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Intro
0:00:11 Muck Bang Style
First Impressions - Gran Turismo 7 Tom Towers
0:02:05 Gran Turismo 7
0:02:17 Asphalt Legends 9, a brief mention.
0:04:30 Back to Gran Turismo 7
Final Impressions - A short Hike -Both Hosts
0:33:04 A Short Hike
Featurette Hacking the SNES - Phil Fogg
0:42:04 Hakchi and Mini Consoles, the dark art of making legitimate back-up copies available on the NES and SNES mini.
0:51:40 Thermal Paste Wizardry
Final Impressions - Metamorphosis - Both Hosts
0:53:01 Metamorphosis, a Kafka inspired game by Ovid
1:02:15 The Franz Kafka Videogame
1:09:08 Psychonauts 2 - a brief mention.
Transcript
Tom: Hello, and welcome to Episode of the Muck Under Podcast, Australia's longest running and greatest Muckbang Podcast.
Tom: Today, I will be eating salmon pasta, a salad.
Tom: And a mountain wrap with butter.
Tom: I'm your host, Tom Towers, and I'm joined by my co-host, Phil Fogg, who is, I believe, on a diet at the moment, unfortunately.
Phil: I wish I wasn't joining you.
Phil: I'm not really into hearing food sounds, as much as people are not into hearing me open cans and other things while we're podcasting.
Phil: What did you call us?
Phil: A muck under?
Tom: Muck under.
Phil: Is that some internet thing for eating food on the internet?
Phil: Mukbang?
Tom: Mukbang is YouTube channels where people eat food.
Phil: Mukbang.
Tom: Yeah, mukbang.
Phil: And is it Cambodian or Vietnamese?
Tom: Neither of those.
Tom: Korean.
Phil: Oh, really?
Tom: Yes.
Phil: And what's a Korean for?
Phil: Recording a podcast while eating?
Tom: I think so.
Phil: Well, thanks everyone for joining us.
Phil: It's just been one week since the last episode, so we are surprised, but we've got more to talk about.
Phil: We're going to be going over Tom's impressions of Gran Turismo Final Fantasy impressions as well as news about Short Hike and our joint review of that.
Phil: And I'll be talking about adventures in archiving your collection legally using Hack Chi, and probably some more too.
Phil: I think we'll have plenty of time today.
Phil: Did you want to get straight into, now that you've buck-muck-banged, are you want to get right into Gran Turismo ?
Phil: You kind of surprised me at the end of the last episode by saying that you had impressions of it.
Phil: I think you said it was both the best racing game ever made and the worst simultaneously.
Tom: Well, I said it was revolutionary and also a ship fest, I believe.
Phil: Oh, speaking of, before I forget, Asphalt Legends, I've been playing that on Switch as well, so that might come up while we're talking about Gran Turismo
Tom: It runs horrendously.
Phil: Does it run horrendously?
Tom: Yes, it does.
Phil: I think the only horrendous thing about it is the endless attempts to upsell and the microtransactions.
Phil: Also, I get the sense that they're really rubber-banding me because I'm a new user and they're trying to make me feel like I'm really good at the game, so I invest money in the game.
Tom: I would agree with both those comments, but the frame rate is frames per second to begin with and there are numerous moments of slowdown.
Phil: I've got to say, actually, I was playing it last night and there were times where I could not steer, like I'd go to go left and it wouldn't let me go left, like it would let me accelerate but it wouldn't let me go left for like what seemed like two seconds, but obviously when you're driving at a high speed, you know, it probably wasn't that long, but it was at least noticeable where I was like, what's going on?
Phil: Is my controller broken or?
Tom: Was that you just stuttering, do you think?
Phil: I think so.
Phil: It was pretty intensive.
Phil: It was like the San Francisco stunt level.
Phil: So there was a lot of stuff going on and cop cars toppling all over each other and ramps and all sorts of things.
Tom: So, so it's noticeable to you.
Phil: Yes, that must be pretty bad.
Phil: That's exactly right.
Phil: I otherwise enjoyed it.
Phil: It was a pretty short download.
Phil: But again, it's the same thing I don't like about what's that racing game from Microsoft Forza Horizon?
Tom: Yep.
Phil: I just, I just hate having a map that's filled with stuff that you don't know if you have to pay for it or not, or cars that you don't know if you're going to have to pay for it or not, you know?
Phil: I just like to have a pure, and I know this is ridiculous, but I'd like to have a purer experience where if I want to go and buy a car, I can go buy a car.
Phil: I don't want, I don't want to be tricked into it sort of thing.
Phil: And I, I understand this probably gets us straight into Gran Turismo
Phil: You said it was a shit show.
Phil: Is it, is that to do with the microtransactions or is it something worse?
Tom: It's both in terms of the in-game economy and the microtransactions.
Tom: Essentially the rate at which you get credits is several times slower than previous Gran Turismo games, which were already obviously extremely grindy.
Tom: An example of this is the McLaren Fis million credits in the game.
Tom: To get the McLaren Fwould require probably around to hours of grinding for that individual car or you could spend, I think it's about $on credits instead.
Tom: So even the microtransactions for credits are just completely absurd in what their pricing is.
Tom: So first of all, having microtransactions in a Gran Turismo game implemented at such a ridiculous level is absurd or any game, sorry.
Tom: But another annoying thing is that goes totally against what Gran Turismo games have previously been like, and this one is supposed to be a return to a traditional Gran Turismo style career mode, is when you are trying to buy a certain car, it may only be available to purchase for a limited time, and you have to get it then, or you can't get it.
Tom: And things like that, and the used car dealership, which there were similarities to in the past, will rotate cars in and out, which is fine some of the time, but if for the expensive cars and special cars that people might want to be purchasing, that wasn't really the case in the past, and now they're doing a similar thing there.
Tom: So it is much more in the vein of how Forza Horizon works, and it really does not fit the style of Gran Turismo at all, and with the way the economy is set up and the microtransactions, it's also obviously extremely exploitative on a completely different level to the Forza Games, which have a similar sort of structure for a lot of the car purchases.
Phil: So, Gran Turismo Sport, that was the one that came, the last one, of course, and that's where they introduced all of these elements that was released in and really, I mean, there was people who are very dedicated to Gran Turismo Sport, I mean, and apparently they just kept releasing content for it ridiculously.
Phil: Like, we're really generous with the content, but I guess that they were also introducing these microtransactions.
Phil: So, when you were saying that you were under the impression that Gran Turismo was going to be a return to a traditional model, you probably weren't thinking they were going to eschew all of those microtransactions.
Tom: No, but you would not have expected these structural things, like rotating cars in and out, for example.
Phil: Right, yeah, I heard about that, that they have basically, what do you call it, chests or whatever, lotteries or blind packs where you can get the right to buy a certain type of game, but then that's on a timer as well.
Phil: You would have to get that four million credits together over the next days if you wanted to cash in or redeem that opportunity, which is really ridiculous.
Phil: And then for cars to cost, I've heard up to $you said $for the McLaren.
Phil: That's ridiculous for a McLaren anyway, but I read Yamauchi or Yamauchi, and I apologize, I'm never getting his last name right, but the director of it, Kazunori Yamauchi, Yamauchi, it's probably, was saying, oh, well, we wanted to make it like in real life, like it's really hard to get those cars in real life, it should be really hard to get them in game.
