
Phil: You might go into the building and go up to the person that you're supposed to speak to to trigger an event and it won't trigger.
00:29:27.980 --> 00:29:42.560
Phil: So you will be given side quests, not side quests, rather, you'll be given searches to do, like go get me five of these, and not told at all anywhere where you are to get it.
00:29:43.300 --> 00:29:49.960
Phil: One of the fetch quests has you go, I randomly found where I was supposed to get this thing, let's say it's a soccer field.
00:29:50.840 --> 00:29:54.580
Phil: I walked every square meter of that soccer field and found one of them.
00:29:55.000 --> 00:30:01.480
Phil: And then I went, okay, I've got to get five of these, so I'll go somewhere else now to look for it.
00:30:01.560 --> 00:30:05.820
Phil: All five of them are in that same soccer field, but they will appear randomly.
00:30:09.840 --> 00:30:15.760
Phil: And I had to figure that out by going on YouTube because like you would think, I've already explored this entire area.
00:30:15.980 --> 00:30:16.920
Phil: I've found one.
00:30:17.740 --> 00:30:20.420
Phil: So now I have to go to another area to find the other five.
00:30:20.460 --> 00:30:25.040
Phil: No, you just have to keep walking randomly around that soccer field until you find the other five.
00:30:25.100 --> 00:30:29.840
Phil: But you can't find all five of them just in sequence.
00:30:30.960 --> 00:30:35.300
Phil: And there's also stupidly frustrating time, the fillers.
00:30:35.820 --> 00:30:37.640
Phil: So basically, you'll be on FetchQuest.
00:30:37.660 --> 00:30:40.540
Tom: Well, that would be one way of filling up time as well, I dare say.
00:30:40.560 --> 00:30:42.140
Phil: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:30:42.160 --> 00:30:46.560
Phil: But they have like a FetchQuest where you get two of the three items.
00:30:46.940 --> 00:30:49.980
Phil: And then the third item is at this location.
00:30:49.980 --> 00:30:51.060
Phil: I'll make it up.
00:30:51.080 --> 00:30:51.980
Phil: I'll say a library.
00:30:52.480 --> 00:30:55.960
Phil: And I'll say something like, oh, well, we only check out DVDs on Monday.
00:30:56.760 --> 00:30:58.140
Phil: And you're on Wednesday.
00:30:59.320 --> 00:31:09.720
Phil: And the only way to speed up time is to go back to your hotel room, sleep for 24 hours, which will force you to shower and eat because, you know, you stink and you need to eat.
00:31:09.900 --> 00:31:12.400
Phil: And then you'll have to do laundry.
00:31:12.520 --> 00:31:14.260
Phil: And then you can sleep for another 24 hours.
00:31:14.280 --> 00:31:18.940
Phil: So it's really obvious that they're stretching out the time that the player is spending with the game.
00:31:19.320 --> 00:31:20.660
Phil: And there's no reward to it.
00:31:20.680 --> 00:31:22.340
Phil: Yeah, you could go off and do side quests.
00:31:22.360 --> 00:31:32.380
Phil: But at that point in the game, there weren't very many compelling side quests to start with and certainly not ones that would take up, you know, five or six days of in-game time.
00:31:32.400 --> 00:31:35.880
Tom: That sounds also not like the original.
00:31:35.900 --> 00:31:53.420
Tom: I was going to say this sounds like the original, but it does not because while there were certain, a lot of awkward aspects to how things worked, like you had to use the map like a real map, for instance, which in a game is often more awkward than it is in reality for a variety of reasons.
00:31:54.780 --> 00:32:06.800
Tom: And there were weirdly esoteric ways you had to get certain things, but it felt more convoluted than like it was there arbitrarily as filler.
00:32:07.620 --> 00:32:12.540
Phil: Yeah, look, I've got to say one thing that has been proved in this game over the original is the map.
00:32:13.460 --> 00:32:14.340
Phil: The map is great.
00:32:14.560 --> 00:32:25.300
Phil: So, you know, there's other little tiny things in there that are just lame and stupid, that are technical issues due to, I assume, a small development team and lack of money.
00:32:26.740 --> 00:32:41.980
Phil: But the pluses outweigh the minuses, and certainly I was not expecting a sequel to Deadly Premonition, and having it on a Switch is all the better because it gives me many more opportunities to be able to play it, not just when I'm in front of my TV.
00:32:42.040 --> 00:32:45.360
Phil: So, yeah, and it's a budget title.
00:32:45.720 --> 00:32:48.580
Phil: I picked it up for like $60 new Australian.
00:32:48.820 --> 00:32:52.320
Phil: So I think it's about $50 in the States, I'm not sure.
00:32:53.580 --> 00:32:54.020
Tom: Excellent.
00:32:55.280 --> 00:33:00.380
Phil: So that's, you know, when it gets around to final impressions, I'm not going to go into the same detail I did today.
00:33:00.400 --> 00:33:11.040
Phil: I thought it was really important to get, provide good first impressions, to get as many of our listeners who would be interested in enough information so they can make a purchase decision.
00:33:11.320 --> 00:33:27.680
Tom: Definitely, and Deadly Premonition is a game since the original that is always in need of high quality impressions that either don't ignore all the stupid shit in it, treat it like a meme, or like it ironically.
00:33:27.700 --> 00:33:30.560
Phil: Yeah, and it's worth it for the dialogue.
00:33:30.620 --> 00:33:32.540
Phil: I mean, the dialogue in the game is great.
00:33:32.780 --> 00:33:35.720
Phil: It really is great.
00:33:36.040 --> 00:33:38.140
Phil: But in any case, that's enough about me.
00:33:38.480 --> 00:33:40.180
Phil: What have you been playing?
00:33:40.580 --> 00:34:03.200
Tom: While we're on the topic of horror games, I played Five Nights at Freddy's, which is by now rather an infamous title, given that it launched several of the largest streaming careers on YouTube, as well as a trend in...
00:34:03.860 --> 00:34:32.360
Tom: Well, actually, the interesting thing about it is, once you go back and play it, it probably actually hasn't had much influence on how horror games play, but it was obviously a massive deal, and it is fascinating to actually go and play it, because it turns out that it is in fact a work simulator, which I was not expecting, in spite of the fact that the layout is very much in the work sim environment.
00:34:32.380 --> 00:34:38.220
Tom: I wasn't expecting for it to actually play like one when you sat down and tried it for yourself.
00:34:40.140 --> 00:34:43.280
Phil: Yeah, so Five Nights at Freddy's, I was also not expecting it.
00:34:43.320 --> 00:34:47.260
Phil: All I knew that it was popular with the kids.
00:34:47.340 --> 00:34:51.280
Phil: And so I was not expecting anything of merit.
00:34:52.140 --> 00:34:59.720
Phil: And it's basically, if anyone is familiar with it, why would you be the Sega CD game Night Trap starring Dana Plato?
00:35:00.740 --> 00:35:16.620
Phil: It's basically a game, back in the FMV era, one full motion video era, one of the gameplay elements that that genre and technology lent itself to was basically switching from multiple security cameras so that you could see the plot develop and look out for threats.
00:35:18.020 --> 00:35:20.880
Phil: And Five Nights at Freddy's follows a very similar thing.
00:35:20.900 --> 00:35:28.420
Phil: You basically sit in one room and you're playing as a night security guard, watching a...
00:35:29.480 --> 00:35:37.060
Phil: it's like a pizza place for kids to go and they've got animatronic entertainment robots.
00:35:37.080 --> 00:35:40.000
Tom: I think the real world equivalent will be Chuck E.
00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:40.680
Tom: Cheese.
00:35:40.980 --> 00:35:42.780
Phil: Yes, which I've been to, yeah.
00:35:42.860 --> 00:35:43.260
Phil: Chuck E.
00:35:43.280 --> 00:35:45.200
Phil: Cheese or Funtime Pizza.
00:35:45.860 --> 00:35:46.740
Phil: And Chuck E.
00:35:46.760 --> 00:35:51.820
Phil: Cheese was invented by Nolan Bushnell, who was the progenitor of Atari.
00:35:53.400 --> 00:35:54.380
Phil: So it has...
00:35:55.580 --> 00:35:56.140
Phil: even Chuck E.
00:35:56.160 --> 00:35:58.000
Phil: Cheese has some video game links.
00:35:58.020 --> 00:36:00.000
Phil: It's what he did with all his Atari money.
00:36:01.460 --> 00:36:02.380
Tom: Money well spent.
00:36:02.900 --> 00:36:03.820
Phil: Yeah, indeed.
00:36:04.160 --> 00:36:10.180
Phil: So you have these creepy looking animatronic robots and you play as a security guard.
00:36:11.280 --> 00:36:25.200
Phil: Now, I played like through one playthrough and I found it mostly incomprehensible and could not figure out what exactly I was supposed to be doing and died after about...
00:36:26.340 --> 00:36:31.360
Tom: So when you say one playthrough, you mean one day, I assume not two night five.
00:36:32.260 --> 00:36:34.300
Phil: No, no, no, no, I got killed.
00:36:34.320 --> 00:36:36.980
Tom: Because that's another thing I was not expecting.
00:36:37.000 --> 00:36:39.560
Tom: It is tremendously difficult.
00:36:39.600 --> 00:37:00.280
Tom: And essentially the gameplay consists of you switching between cameras, as you said, but in your office, there's also a door on either side of your desk and your chair and a light switch that lights up the room outside of your office on either side.
00:37:01.020 --> 00:37:01.380
Phil: Right.
00:37:02.080 --> 00:37:24.160
Tom: And the basic gameplay mechanic consists of the fact that whenever you bring up your tablet that has all the cameras on it, you are using battery power, and whenever you press the light switch or close the mechanical doors, which are basically like airlock doors, you are using battery power.
00:37:24.180 --> 00:37:29.080
Tom: So you have a limited amount of battery power that you can use per day.
00:37:30.040 --> 00:37:51.320
Tom: And when you're looking at the cameras, if you, other than allowing you to know where the animatronics are wandering, and thus when they might be getting to your door, looking at the animatronics in the camera, depending on which one it is, also results in them stopping or returning to whence they came.
00:37:51.840 --> 00:37:58.380
Tom: So, and obviously if the animatronics get into your office, then you get killed and you have to start the day again.
00:37:58.680 --> 00:38:11.600
Tom: So it basically boils down to you having to save enough battery power to make it to the end of the day without having been killed.
00:38:12.000 --> 00:38:29.440
Tom: Which, as you go along, gets significantly more and more difficult because the enemies become more and more aggressive, meaning you're using more power because you have to follow them in more detail or you have to keep the doors shut for longer lengths of time.
00:38:29.640 --> 00:39:13.920
Tom: But the rhythm of it is very much like a work simulator where by the end of the game, and without having looked up a strategy to beat Day 5, I would not have been able to do it, but even before then I worked up a rhythm where essentially what you're doing is you are bringing up the camera, looking at various areas, immediately closing it, then waiting a bit of time, then switching on the lights, then turning them off instantly, then waiting a bit of time and raising the map, and so on and so forth, which like the best work simulators, it's all about building up a rhythm that allows you to be more and more efficient.
00:39:14.380 --> 00:39:32.720
Tom: And like the best work simulators, as you're doing this there's lots of great tactile sound effects and visual effects as well when you're bringing up and putting down the tablet, changing cameras, and switching the lights on and off, which I was not expecting at all.
00:39:33.840 --> 00:39:51.520
Phil: I don't know if you know how the graphics came about or the concept came about for this game, but basically the creator had made another game and the criticism that he got, one of the most criticism he got from it was that his graphics looked like spooky animatronic characters.
00:39:52.600 --> 00:39:54.140
Phil: And it wasn't, they weren't supposed to be.
00:39:54.160 --> 00:39:59.640
Phil: It was like a game, like we'll just say a Bible game about bunny rabbits or something.
00:40:00.080 --> 00:40:05.080
Phil: And people were like, geez man, get rid of those creepy animatronic robots.
00:40:05.560 --> 00:40:10.160
Phil: And he was like, well, alright, how can I use these assets to create a game?
00:40:10.180 --> 00:40:13.040
Phil: So it's really quite genius.
00:40:13.100 --> 00:40:20.440
Phil: It's a low resource game to have made because the audio design mostly consists of creepy sound effects.
00:40:21.560 --> 00:40:36.880
Tom: And the visuals are all just several different backgrounds with an unanimated figure in it, with the exception of one character who in one frame has an animation of it sprinting along.
00:40:38.100 --> 00:40:42.520
Tom: And I think when you get killed, it has a couple of frames to the animation.
00:40:43.960 --> 00:40:49.200
Tom: So it also has very little animation in it as well, but it fits the aesthetic perfectly.
00:40:49.360 --> 00:41:21.500
Tom: And you can easily see how this became massively popular among teenagers and children, because as frightening as it is, and it's really more frustrating and tremendously tense in the latter days than frightening per se, but the whole atmosphere of it has a really great sense of humour, and the animatronics are actually as cute and as characterful as they are disturbing.
