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00:00:04 Intro
00:02:24 Edge Magazine's Top 10 of '24
00:11:48 Switch 2 Reveal Trailer
00:15:53 Game Awards Games of Note
00:21:46 Aussie Game Industry is Fine
00:25:04 Shuei Yoshida Was Pushed
00:27:25 Tom Played Indiana Jones
00:49:58 Phil Played Pentiment
01:08:32 Games Phil Bought
01:18:52 E-mail
Transcript:
Tom: Heil und Willkommen to episode of The Rike Under Podcast.
Tom: I'm your host, Heinrich Himmler, and I'm joined as ever by the Axeman, Arthur Axeman.
Phil: Yeah, jahwohl, I think that's what I'm supposed to say.
Tom: I think so.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: Thank you.
Phil: What's your, what do we call you?
Phil: Fuhrer?
Phil: I'd be Fuhrer Fogg, I guess.
Tom: We're not the Fuhrer.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: Okay.
Tom: The Fuhrer's name didn't illiterate, so neither of us could be Adolf Hitler, unfortunately.
Phil: So you'd be-
Tom: I'm Heinrich Himmler, and you're Arthur Axeman.
Phil: But I guess you'd be Her Towers, yeah?
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: I've all heard of Towers.
Phil: Och Tung.
Phil: And Och Mein Lieben.
Tom: Och Tung listeners.
Phil: Och Mein Lieben.
Phil: All of my German is from-
Phil: learned from what playing Wolfenstein D.
Phil: Alfie de Sein, we better get on to this podcast.
Tom: We're already on it.
Phil: Unless you've got anything else to say about that.
Tom: Just for clarification, both of us, well, certainly I've been accused of being autistic at some point, and I'm the one who did the introduction.
Tom: So there's nothing suspicious going on here.
Tom: I'm just someone who may potentially be autistic.
Phil: Definitely on the spectrum.
Phil: So I've just-
Tom: Rainbow spectrum.
Phil: The rainbow spectrum.
Phil: I've got-
Phil: we've got lots of news today.
Phil: We've got lots and lots to talk about.
Phil: It's been a while due to various things in our personal lives.
Phil: But we've made up and now we're back to do the show.
Phil: So we've got lots of news to talk about.
Phil: You've been playing Indiana Jones, which is a lot of people's consideration for Game of the Year
Tom: I have indeed.
Phil: I've been playing the hell out of my Steam deck.
Phil: I've beaten like six games in days.
Phil: One of those games is Pentament, which is also available on Games Pass, but I paid good money for it.
Phil: Yeah, that's by Obsidian.
Phil: So we'll be talking about that and getting into some other games and emails as well.
Phil: But for right now, just now, minutes ago, I received the most recent issue of Edge Magazine.
Phil: Are you familiar with it?
Tom: I am indeed.
Tom: I think that's about masturbation over a long period of time.
Tom: It covers the phenomenon of edging?
Phil: No, you're thinking of Edge Monthly.
Phil: This is Edge, the future of interactive entertainment game.
Phil: And they've got their games of the year list.
Phil: So we can't let a magazine produce a list of great games without commenting on it.
Phil: Now, I'm not going to go through all of them because I've got best visual design, game of the year, or we go through the game of the year.
Phil: PC game of the year.
Phil: Go through that very quickly.
Phil: Tactical Breach Wizards.
Phil: Heard of it, not played it.
Tom: Don't think I've heard of it.
Phil: Frostpunk
Tom: I've certainly heard of that.
Phil: Heard of it, not played it by Bit Studios, and UFO was their winner.
Phil: I've played some more of UFO
Tom: Does it get any better?
Phil: It certainly does.
Tom: Okay.
Phil: Once you get into it and you're sort of understanding where they're coming from, it gets better and the games are legitimately good as well.
Phil: Of interest on the Xbox, their winner was Indiana Jones and The Great Circle.
Tom: Which is surely just an horrendous title.
Tom: The Great Circle.
Phil: Yeah, what's so great about it?
Phil: There's no corners for one.
Phil: The runner-up was Stalker out of Chornobyl and Dungeons of Hinton, Hinterburg.
Phil: There wasn't a lot of competition for Xbox exclusives.