Phil: But I think that would be fine if this game was a free to play game.
Phil: But this is a full priced, what, like in Australia, bucks, or in the US, or bucks, right?
Phil: And then on top of that, to pay more than double what you paid for the actual game for a car, that's ridiculous.
Phil: I mean, it's ridiculous to me.
Tom: I think it's ridiculous to any reasonable person.
Tom: And I don't think the following real life pricing is really accurate because, I mean, it's a fair argument because Halo cars and unicorns, et cetera, in previous Gran Turismos required a lot of time and effort to get as well.
Tom: But it was in a reasonable manner.
Tom: I don't think it's really reasonable to have to grind for hours to get a single car.
Phil: Well, that was part of his argument as well.
Phil: He said, we don't want people grinding hours to get these cars.
Phil: So instead, you have to pay $of real world money.
Phil: I'm pretty sure...
Phil: Well, OK, which means you've just got to grind in real life.
Phil: You've got to be like, OK, I guess I'm going to do some overtime this week.
Tom: Yeah.
Phil: Right?
Phil: As opposed to sitting on my couch playing a game that I like.
Tom: Well, what's the minimum wage in America?
Tom: Is it $or something?
Phil: No, it's not that low, but I don't remember at this point.
Phil: It's probably around $
Tom: Let's say it's $for easy maths here.
Tom: So if you were working minimum wage and you wanted to get a $car, that would then take hours of grinding in real life anyway.
Phil: Yeah, that's right.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: Yeah.
Tom: And that's without you paying for...
Phil: Yeah.
Tom: It came......whatever you needed in your life.
Phil: It came off as greedy.
Phil: I'm sorry if I'm bursting your presentation here, because then a week later they came out and they gave a million credits to everyone.
Tom: Yes, they did.
Phil: So which is significant, right?
Tom: And have promised to improve the rewards for races.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: So I credit them for at least acknowledging the problem.
Tom: Which is good.
Tom: I should add two details here is one, review copies did not feature the in-game economy.
Tom: So no reviewers had access to any of this, which is a just totally disgusting practice.
Tom: And two, they made the in-game economy significantly worse in a prior update.
Tom: And they've now, that's what they're promising to fix and potentially improve things in general.
Tom: So this, the game was released in a way that was not accessible to reviewers and you would hope that some reviewers would have commented on.
Tom: And then after the game was released, they patched it to essentially encourage the purchasing of microtransactions even more than how the game functioned at launch.
Tom: So it's a pretty horrendously handled launch of the game.
Tom: And this is basically the absolute bare minimum you would hope them to be doing.
Phil: I think, yeah, I think as a reviewer, I'd be pretty annoyed at that.
Phil: You would at least, and I can honestly, I can see the technical reasons why it would have been difficult for them to introduce the economy, but there should have been like a press kit or a lot of, a very good explanation of, hey, just so you know, this is the range of in-game purchases that will be available, you know, and really break that down, even if it's just a one page summary so that the reviewer goes, oh, okay, I can, I can weigh that in or at least mention it in the review that this wasn't available to me, but they've let us know that, you know, in-game purchases could be as much as this and for this reason, not something that happens a week and a half after the game's release, where you've already given it, in the case of videogamer.com, a out of or IGN a out of
Phil: And then you see some of the later reviews, you know, that got lower scores, it was probably because they were outlets that had to wait until after release to review the game.
Phil: So, you know, it is it's terrible for me because like the wait between Gran Turismo and has been so long and Gran Turismo was and may remain to be, I know it's a gaming royalty sort of thing.
Phil: I know people really love the game and continue to enjoy it.
Phil: And that sport had a tremendous following.
Phil: So like, it's good that the game is still good.
Phil: Well, we haven't got to that yet.
Phil: You might something might be coming up next.
Phil: But it's sad that the game had to be solid with this.
Phil: And again, if you're doing free to play or like, you know, releasing it as a game pass type situation where Sony is giving it away to everyone, which would be, I think, good marketing and just smart because these games live and die on their active users and make the money up.
Phil: We would not be you would not be complaining, right?
Phil: You just go, yeah, that's fine.
Phil: People want to pay, people can pay.
Tom: Yep, exactly.
Phil: And let every someone wants to grind for something that's like, just imagine someone who's, yeah, you know, hasn't got a great income or someone who's young and just enthusiastic about this stuff and may not have a job and you just want to be able to play it and unlock these great cars and you can't.
Phil: Well, can you do it?
Phil: Can you still unlock it?
Phil: I guess you can.
Phil: Like you said, it'd just take hours to do.
Tom: Or longer.
Phil: Yeah, or longer, if you have the right to buy that game because, as you said, these cycle through.
Phil: Do they have, did they bring back the car wash?
Tom: Yes, they did.
Tom: And oil changes.
Phil: Is it free?
Tom: Yes, yes.
Tom: I, well, I don't think it's free in terms of actual money.
Tom: I'm pretty sure oil changes cost in-game credits and I can't remember if the wash does or not.
Phil: It better not.
Phil: Because I know in Asphalt Legends, like I'm, you start out with, I think, six tanks of gas.
Phil: But then you have to wait for like hours to get more petrol again.
Phil: Well, if, are you up, are you done talking about the transactional stuff?
Phil: Are you able to speak to the gameplay itself?
Tom: Yep.
Tom: I think that is all there is to be said on the transactional stuff.
Tom: So, I did say that it was revolutionary.
Tom: And I stand by that statement.
Tom: It is, I think if you've played Gran Turismo Sport, what I've heard is it's not a huge difference in terms of physics to that.
Tom: There are some changes to the grip you have and additions of things like wind affecting how you drive and potentially temperature, etc.
Tom: But there are two things or one thing that is not in Gran Turismo Sport that is a feature that puts it above the majority of PC sims and that is the dynamic weather in the game and how that works.
Tom: And one other thing that is extremely impressive, which I think is less so the case in Gran Turismo Sport as far as I can tell, is the way this game plays on a controller is just incredible.
Tom: The physics are much closer to an actual sim racing experience than other Gran Turismos, with the exception of Gran Turismo Sport.
Tom: But the difference between this and Sport is, there's an extremely over the top snap oversteer, which is not good if you're using a steering wheel.
Tom: It's less realistic.
Tom: But if you're using a controller, because of if you're steering with a thumb stick, obviously you go back and forth much faster than if you're on a wheel.
Tom: Having this very sudden oversteer occur when you start to lose grip, ends up with something that feels more controllable and more realistic and more in line with other sim racing games when you're playing on a steering wheel than any other sim game I played on a controller.
Tom: For instance, if I'm playing Assetto Corsa on a controller, then everything feels very understeery compared to if I'm using a steering wheel.
Tom: Here, it's very much in line with how Assetto Corsa, for example, with a little bit less detail in a lot of areas, feels with a steering wheel where you always have the sense that you can easily oversteer if you want to and sort of start off drifting a little bit and still have a chance of catching it.
Tom: And it's very much unlike any other racing game I've played on a controller.
Tom: So that I think is the most impressive thing about the physics and I think it's the only logical explanation for the introduction of this oversteer because on a steering wheel it is a little bit weird, but it makes perfect sense on a controller.
