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Introduction
0:00:07 Back
Trademark Banter
0:00:49 Off Topic in 60 Seconds
0:02:40 Tom Disects a List of Games Phil Wants to Play
0:05:25 Early Onset Dementia in Realtime
Final Impressions - Phil Fogg
0:10:20 Rocket League Season 2 for Switch, PC and PS4 (hands-on impressions for all)
Final Impressions - Tom Towers
0:22:15 Donut County
0:26:00 Hepburn: Katamari Damashi
Final Impressions - Phil Fogg
0:31:15 Game Dev Story for Switch
Final Impressions - Tom Towers
0:37:25 Frog Detective 1 & 2
Final Impressions - Phil Fogg
0:43:40 UNO and Battle Ship for Switch
Trademark Banter
0:44:45 Magic: The Gathering - Where are the Games?
Final Impressions - Tom Towers
0:47:00 The Gardens Between
Feature: Discussion on Capitalism
0:53:37 Epic vs. Steam
News
0:57:45 Sony VR
1:06:00 Oculus Quest 3 and Tom's Quest 2 Update
First Impressions - Phil Fogg and Tom Towers
01:07:52 Super Hot for PC
News
01:31:46 Nintendo Direct
01:30:00 Stubbs the Zombie & Zombie Games Development
End of Show
01:36.12 That's it for Video Game Content
Transcript
WEBVTT
00:00:07.520 --> 00:00:12.960
Tom: Hello and welcome to Episode 134 of The Game Under Podcast.
00:00:13.380 --> 00:00:19.360
Tom: I am your host, Tom Towers, and I am joined by one, Phil Fogg.
00:00:19.720 --> 00:00:20.880
Phil: Phil Fogg.
00:00:20.900 --> 00:00:21.520
Phil: Hey, everyone.
00:00:22.060 --> 00:00:22.880
Phil: Welcome to the show.
00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:24.200
Phil: Tom, thanks for coming back.
00:00:25.420 --> 00:00:28.580
Tom: You dragged me kicking and screaming, but I am here.
00:00:29.120 --> 00:00:39.120
Phil: We have a big show, not a big show, like a four and a half hour long show, but we have a lot to talk about this week, so we probably don't have time for Trademark Banter.
00:00:41.040 --> 00:00:48.400
Phil: But was there anything that you wanted to get out of the way before we get into some of the hottest games at the moment and the latest news?
00:00:49.100 --> 00:00:59.040
Tom: Well, we have to mention, I think, two of probably the most enticing Trademark Banter subjects that the listeners may miss out on.
00:00:59.100 --> 00:01:26.780
Tom: One of them is the top five Bible stories and on the possibility that anyone read the book reviews that I post a while, if you can call those articles book reviews, I did want to point out something about the rhetoric which I was using in my commentary on The Bell Curve as it may have otherwise appeared somewhat interesting.
00:01:27.400 --> 00:01:50.200
Tom: And another one was which is one might wonder what this is doing on a game podcast, but this sort of discussion reached the mainstream and in a big way, more to the point in a discussion among enthusiasts as opposed to a discussion among people doing political posturing or academics.
00:01:50.220 --> 00:02:00.540
Tom: And that is objectification, the male gaze and the fear of political content, as well as virtue signaling and pandering.
00:02:02.080 --> 00:02:07.300
Phil: Oh yeah, well, virtue signaling is something that comes into my mind quite a fair bit the last couple of days.
00:02:08.680 --> 00:02:21.520
Phil: Not for any particular reason or anything, but we talked about it before and you kind of said, oh no, you're wrong, virtue signaling isn't, you can't be critical of it.
00:02:22.080 --> 00:02:26.780
Tom: Well, no, I pointed out you were misusing the term and were referring to something else.
00:02:27.180 --> 00:02:31.560
Tom: I've forgotten what exactly the pedantic point I was making then.
00:02:32.660 --> 00:02:39.380
Tom: But we still may indeed have an interesting discussion on virtue signaling itself.
00:02:41.180 --> 00:02:47.120
Phil: Excellent, well, and a less heady topic, and this would probably be a feature rather than trademark banter.
00:02:47.640 --> 00:02:55.060
Phil: I've got a series, it will not surprise you that I have a series, I have a program on my phone where I list things.
00:02:55.100 --> 00:02:59.900
Phil: I list things that I've got to do, those things I've got to read, list things I've got to play.
00:03:00.760 --> 00:03:08.620
Phil: I'm gonna go through my list of games that for whatever reason, at some point while I'm walking around, I've decided, hey, I should really play this game.
00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:18.280
Phil: And then you just give me a quick, just yes, no, like, no, don't do it, Phil, or yeah, do it, or I haven't heard of it, or I've heard it, and yeah, it's a great game.
00:03:18.580 --> 00:03:22.600
Phil: So in no particular order, these are the games that I've got on my current to playlist.
00:03:22.620 --> 00:03:23.040
Phil: Are you ready?
00:03:23.340 --> 00:03:23.680
Tom: Yes.
00:03:24.160 --> 00:03:28.320
Phil: Okay, Monster, the original Monster Hunter for PlayStation 2.
00:03:28.980 --> 00:03:29.340
Tom: Yes.
00:03:30.060 --> 00:03:32.980
Phil: Spiritfarer, you heard that, it's a pretty hip game.
00:03:33.000 --> 00:03:33.900
Tom: Don't think I've heard of that.
00:03:34.300 --> 00:03:39.200
Phil: Spiritfarer, oh yeah, it was a pretty, it was up there for game of the year nominations for some sites last year.
00:03:40.460 --> 00:03:41.080
Phil: Good job.
00:03:42.320 --> 00:03:44.620
Tom: Well, that sounds like it might be a job simulator.
00:03:44.640 --> 00:03:45.660
Phil: Yeah, it's a work simulator.
00:03:45.680 --> 00:03:47.040
Phil: I thought you'd suggested it to me.
00:03:48.260 --> 00:03:49.560
Phil: Oh, this is good, Teardown.
00:03:49.600 --> 00:03:51.700
Phil: Have you seen this physics-based game?
00:03:51.720 --> 00:03:53.480
Tom: It actually looks very interesting.
00:03:53.740 --> 00:03:59.920
Phil: Yeah, and it actually prompted me, that was one of the things that prompted me to upgrade my PC when I realized that I wouldn't be able to play it.
00:04:00.560 --> 00:04:13.460
Tom: So, hopefully it's running better on AMD cards now because a while ago, when we first discussed it on the podcast, it was only running well on Nvidia cards.
00:04:14.320 --> 00:04:14.820
Phil: That's right.
00:04:14.840 --> 00:04:20.720
Phil: And this is a Voxel's physics kind of game where you're destroying things in interesting ways.
00:04:21.320 --> 00:04:23.560
Phil: And it's in alpha right now.
00:04:23.700 --> 00:04:37.080
Phil: So, I haven't really, I think that early access rather, like ruins games, ruins gaming experiences, but I much prefer just to play the game when it's finally out.
00:04:37.660 --> 00:04:38.640
Phil: There is no game.
00:04:40.500 --> 00:04:42.860
Tom: I thought you were making a comment on Teardown there.
00:04:42.880 --> 00:04:44.060
Phil: No, no, that's the name of the game.
00:04:44.080 --> 00:04:45.000
Phil: You haven't heard of that one either?
00:04:45.260 --> 00:04:45.940
Tom: I don't think so.
00:04:46.980 --> 00:04:47.900
Phil: Hotshot Races.
00:04:49.060 --> 00:04:49.400
Tom: Yes.
00:04:50.040 --> 00:04:51.380
Phil: Yep, but that's on my wish list.
00:04:52.080 --> 00:04:54.060
Phil: No One Lives Forever for PlayStation 2.
00:04:54.440 --> 00:04:55.020
Tom: Definitely.
00:04:55.660 --> 00:04:56.680
Phil: Chronicles of Riddick.
00:04:57.740 --> 00:04:58.320
Tom: Definitely.
00:04:59.080 --> 00:04:59.700
Phil: Breakdown.
00:05:01.220 --> 00:05:01.700
Tom: Maybe.
00:05:02.260 --> 00:05:02.960
Phil: You remember that one?
00:05:02.980 --> 00:05:06.380
Phil: That was, I think, a Namco first-person beat-em-up?
00:05:07.520 --> 00:05:08.100
Tom: I think so.
00:05:08.400 --> 00:05:09.080
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
00:05:10.180 --> 00:05:12.340
Tom: Or was it the third-person one?
00:05:12.360 --> 00:05:13.420
Phil: No, it's the first-person one.
00:05:13.440 --> 00:05:15.460
Tom: It's a first-person and third-person Riot game.
00:05:16.260 --> 00:05:16.940
Phil: No, no, no.
00:05:16.960 --> 00:05:24.720
Phil: Breakdown is a first-person game developed in Japan, and I stopped playing it back when I had it for the Xbox.
00:05:24.740 --> 00:05:27.640
Phil: I still have it for the Xbox, because it makes me nauseous.
00:05:28.120 --> 00:05:30.460
Phil: But it's one of the backward compatible games for the Xbox.
00:05:30.480 --> 00:05:32.820
Tom: I was thinking of something else, but I do remember this.
00:05:33.040 --> 00:05:35.440
Phil: Oh, yeah, you're thinking of Breakdown.
00:05:36.360 --> 00:05:37.440
Phil: Yeah, or Crackdown.
00:05:37.540 --> 00:05:38.140
Phil: Crackdown.
00:05:38.160 --> 00:05:39.900
Tom: No, not Crackdown, not Breakdown.
00:05:40.120 --> 00:05:41.520
Tom: I can't really call the name of it.
00:05:41.960 --> 00:05:43.440
Tom: But, um, gone.
00:05:43.720 --> 00:05:48.200
Phil: There was a game I thought called Breakdown for the Genesis and Super Nintendo that was a separate game.
00:05:48.280 --> 00:05:51.400
Phil: It was like a top-down action RPG.
00:05:53.180 --> 00:05:55.020
Phil: No, I think that was called Crackdown.
00:05:56.060 --> 00:05:57.340
Phil: Good talk.
00:05:57.360 --> 00:05:57.760
Phil: Kingdom Hearts?
00:06:00.680 --> 00:06:01.460
Phil: Unreal Tournament.
00:06:02.900 --> 00:06:04.980
Tom: Which one, just Unreal Tournament?
00:06:05.020 --> 00:06:05.920
Phil: Unreal Tournament, yeah.
00:06:05.940 --> 00:06:06.200
Tom: Yes.
00:06:07.240 --> 00:06:10.020
Phil: Um, I had mixed results with that one.
00:06:10.020 --> 00:06:15.840
Phil: It's available on Steam, but I'm not sure how well it plays, and I haven't got, or if people are playing it online.
00:06:16.560 --> 00:06:18.340
Phil: Um, though it's okay with bots, anyway.
00:06:19.080 --> 00:06:23.820
Phil: Um, I wanted to replay all the EDF games, Earth Defense Force games, that I haven't played yet.
00:06:26.100 --> 00:06:26.520
Tom: All of them?
00:06:26.540 --> 00:06:26.680
Phil: Mm-hmm.
00:06:26.700 --> 00:06:29.580
Tom: All of them, I assume for like five seconds each.
00:06:29.800 --> 00:06:30.820
Phil: No, no, the whole thing.
00:06:31.560 --> 00:06:33.000
Tom: Because they're very long.
00:06:34.380 --> 00:06:35.280
Phil: Nino Kuni.
00:06:37.960 --> 00:06:38.260
Tom: No.
00:06:38.660 --> 00:06:40.700
Phil: And Nino Kuni 2, I own them both.
00:06:40.860 --> 00:06:41.240
Tom: Yes.
00:06:41.420 --> 00:06:42.700
Phil: Yeah.
00:06:42.920 --> 00:06:43.760
Phil: Everybody's Golf.
00:06:44.740 --> 00:06:45.120
Tom: Yes.
00:06:45.620 --> 00:06:47.220
Phil: Skitties, Cities Skyline.
00:06:48.200 --> 00:06:48.520
Tom: No.
00:06:49.360 --> 00:06:53.120
Tom: Skitties Skyline, though, yes.
00:06:53.140 --> 00:06:54.120
Phil: Pillars of Eternity.
00:06:55.300 --> 00:06:55.520
Tom: No.
00:06:56.100 --> 00:06:59.240
Phil: Castlevania Symphony of the Night, for the PlayStation.
00:06:59.940 --> 00:07:00.300
Tom: Yes.
00:07:01.120 --> 00:07:03.140
Phil: Mask with a Q, M-A-S-Q.
00:07:04.280 --> 00:07:05.760
Tom: M-A-S-Q-U-E.
00:07:06.660 --> 00:07:07.040
Phil: Maybe.
00:07:07.640 --> 00:07:08.900
Tom: Or just M-A-S-Q.
00:07:08.940 --> 00:07:10.380
Phil: I've written down M-A-S-Q.
00:07:12.480 --> 00:07:13.580
Tom: Well, then I don't know.
00:07:13.580 --> 00:07:14.880
Phil: I don't know.
00:07:14.880 --> 00:07:15.640
Phil: Shadow Man.
00:07:16.480 --> 00:07:16.880
Tom: Yes.
00:07:17.540 --> 00:07:18.500
Phil: Zone of the Enders.
00:07:19.340 --> 00:07:19.740
Tom: Yes.
00:07:20.620 --> 00:07:21.460
Phil: Virtua Tennis.
00:07:22.080 --> 00:07:22.480
Tom: Yes.
00:07:23.120 --> 00:07:24.700
Phil: Vagrant Story for the PlayStation.
00:07:25.600 --> 00:07:26.160
Tom: Definitely.
00:07:26.940 --> 00:07:29.020
Phil: The Original Manhunt by Rockstar.
00:07:29.200 --> 00:07:29.820
Tom: Absolutely.
00:07:30.460 --> 00:07:31.100
Phil: The Sims.
00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:32.340
Tom: Yes.
00:07:32.560 --> 00:07:36.440
Tom: You have to play Manhunt using a microphone.
00:07:36.460 --> 00:07:38.320
Phil: Microphone, yeah.
00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:39.720
Phil: The Sims.
00:07:39.740 --> 00:07:44.160
Phil: And that must mean I want to go back and play the original Sims, not the current Sims, I think.
00:07:44.180 --> 00:07:45.280
Tom: Definitely play the original.
00:07:46.480 --> 00:07:47.420
Phil: Lost Odyssey.
00:07:49.100 --> 00:07:49.940
Tom: Yeah, no.
00:07:50.620 --> 00:07:51.300
Phil: Yeah, I agree.
00:07:51.740 --> 00:07:52.360
Phil: Vib Ribbon.
00:07:53.680 --> 00:07:54.280
Tom: Absolutely.
00:07:54.540 --> 00:07:57.320
Phil: Yeah, I've had that for the PlayStation 1.
00:07:58.740 --> 00:08:00.220
Phil: Mobile Light Force 2.
00:08:01.540 --> 00:08:02.400
Tom: I don't know what that is.
00:08:02.560 --> 00:08:03.720
Phil: It's on the PlayStation 2.
00:08:03.740 --> 00:08:06.480
Phil: You've got to look up the cover while I tell you the rest of the games.
00:08:06.860 --> 00:08:08.420
Phil: Mobile Light Force 2.
00:08:08.440 --> 00:08:09.620
Phil: Everyone else look it up as well.
00:08:09.640 --> 00:08:10.860
Phil: It's an outstanding cover.
00:08:11.380 --> 00:08:12.440
Phil: Space Channel 5.
00:08:13.140 --> 00:08:13.780
Tom: Obviously.
00:08:14.460 --> 00:08:15.560
Phil: Tokyo Jungle.
00:08:16.360 --> 00:08:17.400
Tom: I remember this cover.
00:08:18.360 --> 00:08:18.660
Phil: Yeah.
00:08:21.240 --> 00:08:21.420
Phil: Yeah.
00:08:21.540 --> 00:08:22.920
Phil: And guess what sort of game it is.
00:08:24.320 --> 00:08:25.440
Tom: A shmup.
00:08:25.740 --> 00:08:26.120
Phil: It is.
00:08:28.320 --> 00:08:29.600
Phil: It is a great cover.
00:08:29.800 --> 00:08:31.940
Tom: Definitely play Tokyo Jungle.
00:08:32.560 --> 00:08:37.080
Phil: Yeah, I don't know how you even get it or if it's sustainable anymore.
00:08:37.500 --> 00:08:41.880
Tom: I think it used to be available only on the Japanese PSN store.
00:08:42.120 --> 00:08:43.740
Phil: You're digging the list cause I'm almost done.
00:08:44.240 --> 00:08:44.580
Tom: Sure.
00:08:44.820 --> 00:08:45.500
Phil: It's a good list.
00:08:46.360 --> 00:08:46.840
Phil: Vanquish.
00:08:47.840 --> 00:08:48.180
Tom: Yes.
00:08:48.880 --> 00:08:50.220
Tom: Haven't you played Vanquish?
00:08:50.540 --> 00:08:52.500
Phil: I have, but I thought it was time to go back to it.
00:08:54.100 --> 00:08:55.420
Phil: Metal Gear Solid, the original.
00:08:56.020 --> 00:08:56.560
Tom: Definitely.
00:08:57.180 --> 00:08:58.820
Phil: God Hand on PlayStation 2.
00:08:59.120 --> 00:08:59.680
Tom: Of course.
00:09:00.440 --> 00:09:03.800
Phil: And X-Files, the game for the original Xbox.
00:09:04.120 --> 00:09:04.900
Tom: Absolutely.
00:09:05.640 --> 00:09:07.300
Phil: Now, how do you know about X-Files?
00:09:07.320 --> 00:09:12.580
Tom: Was that only, well, maybe I'm thinking of a different one cause I'm thinking of an X-Files game for the PlayStation.
00:09:12.600 --> 00:09:14.380
Phil: No, I think it's the same.
00:09:15.520 --> 00:09:19.280
Phil: It's got the, it's got David Duchovny and the lady in it.
00:09:19.880 --> 00:09:25.420
Tom: So, and it's like a point and click adventure game in the sense of Myst.
00:09:26.140 --> 00:09:30.020
Phil: Yeah, yeah, but yeah, pretty much.
00:09:30.600 --> 00:09:33.740
Phil: I've only played the first 10 minutes of it, if that, so.
00:09:35.280 --> 00:09:37.560
Tom: Then we may be thinking of the same game.
00:09:38.720 --> 00:09:40.780
Phil: So anyway, that's a hell of a list.
00:09:40.800 --> 00:09:42.380
Tom: Using photograph backgrounds?
00:09:44.420 --> 00:09:45.920
Tom: Okay, then fuck that.
00:09:46.120 --> 00:09:47.320
Tom: No, throw it in the bin.
00:09:47.900 --> 00:09:51.940
Tom: Find the superior PlayStation X-Files game and play that instead.
00:09:52.320 --> 00:09:53.520
Phil: Okay, all right.
00:09:53.540 --> 00:10:00.540
Phil: So that's my list, and the good news is I have all of these games, except for the ones that haven't been properly released yet, like Teardown.
00:10:00.580 --> 00:10:03.200
Tom: And the bad news is you will not be playing any of them.
00:10:04.280 --> 00:10:07.060
Phil: Probably not, in the next year or so.
00:10:07.960 --> 00:10:12.580
Phil: Well, I play a bunch of endless games, which is totally unfogged, but that's what I've been doing lately.
00:10:15.200 --> 00:10:20.020
Phil: Do you want to go into one of the games, or do you have any more Trademark Band-Aid or Bandy about?
00:10:20.760 --> 00:10:23.960
Tom: Well, I believe you have been playing Rocket League Season 2.
00:10:24.360 --> 00:10:25.580
Phil: Yes, I have.
00:10:25.600 --> 00:10:29.600
Tom: Is that a sequel, so to speak?
00:10:30.000 --> 00:10:35.140
Phil: Well, Rocket League, the original game, was released back in 2015.
00:10:35.280 --> 00:10:36.100
Phil: I could not believe that.
00:10:37.800 --> 00:10:46.000
Phil: And I initially played it on Steam PC using a controller, and I paid good money for it.
00:10:46.040 --> 00:10:50.080
Phil: It's one of the only times I've actually bought DLC.
00:10:50.100 --> 00:10:54.140
Phil: I downloaded the DeLorean from Back to the Future, which is my favorite car in that game.
00:10:56.200 --> 00:11:07.240
Phil: And then I went and bought it because it was cheap for the PlayStation 4 and never opened it, and popped it in the other day, and it's like, oh, we've got to download something.
00:11:07.260 --> 00:11:22.520
Phil: Now, that's when I remembered that in 2019, the developer Psionics got bought out by Epic Games, and they've basically given it the Fortnite treatment.
00:11:22.540 --> 00:11:24.240
Phil: So it's now a free-to-play game.
00:11:24.660 --> 00:11:27.140
Phil: So you can play this on pretty much anything.
00:11:28.160 --> 00:11:28.900
Phil: You can play it on...
00:11:29.600 --> 00:11:32.900
Phil: I've downloaded it for Switch, PlayStation 4.
00:11:32.920 --> 00:11:38.760
Phil: I haven't downloaded it for Xbox yet, and I'm playing it on PC, and I'm pretty much playing it every day.
00:11:40.520 --> 00:11:50.200
Phil: So it is free-to-play, and it's free-to-play even if you don't subscribe to the online components of that system.
00:11:50.220 --> 00:11:58.640
Phil: So if you don't have Xbox Gold or PlayStation Live or whatever it's called, then you can play it online for free.
00:11:59.260 --> 00:12:02.780
Phil: And you can link your account between the whole three.
00:12:02.800 --> 00:12:09.220
Phil: So you have to get an Epic Games account, which most of us would have anyway, because you're downloading the free games that they give out.
00:12:10.560 --> 00:12:13.460
Tom: Unless you're boycotting them because you're insane.
00:12:13.920 --> 00:12:15.280
Phil: Yeah, because you're insane.
00:12:16.440 --> 00:12:19.240
Phil: So it's not so much a sequel as an evolution.
00:12:19.360 --> 00:12:23.100
Phil: So basically it's a one gig download per platform.
00:12:23.120 --> 00:12:26.580
Phil: It's the exact same size on every platform, which tells you something.
00:12:28.540 --> 00:12:36.700
Phil: And like I said, I've been playing this every day, either on Steam or on Switch or on PlayStation 4 and unlocking trophies.
00:12:37.080 --> 00:12:39.080
Phil: The DLC doesn't carry over.
00:12:40.140 --> 00:12:42.700
Phil: Well, sorry, most DLC will carry over.
