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0:00:42 Tom has something to say about Episode 124 Obits
0:08:19 Phil's Summer Steam Sale Haul
0:13:17 News - MS Increases Game Pass Subscription costs
0:21:00 News - Man With 6 Inch Sword Gets Arrested
0:24:51 News - Ubisoft vs. Musk
0:30:09 News - Nintendo Clamping Down on IP Distortion
0:36:27 Investigative Journalism - Tom Exposes Humble Bundle
0:48:21 Phil's Questions for Tom from other People's Podcasts.
0:54:45 What We're Playing - Aperture Desk Job
1:04:30 Indika - Both Hosts
Transcript
Tom: Hello and welcome to episode of The Game Under Podcast.
Tom: I am your host, Tom Towers, and I am joined, as always, by Phil Fogg.
Phil: And I've just realized my beer is about to run out, and the other beer I have is beyond my arms reach.
Phil: My name is Philius Cleve Fogg, you can call me Phil.
Phil: Thank you for joining The Game Under Podcast, Australia's longest running video game podcast, at least so far as we know.
Tom: And what you're hearing now is a break while he goes to get his beer.
Phil: Got it.
Phil: Now I need a bottle opener.
Phil: You just proceed.
Phil: Now, I was recently, for whatever reason, listening to an old episode of ours, where for new listeners, we do obituaries on the show when notable people die, not just in the video gaming world, but in the world of sports, politics, philosophers.
Phil: And we always pause respectfully to obiturize them.
Phil: And episode combines all of those obituaries into a single show.
Phil: And I reminded you, Tom, that we did this show, and you said you wanted to mention that at the top of this one.
Tom: Well, I gave it a listen, and it gave me a few thoughts on the state of comedy today because-
Phil: I'm sorry, you must have misunderstood.
Phil: These were obituaries.
Phil: This was-
Tom: That's right.
Phil: This is the other end of comedy.
Phil: This was tragedy.
Tom: I think there was a little bit of comedy involved in it.
Phil: Well, perhaps.
Tom: As there should be in the comedy of life, death is a part of the comedy of life.
Tom: So naturally, when you're obiturizing someone, you should include a little bit of comedy, I think.
Tom: But nonetheless, wasn't so much death that it made me think about, but comedy, because I think in that show, there were a lot of potentially offensive and controversial statements that were made and some jokes that were pretty nuanced in their satirical content.
Tom: And it got me thinking about the slew of both famous and non-famous comedians who have made a career out of whining that they can't say what they want, or previously had a career as comedians and now in their old age, instead of continuing to practice comedy or come up with brilliant new ideas, turn their career into just one long unending wine fest, complaining that people are stopping them from saying what they want to say, and people are getting offended by them and complaining that they're racist or sexist or whatever else, when actually what they meant was this, and no one could be less sexist or racist than them.
Phil: Well, I think it's a convenient excuse.
Phil: Comedians have to be of the time for them to be relevant and to be humorous.
Phil: You have to be able to relate.
Phil: People have to be able to relate to the things that you're trying to say, and I'm not talking about relatable humor.
Phil: I'm talking about being able to comment on life and make people laugh.
Phil: Some topics are timeless, like death, but I do think it's convenient for some comedians that are perhaps aging out to go, oh, kids today, I can't be funny because they won't let me talk about the funny things.
Phil: There's a great podcast, which I'd recommend called Why Are You Laughing?
Phil: And it goes over the history of comedy and talks about topics such as these.
Phil: But I'll give a modern comedian some credits.
Phil: He fell in his s, Bill Burr.
Phil: And I find him quite funny, and he doesn't make excuses, because he found himself being shackled by this stuff and at some point went, what's the point of doing this if I'm not gonna be funny?
Phil: And he manages to keep himself relevant.
Phil: I've got to say, a lot of his act is drifting towards the when I was a kid and these kids today's type stuff.
Phil: But yeah, I mean, there are people who fight back, but there's certainly few and far between.
Tom: And that's really my point.
Tom: I mean, these people who were once great comedians or claim to presently be great comedians, usually had a career and I'll just give two examples here because we're willing to name names on The Game Under Podcast.
Phil: That we are.
Phil: That we are.
Tom: Jerry Seinfeld and John Cleese, both are great comedians who produced shows that were standout shows that were in some ways, in the case of Jerry Seinfeld, were nothing like the other shows of its time.
Tom: And in the case of John Cleese built on other people's works, and I don't mean this as a criticism, in a way that was able to take to an even larger audience strains of comedy that were going at the time.
Tom: And that's a skill and achievement in itself that he was able to translate what was slightly less mass appeal comedy to a mass audience and convince producers to be able to make it.
Tom: But both of them would certainly, and they would have spoken of the difficulties they had in being able to produce their shows and their work, how they wanted to at the time, yet they succeeded in doing it.
Tom: Now, apparently, they expect that perhaps because they succeeded in the past, they should be able to do whatever they want and receive the same support or audience adulation regardless, which to me merely demonstrates that as a comedian, you are now a complete and utter failure because you're no longer willing to actually fight for what your vision is.
Phil: I imagine if an editorial writer for a newspaper, if there was still newspapers, an editorial writer just basically, their column every week was, well, imagine if Christopher Hitchens was still alive and every week he wrote an editorial that says, well, I can't really talk about what I was gonna talk about because it would offend people.
Phil: And boy, oh boy, is that sad.
Phil: But, you know, comedians, aging comedians have had a number of excuses.
Phil: I mean, if you look at Bill Cosby certainly had no excuse.
Phil: So that's why he's in jail for what he did off the stage.
Phil: But on the stage, when he stopped being funny, he went, oh, you guys, you're working blue, you know, and you're wearing pants that have fallen down to your ankles, you know, you kids today, you know, comedians making excuses for not being funny as they age out is nothing new.
Tom: I would just add that I think we demonstrate as clearly as anyone else that you can say whatever the f*** you want.
Tom: And perhaps our relative obscurity helps us there.
Tom: But if these people truly believed in the importance of comedy and bear in mind, these people are the most pretentious people on earth.
Tom: Jerry Seinfeld, for instance, believes he is the jester to the king, telling the world, telling the world's leader serious truths in a funny way so that he doesn't get beheaded.
Tom: If you have that, go on.
Tom: Now, I was gonna say, if you have that level of belief in the importance of your craft, of your art and what you're saying, then you should be willing to live in obscurity, like The Game Under Podcast, which is not self-censor.
Phil: That's correct.
Phil: Obscurity is a fantastic shield.
Phil: Speaking of fantastic, the Summer Steam Sale is on.
Phil: Summer Steam Sale is on right now.
Phil: These are the games that I managed to pick up.
Phil: For $in total, are you ready for this reading?
Tom: I am.
Phil: And I'm gonna pause afterward, and you can tell me your impression of the game, right or wrong.
Phil: Game number one, Sniper Elite
Tom: I've never played it.
Phil: You've never played any Sniper Elite games?
Tom: No, I have not.
Phil: Okay, well, I can tell you, I played the first minutes of it, and it's fantastic.
Phil: It is not at all what you would expect.
Phil: And the only reason I bought it is because I could see that you had it in your library.
Tom: So it's not a game about elite snipers?
Phil: You would think that it's basically just a sniper.
Phil: I threw it based on the name, that it was a super, semi sniper game where they give you, okay, here's a situation, snipe this guy in this situation.
Phil: Masha has been set up in various Call of Duties.
Phil: And then basically you do that, and then there's a cut scene and you're like, okay, here's another sniper situation, but it's not.
Phil: It's a third person action shooter game, mostly action, even stealth game, where you are having to traverse an environment, sneak up on guys, kill them, stealth style, and get to the point where you can use your sniper rifle.
Phil: So yeah, it's actually a lot of fun.
Phil: And I picked Sniper Elite not only for the price point, because obviously one, two and three are way cheaper, but five is closer to full price.
Phil: But also because it was produced in an era where, I really enjoyed that type of game from a few years ago, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it.
Phil: So that's Sniper Elite
Phil: Don't be put off by the name.
Phil: The second game I got was Plague Tale, something, something blah, blah, Innocence.
Tom: I'm familiar with that one.
Phil: Yeah, you beat it, didn't you?
Tom: Yeah, I've played both of the Plague Tale games and beaten them both.
Phil: But this is the first one.
Phil: So I've heard nothing but great news about it.
Phil: And I'm hoping I haven't started playing it yet.
Phil: I'm hoping it has vibes of the, was it the game?
Phil: That was the PlayStation
Phil: The Order.
Phil: Yes, that's it.
Phil: The Order, yeah.
Phil: I'm hoping it has vibes like that.
Tom: I wouldn't say it does.
Tom: They're both very different games in terms of gameplay and also setting.
Phil: Third-person action, co-op, not third-person action, but what about?
Tom: Well, The Order was a third-person shooter.
Phil: So is Plague Tale third-person action more along the lines of Uncharted?