Tom: So the other thing that is amazing is the weather system.
Tom: The way that the grip gradually changes with the rain beginning and then when it's gone the track drying out, the detail in the dry line developing as you're driving along is again all on the level of the best weather systems in Sims.
Tom: And most PC Sims, which are the better Sims, don't have weather systems as detailed and certainly not as dynamic as this.
Tom: There are a few that do, but most do not.
Tom: So that is again amazing to have on a console game.
Tom: And the other thing that is really enjoyable about it, again, which is great to have in a...
Tom: that is not there in other serious Sim games, and I'm not sure you could quite necessarily call this a serious Sim game, but it is certainly a proper simulation now, is what Gran Turismo does so great and does adhere to a greater degree than Gran Turismo Sport is the love of motorsport and cars.
Tom: So you begin with the career mode is a little bit different to previous ones, where the main campaign, a lot of it is done through what they call a menu book system, which is you basically visiting a cafe, talking to people there who give you menu books, which consists of races that they want you to do to collect certain cars, and so as you're doing them, they'll be talking to you about cars, and you'll be getting a brief history of the cars you're collecting and all of that sort of thing.
Tom: So all of that was there in previous Gran Turismos, if you wanted to look at that when you're browsing through cars, and that is still there as well, but here it is directly integrated into how the campaign unfolds, which is very enjoyable.
Tom: And again, the wonderful thing about it is that this applies to any sort of car.
Tom: So as you're beginning, one of the first races is you're collecting a Mazda.
Tom: I've forgotten which one it is, but you're also collecting a Toyota Aqua, which is I think one of the names for Prius or is related to the Prius.
Tom: So this is an economy hybrid car that wouldn't be in other racing games, let alone be given its own little story with a description of the history of the car and what made it so great and its importance as a modern car in the car world.
Phil: And that's always been one of the absolute best things about Gran Turismo.
Phil: It's always been a part of the series.
Phil: I think it probably really got out of hand with Gran Turismo
Phil: And then from there, they just didn't stop.
Phil: In talking about starting with those cars, have you tried the career mode?
Phil: Or is there a career mode, I should ask?
Tom: Well, that is the career mode that I was just describing there.
Phil: The cafe thing.
Tom: Yep, exactly.
Tom: There are other things you can do in it.
Tom: There are driving challenges and obviously license tests as well.
Tom: And the license tests, so far I've done the first two, and my experience of them is that they're significantly easier than they used to be.
Tom: Many of them I've passed on my first try, with the exception of one or two.
Tom: The most I've had to repeatedly try them has been two or three times.
Tom: Is to get gold, I should add, not just pass them, but to get gold.
Tom: So thus far, if you enjoyed the ridiculous challenge of the licensed tests in the past, that is probably not there.
Tom: At least it isn't in the first two.
Tom: And from the times I've seen that people are getting on the latter ones, while some of them do appear to be pretty difficult, they're not really comparable to some of the more difficult licensed tests in previous Gran Turismos.
Phil: So if you're just wanting to...
Phil: If you don't want to do the career mode, I'm assuming that there's something for you to do to start this game and start in some relatively decent cars?
Tom: Yep, you can set up custom races, which is basically the arcade mode of previous Gran Turismos.
Tom: And one other interesting thing in the campaign mode is you can actually customize the races you're doing and set them up how you want.
Tom: So that gives you a fair bit more freedom in what you want to do, and you will still earn credits for customizing races.
Tom: But again, the credits for the custom races could be significantly better than it is currently.
Phil: Assuming you're playing this because of our discussion last week on PlayStation unless you managed to pick up a PlayStation in Australia this week?
Tom: I did not.
Phil: Okay, so one thing that I was wondering about, and you wouldn't know of unless you've read into it, is, you know, the PlayStation one of the unique reasons for buying it is the tremendous haptics that they've introduced to their controller this year.
Phil: Have you heard anywhere, you know, as to whether that's pulled off well or...?
Tom: I have heard it is meant to be pulled off very well.
Tom: I think some people have said that it's a lot better than the forced feedback is for steering wheels.
Phil: OK, that's interesting.
Phil: Oh, that's right.
Phil: Yeah, OK.
Phil: Because with the PlayStation I'm not sure if the Xbox one has this as well, but I know for sure the PlayStation one has the ability to actually stop you from pushing the triggers or putting so much resistance on the triggers that it's really difficult to actually push them in.
Phil: You know, it has that degree of sensitivity from very light touch to really strong resistance, which is interesting.
Tom: I think the bigger criticisms of it have been in that area, with the braking being a little awkward when you start to potentially lock up and that sort of thing.
Tom: I think where people have said it shines is in the feedback you get from when you're starting to lose grip or going onto a rumble strip.
Phil: Oh yeah, that would be awesome.
Phil: I'm also thinking it would be funny if they had some of those consumer grade cars with ABS.
Phil: And you got some of that ABS activity, which I absolutely hate, which is why I always turn it off.
Phil: Is it too early to talk about the aesthetics of the game?
Tom: Not at all.
Phil: So it looks absolutely mind-blowing.
Tom: It even does on PSlook mind-blowing.
Tom: I think arguably it looks more amazing on PSthan what it probably looks like on PSjust by the fact that it is running at frames per second consistently on PSwithout any issue whatsoever, because the sharpness of the cars and the level of detail on them is just incredible.
Tom: The reflections are great.
Tom: The tracks look awesome too.
Tom: That it is running on PSis an amazing achievement and that it runs on PSat a consistent FPS with very few moments where it drops below that is an incredible achievement.
Tom: The only thing that is not good about it is the fan noise.
Tom: The PSdoes not like running Gran Turismo at all.
Phil: It doesn't like running.
Phil: Do you have a launch PS?
Tom: Yes, I do.
Phil: Yeah, the wedge.
Tom: Yep, that's right.
Phil: Yeah, I have one as well.
Phil: You can be playing Netflix on it and it starts to really fire up.
Phil: Actually, no, I've moved it now.
Phil: I actually have a PlayStation Game Center now.
Phil: I've got PlayStation and all lined up on its own cabinet with its own TV.
Phil: In large part, yeah, right.
Phil: In large part because I wanted them all to have better cooling, but not really.
Phil: I just wanted a second TV with them all hooked up to it.
Phil: Yeah, it doesn't like it, but it's still living and I'm not going to replace it until it dies.
Tom: This definitely is worse than other games, and I have noticed that once you get to PSPro era games, games really start to make the console run a lot hotter than older games did, and the result is a lot of fan noise.
Phil: Yeah, like God of War, Red Dead Redemption The Last of Us all those games really put it through its paces.
Phil: I definitely noticed.
Phil: Okay, so it looks fantastic.
Phil: What about the audio?
Phil: They've obviously recorded the audio for all these several Gran Turismos ago, and they would have done it in amazing digital, so they can obviously reuse those assets.
Tom: Well, I would assume they've probably redone a lot of the audio, and certainly thus far, my experience is that it's a lot better than previous Gran Turismos.
Tom: It's much less vacuum cleanery in my experience so far, in the cars I've heard, and I think a greater variety in how they sound as well.
Tom: So in terms of audio, it's great as well, and the music is exceptional.