Phil: PlayStation runners-up was Helldivers and Final Fantasy Rebirth.
Phil: And when it was Astrobot.
Phil: Nintendo's Game of the Year, Shuren the Wanderer, the Mystery Dungeon of the Serpent Coil Island.
Phil: Speaking of horrible names.
Tom: Could you just repeat that?
Phil: Yeah, I'd be happy to repeat that.
Phil: I get paid by the word.
Phil: Shuren the Wanderer, the Mystery Dungeon of the Serpent Coil Island.
Phil: Serpent Coil is one word.
Tom: Can you repeat it three times as quickly as you can?
Phil: Shuren the Wanderer, the Mystery Dungeon of the Serpent Coil Island.
Phil: Shuren the Wanderer, the Mystery Dungeon of the Serpent Coil Island.
Phil: Shuren the Wanderer, the Mystery Dungeon of the Serpent Coil Island.
Tom: Well done.
Phil: Yeah, I'm a professional, man.
Phil: Of interest is developed by Spike Chunsoft.
Phil: Do you know about Spike Chunsoft?
Tom: I think I know Chunsoft.
Phil: Yeah, Chunsoft.
Phil: I don't know where the Spike comes into it, but it would have to be the same company.
Phil: Chunsoft, of course, was famous for developing a lot of games for the major publishers like Nintendo and Sega, but getting none of the credit.
Phil: They've been a background studio for years.
Phil: We'll just skip over to their top shall we?
Tom: So is this their first big game under their own?
Phil: I don't know, no, because I've seen their own thing, and I've seen their other games out there.
Phil: Most Northern Game went to Thank Goodness You're Here.
Tom: They created that because they wanted to give it an award, but couldn't look out where.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: Who doesn't love Big Rorns, Big Pies?
Phil: Now, did you play Pacific Drive?
Tom: Don't think so.
Phil: All right.
Phil: So, one of the things about Edge I've noticed over the last year, if they put a game on the front cover, it will bomb.
Phil: They used to put surefire hits and things that would attract people at a newsstand on their front cover, but now that no one buys magazines on newsstands anymore, they just do whatever game they want to promote.
Phil: And I haven't seen a single game in the last months other than Indiana Jones that they've promoted on their cover, that has gone on to do well.
Phil: They've all actually bombed.
Phil: So number Helldivers
Phil: Number Sheeran the Wonder of the Mystery Dungeon of the Serpent Call Island.
Tom: So there aren't many exclusives for either.
Phil: Well, this is the top
Phil: This is the overall top
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: So Helldivers and that other game.
Phil: Frostpunk at
Phil: Number is Arco.
Phil: I forgot all about Arco.
Phil: Developed by, published by Panic, which always gets my interest because they do good work.
Phil: So I'll have to look into that one.
Phil: If you have any comments on these games, let me know.
Tom: None of them really grabbed my attention, I have to say.
Phil: I was interested in the zeitgeist of Helldivers but that was about it.
Phil: All these other games I'm not that interested in.
Phil: Number Final Fantasy Rebirth.
Phil: I just had a hard time slogging through the first Final Fantasy remake.
Phil: Not because it's bad, it's just an RPG and it's long.
Phil: I don't get all the time on a PlayStation
Tom: And you got to pay three times the amount you normally would for a game.
Phil: That's true, that's true.
Phil: Number five, Metaphor Refantasio, which is the game from Sega developed by Atlas in the Persona world.
Phil: That got Game of the Year from IGN, I believe, and a couple of other outlets.
Phil: So an RPG.
Phil: Number four went to Animal World, which I've heard of, but not, it's a single button game.
Phil: I've not had any interest in it.
Phil: Number three, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes from Anapura.
Phil: They developed it.
Phil: I'm sorry, published it.
Tom: Do we categorize that as a good or bad title?
Phil: Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is a fantastic name.
Tom: I think it works maybe as a David Bowie album.
Tom: I don't know if it makes me interested in a game called that though.
Phil: No, that's a perfect reference.
Phil: It's certainly a memorable name.
Phil: When I saw the graphical style of it, it's in the Killer type style, if you remember that game.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: It's in that style and it's not for me.
Phil: When I heard about it being described, I thought it was going to be like a D type game, but not at all.