00:12:42.720 --> 00:12:44.400
Phil: Licensed DLC will not.
00:12:46.280 --> 00:12:50.400
Phil: And your experience also carries over from platform to platform.
00:12:50.420 --> 00:12:52.900
Phil: So you have a unified account where you can play the game anywhere.
00:12:55.000 --> 00:12:59.360
Phil: And I hadn't been playing this since 2015, 2016.
00:13:00.900 --> 00:13:02.400
Phil: And an incredible thing has happened.
00:13:02.420 --> 00:13:04.220
Phil: I've actually got good at the game.
00:13:04.240 --> 00:13:07.000
Phil: Like I'm enjoying it because I'm scoring.
00:13:08.420 --> 00:13:13.000
Phil: And I mean, I don't have to describe what Rocket League is.
00:13:13.040 --> 00:13:20.540
Phil: If you're listening to this podcast, you obviously have been exposed just by secondhand knowledge what Rocket League is if you're not already playing.
00:13:22.240 --> 00:13:25.100
Phil: Yeah, with remote control cars that are rocket powered.
00:13:25.460 --> 00:13:29.440
Phil: And the ball is the same size as the vehicle that you're driving.
00:13:29.840 --> 00:13:31.360
Tom: Or several times larger.
00:13:32.780 --> 00:13:34.660
Phil: No, maybe, yeah.
00:13:34.840 --> 00:13:36.640
Phil: Probably about three times the height of a car.
00:13:37.580 --> 00:13:40.760
Phil: And Cionics, I was looking up the gameography before the show today.
00:13:40.980 --> 00:13:44.260
Phil: Talk about a blessed existence.
00:13:44.780 --> 00:13:46.600
Phil: They had three games that were cancelled.
00:13:47.220 --> 00:13:50.820
Phil: Then they brought out two games for PlayStation 2.
00:13:51.360 --> 00:13:56.060
Phil: One of which was called Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket Powered Battle Cars.
00:13:57.960 --> 00:14:01.160
Phil: Which obviously was the forerunner for Rocket League.
00:14:01.720 --> 00:14:04.900
Phil: They released a couple of iOS and Android games.
00:14:05.780 --> 00:14:08.940
Phil: And a game called Whizzle, which I couldn't find any information on.
00:14:09.380 --> 00:14:12.040
Phil: And then they came out with Rocket League in 2015.
00:14:12.200 --> 00:14:23.180
Phil: And a large part of what made Rocket League success was it was one of the very first games that PlayStation was giving away for free with their online subscription.
00:14:25.260 --> 00:14:28.000
Phil: You know, they were giving away other games, but usually they were older games.
00:14:28.020 --> 00:14:37.960
Phil: But it was the first time that a game had launched on PlayStation and had as a part of their online subscription service and got massive press as a result.
00:14:38.000 --> 00:14:41.980
Phil: And, you know, four years later, they're bought out by Epic.
00:14:42.000 --> 00:14:46.460
Phil: And this is still essentially the only game they've ever made that they've had any success with.
00:14:47.020 --> 00:14:54.060
Phil: And I think it was also the subject of Danny O'Dwyer's first Noclip documentary, which you watched.
00:14:54.080 --> 00:14:57.160
Tom: It was, and it was unfortunately all downhill after that.
00:14:57.500 --> 00:15:11.160
Phil: Yeah, I mean, Noclip, actually, I meant to tell you, Noclip has a great interview with one of the guys involved with Sirius Sam 4 and the developer thereof.
00:15:11.240 --> 00:15:12.460
Phil: It's not Cry Team, is it?
00:15:13.580 --> 00:15:14.200
Tom: Crow Team.
00:15:15.180 --> 00:15:29.720
Tom: So, well, advertise, sorry, doing a tourist ad for Croatia, I think, would naturally be much more interesting than most of the places that they're advertising usually on Noclip.
00:15:29.740 --> 00:15:30.220
Phil: That's true.
00:15:30.680 --> 00:15:33.880
Phil: But that was just a podcast, so I'd encourage people to...
00:15:33.900 --> 00:15:36.200
Tom: Top five bars in Zagreb.
00:15:37.420 --> 00:15:37.940
Phil: Perhaps.
00:15:38.200 --> 00:15:39.220
Phil: I think they do cover that.
00:15:39.260 --> 00:15:44.540
Phil: But it is a good interview, particularly if you just want a little bit more insight behind the team behind Serious Sam.
00:15:45.080 --> 00:15:52.520
Tom: And if you want to know what nightclub to go and where when you take your trip to Croatia.
00:15:52.840 --> 00:15:57.120
Phil: Serious Sam 4 is definitely on my to-buy list.
00:15:58.000 --> 00:15:59.340
Phil: I just haven't got there yet.
00:16:00.040 --> 00:16:00.340
Phil: But...
00:16:00.940 --> 00:16:03.040
Tom: It had a rocky launch, to say the least.
00:16:03.340 --> 00:16:03.760
Phil: Did it?
00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:04.400
Tom: Yes.
00:16:04.600 --> 00:16:05.320
Phil: Like, technically?
00:16:05.920 --> 00:16:15.660
Tom: Yes, technically, and I don't know if this has continued, but there was also quite a bit of criticism on the campaign itself as well.
00:16:16.320 --> 00:16:16.760
Phil: Okay.
00:16:17.360 --> 00:16:18.440
Phil: I'm still interested.
00:16:18.460 --> 00:16:24.040
Phil: Serious Sam 3, to me, was one of my favourite first-person shooters when I was playing it.
00:16:24.720 --> 00:16:30.140
Phil: And I'd like to put my new graphics card to the test as well, which I'm sure that they push.
00:16:33.200 --> 00:16:37.780
Phil: So, yeah, so Rocket League Season 2 isn't really a sequel.
00:16:37.800 --> 00:16:51.680
Phil: It's more of a coming out party for what Epic has turned the game into, which is a free-to-play game where you're lightly encouraged to buy downloadable, you know, skins.
00:16:51.700 --> 00:16:52.020
Phil: Content.
00:16:52.340 --> 00:16:53.560
Phil: Content skins like that.
00:16:53.880 --> 00:16:58.260
Tom: And as before, the DLC makes no difference, I assume?
00:16:58.560 --> 00:16:59.960
Phil: No, it's purely cosmetic.
00:17:00.540 --> 00:17:06.000
Phil: And boy, I wish I could drag my DeLorean into those other versions because you can't buy them.
00:17:06.020 --> 00:17:11.100
Phil: Like the store, unless I'm missing something, is kind of limited.
00:17:11.120 --> 00:17:13.240
Phil: You can't just like go in there and buy what you want.
00:17:13.260 --> 00:17:15.400
Phil: They've got things that they're featuring.
00:17:15.860 --> 00:17:24.600
Tom: So does that mean although you can connect your account to different consoles, your DLC doesn't carry over?
00:17:24.600 --> 00:17:26.720
Phil: No, your DLC definitely carries over.
00:17:27.240 --> 00:17:31.800
Phil: It's just licensed DLC, like Back to the Future Star Wars, whatever.
00:17:32.620 --> 00:17:36.360
Tom: Sorry, isn't necessarily available on all of them?
00:17:36.400 --> 00:17:46.900
Phil: Yeah, because the licensing agreement for the DeLorean I bought in 2016 was obviously intended solely for the PC and not something that carries over.
00:17:48.480 --> 00:17:57.880
Phil: But the game itself, the physics itself, everything is just basically the same except the backbone, like the network backbone is brilliant.
00:17:59.260 --> 00:18:03.800
Phil: One of the things I remember in the last podcast, I couldn't remember the other change that made to my PC.
00:18:03.820 --> 00:18:07.480
Phil: I've actually got it wired to Ethernet now, which makes a massive difference.
00:18:08.540 --> 00:18:12.040
Phil: Yep, but all my consoles are still on Wi-Fi.
00:18:14.200 --> 00:18:16.600
Phil: And they deal with the latency quite well.
00:18:16.740 --> 00:18:18.120
Phil: You can always find a game.
00:18:18.920 --> 00:18:21.980
Phil: I play competitive, but you can also just play unranked.
00:18:22.500 --> 00:18:27.180
Phil: And there's a ton of different modes that I haven't fully explored, even a basketball mode.
00:18:27.200 --> 00:18:31.700
Phil: So if you haven't played Rocket League for a while, I mean, it's completely free.
00:18:31.700 --> 00:18:34.760
Phil: It's still a very compelling gameplay experience.
00:18:36.260 --> 00:18:43.300
Phil: And my memories of it when I was playing it before, it was like watching four-year-olds play soccer, which essentially it is.
00:18:43.320 --> 00:18:45.640
Phil: It's a bunch of people just following the ball around.
00:18:46.600 --> 00:18:58.760
Phil: But if you apply some soccer or football fundamentals and hold back and wait and position yourself so that you're ready for a pass at the right time, you can have great success.
00:18:58.780 --> 00:19:00.420
Phil: And that's what I've been doing with it.
00:19:00.500 --> 00:19:12.580
Phil: So I'm not saying by any stretch, I'm in the top million players, but it is at least enjoyable now to be able to control the ball, kick some goals and having a lot of fun with it.
00:19:13.620 --> 00:19:16.320
Phil: Have you played Rocket League recently or at all?
00:19:16.460 --> 00:19:20.140
Tom: I have not played Rocket League for a very long time.
00:19:20.160 --> 00:19:28.580
Tom: I think I reviewed it originally, but since around that time, I have not played it, no.
00:19:29.180 --> 00:19:33.160
Phil: Yeah, look, as someone, I'd encourage you to hop in and give it a try.
00:19:34.160 --> 00:19:36.860
Phil: You can team up too with people on your list.
00:19:37.020 --> 00:19:41.700
Phil: Your friends list is also something that travels with you over the platform.
00:19:42.100 --> 00:19:44.780
Tom: What I would ask is, how is the matchmaking?
00:19:44.800 --> 00:19:55.620
Tom: Because the thing that put me off it was reviewing it, it actually grew a little bit after the first release as it started to blow up.
00:19:55.700 --> 00:20:06.620
Tom: And when it started to blow up was when I lost interest in it because with the massive influx of new players, the matchmaking was awful.
00:20:06.880 --> 00:20:22.160
Tom: And in my experience, you pretty much always ended up on either a team where everyone was competent or a team where everyone was totally and utterly incompetent to the point where it did not matter what you were doing.
00:20:22.400 --> 00:20:27.860
Tom: So whether you were winning or losing, there was pretty much never a close match.
00:20:27.880 --> 00:20:43.440
Tom: And the only occasions where you did have something that was even was if rather than one team being stacked with competent players, you had one competent player or two competent players on either team and everyone else was totally and utterly incompetent.
00:20:43.940 --> 00:20:51.420
Phil: I think you'll enjoy it because they have like a casual mode where it's unranked and that's basically exactly what you're describing.
00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:55.020
Phil: It's a good place to go to hone your skills and things like that.
00:20:56.060 --> 00:20:59.000
Phil: But you're going to get matched up with pretty much anyone who's around.
00:20:59.020 --> 00:21:05.040
Phil: The other thing too that they've brought over with the Epic now that they're part of the Epic family is that they've got lots more servers.
00:21:09.300 --> 00:21:10.820
Phil: But in the ranked mode, it's better match me.
00:21:10.840 --> 00:21:12.780
Phil: In the ranked mode, you can do doubles.
00:21:12.840 --> 00:21:14.460
Phil: You can have three on a side.
00:21:15.780 --> 00:21:23.960
Phil: And in the competitive, in the non-competitive mode basically, if someone drops out of the game, they'll funnel someone right in straight away.
00:21:24.920 --> 00:21:33.640
Phil: In the competitive mode, if someone drops out and you're playing on a three-person team, in the ranked mode, it's now a two on one.
00:21:35.720 --> 00:21:41.140
Phil: And it does affect your rank if you drop out too much and all the rest of it if it's not bandwidth related.
00:21:41.620 --> 00:21:47.920
Phil: So, you know, I think you'd really enjoy the ranked matches once you get your skill set back up again.
00:21:49.100 --> 00:21:51.680
Phil: Because they are really good games.
00:21:51.700 --> 00:21:53.520
Phil: I've had several games go into overtime.
00:21:53.600 --> 00:21:56.180
Phil: I've had leads swap backwards and forwards.
00:21:57.760 --> 00:22:00.500
Phil: Yeah, and it's been a compelling gaming experience.
00:22:00.500 --> 00:22:03.020
Tom: So that's good to hear.
00:22:03.280 --> 00:22:03.540
Phil: Yep.
00:22:04.900 --> 00:22:06.300
Phil: It's pretty much all I have to say about it.
00:22:08.280 --> 00:22:12.560
Tom: Well, I have several very short games that I've played recently.
00:22:13.280 --> 00:22:15.320
Tom: One is a combination of two games.
00:22:15.340 --> 00:22:17.800
Tom: That is Frog Detective 1 and 2.
00:22:18.400 --> 00:22:20.280
Tom: Another is The Gardens Between.
00:22:20.440 --> 00:22:22.400
Tom: Another is Donut County.
00:22:23.100 --> 00:22:25.120
Tom: And there's also Lara Croft Go.
00:22:28.020 --> 00:22:30.500
Phil: The game I'm most interested in is Donut County.
00:22:30.640 --> 00:22:35.400
Phil: It is a game that I have perpetually confused in my mind with A Night in the Woods.
00:22:35.880 --> 00:22:37.260
Phil: Do you know why that would be?
00:22:37.380 --> 00:22:38.920
Phil: Was it released around the same time?
00:22:38.940 --> 00:22:40.140
Phil: Is there something similar about it?
00:22:40.160 --> 00:22:44.520
Phil: A Night in the Woods was, I think, our 2017 game of the year.
00:22:48.400 --> 00:22:50.980
Phil: So what is it about Donut County?
00:22:51.340 --> 00:22:54.080
Phil: I don't know anything else about it other than I know it's an indie game.
00:22:54.540 --> 00:22:56.440
Tom: Well, they are both indie games.
00:22:56.920 --> 00:23:00.300
Tom: So I would say they're not really aesthetically similar.
00:23:00.380 --> 00:23:05.140
Tom: This is, unlike Night in the Woods, basically a puzzle game.
00:23:05.160 --> 00:23:09.980
Tom: So I suppose Night in the Woods could also be seen as a puzzle game, maybe.
00:23:10.880 --> 00:23:12.020
Phil: Does it have cute animals?
00:23:12.560 --> 00:23:14.040
Tom: Yes, it does have cute animals.
00:23:14.280 --> 00:23:15.240
Tom: So maybe that's why.
00:23:15.680 --> 00:23:18.180
Phil: Did they investigate a strange murder mystery?
00:23:19.160 --> 00:23:22.040
Tom: Well, they are sort of investigating a mystery in a sense.
00:23:22.320 --> 00:23:24.080
Phil: Okay, well there's a lot of similarities.
00:23:24.100 --> 00:23:28.540
Tom: So maybe there are more similarities than first meet the eye.
00:23:28.700 --> 00:23:34.120
Tom: The real mystery is working out the similarity between the two games, perhaps.
00:23:34.240 --> 00:23:36.880
Phil: Does the game involve a possum-related body of water?
00:23:38.580 --> 00:23:40.460
Tom: A possum-related body of water?
00:23:40.820 --> 00:23:43.880
Tom: Yes.
00:23:43.920 --> 00:23:44.760
Tom: I don't think so.
00:23:44.780 --> 00:23:50.660
Phil: Okay, because that was what you described the name of the town in Night in the Woods.
00:23:50.680 --> 00:23:54.300
Phil: You couldn't remember the name of the town, but you said it was a possum-related body of water.
00:23:54.320 --> 00:23:55.380
Tom: What was the name of the town?
00:23:55.700 --> 00:23:56.160
Phil: I don't know.
00:23:56.180 --> 00:23:58.880
Phil: It's like Possum River or Possum Creek or Possum Lake.
00:23:59.080 --> 00:24:00.340
Tom: Possum Springs, maybe?
00:24:00.360 --> 00:24:01.920
Phil: Possum Springs, that's what it was.
00:24:02.420 --> 00:24:04.060
Phil: Some possum-related body of water.
00:24:04.460 --> 00:24:04.880
Phil: Anyway.
00:24:06.540 --> 00:24:09.980
Phil: Yeah, so Donut County, what platforms is it on?
00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:11.060
Phil: What platform did you play it on?
00:24:12.060 --> 00:24:15.620
Tom: I played it on Xbox Game Pass.
00:24:15.860 --> 00:24:26.140
Tom: It is also on, I think, mobile phones, Mac, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and PC.
00:24:26.160 --> 00:24:28.360
Tom: So pretty much everything.
00:24:30.700 --> 00:24:33.160
Tom: And it is a puzzle game, as I said.
00:24:33.180 --> 00:24:36.260
Tom: It's basically a physics-based puzzle game.
00:24:36.740 --> 00:24:37.600
Tom: You are...
00:24:38.660 --> 00:24:44.840
Tom: Essentially, the story is you are working as a donut delivery driver.
00:24:45.860 --> 00:25:02.800
Tom: In a sense, it's a better cyberpunk game than Cyberpunk 2077, as you will find out as the game's story unfolds and becomes something of a corporate conspiracy, as well as a science fiction theme.
00:25:04.140 --> 00:25:16.660
Tom: But you are basically a donut deliverer, and the donut making company that you're working for is run by raccoons.
00:25:17.280 --> 00:25:27.480
Tom: Their understanding of donuts is that donuts are holes, and in this case holes in the ground, which collect rubbish.
00:25:28.100 --> 00:25:46.240
Tom: As you are going along, you are essentially controlling a hole on the ground that you move around, and as you collect more and more rubbish, the hole grows so that you can take up even larger items.
00:25:46.240 --> 00:25:55.440
Tom: So you might begin picking up bricks at the beginning of the level, then you will be picking up things like stoves and then eventually entire buildings.
00:25:56.780 --> 00:26:01.500
Phil: So this is a Katamari Damashi rip-off?
00:26:03.080 --> 00:26:11.280
Tom: Obviously it appears to be the case, but Katamari Damashi is as much about momentum and rolling around, isn't it?
00:26:12.140 --> 00:26:19.620
Phil: Yeah, but you know, you're starting with something and you're accumulating rubbish to it or detritus around the place.
00:26:20.020 --> 00:26:27.320
Tom: It's definitely inspired by Katamari, but I wouldn't say that it was ripping it off.
00:26:27.680 --> 00:26:34.020
Phil: You know, Katamari Damashi, don't you love it when white guys try to speak Japanese?
00:26:34.040 --> 00:26:35.140
Tom: Katamari Damashi.
00:26:35.180 --> 00:26:36.100
Phil: Tom Damashi.
00:26:37.940 --> 00:26:41.220
Phil: I forgot that its original name in Japan was Hepburn.
00:26:41.920 --> 00:26:43.260
Phil: Katamari Damashi.
00:26:44.580 --> 00:26:46.660
Phil: That's its name, which means clump spirit.
00:26:47.940 --> 00:26:49.240
Tom: Katamari Damashi.
00:26:49.700 --> 00:26:50.820
Phil: Katamari Damashi.
00:26:51.880 --> 00:26:52.540
Phil: Hepburn.
00:26:53.560 --> 00:26:54.720
Phil: Ah, Katamari Damashi.
00:26:55.180 --> 00:26:56.940
Phil: You know, I don't know.
00:26:56.960 --> 00:27:03.120
Phil: The aesthetics of that were ripped off by Ben and Jerry, or they ripped off Ben and Jerry's, with the cow and the green.
00:27:03.560 --> 00:27:09.980
Tom: Shouldn't we also add that Katamari Damashi translates to clump spirit.
00:27:12.360 --> 00:27:13.140
Phil: Please enjoy.
00:27:15.860 --> 00:27:22.200
Phil: So, Rocket, Donut Hole is the name of, no, Donut County is, how is it a puzzle game?
00:27:22.820 --> 00:27:26.660
Phil: So, it must not be like Katamari Damashi Hepburn.
00:27:27.020 --> 00:27:48.940
Tom: Can I just ask, by the way, when you say it was originally called Hepburn, well, you're looking on Wikipedia, and where it has the Romanisation of the Japanese name, it says Hepburn referring to the style of Romanisation that is being used, not the title of the game.
00:27:48.960 --> 00:27:49.540
Phil: Do you think so?
00:27:50.200 --> 00:27:50.560
Tom: Yes.
00:27:51.860 --> 00:28:02.140
Tom: If you highlight Hepburn, you'll see Hepburn Romanisation is the most widely used system of Romanisation for the Japanese language.
00:28:03.100 --> 00:28:03.780
Phil: No, no, no.
00:28:03.980 --> 00:28:07.420
Phil: So you're telling me that all video games in Japan are called Hepburn?
00:28:07.440 --> 00:28:08.080
Phil: Correct.
00:28:08.220 --> 00:28:10.880
Phil: Hepburn, Metal Gear Solid.
00:28:12.760 --> 00:28:13.320
Tom: Exactly.
00:28:13.340 --> 00:28:15.260
Phil: Oh man, I did not know that.
00:28:15.380 --> 00:28:17.940
Phil: So in Japan, all video games have to start with Hepburn.
00:28:18.380 --> 00:28:18.880
Tom: That's right.
00:28:18.900 --> 00:28:21.840
Tom: It's a very orderly society, as we all know.
00:28:21.860 --> 00:28:25.700
Phil: In here, I thought it was like a reference to the old actress.
00:28:27.000 --> 00:28:27.300
Tom: No.
00:28:27.620 --> 00:28:30.760
Phil: Because they have that coffee, which is a reference to...
00:28:32.100 --> 00:28:32.780
Phil: What's his name?
00:28:32.880 --> 00:28:36.740
Phil: You know, the American author Hemingway?
00:28:37.320 --> 00:28:38.640
Tom: Yes, Ernest Hemingway.
00:28:38.700 --> 00:28:42.960
Phil: Yeah, what's the name of the coffee that has the Hemingway on the logo?
00:28:43.340 --> 00:28:47.640
Tom: I'm proud to say I do not know, and I would never drink shit like that.
00:28:47.780 --> 00:28:53.240
Phil: Well, it's come to Australia now, so you will have the opportunity, just like you had the opportunity to drink Mountain Dew.
00:28:55.080 --> 00:28:58.540
Phil: You just keep going there with your donut hole, and I'll look it up.
00:28:58.960 --> 00:29:07.860
Tom: So basically, you are growing your hole so that it is able to be penetrated by larger and larger objects.