Tom: I should add one hilarious annoyance that is occurring, is there are regular updates, of course.
Tom: After every single update I've had, I have been unable to skip the eight-minute long intro.
Phil: Excellent.
Phil: Excellent.
Phil: I just actually did some internet research.
Phil: It turns out that they kept it in family.
Phil: They actually recorded the sound effects for Gran Turismo and on a Sony Walkman.
Phil: So they probably did go back and re-record those, not on a cassette.
Phil: So you're quite right there.
Phil: But one thing that's been great about Gran Turismo, certainly Gran Turismo had a very memorable soundtrack.
Phil: Gran Turismo was the one with Snoop Dogg, I think, which was probably a low point for the series.
Phil: But the music on this is supposed to be quite good from what I read.
Tom: Yes, it is.
Tom: Snoop Dogg, unfortunately, was going to have music on it, but he removed it to his exclusive streaming platform.
Phil: Oh, okay.
Phil: Is that the one where he advertises his exclusive line of edibles?
Tom: I think so.
Phil: Marijuana, that is, not underwear.
Phil: So, the music.
Tom: Jazzy, as you would hope.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: They've got to have something more than that, though.
Tom: Do they?
Tom: Gran Turismo has generally been a jazzy music with a little bit of rock, too.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: I mean, Gran Turismo had garbage and hole and a bunch of other bands that I can't remember.
Phil: Nirvana, maybe?
Phil: Okay.
Phil: Well, what else do we need to know about?
Phil: First of all, I'm very pleased to hear that it works fantastic, or graphically, at least, on Gran Turismo
Phil: The updates scare me off a fair bit.
Tom: Yeah, you would not be able to play it.
Tom: Probably not.
Tom: And for a start, it is, I think, an over gigabyte installation.
Tom: Then I think the first update was...
Tom: I can't remember what it was exactly, but it was very big.
Phil: Like ?
Tom: Not that big.
Tom: Maybe somewhere around but it could have been less than that.
Tom: I'm not sure.
Phil: That's still pretty bad.
Phil: I'm still downloading an update for Control, which is a video game I got in December.
Phil: So every few nights, I just let it go and download another megabytes.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: So overall, your impressions are mostly positive.
Phil: You can play around the microtransaction stuff, I'm assuming.
Tom: Unless you want a McLaren For a variety of other cars.
Phil: Yeah, which, you know, I mean, you'd never have them at this point in the other games either, I would think.
Tom: You might.
Tom: I think if there was a particular car you really wanted, even if it was one of the expensive ones in previous Gran Turismos, as you're going through the career mode, it is usually pretty realistic that you'll be able to get it by the end, whereas I don't think that is the case here.
Phil: Yeah, I think it's just a...
Phil: This has just been mishandled.
Phil: It's just they're out of touch with their fan base, which is understandable.
Phil: I mean, they have obviously a very huge fan base in Japan, but I'd say probably their international audience is at least the same, if not slightly larger, and it's just a shame that their international or Western publishing branches in the US and Europe weren't a part of that process or didn't understand or comprehend it because Gran Turismo has got a great community and great communities deserve better, basically.
Phil: Speaking of a game that's been supported for a ridiculous amount of time, indie dev Adam Robertson Yu made a short hike, ?
Phil: No, I don't even know how long ago it came out.
Phil: I think sounds about right.
Phil: It's available on PC, Linux, Mac, Switch, and probably everything else at this point.
Phil: It's an adventure open world exploration game, which you basically look down at it from a somewhat isometric view.
Phil: It's about a little bird that is going on a camping trip.
Tom: A hiking trip, you might say.
Phil: Yep, a hiking trip, and he's a business bird, but he's very fortunate that, or he's a working bird, he's very fortunate that when he gets to this campground, that he can't get cell phone service.
Phil: And so that's basically how the adventure starts, is he's walking to try and find a better signal.
Phil: Now, why are we talking about a game?
Phil: Just today, a...
Tom: Well, I think it's trying to reach the top of the mountain to be able to get some reception.
Phil: That's it, yes.
Phil: And we'll talk more about the actual game itself, but today a downloadable mod was released for the PC, Mac and Linux, where you can basically play with up to other players simultaneously on Hawk Peak.
Phil: So basically, they've got an online server.
Phil: They're not going to maintain it, but you can download it and run your own server, which is kind of neat.
Phil: For a game that was, I'm assuming, made by a single dude, the fact that it's still getting supported, he's probably done extremely well off it, despite the fact that you and I both picked it up as a part of the itch.io sale of the century last year.
Phil: But it's a notable game.
Phil: If you can't put your finger on it, you'd see a picture of it.
Phil: You immediately know what that game is.
Phil: It was a very popular indie game.
Phil: And it has a very Animal Crossing type vibe, I'd say, in terms of both the character art and the range of activities.
Phil: But in this one...
Tom: And I think the interactions with the characters as well.
Phil: Yeah, very much so, except it's kind of an adult or rather a knowing kind of Animal Crossing.
Phil: Because when you talk to people, they're not just talking in Animal Crossing Simlish.
Phil: They are actually talking back to you and you can have conversations and they can have attitudes.
Phil: It's not all just, you know, cheery stuff.
Phil: And there's...
Tom: Don't some of the characters in Animal Crossing have attitudes?
Phil: They do have attitudes, but you know what I mean.
Phil: You're quite right to point that out.
Tom: What you mean is there are some more adult-themed interactions here.
Phil: That's right.
Phil: I should probably just let you talk about this game, but I'll just say one last thing about it.
Phil: Not one last thing, but the cool thing about it is that they'd have these elements as you're going through this game that introduce a type of gameplay that was really unique and interesting.
Phil: I loved the tactility of this game.
Phil: Some of the activities that you had you do, be it rowing or climbing or playing beach volleyball, they all felt really great from a control perspective.
Phil: It wasn't just the usual flat, indie PC, here you go, play beach volleyball for minutes or five minutes or whatever.
Phil: And for the most part, none of them were repeated.
Phil: The boat piloting as well.
Phil: It wasn't like, oh, here's this thing that we've done, and you're going to be doing this another five times in this game.
Phil: And as you continued throughout the game and you came across these little player vignettes, they were even more delightful because you knew that this was not likely going to be repeated later on in the game.
Phil: Is that a good description of those vignettes?
Tom: I think so, yeah, definitely.
Phil: Only very few games do that.
Phil: I was playing Actraiser on the Super Nintendo last night, and everyone said, oh yeah, Actraiser, great game.
Phil: Trust me, time has not been good to it.
Phil: But the reason why everyone says it's a great game is because it was both a D side-scroller beat-em-up as well as being a top-down sim game.
Phil: At the time, that was back in the s, that was really innovative.
Phil: Oh my gosh, it's not just a D platformer, it's also got this sim element.
Tom: What was it simulating?
Phil: Basically, not sim city, but basically a really watered-down civ, where you've got villages.
Phil: A god game, there you go, a god game, like Populous.
Phil: So, yeah, and Short Hike is just a charming, charming game, as well as being quite poignant.
Tom: Agreed.
Tom: Where was the poignancy, actually?
Phil: Well, it starts out with a working bird, who's just like, oh yeah, I've got to make sure I've got signal for work, and then obviously he goes through this short hike and discovers there's other things that are more important in life, ultimately.