00:41:22.660 --> 00:41:33.140
Phil: I think too, this was a game made for streaming, and when it came out, and streaming was just sort of getting into that part where it was getting more viewership and getting easier to do.
00:41:33.160 --> 00:41:42.260
Phil: This is the kind of show, a game rather, that you would watch a sibling play while you sat on the edge of the couch saying, no, no, over there, on the left, on the left.
00:41:42.640 --> 00:41:46.580
Phil: You know, it's a game that would be fun to watch.
00:41:47.600 --> 00:41:50.220
Phil: So I can see why it's had the success that it has.
00:41:51.280 --> 00:41:57.160
Phil: And it's just a really, I think a really great little point in gaming history.
00:41:57.180 --> 00:42:11.620
Tom: And as a horror game, even though it is using the Night Trap camera style, it's tremendously original as well, both aesthetically, and in terms of its setting and the gameplay.
00:42:11.640 --> 00:42:16.360
Tom: Again, are there any other work simulator horror games out there?
00:42:16.380 --> 00:42:19.540
Tom: I can't think of any off the top of my head.
00:42:20.040 --> 00:42:24.140
Phil: My question that came up to me is, why would you come back for the second night of work?
00:42:25.020 --> 00:42:26.940
Phil: I know it's a video game, you know.
00:42:26.960 --> 00:42:28.360
Tom: Well, I wanted to finish it, so...
00:42:29.280 --> 00:42:33.660
Phil: No, but I'm saying the guy who's got the job is the security guard.
00:42:33.680 --> 00:43:02.900
Tom: That brings up another thing that I greatly appreciated, was the sense of humour with the whole handling of the work situation, where someone is calling you on the phone, and it is narrated by the developer, I believe, is calling you up and explaining to you about the dangers on the job in a very nonchalant fashion.
00:43:02.920 --> 00:43:04.680
Tom: It's just absolutely hilarious.
00:43:05.360 --> 00:43:18.980
Tom: And as is the whole concept of him going to a job for $4 an hour pay, where he is in mortal danger of being killed by animatronics.
00:43:19.920 --> 00:43:32.380
Phil: Yeah, and look, everyone, except for me and you, is probably well-versed with this game, or perhaps not, because there's probably people, a lot of gamers from our mindset, that just went, oh, kids game, whatever, you know, stream a game, not going to look at it.
00:43:33.180 --> 00:43:38.060
Phil: But I do have one technical question about the game, and that is, does your batteries reset every night?
00:43:38.360 --> 00:43:38.720
Tom: Yes.
00:43:39.360 --> 00:43:40.260
Phil: Okay, okay.
00:43:40.280 --> 00:43:42.280
Phil: So it's not like you have to make it last five days.
00:43:42.300 --> 00:43:42.620
Tom: No, no.
00:43:43.140 --> 00:43:47.200
Phil: And you do restart from day two, or day three, I presume?
00:43:47.540 --> 00:43:52.000
Tom: As long as you survive each night, you end up on the next night.
00:43:52.620 --> 00:43:57.340
Phil: So could I get through, say, two nights and then come back to it two weeks later and start on night three?
00:43:57.360 --> 00:43:58.060
Tom: Yes, you could.
00:43:58.560 --> 00:43:59.160
Phil: Okay, good.
00:43:59.220 --> 00:44:05.860
Tom: And it's not really until night four, and to a lesser extent, three, that it really starts getting difficult.
00:44:06.580 --> 00:44:19.180
Phil: From what I can tell, I mean, this has turned into a media content, this has turned into a pop culture content type thing, but the games themselves, I don't think, has actually ever evolved out of what it actually is.
00:44:19.200 --> 00:44:23.840
Phil: I don't think there's been much done with it afterwards, but again, I probably sound like a complete idiot.
00:44:24.100 --> 00:44:30.740
Tom: I think they actually have altered how the games play quite a bit in later installments, as far as I'm aware.
00:44:31.300 --> 00:44:44.160
Tom: But one interesting and noteworthy thing about it is, although as far as I'm aware, they have in fact changed how the games play in later series, they're all nevertheless work simulators.
00:44:44.900 --> 00:44:48.740
Phil: You know, the one thing I realise is I haven't looked up Five Nights at Freddy cosplay.
00:44:49.180 --> 00:44:50.860
Phil: There must be some pretty good cosplay.
00:44:52.700 --> 00:44:59.440
Tom: I think that it created a fandom of a massive size that does a lot of things like that.
00:44:59.460 --> 00:45:05.940
Tom: YouTube, for instance, has millions of anime fan animations and that sort of thing.
00:45:05.980 --> 00:45:11.280
Tom: So there would no doubt be a large cosplaying community behind it as well.
00:45:11.860 --> 00:45:12.260
Phil: Cool.
00:45:12.560 --> 00:45:15.040
Phil: Well, anything else about Five Nights at Freddy's?
00:45:15.260 --> 00:45:21.860
Tom: That's pretty much it, but it was a very pleasant surprise and quite a shock that it is...
00:45:22.920 --> 00:45:30.180
Tom: It would probably have to go into perhaps the second best work simulator on the show so far.
00:45:31.020 --> 00:45:31.460
Phil: Okay.
00:45:31.580 --> 00:45:39.280
Phil: Well, certainly not for me, but it's kind of like our top ten best games of the decade sort of thing.
00:45:40.160 --> 00:45:49.140
Phil: I can clearly see that this is a seminal game of great importance, but just probably not one that I enjoy, but I'll give it another go.
00:45:49.540 --> 00:45:51.020
Phil: I've got to ask, how did you get...
00:45:51.040 --> 00:45:52.660
Phil: Because you got me into playing it.
00:45:52.760 --> 00:45:57.880
Phil: What twigged in your mind or what opportunity arose where you were like, hey, I'll give this a try?
00:45:58.380 --> 00:46:01.300
Tom: The moment I realised it was a work simulator, essentially.
00:46:01.300 --> 00:46:01.700
Phil: Okay.
00:46:01.960 --> 00:46:02.240
Phil: Yep.
00:46:02.500 --> 00:46:02.740
Phil: Yep.
00:46:03.900 --> 00:46:10.860
Tom: Before we move on, we will have to give the second best work simulator ever a dice score, though.
00:46:11.480 --> 00:46:11.840
Phil: Oh, yeah.
00:46:11.860 --> 00:46:12.440
Phil: Go ahead, man.
00:46:12.460 --> 00:46:13.880
Phil: Roll the die of destiny.
00:46:13.900 --> 00:46:17.620
Tom: An 8 out of 10.
00:46:18.120 --> 00:46:18.620
Phil: Sweet.
00:46:19.580 --> 00:46:20.640
Phil: The stars are aligned.
00:46:20.800 --> 00:46:21.400
Tom: Amazing.
00:46:21.420 --> 00:46:27.040
Tom: So it actually got a score worthy of the second best work simulator ever.
00:46:27.060 --> 00:46:29.000
Tom: I believe that's the same score that I gave.
00:46:29.020 --> 00:46:29.940
Tom: Papers, please.
00:46:31.240 --> 00:46:32.020
Phil: Well, it's worthy.
00:46:32.020 --> 00:46:33.500
Phil: The die of destiny has spoken.
00:46:34.460 --> 00:46:41.800
Phil: Before we go on to another game that you've been playing, I don't know if you've watched this video game documentary on Netflix called High Score.
00:46:41.800 --> 00:46:45.760
Phil: It's from the same people that did The Movies That Made Us and The Toys That Made Us.
00:46:46.420 --> 00:46:48.380
Phil: Are you familiar with those other series?
00:46:48.400 --> 00:46:50.340
Tom: I have heard of them, but I have not watched them.
00:46:50.880 --> 00:46:51.780
Phil: Yeah, they're okay.
00:46:51.880 --> 00:46:54.520
Phil: I mean, The Toys That Made Us is certainly better than The Movies one.
00:46:55.680 --> 00:47:00.040
Phil: But yeah, it's a new six part series that covers the history of video games.
00:47:01.420 --> 00:47:06.600
Phil: Me personally, I found them to be really well produced, but light on information.
00:47:08.260 --> 00:47:12.500
Phil: And that seems to be the consensus from others I've asked about it.
00:47:12.520 --> 00:47:14.140
Phil: But, you know, worth checking out.
00:47:14.160 --> 00:47:18.060
Phil: There's six episodes, so maybe just pick and choose the content that you're interested in.
00:47:19.140 --> 00:47:24.100
Phil: I know that some people have criticized it for being too focused on the interviewees.
00:47:24.200 --> 00:47:39.600
Phil: So for example, you know, they found someone who's kind of interested to talk about, and then they make 20 minutes of the documentary about them, which is kind of ancillary to the core, you know, game or history that they're trying to present.
00:47:40.120 --> 00:47:49.440
Phil: But I think that those personalities actually do provide a look in, and those people work as an avatar for countless other people that would have been around at the same time.
00:47:49.800 --> 00:47:56.280
Phil: So I think that those interviews are interesting enough to have been included.
00:47:56.340 --> 00:48:06.200
Phil: But when you're looking at video game documentaries, I've got to say that probably 8 out of 10 are embarrassing or inaccurate.
00:48:07.360 --> 00:48:09.860
Tom: That's essentially the case with all documentaries, though.
00:48:10.460 --> 00:48:11.060
Phil: That's true.
00:48:11.260 --> 00:48:13.740
Phil: When you're familiar with the subject matter, yeah.
00:48:13.760 --> 00:48:16.120
Phil: But in this case, I have not...
00:48:16.360 --> 00:48:20.860
Phil: I know the topics that they're talking about backwards and forwards, and I haven't seen any inaccuracies.
00:48:21.560 --> 00:48:26.440
Phil: And certainly the production value is such that they're not embarrassing.
00:48:27.300 --> 00:48:35.800
Phil: So I think it'd be a good gateway for younger people that maybe are wondering what happened before, you know, the current crop of games.
00:48:36.380 --> 00:48:44.920
Phil: And then for people who just have a vague interest in what's this video gaming thing all about, I think it at least does the hobby no harm.
00:48:45.380 --> 00:48:47.740
Phil: So it's called High Score on Netflix.
00:48:48.820 --> 00:48:56.860
Phil: I just want to bring that up because video game content on TV is pretty hard to come by most times.
00:48:57.500 --> 00:49:02.040
Tom: And in this case, if it's a Netflix show, then it's also technically not on TV anyway.
00:49:02.800 --> 00:49:03.480
Phil: Yeah, that's true.
00:49:05.840 --> 00:49:09.760
Tom: So we will now move on to another game.
00:49:10.560 --> 00:49:15.040
Tom: And I don't know if you're familiar with it, but have you heard of Project Warlock?
00:49:16.020 --> 00:49:21.080
Phil: I believe that was Winston Churchill's code name for the D-Day attack, wasn't it?
00:49:22.220 --> 00:49:25.440
Tom: No, I think it was a drug in Law and Order.
00:49:25.460 --> 00:49:29.500
Phil: He's been warlocking all night long.
00:49:29.520 --> 00:49:30.640
Phil: Look at those pupils.
00:49:32.540 --> 00:49:34.040
Phil: Skin under his fingernails.
00:49:34.340 --> 00:49:36.360
Phil: They don't know what they're doing when they're warlocking.
00:49:37.840 --> 00:49:40.960
Phil: So Project Warlock is a video game for what format?
00:49:41.120 --> 00:49:44.480
Tom: I believe it is on the Nintendo Switch.
00:49:44.980 --> 00:49:47.560
Tom: It is on PC.
00:49:47.900 --> 00:49:54.800
Tom: I think it's on the other consoles as well, but I'm not sure it was originally a PC exclusive.
00:49:54.820 --> 00:50:01.020
Tom: It is a first-person shooter, and it is indeed now on PS4 and Xbox One, as well as the Nintendo Switch.
00:50:01.660 --> 00:50:02.120
Tom: It is a...
00:50:03.680 --> 00:50:04.440
Phil: So it's on everything.
00:50:04.460 --> 00:50:07.880
Tom: Yes, on all current-gen consoles, as well as PC.
00:50:08.220 --> 00:50:12.140
Tom: And Linux and Mac OS.
00:50:12.160 --> 00:50:13.360
Phil: That's not a format.
00:50:13.560 --> 00:50:15.140
Phil: Come on, Mac.
00:50:16.920 --> 00:50:17.540
Phil: So, wait.
00:50:17.560 --> 00:50:19.400
Phil: So it's on Switch?
00:50:19.660 --> 00:50:21.000
Tom: Yes.
00:50:21.020 --> 00:50:23.420
Tom: It was just released in June on Switch.
00:50:23.940 --> 00:50:25.680
Phil: Are you playing it on PC or on Switch?