Phil: Number UFO
Phil: I believe this game graced the covers of Edge twice over about a six-year period over the long length of its development, so that was their favorite.
Phil: Number any guesses?
Tom: Maybe the Zelda?
Phil: No.
Tom: The Zelda didn't even make the top
Phil: No, it didn't make a lot of number s because it was released way back in the first quarter of so people forgot about it and other games came out.
Tom: What about Bellatro?
Phil: Bellatro has been getting a lot of awards as well.
Phil: It's recently sold million copies.
Phil: It was revealed yesterday.
Tom: Elden Ring?
Phil: No, no, not Elden Ring.
Tom: Silent Hill ?
Phil: It's a good guess, but no.
Phil: I was going to say it will be obvious when I tell you.
Tom: Okay, go ahead.
Phil: Astro Bot.
Tom: Okay, of course.
Phil: Yeah, so what do you say, of course?
Tom: Well, that's had a lot of hype, so as you said, it will be obvious when you mentioned what it was.
Phil: So yeah, okay, it's a list.
Phil: I mean, there's a lot of great games on that list.
Tom: So what is so great about Astro Bot?
Phil: I think it's just a very beautiful in terms of its graphics.
Phil: Mario Odyssey style platformer that has lots of Sony nostalgia.
Phil: Really good sound design that they were able to take advantage of by using the haptic feedback of the PlayStation controller.
Phil: This is basically, that's the summary of the good things about it.
Phil: We got rewarded for being a rare thing that we have these days, which is a mascot D platformer.
Phil: With good game play, good bosses.
Tom: I mean, Nintendo seems to manage to release a Mario every year.
Phil: Well, they don't though.
Phil: I mean, the last D Mario they released was Odyssey.
Tom: But they released D ones too.
Phil: They do.
Tom: You did say D, so that's a fair point.
Phil: Yeah, D platformer.
Tom: But if we're getting at least two per generation, is it that rare?
Phil: Well, compared to the Nera and the PlayStation era, I'd say it's fairly rare.
Tom: We've had eras since then though.
Phil: Yeah, I know.
Phil: The question is, well, that's what I'm saying.
Phil: It's rare.
Phil: It's become a rare thing.
Phil: We used to get like of them a year at least, in your tie, the Tasmanian Tiger days.
Tom: Yeah.
Phil: And Conker's Bad Fur Day and all that stuff.
Tom: But what if we include indie games within that?
Phil: Well, how many indie D platformers do you see?
Phil: I mean, because they're more complex to make than...
Tom: Let's Google that.
Phil: No, let's Google it.
Tom: Live research.
Tom: Yooka Laylee, there's one that was, I think, probably in the previous generation of.
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
Tom: So maybe if we exclude it to this generation, I think that's perhaps a fair statement.
Phil: Thank you.
Tom: So I'll rescind my previous criticism.
Phil: Thank you very much.
Phil: Since we last spoke, the Switch has been revealed.
Phil: Obviously, there was several leaks that indicated pretty much every detail that was in the, well, I would say every detail that was in the two-minute reveal trailer.
Phil: What are your impressions?
Phil: What do you think?
Phil: I mean, it seems to be half, most people are, or half people are underwhelmed because they already knew all the details.
Phil: Other people are taking a, well, let's wait and see what it can actually do in April when the next release is going to be.
Tom: I was impressed by the graphics of Mario Kart
Tom: Okay.
Tom: I think overall it sounds like an inferior console compared to the previous Switch, given that they seem to be removing the motion control capabilities, not that many games use them.
Phil: That's a good point.
Phil: I guess the whole thing is not that many games use them.
Phil: One of the things they reveal is that each Joy-Con has a optical mouse sensor on it, so that both left and right hands can be using a mouse.
Phil: You look at that and I can think of some things that that would be cool at.
Phil: But also, you go, how many companies are actually going to develop for that?
Tom: At least they're doing something different, but still, I feel like that would be, other than in menus, less likely to be utilized, whereas there were a few games that did have motion controls.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: Well, with the mouse though, it does open it up.
Phil: Obviously, it breaks down some barriers for games like Diablo, Civ, are games that are better with mouse.
Phil: If you're using the analog.