00:29:08.460 --> 00:29:33.260
Tom: And it's more enjoyable for the amusing nature of what's occurring than the actual gameplay, because although it's a puzzle game, it really is, with the exception of a few levels where there are puzzles, that you basically just have to pick up the small items first and then the larger items later.
00:29:33.280 --> 00:29:36.400
Tom: So there's not really much puzzle-solving involved.
00:29:36.420 --> 00:29:54.340
Tom: But the whole raccoon donut delivery service and the destruction of the town through their donut delivery system is, I think, amusing enough that it carries the game to be enjoyable until the end.
00:29:56.780 --> 00:29:58.540
Phil: So obviously you paid free for it.
00:29:58.880 --> 00:29:59.380
Tom: Correct.
00:30:02.760 --> 00:30:09.940
Tom: I think it's like $20 on Steam, which is a bit steep given that it is extremely short.
00:30:10.640 --> 00:30:16.020
Tom: But if something is $20 on Steam, that means in reality it's $5.
00:30:16.480 --> 00:30:18.300
Tom: So I think that's reasonably priced.
00:30:18.700 --> 00:30:23.380
Phil: Yeah, and we probably already own it on the itch sale of the century anyway.
00:30:24.320 --> 00:30:26.980
Tom: I looked on there and I think we do not, unfortunately.
00:30:28.300 --> 00:30:34.460
Tom: And that may well be because it was originally, I believe, a mobile phone game.
00:30:36.280 --> 00:30:48.340
Phil: I didn't hear how long the game was, if you did mention it, because I was looking up the Ernest Hemingway Coffee Brand out of Japan, and it's Suntory Boss, which anyone who's played Yakuza would recognize.
00:30:49.140 --> 00:30:51.360
Tom: They need to stick to their liquors.
00:30:53.000 --> 00:30:54.920
Phil: Yeah, yeah, so Suntory.
00:30:55.260 --> 00:30:58.140
Phil: So would you say it's a Phil Fogg game?
00:30:58.160 --> 00:30:59.500
Phil: Would Phil Fogg enjoy this game?
00:30:59.980 --> 00:31:04.680
Tom: I think Phil Fogg would enjoy it for at least a brief period of time.
00:31:05.200 --> 00:31:06.680
Phil: Okay, all right, fair enough.
00:31:06.860 --> 00:31:12.660
Phil: I'll tell you a game that I have enjoyed for a long period of time, and people are going to go, this is old, it's an old game.
00:31:13.060 --> 00:31:17.540
Phil: But it has been released on a new system, and that is Game Dev Story.
00:31:17.560 --> 00:31:18.960
Phil: Now, do you remember this story?
00:31:18.980 --> 00:31:21.920
Phil: It was by Kyrosoft, which is a Japanese developer.
00:31:22.260 --> 00:31:27.140
Phil: It was their very first game, and it hit big on Android.
00:31:27.160 --> 00:31:35.520
Phil: It was one of the few games that I actually bought on Android and played on my phone.
00:31:35.540 --> 00:31:41.580
Phil: Kind of like a 2D 8-bit, 16-bit aesthetic to it, where you are the person...
00:31:41.680 --> 00:31:50.340
Phil: It's a management game, where you're making decisions about games and releasing them and what genre it is and advertising and all the rest of it.
00:31:50.360 --> 00:31:51.140
Phil: Do you remember this game?
00:31:51.180 --> 00:31:51.780
Tom: Yes, I do.
00:31:51.800 --> 00:31:57.660
Tom: If it had been released after Papers, Please, it would be known as a job simulator.
00:31:58.040 --> 00:31:59.640
Phil: Yeah, well, it's a management sim.
00:32:00.720 --> 00:32:02.540
Phil: And you enjoyed it, as I recall.
00:32:03.040 --> 00:32:04.020
Tom: I don't think I played it.
00:32:04.400 --> 00:32:05.460
Phil: Oh, it is great.
00:32:05.740 --> 00:32:06.340
Phil: It is great.
00:32:06.360 --> 00:32:10.080
Phil: It's now available on Switch, which is what I've been playing it on.
00:32:10.660 --> 00:32:23.600
Phil: And it is hilarious to me because, as I said, you start out with a three-person studio and you basically decide to make a game for a certain platform.
00:32:23.620 --> 00:32:27.760
Phil: Well, for the PC, you don't have to pay a licensing fee, so you start out making games for the PC.
00:32:28.500 --> 00:32:30.740
Phil: So you have to pick the genre and then the theme.
00:32:31.520 --> 00:32:36.140
Phil: And different genres and themes are more commercially cost-mort or not to make.
00:32:36.160 --> 00:32:42.540
Phil: So if you want to make a shooter and have it be an animal theme, you got to steer away from that.
00:32:42.560 --> 00:32:45.300
Phil: So maybe for your first game, you make like an animal puzzle game.
00:32:46.660 --> 00:33:08.540
Phil: And what is hilarious about it, if you're into gaming at all and gaming culture, as you go, you'll find yourself making mistakes, just naturally making mistakes that you've seen companies make in our hobby time and time and time again, like overspending, where you shouldn't be overspending or a new game console comes out.
00:33:08.740 --> 00:33:16.900
Phil: And as these new game consoles come out, they are very thinly veiled versions of real life consoles.
00:33:17.280 --> 00:33:22.580
Phil: So when the Virtual Boy comes out, you know not to buy the license to develop for that because it's going to be a flop.
00:33:23.580 --> 00:33:31.260
Phil: But when the Nintendo Entertainment System comes out, even though it's going to cost your studio a lot of money, you know you can invest in that.
00:33:33.100 --> 00:33:36.380
Phil: And you get to name the games and you go through the whole development cycle.
00:33:36.400 --> 00:33:40.320
Phil: You have to basically decide how to plot your resources.
00:33:40.340 --> 00:33:45.220
Phil: So you get a certain number of beads, if you will, to put into each category.
00:33:45.540 --> 00:33:46.700
Phil: So do you want to make it fun?
00:33:46.720 --> 00:33:47.860
Phil: Do you want to make it approachable?
00:33:47.880 --> 00:33:49.500
Phil: Do you want to make it really well polished?
00:33:50.800 --> 00:33:52.860
Phil: And you go through these cycles with these games.
00:33:53.040 --> 00:34:07.920
Phil: And, you know, it is eminently fun and enjoyable and funny also because, like I said, you'll find yourself making the same mistakes that you've seen occur in our industry time and time and time again until you finally figure it out.
00:34:08.520 --> 00:34:13.240
Phil: And then you're swimming in cash, and then you develop hubris, and then you lose money.
00:34:13.260 --> 00:34:15.760
Phil: But none of this is written into the game.
00:34:16.140 --> 00:34:20.180
Phil: It's your own, you know, it's like the fun with Skyrim or the old school games.
00:34:20.340 --> 00:34:24.240
Tom: Can you make money and simultaneously ruin your reputation?
00:34:25.560 --> 00:34:26.300
Phil: Yes, you can.
00:34:26.320 --> 00:34:29.260
Phil: And you can also release buggy games.
00:34:29.400 --> 00:34:37.040
Phil: So you can release games, if you're running out of money, you can release games with them not in a finished state, but then make up for it through advertising.
00:34:37.320 --> 00:34:41.820
Phil: But you can only do that a certain number of times before the public catches on to you.
00:34:43.560 --> 00:34:46.340
Phil: So, yeah, and ultimately guess what?
00:34:46.360 --> 00:35:00.380
Phil: The success for releasing very popular games is to spend a lot of money on writing, music, sound effects, graphics, and ultimately you can get your own hardware engineer so you can develop your own console.
00:35:01.080 --> 00:35:01.960
Phil: I haven't got there yet.
00:35:02.900 --> 00:35:05.000
Phil: There's trade shows, there's award nights.
00:35:06.160 --> 00:35:15.720
Phil: And then the funniest thing was you can invest in your own people, like send them on experiences, so that they can come up with different genres and different ideas.
00:35:16.900 --> 00:35:27.580
Phil: And so, ultimately, the audience was getting sick of the fact I kept making all these robot races and robot shooters.
00:35:27.700 --> 00:35:31.840
Phil: So like RoboShot was my robot game.
00:35:32.600 --> 00:35:37.520
Phil: Kill Drone, in the PlayStation 2 era, I started making a robot shooter called Kill Drone.
00:35:38.040 --> 00:35:38.980
Phil: Kill Drone 2.
00:35:39.980 --> 00:35:42.920
Phil: And the most fun for me in this game is coming up with the names.
00:35:43.680 --> 00:35:44.280
Tom: I can tell.
00:35:44.780 --> 00:35:46.160
Phil: Then I noticed there was a...
00:35:46.540 --> 00:35:48.300
Phil: I think my RoboRacer was called.
00:35:48.320 --> 00:35:50.100
Phil: It was like RoboCart, I think.
00:35:51.440 --> 00:35:53.420
Phil: After you go through all these genres, I was like, you know what?
00:35:53.640 --> 00:35:54.480
Phil: We've got enough money.
00:35:54.500 --> 00:36:00.920
Phil: I'm going to make a story-based simulation game.
00:36:01.960 --> 00:36:03.880
Phil: And I called it Teen Tales.
00:36:04.540 --> 00:36:04.900
Phil: Right?
00:36:06.140 --> 00:36:11.000
Phil: Because I'm like, this anime just spent so much money on graphics and so much money on advertising.
00:36:11.020 --> 00:36:15.140
Phil: And Teen Tales became such a massive franchise for me.
00:36:15.160 --> 00:36:16.380
Phil: I had spin-off games.
00:36:16.480 --> 00:36:19.680
Phil: So then I'd do lifestyle golf games.
00:36:19.700 --> 00:36:23.640
Phil: And so that was Teen Tales Golf, Teen Tales Kart.
00:36:24.160 --> 00:36:30.220
Phil: So I had this whole exploitative franchise going for quite a while.
00:36:30.360 --> 00:36:32.080
Phil: And those were my best sellers.
00:36:33.620 --> 00:36:39.340
Phil: I started using booth babes when we went to game shows, like Game Expos, you know.
00:36:39.480 --> 00:36:44.800
Phil: So I got a real feel for what it was like to be running a video game company.
00:36:44.880 --> 00:36:45.760
Phil: And on the Switch...
00:36:45.880 --> 00:36:50.920
Tom: Did you play it for 14 hours a day per week?
00:36:51.460 --> 00:36:52.420
Tom: Seven days a week, I mean.
00:36:52.440 --> 00:36:57.460
Phil: Yeah, we did have some crunch and then we released Cyber Robo 2077.
00:36:57.480 --> 00:36:59.880
Phil: Yeah, and that didn't work out too well.
00:36:59.880 --> 00:37:03.680
Phil: But you'd be happy to know I did release a sequel to The Order 1886.
00:37:04.060 --> 00:37:04.460
Tom: Excellent.
00:37:05.180 --> 00:37:06.960
Phil: Called The Order 1887.
00:37:08.080 --> 00:37:08.600
Phil: It did well.
00:37:09.000 --> 00:37:09.560
Phil: It did well.
00:37:10.340 --> 00:37:12.200
Phil: But yeah, no, it's a fun game.
00:37:12.200 --> 00:37:16.900
Phil: And so if you're looking for an excuse to play it again, it is affordable on Switch.
00:37:17.580 --> 00:37:20.760
Phil: And the translation to Switch is really well done.
00:37:22.100 --> 00:37:23.900
Phil: So yeah, I've thoroughly enjoyed that.
00:37:25.200 --> 00:37:26.300
Phil: But what's what you said?
00:37:26.420 --> 00:37:28.800
Phil: Some of these other games that you've been playing are pretty short as well.
00:37:31.160 --> 00:37:34.300
Phil: Is Frog Detective 1 and 2 the sequel to Frog Fractions?
00:37:35.080 --> 00:37:37.200
Tom: No, I think they're unrelated, unfortunately.
00:37:38.220 --> 00:37:42.980
Tom: That is an Australian game made in Melbourne, that I believe.
00:37:43.000 --> 00:37:45.400
Tom: And it is...
00:37:46.320 --> 00:38:01.900
Tom: I find the title to be slightly misleading, because while you are technically playing as a detective, and the story sets up that you are solving a mystery, and in a sense you are.
00:38:01.920 --> 00:38:05.160
Tom: There isn't really any sort of detective gameplay, for instance.
00:38:05.180 --> 00:38:11.200
Tom: You are given a magnifying glass in both Frog Detective 1 and 2.
00:38:11.620 --> 00:38:19.320
Tom: And you could whip it out to magnify things, but you never actually need to use it at any point during the game.
00:38:20.440 --> 00:38:22.580
Tom: So it's called Frog Detective.
00:38:22.820 --> 00:38:31.400
Tom: You have a magnifying glass to look for clues that is one of the only mechanics other than talking to people and moving around.
00:38:31.840 --> 00:38:38.160
Tom: And yet it is not used for any puzzle solving.
00:38:38.840 --> 00:38:40.720
Phil: I think I saw this game on Twitter.
00:38:42.540 --> 00:38:44.260
Phil: Grace Buxner developed it.
00:38:45.120 --> 00:38:48.460
Phil: So it's a single developer that did it.
00:38:48.840 --> 00:38:49.400
Phil: I assume.
00:38:49.420 --> 00:38:50.400
Phil: I'm sure she had help.
00:38:50.780 --> 00:38:51.060
Tom: Yep.
00:38:51.080 --> 00:39:05.560
Tom: She was the director and writer and I think the former writer for Hyper, who also did the music for Untitled Duck Game or Goose Game.
00:39:05.560 --> 00:39:06.220
Tom: What's it called?
00:39:06.240 --> 00:39:07.420
Tom: Is it Untitled Goose Game?
00:39:07.460 --> 00:39:07.700
Phil: Yeah.
00:39:07.720 --> 00:39:08.420
Phil: Untitled Goose Game.
00:39:08.440 --> 00:39:08.660
Tom: Yep.
00:39:08.680 --> 00:39:24.000
Tom: He did the music for both games and the soundtrack is an excellent mix of amusing smooth jazz with a slightly noir bent.
00:39:24.340 --> 00:39:29.860
Tom: I think there may also have been a programmer as well, but she was the director and writer.
00:39:30.800 --> 00:39:31.320
Phil: Okay.
00:39:31.340 --> 00:39:41.600
Phil: I just see just by searching for her on the web, she did a top 10 list on Giant Bomb, so she must be someone that has good PR or people are paying attention to.
00:39:42.780 --> 00:39:44.140
Phil: She did a top 10 list for them.
00:39:44.180 --> 00:39:48.560
Phil: The only game she played in 2020 was Animal Crossing, which won all of her top 10.
00:39:49.700 --> 00:39:55.900
Phil: So now the aesthetic of it is like a paper cut type thing, sort of like South Park kind of thing by the look of it.
00:39:55.920 --> 00:39:57.420
Phil: Pretty similar to Donut King.
00:39:58.060 --> 00:40:03.700
Tom: I think that's your go-to description of anything that is an indie game.
00:40:04.180 --> 00:40:07.680
Phil: No, no, no, no.
00:40:07.700 --> 00:40:09.760
Phil: But it does look like Donut King, doesn't it?
00:40:10.260 --> 00:40:14.420
Phil: Here I go, I'm just listing all my favourite donut shops from LA.
00:40:14.440 --> 00:40:15.240
Phil: Donut County.
00:40:15.840 --> 00:40:20.900
Tom: Well, it certainly looks more like Donut County than South Park, to say the least.
00:40:22.680 --> 00:40:35.400
Tom: But the main thing about the graphics, which should be immediately apparent from any screen shots, is the characters are very charming and endearing.
00:40:35.920 --> 00:40:56.580
Tom: And it is essentially a walking simulator, in that the gameplay basically consists of you walking from character to character and talking to them, going through their dialogue, until they basically give you an item that you then need to take to another character to get an item from them and so on and so forth.
00:40:56.840 --> 00:41:06.360
Tom: But it remains an enjoyable experience due to the sense of humour in the dialogue, the great soundtrack and the charm of the characters.
00:41:06.380 --> 00:41:19.240
Tom: The first game, however, is definitely superior to the second because there's a subplot in it about an upcoming dance battle which ties in to the mystery in a very amusing manner.
00:41:19.640 --> 00:41:27.260
Tom: And it ends with a hilarious hip hop inspired dance battle at the end.
00:41:27.280 --> 00:41:47.920
Tom: No doubt from the childhood of the developers, both the writer of the soundtrack and Grace Buxner, judging by their ages and interest in hip hop films of that era in Australia.
00:41:48.620 --> 00:42:00.360
Tom: And in the sequel to Frog Detective, while it ends with a dance battle, unfortunately a dance battle is not written into the main mystery or story.
00:42:00.380 --> 00:42:08.500
Tom: So it's not really as impactful a dance ending climax as in the original, unfortunately.
00:42:09.680 --> 00:42:10.920
Phil: It certainly looks enjoyable.
00:42:10.980 --> 00:42:11.940
Phil: Is it a short game?
00:42:12.640 --> 00:42:16.980
Tom: Yep, I think they're both well under an hour.
00:42:17.420 --> 00:42:21.260
Phil: Okay, and the first one came out in 2018.
00:42:21.260 --> 00:42:23.000
Phil: It's like six bucks on Steam.
00:42:23.000 --> 00:42:25.460
Phil: I've just added it to my wishlist, so I don't forget about it.
00:42:26.680 --> 00:42:28.080
Phil: And you found this through Steam?
00:42:29.140 --> 00:42:29.740
Tom: Yes, I did.
00:42:29.760 --> 00:42:30.840
Tom: No, actually, no.
00:42:30.860 --> 00:42:35.080
Tom: I got that from a humble choice, I think, possibly.
00:42:38.520 --> 00:42:43.160
Tom: And it is interestingly published by the Super Hot company.
00:42:44.000 --> 00:42:51.640
Phil: Yeah, I was going to mention that later on, but I thought this only thing that Super Hot had done was Super Hot.
00:42:53.300 --> 00:43:01.460
Tom: Unfortunately, they've also done Super Hot Mind Control Delete, and I played this after playing Super Hot Mind Control Delete.
00:43:01.480 --> 00:43:13.280
Tom: And when I saw that pop up, I have to say I may be biased against the sequel due to my fury and rage that that aroused in me.
00:43:14.220 --> 00:43:15.360
Phil: What rage?
00:43:16.860 --> 00:43:18.860
Tom: Aimed at Super Hot Mind Control Delete.
00:43:19.640 --> 00:43:20.780
Phil: That's the VR game?
00:43:22.160 --> 00:43:23.980
Tom: No, Super Hot VR is the VR game.
00:43:24.000 --> 00:43:24.560
Tom: That's great.
00:43:24.720 --> 00:43:29.260
Tom: Super Hot Mind Control Delete is the non-VR sequel to Super Hot.
00:43:29.400 --> 00:43:31.160
Phil: Yeah, which is apparently pretty crap, right?
00:43:31.960 --> 00:43:32.300
Tom: Yes.
00:43:33.260 --> 00:43:38.200
Tom: We'll be getting into detail on that in a podcast with Gargan, I believe.
00:43:38.960 --> 00:43:39.780
Phil: All right, very good.
00:43:40.460 --> 00:43:43.120
Phil: Look, a quick game that I played in just an update.
00:43:43.440 --> 00:43:50.200
Phil: I've given a review on the site for You Know, the card game on Switch, and my main criticism of it was there's not enough players.
00:43:50.220 --> 00:43:51.060
Phil: Well, guess what?
00:43:51.080 --> 00:43:52.100
Phil: There's enough players now.
00:43:52.180 --> 00:43:56.420
Phil: So that criticism is taken away.
00:43:56.920 --> 00:43:57.880
Phil: And yeah, it's good.
00:43:57.900 --> 00:43:58.880
Phil: It's an enjoyable game.
00:43:59.300 --> 00:44:01.080
Phil: They could certainly do some more with it.
00:44:01.100 --> 00:44:07.120
Phil: They've turned it into something that's got a lot of DLC, skins and the like.
00:44:07.140 --> 00:44:17.380
Phil: But another board game that I found on the Switch was, you can tell I've been on holiday, I downloaded a bunch of games to play portably, was Battleship by Hasbro.
00:44:18.220 --> 00:44:25.280
Phil: There's a very simple version of the classic board game available on Switch.
00:44:25.880 --> 00:44:27.120
Phil: And it's effective.
00:44:27.140 --> 00:44:28.700
Phil: I mean, you can play it the classic style.
00:44:28.860 --> 00:44:30.580
Phil: You can play it online against other people.
00:44:30.580 --> 00:44:32.180
Phil: You can always find someone.
00:44:32.240 --> 00:44:33.520
Phil: It's not a problem at all.
00:44:34.760 --> 00:44:39.960
Phil: And they've also got a more advanced mode, which has some bells and whistles, which are kind of cool as well.
00:44:40.140 --> 00:44:43.800
Phil: So I was shocked, however, everywhere.
00:44:43.820 --> 00:44:45.300
Phil: The lack of Magic the Gathering.
00:44:46.220 --> 00:44:55.660
Phil: I know you're not a Magic the Gathering player, but with the new PC upgrade that you instigated, I've been playing my PC a heck of a lot more.
00:44:56.500 --> 00:44:59.780
Phil: And I said, hey, you know, maybe I can play some Magic the Gathering.
00:45:00.420 --> 00:45:06.740
Phil: Unless I'm doing something completely wrong, there's no new Magic the Gathering card game.
00:45:07.760 --> 00:45:11.060
Phil: There's certainly not one on the Switch, which is what I really wanted.
00:45:11.380 --> 00:45:17.980
Phil: And on the PC, there seems to be nothing having been done for the last couple of years, which is baffling to me.
00:45:18.420 --> 00:45:22.340
Phil: It seems to me like this should be on mobile, it should be on Switch, it should be everywhere.
00:45:22.360 --> 00:45:26.360
Phil: It's just maybe the barrier to entry for most people is not there.
00:45:26.380 --> 00:45:32.360
Phil: Maybe the people that actually play Magic the Gathering look down their nose at, you know, digital versions of it.
00:45:32.900 --> 00:45:37.680
Phil: But to me, this should be something that is done and easily accessible.
00:45:37.700 --> 00:45:41.420
Phil: And if any of our listeners, if I am missing something, please let me know.
00:45:42.700 --> 00:45:44.760
Phil: Because I'd love to play it just on PC alone.
00:45:45.520 --> 00:45:55.340
Phil: Because, you know, I don't think I'm alone in that I am an avid Magic the Gathering player, but I don't have a Magic the Gathering community in my region.
00:45:55.860 --> 00:46:00.440
Phil: And I don't know anyone who can physically come to my house and play Magic.