00:50:25.700 --> 00:50:27.320
Tom: I am playing it on PC.
00:50:27.900 --> 00:50:28.360
Phil: Okay.
00:50:29.780 --> 00:50:31.600
Phil: And I have heard of this.
00:50:31.740 --> 00:50:34.080
Phil: It's a first-person shooter in the...
00:50:34.200 --> 00:50:38.840
Phil: like a 90s first-person shooter tribute, isn't it, or something?
00:50:38.860 --> 00:50:44.280
Tom: It's essentially a Wolfenstein-style shooter.
00:50:45.680 --> 00:50:54.960
Tom: And it began, in fact, as a Wolfenstein mod, and you can play that version of the game still.
00:50:54.980 --> 00:50:56.480
Tom: It's only a single level, though.
00:50:56.480 --> 00:51:03.020
Tom: But if you go back and play that, I think it's called Cataclysm 3D or something like that.
00:51:03.940 --> 00:51:09.140
Tom: If you go back and play that, you can certainly see there is potential for something better.
00:51:09.160 --> 00:51:28.400
Tom: It's developed primarily by, I think, David or Dowerd Konrad Kozetsvka, which is certainly pronounced incorrectly, who I believe was born in the year 2000, and this was released in 2018.
00:51:28.460 --> 00:51:40.680
Tom: So it was developed by a teenager, but it is actually extremely good, surprisingly so, considering that it is based on Wolfenstein.
00:51:40.820 --> 00:51:59.160
Tom: And Wolfenstein 3D, at least, is quite difficult, I would say, to go back to, but I remember playing it not so long after release, and it was always a bit uninteresting and slow, to say the least.
00:52:00.000 --> 00:52:01.420
Phil: Oh, come on, man.
00:52:01.440 --> 00:52:03.540
Phil: Now I sound like Joe Biden.
00:52:03.540 --> 00:52:04.540
Phil: Come on, man.
00:52:04.940 --> 00:52:06.460
Phil: No, it's not.
00:52:06.480 --> 00:52:08.140
Phil: It's super, super fast.
00:52:08.860 --> 00:52:09.980
Phil: I've played it recently.
00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:12.040
Phil: I've even played it on GBA recently.
00:52:12.140 --> 00:52:15.760
Tom: I played it recently on Steam, the first level or some of it.
00:52:15.920 --> 00:52:17.380
Tom: It is in no way fast.
00:52:17.400 --> 00:52:19.120
Tom: Your movement is...
00:52:19.140 --> 00:52:33.900
Tom: Technically, your movement is fast, but the corridors are so cavernous, and the number of empty rooms and the lack of mobility of the Nazis make for a pretty slow experience.
00:52:34.320 --> 00:52:45.660
Phil: Yeah, I gotta say, I kind of lost all my credibility when I was describing Deadly Premonition 2 and having no problem with the frame rate, even though it's been absolutely proven that it sometimes drops to 2 frames per second.
00:52:47.280 --> 00:52:52.280
Phil: So my expert testimony can be struck from the testimony.
00:52:53.300 --> 00:53:00.080
Tom: Anyway, it's like Wolfenstein, not in terms of enemy movement and in terms of player movement.
00:53:00.100 --> 00:53:13.400
Tom: If anything, except for after you've unlocked the faster movement speed, the sprinting speed in this is about the same speed or maybe slightly faster than in Wolfenstein 3D.
00:53:13.940 --> 00:53:17.520
Tom: But the similarity is in the way the levels are designed.
00:53:17.540 --> 00:53:22.880
Tom: It's not like Doom where things are a little bit more open and free flowing.
00:53:23.240 --> 00:53:30.280
Tom: It's very much corridor based and labyrinthine in a way that Doom isn't.
00:53:30.700 --> 00:53:40.940
Tom: But this actually works well when the number of enemies that are being thrown at you is significant and that they aggressively attack you.
00:53:41.520 --> 00:53:59.180
Tom: And a lot of them are melee based, so they actually come at you at a fast speed, forcing you to quickly react in your movement as opposed to the original Wolfenstein where you needed to quickly figure out where the enemy was, turn towards them and shoot them.
00:53:59.200 --> 00:54:04.620
Tom: This requires movement from you as you're playing.
00:54:05.700 --> 00:54:17.580
Tom: There's one big issue that I'll get to before we go on to other more positive aspects is that structurally the order of the levels is bizarre.
00:54:18.500 --> 00:54:28.500
Tom: It begins in probably the equal best setting aesthetically and creatively, which is the medieval world.
00:54:28.880 --> 00:54:32.280
Tom: But the issue is, it's also one of the more difficult sections.
00:54:32.300 --> 00:54:43.580
Tom: Once you've completed the first level, you go to Antarctica and then Egypt, both of which are extremely easy compared to the medieval setting.
00:54:43.600 --> 00:54:55.200
Tom: And part of that is because, as I said, a lot of the enemies are Malay based, but so is the gameplay because you are playing as a Warlock and your starting weapon is actually an axe.
00:54:55.420 --> 00:55:09.020
Tom: And you can viably play the game in Malay, but obviously that's a strategy that, one, is helped by the leveling system, which we'll get to in a moment, as well as you having figured out your timing attacks and so forth.
00:55:09.040 --> 00:55:24.840
Tom: So that makes things a little bit more difficult at the beginning, but it is fundamentally the level and enemy design that makes the first level so difficult, because it has some of the more creative enemies in the game.
00:55:24.860 --> 00:55:41.040
Tom: For instance, one of the best enemies in the game is a knight who will use their shield by throwing it at you and essentially trapping you in certain areas, which is a pretty creative thing in a first person shooter.
00:55:41.780 --> 00:56:09.120
Tom: And once you get to Egypt and Alaska, while there are enemies that will do certain more creative things compared to just standard enemies that attack you at a normal speed or wander around shooting at you, there isn't anything on that level which can instantly get you killed if you manage to get stuck behind a shield in an awkward area and bum rushed by several other enemies that are around.
00:56:10.780 --> 00:56:27.320
Tom: And the levels are also a bit more cramped than in the later levels, where they open up because the number of enemies increase, but the amount the levels open up is not equivalent to the number of extra enemies, so it actually results in easier gameplay.
00:56:27.820 --> 00:56:46.360
Tom: And so structurally, it's very, very bizarre that they essentially put one of the hardest levels at the beginning, then two very easy levels following it, and then the difficulty begins to increase a little bit more for the last two areas.
00:56:46.560 --> 00:56:53.400
Tom: And there are five areas in total, and each has, I think, six levels, including a boss battle.
00:56:53.480 --> 00:57:07.220
Tom: And the other interesting thing, which after an update works well, is the difficulty settings, because you've got easy, normal, hard, as well as a single life.
00:57:07.680 --> 00:57:18.740
Tom: So basically on normal and hard, you start with a certain number of lives, and once you lose all your lives, it's game over, and you have to start again at the beginning of the game.
00:57:18.960 --> 00:57:25.220
Tom: And you get lives by finding secrets in the levels throughout the main game.
00:57:25.700 --> 00:57:43.960
Tom: And on hard and normal, you shouldn't have an issue in getting enough lives that you will not ever really be in danger of game over, as long as you are looking for secrets, which essentially just means you're spamming space bar as you're going through the levels so that the hidden doorways open.
00:57:46.440 --> 00:57:47.980
Phil: That's called wall humping.
00:57:48.020 --> 00:57:49.040
Tom: Yes, exactly.
00:57:49.160 --> 00:57:51.540
Phil: Which is something you did in Wolfenstein.
00:57:51.560 --> 00:57:54.540
Phil: You just went along, because you'd always find a secret cache of weapons.
00:57:55.560 --> 00:57:57.560
Tom: I think you did that in Doom as well.
00:57:57.880 --> 00:57:58.700
Phil: You did, yeah.
00:57:58.700 --> 00:58:05.580
Phil: So as you go through time, because this has gone over a period of centuries and millennia really that you're playing this game, right?
00:58:05.920 --> 00:58:14.680
Phil: So as you go through time, I'm assuming the weapons, you start out with an axe, from the screenshots I've seen, you end up with a shotgun for most of the levels, but is there anything in between?
00:58:14.700 --> 00:58:16.660
Tom: Well, that's because the shotgun is so good.
00:58:16.680 --> 00:58:21.580
Tom: A lot of people are probably using the shotgun, but there is a huge number of levels.
00:58:21.600 --> 00:58:30.180
Tom: And once you get to the industrial age, I believe it's called, they start introducing futuristic weapons and things like that.
00:58:31.100 --> 00:58:31.500
Phil: Okay.
00:58:32.400 --> 00:58:37.480
Phil: And you said the levels kind of open up, like the first level is very closed in and claustrophobic.
00:58:39.860 --> 00:58:46.860
Tom: And they all remain labyrinthine and corridor-based with corridors leading into sometimes large rooms.
00:58:47.380 --> 00:59:07.360
Tom: But the actual width of the corridors and the sizes of rooms they lead into increases with the number of enemies that they throw at you, but with the rate of size increasing, a greater rate of the number of enemies until you get to the industrial area, and things begin to get a little bit more difficult.
00:59:07.680 --> 00:59:20.740
Tom: And another thing that they managed to do very well, which is very impressive for a 2D first-person shooter and something that Sirius Sam and the Doom reboots have failed to do.
00:59:20.760 --> 00:59:44.100
Tom: And actually, when you think about it, it probably is actually easier to do in a 2D first-person shooter because the areas are always going to be inherently smaller, and the horizon and sky are going to be more limited, is as you're playing along and you encounter more difficult enemies, the sense of scale is tremendous.
00:59:44.120 --> 01:00:09.280
Tom: So by the end of the game, you are fighting these gigantic mechs and gigantic mystical denizens of hell, and they are suitably gigantic and imposing in a way that the large enemies in Serious Sam and other indie classic inspired first person shooters fail to achieve.
01:00:10.540 --> 01:00:18.980
Phil: Yeah, I thought that there was a lot more games that were based on 90s shooters than I think, because last year a game came out called ION Fury.
01:00:19.720 --> 01:00:23.880
Tom: Yep, there's also Dusk and quite a few others.
01:00:24.360 --> 01:00:36.180
Tom: Following the games like Serious Sam, there has been a return more to the feel of 2D first person shooters.
01:00:36.820 --> 01:00:42.780
Phil: Yeah, ION Fury, which of course was originally released as ION Maiden and then had to be changed.
01:00:43.960 --> 01:00:50.180
Phil: But I wonder what engine that he used for this game or if it's something that he's built from the ground up.
01:00:50.480 --> 01:00:52.180
Phil: Because it's quite a distinctive look.
01:00:52.200 --> 01:00:54.940
Phil: You say it's like Wolfenstein, but we should tell listeners it's actually...
01:00:55.740 --> 01:00:57.200
Tom: I believe it's made in Unity.
01:00:58.040 --> 01:00:59.360
Phil: Okay, yeah.
01:00:59.440 --> 01:01:04.080
Phil: It's far superior in graphics than what obviously Wolfenstein was capable of.
01:01:04.860 --> 01:01:06.780
Phil: But it evokes that.
01:01:08.260 --> 01:01:14.040
Tom: One of the impressive things about the graphic is, in fact, the graphics because while...
01:01:14.860 --> 01:01:26.580
Tom: And again, this is made by a teenager, but I believe that he employed for Project Warlock as opposed to Cataclysm 3D, an art director and a composer as well.
01:01:26.600 --> 01:01:31.120
Tom: So it's not a single person game in terms of all the stuff in it.
01:01:31.140 --> 01:01:36.340
Tom: But the graphic style is very home made.
01:01:36.340 --> 01:01:41.160
Tom: The enemies look like they're out of a web comic or something like that.
01:01:43.580 --> 01:01:49.220
Tom: And nevertheless, that adds to the charm and the home made feel.
01:01:50.040 --> 01:01:54.120
Tom: And there is creativity to what they look like.
01:01:54.420 --> 01:02:07.260
Tom: For instance, you compare the medieval setting in this game to heretic or other first person shooter set in medieval style settings.
01:02:07.420 --> 01:02:11.260
Tom: And they're usually much more over the top.
01:02:11.640 --> 01:02:24.260
Tom: And while they're set in that time period, you're essentially just fighting a bunch of hellish enemies that could be dropped into doom without you really noticing the difference.
01:02:24.280 --> 01:02:39.300
Tom: Whereas in each of this game settings, like the medieval setting, you're fighting demon women that look like something out of a medieval painting, albeit a webcomic version of a medieval painting.
01:02:39.460 --> 01:02:52.700
Tom: You're fighting knights, you're fighting templars and cardinals and magicians and things like that that do not just look like something out of doom.
01:02:53.700 --> 01:02:57.540
Tom: And that applies to each of the different settings as well.
01:03:00.020 --> 01:03:02.440
Phil: So the name of the game we're talking about is Project Warlock.