Tom: It would be in touchpad form, I assume.
Phil: No, no.
Phil: You take the Joy-Con and you turn it on its side, and then basically, it's got the two buttons, which are your two trigger buttons that you'd be using as your left and right mouse control, and then you're sliding it around like a mouse.
Tom: Okay.
Tom: Yeah.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: So they're definitely like mice-like controllers.
Phil: Now, they might be too thin for most grown adult Westerners, but they are at least doing something, and like I said.
Tom: I hope first-person shooters will utilize them.
Phil: That's what I was thinking too, because Microsoft, because of their lawsuit with the antitrust department, or whatever it was, their antitrust suit, had to basically say, we're committing to releasing Call of Duty for Nintendo's consoles for the foreseeable future.
Phil: So, hey, if that had a mouse option, that's a plus.
Phil: The first thing I thought about when I saw it rumored was Mario Paint
Phil: And then on Reflection, others have brought up Mario Maker, the game that came out on Wii U.
Phil: So, yeah, I mean, you know, like you said, at least they're doing something different and new and not just releasing a Steam Deck.
Phil: And I think it'll be powerful enough to take, like, at least PlayStation type games.
Phil: Yeah, so it's too early to tell, but what I really didn't like, I know they were sort of cornered and had to release a trailer to sort of say, yeah, yeah, okay, yes, we're doing a Switch and it's called a Switch and it does look like all the pictures you've seen.
Phil: But then to say, the next time we'll talk to you is in four months.
Phil: I'm like, what?
Phil: I mean, seriously?
Phil: Four months?
Phil: They can't do a proper Nintendo Direct or something just to, just to, and who knows, who knows where they are in the manufacturing process?
Phil: Maybe it's just too early for them to, to really...
Tom: Maybe they had to release this earlier because of pretty much everything had leaked.
Tom: Because it definitely does come across as a very rushed reveal.
Phil: Yeah, I agree.
Phil: The Game Awards have happened since we last talked.
Phil: I'm not going to talk about great length about it, but I did want to bring up a couple of things.
Phil: And that is that there's a new Fumito Ueda game in the works called Project Robot.
Phil: And the characters, this is from the maker of ICO and all that sort of stuff.
Phil: The character that they had in the trailer looked a lot like ICO.
Phil: Lots of climbing and a giant robot.
Phil: And the studio is working with Epic Games that seems to be obviously publishing it.
Phil: It was just a very short cut scene, but I had to mention it because we haven't heard from Ueda for a long time.
Tom: I was about to say there might finally be a reason to buy a PSbut then I realized it would be a reason to buy a PSor
Phil: Yeah, in terms of how long it takes them to make a game.
Phil: Yeah.
Tom: Exactly.
Phil: And the other thing too is it's working with Epic.
Phil: So I imagine that they'd want to put this on the Epic Store, which means it'd be available on PC because that's their, that's, you know, they're all about developing their storefront.
Phil: So if they have an exclusive for Media Ueda game.
Phil: But how many times has a Western publisher gotten hold of a legendary Japanese developer for an exclusive and it worked out well?
Phil: So probably Shadow of the Damned, when EA put that Mikami's game together.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: But it doesn't usually work out in the long run.
Tom: I have more faith in Ueda, I think.
Phil: I have more faith in Epic as well, because they get more money than God.
Tom: And they're Chinese.
Phil: Well, yeah, some of it's Chinese.
Tom: The main financial backing is Chinese, isn't it?
Phil: No, no.
Phil: Tencent only owns a minority share in the company.
Tom: So that's enough to have poisoned everyone's view of it.
Phil: Yeah.
Tom: It's the one drop rule.
Phil: Yeah, I guess so.
Tom: Applied financially.
Tom: But yeah, I think because Fumito Ueda's games are significantly different in terms of gameplay, like everything about his games are usually very different to whatever else is being done.
Tom: I think it would be harder to try and exercise more editorial control over it.
Tom: Yeah, so you would be more likely to end up with something that is not released, rather than a watered down version of what he would otherwise have done.
Phil: Yeah, it would be like trying to tell Picasso to use more watercolors, you know?
Tom: Exactly.
Phil: And can you soften some of these edges a little bit?
Phil: Yeah, because he has that legendary status.