00:46:00.480 --> 00:46:05.800
Phil: So, you know, being able to play it online is really the only place where I could do it.
00:46:06.140 --> 00:46:08.720
Phil: And it just seems like a game that's perfect.
00:46:09.780 --> 00:46:14.420
Phil: Maybe they've just never been able to get it across the line.
00:46:14.440 --> 00:46:22.120
Phil: And I bring that up because Magic the Gathering is obviously owned by Hasbro at this point, as is pretty much everything in the toy and board game world.
00:46:23.420 --> 00:46:25.780
Phil: So, yeah, if anyone knows anything, please do let us know.
00:46:25.800 --> 00:46:31.340
Tom: I don't think there are any new Magic the Gathering games.
00:46:31.740 --> 00:46:35.100
Phil: Yeah, well, I went through my old library and you can play the old games on Steam.
00:46:35.300 --> 00:46:39.340
Phil: Some of them are not available for purchase anymore on Steam.
00:46:39.940 --> 00:46:42.420
Phil: But there's no, like, online support for them.
00:46:42.880 --> 00:46:51.840
Phil: You can just basically play against yourself, which is still enjoyable enough, but, you know, you can also play Monopoly against yourself, but it's pretty sad.
00:46:53.380 --> 00:47:00.580
Phil: So speaking of games that aren't owned by Hasbro, what's The Gardens Between?
00:47:01.360 --> 00:47:08.280
Tom: That is another Australian game, and I think also another game made in Melbourne as well.
00:47:08.740 --> 00:47:15.320
Tom: And it is a puzzle game, and unlike the other puzzle games we've mentioned, this is an actual puzzle game.
00:47:16.400 --> 00:47:22.580
Tom: And its hook is basically that you fast forward and rewind time.
00:47:22.600 --> 00:47:28.800
Tom: It's very clearly inspired by Braid, but it's not a platform like Braid.
00:47:29.220 --> 00:47:42.080
Tom: Basically, you are in circular levels, and the two protagonists always move forwards if you're progressing time, and they move backwards if you're rewinding time.
00:47:42.660 --> 00:48:14.920
Tom: And you have to figure out how to get them to the end of the level, taking advantage of this mechanic, as there are certain points where rewinding and fast forwarding time will allow you to interact with things in the levels in different manners, mainly it's based on a light and darkness mechanic, as you're attempting to get to the end of the level a light that you collect in lamps.
00:48:15.300 --> 00:48:22.280
Tom: And you can place lamps in certain areas, and the light will move forwards or backwards, depending on what you're doing.
00:48:22.860 --> 00:48:29.300
Tom: And the thus is where most of the time based puzzle solving is.
00:48:29.440 --> 00:48:38.140
Tom: There are also a few tricks with some things in the levels not being affected by the time in certain ways.
00:48:38.160 --> 00:48:54.980
Tom: So for example, water may be, if you come across a tap, if you turn the tap on by going back and forth on it, then the water will continue coming out when you pause, but the tap has been turned on, for example, as well.
00:48:55.000 --> 00:49:07.980
Tom: So there are quite a few interesting little tricks like that, and there's also darkness, plumes of darkness that you can't proceed through, which you can get rid of using the light.
00:49:08.600 --> 00:49:22.380
Tom: And you will also encounter lamps, not lamps, little boxes that you can place the lamp on that move through the level backwards and forwards when you're moving time.
00:49:22.760 --> 00:49:35.000
Tom: If you need to get lamp into a certain, your lamp into a certain area where the light is going to end up, or you need to get the light somewhere that you can't access to get rid of some darkness and things like that.
00:49:36.000 --> 00:49:38.760
Tom: So as a puzzle game, it's quite interesting.
00:49:38.760 --> 00:49:43.960
Tom: Most of the puzzles are very simple, but it's still quite enjoyable to solve them.
00:49:43.980 --> 00:49:50.700
Tom: The big problem with it is that the fast forwarding and rewinding is really slow.
00:49:52.120 --> 00:49:58.040
Tom: So it's a short game, like maybe one to three hours, depending on how quickly you solve the puzzles.
00:49:58.420 --> 00:50:12.080
Tom: But if you could fast forward and rewind at a reasonable speed, it would probably be literally half that or maybe two-thirds at the most in terms of length.
00:50:12.220 --> 00:50:23.120
Tom: So that does add a layer of frustration and friction in the bad sense of the term to it.
00:50:23.540 --> 00:50:27.000
Phil: So aesthetically it looks kind of like Katamari Damashi.
00:50:27.320 --> 00:50:29.460
Tom: I think it looks much more like South Park.
00:50:29.620 --> 00:50:32.960
Phil: And Wind Waker, more like Wind Waker.
00:50:32.980 --> 00:50:36.480
Phil: But you're also manipulating common household items.
00:50:37.600 --> 00:50:39.460
Phil: Visually it looks very impressive.
00:50:40.940 --> 00:50:47.480
Phil: But in terms of gameplay, to me it kind of evokes Brothers Meets Braid.
00:50:48.440 --> 00:50:50.720
Phil: Do you see where I'm coming from with that?
00:50:50.940 --> 00:50:58.340
Tom: Well, it evokes Brothers just because there are two protagonists that you are having to deal with.
00:50:58.520 --> 00:51:00.640
Tom: And they move simultaneously.
00:51:00.660 --> 00:51:05.920
Tom: Though often they are split down different paths, depending on what you're doing.
00:51:06.220 --> 00:51:08.100
Tom: But it is unlike Brothers.
00:51:08.140 --> 00:51:10.280
Tom: It's not a walking simulator at all.
00:51:10.320 --> 00:51:13.840
Tom: It is a genuine puzzle solving experience.
00:51:14.760 --> 00:51:17.940
Phil: I love it when Steam tells me, players like you love this game.
00:51:18.320 --> 00:51:19.220
Phil: Go fuck yourself.
00:51:19.320 --> 00:51:21.120
Phil: You know, you don't know me.
00:51:22.080 --> 00:51:22.480
Phil: Really?
00:51:22.480 --> 00:51:23.040
Phil: How come?
00:51:23.060 --> 00:51:23.860
Phil: And you click on it.
00:51:24.200 --> 00:51:28.680
Phil: Similar to games you've played, Life is Strange and What Remains of Edith Finch.
00:51:30.500 --> 00:51:31.040
Phil: Interesting.
00:51:31.060 --> 00:51:33.400
Phil: I guess Life is Strange had that rewind mechanic, didn't it?
00:51:33.860 --> 00:51:34.160
Tom: Yep.
00:51:34.200 --> 00:51:41.080
Tom: And it's aesthetically very similar to Life is Strange with the emphasis on nostalgia.
00:51:42.160 --> 00:51:43.240
Tom: And what was the other game?
00:51:43.720 --> 00:51:44.320
Tom: Brain.
00:51:44.420 --> 00:51:45.000
Phil: Edith Finch.
00:51:45.200 --> 00:51:46.080
Tom: Oh, yeah, Edith Finch.
00:51:46.100 --> 00:51:54.460
Tom: Yeah, Edith Finch, I would say, definitely the narrative is, shares some similarities to What Remains of Edith Finch.
00:51:54.460 --> 00:52:04.820
Tom: I would argue that this, with its more grounded story, is ultimately slightly more poignant in its ending than What Remains of Edith Finch.
00:52:06.180 --> 00:52:10.540
Phil: It's 25 bucks on Steam, came out in 2018.
00:52:10.560 --> 00:52:14.780
Phil: That seems a bit steep for me for a game that's a few years old and is only three hours long.
00:52:15.580 --> 00:52:17.740
Phil: Just coming at it from a value perspective.
00:52:17.840 --> 00:52:18.620
Tom: $7.
00:52:19.100 --> 00:52:19.460
Phil: Really?
00:52:19.480 --> 00:52:22.760
Tom: Yeah, $7.50, 75% off around that.
00:52:23.140 --> 00:52:30.120
Phil: You might be getting the Tom Towers special treatment over there at Steam, maybe, and I'm getting the Phil Fogg treatment.
00:52:30.500 --> 00:52:34.660
Tom: I'm saying when, when it goes on sale for the Steam price.
00:52:34.840 --> 00:52:36.340
Phil: Yeah, very, yeah, I gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.
00:52:36.360 --> 00:52:37.580
Phil: Yep, very good, yep.
00:52:37.940 --> 00:52:49.180
Phil: I was surprised, too, that game that you liked, Plague, the Undertale story, Plague Untold, you know.
00:52:49.360 --> 00:52:50.440
Tom: With the ridiculous title.
00:52:50.720 --> 00:52:51.800
Phil: You know the game, Plague.
00:52:51.800 --> 00:52:52.880
Tom: A Plague story?
00:52:53.060 --> 00:52:54.160
Phil: A Plague story, yeah.
00:52:54.600 --> 00:53:00.220
Phil: Well, there was a Steam sale, like the Winter Steam sale, and it was like, oh yeah, you can buy this for $18.
00:53:00.240 --> 00:53:02.060
Phil: I'm like, yeah, actually, that's a pretty good price.
00:53:02.700 --> 00:53:05.260
Phil: It's, when Steam has sales, they're real sales.
00:53:05.280 --> 00:53:17.660
Phil: I know that's no breaking news or anything, because like, a couple of games I missed out on that I didn't pull the trigger on, silly games too, like the horrible, very horrible PlayStation 2 era game, Flat Out.
00:53:17.900 --> 00:53:19.920
Phil: They offered it to me the other day for $2.50.
00:53:19.940 --> 00:53:20.960
Phil: I'm like, nah, yeah, I'll pass.
00:53:21.800 --> 00:53:23.160
Phil: And now I go back to buy it.
00:53:23.180 --> 00:53:24.300
Phil: It's like $14.50.
00:53:24.320 --> 00:53:25.780
Phil: I'm like, you gotta be kidding me.
00:53:25.800 --> 00:53:33.320
Phil: I guess they, you know, they get enough people just buying it periodically throughout the year that it's worth it for them.
00:53:33.340 --> 00:53:37.700
Phil: But I just figured if they had it at like $3.50 the whole year, they'd sell more.
00:53:37.720 --> 00:53:40.660
Phil: But Steam has all that figured out for everyone.
00:53:40.680 --> 00:53:43.420
Tom: They're only bested by Epic with their coupons.
00:53:44.780 --> 00:53:59.340
Tom: While we're on the topic of Epic and Steam, by the way, I've got a question for you because the prevailing economic theory of pretty much any economic orthodoxy is that monopolies are a bad thing.
00:53:59.800 --> 00:54:18.940
Tom: I think Epic versus Steam is a great example of competition, but a huge number of people are infuriated that the Steam monopoly has some genuine competition from someone who is attempting to do the same thing in the market rather than find niche.
00:54:19.920 --> 00:54:56.740
Tom: So it's interesting that while the prevailing economic orthodoxy is that by everyone that monopolies are bad, consumers often very much love monopolies and arguably Netflix, when it was basically a streaming monopoly, had an infinitely superior library and both the majority of orthodoxies all actually have arguments for their own versions of monopolies and why they're superior, even though they do not like to call them monopolies.
00:54:56.760 --> 00:55:05.720
Tom: So it seems that what the consumer wants, including in gaming, especially in gaming, arguably is a monopoly.
00:55:06.660 --> 00:55:21.460
Phil: Well, consumers want convenience, as we've discussed before, but moreover than that, I think collectors want consistency and people who buy video games, they want a consistent experience, they want their library all in one place.
00:55:22.120 --> 00:55:25.220
Phil: That's probably what's going on there, I would feel.
00:55:26.140 --> 00:55:29.080
Tom: So in this case, a monopoly is better for the consumer?
00:55:29.700 --> 00:55:30.540
Phil: Yeah, I think so.
00:55:32.200 --> 00:55:38.820
Phil: And certainly, you know, if you look at the socialist paradox, it's obviously almost uniformly more efficient.
00:55:39.360 --> 00:55:41.400
Phil: I don't know if it's better for the consumer.
00:55:41.420 --> 00:55:46.900
Phil: I don't really care one way or the other.
00:55:46.920 --> 00:56:01.260
Phil: I've now just got a folder on my desktop for gaming, and it's got Epic, GOG, Itch, Origin, Steam, PlayStation Remote Play, you know, and I'm cool with having multiple ecosystems.
00:56:01.460 --> 00:56:02.940
Phil: It doesn't bother me whatsoever.
00:56:03.140 --> 00:56:07.000
Phil: The only thing that bothers me about it is, you know, having to remember what...
00:56:07.020 --> 00:56:08.520
Tom: All the usernames and passwords.
00:56:08.780 --> 00:56:10.760
Phil: Well, that, oh my God.
00:56:11.320 --> 00:56:19.820
Phil: And just try linking all of the PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and Steam with my Epic Games account for Rocket League.
00:56:20.240 --> 00:56:23.700
Phil: I probably spent two hours on that job over the last two weeks.
00:56:24.700 --> 00:56:25.340
Phil: And guess what?
00:56:25.360 --> 00:56:25.940
Phil: I recently...
00:56:25.960 --> 00:56:27.200
Phil: No, I can't say that on here.
00:56:28.040 --> 00:56:32.480
Phil: So, but yeah, password management is an issue for that.
00:56:32.500 --> 00:56:38.940
Phil: But I think more to the point is like, you do typically, just for convenience's sake, you do like all your games in one spot.
00:56:39.240 --> 00:56:41.840
Phil: You do like your friends all in one spot.
00:56:42.240 --> 00:56:52.760
Phil: It is good when I log on to Steam to be able to see you and Gargan and Steel and other players and what they're doing and keep in touch in that way.
00:56:52.760 --> 00:56:58.420
Phil: And if you disperse it over multiple systems, it's a bit annoying.
00:56:58.880 --> 00:57:05.800
Phil: But ultimately, Steam has been a benevolent dictator, so I don't really mind their monopoly.
00:57:07.140 --> 00:57:17.540
Phil: But I think at this point, if you're still out there trying to fight the battle, you're wasting your time as much as you are in terms of being loyal to a single console.
00:57:18.880 --> 00:57:21.000
Phil: You've got to follow the games where they are.
00:57:21.300 --> 00:57:25.380
Phil: And as consumers, we've got to follow the best value and the best deals.
00:57:27.360 --> 00:57:28.220
Tom: Yep, I would agree.
00:57:30.200 --> 00:57:34.400
Phil: But before we talk about Hotshots, that's the game we're going to talk about, right?
00:57:35.840 --> 00:57:37.040
Tom: I think it's called Super Hot.
00:57:37.060 --> 00:57:38.000
Phil: Super Hot.
00:57:38.700 --> 00:57:41.940
Phil: Before we talk about Hotshots for PlayStation 1, no, Super Hot.
00:57:41.960 --> 00:57:44.340
Phil: Because yeah, I started playing Super Hot yesterday.
00:57:44.600 --> 00:57:46.300
Phil: And yeah, more on that later.
00:57:46.320 --> 00:57:46.980
Phil: Will I like it?
00:57:47.060 --> 00:57:47.940
Phil: Will I not like it?
00:57:48.120 --> 00:57:49.460
Phil: That's for the listener to find out.
00:57:49.840 --> 00:57:51.420
Phil: But let's break it up with a little bit of news.
00:57:51.420 --> 00:58:04.700
Phil: So in November 2020, there was Jim Ryan, who was the PlayStation head honcho, confirmed that PlayStation VR was not going to be a significant part of the PlayStation 5 ecosystem.
00:58:06.020 --> 00:58:07.560
Phil: And he really closed it out.
00:58:07.760 --> 00:58:13.560
Phil: He said, I'll just give you a direct quote, I think we're more than a few minutes from the future of VR.
00:58:13.860 --> 00:58:22.500
Phil: PlayStation believes in VR, and we definitely believe at some point in the future, VR will represent a meaningful component for interactive entertainment.
00:58:22.760 --> 00:58:23.780
Phil: Will it be this year?
00:58:24.160 --> 00:58:24.440
Phil: No.
00:58:24.760 --> 00:58:25.740
Phil: Will it be next year?
00:58:26.140 --> 00:58:26.460
Phil: No.
00:58:26.780 --> 00:58:28.080
Phil: But will it come at some stage?
00:58:28.240 --> 00:58:29.020
Phil: We believe that.
00:58:31.220 --> 00:58:38.180
Phil: Now, to me, if you quote, read between the lines there, that means we're out of VR.
00:58:38.660 --> 00:58:40.400
Tom: Yeah, pretty much.
00:58:40.600 --> 00:58:40.940
Phil: Right?
00:58:41.280 --> 00:58:41.600
Tom: Yep.
00:58:42.860 --> 00:58:43.860
Phil: Are we going to do it this year?
00:58:44.140 --> 00:58:44.360
Phil: No.
00:58:44.380 --> 00:58:45.200
Phil: Are we going to do it next year?
00:58:45.320 --> 00:58:45.960
Phil: Hell no.
00:58:48.180 --> 00:58:51.060
Phil: And so you can imagine my surprise this week.
00:58:51.860 --> 00:58:52.820
Phil: Sony had an event.
00:58:53.800 --> 00:58:56.540
Phil: So fast forward, you know, four months, three months.
00:58:56.820 --> 00:58:59.280
Phil: Sony had an event, you know, nothing really happened.
00:58:59.300 --> 00:59:02.000
Phil: There was nothing significant that happened at it.
00:59:02.020 --> 00:59:20.680
Phil: But there was a GQ interview, a gentleman's quarterly interview, where Sony, and in a subsequent blog, now they've made it official, Sony's announced that they're going to be releasing a new PlayStation VR system, which they refer to as the PSVR2.
00:59:21.500 --> 00:59:24.440
Phil: And it's going to improve on the original in every new way.
00:59:24.480 --> 00:59:29.260
Phil: The new headset will obviously have higher resolutions, wider field of view.
00:59:30.900 --> 00:59:34.820
Phil: And won't use the move controllers, thank God.
00:59:35.620 --> 00:59:38.540
Phil: They must have obviously finally cleared the warehouse of those.
00:59:39.840 --> 00:59:41.640
Phil: And it just has a single cable.
00:59:41.980 --> 00:59:47.180
Phil: And that's been one of the major things, is it had to have a breakout box and like 15 different cables to connect it.
00:59:47.200 --> 00:59:48.220
Phil: I exaggerate, of course.
00:59:48.880 --> 00:59:56.820
Phil: Now, the Sony PlayStation VR before the Quest 2 was the best-selling VR device in terms of volume.
00:59:58.120 --> 01:00:05.180
Phil: But still sold less than the Wii U, which everyone widely considers to be a failure for Nintendo.
01:00:05.780 --> 01:00:25.680
Phil: So PlayStation had some success and they had an incredible attach rate, which of course after you've made an investment in something, be it the Donkey Kong Congo Drums or a light gun for a video game system, you know, you're going to go out and buy every game for it because you want to validate your purchase.
01:00:27.720 --> 01:00:38.320
Phil: So, but, you know, VR has kind of gotten to that stage prior to the Quest 2 where it was kind of, you know, really for a niche enthusiast market.
01:00:38.900 --> 01:00:42.800
Phil: So PlayStation has reversed itself in five months.
01:00:44.100 --> 01:00:46.880
Phil: It won't be coming in 2021, so they're true to their word.
01:00:47.740 --> 01:00:52.340
Phil: They've said there's a lot of development ahead for them.
01:00:54.360 --> 01:00:56.300
Phil: But, yeah, so what do you think?
01:00:58.300 --> 01:01:03.360
Tom: Well, it's still rather scant on details other than the lead things.
01:01:03.380 --> 01:01:10.020
Tom: So there's not much really to comment on other than one.
01:01:10.040 --> 01:01:20.260
Tom: It should be interesting given the greater relative power of the consoles compared to PlayStation VR.
01:01:20.600 --> 01:01:33.680
Tom: So it could hopefully result in a wider market of more power-intensive VR games being encouraged.
01:01:34.600 --> 01:01:50.180
Tom: And the original PSVR I think also was not only one of the better-selling VR headsets, but also one of the better ways of getting into VR as well.
01:01:50.320 --> 01:02:09.580
Tom: So it will be interesting to see if they continue in the more budget sort of entry point level to VR, considering that unlike then, they have a much stronger competitor in the Oculus Quest 1, 2, and I think 3 has been announced as well.
01:02:10.120 --> 01:02:11.820
Phil: Good, because that's what I was waiting for.
01:02:12.560 --> 01:02:13.840
Phil: I'll get back to that in a moment.
01:02:14.320 --> 01:02:17.340
Phil: But with, I'm really encouraged by this.
01:02:17.660 --> 01:02:30.660
Phil: I think it's a great move by Sony, because I think we can see the consoles, and I know this has been said for the last two generations, but I think we can see the consoles dissipating in terms of their importance as a piece of physical hardware.
01:02:32.280 --> 01:02:33.900
Phil: I think the future is streaming.
01:02:34.160 --> 01:02:45.560
Phil: I don't like it, but I'm pragmatic enough to know that game streaming is probably the future as internet infrastructure improves.
01:02:46.560 --> 01:03:00.140
Phil: And if Sony, as an electronics hardware manufacturer, if they're looking to take their, you know, to have a physical presence in the gaming world in the future, and I might be wrong.
01:03:00.200 --> 01:03:10.460
Phil: I mean, I might be talking 10, 15 years out, but a VR headset may be the only physical thing that you really want for gaming, other than a controller, 15 years from now.
01:03:10.480 --> 01:03:11.720
Tom: And a screen of some sort.
01:03:11.720 --> 01:03:14.040
Phil: Yeah, a screen of some sort, which everyone already has anyway.
01:03:14.560 --> 01:03:28.800
Phil: So, you know, I'm envisioning that most TVs, you know, most TVs today, when you buy them, and I was looking at a OLED TV, I can't believe, I went to a major retailer in Australia, looking at OLED TVs yesterday.
01:03:29.960 --> 01:03:38.020
Phil: There was only two available, one from Sony, which was $4,400, and one from LG, which was $4,600.
01:03:38.980 --> 01:03:41.720
Phil: The salesman was pushing the Sony, which, that's fine.
01:03:41.720 --> 01:03:46.060
Phil: I mean, if I had to buy a TV, I'd probably go Sony over LG anyway.
01:03:46.620 --> 01:03:51.920
Phil: But I was perplexed as to why there was such a small range.
01:03:52.040 --> 01:03:55.420
Phil: Again, this was a massive retailer for OLED devices.
01:03:56.140 --> 01:04:04.280
Phil: But anyway, on every TV that was there, not just the expensive ones, Netflix is built in, Android is built in.