Tom: It's more, it's a combination of action and stealth.
Tom: With the emphasis probably being more on the stealth side of things.
Tom: And there's also puzzle-solving as well.
Phil: And a heart-wrenching story?
Tom: Yes.
Phil: Question mark?
Phil: Next one.
Phil: Third game on the list was Tear Down, which is the voxel-driven destruction game.
Phil: I did play the first three stages of this, and I'll have impressions of that another day.
Phil: But I've been wanting this game for years, and just haven't gotten it.
Phil: So I'm thrilled to get it.
Tom: And it's now finally been actually released, hasn't it?
Phil: Oh yeah, this is the official thing.
Phil: It's, yeah.
Phil: And they've actually gone on to do DLC content packs.
Phil: They're on where they're expanding on the concept.
Phil: The final game is from the people who did...
Tom: This War of Mine?
Phil: This War of Mine, exactly.
Phil: They are a new game from this year called Indika, which we'll end this show with, giving both of our impressions of, because we've both played it.
Tom: I don't think they made it, but they may have published it.
Phil: Published it, yeah, yeah.
Phil: Indika, and again, we won't talk about that, but that's sort of...
Phil: I don't even want to say it's a cult favorite, but it's certainly gaining some notoriety.
Phil: It was released this year.
Phil: We'll talk about that, both spoiler and spoiler free at the end of this episode.
Phil: So yeah, that's it.
Phil: I think it's the best four-game package I've gotten ever.
Phil: Indika, Sniper Elite Plague Tale and Teardown.
Tom: It's a good variety too.
Phil: Yeah, and all high quality, and of course all being played on my new PC, which I'm absolutely still in love with.
Phil: So with that, we'll go into news.
Phil: We've got breaking news to lead up today.
Phil: The Xbox Game Pass is getting a price increase, even more significantly Microsoft said that starting this week, it will retire Xbox Game Pass for a console tier for new users.
Phil: This will be replaced with a standard tier.
Phil: Yes, it's already gotten complicated, which will include access to a back catalogue of games and online play, but you will not get day one releases or cloud gaming.
Tom: Does this affect the PC version?
Phil: That's a very good question.
Phil: I'll let you look into that.
Phil: But what this does mean, and obviously this has been driven particularly because console sales have dropped double digits year over year for all platforms.
Phil: And my question was.
Phil: They've brought Xbox Game Pass to Amazon's Fire Stick recently, so the streaming service.
Phil: So the question was, well, why would you buy an Xbox if you can just buy Xbox Game Pass on an increasing number of dongles and smart TVs?
Phil: And I guess Microsoft's answer has been, well, yeah, you can for $.
Phil: But if you want to actually get games on day one, we're not going to give those away anymore.
Phil: You're going to have to pay more for Game Pass.
Phil: I think that from a money perspective, this is obviously an essential move for Microsoft.
Phil: I don't know if it's a smart move or not yet, because we just don't know how the gaming community is going to respond to this.
Phil: I know Netflix suffered greatly when they started introducing Tears.
Phil: They lost a lot of subscribers, and sadly for them, that was around the same time that Disney Plus rose to prominence.
Phil: So a lot of people just canceled Netflix and never came back.
Phil: But yeah, this is obviously very big news, because Xbox Game Pass, which has been the deal of the century for a long time, is now looking less of a sure thing.
Tom: I think $per month, that's pretty crap.
Tom: We're getting into the realm of PlayStation Plus.
Phil: Yep, yeah, definitely.
Phil: And this is where PlayStation Plus muddied the waters by having three or four different tiers and no one understanding it.
Phil: Yeah, for bucks, you get an access to back catalog of games.
Phil: Well, yeah, okay.
Phil: And online play, which is always just an absolute ripoff.
Phil: Yeah, the real thing has been saving the money on those day one releases.
Tom: Exactly.
Phil: I can't think that this is going to just result in backlash.
Tom: I greatly enjoyed playing the Halo collection for minutes when it came out.
Phil: Yeah, I mean, and we've talked about the impact of game powers before on gaming in general.
Phil: Good, bad or indifferent.
Phil: And the good thing is it exposes people to games that they otherwise may not play like Pentament.
Phil: The bad news is when people get a AAA title for no money, they're not very invested in it, so they might bounce off it in minutes.
Phil: And you don't, therefore, you're not getting any money from them for DLC or long-term engagement.
Phil: So this is sort of enforcing hardcore or people who love games intently to pay a little bit more.
Phil: So maybe instead of bouncing off the Halo Collection in minutes, you're like, well, I did pay extra for this, so maybe I'll stick with it for a bit longer.
Phil: It's a complicated social science problem.
Tom: It is, but I hope this has a similar reaction that Netflix did.
Phil: Yeah, I can't see it having any different reaction.
Phil: I mean, you're hardcore or you're hardcore.
Phil: I mean, you know, there are people that go, yeah, I could get it free with Xbox Game Pass, but it's not on Steam, and so I'll just pay for it on Steam, right?
Phil: I mean, there's a lot of extremes here.
Phil: And how much value are you really getting from the guy who's investing the minimal amount?
Phil: Are you getting brand buy-in and all the rest of it out of him by giving him all the games for free?
Phil: And, you know, this starts to come up, guess where this starts to come up?
Phil: Free letters, call of duty.
Phil: That's actually two words.
Phil: COD, I guess.
Phil: If they're going to start giving away call of duty for free, you know, that's a lot of money.
Phil: That is a lot of money.
Phil: Is it going to attract some users from PlayStation?
Phil: It will.
Phil: Probably not most because people are already invested because they've gone out and spent $on a PlayStation
Phil: And, you know, is it going to be worth it for them to jump over?
Phil: Well, if they're jumping over to an Amazon Fire Stick for a grand investment of $you're probably leaving a lot of money on the table.
Phil: Like I said, this is a very complex social science, business, economics issue that, you know, it would be challenging to work on.
Phil: But boy, I'd really want some help if I was the guy in charge of all this stuff.
Phil: Because I don't think there's any right answer.
Phil: If you want to be everyone's buddy forever, you can give away everything for free.
Phil: But it's not going to be forever because you're going to go out of business.
Phil: And at some point, the shareholders are going to say enough.
Phil: And maybe that's what they're trying to forestall.
Tom: And it would appear that the PC version is only going up $
Phil: Which is nothing.
Phil: No one's going to care.
Tom: And I don't think it is getting destroyed as the console version is.
Tom: Which I think makes sense because in my case anyway, I still have game pass.
Tom: I probably should have cancelled it while I've been playing Baldur's Gate
Tom: But it's worth having to play a random game here and there.
Phil: Yeah, if you've got good internet, it's worth it all day long.
Tom: But it's in no way worth...
Tom: The reason you could not do it in the way they're doing it on consoles is there's I don't believe a single person who would buy a game on game pass over any other way to buy it on PC.
Tom: It is without question.
Tom: The Xbox app is without question the worst possible way, other than the Microsoft Store, to play any game on PC.
Phil: On PC, if you...
Tom: Yes.
Phil: Unless...
Phil: As long as you're keeping Macs, Apple out of the PC definition.
Tom: Yes.
Phil: Yes.
Tom: And Linux.
Phil: And Linux or Linux as it's sometimes called.
Tom: Whereas if you have an Xbox, you can actually buy the game in a way where it should in theory be easy to play it.
Phil: Right.
Tom: So I think Xbox Game Pass on PC is so much cheaper and isn't going down that route because it would not be viable for them to do so because of how incredibly atrocious the app is to use.
Phil: Yep.
Phil: Yep.
Phil: There's plenty of barriers to entry there.
Phil: With that, we'll go on to our official...
Phil: That was breaking news.
Phil: We'll go on to our official story number one in all of our stories this week from here on out.
Phil: Credit to Eurogamer.
Phil: Story number one, Legend of Zelda.
Phil: Now we've got to get into the serious news, unfortunately.
Phil: So sorry about that.
Phil: A Legend of Zelda fan has been jailed for carrying his six-inch master sword in public.
Phil: A Legend of Zelda fan has been sentenced to four months in prison after being found in possession of a small replica, small replica, six inches, I'd say that's average, of a series master sword while in public.
Phil: In June, non-eaten resin Anthony Bray was arrested for carrying a bladed article which had a total blade length of six inches.
Phil: The blade was inside a sheath, okay, and could be released from the sheath with the press of a button.
Phil: When questioned, Bray said the master sword replica was purchased online as a fidget toy.
Phil: Officers explained that despite this being the intended purpose, the blade was, quote, in fact a sharply pointed item which could be used as a weapon and might put others in fear of it being used against them.
Phil: Bray maintained that he would not have used the Legend of Zelda sword as an actual weapon.
Phil: He did acknowledge that it could be perceived as threatening.
Phil: We take zero tolerance to bladed articles in public, and Bray has fallen afoul of this, said Sergeant Spellman.