Phil: So anyway, good for him.
Phil: There's lots of other games now like Outer Worlds which before had a make-believe trailer, Ninja Gaiden remakes and new games, Borderlands Onimusha, Sonic Racing is getting a new game.
Phil: So other than that, from this point, not a lot of interest, other than the fact that Naughty Dog is going to make a game that's not called Uncharted or The Last of Us.
Phil: It's an action adventure game, quote, set thousands of years in the future.
Phil: It follows the bounty hunter man's name, who is stranded on a remote planet searching for a crime syndicate.
Phil: From what I saw, the video has lots of Akira references and s nostalgia.
Phil: They were using brands in the trailer like Porsche and Sony, but it's set so far into the future.
Phil: So yeah, it had a retro future vibe, very interesting graphical style.
Phil: Like I said, it's going to be an action adventure game, so it's the same thing that they've always done.
Phil: The name of the game is Intergalactic, colon, the heretic prophet.
Tom: I'm wondering what's going on with game titles at the moment.
Phil: Well, you can't just call it Intergalactic because for search engines, that's not going to work.
Tom: But do you then want to call it the heretic prophet?
Phil: The heretic prophet?
Phil: I don't know.
Phil: It sounds interesting.
Phil: A prophet who's also a heretic.
Tom: Intergalactic, the heretic prophet.
Phil: No, I don't like that.
Tom: Well, that's what it's called.
Phil: What was Uncharted called?
Phil: It was called Uncharted Drake's Fortune.
Phil: That's right.
Phil: And I remember reading in a gaming forum, people lambasting it because the only other video game that had came out with the word Drake in it before was a horrible dragon game that was absolutely horrible.
Tom: What about Drakengard?
Phil: Yeah, Drakengard.
Phil: I don't know about Drakengard.
Phil: What's that?
Tom: That's another game with Drake in the title.
Phil: All right.
Phil: So technically.
Phil: Anyway, thousands of words were wasted saying this game is going to flop because it's called Drake's Fortune.
Phil: What the hell is that?
Phil: It's a bad game about a dragon.
Phil: You know, and who cares at the end?
Phil: He's Nathan Drake.
Phil: It's the name of the character.
Phil: So I just thought that was humorous.
Phil: As soon as my gut instinct was to criticize the name of the game, I just remembered back to when everyone was criticizing Uncharted's game.
Tom: Well, I never criticized Uncharted.
Phil: Well, actually, I've got a direct quote from here, which I'll insert into the podcast.
Phil: No, we weren't recording it.
Phil: So other news, I've got to apologize to the Aussie game industry.
Phil: In the last episode, we talked about the IGEA Expo, where you saw a bunch of independent games.
Phil: And I said, yeah, that's great that they're doing that.
Phil: And there was some good games there and I played them as well.
Phil: And I said, but where are these people going to work?
Phil: And I should have known better because Edge Magazine, actually the one with Indiana Jones on the front cover, they ran like a seven-page feature on the Australian video game industry.
Phil: And I didn't realize that, you know, we all know about Untitled Goose Game and all this, and you know, Bioshock
Phil: I didn't realize that Void Bastards and unpacking was made by an Australian company.
Tom: I think I knew about Void Bastards.
Phil: Yeah, I didn't know unpacking, like you see unpacking everywhere.
Phil: So, so just yeah, again, you know, they're out there and basically the IGEA, which seems to be like the ESA for Australia.
Phil: They're there to promote Australian game development.
Phil: It doesn't hurt that they also have, you know, a campus program set up for TAFE colleges to take their curriculum and all the rest of it.
Phil: They said that % of Australian studios expect headcount to remain stable or grow in
Phil: So despite a challenging year for game development globally, Australia's full-time employment, you know, there's about people in game development with % of studios planning to hire next year.
Phil: So the survey also found that Victoria continues to be a popular hub for game development with % of game studio head offices in that state.
Phil: Now, they might have their head offices there because there's grants available.
Phil: You know, the head office might be a PO box.
Phil: That's a bit cynical perhaps.
Phil: Employee distribution illustrated that many studios have a presence in more than one state and tend to follow talent and incentives across the country.
Phil: % of the workers are located in Victoria, followed by Queensland, followed by New South Wales.