01:04:04.300 --> 01:04:08.000
Phil: So it's not even like you need a USB dongle for streaming these types of things.
01:04:08.660 --> 01:04:20.560
Phil: And as we've seen with music and now movies and television content, obviously digital distribution is something that is inevitable for gaming.
01:04:20.980 --> 01:04:30.120
Phil: So if you're a hardware manufacturer, you can sell screens, you can sell controllers, you can sell really great headsets and mics.
01:04:30.840 --> 01:04:37.600
Phil: And then for VR, you know, I think it's smart for Sony to keep in there and continue to develop.
01:04:37.640 --> 01:04:50.760
Phil: And then by doing that, it encourages all the other VR development as well, because you've got a major manufacturer putting their name behind it, not just some niche company.
01:04:52.460 --> 01:04:52.920
Tom: Indeed.
01:04:54.340 --> 01:04:59.260
Tom: And they will at this stage be the only competitor to Facebook, pretty much.
01:04:59.660 --> 01:05:00.560
Phil: Yeah, pretty much.
01:05:00.780 --> 01:05:04.940
Phil: And I don't think it's so much of a competition, really.
01:05:05.280 --> 01:05:12.480
Phil: I think all the players in VR at this stage are happy to have anyone actively promoting VR and continuing to develop for it.
01:05:13.700 --> 01:05:16.680
Phil: And certainly someone as mainstream as Sony helps that.
01:05:18.080 --> 01:05:18.880
Phil: Would I buy it?
01:05:19.080 --> 01:05:27.560
Phil: Probably not, because knowing, well, having looked at the last Sony VR set, it was overpriced and low spec.
01:05:30.080 --> 01:05:32.540
Phil: But, you know, maybe they can turn it around.
01:05:32.560 --> 01:05:35.060
Phil: I mean, obviously their console is a very powerful console.
01:05:35.180 --> 01:05:37.700
Phil: So, proved me wrong.
01:05:37.720 --> 01:05:45.200
Phil: But with Oculus, you know, I upgraded the PC, your prodding, so I could get a VR headset.
01:05:45.220 --> 01:05:47.720
Phil: I haven't done it for no good reason.
01:05:48.480 --> 01:06:02.400
Phil: And then I was thinking the other day, you know, as quickly as they release the Quest 2 after the Quest 1, surely with the success of the Quest 2, a Quest 3 must be coming around the corner and that would be the time to buy.
01:06:03.020 --> 01:06:05.320
Phil: So, have they now announced a Quest 3?
01:06:06.060 --> 01:06:09.360
Tom: Yes, they have, but I don't think there are any details on it yet.
01:06:09.840 --> 01:06:20.480
Phil: Okay, and you are still, we didn't touch on this in the last show, you're still sticking in there with your Quest 2, you're still enjoying it, you're playing games on a regular basis.
01:06:21.260 --> 01:06:23.620
Tom: On and off, I'm definitely enjoying it still though.
01:06:24.760 --> 01:06:35.100
Phil: The only reason I haven't bought it is because I feel it's like an indulgence and I didn't want my, you know, I'm always like, there's better things I could buy for my family, this, that and the other.
01:06:36.040 --> 01:06:38.660
Phil: Like a 65 inch OLED TV.
01:06:40.220 --> 01:06:42.240
Phil: But really, it's not a lot of money.
01:06:42.260 --> 01:06:44.580
Tom: Which coincidentally can also be used to play games.
01:06:44.840 --> 01:06:45.760
Phil: Yes, exactly.
01:06:46.340 --> 01:06:49.920
Phil: But it's not a lot of money really for the experience.
01:06:50.200 --> 01:06:55.940
Phil: I guess probably the thing that is holding me back is that I already have limited video game time.
01:06:56.220 --> 01:07:02.060
Phil: Though upgrading my PC has expanded that because it's easier for me to play my PC and have the family in the background.
01:07:03.400 --> 01:07:13.560
Phil: But just the putting on the helmet is like a bridge too far for me still because I'd be completely shutting out my family, I feel.
01:07:14.160 --> 01:07:19.680
Tom: Well, you can stream it to the television so that they can be part of the experience.
01:07:19.700 --> 01:07:20.460
Phil: Okay, yeah.
01:07:20.820 --> 01:07:26.380
Phil: But like I said, most of the games I'm going to be buying is porn related, so that doesn't really...
01:07:26.400 --> 01:07:27.860
Phil: I mean, that's the whole reason I'm getting it.
01:07:27.880 --> 01:07:33.780
Tom: Well, it depends entirely on your family whether that would work or not.
01:07:33.900 --> 01:07:34.860
Phil: Be suitable, yeah.
01:07:36.040 --> 01:07:36.680
Phil: And that's true.
01:07:36.700 --> 01:07:39.640
Phil: I mean, like, I found out that Mouse is on Steam.
01:07:40.300 --> 01:07:41.160
Phil: I thought that was a...
01:07:42.200 --> 01:07:48.580
Phil: I thought that was like an exclusive game, but I was looking last night for VR games and that Mouse game is actually on Steam.
01:07:48.600 --> 01:07:52.160
Phil: And I thought that was like a locked behind the Oculus wall.
01:07:52.220 --> 01:07:57.320
Phil: So that's certainly a game that I could stream to the TV and have the family enjoy.
01:07:57.340 --> 01:08:05.980
Phil: Okay, so jumping back into what we've been playing, we were talking about Super Hot earlier, the developer of...
01:08:06.060 --> 01:08:08.120
Phil: or the publisher, rather, of A Garden Between.
01:08:09.440 --> 01:08:15.960
Phil: But Super Hot, no surprise, also is famous for releasing their only game, which is Super Hot.
01:08:15.980 --> 01:08:17.280
Phil: Came out in 2016.
01:08:17.840 --> 01:08:26.800
Phil: So having been exactly five years since their anniversary, it came out February 26th, I think.
01:08:27.600 --> 01:08:36.000
Phil: They've kind of been promoting it, and now that I have the PC that I should have had, I went ahead and bought it.
01:08:36.020 --> 01:08:39.340
Tom: I think you would have been able to play Super Hot on your old PC.
01:08:39.360 --> 01:08:39.960
Phil: You think so?
01:08:39.980 --> 01:08:41.120
Tom: Yep, definitely.
01:08:41.140 --> 01:08:47.680
Phil: I mean, it's simple in its presentation, so very simply put, and I think it's worth saying because some people have missed on this game.
01:08:48.000 --> 01:08:49.260
Phil: It is a first-person shooter.
01:08:49.340 --> 01:08:58.180
Phil: It's set in a monochromatic world where the only things that have color are your polygonal enemies, known as Red Dudes, and these Red...
01:08:58.200 --> 01:09:00.880
Tom: I'd say it looks a bit like South Park, wouldn't you?
01:09:01.860 --> 01:09:02.860
Phil: No, no, it doesn't.
01:09:08.940 --> 01:09:13.560
Phil: So the Red Dudes are these polygonal guys that are made from essentially a glass-type product.
01:09:14.200 --> 01:09:16.580
Phil: And you shoot them, they blow up in a million pieces.
01:09:16.600 --> 01:09:18.580
Phil: We'll get into the details of the game more later.
01:09:20.080 --> 01:09:24.380
Phil: But yeah, it's their fifth year anniversary, so I finally bought it.
01:09:25.100 --> 01:09:28.980
Phil: I got it yesterday, I think, for like 14 bucks or something like that on Steam.
01:09:29.220 --> 01:09:31.460
Phil: And I'm playing with an Xbox controller.
01:09:33.680 --> 01:09:37.720
Phil: And it was funny because I started playing it, and the game starts...
01:09:37.920 --> 01:09:48.220
Phil: This is not a spoiler, I don't think, but the game starts with a DOS type interface with a lot of ASCII type art and all the rest of it, where you're essentially at a directory.
01:09:48.860 --> 01:09:58.580
Phil: And I went through every single folder and every single file for about 20 minutes and then was like, oh, so is this the game or...
01:09:58.900 --> 01:10:03.140
Phil: And then finally I look at the very top of the screen and it's got like superhot.exe.
01:10:04.120 --> 01:10:07.020
Phil: So I played all of the demo games.
01:10:07.040 --> 01:10:15.900
Phil: I played every ASCII GIF type situation, every folder that is there to be explored before I got into the game.
01:10:17.180 --> 01:10:24.580
Phil: And the premise for the game is essentially that someone is chatting with you on an ASCII type chat session.
01:10:24.600 --> 01:10:26.440
Tom: On an instant messenger?
01:10:26.600 --> 01:10:27.740
Phil: Yeah, on an instant messenger.
01:10:28.180 --> 01:10:30.100
Phil: And it's pretty much like the old BBSs.
01:10:30.700 --> 01:10:32.220
Phil: And they've given you this file.
01:10:33.900 --> 01:10:45.420
Phil: Ostensibly for a game that I think in the end you'll find out that you've actually been killing people, that it's like a simulation where you're actually controlling a robot somewhere and you're doing these acts.
01:10:45.440 --> 01:10:46.840
Phil: That's just my speculation.
01:10:47.280 --> 01:10:51.380
Phil: You're like one of those drone operators that work in a basement in Las Vegas.
01:10:52.340 --> 01:10:57.620
Phil: And you're essentially telling yourself this is just a video game, whereas you're actually been performing murders.
01:10:58.480 --> 01:11:00.440
Phil: At least that's where I hope this is going.
01:11:01.580 --> 01:11:08.200
Phil: But then from this DOS ASCII type world, you get thrown into this modern day computer game type setting.
01:11:08.960 --> 01:11:13.620
Phil: And you can only shoot, you can only have one bullet in play at a time.
01:11:14.260 --> 01:11:17.220
Phil: And time only moves forward when you move.
01:11:17.640 --> 01:11:19.000
Phil: So you can move forward or backward.
01:11:19.180 --> 01:11:20.900
Phil: When you move backward, it doesn't reverse time.
01:11:20.920 --> 01:11:23.600
Phil: There's no reverse time mechanism in the game.
01:11:24.080 --> 01:11:26.840
Phil: Basically, as you move, these guys are coming towards you.
01:11:27.540 --> 01:11:32.860
Phil: And so you have time to swerve away from bullets coming towards you.
01:11:33.280 --> 01:11:35.160
Phil: You can only have one bullet in play at a time.
01:11:35.280 --> 01:11:37.000
Phil: It has melee components as well.
01:11:38.640 --> 01:11:40.720
Phil: And the game is quite lethal.
01:11:40.820 --> 01:11:44.320
Phil: If you get a shot or you get hit by someone, you die immediately.
01:11:44.800 --> 01:11:48.000
Phil: And then essentially press a button to restart the scenario.
01:11:51.200 --> 01:11:54.300
Phil: It's a puzzle-solving type game I would classify it as.
01:11:55.560 --> 01:11:56.860
Phil: It's a tactical game.
01:11:57.300 --> 01:12:05.540
Phil: I'd call it almost a turn-based strategy game, almost, and be pilloried for saying that.
01:12:06.340 --> 01:12:08.160
Phil: But essentially you have to think about what you're doing.
01:12:08.860 --> 01:12:15.440
Phil: It's like the old Rainbow Six type games, except you get to fail a lot and figure it out as you go.
01:12:15.460 --> 01:12:26.340
Phil: And then apparently, you know, from what everyone was saying, you know, then you can watch the replay and have it play out in real time and feel like you're John Wick.
01:12:27.680 --> 01:12:28.760
Phil: I haven't had much...
01:12:29.180 --> 01:12:34.480
Phil: like, I've uploaded replays, but they seem just to go to Super Hot's website.
01:12:34.640 --> 01:12:38.700
Phil: I don't really see any way to really actually play the replays themselves.
01:12:39.280 --> 01:12:41.760
Tom: It should play automatically at the end of the level.
01:12:41.780 --> 01:12:44.640
Phil: Well, it does, but it just speeds through it in first-person perspective.
01:12:44.660 --> 01:12:58.400
Phil: And I was thinking that they're going to have it in like a third-person perspective, so you could actually see how badass everything looked when it went down, and that there'd be some directorial view applied to it, so that it would look kind of cool like in a movie.
01:12:58.420 --> 01:13:03.560
Phil: But really, it's replaying it in real time from the first-person's perspective, unless I'm missing something.
01:13:03.820 --> 01:13:04.820
Tom: No, that's what it does.
01:13:04.920 --> 01:13:05.160
Phil: Yep.
01:13:06.500 --> 01:13:15.060
Phil: So, like usually with games like this, particularly with limited time, when I come to the first challenge, I'll go, okay, yep, I get it.
01:13:15.140 --> 01:13:16.440
Phil: I can talk about the game enough.
01:13:16.780 --> 01:13:17.760
Phil: I know what this game is.
01:13:17.780 --> 01:13:19.500
Phil: And when I have more time, I'll come back to it.
01:13:20.140 --> 01:13:27.520
Phil: And there was a couple of times as I was playing it in those two-hour periods where they introduced a new mechanic, I couldn't quite figure it out immediately.
01:13:28.620 --> 01:13:33.740
Phil: And I closed down the game and then would come back to it like three minutes later.
01:13:33.760 --> 01:13:36.440
Phil: I go, nah, you know, I should probably figure this out.
01:13:36.460 --> 01:13:37.560
Phil: Let me just try and figure it out.
01:13:37.580 --> 01:13:39.500
Phil: And not because we're doing the show today or anything.
01:13:39.520 --> 01:13:46.180
Phil: I was just like, it was compelling enough for me to go back and try and fail again until I succeeded.
01:13:46.200 --> 01:13:47.300
Phil: And I kept doing that.
01:13:47.700 --> 01:13:50.520
Phil: But there were times during the game where I was like, okay, yep, I get it.
01:13:51.760 --> 01:13:52.920
Phil: Not really my kind of game.
01:13:52.940 --> 01:13:54.740
Phil: I was expecting more of a first person shooter.
01:13:55.960 --> 01:14:05.440
Phil: But the game is compelling enough to get you to get, at least it got me to come back time and time and time again and figure out those levels.
01:14:05.580 --> 01:14:07.140
Phil: And it's fun.
01:14:07.160 --> 01:14:08.680
Phil: It's a fun game to noodle out.
01:14:10.120 --> 01:14:16.800
Tom: Yeah, because the feedback loop is so short, it really encourages you to keep going and going and going.
01:14:17.140 --> 01:14:18.080
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
01:14:18.160 --> 01:14:26.940
Tom: And you're also constantly rewarded with each step that you figure out, with each new red man you've worked out how to kill.
01:14:28.480 --> 01:14:38.220
Phil: And coming up with different ways, like one of the biggest problems you have in a game is when you get stuck in a rut, like in this type of game.
01:14:38.240 --> 01:14:46.080
Phil: And you can do it in a campaign mode, in a first person shooter or any game really, where you're just going through it and you're constantly getting killed.
01:14:46.480 --> 01:14:50.120
Phil: And you have to remind yourself, okay, maybe this time go left instead of right.
01:14:50.340 --> 01:14:52.140
Phil: You know, don't get stuck.
01:14:52.400 --> 01:14:58.160
Phil: And then people say, oh, I was stuck in this game, I was stuck in this game, I turned it off, I came back the next day, I got it the first time.
01:14:58.640 --> 01:15:04.780
Phil: And that's because you get out of the rut and then come back and attack it at a different way, even if you're not conscious of it.
01:15:06.500 --> 01:15:08.740
Phil: And that's good life advice as well, by the way.
01:15:08.760 --> 01:15:13.180
Phil: But yeah, I really enjoy this game.
01:15:13.420 --> 01:15:16.640
Phil: I can see why it got all the kudos it did.
01:15:17.040 --> 01:15:20.160
Phil: I absolutely cannot believe it's five years.
01:15:20.180 --> 01:15:23.640
Phil: I would have thought it came out not last year, but probably the year before.
01:15:24.400 --> 01:15:36.740
Phil: And it does get crossed in my mind with the game Control by the Max Payne guys as well, for some reason.
01:15:36.760 --> 01:15:37.420
Phil: I don't know why.
01:15:38.480 --> 01:15:39.660
Phil: But yeah, I'm super hyped.
01:15:39.660 --> 01:15:44.580
Tom: Well, that's a brutalist aesthetic, and this is a minimalist aesthetic.
01:15:44.640 --> 01:15:59.180
Tom: And while they may share quite a few differences in terms of the sort of feeling they're trying to evoke, they're also pretty similar in their use of massive amounts of space, blank space.
01:15:59.300 --> 01:16:03.100
Phil: I've not seen a single video or picture of Control.
01:16:03.120 --> 01:16:14.600
Tom: Well, you may then be mixing the two together because the third game in the series is Super Hot Mind Control Elite.
01:16:15.980 --> 01:16:17.620
Tom: So it has Control in the title.
01:16:18.120 --> 01:16:18.620
Tom: Oh, okay.
01:16:18.660 --> 01:16:19.240
Phil: That could be it.
01:16:19.260 --> 01:16:27.500
Phil: And you know, it could be that they have similar cover art too because I do that a fair bit as well because I'm a visual learner kind of guy.
01:16:28.160 --> 01:16:30.840
Tom: Would you describe South Park as brutalist?
01:16:33.260 --> 01:16:37.700
Phil: I am happy to admit my ignorance and I don't know what the brutalist aesthetic is.
01:16:38.020 --> 01:16:38.780
Phil: And you know what?
01:16:38.800 --> 01:16:46.900
Phil: I bet our listeners are happy that I don't because I'm aware of brutalist architecture.
01:16:46.920 --> 01:16:47.900
Phil: Is it a similar type?
01:16:47.920 --> 01:16:49.980
Tom: That's what I'm referring to.
01:16:50.040 --> 01:16:50.720
Phil: Yeah, okay, yep.
01:16:50.740 --> 01:16:57.980
Phil: So kind of blocky, ugly, square jaw, concrete kind of structures.
01:16:58.540 --> 01:16:59.040
Tom: Correct.
01:16:59.040 --> 01:17:00.080
Phil: Which I'm not a fan of.
01:17:01.080 --> 01:17:03.580
Tom: I would describe South Park as brutalist.
01:17:03.840 --> 01:17:06.560
Phil: Yeah, yeah, I guess, yeah.
01:17:06.580 --> 01:17:07.780
Phil: I can go with that.
01:17:07.800 --> 01:17:10.080
Phil: A lot more colour in South Park though.
01:17:14.180 --> 01:17:19.380
Tom: But very browny, mixed colours.
01:17:19.500 --> 01:17:24.920
Phil: There's a Soviet kind of, there's an Eastern European, Soviet twist to South Park, I think.
01:17:24.920 --> 01:17:25.940
Phil: I mean, it's set in a snowy...
01:17:25.960 --> 01:17:31.740
Tom: Well, brutalism is more so, it's not really Soviet.
01:17:31.740 --> 01:17:41.940
Tom: It's a mix of all of the social-inspired architecture.
01:17:42.060 --> 01:17:43.380
Tom: It's across the world.
01:17:44.720 --> 01:17:49.980
Phil: It also strikes me as being Italian in some way, but that's because they all love their concrete so much.
01:17:51.140 --> 01:17:55.940
Tom: I think the epitome of it, especially for ugliness, is Great Britain.
01:17:56.840 --> 01:18:01.200
Phil: Okay, with their flats, with their big public service buildings.
01:18:01.360 --> 01:18:09.540
Tom: Yep, and they have some very impressive theatres and museums made in that style as well.
01:18:09.560 --> 01:18:11.940
Phil: So it's a very blocky kind of thing to me.
01:18:11.940 --> 01:18:13.560
Phil: Very concrete-y, very blocky.
01:18:15.300 --> 01:18:15.820
Tom: Exactly.
01:18:16.080 --> 01:18:18.840
Phil: Okay, so now your experience with Super Hot.
01:18:18.860 --> 01:18:22.760
Phil: I can't believe we haven't talked about this on the show before, but it was a notable game.
01:18:22.780 --> 01:18:25.200
Phil: We're both into shooters, we're both into creative type games.
01:18:26.580 --> 01:18:30.560
Phil: So how come we haven't talked about it before and what was your impressions?
01:18:31.520 --> 01:18:49.580
Tom: Well, my impressions I will just add a little bit here because I will save my most detailed impressions where I'll be getting into the other games as well for an upcoming episode with Gargan in which we'll be discussing both Super Hot and Doom Eternal.
01:18:49.920 --> 01:18:50.800
Phil: Oh, okay.
01:18:50.820 --> 01:18:51.420
Phil: I'm excited about that.
01:18:51.440 --> 01:18:52.700
Tom: I also need to get around to playing that.
01:18:52.720 --> 01:19:03.940
Tom: But I endorse everything you've said and I think the only thing I would add to your impressions is two things.
01:19:04.180 --> 01:19:08.960
Tom: One, the ASCII aesthetic at the beginning of the game is...
01:19:09.260 --> 01:19:21.120
Tom: and you haven't played enough for this to be apparent, so it's not something you've missed, but is really nicely integrated into how the story unfolds.
01:19:21.680 --> 01:19:38.900
Tom: Not so much the ASCII aspect of it, but the use of breaking the fourth wall and changes to the aesthetic as you're playing are really well done, and they make the atmosphere much more interesting than it otherwise would have been.
01:19:38.920 --> 01:20:01.680
Tom: And the other really enjoyable thing about the game, which is again exactly like Rainbow Six, which is a great comparison, is it's not merely puzzle-solving strategy, but it combines that with your reflexes in the context of a first-person shooter, as well as your skill at moving around in the environment.
01:20:02.060 --> 01:20:13.380
Tom: And it becomes again like Rainbow Six, a game where you can play the same scenario again and again and again, once you've figured out how to kill everyone there.
01:20:13.580 --> 01:20:21.860
Tom: So that's not an issue, and you're just working out how to go through it as fast as possible, and in the most interesting manner.
01:20:21.900 --> 01:20:37.440
Tom: So it really is one of the best first-person shooters of its era, and up there with the likes of the greatest in the genre, for example, Rainbow Six.
01:20:39.740 --> 01:20:42.840
Phil: Would you describe it as a first-person shooter though, really?
01:20:43.460 --> 01:20:44.120
Tom: Absolutely.
01:20:44.740 --> 01:20:48.660
Tom: If Rainbow Six is a first-person shooter, this is a first-person shooter.
01:20:48.760 --> 01:20:51.080
Phil: I don't know that Rainbow Six is a first-person shooter.
01:20:53.240 --> 01:20:54.460
Tom: It is a first-person shooter.
01:20:56.240 --> 01:21:05.420
Tom: I think people, the first-person shooter genre, as opposed to many genres, is one that people like to limit.