Phil: He speaks in a rather poetic way, doesn't he?
Phil: Of the Patrol Investigators Unit, or the PIU.
Phil: It is possible to find fidget toys that aren't six inch blades.
Phil: It is possible not to wank down the street, I'm sorry.
Phil: It is possible not to walk down the street, holding them out in front of you.
Phil: Don't hold your six inch blade in front of you as you walk down the street.
Phil: With a bit more self-awareness...
Tom: Probably also don't hold it while you're wanking either.
Phil: Yep.
Phil: I'm sorry, I didn't do an accent either.
Phil: With a bit more self-awareness, Bray could have avoided contact with us completely.
Phil: Bray is now required to pay a victim surcharge of pounds, in addition to serving, as I said before, four months in jail.
Phil: You see the picture of Bray there.
Phil: I'd say he's a man in his s.
Phil: He's got conservative neck tattoos, I wouldn't say they're out of the way.
Phil: And based on the...
Phil: What are those?
Phil: The bulbous...
Phil: What are those called?
Phil: Looks like he likes his drink.
Phil: His nose is a bit bulbous.
Phil: He's got those...
Phil: I think they're called nose bosoms or rose bosoms or something like that.
Phil: Someone will correct this.
Phil: And you see the sword there.
Phil: This is not a fidget toy.
Phil: This is a sword.
Phil: You could kill someone with this thing.
Tom: You could also fidget with it.
Phil: Well, you can fidget with a lot of things that aren't lethal.
Tom: Do you think you could wank with it?
Tom: That's my question.
Phil: With this?
Phil: In public?
Phil: I wouldn't suggest wanking anything in public.
Phil: But...
Tom: I think it puts...
Tom: When you consider the fact that he was wanking down the street, holding it down in front of him, I think wanking, you said, I think that puts the case in a whole new light.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: He doesn't look like a Zelda fan, I think.
Phil: He could be a Zelda fan.
Tom: What does a Zelda fan look like?
Phil: Well...
Phil: D-Vader.
Phil: Someone from Florida.
Tom: I think a man with a six inch Master Sword replica would be likely to be found in Florida.
Phil: I think so too.
Phil: Florida man.
Tom: So he clearly is a Zelda fan.
Phil: On to more serious news.
Phil: Story number two.
Phil: Ubisoft condemns hateful acts.
Phil: Ubisoft boss Yves Guimond has spoken out to condemn the malicious and personal online attacks directed at its developer, developers in the wake of online fallout from Assassin's Creed Shadows Reveal.
Phil: So the latest game in the Assassin's Creed series is going to be Assassin's Creed Shadows.
Phil: Now, this is set in feudal Japan.
Phil: And earlier this month, Ubisoft revealed it has two protagonists in it.
Phil: One, a black samurai named Misaki, a notable figure from the period, and a fictional shinobi named Nao, who happens to be a woman.
Phil: So in this historically set drama, the two main protagonists are black and a woman.
Phil: And it's obviously set in feudal Japan, where this sort of thing happened all the time.
Phil: The internet reacted as normal, as you'd expect, and ex-owner Elon Musk also got involved.
Tom: What did this Elon Musk used to own?
Phil: Ex, formerly known as Twitter, also SpaceX.
Tom: He no longer owns it.
Tom: So he no longer owns any of these things.
Phil: He is the current owner of Ex.
Tom: He's not the ex-owner.
Phil: No, he's the current owner.
Tom: Okay, let's clear that up.
Phil: He's the current ex-owner of Ex, formerly known as Twitter.
Phil: I would have said Tesla owner.
Phil: Anyway, on his platform, he said DEI kills art.
Phil: Now DEI, as you do not know, is an acronym for diversity, equity and inclusion.
Phil: So he obviously assumed that, again, why is Elon Musk giving a shit about the next Assassin's Creed Shadows, Assassin's Creed game?
Tom: Doesn't he have any children in a cave he wants to **** something?
Phil: No, no, that's not him.
Phil: He accused a spelunker who was saving children, I think in the Philippines, of that.
Phil: He was not himself involved.
Tom: I think it was in Thailand.
Phil: Yes, yeah, that's right.
Tom: I'm just saying that as far as I'm aware, Elon Musk is a ****.
Phil: Well, you cannot say that.
Tom: I can!
Tom: He proved it in court that I could.
Phil: You can, but you're going to get it edited out of this podcast because it's libel.
Tom: It's not!
Tom: He successfully proved it was not libel.
Phil: Well, I'm sorry, but you've been bleeped.
Phil: I'm not going to edit it out, but you will be bleeped because it could be construed as libel.
Tom: Now I understand what Jerry Seinfeld is talking about.
Phil: That's right.
Phil: As the executive producer in the deep pockets of this operation, we cannot be libelous.
Phil: There are certain things you can accuse people of, public figures, but there are a few things that you can't accuse them of.
Phil: Now...
Tom: Unless you're Elon Musk.
Phil: Elon Musk apparently cares about Assassin's Creed enough to make this comment, but not caring enough to know that there was actually a black samurai named Yusaki.
Tom: And women in Japan as well.
Phil: And women were also in Japan.
Phil: And so in this case, she's a fictional shinobi.
Phil: Now I don't know if there's any shinobis that were female, right?
Phil: So he may have been referring to that.
Phil: He may have a rich understanding of the history of Yusaki.
Phil: But to continue on with the story, quote the response from Ubisoft, for me, Elon, it's sad.
Phil: He's just feeling, he's just feeding hatred.
Phil: I had a lot of three word replies that came to mind.
Phil: I don't know that you need three word replies to something like that if you're working at Ubisoft from this game.
Phil: I can think of one, two word reply.
Tom: What are the three word replies?
Phil: Well, you've got to remember he's French.
Tom: So we need to know French, what that means.
Phil: Might need to add some other things in there.
Phil: But let's see, three word replies is something you don't like.
Tom: I am upset.
Phil: I am upset.
Phil: Don't say that.
Phil: Why say that?
Tom: How could you?
Phil: There you go.
Phil: We came up with three.
Phil: If you've got another one of a three word reply that comes to your mind, go to gameunder.net.
Phil: You can comment on this show right from the front page without registering or anything like.
Phil: He goes on to say, what Elon says is not the game that we are building.
Phil: And that's the end of the story.
Tom: So the game he's building is against diversity, is against equity and is against inclusion.
Phil: Beautiful.
Phil: Yeah, exactly.
Tom: Maybe that was the three word reply he was thinking of.
Phil: Oh, diversity, equality, and whatever I stand for.
Phil: Inclusion.
Tom: In French, it will be liberté.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: Well, story number three.
Phil: This is another serious story.
Phil: Nintendo pledges action over inappropriate use of its characters.
Phil: So players are not made to feel uncomfortable.
Phil: Nintendo has responded concern over an inappropriate use of its characters online.
Phil: And said it would take appropriate action against anything that would make players feel uncomfortable.
Phil: Nintendo president Furukawa was recently questioned by a shareholder who said they'd come across cases on social media when Nintendo IP and games were being used inappropriately.
Phil: So I don't know.
Phil: Well, I could guess how you could use some Nintendo games inappropriately, but the Switch cartridge, for example, is way too small to be used inappropriately, so far as I can tell.
Phil: I guess they may be licking it, like LSD or something like that, but potentially it was the inappropriate use of a six-inch master sword on a street that they had in mind.
Phil: That's probably the case.
Phil: This could have all been headed off.
Phil: The guy's gone to jail already.
Phil: This inappropriate use of Nintendo's characters poses a risk of damaging the company's brand.
Phil: So what are you going to do about it?
Phil: Asked the shareholder.
Phil: In response, Furukawa said Nintendo's management policy was to bring smiles through entertainment, but presumably not the kind of smiles generated by inappropriate use.
Phil: Eh?
Phil: Eh?
Phil: That's wrong, Eurogame.
Phil: There's very serious coverage of this.
Phil: Our goal is to create an environment where everyone can enjoy playing games.
Phil: We will continue to make every effort to ensure that our consumers are not made to feel uncomfortable, not only in our games, but also anywhere they come into contact with our IP, which is completely...
Phil: They cannot do it.
Phil: It's called fair use.
Phil: It's called satire.
Phil: It's called parody.
Phil: If you're representing that a Bowsette is a...
Phil: something that Nintendo has produced and an efficiently licensed thing from Nintendo, you're going down, you're getting sued.
Phil: If you're selling something that has Mario's likeness on it with him and depicted giving the double finger saying inappropriate three word statements like, I am sad.
Phil: I am sad.
Phil: Or, why am I doing?
Phil: Why am I doing is probably not inappropriate actually.
Phil: It's probably something that Charles Martinet said many times.
Phil: What am I doing?
Phil: But the funny thing is, so the internet goes absolutely off, right?
Phil: Like they're taking Bowser away from us.
Phil: How dare they fair use parody satire?