Phil: Like he realizes that he's missing his family, you know.
Phil: And that was the one that's most memorable and stood out to me.
Phil: I'm assuming there was also things in there about work-life balance and things like that.
Tom: There probably were, but I don't think I really found it that poignant.
Tom: I think there were interactions with certain characters on the island, or maybe a little bit in that direction, but I found the protagonist and their conflict to be ultimately rather uninteresting.
Tom: Maybe it was the pacing of the game, and that you are also climbing the mountain and going through the main plot, having these side interactions with other characters, but I wasn't really that moved by it at all.
Tom: I did enjoy it, but I would not have described it as poignant personally.
Phil: I don't think something that's poignant has to be necessarily moving to me individually.
Phil: You can just sort of see that someone's going, oh yeah, okay, I get what they're saying there.
Phil: That's touching, I guess.
Phil: Now I'm putting degrees of moving.
Phil: It's touching, but it's not moving.
Phil: It gives you pause, perhaps.
Tom: Well, here's what I would say.
Tom: I'm going to get a definition of poignant.
Tom: Evoking a keen sense of sadness or regret.
Phil: And I think that that's what the bird was feeling.
Phil: The bird was feeling that.
Phil: I wasn't feeling that, and I wasn't feeling it for the bird.
Phil: The bird was having a poignant experience, not me.
Tom: Maybe the bird was.
Phil: That is for sure.
Tom: So we can't describe the game as poignant.
Phil: I said the game had poignant moments, not for me, but for the bird.
Phil: So I'm looking at it from a third person perspective, I guess.
Phil: From a third person perspective, it had poignant moments for the video game characters in the game.
Tom: I think you may have just invented a whole new style of literary analysis, where we look at solely what the character was feeling with no critical commentary on that whatsoever.
Phil: Yes, indeed.
Phil: Okay, well, do you have anything else you want to share?
Phil: It's obviously worth playing, and I give it a thumbs up.
Phil: I forget how short or long the game was.
Phil: It wasn't a short hike.
Phil: It's not something you can play in one sitting.
Tom: I think it depends on how much you do in it.
Tom: If you were just doing the main story, which would be a little bit awkward because some of the side stuff make climbing certain parts of the mountain a lot easier, you could probably finish it in just a few hours.
Tom: I think if you were collecting everything and doing all the side stuff, it's two or three times longer than that.
Phil: Yeah, I remember playing it for at least over eight hours and over a concentrated period.
Phil: So I played it basically in four settings type thing.
Phil: But yeah, certainly well worth playing and like I said, available on pretty much everything.
Phil: It would probably, as I call most things, good on Switch.
Phil: I just love to see these auteur type projects where someone's got pretty much complete control.
Phil: They have a message.
Phil: I don't like to see them not move on to do something else.
Phil: Before we get into another game that you've been playing, I guess one of the things that I've been spending most of my time with is modding, soft modding, my mini NES, my mini Nintendo and my mini Super Nintendo.
Phil: So the NES and Super NES mini, I think you've got one, haven't you?
Tom: No, I don't.
Phil: You don't.
Tom: I've got an actual SNES.
Phil: Yes, as do I.
Tom: That may be what you're thinking of.
Phil: Yep, okay.
Phil: So obviously I have several NES, Nintendos and Super Nintendos of all sorts around.
Phil: But what was attractive to these is that they're a little Raspberry Pi mini console and it came loaded from Nintendo with games, which if you're waiting for them to give them to you on Switch, would take years to get Super Nintendo games.
Phil: And they're actually good ones.
Tom: Which is still faster than it would take to get all the expensive cars in Gran Turismo
Phil: That's right.
Phil: So you can still pick up a mini Nintendo and Super Nintendo on the gray market for about $to $bucks loose if you want it with a box.
Phil: It costs way more.
Phil: And obviously, well, I don't know if it's obvious, but it comes with a USB.
Phil: It's powered by a USB-C.
Phil: So obviously, once you've got something that's got a USB-C on it, it can be hooked up to a computer.
Phil: And obviously, if you can hook it up with a computer and it's got onboard memory, then it's ripe to be able to put archived games on it.
Phil: So I heard pretty recently after the initial Nintendo had been released that there was a way to get every Nintendo game ever released put onto these systems.
Phil: And people who were talking about it were people that I knew were big in the Nintendo collecting community, people who were not in favor of piracy, people who were not very technical or had much to do with emulation.
Phil: So I figured, well, okay, they're doing it, but I'm still not going to go there.
Phil: I don't want to brick my system or I don't want to risk bricking my system because I've got pretty much no one close around here that would be able to help me put it all back together again.
Phil: So I let time pass and basically when my Retron I updated my Retron which is my primary way of playing original Nintendo and Sega cartridges, I figured, well, what the hell, I'll give it a try after doing a lot of research on it.
Phil: And there's a program out there called Hack Chi, H-A-K-C-H-I, like hacked by Chinese.
Phil: And it's a really neat little program, I assume it's available for Linux, it's available for Windows, where you can essentially just download the program, download the ROMs as legal backups of the games that you already own.
Tom: Or as illegal copies of games you don't already own.
Phil: Oh, I guess you could do that.
Phil: It never occurred to me.
Phil: So what you're saying is, even if you don't own like NES games, you would go and download the ROMs that someone else had made as legal backups.
Tom: It would be theoretically possible to do that, yes.
Phil: And then put it on, using this hack-chi.
Phil: Oh, okay, yep, okay, got it, got it.
Phil: That's interesting.
Phil: So you mean I could download Wall Street Kid.
Tom: Yes, you could.
Phil: But that would be illegal.
Tom: You may have to do it anyway.
Phil: Well, just to see if that's true, what you're saying, because I don't know if that would be true.
Phil: I don't think Nintendo would let that happen, because obviously it would interfere with their tremendous online offerings.
Phil: So now it wasn't without problems, right?
Phil: So I did struggle with this for about two or three days, trying to get it to work.
Phil: You've got to be using the right USB cables.
Phil: You've got to be, you know, and your computer might have...
Tom: Do you mean that in more detail other than you need to use a USB-C cable?
Phil: Well, you actually have to use a USB-C cable that came with the system.
Phil: So, you know, and there are different USB-C cables.
Phil: So if you're just a dummy and you just go, oh, this looks like the same as that, it may not be the same, you know, have the same bitrate or whatever else.
Tom: So I assume if you were using one that had the same level of bitrate as it, it will be okay, or is there some firm where, reason where it does not recognize?
Phil: No, it would be okay.
Phil: And then just for troubleshooting purposes, people just say by default, oh, use the one that came with it.
Phil: There's nothing magical about the one that came with it.
Phil: It's going to have some sort of spec that, you know, these things are not marked on the USB-C's.
Phil: At least I don't know that they are.
Phil: Some of these little numbers might mean something, but in any case, it was risk free because, and the reason why I felt free to do it was because at any point, you can just restore it back to factory.
Phil: Hackchi has a, okay, well, if it doesn't work, try this option, you restore it back to factory.
Phil: And I did that like eight times.
Phil: So it really did, was fine.
Phil: And yeah, it works spectacularly.
Phil: It's got all the same features and you pull it up, and it's just the exact same interface that Nintendo has.