01:21:05.440 --> 01:21:13.620
Tom: And I used to be of that opinion, but I think it's actually more interesting if you consider Metroid Prime to be a first-person shooter.
01:21:15.040 --> 01:21:21.220
Phil: I consider Metroid Prime to be a walking simulator, but I'm not a very good one at that.
01:21:21.580 --> 01:21:26.840
Tom: Okay, well, that's the end of The Game Under Podcast.
01:21:26.860 --> 01:21:28.000
Tom: It was fun while it lasted.
01:21:28.800 --> 01:21:31.060
Phil: I finally found out how to end the show.
01:21:31.080 --> 01:21:40.620
Phil: Yeah, so, and to be fair, I've never played the Metroid Prime trilogy.
01:21:40.620 --> 01:21:41.280
Phil: I own them.
01:21:41.300 --> 01:21:42.360
Phil: I haven't played them.
01:21:42.380 --> 01:21:58.420
Phil: So with Super Hot, the one thing I really respected about it was its ability to communicate the lethality of firearms and also the difficulty of operating a firearm.
01:21:59.040 --> 01:22:11.140
Phil: Because limiting you to having a single shot in play made you really respect your ammunition and your weapon and your decision to shoot.
01:22:12.540 --> 01:22:25.180
Phil: So, like in most video games, it's like when you're playing arcade coin op conversions where you're not actually having to put in 25 cents or 20 cents to continue.
01:22:25.200 --> 01:22:26.420
Phil: You've got endless continues.
01:22:26.440 --> 01:22:31.680
Phil: You can just pull the trigger constantly and bullets will come out.
01:22:32.020 --> 01:22:35.720
Phil: But when you're shooting in this game, it's a deliberate act.
01:22:38.120 --> 01:22:41.700
Phil: And you really stop and consider where I'm going to shoot.
01:22:42.120 --> 01:22:44.840
Phil: The other thing I like about it is that...
01:22:45.040 --> 01:22:46.280
Tom: I would add to that.
01:22:46.300 --> 01:23:09.600
Tom: I would endorse what you said, but in fact take it in an entirely different direction in that while simultaneously it does all that, when you are either when you're attending to do things quickly or even when you're just trying to figure things out, the other thing it does really well and in stark contrast to any...
01:23:11.580 --> 01:23:49.140
Tom: arguably any other first person shooter, if you're not playing it competitively, is the conflict and the violence in it, the way it plays out is through totally automatic interactions in that when you are actually playing well or even when you're learning the thing, while you are thinking about what you're meant to be doing, how you actually proceed through it is a purely automatic response based on what you have learnt up to that point in the game.
01:23:50.120 --> 01:24:05.100
Phil: And to me that captures a primal survival instinct as well, because when these guys are coming at you, and it's funny that they're not coming at you until you actually act, you actually move forward.
01:24:05.260 --> 01:24:07.920
Tom: I think technically time progresses very slowly.
01:24:07.940 --> 01:24:12.540
Phil: Yeah, and I learnt that by leaving it on the screen for a while while I did something else.
01:24:13.000 --> 01:24:20.800
Phil: But you get that home invasion type feel to it, like these guys are coming to kill me, I've got to do something.
01:24:21.740 --> 01:24:36.900
Phil: It's not like a passive, oh they're on the other side, we're in a war, yeah I should probably shoot the guy, you know, it is much more urgent and present of a danger that you feel in this game.
01:24:38.600 --> 01:24:52.000
Phil: Because these guys mean business, and you've read interviews with developers that say yeah, we developed the AI and the AI was too good, which is what they say commonly, and we had to tune it down.
01:24:54.000 --> 01:24:57.220
Tom: Which I think is nonsense.
01:24:58.060 --> 01:25:09.760
Tom: I mean, what they mean by that is in the sense of the AI being good due to unrealistic things unrelated to their behaviour.
01:25:10.080 --> 01:25:11.440
Phil: Yeah, I agree also.
01:25:11.820 --> 01:25:28.360
Phil: But I think with this game too, the other thing that it respects and values, that I haven't seen in any other games, though I'm sure this comes up in sniper games, and I've seen it in sniper games as well, but not to this extent, is aiming and leading on a target.
01:25:30.060 --> 01:25:39.880
Phil: When I was a kid, my grandfather, I was just playing around with a toy gun or a stick or something in the backyard, pretending to shoot some ducks that were flying through the air.
01:25:40.260 --> 01:25:44.280
Phil: He's like, no, you don't point at the duck, you've got to point in front of the duck.
01:25:44.700 --> 01:25:54.060
Phil: If you're going to shoot a bird in flight, you've got to account for the time the bullet's going to go and wind and anticipate where that bullet's going to go.
01:25:54.380 --> 01:26:02.060
Phil: While this has been a part of sniper games, certainly you learn quickly in this game that you can't shoot at a target where it is currently.
01:26:02.080 --> 01:26:05.020
Phil: You've got to be shooting at a target where it's going to be.
01:26:05.740 --> 01:26:13.440
Phil: Similarly, when I was a younger person, I'd go, oh, why'd those cops have to shoot the guy to kill him?
01:26:13.640 --> 01:26:15.420
Phil: Couldn't they have just shot him in the leg?
01:26:15.440 --> 01:26:26.540
Phil: Then I heard an interview with a cop and he's like, no, we're trying to shoot to stop, which means we're shooting for mass, which means you're shooting for the chest.
01:26:28.000 --> 01:26:35.840
Phil: You're not shooting, because if you shoot at the leg, you're going to probably miss and it's probably not going to stop the guy because of adrenaline.
01:26:35.860 --> 01:26:38.880
Phil: He's going to keep coming at you with the knife or the gun or whatever else.
01:26:38.900 --> 01:26:40.480
Phil: Basically, you've got to shoot to stop.
01:26:41.160 --> 01:26:51.760
Phil: That's one of the things that hasn't been emphasized to me in many video games, but this one emphasized as well that if I'm shooting at a moving target, I better know where he's going to be by the time the bullet gets to him.
01:26:52.320 --> 01:26:57.880
Phil: And I also better shoot for mass because there's no finesse there.
01:26:57.900 --> 01:27:01.900
Phil: So you're going to shoot for the biggest part of your opponent's body.
01:27:02.680 --> 01:27:07.760
Tom: And that's also a part of the militarized training of police as well.
01:27:07.780 --> 01:27:08.120
Phil: Yeah.
01:27:08.160 --> 01:27:08.620
Phil: Well, yeah.
01:27:09.320 --> 01:27:19.980
Phil: And so, yeah, so for me, I thought the game took the violent act of shooting someone, or at least it imparted it in a very serious manner.
01:27:20.580 --> 01:27:23.640
Phil: And so when I was playing it, I was taking it very seriously.
01:27:23.660 --> 01:27:34.880
Phil: And even though these guys are just red dudes made out of these rough, polygonal glass-like matter, you know, yeah.
01:27:35.100 --> 01:27:37.640
Phil: And you can restart continually.
01:27:39.380 --> 01:27:44.640
Phil: So it was amazing to me that they actually added some gravity to what you're actually doing.
01:27:46.620 --> 01:27:59.720
Phil: So part of the five-year anniversary is if you buy this game, it basically loads you out at the start in a menu where you can play the original Super Hot, and then next to it they've got the sequel, and then next to that they've got the VR experience.
01:28:01.500 --> 01:28:05.140
Phil: I know we're running out of time here, so you've played the VR experience?
01:28:05.900 --> 01:28:06.580
Tom: Yes, I have.
01:28:06.600 --> 01:28:08.760
Phil: We talked about that a couple of shows ago.
01:28:09.980 --> 01:28:11.460
Phil: But have you played the sequel?
01:28:12.280 --> 01:28:12.960
Tom: Yes, I have.
01:28:13.540 --> 01:28:27.120
Phil: And as I recall, the sequel, in most camps, people lapped it up, and it was like, great, you know, a sequel is basically going to be Super Hot with more levels, but didn't they screw it up by doing like procedurally generated levels or some nonsense?
01:28:27.240 --> 01:28:27.920
Tom: Yes, they did.
01:28:28.340 --> 01:28:28.800
Phil: They did?
01:28:28.820 --> 01:28:29.600
Phil: Okay.
01:28:30.360 --> 01:28:31.140
Phil: And how did that go?
01:28:31.840 --> 01:28:33.660
Tom: That's not the only way they screwed it up.
01:28:34.100 --> 01:28:59.800
Tom: The sequel is horrendous in pretty much every way, and the addition to it could have been interesting with more powers and so forth, due to the way in which you are given those powers, rather, and the procedural generation of the levels, even that, which could have been a great addition to the game, is horrendous, sadly.
01:28:59.980 --> 01:29:07.900
Phil: Now, are they procedurally generated on the fly, or did they just use procedural generation to create the worlds, a la No Man's Sky or whatever?
01:29:07.920 --> 01:29:10.340
Tom: They're procedurally generated each time.
01:29:10.680 --> 01:29:12.740
Phil: Ooh, that's terrible.
01:29:13.500 --> 01:29:15.560
Phil: I mean, one of the great things about the...
01:29:15.680 --> 01:29:23.640
Tom: And not only that, given these generic levels in the game, it's like 10 times the length of the original.
01:29:24.460 --> 01:29:26.580
Phil: I mean, how can they do that?
01:29:26.600 --> 01:29:32.560
Phil: Because the whole charm of the game I'm currently playing are these super crafted levels.
01:29:33.220 --> 01:29:33.480
Tom: Yep.
01:29:33.940 --> 01:29:34.980
Phil: And how did that...
01:29:35.940 --> 01:29:36.340
Tom: How?
01:29:36.360 --> 01:29:36.780
Phil: Why?
01:29:37.900 --> 01:29:38.880
Phil: They had all this money.
01:29:38.900 --> 01:29:39.880
Phil: They made lots of money.
01:29:39.900 --> 01:29:41.580
Phil: And then they shut out...
01:29:41.600 --> 01:29:44.160
Tom: Maybe it's CD Projekt Red all over again.
01:29:44.180 --> 01:29:45.480
Phil: It could be hubris.
01:29:45.800 --> 01:29:49.820
Phil: I mean, having played Game Dev Story, I know what that's like.
01:29:49.840 --> 01:29:55.120
Phil: I mean, when I released Teen Tales Cart, I was on top of the world.
01:29:55.380 --> 01:29:59.420
Phil: But, yeah, we spent a lot of time on Polish.
01:29:59.460 --> 01:30:01.940
Phil: But, you know, we didn't make it very approachable.
01:30:02.820 --> 01:30:04.360
Phil: Anyway, we advertised the hell out of it.
01:30:04.380 --> 01:30:08.760
Phil: And it's still sold, which I'm sure is what happened with Super Hot 2 or whatever it's called.
01:30:08.780 --> 01:30:09.420
Phil: What is it called?
01:30:10.220 --> 01:30:11.460
Tom: Mind Control Delete.
01:30:11.460 --> 01:30:12.540
Phil: Mind Control Delete.
01:30:12.560 --> 01:30:13.080
Phil: Yeah.
01:30:13.100 --> 01:30:13.560
Phil: Horrible.
01:30:14.220 --> 01:30:15.180
Phil: Old Control Delete.
01:30:15.200 --> 01:30:15.800
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
01:30:16.260 --> 01:30:16.760
Phil: Not bad.
01:30:17.420 --> 01:30:19.840
Phil: So procedurally generated levels, how does that even work?
01:30:21.280 --> 01:30:28.900
Phil: So when you fail a level and you go and restart it immediately, like I do in Super Hot, is it the same level or does it change again?
01:30:30.440 --> 01:30:34.060
Tom: In that case, it's the same level when you die and restart.
01:30:34.080 --> 01:30:37.460
Tom: But worse than that, there aren't really levels in that sense.
01:30:37.520 --> 01:30:45.980
Tom: Each level is actually a series of several different levels with a limited number of hearts.
01:30:46.000 --> 01:31:01.340
Tom: So you can die three times across, say, ten levels, at the end of which, if you die, then you start again and you can continue through the same ten procedurally generated levels.
01:31:01.920 --> 01:31:06.460
Tom: Or if you quit and come back later, then it will be ten different procedurally generated levels.
01:31:07.880 --> 01:31:08.640
Phil: Sounds terrible.
01:31:09.760 --> 01:31:10.120
Tom: It is.
01:31:11.500 --> 01:31:14.500
Phil: And like, did you go into this thinking just like I was thinking?
01:31:14.520 --> 01:31:15.240
Phil: Oh, this is great.
01:31:15.260 --> 01:31:16.100
Phil: I love Super Hot.
01:31:16.340 --> 01:31:18.360
Phil: This is just going to be like a level pack.
01:31:19.800 --> 01:31:20.300
Tom: Pretty much.
01:31:22.200 --> 01:31:26.880
Phil: That's like the most bummer thing I've heard in the last three hours.
01:31:28.320 --> 01:31:30.500
Phil: So, is that it for Super Hot?
01:31:31.320 --> 01:31:32.460
Tom: It is, indeed.
01:31:32.480 --> 01:31:40.960
Phil: Yeah, I think probably when you bring up Super Hot, Mind Control, Alt, Delete, that's probably the time to stop talking about Super Hot.
01:31:41.700 --> 01:31:45.180
Tom: Very, very wise statement there, Phil.
01:31:45.640 --> 01:31:46.140
Phil: Thank you.
01:31:46.740 --> 01:31:50.980
Phil: Just really quick, in other news, this was a big gaming news week.
01:31:51.200 --> 01:31:53.200
Phil: There haven't been many of them in the last six months.
01:31:53.740 --> 01:31:57.220
Phil: Nintendo had a Nintendo Direct for the first time in over a year.
01:31:57.600 --> 01:31:59.820
Phil: They announced major stories.
01:32:00.140 --> 01:32:04.200
Phil: They're bringing out Skyward Sword HD to the Switch.
01:32:05.400 --> 01:32:09.420
Phil: Skyward Sword is probably one of the worst Zelda games, reportedly.
01:32:10.680 --> 01:32:17.120
Phil: It's the only Zelda game I didn't buy or haven't bought because of how horrible it apparently was.
01:32:17.120 --> 01:32:19.820
Phil: But it's coming out on the Switch, so of course now I'm going to have to buy it.
01:32:20.800 --> 01:32:22.820
Phil: They announced that Fall Guys was coming to Switch.
01:32:23.180 --> 01:32:24.220
Phil: Have you played Fall Guys?
01:32:25.220 --> 01:32:25.860
Tom: No, I haven't.
01:32:25.980 --> 01:32:30.040
Phil: It's kind of like It's a Knockout, the video game, multiplayer online.
01:32:30.820 --> 01:32:32.700
Phil: Were you around for It's a Knockout?
01:32:32.720 --> 01:32:43.100
Phil: It was kind of an Australian TV show like Wipeout where a bunch of people compete to do silly things athletically.
01:32:43.720 --> 01:32:45.660
Tom: The name certainly sounds familiar.
01:32:45.680 --> 01:32:46.300
Phil: Yep.
01:32:46.320 --> 01:32:50.060
Phil: Mario Golf is getting a sequel on the Switch called Mario Golf Super Rush.
01:32:51.480 --> 01:32:59.680
Phil: And it's by Camelot, I think, which is the people that originally made Hotshot Golf before Clap Hands.
01:33:00.360 --> 01:33:03.100
Phil: And Splatoon 3 got announced, so that's interesting.
01:33:05.700 --> 01:33:16.780
Phil: But the big news was that Stubbs the Zombie, which was an Xbox game made by one of the Halo creatives, Alex Seropian, is coming to Switch.
01:33:16.860 --> 01:33:18.200
Phil: It's not available anywhere else.
01:33:18.220 --> 01:33:19.280
Phil: You can't get it on Steam.
01:33:19.460 --> 01:33:23.640
Phil: I believe mostly because it had a soundtrack with a lot of licensed music.
01:33:24.100 --> 01:33:25.540
Phil: And I do have the soundtrack for that.
01:33:25.780 --> 01:33:28.360
Phil: I think that was a pre-order bonus when I bought it.
01:33:29.280 --> 01:33:31.240
Phil: It was where I was introduced to the Dandy Warhols.
01:33:31.700 --> 01:33:32.700
Phil: Not that that's notable.
01:33:33.960 --> 01:33:45.840
Phil: But yeah, it's a fun game that came around before the whole zombie pastiche overwhelmed video games for several years.
01:33:46.000 --> 01:33:46.600
Phil: I'm serious.
01:33:46.780 --> 01:33:51.280
Phil: I think it was like one of the first zombie games in the modern era.
01:33:51.580 --> 01:33:57.600
Phil: And it is, the trivia behind it is it uses the Halo engine.
01:33:57.720 --> 01:34:00.580
Phil: It's the only non-Halo game to use the Halo engine.
01:34:01.560 --> 01:34:02.640
Phil: Yeah, it's a fun game.
01:34:03.720 --> 01:34:05.480
Phil: And I don't think it's worth playing.
01:34:06.240 --> 01:34:09.980
Phil: But it was incredible that they announced that at the Nintendo Direct.
01:34:10.640 --> 01:34:17.200
Phil: And certainly the most notable thing to me other than the release of Splatoon 3, given how much Splatoon 2 have been playing recently.
01:34:18.560 --> 01:34:20.000
Tom: Here's a question for you.
01:34:20.020 --> 01:34:33.460
Tom: Would you say that the fascination with zombie apocalypses was probably the first big influence on pop culture that games had?
01:34:33.480 --> 01:34:37.940
Phil: Hmm, you mean besides Pac-Man fever?
01:34:38.680 --> 01:34:39.040
Tom: Yes.
01:34:41.740 --> 01:34:47.200
Tom: That was more of a influence on the health of people than pop culture.
01:34:47.620 --> 01:34:54.600
Phil: No, I don't think that Stubbs the Zombie or I don't think the zombie culture came.
01:34:54.620 --> 01:34:55.260
Phil: Possibly.
01:34:55.280 --> 01:35:01.580
Phil: The Walking Dead was a stand-alone property that probably propelled zombies into normal people's lives.
01:35:03.100 --> 01:35:06.380
Phil: So no, I'm not going to give video games credit for the zombie culture.
01:35:06.400 --> 01:35:10.480
Phil: I think video games have had an influence on culture in other ways.
01:35:10.600 --> 01:35:12.320
Phil: It's interesting to go to more.
01:35:12.340 --> 01:35:14.900
Tom: You're definitely giving The Walking Dead way too much credit.
01:35:15.860 --> 01:35:18.100
Phil: The TV show?
01:35:18.420 --> 01:35:19.140
Tom: No, the comic.
01:35:19.660 --> 01:35:21.280
Phil: The comic that led to the TV show.
01:35:21.800 --> 01:35:24.260
Phil: Yeah, well, I give the TV show all the credit.
01:35:24.980 --> 01:35:27.160
Tom: I would say you're also giving that too much credit.
01:35:27.740 --> 01:35:38.500
Tom: My argument is because zombies have been a fascination of the psyche since the Victorian era, essentially.
01:35:39.340 --> 01:35:55.260
Tom: But being a prevailing view of understanding the end times isn't really the case until video games enter mass media.
01:35:55.940 --> 01:36:00.200
Tom: And there's no greater level of...
01:36:00.220 --> 01:36:09.060
Tom: There certainly is a much greater emphasis on zombies compared to other media.
01:36:10.280 --> 01:36:13.580
Tom: So I think there is still an argument there for that being the case.
01:36:13.600 --> 01:36:15.480
Phil: Yeah, look, this came out in 2005.
01:36:16.080 --> 01:36:21.480
Phil: It really has that 1950s horror movie feel to it.
01:36:21.720 --> 01:36:23.200
Phil: And that's the time in which it set.
01:36:23.220 --> 01:36:24.220
Phil: And I take back what I said.
01:36:24.260 --> 01:36:27.140
Phil: It is worth playing because it had a tremendous sense of humor.
01:36:27.700 --> 01:36:28.560
Phil: And it was fun.
01:36:29.020 --> 01:36:33.500
Phil: And it's worth to seeing what another game made with the Halo engine can do.
01:36:33.900 --> 01:36:41.120
Phil: And certainly, even though Alex Seropian had left a bungee at that time, it was one of the massive selling points.
01:36:41.120 --> 01:36:45.540
Phil: And they let him put that on the front of the box that I'm looking at right now.
01:36:46.800 --> 01:36:50.540
Phil: It is also going to be available on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
01:36:52.140 --> 01:36:55.080
Phil: So it's something to look forward to.
01:36:55.100 --> 01:37:00.160
Phil: But this zombie game, I think, was probably one of the...
01:37:00.680 --> 01:37:06.280
Phil: You had Zombies Ate My Neighbor back on the Genesis and Super Nintendo.
01:37:06.300 --> 01:37:09.220
Phil: But this really early predates it.
01:37:09.760 --> 01:37:10.360
Phil: It's fun.
01:37:10.380 --> 01:37:11.620
Phil: It's got a fun soundtrack.
01:37:13.460 --> 01:37:14.540
Phil: And a good engine.
01:37:14.660 --> 01:37:16.140
Phil: I mean, the Halo engine is great.
01:37:16.220 --> 01:37:18.140
Phil: There's nothing wrong with it.
01:37:18.160 --> 01:37:19.600
Phil: Certainly from back in the time.
01:37:19.660 --> 01:37:24.060
Phil: So yeah, Stubbs the Zombie Rebel Without a Pulse is going to be coming to Switch.
01:37:24.080 --> 01:37:32.000
Phil: And I know that I'm going to be picking it up because everyone knows my troubles with having an operating original Xbox.
01:37:32.340 --> 01:37:34.100
Phil: So you've never played it, though?
01:37:34.820 --> 01:37:35.460
Tom: No, I haven't.
01:37:35.600 --> 01:37:40.920
Tom: And I have to point out that there are two notable things about Stubbs the Zombie.
01:37:40.940 --> 01:37:43.560
Tom: You mentioned one of them, which is the soundtrack.
01:37:44.260 --> 01:37:54.660
Tom: The other is that it received controversy for its cannibalistic content, apparently, according to Wikipedia.
01:37:54.700 --> 01:37:59.260
Phil: I remember when you chomped into people's heads, it sounded like you were chomping into an apple.
01:37:59.280 --> 01:38:00.800
Phil: And it was absolutely...
01:38:00.940 --> 01:38:01.560
Tom: Delicious?
01:38:01.580 --> 01:38:02.800
Phil: It was absolutely hilarious.
01:38:03.760 --> 01:38:05.000
Phil: It is a hilarious game.