01:03:02.440 --> 01:03:03.260
Phil: It's rated M.
01:03:03.280 --> 01:03:04.320
Phil: It's available on Switch.
01:03:04.340 --> 01:03:05.640
Phil: It was recently released there.
01:03:06.040 --> 01:03:08.860
Phil: It's under 14 bucks right now.
01:03:09.260 --> 01:03:18.480
Phil: So as much as I'd hate to play a first-person shooter on the Switch, mobile, just because of the controls, I'm thinking it's probably the way I'll go.
01:03:18.500 --> 01:03:23.320
Phil: And maybe I can just play it docked and use the, you know, a regular controller.
01:03:23.500 --> 01:03:25.640
Tom: I would say it's definitely worth 14 dollars.
01:03:26.240 --> 01:03:26.980
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
01:03:27.180 --> 01:03:28.440
Phil: No, I'll definitely pick it up.
01:03:30.620 --> 01:03:56.920
Tom: When you do get to the final level, which is based in HAL, another really creative thing it does is you essentially go through before a mainly HAL based area, HAL versions of the previous settings with them overtaken by HAL-ish versions of the original characters in those levels, which is a great touch.
01:03:57.160 --> 01:04:09.960
Tom: And on top of that, at the end of each level, you get to a boss fight, which is worth bringing up because there's a great range in quality of them.
01:04:12.020 --> 01:04:19.700
Tom: Some of them are satisfying and a challenge to fight against, essentially the first and last boss.
01:04:20.520 --> 01:04:28.760
Tom: But the rest really are, their attacks are really easy to strafe dodge, and they're never really a threat at all.
01:04:28.900 --> 01:04:35.800
Tom: And as long as you have been upgrading your weapons, you can kill them without being killed at all.
01:04:35.920 --> 01:04:45.680
Tom: And that is one issue, is once you get past the first level on hard, my experience was that the game was really easy.
01:04:45.700 --> 01:04:52.520
Tom: You begin with three lives, and I ended up with 40, 50 lives by the end of the game.
01:04:52.960 --> 01:05:04.080
Tom: And I died a total of maybe four or five times, and three of those four or five deaths was me walking into lava.
01:05:05.080 --> 01:05:06.280
Tom: As opposed to being killed.
01:05:06.300 --> 01:05:07.600
Phil: You can't do that.
01:05:07.900 --> 01:05:10.940
Phil: I'd say that the ease of the end boss is...
01:05:11.060 --> 01:05:14.560
Tom: No, no, the end boss was one of the two challenging bosses.
01:05:14.600 --> 01:05:25.380
Phil: So what I meant to say was the level bosses, like the mini bosses as we used to call them, I'd say that's consistent with the genre and the time period, so I don't have a problem with that.
01:05:25.640 --> 01:05:32.920
Phil: I do have a problem with the fact that you only died three or four times in the entire game, because that's certainly not true to the genre.
01:05:33.420 --> 01:05:34.580
Tom: Certainly not on hard?
01:05:35.300 --> 01:05:35.660
Phil: No.
01:05:35.680 --> 01:05:41.460
Phil: So that does concern me, because ultimately if you're just mowing through the game, that doesn't sound very satisfying.
01:05:41.780 --> 01:05:58.480
Tom: Well, it is, because in spite of that, the minute-to-minute fights can be very satisfying, and something that it does that is very impressive because a lot of games that are going for the retro FPS design do not do this.
01:05:58.500 --> 01:06:01.960
Tom: Doom was one that actually did succeed in this.
01:06:03.060 --> 01:06:20.720
Tom: One of the great things about the original Doom and Quake and old first-person shooters is that there's this dynamic where when you're on top, you are moving forwards and pushing the enemy back, and when you're overwhelmed, you are running backwards, being chased by the enemies.
01:06:20.740 --> 01:06:33.720
Tom: Most, at least 3D ones, but from footage on YouTube, it applies to potentially other more 2D-based first-person shooters classics as well.
01:06:34.120 --> 01:06:35.420
Tom: Sorry, indie classics.
01:06:37.380 --> 01:06:56.480
Tom: You are mainly just being pushed backwards, which is fun, but it is not as dynamic and not as interesting as where you have both more dynamic fights, which allow you to be on top and also scrambling just to survive.
01:06:56.500 --> 01:07:03.780
Tom: And while you are not necessarily going to be dying, marching Project Warlock, the minute-to-minute fights nevertheless have that dynamic.
01:07:03.800 --> 01:07:18.920
Tom: And often you will end up, until you have upgraded your health to a certain level, and even then, if you do happen to get swamped, you will often end up running away, looking for health and that sort of thing.
01:07:19.220 --> 01:07:26.860
Tom: So, while you're not necessarily dying much, there is nevertheless a satisfying challenge to the actual combat itself.
01:07:27.000 --> 01:07:31.960
Tom: And the weapon design and the sound effects and the animations are exceptional.
01:07:32.400 --> 01:07:38.920
Tom: And the other important thing which we haven't got to yet is the leveling system and upgrade system.
01:07:39.100 --> 01:07:45.160
Tom: Essentially, every weapon except for one or two in the game has two upgrades.
01:07:45.180 --> 01:07:46.440
Tom: You can only choose one of them.
01:07:48.040 --> 01:07:56.960
Tom: And so, for instance, if you upgrade, if you get the double barrel shotgun, you can upgrade that to have four barrels instead of two.
01:07:57.220 --> 01:08:11.760
Tom: So that you're doing four times the base damage of the shotgun which essentially makes it the best weapon for straight up damage as long as you can get close enough to enemies to get the full spread hitting them.
01:08:13.140 --> 01:08:18.480
Tom: You can also do changes to weapons that completely change how they work.
01:08:18.500 --> 01:08:37.320
Tom: For instance, the standard shotgun as opposed to the double barrel shotgun, one of the upgrades for that allows you to use it as a medium and long range weapon, which obviously totally alters how you're using a shotgun and actually makes it one of the most powerful weapons at that range.
01:08:37.820 --> 01:08:46.020
Tom: You can also do things like get a laser rifle and change it into a rail gun or a fully automatic rifle.
01:08:46.940 --> 01:08:58.440
Tom: There's a flamethrower, and you can change the flamethrower to being a long range weapon or even more of a flamethrower and things like that, which really make the combat interesting.
01:08:58.460 --> 01:09:00.720
Tom: And the other thing is, I mentioned things like flamethrowers.
01:09:02.400 --> 01:09:10.060
Tom: Things like fire stay in the level and catch enemies on fire, and so there are little details like that to the combat as well.
01:09:11.280 --> 01:09:20.000
Tom: And the leveling system affects your maximum health, how much ammo you can carry, how much melee damage you do, and things like that.
01:09:20.000 --> 01:09:22.620
Tom: So you can also customize how you play.
01:09:22.640 --> 01:09:27.380
Tom: And again, another interesting mechanic, which also contributed to me not dying as much.
01:09:27.400 --> 01:09:29.620
Tom: If you didn't do this, I would have died a lot more.
01:09:29.640 --> 01:09:35.780
Tom: I still would not have been in danger of game over at any point though, except for past during the first level.
01:09:36.140 --> 01:09:47.340
Tom: But the leveling system allows you to do interesting things like, for instance, if you level up your health and upgrade your...
01:09:47.400 --> 01:09:52.240
Tom: Sorry, the leveling system doesn't just do things like affect your base stats, it also gives you perks.
01:09:52.260 --> 01:10:07.980
Tom: So one of the perks is that if you hit an enemy with the axe, you regain a little bit of health, which encourages you if you are playing mainly with guns, to use the axe more, to recover health whenever you're able to, and things like that.
01:10:08.000 --> 01:10:22.160
Tom: So in spite of its lack of difficulty, it makes up for that in the complexity of both the minute-to-minute gameplay as well as how you're able to customize your character as well as the weapons.
01:10:23.820 --> 01:10:25.680
Phil: It's certainly something I'm definitely...
01:10:26.100 --> 01:10:33.020
Phil: Well, I'm going to get this game, but I'm wondering if it's going to open the door to me getting Iron Fury as well and looking at other games in a genre.
01:10:33.820 --> 01:10:44.720
Phil: Because it would be interesting to see a modern game taking the best elements of a genre from 30 years ago and reinventing it and rediscovering it.
01:10:46.060 --> 01:10:50.720
Phil: Because, yeah, often it is difficult to go back to some of those games, so I'd argue that...
01:10:50.940 --> 01:10:53.000
Tom: Well, you can certainly go back to Doom 1 and 2.
01:10:53.020 --> 01:10:54.060
Phil: You definitely can, yeah.
01:10:54.900 --> 01:10:57.260
Phil: Absolutely, which I do quite often, so...
01:10:57.280 --> 01:11:12.840
Tom: Yep, and the one last thing to add to that, which is the spell system, as well as the axe that you start the game with, you also start off with a staff, which shoots...
01:11:13.740 --> 01:11:18.760
Tom: The base staff shoots out a magical attack, so essentially that's your opening range weapon.
01:11:18.780 --> 01:11:25.080
Tom: And the staff's spells, which aren't just that, which we'll get to in a minute, uses up mana.
01:11:25.100 --> 01:11:33.040
Tom: So as you're going through the levels, you're not just looking for health, you're also looking for mana pickups as well, so that you can use your spells.
01:11:33.260 --> 01:11:37.380
Tom: And the spells open up a lot more than that.
01:11:37.920 --> 01:12:00.800
Tom: You get spells that essentially allow you to use a buff version of the dynamite, which is basically the grenades of the game, but like old first-person shooters, the base dynamite you have to switch to to throw them, like in old games where you couldn't just press a bound key to throw a grenade, you had to actually select it as a weapon.
01:12:02.320 --> 01:12:13.920
Tom: That's how the dynamite works in this, but there is a spell that allows you to throw your dynamite, a slightly buff version of it, and your spell is not selected like a weapon, that's your right mouse button attack.
01:12:14.160 --> 01:12:20.700
Tom: So that actually adds a grenade mechanic essentially to an otherwise old school first person shooter system.
01:12:21.740 --> 01:12:28.620
Tom: You can also get spells that will freeze enemies and then you just hit them once or twice to break them.
01:12:30.320 --> 01:12:41.840
Tom: You can also get spells that will protect you, which you'll use when you're getting mobbed and things like that, and spells that are basically a really powerful ranged attack.
01:12:42.620 --> 01:12:55.080
Tom: So the spell system, while limited, because you can only have one spell selected at one time, and to change it, you have to change it between levels, it again adds another wrinkle to how you're able to play.
01:12:55.180 --> 01:13:09.020
Tom: And in the last couple of levels of how we are really getting swamped with enemies, your spells that allow you to get out of situations where you're getting mobbed by a huge number of enemies is extremely useful.
01:13:09.160 --> 01:14:13.660
Tom: And the one other highlight of the game that I have to bring up is the final boss battle makes up for the lackluster previous boss battles, with the exception of the first, which was a reasonably good first mini boss, in that it not only takes ages to destroy and long enough to suck up all your ammo so that you are having to scavenge ammo while avoiding some somewhat difficult to avoid attacks, particularly compared to previous bosses, it also spawns an endless slew of enemies that are chasing you around the map as you are looking for ammo pickups to replenish your constantly depleting ammo, and it is a lot of fun and a creative take on first person shooter bosses in a way that I can't recall having come across a boss battle that manages to combine summoned enemies as well as use up your ammo where you are really being pinched.
01:14:13.680 --> 01:14:21.000
Tom: And it's a nice change of pace where the entire time you are being chased and basically never doing the chasing.
01:14:22.980 --> 01:14:26.980
Phil: This guy, like this guy, this guy who made the game.
01:14:27.000 --> 01:14:33.440
Phil: Now I know there's like five credits on it, but two of them are composers, so it's really only four people that made the game, so I'm bound to like it.
01:14:35.180 --> 01:14:36.720
Phil: Do you know if he's done anything since?
01:14:36.740 --> 01:14:39.560
Phil: I mean, the game was released in 2018, it doesn't re-release.
01:14:39.580 --> 01:14:42.460
Tom: I don't think he's done anything yet other than porting it.
01:14:43.140 --> 01:14:46.440
Phil: Yeah, because there's no internet link for him anywhere.
01:14:47.660 --> 01:14:59.500
Phil: Like I found that he does some freelance 2D artwork and stuff like that, but it would be good to see him do something in the game space again.
01:15:01.800 --> 01:15:07.360
Phil: I can also understand that if the game was released in 2018, he probably spent at least two years on it prior to that.
01:15:07.940 --> 01:15:14.560
Phil: And for the last two years, he's probably been working on these other releases for other consoles and things.
01:15:14.700 --> 01:15:23.440
Tom: And you mentioned the composers, which reminded me of the soundtrack, which also is suitably home-made feeling in a good way.