Phil: We can sexually exploit all of the Nintendo intellectual art.
Phil: Yeah, you can, I guess, but why are you raging against the machine on this one when you know that there's no way Nintendo can out internet the internet?
Phil: Now, here comes the turn.
Phil: Here's an update from someone who actually speaks Japanese.
Phil: This came after all the uproar, right?
Phil: Nintendo's transcript of the question is reportedly accurately below her, the company's, own translation.
Phil: So Nintendo had the correct translation in their minutes, but then deleted it.
Phil: They censored the question itself, right?
Phil: Which has caused all of this misunderstanding because people are relying on the transcripts from the shareholders meeting.
Phil: So the actual question was that this guy stood up and said, hey, man, you know, I've seen this stuff on social media.
Phil: This is Mario Cosplayer in Japan, who's been sending lewd images to miners dressed as Mario.
Phil: You know, with his, you know, master sword exposed.
Phil: And that's what he was responding to.
Phil: So, like, I think it's legitimate.
Phil: The response is legitimate when you know that the question was about someone who was exposing himself to miners dressed as Mario.
Phil: But, you know, the internet didn't stop to pause to go back and reflect on, oh, well, OK, yeah, well, no one wants that.
Phil: We will just all keep living in the reality that they're talking about Bowser.
Tom: Though I would add, the description is a Mario cosplayer in Japan accused of sending nude images to miners.
Tom: So I don't know if this was during his cosplaying or not.
Phil: OK, yeah, fair enough.
Phil: OK, so under your premise, this guy is just a famous Mario cosplayer.
Phil: But then when he wasn't dressed as Mario, he was exposing himself to miners.
Tom: Exactly.
Phil: OK, the problem with your premise is the first two words of that statement.
Phil: Famous cosplayer.
Tom: But if he's not doing it as part of his act as the character, the action does not include the character.
Phil: I'm going to assume that he's sending pictures of himself as Mario, as a cosplayer, to engage with children.
Phil: And then once the children engage with him, he's like, I can show you a little bit more of Mario if you want, or even if you don't want.
Phil: Did you know that Mario has a six inch master sword?
Phil: That sort of thing.
Tom: We don't know that, though.
Tom: That's all I'm saying.
Tom: We're acting on pure hearsay.
Phil: What, that Mario doesn't have a six inch master sword?
Tom: We weren't sending the images in question.
Phil: I've seen a film with Ron Jeremy in it, and I agree, it's probably not a six inch master sword.
Phil: Now, that ends our official news story, but I understand you've been taking, you've gone onto the streets, and you've been doing an investigative deep dive.
Tom: Yes, I do.
Phil: Very good.
Tom: I've also, as well as Game Pass, been subscribed to Humble Choice for a very long time now, because I originally paused the subscription several times.
Phil: Now, I'm sorry to interrupt, but what is Humble Choice?
Tom: Humble Choice is the humble bundle subscription service in which they give you, I think it is games per month now.
Tom: Something like that for, I think, $Australian.
Phil: That's really good buy.
Tom: I think if you go buy, if you were not originally subscribed to it, it's a lot more than that.
Tom: It's something like $Australian or more potentially.
Tom: But if you are an original subscriber or subscribed in the first few months, you have it at the original price still.
Phil: And Humble Bundle was brought out by EB Games slash GameStop.
Phil: I know that for a long time, but apparently Zip Davis, the video game publisher who now owns IGN, owns them.
Phil: So Humble Bundle started out as a very small, almost non-profit, I'm going to say, that was a way of bundling together indie games so that these games could get more publicity and more of a following.
Phil: And that they'd offer them at a certain price, and you'd pay a certain price.
Phil: You'd say, oh, I want to pay $
Phil: And they're like, okay, well, you'll get this game, this game and this game.
Phil: But if you wanted to pay $you'd get an additional game.
Phil: If you want to pay $or $you'd get a whole bunch of games.
Phil: So they basically, in addition to that, or in place of that, converted that to a subscription model, which sounds pretty good.
Phil: I mean, Amazon Games that you get for free with Prime, quote for free, gives you about six to eight games a month.
Phil: So games a month.
Tom: A correction, it is eight games.
Phil: And are the games worth playing?
Tom: But they are, depends on the month, I would say.
Tom: But they are yours to keep in theory, rather than it being like Game Pass or I believe Apple Games where when you stop subscribing, you can no longer play said games.
Phil: Right, which again, to pump the Prime of Amazon Prime, as I found out, they give you the files.
Phil: You don't have to hook them up or associate them with an account.
Phil: You can play them, which is admirable.
Tom: Excellent.
Tom: So they're a similar model.
Phil: So where's the investigative deep dive here?
Phil: Sounds like a good deal.
Tom: Well, that's what we're getting to.
Tom: It does sound like a good deal.
Tom: Now, it's been more than a year since I have actually attempted to install any of these games.
Phil: Whoa.
Tom: But this has happened on occasion in the past, where I've gone a few months in between actually adding the games to my Steam account, and there haven't been any issues before.
Tom: But as I was browsing through this ridiculous number of random games that I've accrued over more than a year, one game in particular caught my eye, which was Fashion Police Squad, which is a first-person shooter in which you are, I think, writing the fashion wrongs of people on the street.
Tom: It's essentially a humorous take on classic first-person shooters.
Phil: Sounds good.
Tom: Hence the name.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: I think I also got this through Amazon Prime.
Phil: And just an interesting side note, the fashion police are an actual, you know this of course, in Iran, the fashion police are an actual division of the police that go around, you know, policing women who are dressed inappropriately.
Phil: But I love the concept.
Tom: Which I think we can see from this game is something we're crying out for in the West as well.
Phil: Judging from what I've seen in the last few days while I've been in Brisbane, yes.
Phil: I don't think people should be wearing pajamas in public.
Phil: I don't think people should be dressing cow pajamas in public or sheep pajamas in public.
Tom: What if they're not animal themed pajamas?
Tom: Is this part of your veganism, by the way?
Phil: I think you can get away with a plaid or plaid pant as a pajama.
Phil: I mean, that's kind of living the punk lifestyle.
Phil: It's been around since the s.
Phil: But you can't just wear pajamas in public, especially if you're going to go barefoot.
Phil: If you're going down to get the newspaper that doesn't exist anymore, that's one thing.
Phil: But if you're walking city blocks in the middle of the day, animal themed or not, you cannot wear pajamas.
Phil: They need to be fashion policed.
Phil: And so in this game, how do you judge whether someone's...
Phil: You played it, right?
Tom: Well, this is what we're getting to.
Phil: Okay.
Tom: So I go to unlock my Steam code, and I'm informed.
Tom: The Steam codes have run out.
Tom: We will inform you as soon as we have more available.
Phil: Oh, really?
Tom: Yes.
Tom: So I Googled this problem, and apparently this has occurred to other people.
Tom: And you might say, as many people did on the Internet, well, it's been...
Tom: Bear in mind, this was from the...
Tom: Let me see which bundle.
Tom: The April bundle.
Tom: So April bundle
Tom: So only a few months ago.
Tom: And I was not even in the country in April
Tom: So I've only had about six or so weeks, less than two months, to activate this Steam code.
Tom: You might say, well, it's been a long time, you should have activated it, but nowhere does it say.
Tom: I mean, when you are subscribed to the thing, it says you're being given, you are purchasing eight games, essentially.
Tom: I would say that's pretty unacceptable to not reserve a Steam code for someone who has purchased a game on your platform.
Phil: Yeah, you know what that tells me?
Phil: They know the number of zombie accounts they have.
Phil: They know the number of...
Phil: Let's just keep it small numbers.
Phil: It's hopefully going to be bigger for them.
Phil: Let's say they have subscribers.
Phil: That means they know for a fact that only of them are actively claiming games, or or
Phil: So they only buy licenses or Steam keys until they get enough complaints to go out and go, okay, fine.
Phil: Let's just say they get complaints, so they go out and buy another Steam keys.
Tom: So I would call this a pyramid scheme.
Phil: Would you not?
Phil: Yeah, a Ponzi scheme, and no, it's not a Ponzi scheme.
Phil: Well, a Ponzi scheme is a pyramid scheme.
Phil: I wouldn't...
Phil: Yeah, I'm just trying to see if that would fit that definition.
Phil: It's definitely a scam.
Tom: It's % a scam.
Phil: It's % a scam.
Tom: But there were a lot of people arguing because full of Reddit threads and other posts of this on the Internet, there were so many people replying, saying...
Tom: And some of these people literally did try to activate their game instantly.
Tom: And again, this is only...
Tom: This is within two months of this bundle being released.
Tom: There were so many people saying, well, you should have just activated it earlier.
Tom: If I go in to EB and I buy a game and I take that game home, if I don't open the box for six months, if the game is not in there, EB has scanned me.
Phil: Or more likely, you go in to EB, you buy a game, it's got a download code.
Phil: No, it's got a download code.