01:38:05.040 --> 01:38:06.140
Phil: It's really well made.
01:38:06.160 --> 01:38:09.740
Phil: And I don't know what Alex Seropian went on to do.
01:38:10.200 --> 01:38:17.320
Phil: Wide Load Games, I think, made a political satire game about a chimp who was running for president.
01:38:17.340 --> 01:38:20.340
Phil: That was a joke relating to George Bush II.
01:38:21.420 --> 01:38:25.580
Phil: But other than that, I don't know that Wide Load did much after that.
01:38:25.600 --> 01:38:30.140
Tom: I asked you on air a while ago why it was.
01:38:30.680 --> 01:38:39.240
Tom: America has a desire for their presidents to be mentally impaired in one capacity or another.
01:38:40.020 --> 01:38:44.720
Tom: And I think your answer was that people in America who vote are old.
01:38:45.320 --> 01:38:50.460
Phil: No, I think my answer would be you have to be crazy to run for public office on that level.
01:38:51.300 --> 01:39:08.760
Phil: And so it's a given that if you're voting, if someone wakes up in the morning and says, I am the best qualified person to run the United States of America, they have to be mentally unstable, you know.
01:39:09.160 --> 01:39:11.360
Tom: So I think it's an aesthetic choice, though.
01:39:11.640 --> 01:39:12.200
Phil: What's that?
01:39:13.760 --> 01:39:14.760
Tom: Their persona.
01:39:15.560 --> 01:39:29.560
Tom: So by definition, they may be mentally unstable, whether they present themselves as being mentally incompetent or not, I think is a question of what persona they're trying to advertise to the public.
01:39:30.900 --> 01:39:32.340
Phil: Oh, I don't think that's true at all.
01:39:32.380 --> 01:39:36.560
Phil: I think people really believe in their presidents, be it Obama, Trump.
01:39:38.020 --> 01:39:40.660
Tom: Well, Obama is one who did not project that.
01:39:41.240 --> 01:39:41.740
Phil: Oh, really?
01:39:42.460 --> 01:39:44.840
Tom: He did not project himself as an idiot.
01:39:44.860 --> 01:39:45.440
Phil: No, no.
01:39:45.840 --> 01:39:56.720
Tom: He had to tone down the complexity of his rhetoric after becoming president, but his persona was still one of a highly competent individual.
01:39:57.720 --> 01:39:58.040
Phil: Yeah.
01:39:58.720 --> 01:40:04.240
Tom: And I would argue that his legacy has been...
01:40:04.260 --> 01:40:06.120
Tom: Sorry, not his legacy.
01:40:06.480 --> 01:40:33.980
Tom: One could argue that he has been less effective as a president as a result of that, because one advantage of presenting yourself as an idiot is that your opponents believe you're an idiot, whereas no one believed that the insane things that he was going to do in his communist, Muslim takeover of America are being done by an incompetent, bumbling fool.
01:40:34.000 --> 01:40:34.720
Phil: Yeah, that's right.
01:40:35.640 --> 01:40:36.620
Phil: Okay, well, since...
01:40:36.680 --> 01:40:41.420
Tom: So I think that was a rhetorical misstep on his part.
01:40:41.520 --> 01:40:48.260
Phil: I think since we've already roamed this far off topic, we can close the official Game Under Podcast.
01:40:48.820 --> 01:40:51.640
Phil: I've been your co-host, and my name is Phil Fogg.
01:40:51.760 --> 01:40:52.700
Phil: And his name is...
01:40:53.260 --> 01:40:54.100
Tom: I am Tom Towers.
01:40:54.120 --> 01:40:55.820
Phil: Goodbye, Copy That Floppy.
01:40:56.220 --> 01:40:57.760
Tom: This would be how it works.
01:40:58.080 --> 01:41:02.380
Tom: So it's kind of like Final Fantasy VIII or Legion of the Groon.
01:41:02.800 --> 01:41:04.180
Tom: Yes, well, I was going to say...
01:41:05.120 --> 01:41:06.100
Tom: Legion of the Groon.
01:41:06.140 --> 01:41:08.020
Tom: Both on PC and PC.
01:41:08.260 --> 01:41:11.200
Tom: You're effectively a modern doctor.
01:41:13.420 --> 01:41:14.200
Tom: And also...
01:41:14.960 --> 01:41:16.720
Phil: Uh, yes, you're quite right, I'm sorry.
01:41:18.500 --> 01:41:20.580
Tom: Repetition and lack of ideas.
01:41:21.200 --> 01:41:22.320
Tom: That's a rare glitch.
01:41:22.420 --> 01:41:24.080
Tom: I've probably had it a couple of times.
01:41:24.320 --> 01:41:26.420
Tom: Repetition and lack of ideas.
01:41:26.700 --> 01:41:27.220
Phil: I'm sorry.
01:41:28.800 --> 01:41:32.700
Tom: I think that's also a question of literacy, so to speak.
01:41:38.440 --> 01:41:41.060
Phil: And then continue with some off-topic stuff.
01:41:41.080 --> 01:41:44.460
Phil: Though you promised me that this is going to be relevant to video games.
01:41:44.480 --> 01:41:46.760
Phil: So do we want to get into Beverly D'Angelo's book?
01:41:48.380 --> 01:41:49.520
Tom: Yes, well, we do.
01:41:49.680 --> 01:41:53.200
Tom: It is very relevant to video games because one of the...
01:41:53.220 --> 01:41:55.100
Phil: And we should say it's not Beverly D'Angelo.
01:41:55.120 --> 01:42:00.500
Phil: Beverly D'Angelo, I thought when I wrote that was...
01:42:01.500 --> 01:42:07.320
Phil: I was thinking of Beverly Crusher, Wesley Crusher's mom, the doctor off Star Trek, The Next Generation.
01:42:08.780 --> 01:42:10.380
Phil: Are you familiar with this?
01:42:11.020 --> 01:42:11.240
Tom: No.
01:42:13.400 --> 01:42:16.100
Phil: Everyone else listening to this will be because they're all enormous geeks.
01:42:16.840 --> 01:42:25.160
Phil: But Beverly D'Angelo is actually the actress that played Chevy Chase's wife in the National Lampoon holiday movies.
01:42:27.000 --> 01:42:27.700
Phil: It's important to know.
01:42:27.720 --> 01:42:28.360
Tom: I've heard of her.
01:42:28.500 --> 01:42:29.560
Phil: Yeah, Beverly D'Angelo.
01:42:29.580 --> 01:42:33.480
Phil: So, the Pamela D'Angelo, is that who wrote Right Fragility?
01:42:33.580 --> 01:42:35.840
Tom: I think it's Right Fragility.
01:42:36.200 --> 01:42:37.760
Tom: I think it's Robin D'Angelo.
01:42:37.780 --> 01:42:38.420
Phil: Robin, okay.
01:42:39.200 --> 01:42:39.560
Tom: Yes.
01:42:40.360 --> 01:42:51.760
Tom: Yeah, well, due to video games being easily the most bourgeois art medium outside of art collection.
01:42:52.440 --> 01:42:53.780
Phil: Let me just say something about that.
01:42:54.100 --> 01:42:55.220
Phil: Yep.
01:42:55.240 --> 01:42:58.740
Phil: I buy The Weekend Australian.
01:42:59.060 --> 01:43:00.940
Phil: And people around me go, why do you do it?
01:43:00.960 --> 01:43:07.560
Phil: Because every time you say, I want to read it, and then you buy it, and then you just, you know, complain about it the whole time.
01:43:08.080 --> 01:43:09.700
Phil: Which I guess is why I do it.
01:43:11.220 --> 01:43:16.380
Phil: But you go into the arts section, or the pop culture section, would be the better way of saying it.
01:43:17.040 --> 01:43:18.880
Phil: There's no mention of video games in there at all.
01:43:18.900 --> 01:43:22.220
Phil: They'll talk about CDs that are coming out, or whatever they are.
01:43:22.400 --> 01:43:24.040
Phil: They'll talk about albums that are coming out.
01:43:24.060 --> 01:43:24.940
Phil: They'll talk about movies.
01:43:24.960 --> 01:43:26.300
Phil: They'll talk about books.
01:43:26.320 --> 01:43:27.320
Phil: They'll talk about theater.
01:43:27.340 --> 01:43:28.640
Phil: They'll talk about TV shows.
01:43:28.660 --> 01:43:30.020
Phil: They'll talk about what's on Netflix.
01:43:30.480 --> 01:43:35.220
Phil: There's not a single thing in the whole 40 pages about what's happening in video games.
01:43:35.780 --> 01:43:42.000
Tom: See, now this is where your answer to my question about the persona of American presidents would apply.
01:43:44.080 --> 01:43:44.540
Phil: How so?
01:43:45.180 --> 01:43:48.520
Tom: I think that only old people buy newspapers today.
01:43:49.200 --> 01:43:50.440
Tom: Or they're meant to anyway.
01:43:52.760 --> 01:43:53.420
Phil: But isn't it...
01:43:55.100 --> 01:43:55.380
Tom: Isn't...
01:43:55.880 --> 01:44:06.580
Phil: I mean, I was researching for today's show, and I was encouraged to find that one of the commercial networks here in Australia, Nine News, actually had a video game coverage.
01:44:08.060 --> 01:44:12.340
Phil: Not to the stupid extent that the enthusiast press has, and that's another topic.
01:44:13.000 --> 01:44:15.280
Phil: But they just had regular video game coverage.
01:44:15.300 --> 01:44:18.760
Phil: Hey, this is what happened at Nintendo Direct, or this is what's happening with PlayStation VR.
01:44:19.660 --> 01:44:20.600
Phil: And that was good.
01:44:20.620 --> 01:44:24.760
Phil: Obviously, there's someone there who's like, hey, this is news that's relevant to our audience.
01:44:26.080 --> 01:44:30.600
Phil: But I guess it underscores your point that the only people buying newspapers are old.
01:44:30.940 --> 01:44:46.200
Phil: But I think if you're going to be doing, if you've got a magazine that covers popular culture and you're not covering video games, that is some sort of snob, elitism or denial or ignorance on a level that I can't even comprehend.
01:44:46.220 --> 01:44:49.940
Tom: Well, that would describe the Australian quite well.
01:44:50.100 --> 01:44:50.420
Phil: Yeah.
01:44:52.640 --> 01:44:53.240
Phil: That's true.
01:44:53.400 --> 01:44:53.960
Phil: That's true.
01:44:54.440 --> 01:44:59.260
Phil: OK, so you're saying that games are the most bourgeois medium.
01:44:59.740 --> 01:45:06.640
Phil: So for our English as a second language listeners, bourgeois is basically like the old word for yuppie, isn't it?
01:45:07.820 --> 01:45:09.280
Tom: In a sense, yes.
01:45:09.520 --> 01:45:10.840
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
01:45:11.180 --> 01:45:32.860
Tom: But with more economic connotations, which I think is relevant to the point here, because that would be why it is the most bourgeois medium outside of art collection, due to it requiring the greatest time and money commitment compared to the other mediums.
01:45:32.880 --> 01:45:49.200
Phil: And the bourgeoisie in French history are the class that is below the elites, but they've got enough money to muck around and believe they should be joining the country clubs and taking on art because it's what rich people do, it's what the elites do.
01:45:49.220 --> 01:45:49.500
Tom: Exactly.
01:45:50.140 --> 01:46:00.660
Phil: Yeah, so they're kind of, not upper middle Bogan, but typical elites, like people who have got a...
01:46:00.800 --> 01:46:06.500
Tom: Or rather they're completely unelite, but believe they're on the cusp of becoming an elite.
01:46:06.620 --> 01:46:07.240
Phil: Exactly right.
01:46:07.260 --> 01:46:10.000
Tom: And that they are already interacting with the elites.
01:46:10.020 --> 01:46:15.380
Phil: And it's a contagion that is on all political spectrums, both left and right.
01:46:16.180 --> 01:46:25.300
Phil: Though I'd say probably more on the left these days because a university degree and education is a part of the whole bourgeois thing.
01:46:25.620 --> 01:46:29.580
Phil: And if you go to uni, you typically end up to be on the left side of the spectrum.
01:46:30.660 --> 01:46:32.040
Tom: I would certainly question that.
01:46:32.240 --> 01:46:33.180
Phil: Okay, that's fine.
01:46:34.080 --> 01:46:36.260
Tom: It depends entirely on what you mean by left though.
01:46:36.480 --> 01:46:40.860
Tom: I think what you mean here is liberal rather than left.
01:46:41.240 --> 01:46:41.940
Tom: Both in...
01:46:42.260 --> 01:46:49.140
Tom: And I would argue in the proper sense of the term, which encompasses both conservative liberalism and progressive liberalism.
01:46:49.540 --> 01:46:50.240
Phil: I agree with that.
01:46:50.360 --> 01:46:50.860
Phil: Good point.
01:46:52.220 --> 01:47:20.260
Tom: Yes, but anyway, this is relevant to games because due to the bourgeois nature of games, you saw the avant-garde academic discussion on aesthetics reach mainstream enthusiast discussion for the first time in games as opposed to in cinema or literature or whatever else.
01:47:20.280 --> 01:47:42.500
Tom: So while you obviously would have had and did have a discussion on the cutting edge feminist theories or whatever else in those other mediums, you did not come across those things among the average discussion to which everyone was welcome.
01:47:42.520 --> 01:48:03.460
Tom: So if you had people who were interested in those things outside of the medium, then they would absolutely discuss those things in the context of the medium, but you would not have those discussions occurring by people who were predominantly interested in the medium rather than those things in and of themselves.
01:48:03.480 --> 01:48:42.120
Tom: So way back in the early 2000s on GameSpot, you had things like objectification and the male gaze and representation and all of those things being discussed, not among feminist games websites or among game academics which didn't really exist then, which may also have contributed to this, but among the discussion on just random websites about games, for example, GameSpot.
01:48:43.080 --> 01:48:50.800
Tom: Not by the editorial teams there because they're obviously going to be way behind the times, but by the users of the website.
01:48:51.360 --> 01:49:01.180
Tom: Now that that has spread from games to other mediums, you've seen a pretty hysterical reaction to these sorts of things.
01:49:01.260 --> 01:49:14.720
Tom: But it is fascinating that the reaction, the most extreme version of the reaction to it, also began in the gaming communities before other communities as well.
01:49:14.780 --> 01:49:28.200
Phil: If I could discuss that, though, I will describe myself in that period in the early 2000s as being, and this may have even been an expression that was coined in video game community discussion, as a white knight.
01:49:29.580 --> 01:49:32.000
Phil: You know, and you're familiar with that term.
01:49:32.360 --> 01:49:33.300
Tom: Yes, I am.
01:49:33.540 --> 01:49:37.080
Phil: So from the time, for people who aren't, a white knight was someone who galloped in.
01:49:37.920 --> 01:49:38.840
Tom: Protected the women.
01:49:39.160 --> 01:49:44.400
Phil: Protected all of the people that needed protecting and did massive amounts of virtue signaling.
01:49:45.260 --> 01:50:02.600
Phil: But I'm going to defend myself in this instance, and that is because up until far beyond the early 2000s, any depiction of homosexuality, African Americans and women in games was reprehensibly stupid.
01:50:02.800 --> 01:50:11.080
Phil: You just have to think about the 1990 game, and this is just one example of a thousand, where you had a character called Afro Thunder.
01:50:11.460 --> 01:50:18.420
Phil: He was a black man, and he spoke in Jive and had this ridiculous Afro in the game Ready to Rumble.
01:50:19.860 --> 01:50:22.560
Phil: And you can see this in games like Vigilante 8.
01:50:22.860 --> 01:50:35.560
Phil: You can see it in all sorts of games, that if there was going to be a black person in a game, he was either a criminal, a prisoner, or had a ridiculous Afro, and was a criminal.
01:50:36.940 --> 01:50:41.620
Phil: Depictions of women, just look at Lara Croft, or Dead or Alive.
01:50:41.800 --> 01:50:47.440
Phil: You had ads on network television, oh, she kicks high.
01:50:47.480 --> 01:50:50.660
Phil: Everyone had massive boobs, it was scantily clad.
01:50:50.700 --> 01:50:53.220
Phil: If a woman was in a game, that's what was going on.
01:50:53.780 --> 01:50:54.880
Phil: Oh, you might have a doctor in a game.
01:50:54.900 --> 01:50:56.460
Tom: It was the good old days, is what you're saying.
01:50:56.480 --> 01:50:59.400
Phil: You might have a doctor in a game, but she'd be dressed in a sexy nurse outfit.
01:50:59.720 --> 01:51:00.320
Tom: Yeah.
01:51:00.380 --> 01:51:12.480
Phil: And in terms of homosexuals, if you look at games like God Hand, you'd have these clumsy, ham-fisted interpretations coming out of Japan, which was the only people that would put gay people in games.
01:51:13.040 --> 01:51:19.620
Phil: And they're in possibly camp, you know, wearing hot pants and leather chaps and all of this.
01:51:20.420 --> 01:51:30.500
Phil: So, like, I'm going to defend myself for being a white knight and virtue signaling in those days, because it was, you know, it had to be said.
01:51:30.560 --> 01:51:34.500
Phil: The video games were treating those classes and many more.
01:51:34.840 --> 01:51:36.160
Phil: Don't even talk about the disabled.
01:51:36.180 --> 01:51:37.140
Phil: They weren't in the games.
01:51:37.640 --> 01:51:38.500
Phil: And they're still not.
01:51:38.800 --> 01:51:39.960
Tom: Except in Killer 7.
01:51:42.300 --> 01:51:45.480
Phil: So, do you see where I'm saying, like...
01:51:45.680 --> 01:51:48.220
Tom: I'm not criticizing any of these positions.
01:51:48.520 --> 01:51:48.860
Phil: Yeah.
01:51:49.720 --> 01:51:59.760
Phil: Now, from today's perspective, now that I'm an old man, I've lived another 20 years and, you know, you're seeing more balance and stuff, it's kind of like, yeah, you know what?
01:52:00.060 --> 01:52:01.360
Phil: People can speak up for themselves.
01:52:01.380 --> 01:52:07.360
Phil: They don't need me to ride in on a horse to tell them this, you know, to speak up for them.
01:52:10.220 --> 01:52:16.220
Phil: But this is still pervasive in our culture, this white knight mentality and behavior.
01:52:17.920 --> 01:52:23.120
Tom: Which I think for the same reasons that you have used are equally justifiable.
01:52:23.660 --> 01:52:51.940
Tom: Because while as far as the average person is concerned, no one really has a problem with any of those things, the reactionary backlash to it is of a much more extreme degree than it was at the beginning of this and has been deliberately mobilized rhetorically and also directly by extremely reactionary elements.
01:52:52.720 --> 01:53:03.780
Tom: So I think for your own defense of yourself, you can make that same defense for people who would be doing the same thing you were doing then to people doing that today.
01:53:06.200 --> 01:53:11.920
Phil: Yeah, and another thing too from back then just to incriminate myself too.
01:53:12.400 --> 01:53:25.120
Phil: It was things like I was doing quite well financially and it's like, oh, well, I wouldn't shop at Walmart because they're exploiting poor people.
01:53:25.880 --> 01:53:29.220
Phil: And if you're dumb enough to shop at Walmart, then you just don't know better.
01:53:29.520 --> 01:53:35.580
Phil: It's like, well, first of all, like Walmart is employing tons of people that need jobs.
01:53:36.020 --> 01:53:46.020
Phil: And number two, they're providing great value, you know, through their whatever machinations they're doing, they're providing products at a lower price than anyone else.
01:53:46.040 --> 01:53:54.960
Phil: But back then, it's that whole national public radio, oh, these people don't know for themselves, you know, what's best for them.
01:53:54.960 --> 01:53:57.420
Phil: But we're here to tell them that they shouldn't shop at Walmart.
01:53:57.720 --> 01:54:04.820
Phil: It's like, I'm not here to tell someone on minimum wage that they shouldn't be shopping at the place where they can get the most value for their money, you know.
01:54:05.520 --> 01:54:08.300
Phil: And the same thing happened with, you know, voting.
01:54:08.540 --> 01:54:13.240
Phil: Oh, you know, these poor people don't know, they're voting against their own interests.
01:54:13.260 --> 01:54:15.280
Phil: They should be voting this way or that way.
01:54:15.940 --> 01:54:19.780
Phil: And I look back at that now and just go, what an idiot I was.
01:54:21.000 --> 01:54:26.060
Phil: And not because I'm politically skewed one way or the other, but ultimately people make their own decisions.
01:54:26.500 --> 01:54:38.240
Phil: And just because I think I'm better educated or better informed doesn't mean that I can arrive on the scene and tell them, well, you should be shopping at Target as opposed to Walmart.
01:54:39.020 --> 01:54:40.380
Phil: You know, it's just ridiculous.
01:54:40.400 --> 01:55:11.000
Tom: The voting, people not voting in their own interest is, I think, particularly in the context of America, where most people making that argument would be saying that about very well-off working class people who may not be so well-off now and have certainly lost a huge amount of their status, but generally would be owning some amount of property and being in a reasonably good position.
01:55:11.120 --> 01:55:35.580
Tom: And on top of that, if you do, in fact, believe that they are racist and one of their reasons for voting for a party that you believe is racist and is acting not in their direct economic interests, why would their racism not necessarily be more in their interest than their economic position?
01:55:36.300 --> 01:55:37.020
Phil: Yeah, that's right.
01:55:37.960 --> 01:55:41.100
Phil: And ultimately people are smart enough to make their own decisions, I feel.
01:55:41.560 --> 01:55:47.300
Phil: And it's arrogant to intercept or intercede on behalf of people.
01:55:47.760 --> 01:55:48.900
Phil: It's really arrogant.
01:55:48.900 --> 01:55:51.860
Phil: And this sort of thing is more and more prevalent.
01:55:52.700 --> 01:55:53.880
Phil: Maybe it's not more prevalent.
01:55:53.900 --> 01:55:59.340
Phil: Maybe it's just got a bigger voice because of social media and the fractionalisation of media.
01:56:01.860 --> 01:56:09.240
Tom: I don't know if it's more prevalent or not, but it is certainly amplified by the sensationalist nature of social media.
01:56:09.260 --> 01:56:12.780
Tom: Because again, if you look at the more...
01:56:13.320 --> 01:56:22.620
Tom: Social media gets blamed for this because it is supposedly the democratisation of public discourse when it is in fact the complete opposite of that.
01:56:22.660 --> 01:56:28.100
Tom: It is a fundamentally elitist presentation of public discourse.