01:15:23.440 --> 01:15:35.380
Tom: It's like some random heavy metal or hard rock that you would find on Bandcamp, essentially, which is a perfect fit for the whole vibe of the game.
01:15:35.820 --> 01:15:39.440
Phil: I was expecting death metal.
01:15:39.460 --> 01:15:41.140
Tom: Death metal is a type of heavy metal.
01:15:41.640 --> 01:15:42.780
Phil: Oh, yeah, but I'm saying...
01:15:43.020 --> 01:15:45.640
Tom: I don't mean heavy metal as in hair metal.
01:15:45.780 --> 01:15:51.080
Tom: I mean in the vein of death metal or a pop-ish version of black metal.
01:15:51.660 --> 01:15:52.440
Phil: Okay, cool.
01:15:53.580 --> 01:15:54.000
Phil: Excellent.
01:15:54.980 --> 01:15:58.920
Tom: With a few prog rock guitar lines thrown in.
01:16:02.300 --> 01:16:09.580
Tom: But I think we're ready for the Die of Destiny to place judgement over Project Warlock.
01:16:10.540 --> 01:16:10.960
Phil: Indeed.
01:16:13.300 --> 01:16:15.320
Tom: And it gets a 9 out of 10.
01:16:15.340 --> 01:16:16.280
Tom: Wow!
01:16:18.080 --> 01:16:19.580
Phil: Die of Destines.
01:16:19.820 --> 01:16:24.880
Phil: Maybe we should ask it for a review of Deadly Premonition 2's first impressions while we're on a good rock.
01:16:25.240 --> 01:16:26.540
Tom: Let's find out.
01:16:29.100 --> 01:16:32.520
Tom: You don't want to tempt fate because that's a 4 out of 10.
01:16:33.500 --> 01:16:34.220
Phil: Yeah, no.
01:16:34.600 --> 01:16:41.440
Phil: Well, that's probably a review of my impressions rather than the game itself because we haven't closed out that game yet.
01:16:41.600 --> 01:16:47.080
Phil: I'd give my impressions at least a 4 out of 10, given that I left all my notes at work.
01:16:47.600 --> 01:16:52.360
Tom: So, the Die of Destiny remains accurate then.
01:16:52.800 --> 01:16:53.140
Phil: Yeah.
01:16:53.320 --> 01:17:01.300
Phil: Hey, speaking of leaving my notes at work, I just realised, same voice actor for the lead protagonist and same music.
01:17:01.520 --> 01:17:08.780
Phil: So, there is new music and there is new music based on the old music, but they also have the old music as well.
01:17:08.960 --> 01:17:10.780
Phil: So, it really does take you back to the original.
01:17:11.240 --> 01:17:11.640
Tom: Excellent.
01:17:12.320 --> 01:17:15.760
Phil: Speaking of games that take us back to the original, I believe you've also been playing...
01:17:16.880 --> 01:17:27.880
Tom: I have indeed also been playing Metro Last Light's DLC in both the redo and original version.
01:17:27.900 --> 01:17:31.260
Tom: That's right, I played the DLC twice.
01:17:32.960 --> 01:17:40.980
Tom: Not necessarily because it was that good, though some of it was, but just mainly to compare the two versions of the games.
01:17:41.260 --> 01:17:54.800
Tom: And I believe that the original version of both Metro 2033 and Last Light are not available anymore, so you are only able to get the remade versions of those games.
01:17:54.940 --> 01:17:59.980
Tom: The good thing is that they don't really change too much.
01:18:01.020 --> 01:18:06.260
Tom: Visually, there's a bigger difference in 2033, but we're talking about Last Light here.
01:18:06.640 --> 01:18:22.080
Tom: The main difference is just in terms of the textures, the lighting, and the biggest changes are to character models, where in some cases the art style is indeed totally changed, at least in the DLC.
01:18:23.200 --> 01:18:34.100
Tom: The biggest example of this is with the Nazis, although they're referred to as fascists in the Russian, so I don't know whether they're meant to be Nazis or just fascists in general.
01:18:35.000 --> 01:18:49.600
Tom: In the books, I believe, they were meant to be some form of Neo-Nazi rather than simply fascists, so the translation may not be incorrect, but their models have been totally changed.
01:18:49.620 --> 01:19:17.180
Tom: In the original Last Light, they looked sort of like some sort of gas mask type character you might meet in a BDSM club, as opposed to someone dressed up, wanting to look like a cool Nazi, wearing gas mask, whereas in the redo version of the game, they do look a bit more like someone dressing up as a cool Nazi.
01:19:17.720 --> 01:19:19.420
Tom: So that's the biggest change there.
01:19:19.780 --> 01:19:36.160
Tom: But what actually affects the atmosphere more is the lighting and the texture effects, and I've seen a lot of commentary on the internet suggesting that the original is darker visually and that a lot of the atmosphere is diminished as a result of it.
01:19:36.860 --> 01:19:44.340
Tom: That was not my experience with the gamma set to the same in both games, so maybe updates later on have altered that.
01:19:44.660 --> 01:19:47.880
Tom: But the lighting effects are very welcome.
01:19:47.900 --> 01:19:55.440
Tom: They offer more depth to some of the shadows and a little bit better in variation in contrast.
01:19:56.840 --> 01:20:07.760
Tom: And the textures make a big difference where they have been changed in just resulting in a sharper look without and a better level of detail as well.
01:20:09.280 --> 01:20:12.660
Phil: So I know you already mentioned this, but this is not like new.
01:20:13.200 --> 01:20:17.460
Phil: They haven't been working on this, and this is new like DLC.
01:20:17.480 --> 01:20:19.800
Phil: This is something that you're comparing as a comparison.
01:20:19.820 --> 01:20:26.440
Tom: Yeah, I went back to play this after playing the Exodus DLC out of interest.
01:20:27.800 --> 01:20:29.840
Phil: Okay, which is, yeah, it's worthwhile doing.
01:20:29.860 --> 01:20:38.980
Phil: I mean, I went back and played the original Crackdown when I finished Crackdown 3, just because I was wondering, like, was my mind's eye different from reality?
01:20:40.600 --> 01:20:41.120
Phil: So...
01:20:41.680 --> 01:20:49.240
Tom: And one thing I will add on the Exodus DLC and Exodus was corrected.
01:20:49.560 --> 01:20:56.020
Tom: So I was not misinterpreted when I said that there is some truth to Hobbes' state of nature.
01:20:56.520 --> 01:21:33.860
Tom: I would not support the idea that there is necessarily any more truth to the Hobbesian state of nature than when people deliberately want to create a Hobbesian state of nature where they would like to essentially destabilise the era and importantly keep it in a state of destabilisation by funding sides fighting against one another or direct involvement themselves, which is what is usually brought up as evidence of a Hobbesian state of nature.
01:21:33.880 --> 01:21:46.020
Tom: But it's worth remembering that in this Hobbesian supposed state of nature, there are often people who are deliberately interested in keeping it in a state of nature.
01:21:46.560 --> 01:21:59.020
Tom: And if you need to keep something in a state of nature rather than the state of nature spontaneously appearing, according to the Hobbesian state of nature, that does not support his argument.
01:22:01.220 --> 01:22:03.860
Phil: I'll have to take your word for it.
01:22:04.500 --> 01:22:06.000
Phil: Does the DLC explore that?
01:22:06.780 --> 01:22:09.500
Tom: No, it doesn't, which is one of the disappointing things about it.
01:22:09.500 --> 01:22:09.900
Phil: Yeah.
01:22:11.540 --> 01:22:14.440
Tom: The DLC sadly does not go into that level of detail.
01:22:14.540 --> 01:22:27.440
Tom: And I also, unfortunately, I think gave it a disservice by comparing it to Lord of the Flies in its Russian Scout scenario in the main game.
01:22:29.040 --> 01:22:41.140
Tom: But again, it was actually not like that at all, where it was in fact a comparison of two slightly different philosophical groups combining together.
01:22:41.160 --> 01:22:56.180
Tom: And the Lord of the Flies description, its state of nature, has no evidence behind it, whatever, and is merely an oft-repeated paranoid delusion by people with depression, essentially.
01:22:58.500 --> 01:23:08.560
Phil: So in comparing the two, because you said you can't get the original anymore, like you can only get the upgraded visuals now, is that right if I went out and bought Metro 2033 on Steam?
01:23:08.580 --> 01:23:11.340
Tom: It would be the Redux version, correct?
01:23:11.680 --> 01:23:13.120
Phil: Yeah, so you can't get the original.
01:23:13.120 --> 01:23:17.580
Phil: But in going back to it, was it something that...
01:23:18.380 --> 01:23:25.000
Phil: were you amazed at how different it looked, or was it more subtle than that?
01:23:25.020 --> 01:23:28.380
Tom: Well, we went into detail of the comparison between the two versions.
01:23:28.400 --> 01:23:35.160
Tom: What I think is a more interesting comparison is to Exodus, which was the reason I went back to it.
01:23:36.440 --> 01:23:42.700
Tom: And again, the detail of crafting available in Exodus is on a totally different level.
01:23:43.100 --> 01:24:05.780
Tom: And in Last Light, the weapons, once you've made a few alterations to them, it doesn't really change how they function to a great degree, whereas in Last Light, like in Stalker, the customisation is such that you can turn one weapon, you would expect to do one thing, essentially to a completely different type of weapon.
01:24:06.640 --> 01:24:15.620
Tom: The other thing that reflects very well on Exodus is the gunplay and noises.
01:24:15.660 --> 01:24:23.220
Tom: Everything just feels harder and beefier and heavier in Exodus compared to Last Light.
01:24:23.240 --> 01:24:33.620
Tom: But what does hold up, and the gunplay still holds up, because even though it's not on the level of Exodus, it's still better than the majority of first-person shooters out there.
01:24:34.800 --> 01:24:53.380
Tom: What still stands out and is as good as Exodus, every bit is good, and in some areas more consistently good, due to it being a more linear structure, is the way that the combat and flow of the combat works.
01:24:53.400 --> 01:25:10.100
Tom: It's actually, we were talking about how Project Exodus manages to have a dynamic where when you're on top, you're forcing your way forwards and enemies are retreating, and when you're overwhelmed, they're forcing you backwards and you're retreating.
01:25:10.880 --> 01:25:28.200
Tom: Metro is one of the few first-person shooters until things like Doom and this latest batch of retro indie first-person shooters to achieve that.
01:25:28.500 --> 01:26:07.340
Tom: It does it in a tighter area and in a slightly more limited way than the retro indie games do and Doom does, but there is absolutely that dynamic to the combat where when you manage to figure out a good strategy in terms of where you are in the level and where the enemies are, and also what weapons you have and how much ammo and so forth, you are absolutely forcing the enemies into retreat and the AI will indeed run away to some degree and try and hide and so on and so forth.
01:26:07.820 --> 01:26:15.820
Tom: And when you have stuffed up, you will absolutely be running away and trying to hide again and reconsider what you need to do.
01:26:15.840 --> 01:26:20.520
Tom: Or you may in fact be running out of ammo and essentially screwed.
01:26:20.920 --> 01:26:23.960
Tom: But it has that dynamic which very few games do.
01:26:24.380 --> 01:26:59.560
Tom: And not only does it have that dynamic, it also has a lot of Rainbow Six in it in the tighter areas where you start off at an entrance to an area and there are a bunch of enemies and you need to figure out how to get from point A to point B through the enemies exactly in the way you do in a Rainbow Six game with a reasonable amount of pre-planning and slightly more overt stealth in this, but in Rainbow Six as well, stealth was always an important part of the gameplay.
01:26:59.860 --> 01:27:10.400
Tom: It is pretty impressive that they managed to combine those two styles of shooter gameplay because they usually do not go together.
01:27:10.640 --> 01:27:18.160
Tom: For instance, in Rainbow Six, if you stuff up, you're not going to be retreating, you're going to be dead.
01:27:19.040 --> 01:27:23.840
Tom: So you don't really have this forwards and backwards dynamic that is there in Metro.
01:27:24.320 --> 01:27:51.200
Tom: And Metro manages to combine this sense of planning and importance of following routes through the area and killing enemies at certain times based on where other enemies are and so forth that Rainbow Six has while combining it with the dynamic enemy reactions and movement of more traditional first person shooters.
01:27:51.440 --> 01:27:52.840
Phil: I love that aspect of it.
01:27:52.860 --> 01:28:02.200
Phil: And the reason why you don't see it in many first person shooters in terms of the retreating and all of that sort of thing and rethinking and like, okay, how are we going to do this and forethought and planning.
01:28:02.560 --> 01:28:11.820
Phil: The reason I imagine you don't see this in a lot of first person shooters is because they're essentially power fantasies where all you're doing is plowing forward and mowing down enemies.
01:28:12.940 --> 01:28:19.800
Phil: To the point, even in Call of Duty, often you can just basically outrun everyone and get to the end of the level.