Phil: And it is because they have generous and globally competitive tax rebates, plus direct funding from federal and state governments.
Phil: So there you go.
Phil: I was wrong.
Phil: And I just felt that that correction needed to be made.
Tom: I don't know if fully employed people necessarily makes you wrong.
Phil: Yeah, but it's at least growing and not in decline.
Phil: And the point of the Edge article was that exactly that, that it's gone and it had really good interviews in there.
Phil: Basically, Australian game dev is digging its way back out of hell.
Phil: And there's positive signs.
Tom: I think in terms of the game being produced, the Australian games industry would be, without a question, better than it ever previously was.
Phil: That's true, yeah.
Tom: Which is a point worth mentioning as well.
Phil: Yeah, for sure.
Phil: Definitely.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: Our last story, last time we talked about Shuei Yoshida, who was in charge of Worldwide Studios for Sony, leaving Sony after years.
Phil: And I said, he, it looks like he was pushed, he wasn't leaving of his own recognizance.
Phil: He made a comment this week that...
Tom: Directly in reply to you, I presume.
Phil: Well, possibly.
Phil: He said that if he was still in his original job, the job that Herman Hermansson still has, he would have pushed back on the live shows.
Tom: Friend of the Game Under Podcast, Herman Hermansson.
Phil: Yes.
Phil: Herman Hermansson pushed back.
Tom: Old colleague of ours from the past life.
Phil: Well, if you look at his work on Killzone, anyway, Shuei says he would have pushed back on the live service.
Phil: Now that Concord's crashed into the ground and all the rest of it.
Phil: He said, for me, I was managing this budget.
Phil: I was responsible for allocating money to what games to make.
Phil: If the company was considering going that way, live service, it didn't make sense to stop making God of War or a single-player game.
Phil: However, what they did when I left and Herman took over the company, they gave him a lot more resources.
Phil: I don't think they told Herman to stop making single-player games.
Phil: They said, these games are great, keep doing that, and we'll give you additional resources to work on the live service games and give it a try.
Phil: I'm sure they knew it was risky.
Phil: However, the company, not knowing that risk, gave Herman the resources and a chance to try it.
Phil: Luckily, Helldiver is D great.
Phil: No one expected that.
Phil: So you can't plan a success in this industry.
Phil: That's the most fun part of the business.
Phil: I hope the strategy will work in the end.
Phil: Here's the killer quote.
Phil: If I was in Herman's position, probably I would have tried to resist that direction.
Phil: Maybe that's one of the reasons they removed me from first party.
Tom: So after your statements, he finally found the courage to come out and confirm your investigation.
Phil: I never miss a chance to pat myself on the back before making my bold predictions.
Phil: And I don't tell you about the ones that don't come true, of course.
Tom: Not that there are any.
Phil: So for many fans of Indiana Jones and Machine Games that used to be Starbreeze, the makers of Chronicles of Riddick, their dreams did in fact come true when Microsoft published and released on Games Pass.
Phil: And it sold a ridiculous amount of copies on Steam as well.
Phil: Indiana Jones and The Great Circle.
Tom: Yes, I have actually been playing this on Game Pass.
Tom: So for once we're covering, not even for once, I think for the second show in a row, thanks to Game Pass, we're covering probably the biggest release of the time with Stalker receiving first impressions.
Tom: Around when it was released.
Phil: Have you gotten much into Indiana Jones?
Tom: I am maybe around somewhere between a third to halfway through it, I think.
Phil: Oh, okay.
Phil: So you're about to leave the Vatican, from what I can hear.
Tom: Exactly.
Phil: Yes.
Phil: Cause everyone I talk, everyone I hear talking about this game is like, yeah, still in the Vatican.
Phil: Oh, still in the Vatican.
Phil: Still in the Vatican.
Tom: I'm dreading leaving the Vatican because I presume based on the opening of the game, that all the other settings in the game are not going to be as interesting and unique as the Vatican setting is.
Phil: Well, let's give them the benefit of the doubt, because I've heard that good things happen out of that game.
Phil: So this is available currently only on Windows and Xbox.
Phil: It'll be available for PlayStation shortly in the first half of
Tom: So I might have finished it by then, maybe.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: Okay.