Phil: Well, it is the Nintendo interface, except instead of games, in my case, there's different games.
Phil: And then I did it on the SNES as well.
Phil: So with Hackchi, you can do it for the Genesis, Nintendo, Super Nintendo, and a few other of these mini consoles that have been made.
Phil: So, you know, and like I said, there's absolutely no detrimental impact to it whatsoever.
Phil: You're able to play your games on HDMI.
Phil: And then, of course, -bit Doe has wonderful, you know, wireless controllers that come with little USB dongles that you can plug into the front.
Phil: Because one of the worst things about the SNES mini and this mini was the fact that they came with a cable that's like a meter long.
Phil: So, yeah, but picking up an -bit Doe controller for less than $wireless combined with this is just phenomenal.
Phil: So, yeah, so if you've got an NES and SNES, do your own homework.
Phil: But if someone who's got five fingers like me can get it done, like I said, the reassuring thing is there's always a way to return it back to factory if you screw up or will get cold feet.
Phil: I have also been doing some other stuff.
Phil: I did manage to get my RetroN back up and running, which was fine.
Tom: Before we move on from this, I have to ask when will we be getting Wall Street Kid impressions?
Phil: Probably next week, I'd say, if we record next week.
Tom: Look forward to that.
Phil: I've just started noodling around with RetroArc, which is an emulation software that can be used on other devices, but it can be used on PC as well.
Phil: For me, like I said, I've just started mucking around with it yesterday, but for me, the number one reason I'd want to do that is because I want to pick up an Xbox Core or a Dreamcast Core or a Saturn Core and be able to dump my ROMs into it, because we're talking there probably with those three systems about games, and some of which I can't play right now because the original hardware, even though I've gone out and bought two or three iterations of them, just are not working.
Phil: And the number one reason I want to do it is so I can play those games on PC, so I can take screenshots for retro reviews for gameunder.net, which is the website that we have for this podcast.
Phil: That to me is the number one reason.
Phil: I'm not interested in downloading Dreamcast games that I don't have, because like I said, I've got over Dreamcast games.
Phil: So if there's ones out there that I don't have, I probably don't want it.
Phil: And same for the original Xbox.
Phil: But it would just be a great way for me to be able to get some screenshots as opposed to borrowing or stealing people's content off the internet.
Phil: Yeah, so that's what I've been doing.
Phil: And as with most of these things, it's more fun actually figuring it out and problem solving and getting it done.
Phil: Obviously, the second I figured it all out and got it done, I've barely gone back to actually use those devices because it's always just more fun to figure out how to do it than actually using it.
Phil: Have you ever mucked around with this kind of stuff?
Tom: I have not.
Tom: Actually, yes, I set up a homebrew channel on the Wii and I think the Wii U as well.
Phil: That's risky.
Phil: Well, I would think that's risky.
Tom: I don't think it's risky.
Tom: Again, you can return it to how it was originally if you want.
Tom: And I also after setting them up have not actually used them.
Phil: Yeah, exactly.
Tom: It was an enjoyable experience setting them up.
Phil: Well, it's like doing a PC build, which we've talked about before.
Phil: I just absolutely loved when I upgraded my current PC under your tutelage.
Phil: I learned so much that I immediately, completely forgot as soon as I'd done it.
Phil: But it was just fantastic.
Phil: And thermal paste, I'm still, that's the thing that stuck with me, is thermal paste is wizardry and witchcraft.
Phil: And it's amazing and incredible because people are like, oh, have you put thermal paste on it?
Phil: I'm like, yeah, right.
Phil: Okay, like what, you know, how big of a difference could thermal paste do?
Phil: Answer is a hell of a lot.
Tom: I think the difference between your CPU breaking or not breaking is the difference.
Phil: Yeah, pretty much.
Tom: Pretty much.
Phil: I was cracking on the guy who bought the new CPU from, going, oh, man, was this working for you because it's not working for me?
Phil: Oh, dude, totally sorry.
Phil: And, you know, it was totally working.
Phil: Hey, man, I don't want my money back.
Phil: You know, I'm not going to give you bad feedback.
Phil: And then you're all, did you put thermal paste on it?
Phil: And I was like, oh, thermal paste, what's that?
Phil: And then I look it up, it's like liquid metal.
Phil: Liquid metal?
Phil: Give me a break.
Phil: It's like a Metal Gear Solid subtitle.
Phil: Liquid metal?
Phil: No.
Phil: In any case, thermal paste.
Phil: Give it a try.
Phil: Okay, so you've been playing some other games as well.
Tom: I've been playing a wide variety of games, but why don't we go to another game we both play, which is Metamorphosis.
Phil: Ah, yes, Metamorphosis.
Tom: I think it's Metamorphosis.
Phil: Metamorphosis, right.
Phil: That's when a bug turns into a butterfly.
Tom: Yes, exactly.
Phil: This is a game by Ovid Works.
Phil: I remember that much.
Phil: And it's available for, again, pretty much everything.
Phil: Released in
Phil: It's on Switch, Xbox One, PlayStation PC.
Phil: It has a very low score.
Phil: Well, it doesn't have a very low score.
Phil: It has a good score, I guess, on Metacritics.
Phil: Basically out of
Phil: And do you want to give the overview of this game?
Tom: Well, it's an adaptation of Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, essentially.
Phil: That's a German game that came out for the Amiga, I think.
Tom: I believe that's a Czech novella that came out in printed form.
Tom: Actually, it may not have come out in printed form until he was dead.
Tom: I can't remember if that was one of the works published during his lifetime or not.
Phil: That's right.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: And obviously I was joking.
Phil: By Kafka, who's one of my favourite authors, you probably think he's a hack.
Phil: I'm guessing.
Tom: Not at all.
Phil: Oh.
Tom: No, he is very good.
Tom: Very good indeed, I would say.
Tom: And the game called Metamorphosis is unfortunately not actually an adaptation of Metamorphosis.
Tom: It basically adapts multiple of his works at once and sticks them all together in a way that is, in some ways uses the idea of some of his themes where, whether he is actually depicting bureaucracies or using bureaucracies as a metaphor or not is up for debate.
Tom: But essentially it combines multiple of his stories in the one bureaucratic system.
Tom: So it begins with the protagonist being transformed into a creature of a cockroach like demeanor.
Tom: But then, as you're travelling around attempting to work out what is going on, elements of other stories are introduced, and it's all leading up to you having some sort of confrontation with this bureaucratic system in the tower from another of his stories.
Tom: So I think there's no need to do that because it's a two or three hour game, and the amount of content there is in Metamorphosis is easily enough to support a two or three hour game, or a twenty or thirty hour game, or a two hundred or three hundred hour game, if you're actually going to be taking the story seriously.
Tom: I think this was very much the easy way out, and resulted in something that at times was basically just using Kafka or something to make references to, as opposed to actually explore.
Tom: There are some moments that I think are pretty spectacular and do interesting things with the subject matter at least aesthetically, like the lawyer's office where you are exploring his desk, and it's a very interesting platforming level using elements of that.
Tom: There is also, I think, the castle level at the end looks very impressive as well, but for the most part, I think it's in many ways a missed opportunity, because it is apparent that the people making it loved the subject matter, but they don't really do that much with it, unfortunately.