01:28:19.840 --> 01:28:22.500
Phil: Now, that's not always true, but in some levels it is.
01:28:24.380 --> 01:28:36.060
Phil: So I can see why that wouldn't be common, but I find it, when I think back of my best first person shooter experiences, it's always about how I got myself into trouble and how I got myself out of trouble.
01:28:37.440 --> 01:28:38.040
Tom: Absolutely.
01:28:39.520 --> 01:28:59.060
Tom: And the DLC pack, and I think you'd get it by default in the new versions of the game, so you'll be getting the DLC regardless, consists of several different levels, some of which are not really worth talking about, but there are several highlights.
01:28:59.500 --> 01:29:03.200
Tom: One of them is, in fact, three very short little levels.
01:29:03.460 --> 01:29:29.440
Tom: One is only like 10 minutes, two others are 20 minutes, which follow characters in a similar vein to the DLC, the two kernels in Metro Exodus, as they are doing stuff in the main story when they were off screen, essentially, or in the case of one of them where you're playing as Anna when you are going along with Artyom and helping him.
01:29:30.260 --> 01:29:55.260
Tom: And they're not like the two kernels in that they add anything to the main story, but they are interesting in the stories following Pavel and Khan in that they, both of those are interesting characters from the main story and in this you get to learn a little bit more about them, even if it doesn't really contribute much to the main plot's understanding.
01:29:56.240 --> 01:30:12.500
Tom: The other highlight is a level which is more based on a combination of stealth and then like in the other DLC, sorry, like half of the two kernels in Metro Exodus, you are then given a flamethrower.
01:30:12.780 --> 01:30:31.220
Tom: So, but unlike in the two kernels, you are against spiders in a cave, essentially, and that allows for a slightly different take on gameplay than the main game because the flamethrower is a pretty different weapon to use throughout an entire level compared to the normal guns.
01:30:32.340 --> 01:30:40.280
Tom: And the other highlight is the most interesting of them all because it's sort of a precursor to Metro Exodus.
01:30:40.680 --> 01:30:57.660
Tom: It's somewhat open world in that essentially you are looking for artifacts, stalk style in the library and its surrounding environs and you can collect them in whatever order you please.
01:30:58.180 --> 01:31:10.820
Tom: So that is very much feels like something that may have led to Metro Exodus or something they were experimenting in with some knowledge of where they were planning to take the series in the future.
01:31:12.480 --> 01:31:20.460
Phil: You know, I was bemoaning the fact a couple of shows ago that these guys are sticking with Metro, but that's kind of become the way for a lot of studios.
01:31:20.480 --> 01:31:33.860
Phil: If you look at like your club games with Shovel Knight and the Rocket League guys, I mean, you know, you can make a career out of a single game at this point, even if it's not a service game.
01:31:34.520 --> 01:31:43.880
Phil: It's something like Metro where you can be releasing these DLCs and upgrades and everything else in between the main installations in a series.
01:31:45.460 --> 01:31:53.440
Phil: But it's also interesting at the same time that, you know, games like Gran Turismo and Killzone and everything else get stale over time to a degree.
01:31:54.240 --> 01:31:58.620
Phil: So I think for small teams, it's probably the way to go.
01:31:59.120 --> 01:32:20.660
Phil: But I noticed that even like a small-ish studio, but still substantial one like Rocksteady that did the Arkham games, you know, their new game is The Suicide Squad, and they're saying it's basically a continuation of the Arkhamverse, which to me is really disappointing because I was a fan of Rocksteady's games prior to the Arkham world.
01:32:21.220 --> 01:32:22.480
Phil: The first Arkham game was good.
01:32:22.500 --> 01:32:24.300
Phil: I didn't bother finishing the second one.
01:32:24.320 --> 01:32:26.500
Phil: I didn't even bother buying the third one.
01:32:28.360 --> 01:32:36.660
Phil: So, yeah, it's just interesting how different studios are able to live off of one title, but with other studios, it just stops becoming fresh.
01:32:37.700 --> 01:33:05.460
Tom: And to their credit, unlike, I would argue, a Rocksteady with the Arkham series, though they did do some things to change it up to some degree, 4A games like Guerrilla Games with Killzone have managed to make all three Metro games very, very different projects while still maintaining some of the core idea in each installment.
01:33:06.600 --> 01:33:15.720
Tom: So it doesn't result in a particularly creatively bereft direction for them to go in.
01:33:16.420 --> 01:33:25.540
Phil: I think too, if you look at Killzone and the Metro world, they're evocative environments that you want to explore and know and learn more about.
01:33:26.280 --> 01:33:33.300
Phil: Whereas with Gran Turismo, well, it's the same tracks every time, it's the same cars for the most part, a little bit prettier.
01:33:33.900 --> 01:33:39.360
Phil: The Batman universe has been explored beyond what it ever should have been.
01:33:40.680 --> 01:33:43.640
Phil: And so it might have to do with the content and the subject matter.
01:33:44.320 --> 01:33:45.180
Tom: I think that would help.
01:33:45.200 --> 01:33:53.520
Tom: There's certainly more creative potential in the Metro novels than there is in the Batman comics.
01:33:53.900 --> 01:33:54.460
Phil: Good Lord.
01:33:59.920 --> 01:34:00.480
Phil: Yes.
01:34:00.500 --> 01:34:02.860
Phil: Anyway, that's kind of a little bit of news as well.
01:34:02.880 --> 01:34:07.580
Phil: I mean, are you completely disinterested in Rocksteady's direction at this point?
01:34:09.520 --> 01:34:13.620
Tom: Well, I was disinterested in their direction where they made another Arkham game.
01:34:15.180 --> 01:34:16.960
Phil: Well, here's some other news for you to react to.
01:34:17.380 --> 01:34:21.520
Phil: The guy that made Five Nights at Freddy's, Scott Cawthorn...
01:34:22.240 --> 01:34:25.460
Tom: That's someone who is living off the one series, if ever that was.
01:34:25.900 --> 01:34:27.240
Phil: Yeah, but it's working for him.
01:34:27.260 --> 01:34:29.980
Phil: I'm just going to read this here.
01:34:30.000 --> 01:34:35.720
Phil: He's working with a number of amateur developers to support and ultimately release the fan community's greatest fan-made creations.
01:34:37.540 --> 01:34:43.740
Phil: And so he's funding fan games so that it can be released multi-platform.
01:34:44.600 --> 01:34:49.960
Phil: And yeah, he says, Hi guys, I wanted to tell you about a little project that I've been working on for a while now.
01:34:49.960 --> 01:34:56.400
Phil: It's a giant collaboration involving several fan game creators who have made some of the most popular fan games over the years in the community.
01:34:57.800 --> 01:35:03.720
Phil: It's designed to invest in those franchises, give back to the developers, and hopefully bring new entries in those franchises as well.
01:35:04.400 --> 01:35:09.400
Phil: So yeah, that's a really great move on his part.
01:35:09.500 --> 01:35:10.440
Tom: Yep, that is cool.
01:35:11.440 --> 01:35:21.820
Tom: And given the quality of some of the Five Nights at Freddy animations I've seen, that could actually work out well.
01:35:23.840 --> 01:35:26.160
Phil: Maybe team size has something to do with it as well.
01:35:27.680 --> 01:35:45.360
Phil: Or at least if you're keeping a small team, or if a majority of the team that you're keeping has the original creators of that franchise still involved with it, so that it's not getting diluted every single time, that may have something to do with it as well.
01:35:45.380 --> 01:35:45.680
Phil: Who knows?
01:35:45.700 --> 01:35:59.340
Tom: It's also something I think that a lot of people would be interested in doing, because you see this sort of thing occurring in other mediums all the time where it's easier to do that.
01:35:59.420 --> 01:36:07.600
Tom: Now the internet bandwidth, widely available, is allowing that sort of thing to be done with games without too much difficulty as well.
01:36:09.080 --> 01:36:09.480
Phil: Absolutely.
01:36:09.900 --> 01:36:17.180
Phil: And the godsail with itch.io really revealed to me, like we've all had these ideas, like, oh, I've got this idea for a game.
01:36:17.880 --> 01:36:23.540
Phil: And we're thinking, oh, if only I could get this idea to the right people, it'd be a great game.
01:36:23.760 --> 01:36:29.440
Phil: And then the profusion of games that you see on itch.io is kind of like, yeah, a lot of people have an idea for a game.
01:36:30.960 --> 01:36:39.560
Phil: And some of those ideas are quite good and can fill out a couple of hour games or an eight hour game or a 14 or 20 hour game.
01:36:40.140 --> 01:36:41.820
Phil: And others just shouldn't be made.
01:36:41.840 --> 01:36:44.360
Phil: I think they should be made.
01:36:45.040 --> 01:36:45.700
Phil: No, they should.
01:36:45.900 --> 01:36:49.500
Phil: And the bandwidth of the internet, as you said, put them out there.
01:36:49.820 --> 01:36:53.740
Phil: Have you started playing the next game that we're both going to play on itch.io yet?
01:36:53.760 --> 01:36:56.560
Tom: Well, that just reminded me because you said a few hours.
01:36:56.660 --> 01:37:02.980
Tom: I actually played an itch.io game, not from the pack, but I would highly recommend it.
01:37:04.760 --> 01:37:09.840
Tom: It's about two to four minutes long, depending how long you take.
01:37:09.860 --> 01:37:11.560
Tom: It is a horror game.
01:37:11.580 --> 01:37:17.460
Tom: It's not particularly frightening, but it is quite an amusing and quaint atmosphere.
01:37:17.940 --> 01:37:30.600
Tom: And it's interesting because it is great to see people finally using PlayStation 1 graphics and the great potential that has for atmosphere and visual effect.
01:37:31.660 --> 01:37:42.080
Tom: It's taken this long for indie people to grow the balls, to be able to do what they should have been doing from the beginning, as well as pixel art.
01:37:42.560 --> 01:37:51.300
Tom: And this is a great example of the aesthetic potential of using PlayStation 1 style graphics.
01:37:51.940 --> 01:37:58.560
Tom: And that game is Stonehouse Orphanage, and it is free on itch.io.
01:38:01.080 --> 01:38:04.700
Phil: Stonehouse Orphanage, okay, and it's two to three minutes long, depending on how...
01:38:04.820 --> 01:38:05.860
Tom: Two to four minutes.
01:38:06.840 --> 01:38:08.800
Phil: Depending on the difficulty level, I'm sure.
01:38:09.140 --> 01:38:09.480
Tom: Yes.
01:38:10.320 --> 01:38:11.860
Phil: Yeah.
01:38:12.240 --> 01:38:16.960
Phil: And so probably the next podcast will be giving impressions of Night in the Woods, right?
01:38:17.140 --> 01:38:19.640
Phil: Are you going to be able to get time to start that, or...?
01:38:19.660 --> 01:38:25.500
Tom: Well, I have started it, so it will depend on how far into it we are.
01:38:25.880 --> 01:38:26.580
Phil: Yes, indeed.
01:38:27.000 --> 01:38:27.680
Phil: I'm hoping to get...
01:38:27.700 --> 01:38:28.980
Phil: I'm hoping to beat it.
01:38:29.360 --> 01:38:32.400
Phil: So, let's see how we go.
01:38:32.660 --> 01:38:37.020
Tom: Vampyr is also a potential contender for the next episode.
01:38:37.820 --> 01:38:38.520
Phil: I'm sorry, which?
01:38:39.380 --> 01:38:42.400
Tom: Vampyr by Don't Nod Studios.
01:38:44.640 --> 01:38:46.480
Phil: But back to Tom Towers' reaction to the news.
01:38:47.200 --> 01:38:49.560
Phil: What do you make of this whole Fortnite...
01:38:49.580 --> 01:38:55.200
Phil: Fortnite is being stolen from people who want to play it, is the message I get.
01:38:56.060 --> 01:39:04.840
Tom: Just like I believe the Australian government is stealing the news from Google, or Google is stealing the news from News Corp.
01:39:05.540 --> 01:39:07.420
Tom: One way or the other, I'm not sure which it is.
01:39:07.740 --> 01:39:12.020
Tom: But there are a lot of people on the internet currently stealing from each other.
01:39:13.080 --> 01:39:13.700
Tom: Apparently.
01:39:13.960 --> 01:39:26.500
Phil: Down here in Australia, if you go on YouTube, I think starting yesterday, at least that's when I noticed it, they're putting up all this propaganda about the Australian government is going to basically ruin Google Search.
01:39:26.720 --> 01:39:29.140
Phil: And I read the whole thing, and I'm like, yeah, whatever.
01:39:29.280 --> 01:39:32.360
Tom: I think Google already ruined its search engine.
01:39:32.380 --> 01:39:33.060
Phil: Absolutely.
01:39:34.040 --> 01:39:38.260
Phil: My theory is I don't care who's right or wrong, if it's hurting Google, then that's good.