Tom: And like I said, it'll be perfect timing.
Tom: We can do the final impressions when it starts getting some hype again for the Sony release or for the Switch release.
Tom: So it's been confirmed for Switch
Phil: No, no, nothing's been confirmed for Switch
Tom: Except for Mario Kart
Phil: All right.
Phil: So what's what's the best part of it so far?
Tom: I think the best part of it is exploring the Vatican.
Tom: It's a funny setting.
Tom: Fits well in the schlocky, pulpy atmosphere that Indiana Jones has and should have.
Tom: It's a great historical setting with the mixture of black shirts and the Catholic priests wandering around.
Tom: It's visually striking.
Tom: It's just an enjoyable and amusing world to explore.
Phil: So I think this is a prequel to one of the movies, and it's obviously set in World War II.
Tom: In the lead up to World War II?
Phil: Ah, okay.
Phil: So they haven't taken over the Vatican.
Phil: They're just...
Phil: Yeah, that's right.
Phil: They would have been the welcome guests.
Tom: They're in the process of it.
Tom: And of course, the Pope is sick apparently and not involved in it.
Tom: So it's due to a rogue priest or bishop who is a Mussolini fanboy.
Tom: So not sure of the historical accuracy of that, but it will at least not cause any controversy by portraying it in that manner.
Phil: No, that is fantastic.
Phil: I love that.
Phil: I don't respect the fact that they're trying to make it safe, but I love the thought that went into that, that they're sidestepping the whole issue.
Phil: Oh, the Pope's not the bad guy.
Phil: It's just the evil sick guy over here.
Tom: He's got a cold.
Phil: Yeah, Pope's got a cold, man.
Phil: Come on.
Phil: You can't be in charge of everything all the time.
Phil: That's why we've left these black shirts in here.
Tom: So again, about now the game, the setting, you love it visually and everything, like how we know about the Vatican setting, the opening which was copying the opening of one of the films I felt was totally uninteresting and bland, a bland reimagining of it.
Phil: Yeah, but you can't open it with, you've got to open it with a bang.
Phil: You've got to give people something they're familiar with, and I presume that that had some tutorial type qualities in it, the torture of course, so yeah, I'll grant them that.
Phil: You start with a bang, and you get them interested, give them what they want, and then now you're dropping them into The Vatican, which is going to be a different pace, obviously.
Tom: Yep, and before we move on from the fascist element in the game, we've always got to, I think, in big games, go to Steam reviews as we did with Stalker and I doubt I can find the actual review again, but there was a review complaining that Indiana Jones was calling all the people he was beating up fascists.
Tom: It was too woke and politically correct and caught in the modern workers mind virus, where Indiana Jones was calling Mussolini's black shirts fascists.
Phil: I think that is a hilarious comment.
Phil: Of course it is, right?
Tom: It's beautiful.
Tom: I loved it.
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
Phil: It's my member, my phrase, chronocentrism, which is seeing history through the lens of today.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: It doesn't hurt that Mussolini is the one that actually came up with the fascist movement, giving it its name.
Tom: Why is it called the Roman salute?
Tom: I think there's a debate over whether something qualifies as a Roman or a Hitler salute, but a Roman salute is merely a fascist salute.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: And you know, I like...
Tom: It's called Roman for a reason.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: And yeah, Roman, if you want to, but like I like the, I like the AVE, you know, like when you're walking around and say AVE, citizen, you know, you just raise your hand up, you know.
Phil: I'm not talking about the full extension.
Phil: I mean, that's obviously something different.
Phil: You know, I like the showing your palm.
Phil: And I think that came from...
Tom: Standard greeting in Australia, AVE.
Tom: AVE, mate.
Phil: AVE, mate.
Tom: How's it going?
Phil: It's a good AVE today, isn't it?
Phil: I reckon it's going to be pretty hot, this AVE.
Phil: Yeah, that's it.
Phil: We should probably talk like that all the time.
Phil: That's what people are here for.
Phil: We are after all.
Tom: AVE to The Game Under Podcast.
Phil: Yep.
Tom: I'm Yoast, Tom Towers, also known as Tazza.
Phil: Yeah, Tazza.
Tom: I'm joined by...