Phil: There's lots of tips of the hat and nods to Kafka throughout, and that's pretty obvious.
Phil: Yeah, I just looked them up.
Phil: They're a small team of about people from Poland.
Phil: And just to be abundantly clear about it, this is an action platformer that you play in first person.
Phil: So that comes with some clumsiness, because as we all know, first person platforming is rarely pulled off extremely well.
Phil: I'd say probably it's gotten a lot better over the years.
Phil: Certainly, what's the name of that game from EA?
Tom: Mirror's Edge.
Phil: Mirror's Edge, probably.
Tom: Which is better than most third person platformers.
Phil: Yeah, exactly.
Phil: And I see here that they play VR games.
Phil: I mean, this game would translate to VR, but I even found myself...
Phil: Like, you're walking around as a cockroach type insect, and I found myself pretty nauseous for most of the time I was playing it, and I was just playing it, obviously, without VR.
Phil: I don't even know if there is a VR version of this game.
Tom: I don't think there is, but there should be.
Phil: Yeah, there really should be, because it would translate very easily.
Phil: I don't know anything about programming for VR, but it seems to me like this would be a one-for-one type thing.
Phil: And the platforming itself was not that difficult.
Phil: It was more a matter of figuring out where you had to go and what you could do next sort of thing.
Phil: Though I did find some tricky jumps that I had trouble making time and time and time again.
Phil: Visually...
Tom: I think the platforming worked pretty well.
Tom: For me, the more awkward moments were...
Tom: I think there were some stealth sections which were a pain for me.
Phil: Yeah, I didn't so much mind those.
Phil: It was really more the platforming elements for me, not really knowing when I could jump or what I could jump and what my limits were.
Phil: I should mention also that there is a free demo of this available on Steam, if you missed out on one of the sales of the century, which I think is how we picked it up.
Tom: I'm not sure how we picked it up.
Tom: It may have been one of them.
Phil: Maybe, maybe, maybe.
Phil: Visually, it's obviously a caricatured realism.
Tom: I think it's very much inspired fittingly by expressionism.
Phil: Yeah, absolutely.
Tom: I would say.
Phil: I think there's something missing in this game, but I think in terms of its cohesiveness, I do think it's very cohesive in terms of its theme, its appearance and what they're trying to achieve.
Phil: There's a lot of thought that went into it, but for me, it just didn't come home as a complete thought exercise or even an enjoyable type thing.
Phil: It was just a lot of, yeah, okay, yeah, I get it.
Phil: That's a reference.
Phil: It's the same criticism that was leveled at that Grand Theft Auto cloned by Brian Provinciano.
Tom: Shake Down Hawaii, Retro City Rampage.
Phil: Yeah, Rampage City, River City Rampage.
Tom: Retro City Rampage.
Phil: Retro City Rampage.
Phil: Thank you.
Phil: We get there eventually.
Phil: It's why our podcasts are three hours long.
Phil: It's me going, Tommy, Tommy, Tommy, Tommy Chan.
Phil: Tommy Chan, Tommy Chan.
Phil: You know that reference, Reservoir Dogs, if you don't.
Phil: I remember that.
Phil: Yeah.
Tom: So what you're saying is this should be a film podcast?
Phil: Yeah, it probably should be.
Phil: Thank God I edit this thing.
Phil: So it's never a short hike with me.
Phil: So metamorphosis, again, I didn't particularly enjoy it.
Phil: It probably had more to do with the nausea that I was having.
Tom: Well, I was also quite nauseous when I played, or at least in a reasonable amount of pain and feverish, because this was the game that I played after my first vaccine dose, which was the only one that had any sort of effect.
Tom: And that was basically the only thing I was capable of doing for a few hours after that, which was when I played the bulk of the game.
Tom: So I still managed to enjoy it in spite of that.
Tom: So I think if you didn't enjoy it, it's probably the game itself.
Phil: Yeah, I'd say so.
Phil: So is there anything else you'd like to point out about this game, or do you want to give it a score?
Tom: Before we move on, there is actually something else to add to this, because there is another Franz Kafka Videogame, which is literally called the Franz Kafka Videogame.
Tom: And it's interesting comparing the two, because the Franz Kafka Videogame, like Metamorphosis, is basically a series of references to Kafka.
Tom: And it's by Dennis Galanin, which is surely not how that is pronounced, who also developed the Hamlet Videogame, which is simply called Hamlet.
Tom: Oh, no it isn't.
Tom: It's got a very long title.
Tom: Hamlet, or the last game without MMORPG, features, shaders and product placement.
Phil: I know where these...
Phil: I know these guys.
Phil: It's Daedalic Entertainment.
Phil: Daedalic.
Tom: No, they published it.
Phil: Okay, they're the publisher of Deponia.
Phil: Yeah, so they've published a lot of these guys.
Phil: That's where I knew the name from.
Phil: They've published a lot of these guys, because this is also The Chronicles of Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Wolfgang Holbein's The Inquisitors, The Tudors.
Phil: So, yeah, they've got to be pretty hooked up together there, I'd say.
Tom: Yep.
Tom: And as I said, I ultimately enjoyed The Metamorphosis.
Tom: I would say it's a unique experience.
Tom: It is worth playing for its aesthetic, even if it is thematically very disappointing.
Tom: And I don't think you should ever adapt Kafka unless you're doing something very serious or ridiculous.
Tom: And the Franz Kafka Videogame is very much ridiculous.
Tom: At times, what it has to do with Kafka is completely incomprehensible, to an even greater degree than Hamlet, which at times, what it had to do with Hamlet was beyond one's comprehension.
Tom: Here, this sort of absurdity and ridiculousness works.
Tom: The mind-numbing bizarreness of many of the puzzles, again, ends up fitting the concept of making a Franz Kafka Videogame.
Tom: So I think purely by accident, given that the Hamlet adaptation this person has made is equally bizarre and absurd and incomprehensible, he stumbled on to making a truly Kafka-esque video game in adapting Kafka, because most things that reference Kafka usually go down the expressionist route, like, for example, metamorphosis.
Tom: But to me, anyway, while there are aesthetically things that you could potentially misconstru in Kafka as expressionist, to me, Kafka is the ultimate realist, whether you want to interpret his works religiously, psychologically or bureaucratically.
Tom: All of those things, the way they depict it is pure realism.
Tom: So works that go down the expressionist route, for example, metamorphosis are totally missing the point, but absurdity is a part of realism.
Tom: So a totally absurd, incomprehensible thing like this is, I think totally by accident, one of the greatest Kafka adaptations in history.
Phil: I think if a game is going to induce nausea, maybe the next thing they should try is a Jean-Paul Sartre game.
Tom: And I think that Metamorphosis is much more in the vein of Sartre than Kafka, absolutely.
Phil: Yep, yep.
Phil: Look, I tell you, I think, do you want to give this thing a score?
Tom: Yes, I will.
Tom: Let me just get The Die of Destiny.
Phil: And I'll make my final point when you have got The Die of Destiny ready to go.
Tom: It is ready to go.
Tom: Or ready to roll.
Phil: To me, this would have been, if shorter, it would have been a perfect fit in a Psychonauts game.
Phil: It should have been a Psychonauts level, rather than what it was.