01:39:38.280 --> 01:39:38.940
Tom: You're all for it.
01:39:39.120 --> 01:39:40.040
Phil: I'm all for it.
01:39:41.280 --> 01:39:45.020
Phil: So I don't care who is going to be the beneficiary.
01:39:45.520 --> 01:39:47.560
Phil: As long as Google is the loser.
01:39:47.880 --> 01:39:48.200
Phil: Exactly.
01:39:49.940 --> 01:39:55.820
Phil: But yeah, apparently Apple is forbidding people from playing Fortnite.
01:39:55.960 --> 01:39:58.740
Phil: And it's really sad, you know.
01:39:58.760 --> 01:40:07.720
Tom: It is, but it's well worth it for the ad that they made, which I think is called 1980 Fortnite.
01:40:08.340 --> 01:40:09.120
Phil: Oh, that's great.
01:40:09.220 --> 01:40:10.460
Phil: I didn't know that's what it was called.
01:40:10.480 --> 01:40:21.700
Tom: Which is good enough in and of itself, but it is a parody of one of the most iconic ads in history, the Apple 1984 ad.
01:40:21.720 --> 01:40:24.820
Tom: And it is just a brilliant take on it.
01:40:25.720 --> 01:40:32.820
Tom: And if you have not seen it already, I urge anyone to go and look up 1984 Fortnite.
01:40:33.360 --> 01:40:36.840
Tom: First, you must watch the original Apple ad if you haven't seen that as well.
01:40:36.880 --> 01:40:40.500
Phil: Yeah, and you've got to also go read the book 1984 to get that.
01:40:41.560 --> 01:40:42.180
Tom: No, you don't.
01:40:42.460 --> 01:40:43.820
Tom: Skip 1984.
01:40:43.920 --> 01:40:47.560
Phil: We're talking about an ad that's 36 years old.
01:40:48.300 --> 01:40:52.660
Phil: But of course, you know, everyone's pretty much familiar with it, I would imagine.
01:40:53.180 --> 01:40:56.100
Tom: So are we able to spoil it at this stage?
01:40:58.740 --> 01:41:01.660
Phil: Look, I think most people will have seen it by now.
01:41:01.680 --> 01:41:03.440
Phil: I think it's amazing.
01:41:03.660 --> 01:41:05.220
Phil: And my earlier commentary, of course, was...
01:41:05.240 --> 01:41:09.000
Tom: It's not quite as good as the Australian AIDS ad, but it is up there with it.
01:41:09.560 --> 01:41:11.060
Phil: Uh, is that the one with the Grim Reaper?
01:41:11.080 --> 01:41:11.460
Tom: Yes.
01:41:11.560 --> 01:41:12.240
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
01:41:12.620 --> 01:41:17.000
Phil: So, um, but I've got to say, my earlier commentary was, of course, tongue-in-cheek.
01:41:17.000 --> 01:41:19.480
Phil: I'm fully aware of the whole story.
01:41:20.160 --> 01:41:31.360
Phil: Um, but, um, in terms of what's going on with it, I really, in this particular case, I don't care, uh, who is disadvantaged, Epic or, uh, Apple.
01:41:32.080 --> 01:41:34.740
Phil: Epic is, of course, minority-owned by Tencent.
01:41:35.480 --> 01:41:40.060
Phil: Um, so we're really just talking about two massive corporations, um, having...
01:41:40.080 --> 01:41:43.840
Tom: Whining about a small percentage of their profit.
01:41:44.060 --> 01:41:48.120
Phil: Yeah, and each other's power, you know, and who's going to wield it?
01:41:48.140 --> 01:41:48.640
Phil: But I did...
01:41:48.880 --> 01:41:59.820
Phil: I think it is a rich irony that they're throwing Apple's ad back at Apple, and it's right, because when Apple did that ad, they were, uh, going up against IBM, and IBM was the man, you know?
01:42:00.520 --> 01:42:04.020
Phil: And Apple's been the man since 1998 now.
01:42:04.720 --> 01:42:07.000
Phil: Um, yeah, 1998's when...
01:42:07.180 --> 01:42:08.200
Phil: No, 2008.
01:42:08.260 --> 01:42:10.580
Phil: So it's been 12 years where Apple's been the man.
01:42:11.240 --> 01:42:17.120
Phil: And it's fun to, like, point out their foibles with their former propaganda.
01:42:17.640 --> 01:42:19.360
Phil: I thought it was particularly well done.
01:42:19.640 --> 01:42:20.060
Tom: It is.
01:42:20.080 --> 01:42:22.240
Tom: It is absolutely fantastic.
01:42:22.440 --> 01:42:24.820
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
01:42:24.840 --> 01:42:28.600
Phil: So, um, there's another ad that's going around as well.
01:42:29.240 --> 01:42:31.820
Phil: The Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War ad.
01:42:32.580 --> 01:42:34.200
Phil: Um, it has the, um...
01:42:35.160 --> 01:42:38.320
Phil: He was a Russian spy that defected to Canada, right?
01:42:39.020 --> 01:42:39.320
Tom: Yes.
01:42:39.540 --> 01:42:41.060
Tom: Was it to Canada or America?
01:42:41.280 --> 01:42:41.800
Phil: Canada.
01:42:44.140 --> 01:42:46.280
Phil: I haven't seen the ad, so you're going to have to describe it to me.
01:42:46.300 --> 01:42:53.480
Tom: Well, yeah, well, the ad is for the new, um, Call of Duty game, which is inspired by the Cold War, I assume.
01:42:53.980 --> 01:43:13.440
Tom: It's not going to be set during the Cold War, given that the content of the ad is very unsubtly building on the Russian content of the prior game and setting itself up as commentary on Russia's alleged interference in American elections.
01:43:14.700 --> 01:43:35.620
Tom: And it's got clips from one of Yuri Besmanov's famous lectures, which are all over YouTube, and YouTube is very interested in getting anyone who has ever watched anything tangentially related to anything political to watch, or at least they used to be.
01:43:35.660 --> 01:43:55.680
Tom: It's kind of disappeared from the algorithm recently until the Call of Duty ads, but it is another great example of advertising where it is essentially interspersing clips of Yuri Bezmanov's commentary on Russia's foreign policy campaigns.
01:43:55.700 --> 01:44:12.760
Tom: In this case, the Soviet Union's foreign policy campaigns attempting to affect other countries' politics in deleterious ways and interspersing that with footage of more recent events, if I remember correctly.
01:44:15.340 --> 01:44:19.340
Phil: Yeah, well, the CIA wasn't so subtle as to interfere with foreign elections.
01:44:19.360 --> 01:44:21.700
Phil: They just assassinated foreign leaders.
01:44:22.080 --> 01:44:24.060
Tom: They didn't just assassinate foreign leaders.
01:44:24.080 --> 01:44:29.120
Tom: I think they assassinated the average person on the streets as well.
01:44:29.160 --> 01:44:35.740
Tom: I think it was their general strategy, depending on where you were, which is incidentally significantly more effective.
01:44:37.280 --> 01:44:40.720
Phil: Yeah, and this is not conspiracy theory stuff.
01:44:40.740 --> 01:44:57.460
Phil: If you can go read a hacks like Bob Woodward's book, The Agency, where they disclose quite openly all of the involvement, not all of them, but quite a few of the CIA's involvements around the globe over the last 50 years, which is a good read.
01:44:57.660 --> 01:44:59.960
Phil: I think the CIA writes his books for him.
01:45:01.080 --> 01:45:13.820
Tom: I believe that a book recently was released on the Indonesia debacle in which some 500,000 to a million people killed, depending on estimates.
01:45:14.700 --> 01:45:17.140
Tom: So I would recommend that one.
01:45:17.660 --> 01:45:24.900
Tom: I don't know if the book is any good, but that is one of the most interesting and insane CIA exploits, I would say.
01:45:25.480 --> 01:45:26.560
Tom: Particularly given the...
01:45:26.680 --> 01:45:28.060
Phil: That sounds like a lot of people.
01:45:29.040 --> 01:45:30.040
Tom: It was a lot of people.
01:45:30.920 --> 01:45:33.960
Tom: But these are supposedly reasonable numbers.
01:45:35.760 --> 01:45:42.660
Tom: And I think there's a documentary by Werner Herzog on it as well, which may or may not be good as well that I haven't seen.
01:45:42.680 --> 01:46:00.360
Tom: But anyway, the interesting thing about that one is that that installed the government that led to the whole Indonesian affairs in East Timor, which is one of the most horrific things in the post-World War II world.
01:46:02.020 --> 01:46:11.900
Tom: And my point there is not to blame America for that part of it specifically, but merely that that's why it's interesting is it's connected to that.
01:46:12.120 --> 01:46:21.140
Tom: Which I should also add is relevant to Australia, given that Australia is deeply involved in Timorese and Indonesian politics.
01:46:21.960 --> 01:46:22.680
Phil: Yeah, definitely.
01:46:22.780 --> 01:46:23.060
Phil: Yeah.
01:46:23.160 --> 01:46:31.800
Phil: And again, I only bring it up because everyone's like, Oh, Russia interfering elections is, yeah, it's how could they do that to America of all places?
01:46:33.640 --> 01:46:34.720
Phil: The land of the free.
01:46:37.020 --> 01:46:51.100
Tom: While we're on the topic of Cold War propaganda, we will have to move on to something that is would have been Cold War propaganda if it was released in America, but it's actually sorry if it was made in America, but it's actually I think Japanese.
01:46:51.900 --> 01:47:02.600
Tom: And that is Metal Slug 2 or rather Metal Slug ACA Neo Geo Metal Slug X, which I think is a remake of Metal Slug 2.
01:47:04.320 --> 01:47:14.440
Phil: Yeah, Metal Slug of course was developed by SMK and originally released from the Neo Geo and Arcade platform, which is the same Neo Geo MVS platform.
01:47:16.020 --> 01:47:24.760
Phil: And it's known for its amazing, intricately colorful and artistic sprite work.
01:47:26.540 --> 01:47:34.880
Phil: Yeah, it's notoriously difficult, but that's because it was designed as an arcade game that wanted you to keep pumping, you know, cordless into the machine.
01:47:36.060 --> 01:47:39.700
Phil: But how are you playing it and why are you playing it now in 2020?
01:47:40.060 --> 01:47:47.800
Tom: Well, I played the ACA Neo Geo Metal Slug X version, which was on Xbox Games Pass.
01:47:47.820 --> 01:47:49.240
Tom: I believe it's no longer on there.
01:47:50.760 --> 01:47:53.360
Tom: So that is how and why I played it.
01:47:53.720 --> 01:48:01.400
Tom: But you will recall that I previously played, I think, the original Metal Slug and was somewhat disappointed in it.
01:48:01.400 --> 01:48:13.120
Tom: But I played that immediately after Gunstar Heroes, which is one of my favorite games of all time and as close to a flawless game as you can get.
01:48:13.120 --> 01:48:22.500
Tom: So I wanted to try another Metal Slug without having previously played the greatest ever sidescrolling shooter directly before it.
01:48:23.360 --> 01:48:30.940
Phil: And I think Treasure's Gunstar Heroes, though, I mean, the difference with that is your flow isn't interrupted because it wasn't an arcade game.
01:48:30.960 --> 01:48:32.660
Phil: It was designed for home play.
01:48:33.600 --> 01:48:44.320
Tom: It's also, while it lacks the quality of sprite work in terms of colour and effects, it is an amazing kaleidoscope compared to Metal Slug.
01:48:45.560 --> 01:48:46.980
Phil: Very impressive to this day.
01:48:47.000 --> 01:48:49.840
Phil: I was only playing it recently on the original hardware.
01:48:51.960 --> 01:48:54.720
Tom: So that was the other reason I wanted to return to it.
01:48:54.740 --> 01:49:01.300
Tom: And without having played a game like that directly before it, it was a much better experience.
01:49:01.320 --> 01:49:01.920
Tom: And it is...
01:49:03.160 --> 01:49:14.180
Tom: Everyone, I mean, the gameplay itself, when you are able to just spam in coins, is significantly more enjoyable than it would have been originally.
01:49:15.300 --> 01:49:22.960
Tom: So the flow is significantly less interrupted, or rather, it's no less interrupted because obviously you'll have to respawn.
01:49:23.260 --> 01:49:30.200
Tom: But it at least doesn't mean you have to spend several hundred dollars on completing the game.
01:49:30.560 --> 01:49:35.780
Tom: But the flow when you're playing it like that is really enjoyable.
01:49:36.580 --> 01:49:45.380
Tom: As you're going through the levels, the amount of enemies they throw at you keeps getting more and more and more until you get to the boss, more difficult enemies as well.
01:49:46.140 --> 01:49:52.860
Tom: The little details in the sound effects of the characters and the voice acting is great.