01:56:28.900 --> 01:56:42.140
Tom: You compare that to something that actually is a democratically established website or a democratic appropriation of a corporate established website, for example, GameSpot.
01:56:42.340 --> 01:56:58.020
Tom: You had those discussions simultaneously with a million other discussions because the goal of the GameSpot forums was not to make money on advertiser revenue and data accumulation to sell to advertisers.
01:56:58.500 --> 01:57:37.560
Tom: If you are basing your business model on that, then you are inherently going to promote the most sensationalist and argumentative discourse that, contrary to popular belief, rather than resulting in thought, rather than being designed through thought bubbles, is designed between presenting two argumentative positions in the most ridiculous light, because that is what will annoy people and get the most engaged in, one, contributing similarly annoyed responses to it, and, two, being engaged constantly in a discussion back and forth.
01:57:37.700 --> 01:57:44.840
Phil: Yeah, and they knew that, but GameSpot's model back then was page views, because page views used to rule everything in advertising.
01:57:45.460 --> 01:57:52.060
Tom: And the target for their page views, and maybe that changed later on, but was obviously for the stuff they were publishing.
01:57:52.080 --> 01:57:54.660
Phil: Oh no, I think it was just for audience.
01:57:54.680 --> 01:57:58.240
Phil: Back then, back in the 2000s, it was all about audience size.
01:57:58.580 --> 01:58:05.240
Phil: And so forums were great for that, because you'd have people who were compulsively clicking on links, then they'd respond.
01:58:05.900 --> 01:58:13.280
Phil: So to respond, they had to click on a link and then create a page to edit, to put in their response, that counted as a page view.
01:58:15.000 --> 01:58:16.580
Phil: Then you'd post it, that's another page view.
01:58:16.600 --> 01:58:22.500
Phil: Then you'd go back into the thread, and you'd constantly be checking that thread to see if anyone responded to it.
01:58:23.320 --> 01:58:27.580
Phil: Forums were just incredible, and forums are dead today, unfortunately.
01:58:28.000 --> 01:58:35.680
Tom: That is correct, and also obviously the notability of your forum and community would also be a point of advertising.
01:58:36.360 --> 01:59:14.660
Tom: And I would argue, just to contradict what I said before, that not long or somewhat simultaneously, but I would say probably not long after that, once the GameSpot community grew massive, and it was already big when I was there, but it was mainly in the forum, when unions and blogs started to become a major part of the GameSpot website, you could see, and obviously this is not some grand business plan, but something that can easily, naturally happen by people participating in the community.
01:59:15.200 --> 02:00:00.040
Tom: Once that became the case, you also got a much more sensorial attitude from the moderators, and you had discussions playing out in a similar manner as they do on social media, which was one, great for further growing the importance and interest in the forums and the blogs, the very fact that there was censorship and there were arguments over what was acceptable to be on GameSpot and what wasn't acceptable to be on GameSpot became a huge part of the discourse of GameSpot itself, and one of the...
02:00:00.060 --> 02:00:04.260
Tom: What are the attractive things to the website where you could go and argue about these things?
02:00:04.640 --> 02:00:08.040
Phil: Oh, you know what, we've got to wrap this up here.
02:00:08.060 --> 02:00:13.280
Phil: I'll just say here now, we've just got to wrap this up in about, I've got to get out of here by seven.
02:00:14.300 --> 02:00:16.180
Phil: So, is that all right?
02:00:16.200 --> 02:00:19.260
Phil: So, I'll just do a clean break here.
02:00:21.300 --> 02:00:25.640
Phil: Look, I am completely earnest in what I'm about to say.
02:00:26.240 --> 02:00:39.180
Phil: In terms of a sociological study, I think all you need to know about sociology, you could observe on GameSpot from the time they started the forums till the time they blew up their forums.
02:00:40.260 --> 02:00:48.220
Phil: I think it was a fascinating community, and even anthropologically, it's something that you could go back and really study.
02:00:48.240 --> 02:00:59.880
Phil: I was thinking just the other day about how when GameSpot got rid of the unions, and I was like, wow, why, how, and like you were saying.
02:00:59.900 --> 02:01:17.700
Tom: You'll note that just as the feeling of security and safety has collapsed in the world, in the real world simultaneously with the loss of union power, so too did it happen at GameSpot.
02:01:18.200 --> 02:01:25.080
Phil: So these unions for people aren't connected, were basically you got to create your own mini board with your own community.
02:01:25.080 --> 02:01:30.740
Phil: So I was the director of, or the leader of the Candid Collectors Union.
02:01:31.220 --> 02:01:37.840
Phil: And in those places, like it'd be a community of anywhere from 20 to 100 people.
02:01:38.220 --> 02:01:44.480
Phil: You'd advertise, you'd get people in there, and it was your own little community board within GameSpot.
02:01:47.180 --> 02:01:48.680
Phil: And it was wonderful.
02:01:48.700 --> 02:01:50.700
Phil: It was a quote safe space.
02:01:51.380 --> 02:01:53.520
Phil: You know, it was like a cheers.
02:01:53.540 --> 02:01:55.380
Phil: You could go there, everyone knew your name.
02:01:56.600 --> 02:01:59.320
Phil: Everyone knew where you were coming from.
02:01:59.320 --> 02:02:00.880
Phil: Everyone knew who was ornery.
02:02:00.900 --> 02:02:03.200
Phil: Everyone knew who was capitulating.
02:02:03.260 --> 02:02:04.580
Phil: Everyone knew who was nice.
02:02:05.000 --> 02:02:13.180
Phil: And it was these thousands of communities that were developed that I'm assuming they got rid of because they decided, well, we can't moderate them.
02:02:16.420 --> 02:02:22.400
Phil: And after, you know, we can't handle these communities because of, you know, there could be terrorists in there.
02:02:22.420 --> 02:02:24.600
Phil: You know, I don't know why they got rid of them.
02:02:24.760 --> 02:02:30.540
Phil: Probably because they wanted to, they could see it draining away from their main forum, but I don't know why they cared because it was all still page views.
02:02:32.440 --> 02:02:33.920
Phil: But yeah, and then the blogs.
02:02:33.940 --> 02:02:43.520
Phil: And even when you were moderated, you could still go and ask the mods, go to the ask the mods forum and go, hey, you know, what happened here, what did I do?
02:02:44.080 --> 02:02:45.400
Phil: And you'd get great responses.
02:02:47.060 --> 02:02:48.640
Phil: And you know, I was in one.
02:02:48.660 --> 02:02:51.120
Tom: And you could use it as excellent advertising.
02:02:51.500 --> 02:02:53.220
Phil: Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
02:02:53.560 --> 02:03:03.580
Phil: And it was funny because it was still a community of, I'm assuming hundreds of thousands of people, but even in the biggest forums, it still felt like a small community where you knew everyone.
02:03:04.780 --> 02:03:06.040
Phil: Yeah, and I missed that.
02:03:06.340 --> 02:03:10.300
Phil: I think it was a great place and it blew up for various different reasons.
02:03:12.420 --> 02:03:19.680
Phil: Gershman Gate was part of it, but I think more than that, it was, they blew it up independently and separate of that.
02:03:21.000 --> 02:03:34.640
Phil: And maybe you've got some thoughts as to why they did that or not, but I mean, they ruined the community by taking away a lot of the tools and it wasn't just the loss of personalities from the site because the personalities on the site were kind of separate from the forum culture.
02:03:35.840 --> 02:03:38.760
Tom: I think there were two potentially contributing factors there.
02:03:38.900 --> 02:03:47.420
Tom: One is just a general sense of a generally incompetent management, judging by a lot of their other decisions at the time.
02:03:47.980 --> 02:04:22.260
Tom: And also the nature of corporate pressure on games journalism and websites then is the anarchic nature of the forums and the fact that a huge amount, perhaps a majority of site traffic was to user created content with which the publishers could not engage in trying to pressure the people writing about them to give them more positive feedback may also have been a contributing factor as well.
02:04:22.520 --> 02:04:23.620
Phil: Yeah, I think so.
02:04:23.640 --> 02:04:24.680
Phil: I think so.
02:04:24.700 --> 02:04:34.080
Phil: The same culture, the same management that developed around Gershman Gate also I think contributed to the fact that you've got what?
02:04:34.080 --> 02:04:47.080
Phil: You've got these thousands of communities that like a Square Enix Union, you know, that you have no control over and they can say whatever they want, they can post whatever they want and you guys aren't in control of it.
02:04:47.540 --> 02:04:49.380
Phil: How, you know, yeah.
02:04:49.800 --> 02:04:52.900
Tom: Because there was no equivalent to that at the time.
02:04:52.920 --> 02:04:55.220
Tom: This is before Reddit was a thing.
02:04:56.620 --> 02:05:05.500
Tom: And Reddit obviously has over the years to massively moderate itself for PR issues and potential legal problems.
02:05:06.120 --> 02:05:17.080
Tom: And while it was around at the same time as 4chan and so forth, 4chan, it was a mainstream thing as opposed to a niche thing.
02:05:17.620 --> 02:05:47.760
Tom: So that would absolutely have terrified a lot of publishers, that sort of freedom of expression because it was putting, if I was to, my career as a quote, games journalist, end quote, my most viewed thing that got onto Neogaf, the Neogaf Forum, couldn't compare to the stuff that I published on my blog in terms of both views and user engagement.
02:05:48.200 --> 02:05:56.400
Tom: So they were essentially giving random people the audience that their own journalists had for the most part.
02:05:56.460 --> 02:05:57.220
Phil: Oh, definitely.
02:05:57.300 --> 02:06:09.280
Phil: It was a massive platform and all you had to do was have a good reputation in the forums or have someone who knew you, that liked you and you just click on their user link and then you go over to their blog.
02:06:09.300 --> 02:06:12.700
Phil: And yeah, it had tremendous reach, tremendous reach.
02:06:13.620 --> 02:06:16.720
Phil: Even more reach than their podcast at the time, I feel.
02:06:18.140 --> 02:06:24.020
Phil: And yeah, it led to a thousand splintered communities when they started screwing it up.
02:06:24.040 --> 02:06:26.820
Phil: And boy, did they screw it up and I don't think they've ever recovered from it.
02:06:27.080 --> 02:06:28.600
Phil: I honestly don't, but.
02:06:28.640 --> 02:06:29.620
Tom: And they certainly have it.
02:06:29.640 --> 02:06:32.560
Phil: Yeah, yeah, which is really unfortunate.
02:06:33.180 --> 02:06:42.560
Phil: I remember we, I attempted a prank or a trolling type thing where we'd encourage members of the VG Press to go over there and just start posting like crazy in their community.
02:06:43.540 --> 02:06:50.460
Phil: But their main forum, the GGD as it used to be known, general gaming discussion, was like completely dead.
02:06:50.800 --> 02:06:54.900
Phil: It was like trolling someone who wasn't there.
02:06:56.600 --> 02:06:58.460
Phil: And it was ineffective, but.
02:06:59.680 --> 02:07:01.640
Phil: Okay, so we've got to wrap this up.
02:07:01.660 --> 02:07:02.700
Phil: So I do want to give you your platform.
02:07:02.720 --> 02:07:07.280
Tom: Well, we very quickly get to how this ties into Robin D'Angelo and white fragility.
02:07:07.400 --> 02:07:08.240
Phil: Her book, yep.
02:07:08.580 --> 02:07:18.240
Tom: Yes, well, so a lot of the feminist commentary and so forth that was percolating around then, I fundamentally disagreed with.
02:07:18.260 --> 02:07:21.440
Tom: And I still fundamentally disagree with today.
02:07:21.860 --> 02:07:26.040
Tom: But I disagree with them on the basis of their arguments.
02:07:26.140 --> 02:07:31.300
Tom: So one example of that is the idea that objectification is bad.
02:07:31.540 --> 02:07:51.020
Tom: Well, I have now read Freud, so I can confirm that objectification is actually a wonderful thing that should be the goal of everyone in that it is finding an object for which you can project all of, to which you can project all of your affections.
02:07:51.080 --> 02:07:53.620
Tom: And that can be sexual affection.
02:07:53.620 --> 02:08:11.280
Tom: And unless you begin with the beginning point that sex is somehow in and of itself dangerous and bad and shameful, I do not believe you can justify that objectification is bad in any way, in and of itself.
02:08:11.480 --> 02:08:16.160
Tom: So that's one example, which I fundamentally disagree with then, and I still fundamentally disagree with.
02:08:16.500 --> 02:08:26.140
Tom: Another is the concept of the male gaze, which was also slightly less clear cut than in other artistic mediums.
02:08:26.160 --> 02:08:34.040
Tom: But again, these things are all interesting to discuss in their content.
02:08:34.220 --> 02:08:45.620
Tom: So the male gaze, for instance, that's not interesting in the sense that you should be trying to eradicate the male gaze or encourage other gazes.
02:08:46.040 --> 02:08:51.180
Tom: I have no problems with people taking those positions, but it's not an interesting idea to me.
02:08:51.200 --> 02:09:02.320
Tom: That is interesting, because if we are to take the idea of the male gaze seriously, then we surely believe that this is telling us something about men.
02:09:03.280 --> 02:09:16.120
Tom: So in this case, most people's interpretation of it would be that one, in the context of video games, there are two things which men very much valorise.
02:09:17.040 --> 02:09:22.580
Tom: One would be women and their sexuality, and the other would be violence.
02:09:22.920 --> 02:09:39.240
Tom: Now, we can then discuss whether those two things are morally good or not, but that is a separate discussion that you have to then consider on a case by case basis of the actual game.
02:09:39.560 --> 02:09:47.800
Tom: And if you use it as a blunt force analysis of something, you are erasing the content of the artwork you were looking at.
02:09:48.100 --> 02:09:50.940
Tom: And in other mediums, this can have hilarious effects.
02:09:51.200 --> 02:10:02.060
Tom: For instance, if you're using the male gaze in art analysis, what you're doing is erasing the contribution of women to a lot of visual art.
02:10:02.200 --> 02:10:15.920
Tom: So if you take a painting and you say, look at this pornographic work of this nude woman, isn't this disgusting how this male painter has exploited this woman to produce his pornography?
02:10:16.220 --> 02:10:21.100
Tom: Well, why do we assume that that is the view of the woman who is modelling for him?
02:10:21.280 --> 02:10:35.080
Tom: We're not even asking what her view on it was, and we don't even think that the fact that she is the model in what is considered a great work of art is an important part of the artwork.
02:10:35.320 --> 02:10:53.020
Tom: So we're one, totally ignoring what her views might be, and two, we're saying that in the creation of an artwork, which is involving the male painter and a female model, only the male painter's contribution to the artwork is valid and relevant.
02:10:54.360 --> 02:11:11.300
Phil: Yeah, I mean, so what I was talking about earlier is that the presumption that you're identifying people as victims when they may not be victims, and that's that arrogance that I was talking about earlier where, well, you don't know what's best for you.
02:11:12.140 --> 02:11:17.960
Phil: Obviously, if you're doing this sort of thing, you've been tricked into it or you're too dumb or I know better for you.
02:11:18.500 --> 02:11:19.800
Phil: So, yeah.
02:11:20.220 --> 02:11:22.580
Tom: Yep, so we're about to get to the white fragility part.
02:11:22.600 --> 02:11:31.200
Tom: So that was my reason for opposing those aesthetic analysis then, and those remain my position today.
02:11:31.880 --> 02:11:40.300
Tom: It very quickly became apparent to me, though, that that wasn't the reason that most people opposed those sorts of views.
02:11:40.480 --> 02:11:55.520
Tom: Now, I couldn't come up with any other explanation for their opposition because they were totally incapable of articulating why they were in opposition to those analyses of games.
02:11:56.280 --> 02:12:15.900
Tom: But I came to that conclusion because for the same reason that I, for instance, on a simple level, was opposed to people saying they wanted more female video game characters, I'm opposed to that view just because to me that is totally alien.
02:12:15.940 --> 02:12:23.220
Tom: I personally, this doesn't apply to what anyone else should want, so when I say I'm opposed to that view, I just mean I don't share that view.
02:12:23.240 --> 02:12:24.260
Tom: I don't mean I'm opposed to it.
02:12:24.640 --> 02:12:29.560
Tom: Personally, I do not relate more to male or female characters in any form of art.
02:12:30.280 --> 02:12:43.060
Tom: And I personally find that if I did, I would be dehumanizing myself and taking a sexist view of the world if I were to do that.
02:12:44.220 --> 02:12:56.720
Tom: Now, I can perfectly understand that if someone wants male or female characters, by my own position, that's irrelevant because if the character is good and they're male or female, it will be equally good to me, obviously.
02:12:57.920 --> 02:13:03.120
Tom: I have this same totally agnostic view to all content in art.
02:13:03.340 --> 02:13:20.040
Tom: So while I was pointing out the problems with those sorts of views, I was also defending games like Rape Play and a lot of other Japanese games that featured sexual violence and things like that.
02:13:20.300 --> 02:13:39.200
Tom: And all of these people who would be agreeing with me when it came to the context of the potentially sensorial direction in which these feminist positions could go on the basis of free speech, all of a sudden, no, these things should be banned.
02:13:39.880 --> 02:13:50.580
Tom: They're totally disgusting and unacceptable and you just cannot possibly conceive of a thing like that being released in the market in the West.
02:13:50.620 --> 02:13:53.800
Tom: It's totally unacceptable and disgusting.
02:13:54.680 --> 02:14:09.300
Tom: So again, I very quickly learned that these people did not really have much of an interest in free speech at all, nor do they have any justification in their logic for opposing a lot of the feminist critiques.
02:14:10.580 --> 02:14:25.220
Tom: So having now read a lot of reactionary writing as well as liberal writing, I find something like White Fragility is actually in a sense a very revelatory book.
02:14:25.760 --> 02:14:44.500
Tom: It is one, fundamentally white supremacist book, and two, a lot of what she interprets as latent racism and the easiness with which offending white people, she can offend white people, judging how she goes around bullying people, judging by her descriptions of her actions.
02:14:44.800 --> 02:14:56.960
Tom: I think that her bullying may have as much to do with the way she upsets people as with the way in which she highlights racist stuff.
02:14:57.480 --> 02:15:16.120
Tom: But I do think that particularly with the way that reactionary politics has been able to mobilize a lot of people in gaming, the concept of white fragility may actually be applicable to a lot of people on GameSpot that I was encountering.
02:15:16.300 --> 02:15:42.000
Tom: Not in the sense because a lot of this stuff was not to do with race, that came a bit later, but in the sense that they were being confronted with the fact, as you were saying, that a lot of the depictions of women in games were inherently sexist and a lot of the depictions of gay people in games whenever they rarely appeared were fundamentally homophobic.
02:15:42.340 --> 02:15:53.700
Tom: And the real problem that they had, not that they could articulate it, was that this being pointed out to them made them uncomfortable because they enjoyed those things.
02:15:54.160 --> 02:16:09.440
Tom: And having that pointed out, confronted with the fact that they enjoyed them and maybe they were enjoying them because they were homophobic and they were enjoying a bullying sort of humour.
02:16:10.180 --> 02:16:10.960
Phil: Yeah, no doubt.
02:16:13.000 --> 02:16:16.960
Tom: So I told you I would point out how it absolutely related to games.
02:16:16.980 --> 02:16:18.080
Phil: Oh, definitely.
02:16:18.100 --> 02:16:19.680
Phil: It was a good discussion.
02:16:19.860 --> 02:16:30.140
Phil: And yeah, I think that a lot of these things are absolutely appalling in terms of their racism, all in the name of anti-racism.
02:16:30.160 --> 02:16:34.580
Phil: It's just, to me, it's incredible how people don't see the transparency there.
02:16:35.140 --> 02:17:18.520
Tom: And the stupidest thing about the book, which as a supposed wonderful solution to what is supposed to be the problem with fighting systemic racism today, being that you have to have intentionality to racism, I would suggest that Robin DiAngelo goes back and reads quotes by the owners of slaves and by the politicians against desegregation and look for quotes where they're saying, yes, I'm a racist because she will find it very difficult to find quotes like that.
02:17:18.880 --> 02:17:23.780
Tom: And generally speaking, all of these people will in fact not be racist.
02:17:23.920 --> 02:17:25.220
Tom: They will not be bigoted.
02:17:25.520 --> 02:17:30.420
Tom: And the reason that they own slaves will be because they love black people.
02:17:30.920 --> 02:17:39.560
Tom: And both races deserve the opportunity to live in harmony in their own groups to their mutual benefit.
02:17:43.300 --> 02:17:45.760
Phil: Okay, so is that pretty much it?
02:17:46.540 --> 02:17:47.320
Tom: Yes, that was it.
02:17:47.540 --> 02:17:48.000
Phil: Okay.
02:17:48.500 --> 02:17:57.240
Tom: And I think that our final rant cements my political correctness or lack thereof.
02:17:57.840 --> 02:17:58.840
Tom: Or both simultaneously.
02:17:58.860 --> 02:18:00.880
Phil: I think it cements you getting kicked off Twitter.
02:18:03.120 --> 02:18:30.600
Tom: Well, the amazing thing is, and the funniest thing about my experience at Gamespot is if I were as immature as I was on Gamespot, and I don't really think I'm in any way more mature than I was on Gamespot, but if I was less of an ethical person, I learnt every single technique to become a media superstar on the internet today in the sphere of politics.
02:18:30.940 --> 02:18:50.440
Tom: I could be out there exposing the cultural Marxists or the latent unconscious biases and making an absolute fortune on social media using techniques I learnt writing a satirical blog on Gamespot.
02:18:51.200 --> 02:18:54.520
Phil: I would hope so, but I don't think your microphone would have...
02:18:55.420 --> 02:19:00.260
Phil: I don't think your message would get out there, honestly.
02:19:00.400 --> 02:19:02.040
Phil: I don't think you'd be able to get it out there.
02:19:02.800 --> 02:19:03.980
Tom: But it's not my message.
02:19:04.000 --> 02:19:05.280
Tom: I wouldn't be presenting my message.
02:19:05.300 --> 02:19:06.700
Phil: Oh no, I know that.
02:19:06.720 --> 02:19:07.480
Tom: That's the difference.
Tom: Because, see, the thing...
Tom: I, unlike many other blogs on Gamespot, I had to actually do a lot of grassroots spam-style advertising to build an audience.
Tom: The people who had my techniques of the other forms of advertising where you are presenting yourself as a martyr all the time, as long as you have the basic message there and you have the level of polish and articulation, I think I would have the skills to pull it off.
Phil: Okay, well that's the end of the podcast or the after show of the podcast.
Phil: Thank you very much for listening.
Phil: And with that, I'm going to bid you adieu.
Phil: Adieu.