Tom: Well, there actually is a Psychonauts level set in a post office sort of situation, similar time period, and therefore...
Tom: What's that?
Phil: Hold that, because I'm going to ask you a little bit about Psychonauts after we give this a score.
Phil: Drum roll, I guess.
Tom: Go ahead.
Tom: You're waiting for the die.
Tom: Yes!
Tom: Okay, here is the die of destiny.
Phil: Yes.
Tom: out of
Phil: Wow!
Phil: So the die is in good form.
Tom: I'm going to do two rolls, because we actually also talked about the Kafka game.
Tom: So before I say which score belongs to which game, I'm going to do two rolls here.
Tom: One of them was out of
Tom: The other one is out of
Phil: Do you want to try again?
Phil: See if we can get this down to
Phil: I'm going to do a third roll.
Phil: Well, the first one, obviously it's not calibrated.
Phil: So just calibrate it now.
Tom: No, the scores are correct, and out of
Phil: Just wrong game.
Tom: But the third roll is going to be to decide which game those scores belong to.
Tom: If it's a high score, the first score, which was an will go to Metamorphosis.
Tom: If it's a low score, then the second score, which was will go to Metamorphosis.
Phil: I don't know why you're explaining this.
Phil: This is all in our FAQ at gameunder.net, how the Diadestiny works.
Tom: It was an out of
Tom: So I think Metamorphosis gets a out of and the Franz Kafka Videogame an out of
Phil: Very good.
Phil: Okay, so I do know that, and I'm not looking for first impressions or final impressions or anything like that, but I think, you know, one of the things about Game Pass, it is a tremendous way to get a game into the zeitgeist of the gaming world, because even if something's somewhat mediocre, everyone talks about it, or at least everyone, you know, in the, who's in the active gaming community.
Phil: And one of those games that came out, again, I'm not asking this to, this is not a full review or anything like that, but I understand you've been playing Psychonauts
Tom: Well, it's funny that you should mention that you think there should have been a level in Psychonauts, because in Psychonauts there actually is a level with a post-office theme set in an obscure European country going into political troubles with a very expressionist aesthetic to it that is actually very similar to the lawyer office level and the letter posting or stamping level in metamorphosis.
Tom: So you are absolutely right.
Tom: And the level in Psychonauts is indeed better than metamorphosis.
Tom: But that actually just reminded me.
Tom: I have to say one more thing on metamorphosis, because I mentioned that I didn't think it really was grappling with the themes of Kafka at all.
Tom: I think it's much worse than that, because that just reminded me of how the game ended.
Tom: It essentially ends with a whole section that gives the protagonist in the story a great deal of agency in how things end for him.
Phil: And I cannot think......of a less inclined author.
Tom: Exactly.
Phil: You should finish this game feeling like you're suffocating in a bucket, because that's the message that I always got from the Kafka books.
Phil: And trust me, I've re-read the trial probably five times in my life.
Phil: I love the writing of Kafka.
Phil: I don't read it to be uplifted, but it's just so engrossing.
Phil: And yeah, to give you agency at the end of the game, that's completely missing the point.
Tom: Exactly.
Phil: What's not missing the point is if you go to gameunder.net, I have unearthed an archive of Tom Towers' writing.
Phil: Tom's written for various outlets over the years, all of which closed down.
Phil: I'm sure that was completely unrelated to his writing and activities.
Phil: But we've got reviews of Serious Sam Xenoclash Hard Reset.
Phil: I reposted the audio review of Bioshock Altered Beasts, Swords and Soldiers Super, Sausage Fest, which was a game by Dolph Lundgren, wasn't it?
Phil: You did an interview with him?
Tom: No, it was a game by Ronimo Games, developers of Awesome Nauts, and I did an interview with Juste van Dongen, one of their developers who by himself released Prune.
Phil: That's right.
Phil: It wasn't Jean-Claude van Dome or Dolph Lundgren.
Phil: You can read the interview you did with Juste.
Phil: Just probably search JOOST on the site.
Phil: And the most recent review I put up was a D Adventures of Rotating Octopus character.
Phil: I mean, where else are you going to get a review of that game?
Tom: A highly underrated game.
Tom: That remains, honestly, one of my favourite PSgames.
Phil: I was going to say that was a PlayStation game.
Phil: And yeah, so I've really enjoyed pulling these back out again.
Phil: I've got to admit, what's really weird is, you know, you see a game like Xenoclash and you're like, oh my god, this is like No Man's Sky before No Man's Sky.
Phil: Or Hard Reset, which was one of your top games of the s.
Phil: I totally forgot playing and beating that game.
Phil: So yeah, it's been really fun to go back and read those.
Phil: So that's in the review section of gameunder.net.
Tom: At least you're enjoying them.
Phil: Yeah, at least I'm enjoying them.
Phil: And we aren't promoting them yet.
Phil: They're just an Easter egg for people who come across the review site.
Phil: But we'll do some more promotion of them off the front page, I'm sure, in time to come.
Phil: So with that, did you have anything else you wanted to contribute to episode of The Game Under Podcast?
Tom: Well, we had to promote, above the reviews, the high quality editorial I wrote, The Body Has A Head.
Phil: The Body Has A Head, that's right.
Phil: That's on the features page.
Phil: So we also have a features section.
Phil: Did you approve of the artwork I selected for that essay?
Tom: I think so.
Tom: I can't remember it.
Phil: Well, if you disapproved, I'm sure I would have heard of it.
Phil: Now, I have to admit...
Tom: It would have stuck in my mind if I disapproved.
Phil: I have not read it, but it's an essay on the place of video games.
Tom: I see what it is.
Tom: That's a very good choice.
Phil: It is good.
Phil: Podcast listeners, you've got to go to gameunder.net, click on the Features tab, and you'll see the artwork I selected for The Body Has a Head.
Phil: It's an essay on the place of video games in art.
Phil: And before you slash your wrists, because it's probably the most worn out forum topic of the last years, do you want to give a justification as to why this essay is worth a read, Tom?
Tom: Because it references the obscure book The Body Has a Head.
Phil: As well as the movie America's Army.
Phil: What more could you want?
Tom: Did it reference that?
Phil: You are Tom Towers, right?
Tom: Yes.
Phil: Thank you.
Tom: That's why I don't remember anything.
Phil: Well, that's the best thing about this old stuff is, you know, some of this is over years old.
Phil: So, I was even just going back and looking...
Tom: Here's the problem.
Tom: You said the film America's Army.
Phil: Yep.
Tom: I didn't know there was a film America's Army and why are we referencing...
Tom: I was referencing The Game America's Army.
Phil: Yeah, that's right.
Phil: America's Army is a video game.
Phil: I was thinking about the one with the puppets, America.
Tom: Team America.
Phil: What's that game called?
Tom: That film, Team America?
Phil: Yeah, Team America.
Phil: That's it.
Phil: Team America.
Phil: Okay, I think that would have been a better essay if you could have worked Team America into it.
Phil: Okay, well, with that, I should probably end while I'm way behind.
Phil: I am Phil Fogg, and thank you for joining me, Mr...
Phil: Tom Towers.
Phil: And we'll hear you next time, except we won't hear you or see you next time.
Phil: You'll listen to us.
Phil: That's the way it's going to be.
Phil: Thank you.