Phil: And you do what I did with that crap.
Tom: Let's say there's no download code in it either.
Phil: No, yeah, but the point would be, mate, I bought Mad Max from Bethesda, right?
Tom: Yep.
Phil: And didn't say anything about nothing on there.
Phil: I get at home, I put it in the things, like, no, no, you got to download it.
Phil: No, no, that's fine.
Phil: I don't have internet.
Phil: I just want to play the game, thanks.
Phil: No, you got to download it.
Tom: Yep.
Phil: Okay, well, let's say I do want to download it.
Phil: Yeah, but you need a Bethesda account.
Phil: But I don't want a Bethesda account.
Phil: I don't really care.
Phil: You need to get a Bethesda account, then you need to download the game, right?
Phil: So just imagine if you bought a game with the code, and then six months later, you put in the code and like, nah, mate, you know, we only had codes.
Phil: That's a closer corollary to what you're describing.
Tom: It is and it isn't, because at the end of the tunnel for you, and in theory, this is the case here, but it's only in theory at this stage, at the end of the tunnel for you, if you could somehow jump through the hoops required, the game you purchased would still exist.
Phil: The game might have rented.
Tom: As an accessible thing.
Phil: Right.
Tom: Yes.
Tom: Whereas in this case, it's purely just a scam.
Tom: It's not, it's, what you're describing is the type of scam where that's more like a timeshare scam, is it not?
Tom: Where you've got to jump through an endless stream of million hoops to get somewhere.
Tom: But for the few people who do that, a shitty experience will await them at some point in the future.
Phil: It is a true scam.
Phil: You have identified it correctly.
Tom: But clearly, what we've learned from this is I should have got Amazon Prime.
Phil: Absolutely.
Phil: We do have Amazon Prime.
Tom: Can you, is the backlog of games on Amazon Prime?
Phil: You've got to claim the game, so you've got days to claim it.
Phil: Once you've claimed it, you can download it whenever you want.
Tom: Was that around days ago, or is it already gone?
Phil: What's that?
Phil: Oh, this particular game.
Phil: I have no idea.
Phil: It was a while ago.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: And I typically have, I do not claim everything.
Phil: I just claim the games that I have a legitimate interest in, because I know that it's going to cost Amazon.
Phil: And, you know, I don't need to pay for games I don't want or have no interest in.
Phil: And then sometimes things like this catch my attention because of the name.
Phil: Fashion Police was one of them.
Phil: You know, and most times they're classic games.
Phil: And I know what they are already.
Phil: And other times they're games I really want, like moving out.
Phil: So again, Amazon Prime games, if you're paying for Amazon Prime, they're leaving money on the table for DRM free games.
Phil: It's just a, it's a really good service.
Phil: It hasn't got all the bells and whistles of Steam, far from it, but you know, it's not painful the way Epic is.
Phil: So we'll move on to email.
Phil: We've got one email this week before we get into what we've been playing.
Phil: We have spoiler and spoiler free interpretations of Indika.
Phil: And I believe you've also played Aperture Deskjobs.
Phil: Aperture Deskjobs, which I talked about in the last episode, which we'll catch up with you on as well.
Phil: OK, so you're ready for your question.
Phil: This is Phil's questions for Tom from other people's podcasts.
Tom: I'm ready.
Phil: Alan from Undisclosed Location Rights, would you prefer if life had unlimited saves or it's saved on a checkpoint basis?
Tom: Why would anyone choose checkpoint basis?
Phil: I'll repeat that again.
Phil: Would you prefer if life had unlimited saves or saves on a checkpoint basis?
Phil: So you're saying unlimited saves for you.
Tom: Obviously.
Phil: And what does that mean?
Tom: Well, that's the question.
Tom: Can you load the saves?
Phil: Yep, unlimited loadable saves.
Tom: So then obviously you would go with that.
Phil: Now you still live for the same duration of time.
Phil: You just get to undo decisions.
Tom: So you're not redoing things?
Phil: Well, he doesn't.
Phil: There's no rules to this.
Phil: He hasn't specified the rules.
Tom: I think you need to specify these things.
Phil: I think, well, there's no rules.
Phil: There's no rules for Alan.
Phil: But I'm just saying, I think perhaps on a philosophical level, this is not about being able to live forever.
Phil: Because if you have unlimited saves, you'd save at birth.
Phil: You'd live your life for years, and then you'd go back and go, I want to do that again, right?
Tom: That's what I'm saying.
Tom: Logically speaking, according to the question, as it is worded, there's really only one useful answer.
Phil: And that's only because you want immortality, right?
Tom: No, because you can just keep living.
Tom: You don't even need to reload at any point and die if you want.
Phil: OK, so now if you did have unlimited saves, how often would you do an unlimited save?
Phil: Would you only do it when you're about to make a major decision?
Phil: Or would you just save every minutes or every five minutes?
Tom: Every seconds or so, I would estimate.
Phil: Oh, come on, man.
Phil: You'd be spending all your life would be nothing but pressing the save button.
Phil: You've got to press a physical save button.
Phil: There's a physical save button near the fridge that you've got to go over, walk and press to save.
Tom: You've got to go all the way over to the fridge.
Phil: To the fridge.
Phil: And then if you want to load your save, you've got to go out onto the patio.
Tom: Once per day, then.
Tom: I'll save at the beginning and the end of the day, depending on how the day went.
Phil: So you've gone from seconds to a day because you don't want to walk from the fridge to the bloody patio.
Phil: You must have a huge house.
Tom: It is a big house.
Phil: Dang.
Phil: Now, I'm going to look at this a different way, which is why there's two of it.
Phil: If you were to save on a checkpoint basis, I think that you're accepting life as it is, and you're accepting that sometimes you make mistakes.
Phil: But had you had a redo, you wouldn't have made that decision.
Phil: But then if you hadn't made that decision, you wouldn't have had the outcome that you're currently having.
Phil: So would you learn or would you benefit from poor decisions if life was being saved on a checkpoint basis?
Tom: How far apart are these checkpoints?
Phil: Well, for example, if I was at...
Phil: Well, that's different.
Phil: I mean, a checkpoint basis is basically saying, are we going to give you an opportunity to restart every six months?
Phil: So a bad checkpoint system, just like Indika has.
Phil: But with chapters, chapters, Indika saves on a checkpoint basis on chapters, so we use that.
Phil: So a chapter in life might be, let's say, a year.
Tom: Yeah.
Tom: So it will be based purely on time, not events that occur.
Phil: So yeah, but...
Tom: Because it could also be based on events occurring.
Phil: Here's the problem.
Phil: I think you'd find yourself being a rat chasing its tail if you had unlimited saves.
Phil: For example, my first girlfriend, you know, oh my god, I've loved my life.
Phil: You know, I want to be with her the whole life, right?
Phil: If I had unlimited saves, I'd still be with her.
Phil: And my life would be hell.
Phil: But because life was saving on a checkpoint basis, it's kind of like, you know, if you had the ability to go back and relive the last months to undo a decision that you made so that you would still be with that person, you know, at this point, I go, you know what, I'll just take the months.
Phil: Thank you very much, because in retrospect, that wasn't a good choice.
Phil: That wasn't a good life choice.
Phil: And I would be better off not making that decision to relive that aspect of my life.
Phil: And I hope I communicated that well, because that's as best as I can communicate it.
Tom: I understood what you were saying.
Phil: Yeah.
Tom: But I'm still going to go with unlimited saves, precisely for the reason you described.
Tom: I think it reveals your own personal insanity to you in a way that checkpoints do not.
Phil: Excellent point.
Phil: So if you are a rat chasing your tail with the unlimited saves, what you're saying perhaps is that after six months of reliving this stuff every day, you would probably go, you know what, in retrospect, now that I've been looking at this stuff and reliving it every time I make a mistake and going back and doing it again and again, I'm not going to want to be with this person.
Phil: I'm going to make a decision to go in a different direction.
Tom: Exactly.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: So Alan, Tom's answer is you would prefer unlimited saves.
Tom: I would.
Phil: And I'm going to say I agree with you after that.
Phil: I think I would have started out with a checkpoint basis and living life sort of play out a bit, but we all do have a finite amount of time on this planet.
Tom: Not if you have unlimited saves, though.
Phil: Not if you have unlimited saves.
Phil: Excellent.
Phil: That's a great question, Alan.
Phil: So with that, we'll go on to what we've been playing.
Phil: Did you want to touch on a game that I talked about last week that is a pre-packing game?
Phil: It's developed by Valve.
Phil: Any person on Steam can play it anytime they want.
Phil: They don't need a Steam deck for it.
Phil: It's called Aperture Destrobe, set in the world of Portal.
Phil: I thought it was a well-written, very well-audio-directed, tight gameplay experience.
Phil: And it was made based on the credits I saw, by or people.
Phil: And certainly, you know, it's free, so that's another thing going for it.