01:49:52.860 --> 01:50:08.860
Tom: And something that is, I think, highly underrated isn't just the sprite work, but the sense of humor with characters getting fatter the more you eat, which also makes them more powerful, if I remember correctly.
01:50:09.940 --> 01:50:16.780
Tom: The weird atmosphere of it with these homeless dudes that you're rescuing as you're going along.
01:50:17.980 --> 01:50:34.260
Tom: And as far as the sprite work is concerned, the gore is absolutely great with the character deaths and enemy deaths and the way they die depending on weapon you're using and the different stages of their destruction as you were killing them.
01:50:34.700 --> 01:50:45.440
Tom: The music is suitably bombastic and heavy, and there's some really fun MIDI synth work there as well.
01:50:46.640 --> 01:50:57.200
Tom: And the weapon variety seems to be a lot better than what I remember there being in the original Metal Slug, but it was a very long time ago.
01:50:57.760 --> 01:51:27.200
Tom: And it manages to be, in spite of the arcade design where you do have to respawn constantly, nevertheless really satisfying when you do actually complete each level, because even though you can just respawn whenever you die, even with that taken into account, it still requires a good amount of skill to actually get through the enemies and the bosses.
01:51:29.520 --> 01:51:31.400
Phil: You're absolutely right about the sound effects.
01:51:31.420 --> 01:51:33.740
Phil: The voice sampling in it is great.
01:51:34.640 --> 01:51:38.820
Phil: I think this is the game that when you pick up the rocket launcher, it says Rocket Lawn Chair.
01:51:39.000 --> 01:51:40.460
Tom: Yeah, Rocket Lawn Chair.
01:51:41.720 --> 01:51:43.280
Tom: It's a rocket lounge chair.
01:51:44.380 --> 01:51:47.840
Phil: I was thought Lawn Chair, like imagine Americans saying a lawn chair.
01:51:48.080 --> 01:51:49.160
Tom: Yeah, exactly.
01:51:49.160 --> 01:51:49.960
Phil: That's how I've got it.
01:51:49.980 --> 01:52:00.080
Phil: And I remember reading an interview with one of the artists on the games, and he said it was absolutely brutal doing the sprite work.
01:52:00.100 --> 01:52:09.160
Phil: They just worked endless hours and were constantly starving and constantly had sore hands from doing the sprite work in this.
01:52:10.060 --> 01:52:12.900
Phil: We'll have to find that interview online and share that.
01:52:12.920 --> 01:52:20.760
Phil: But I think it was, the guy's last name was Kujo, K-U-J-O, was one of the guys known for it.
01:52:21.560 --> 01:52:25.940
Phil: But he has a tremendous sense of humour, and I'd say it's an anti-war game.
01:52:25.960 --> 01:52:28.660
Phil: I mean, this is a pacifist message game.
01:52:28.880 --> 01:52:34.500
Tom: Well, it's Japanese, so as I said, if it was released in America at the time, I think they're originally from the 80s, right?
01:52:35.480 --> 01:52:37.420
Phil: 1996 was when the original launched.
01:52:37.440 --> 01:52:38.920
Tom: The original was released then, was it?
01:52:39.540 --> 01:52:40.260
Phil: Yes, yeah.
01:52:40.520 --> 01:52:41.940
Phil: It was much later than you thought.
01:52:41.960 --> 01:52:52.680
Tom: Okay, so if it was in America in the 90s, it would be anti-Arab propaganda, but if something is Japanese, then it's either going to be pacifist or nationalist propaganda, essentially.
01:52:53.560 --> 01:52:55.580
Tom: Or a combination of the two, interestingly.
01:52:56.020 --> 01:53:04.160
Phil: Yeah, but I mean, as the game progresses, I mean, the brutality of the war is here.
01:53:04.180 --> 01:53:06.780
Phil: This is jungle combat that you're running and gunning through.
01:53:06.800 --> 01:53:28.720
Tom: And on that point, the other interesting thing is, at the end, your former enemies that you were fighting against, which of course many of whom were Arabs because Japan always likes to include subtle commentary on American media or copy it, depending on the style of the intent of the creators.
01:53:30.020 --> 01:53:47.840
Tom: At the end of the game, you are attacked by aliens, and you and your former enemies unite to repel the aliens, which is another way that Japan likes to present its pacifist messages.
01:53:48.160 --> 01:53:54.460
Phil: Yeah, as we've talked about many times, you're even freeing prisoners of war with comic effect in this game.
01:53:55.080 --> 01:53:55.940
Phil: It is really worthwhile.
01:53:55.960 --> 01:53:57.220
Tom: Prisoners of war or hobos.
01:53:58.640 --> 01:54:00.140
Tom: Either could be a commentary on America.
01:54:01.640 --> 01:54:04.640
Phil: Well, they're kept in cages, so I'm sure Trump put them there.
01:54:05.880 --> 01:54:18.060
Phil: So it is accessible on almost every format, which is to its detriment often because of controllers and various patches and things like that.
01:54:18.820 --> 01:54:29.160
Phil: But if you just want to go online and find some video of the original arcade game or this incarnation as well, you'll get a sense of what we're talking about.
01:54:29.960 --> 01:54:33.100
Phil: It is truly a gem in one of my favorite games.
01:54:34.820 --> 01:54:35.780
Phil: I had the Wii.
01:54:36.720 --> 01:54:44.620
Phil: There was a collection on the Wii, I think, that had the first five Metal Slug games on it, which wasn't great.
01:54:46.220 --> 01:54:52.140
Phil: But on the original Neo Geo, it's certainly a great game to play.
01:54:53.240 --> 01:54:55.980
Tom: And this port, I think, works well.
01:54:56.080 --> 01:55:06.720
Tom: The one thing to remember is that it features in its emulation the problems of the original arcade version.
01:55:06.740 --> 01:55:17.920
Tom: So when a lot of stuff is happening on screen, it will slow down significantly to, at its worst, under 10 FPS.
01:55:18.080 --> 01:55:19.700
Tom: But that is just how it is.
01:55:19.720 --> 01:55:22.700
Tom: That is not related to your computer.
01:55:23.620 --> 01:55:25.980
Phil: No, but that is what we used to call chug.
01:55:27.180 --> 01:55:34.460
Phil: The chug in a shmup like this, in a shooter like this, is a part of it.
01:55:34.480 --> 01:55:36.660
Phil: And the developers account for it.
01:55:37.200 --> 01:55:39.420
Phil: And it is actually a part of the game.
01:55:39.440 --> 01:55:51.520
Phil: So if there is this massive enemy coming under the screen and all these explosions and everything going on, and you get that chug, the sense as a player back in the day was, oh man, the computer can't even keep up with the graphics.
01:55:51.620 --> 01:55:53.060
Phil: This is amazing, you know.
01:55:53.080 --> 01:56:00.680
Tom: And when you do suddenly get charged by a large number of enemies, it also gives you a chance to react as well.
01:56:01.740 --> 01:56:02.100
Phil: Yeah.
01:56:02.360 --> 01:56:03.780
Phil: Well, I'm glad you had a favor.
01:56:03.800 --> 01:56:07.720
Phil: I was disappointed the last time you talked about Metal Slug that you hadn't enjoyed it.
01:56:08.520 --> 01:56:12.060
Tom: This has well redeemed Metal Slug in my eyes.
01:56:13.080 --> 01:56:13.740
Phil: Well, that's great.
01:56:13.820 --> 01:56:18.900
Phil: And in fact, I think this episode of The Game Under Podcast has redeemed our podcast.
01:56:20.700 --> 01:56:23.420
Phil: Unless you've got something else you wish to say, we'll close it out.
01:56:24.180 --> 01:56:31.420
Tom: Well, we will end on an amusing note on Michael Book's eulogy follow up.
01:56:32.200 --> 01:56:41.080
Tom: Not that I've been watching the show, but YouTube has been recommending it to me and essentially his sister has replaced him.
01:56:42.480 --> 01:56:42.800
Phil: What?
01:56:43.420 --> 01:56:44.880
Tom: So the Michael Book show...
01:56:44.900 --> 01:56:47.240
Phil: Yeah, yeah, he was the guy that died.
01:56:47.320 --> 01:56:52.120
Tom: Yes, is now essentially co-hosted by Alicia Brooks, his sister.
01:56:53.060 --> 01:56:54.200
Phil: Well, you know, it's quite common...
01:56:54.220 --> 01:56:55.040
Phil: With the former co-hosts.
01:56:55.680 --> 01:56:58.940
Phil: It's quite common in politics for, like, long-running senators or whatever.
01:56:58.960 --> 01:57:01.380
Tom: Yeah, I believe nepotism is very popular in politics.
01:57:02.480 --> 01:57:05.760
Tom: But I didn't know it was popular in political commentary as well.
01:57:06.360 --> 01:57:10.400
Phil: Well, you got those subscribers, you gotta keep the money coming in, I guess.
01:57:12.780 --> 01:57:18.560
Tom: And she looks quite like him, so I'm almost disappointed that they did not announce he died.
01:57:18.580 --> 01:57:25.480
Tom: She got a haircut, put on his chains and added a suit, and they just pretended he wasn't dead.
01:57:26.180 --> 01:57:26.720
Phil: Well, if...
01:57:27.760 --> 01:57:28.420
Phil: That is correct.
01:57:28.840 --> 01:57:33.120
Phil: If I die, I can tell you right now, my sibling is not going to be doing this show.
01:57:34.640 --> 01:57:39.240
Phil: It would probably be more entertaining, but he wouldn't know what any of this means.
01:57:40.320 --> 01:57:42.220
Phil: So he'd be right there with our listeners, really.
01:57:44.180 --> 01:57:48.540
Phil: Do you have any last wishes for what we should do with this podcast?
01:57:48.560 --> 01:57:50.320
Phil: Should you meet an untimely demise?
01:57:51.480 --> 01:57:59.160
Tom: I think if I meet an untimely demise, I would like the show sent into space to communicate with aliens.
01:57:59.960 --> 01:58:00.620
Tom: With my corpse.
01:58:01.860 --> 01:58:02.300
Phil: All right.
01:58:02.320 --> 01:58:05.640
Phil: Well, I'm not sure how far we could get it on our budget.
01:58:07.960 --> 01:58:17.400
Phil: We might be able to get it, like, as far as 50 meters, as far as we can throw it off the end of a pier and hope that a whale, a space whale, a whale evolves into a space farm.
01:58:17.420 --> 01:58:22.040
Tom: There's a lot of alien life in the ocean that is yet to be discovered, I'm sure.
01:58:23.000 --> 01:58:23.360
Phil: Okay.
01:58:23.380 --> 01:58:23.800
Phil: Who are you?
01:58:23.820 --> 01:58:24.540
Phil: Jacques Cousteau?
01:58:25.280 --> 01:58:25.740
Phil: All right.
01:58:25.760 --> 01:58:33.360
Phil: So, as we said in our last episode, we're not discussing Jacques Cousteau anymore or his proclivities.
01:58:33.680 --> 01:58:34.480
Phil: Thank you for listening.
01:58:34.500 --> 01:58:35.700
Phil: Hey, go to gameunder.net.
01:58:35.720 --> 01:58:39.080
Phil: We haven't got much new content up there, but go back and look at our back catalog.
01:58:39.100 --> 01:58:42.640
Phil: Go listen to our earlier shows where we talked about the original Deadly Premonition.
01:58:44.880 --> 01:58:51.780
Phil: And also rate and review us on whatever podcast platform you get us on because it does help other listeners find us.
01:58:52.840 --> 01:58:56.080
Phil: With that, I'd like to thank you for joining us on episode 129.
01:58:57.080 --> 01:58:57.380
Phil: Mr.
01:58:57.400 --> 01:58:58.260
Phil: Tom Towers, thank you.
01:58:58.840 --> 01:58:59.340
Tom: Thank you.
01:58:59.480 --> 01:59:04.800
Tom: And while we're on the topic of French intellectuals, Jacques Cousteau was not an intellectual.
01:59:07.860 --> 01:59:10.700
Phil: He's just a guy that swims around looking at fish.
01:59:11.900 --> 01:59:14.140
Tom: That sounds like a pretty intellectual pursuit to me.
01:59:15.200 --> 01:59:19.120
Tom: I'm going to leave the listeners with this wonderful trivia.
01:59:20.320 --> 01:59:30.740
Tom: Anatole France apparently had a tiny brain, and I'm yet to see anyone use this titbit as a joke about intellectuals, sadly.
01:59:32.760 --> 01:59:34.740
Tom: I'm putting that out there for any comedians.
01:59:35.480 --> 01:59:38.280
Tom: It's low-hanging fruit that is just waiting.
01:59:39.000 --> 01:59:48.700
Tom: This is the hour of attacking French intellectuals, and I'm yet to see any Anatole France brain size jokes.
01:59:51.940 --> 01:59:53.260
Phil: Alright, you've outdone yourself.
01:59:53.460 --> 01:59:53.920
Phil: Goodbye.