Phil: And it's short, that's another thing going for it.
Phil: But you want to give your, perhaps, light-spoiler impressions of it?
Tom: I think you said it was Valve's best game ever.
Phil: No, I did not.
Tom: I think you did.
Phil: I said it was the best indication of what Valve is capable of at this point.
Tom: What does that mean, exactly?
Phil: That, you know, Valve is a velvet box that we don't get to look into very often.
Phil: So that I think that any opportunity that we can...
Phil: You're getting the Diadestiny ready, aren't you?
Tom: I'm trying to find it.
Tom: I cannot currently find it.
Phil: Well, it's okay.
Phil: I've got the Diadestiny sound effect.
Phil: So I hate to burst your bubble here.
Phil: But basically when you roll the Diadestiny, we cannot hear it.
Phil: So I have to put in a sound effect.
Phil: So despite what I said...
Tom: It's not about the sound.
Tom: It's about the...
Phil: Destiny.
Tom: I understand that.
Tom: Authenticity of using real dice.
Phil: No one can question your authenticity on that.
Phil: Nothing can replicate the authenticity.
Phil: But please do know that every time you do it, I'm using a sound effect.
Phil: It takes about a minute and a half of my life to find it, cut it in and all that.
Phil: But don't feel guilty about that.
Phil: So, no, I didn't say it's their best work, but I thought that it was a good sign that they're still capable of producing something of a good quality.
Tom: So do you think there was some self-expression in this game, given your statement, bearing in mind that the setting is you are working in a factory that is making toilets, and a robot appears and starts making additions, creative additions, to this toilet, and this will contain minor spoilers, which get progressively more and more out of hand until they produce a toilet that they're satisfied with.
Tom: It's their great invention, and they take it to the head of the company to show the head of the company.
Phil: Oh, wow.
Tom: And essentially, it was all for naught.
Phil: This, my friend, is delicious.
Phil: Yes, it's self-commentary.
Phil: It never would have occurred to me, and it's fantastic.
Phil: Oh, my God, this is brilliant, because remember what the robot keeps telling him.
Phil: There's this ridiculous premise that wherever you go, you have to take your desk.
Phil: And of course, what do we know about Valve?
Phil: All their desks have wheels on them.
Phil: So that if you want to change your job, if you want to do something different, you have to take your desk with you.
Phil: And so the robot replies, okay, we're going to go and do this other thing now, but remember, take your desk with you.
Phil: This is delicious.
Phil: And they have the head at the end, which is this big monolithic Easter Island-type figure, like, at the shrugged-type thing.
Phil: Oh, my God.
Phil: Yeah, you've hit it on the nail.
Phil: This is fantastic.
Phil: Fantastic insight.
Tom: And I think maybe it's not just Valve fans that are crying out for a new Valve game.
Phil: Well, who else would be?
Tom: I think perhaps some developers there.
Phil: Oh, gotcha.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: That's fantastic.
Phil: And so maybe, honestly, I agree with myself or rather the misrepresentation of myself.
Phil: This is the best Valve game ever.
Phil: It's a self-contemplation.
Phil: It's like the hostage who scratches the Morse code into his shirt when he's telling everyone how good the AYATOL is, but his shirt says, please help me get me out of here.
Phil: It's a cry for help.
Phil: This is beautiful.
Phil: We should have led the show with this.
Tom: I think we should have too.
Phil: Well, I apologize, but I'm going to publicize this as the lead thing.
Phil: This is Valve's best game.
Phil: That's what this show is going to be called.
Phil: Yeah, no, that's a fantastic insight, Tom.
Phil: Now, what did you think of the game itself besides the obvious commentary?
Tom: I think that was by far the most interesting part of the game and most enjoyable.
Tom: And I think, I'm not sure I would necessarily say it's the best Valve game because Portal is an exceptionally good puzzle game.
Tom: But I think it has what is lacking in other Valve games, which is a personal touch.
Tom: Portal is hilarious, but the humor is polished to the point of meaninglessness.
Tom: I don't think you could at all return to Portal and enjoy anything about the experience other than the excellent puzzles.
Tom: And they're the sort of puzzles you actually can replay because the physics involved in them makes redoing them quite enjoyable.
Tom: But the whole presentation, I think, loses a lot.
Tom: And in the case of Half-Life, I think, without the humor, there's absolutely nothing in the narrative of any worth whatsoever, because if there was thematic content in Half-Life, I think the very dry setting could work, but any sort of themes in those games is completely sucked out of them.
Tom: The setting is interesting in them insofar as experience and installation, which I think is what I enjoy most about Half-Life Alex, because you are exploring in great detail the setting, which is interesting in theory, this sort of post-Soviet, brutalist architecture atmosphere that they could have explored so much in but chose not to.
Tom: I think it's amazing that a game like Aperture Desk Job was made by Valve, because it's so far away from anything they've done in the past, and essentially goes against the way they have made all their games previously.
Phil: Okay, now to depress you, what if there are two people like me there at Valve, two people like us at Valve, right?
Phil: And we're like, what if we were just so calculated and cynical?
Phil: Like, hey, people know about the whole desk shifting thing, right?
Tom: Yep.
Phil: And people know we don't make a lot of games.
Phil: People know that Gabe is kind of an empty monolith that people bow down to, but there's really nothing there, there.
Phil: So why don't we make a game that plays up on that?
Phil: And rather than being a heartfelt right to help, this is more of a cynical, oh, the kids will get this.
Tom: I think that could easily be the case, but through sheer accident, they still created something that has some meaning in it, I would say.
Phil: If it were revolutionary within the organization, and they took this to Gabe Newell, let's say it was revolutionary and they took it to Gabe Newell, and Gabe Newell is not a dummy, obviously.
Phil: I don't think he can be intellectually poor.
Phil: Perhaps he's lacking in insight or having some blind spots and other things because of his power and wealth.
Phil: Is there a way that this game could be presented to Gabe Newell and Gabe Goh?
Phil: So am I the empty modelist?
Tom: I would hope he would potentially have that interpretation.
Phil: The other interpretation is would Gabe have even seen this?
Tom: I would presume that he wouldn't even have seen it.
Phil: There's a lot of presumptions there.
Phil: But anyway, I still love, I love...
Tom: Maybe it was his idea.
Phil: I love you.
Phil: Maybe it was his idea.
Phil: Hey, you two smart Aussie kids in the corner, go make a cynical thing that some smart fans out there will appreciate, okay?
Phil: Don't make it too smart, you know, because they're not too smart.
Phil: They might not pick up on it.
Phil: You know, they might be more Phil Fogg, less Tom Towers, you know what I'm saying?
Phil: So, I don't know why Gabe talks like that, but...
Phil: Thanks for giving us the show title.
Phil: Okay, so on to Indika, right?
Phil: So, Indika is a game that has come out in.
Phil:
Phil: And like we said, it's been published by -bit studios, which made your favorite game, a game that I thought quite highly of.
Phil: This were mine.
Phil: They published it, but the developer is OddMeter.
Phil: And this is apparently their first game, or their first published game.
Phil: Tell me if I'm wrong.
Phil: I'm going to describe it as a third-person puzzle platformer with D gaming elements.
Tom: I would say that's accurate.
Tom: I think the emphasis is definitely on puzzle solving, though.
Tom: I would call it more a walking simulator slash puzzle game with D platforming elements.
Phil: The internet calls it the genre adventure, which is ridiculous.
Phil: Eko, by your definition, would be a walking simulator with some puzzle elements.
Tom: There's a lot of platforming in Eko.
Phil: Yeah, there's a lot of platforming in this.
Phil: I think it's a puzzle platformer, a D puzzle platformer in the same vein as Eko.
Phil: I mean, because you've got a companion.
Tom: Could be, yeah.
Tom: Yeah, towards the end, actually, yeah, there is quite a bit of platforming.
Phil: Yeah, and you've got a companion.
Phil: I'd say there's been platforming in the middle as well.
Phil: So certainly an unconventional thing is built with the Unreal Engine and available for PlayStation Xbox, PC, obviously.
Phil: The thing that grabbed me about this game was obviously they have a very brutal and confronting and interesting graphical style to how they present the game with these nuns with halos around their heads, not halos in the traditional way, but in the way that it was represented in a renaissance with basically a yellow circle or a golden circle behind their heads, all laughing and mocking.
Phil: A woman of modest appearance, but still beautiful by comparison to these hakelin women that are crowded around her.
Phil: So immediately, you're drawn with, well, what is this?
Phil: And I don't know the provenance of OddMeter, the developer, but -bit is out of Poland, and this game is set in Russia, or one of the Russian territories, if I'm not wrong.
Tom: I think so, and I think the developer is Russian.
Phil: Well, the guy's name is Dmitry Svetlov.
Phil: So yeah, that's kind of a hint.
Phil: So I'm just trying to give the background of this game and everything, but certainly it's got unconventional protagonists.
Phil: When would you say this is set?
Phil: s to s, based on the weapons?
Tom: That would be probably my guess too.
Phil: Yep.
Tom: Sometime around the First World War.
Phil: And in a spoiler-free way, you play as a female character, a nun, who is refreshingly not beautiful from a video game perspective.
Phil: It's refreshing not to play someone who looks like a supermodel.
Phil: And it starts out as sort of a work simulator and just touching the high points.
Phil: But at a certain point, you're tasked to leave this snow-driven monastery to go and do something.
Phil: Something happens, and you're now, for the rest of the game, going to be joined with a male character who is of a completely different life experience in every form, spiritually, vocationally, class, the whole thing.
Phil: And along the way, you learn why you've been given the task that you've been given, and then basically from there, you sort of deviate from the path that you've been given to an unknown end that you're going to explore as the game player.
Phil: Have I done a sufficient job there describing the spoiler-free elements of the game?
Tom: I think you did a good job.
Phil: Thank you.
Phil: So keeping it spoiler-free, this is a completely refreshing game that if you haven't considered purchasing and playing, I would tell you to go out and do it.
Phil: Even if you don't like it, I would say that this is a must-experience game just because it is so unconventional, unconventional in so many different ways.
Phil: And as we've spoken about many times before, this podcast is about stretching people's understanding of what a video game is and being able to enjoy things that you may not have known about.
Phil: Yeah, sure, it's a third-person action, a third-person puzzle platformer to an extent.
Phil: Yes, to a certain degree, it's a work simulator.
Phil: Yes, to a certain degree, it's a walking simulator.
Phil: But I think it has an authenticity behind it that elevates it to a new level.
Phil: And the refreshing part of that is perhaps the, again, provenance of the developer being Russian, our, quote, enemy at this time of history, bringing a story that...
Tom: Why do you hate Russians?
Tom: I don't.
Phil: I don't hate anyone.
Tom: Is it our enemy?
Phil: Well, I meant, you know, quote, I said, quote, the worst enemy right now.
Tom: I thought you meant Game Unders.
Phil: No, no, no.
Phil: We have no enemies other than Humble Bundle, which is a complete scam, and Peter Brock.
Phil: Rest in peace.
Phil: So, yeah, so, you know, I thoroughly recommend it.
Phil: I'd just like to hear your spoiler-free impressions before we go into some of the finer details of the game.
Tom: Well, I think we should talk a little bit about the gameplay in more detail.
Tom: Like I said, it...
Tom: I think the platforming is a little bit awkward.
Tom: It's not...
Tom: When it combines puzzles as well, I think it's more interesting.
Tom: One thing that comes in mind, which at least required a little bit of thinking was slightly satisfying to solve, was where you had to use your weight to move, I think, a beam, so that you could run up the beam and jump off it at the end with the right timing.
Tom: So there are moments where it's interesting, but a lot of the time, it's, I think, there, just to say that they have some gameplay there at times.
Tom: Towards the end of the game, there are more complicated things with moving elements, like your inner room, where there's a circular section of platforms moving around, and you have to go from platform to platform with the right timing, avoiding obstacles that spin around as well.
Tom: And it's perfectly serviceable in those moments, but it's not particularly enjoyable, and I was certainly more interested in finding out what was going to happen rather than trying to get through these sections of gameplay for the enjoyment of playing through them.
Tom: So I think in terms of gameplay, a lot of it isn't that interesting, but at the same time, there are moments of gameplay that I think work really well.
Tom: One of them you might not consider gameplay, but I will call it gameplay, is in most of the levels, I think all of them, there are seats you can find, and you can sit down in this seat and contemplate things, which just gives you a different perspective of the area you're in.
Tom: And then when you sit up, it goes back to your normal third-person view and you go on with things.
Tom: I thought that was a really interesting way of breaking things up.
Phil: Do you think that's the tip of the hat to ICO, which had these couches on which you saved?
Phil: Definitely, yeah.
Phil: Yep.
Tom: And another moment that really stood out was a puzzle where you're moving these gigantic platforms between...
Tom: They're like...
Tom: I think they're parts of a building being constructed and you're moving these around.
Phil: I think we can say without spoiling anything that there is a time mechanic that's used in the game.
Phil: So much like in Braid, the D platformer, if you can imagine, in a D world, you have the ability to move things forward and move things back, but the world stops, but you can move.
Phil: So you can use that as a platforming element.
Phil: And I should also say that they do this on the D levels as well.
Phil: So the D aspects of the game are interspersed with D, and that's not a spoiler, because the game actually starts with a D play element in which you're falling through the sky trying to catch various things.
Phil: So yeah, there is a time element involved in the game.
Phil: I found that to be a really fun puzzle.
Phil: Did you enjoy it?
Tom: Yes, I did.
Phil: Yeah, I thought that was done well.
Tom: And the other thing that I think was done really well in the gameplay was as you're going along, if you find religious icons or perform certain actions, you get these points to level up.
Tom: And the way that fits into the ending, I thought, was both hilarious and thematically brilliant.
Phil: Yes, and I, of course, have not yet reached the ending because I'm traveling and my current laptop cannot play the epic engine.
Tom: I think we should wait to go into spoilers until you've finished it.
Phil: Well, maybe we can touch on that in the next episode.
Phil: We can still promote.
Phil: Unless you're serious.
Tom: I'm serious.
Phil: All right.
Phil: Well, with that, I'm not going to close that show.
Phil: From a spoiler-free perspective, I think that we can say that the work simulator stuff started pretty heavily but then faded off pretty quick.
Phil: I don't know where we talked about this, but we talked about it with the Aperture Desk job.
Phil: We've already talked about this, so that's not a spoiler.
Phil: But with the Aperture Desk job, the first thing they have you do is to do something, and then you do it, and then you do it again.
Phil: Then you do it a third time, and you get, oh, I get it.
Phil: They're trying to simulate work.
Phil: Okay, yep, work simulator.
Phil: Then you do it another three times, and you're like, yep, still get it, work simulator.
Phil: But by the tenth time, you're like, this isn't fun anymore.
Phil: This is bloody work.
Phil: So in the Aperture Desk job, that service no path.
Phil: But in this one, it's a story about religious duty, a lot of the time, or at least at the start of the game, it's about duty.
Phil: And you do these things that are completely meaningless because you have faith in the end goal.
Phil: You have faith that the people who are telling you to do this are doing it for your spiritual development.
Phil: And I think the whole spiritual path of this game was done extremely well throughout.
Phil: This goes in the spoiler territory, but I can't go into it.
Phil: But we'll touch on that once I finish the game, which will be for the next episode.
Tom: And without adding spoilers to it, again, I think the way it weaves the themes and narrative into the gameplay is, I think, in terms of the gameplay, the highlight.
Tom: And not many games succeed as well as Indika does at doing that.
Phil: It's masterful.
Phil: It's absolutely masterful in terms of, first of all, having a theme, other than, here, fellow, here's a controller.
Phil: Push this button, do this.
Phil: Push this button, do that.
Phil: We'll give you a cut scene.
Phil: You can have a visceral thrill, that you cut up a bloke or shoot a bloke every few seconds.
Phil: And then at the end of the game, when you're done with cutting up and shooting up blokes, the credits will roll.
Phil: And then maybe we'll give you some sort of soft cut scene at the end to make you feel like you've actually experienced something that's meaningful.
Phil: I think if you were to look at a thematic, a game that delivered on a thematic level, it would be Spec Ops The Line, which of course was borrowing from the Heart of Darkness.
Phil: And also the movie as well, but Apocalypse Now.
Phil: But yeah, this game is right up there, probably in the top of games that have been able to, first of all, have a creative, independent thematic perspective, but then also be able to weave that into the game plays and the dialogue and the writing and the character development on such a high level.
Phil: It's not perfect.
Phil: You know, there's flaws in this game.
Phil: You know, you could fall, you know, there's technical flaws, but let's not, you know, I guess we could cripple about some of them.
Phil: One we did earlier, which is, you know, this only saves when you finish a chapter.
Phil: A cynic would say, well, it's a short game, so they want to lengthen your play experience.
Phil: So, you know, someone more thoughtful perhaps might propose that they're only saving at the end of a chapter because they need you to live this game.
Phil: They need you to live this game chapter by chapter.
Phil: They don't want you stopping in the middle and then just picking it up, oh yeah, halfway through and then forgetting what the start of it was and forgetting what the chapter before it was.
Phil: Imagine if there was a streaming network that presented a show where they said, no, for this particular series, we're not letting you pause.
Phil: And if you do stop watching, you're gonna have to watch the first minutes again because we really believe that this show has to be taken in chapters.
Phil: I'm not sure I support that because, you know, you read books all the time.
Phil: If you fall asleep, you pick up the chapter where you've picked up from.
Phil: Does that diminish it?
Phil: Yeah, it does.
Phil: As a reader, I try to get to the next chapter before I stop reading because otherwise you're picking it up and then you sort of, oh yeah, that's right, that's what's happening, you know, and you sort of lose something in the middle.
Phil: So I don't know if, which do you think this is cynical because it's a short game or do you think it's more like, no, you're going to eat your meal in courses?
Tom: Narratively, most of the checkpoints make sense, so that's probably the reason.
Phil: Definitely, yeah.
Phil: Well, definitely the checkpoints make sense.
Tom: I never ran into any problems with that.
Phil: I wish they were more upfront about it because I replayed the first section of it because it wasn't completely apparent to me that that was the thing.
Phil: I was more like, okay, well, clearly I've passed several autosaves at this point.
Phil: Dinner's ready.
Phil: So, you know, I didn't have a choice.
Phil: My family's screaming, I got to go.
Phil: And the next night I sat down to play again.
Phil: I'm like, what?
Phil: Okay, so I've got to play that minutes again.
Phil: You know?
Phil: Yep.
Phil: The D game elements, without spoilers, I found them...
Phil: I found one of them to be creative.
Phil: I found the others to be sort of like, yeah, okay, I get it.
Phil: The menu in the game is D, pixelated, you know, art.
Phil: Game starts with you with no explanation, having to play a D vertical shooter sort of thing in reverse.
Phil: I didn't think that...
Phil: But for the one platforming level, where you're on a roof and some cats are involved, I didn't think that the D elements...
Phil: I don't know why they're there, other than that the whole theme of the game was contrast and juxtaposition.
Phil: But I didn't think the D elements, other than that one platforming level, was very good.
Tom: I found some of them frustrating, but I didn't really find them to get in the way of anything.
Phil: Yeah, I found them all frustrating.
Phil: I thought the platforming one was challenging, but enjoyable.
Phil: But there's one that involves directing a vehicle that I found horrible.
Tom: I found that one very easy.
Tom: The one I had issues with, I don't know if you're up to it, was when you're jumping from frog to frog.
Phil: No, but thanks for spying on me.
Tom: Look forward to that.
Phil: Thanks.
Phil: So is that homage to Frogger?
Tom: It may well be.
Phil: There's a lot of tips to the cap in this game.
Phil: I'll tell you that.
Phil: The people that made this game know the gaming world.
Phil: And I think that's why we enjoy it so much.
Phil: Can we probably leave it there?
Tom: I think before we get into spoilers, we may as well.
Tom: One thing I would add is, one of the other enjoyable things about this game, which I highly recommend, is look up, search for the thread on the Steam forum, about the religion theme, dot, because it is highly, highly entertaining.
Phil: Where is this?
Tom: This is on the Steam community page for the game.
Tom: Search for about the religion theme, dot dot dot.
Phil: Is this going to be spoiler free, or is this more laughing at other people kind of thing?
Tom: I think there will definitely be spoilers in it.
Phil: Okay, so I'll wait.
Tom: Yes, so wait until you've played the game, but it is very, very amusing.
Tom: The other thing was I saw a review on there, which I absolutely love, but I can't find it again.
Tom: And the review was essentially, this game is just shallow Nietzschean crap that Dostoevsky had already debunked, which I just absolutely loved.
Tom: I think that is a beautiful review.
Phil: Well, fantastic, but I agree with appreciating that statement, but also would Dostoevsky say it for me?
Tom: Dostoevsky.
Phil: Who I'm a fan of, or at least I enjoy the writing.
Phil: I don't know if I'm a fan because I just enjoy the literary quality of his work.
Phil: I haven't really dwelled on the philosophical.
Phil: But, you know, when he can make a video game, then I'll listen to that.
Phil: But, you know, this person's making a video game and saying that criticizing someone for making something out of clay when Leonardo da Vinci never-
Tom: Well, at first I was thinking along your line of thought, but then I did see that in the promotional copy for Indika, it does say, the world she discovers can only be described as a wild combination of comedy and tragedy straight out of the novels by Dostoevsky and Bulgakov, who I assume they meant to write Bulgakov there.
Tom: So maybe that criticism was not so unfounded.
Phil: Yeah, but I'll tell you this too, PR people are PR people, and PR people are not the developer, and the developer is not PR people.
Phil: That is true.
Phil: Someone develops a game, someone else's expertise is to market it.
Phil: They go, okay, you're Russian, right?
Phil: Yeah, Russian.
Phil: Okay, got it, got it, got it.
Phil: And they'll go off and do whatever they do.
Phil: So I'm not necessarily faulting the developer, especially because another publisher was involved with this.
Phil: If this was a game that was developed and published by one and the same, I think there'd be something there.
Phil: But to a certain point, a developer is beholden to the publisher who's granted them this wonderful opportunity to give a platform to their game.
Phil: And I listen to Brian Lamb interviews % of the time.
Phil: % of the time when the authors are asked, did they come up with the name of the book and did they come up with the image on the front of the book?
Phil: % of the time, the answer is no.
Phil: Of course.
Phil: They would have preferred to have called it something else.
Phil: They would have preferred to have a different image on it.
Phil: But they graciously go, but these people had a better idea.
Tom: I don't know if there's much grace involved so much as they have no choice.
Phil: They have no choice.
Phil: But I can't wait to get into spoiler territory with this, which we'll cover in episode
Tom: Before we end the show and move on, I want to keep the floor open for a more serious spoiler discussion of Indika.
Tom: So there's one last thing I wanted to say is I brought up that review, not because I don't think anyone should need any sort of credentials to criticize something someone else has produced.
Tom: But the thing that amused me so much about this review, and this would be an example of someone with no credentials criticizing two people with far greater credentials than them, but you're going from Nietzsche, who is not exactly the brightest tool in the shed, whose philosophy requires a lot of obscurantism in the case of his nonfiction writing to gain some sort of interest to it and a lot of beauty in the form of his fictional writing that depicts it to again embellish it and make it noteworthy when it otherwise would not be.
Tom: To Dostoevsky, who is only taken seriously by people who have had their entire world view and religious or other faith shattered by the likes of Nietzsche, because the religious themes in Dostoevsky are essentially his own, what's the incredibly racist American writer?
Tom: Horror writer and science fiction.
Phil: Which?
Tom: I know that that's a very wide open question.
Tom: Lovecraft.
Tom: Lovecraft is what I'm thinking of.
Tom: The religious themes in Dostoevsky novels are akin to Lovecraft's fears of other races in terms of the depth of thought involved.
Tom: Luckily, everything else about Dostoevsky is brilliant.
Tom: But I just thought it was hilarious that someone is criticizing this game with an example of a hack philosopher and someone far below the level of a hack philosopher response.
Tom: I would put the philosophy in this game on the level of both of those two authors.
Tom: Nietzsche gets credit for coming up with new ideas, though, whereas Dostoevsky definitely doesn't.
Tom: I should also add that Thus Spoke Zarathustra is one of my favorite books, as is The Brothers Karamazov.
Phil: Well, congratulations.
Tom: I think the Die of Destiny should roll before we end the show.
Tom: We never brought it out for Aperture Workshop.
Phil: A late die pool, okay.
Tom: Aperture Desk Shop gets a out of
Phil: Wow, good job, Desk.
Tom: And I think we're going to rate Thus Spoke Zarathustra as well.
Tom: Gets a out of
Phil: I agree with that.
Tom: Which is very unfortunate, but I think in some ways fair.
Tom: Have you read Thus Spoke Zarathustra?
Phil: I have not.
Tom: Did you attempt to read it and give up?
Phil: I did not.
Tom: So you have no experience with Thus Spoke Zarathustra?
Phil: Okay.
Phil: I'm just scoring it on.
Phil: I'm reading the book when it's covering.
Phil: I'm going, okay, Call of the Chutalu was bad enough.
Phil: With unpronounceable things, I can only go so far.
Phil: I'm sorry.
Tom: That's HP Lovecraft.
Tom: Yeah, I know.
Phil: I know.
Tom: There are similarities between the two.
Tom: More similarities between him and Drossaevsky, though.
Tom: Now we're going to rate Brothers Karamazov.
Tom: That gets a out of
Phil: I would have thought but yeah, okay.
Tom: So just to recap, out of for Aperture Desk Job, which makes it objectively superior to Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
Phil: Which game, which content do you think is more self-aware?
Tom: I think Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: I have to take your word for it.
Tom: And then we have a out of for Brothers Karamazov, which is without question the least self-aware of all three works we discussed today, which is perhaps why it received the highest rating.
Phil: The Da Never Lies.
Phil: And that's what we say here at The Game Under Podcast.
Phil: We've been doing this since so there's a lot of resources covering games from that time to now at our website.
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Phil: Thanks again for listening to episode of The Game Under Podcast, Australia's longest running podcast, relating to video games, and possibly any subject matter.
Phil: I'm Phil Fogg.
Tom: I'm Tom Towers, and comment below if you'd like Phil to stop canceling me and discover finally the truth about a peonies.