Phil: Foggy.
Tom: Are you Tazza or Gazza?
Phil: Foggy.
Tom: What are you?
Phil: Phil Fogg.
Tom: You're bluey, I think, actually.
Phil: You would call me Foggy.
Tom: Foggy, yeah, that works.
Tom: Foggy.
Tom: How's it going, Cunt?
Phil: Can't tell you right now.
Tom: Playing any good games lately, mate?
Phil: Oh, yeah, played that Pentament.
Phil: She's all right, aye.
Tom: She goes all right, does she?
Phil: Oh, yeah, a bit short, though.
Phil: Bit short, you know, but you know.
Phil: And my accent's gone out the window now.
Tom: I think you just moved to Adelaide at the end.
Phil: And Adelaide is a fine city, we've got to say.
Phil: I remember we once lost a listener because we called Adelaide a pissant city or something like that.
Tom: Pissant town.
Phil: Yeah, yeah, because someone, some sports commentator had said it.
Phil: We were just making fun of what the guy had said.
Tom: The coach of Adelaide United had said it.
Phil: And we got a, we got an email from someone saying, Oh, little listen to your podcast again.
Phil: Adelaide is a fine city.
Phil: Okay, so back to Indiana Jones and the great city of churches.
Tom: So that may be offended by our comments on the Catholic Church as well.
Phil: Oh, we're not coming on the Catholic Church.
Phil: The Pope is sick.
Phil: This is all the work of some sick priest.
Phil: So, I mean, okay, so what's the actual gameplay so far?
Tom: Well, the gameplay is a mixture of platforming, puzzle-solving and first-person, hand-to-hand combat, although you do also have Indiana Jones' revolver, but the ammo for it is limited.
Tom: And there is, so far, the hardest combat in the game is underground boxing matches.
Tom: And I think they just missed a massive opportunity because as far as I can tell, it is not possible to just shoot the people in the boxing matches, which is, I think, completely missing the humor of one of the greatest scenes in Indiana Jones.
Phil: They've got to use it at some point in the game, though.
Phil: I'd say, sit a little in there.
Phil: They'll probably use it at some point, like when you get out of the Vatican, maybe.
Tom: I want to be able to use it there in a setting where it doesn't make sense to use it.
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
Phil: I mean, this industry is all about power fantasies, so why not?
Tom: I mean, it's surely a better reference to a great scene in Indiana Jones than just copying the opening to one of the films.
Phil: Yeah, fair enough, fair enough.
Phil: But again, I think opening with a bang is fine.
Phil: You're in the Vatican now, so there's puzzle solving.
Phil: So it's more like Tomb Raider than, say.
Tom: I think to its credit, it's not like either Tomb Raider or Uncharted.
Tom: In what way?
Tom: Well, for one thing, due to the combat being of the other element, it's also stealth.
Tom: I forgot to add both stealth in terms of sneaking past enemies and also finding and using disguises so that you can just wander around without being interfered with in the Vatican City, which I think is an important skill to have.
Tom: But there are people who can break through your disguise in the areas.
Tom: There are officers so far and they will see through your disguises, so you've got to use your stealth techniques against them so you can't just wander around completely unmolested.
Tom: But I think that's one element that totally changes things.
Phil: That's very unusual.
Phil: So you're telling me you're in a Catholic church and you can walk around completely unmolested?
Tom: Correct.
Tom: As long as you're wearing a disguise.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: As an adult?
Tom: Put on a fake mustache, it'll probably massively reduce the attention you're receiving.
Phil: Ward them away.
Phil: Exactly.
Phil: I understand that you can use the whip.
Phil: Can you use the whip in the Vatican?
Tom: Yes, you can.
Tom: That's another part of the stealth element, because even if you're wearing a disguise, if you're doing something like using your whip to repel upper wall while you're disguised as a priest, even the standard enemies will see through that and realize that something suspicious is going on here and attack you.
Phil: Good.
Phil: Is it weird?
Phil: I can't remember, other than Castlevania, using a whip in a game.
Tom: Well, it's mainly used for climbing, so it's just like a repelling device.
Phil: Got you.
Phil: Okay.
Tom: But you can also use it in combat, but it's like a special move you can use in combat, essentially, to stun an enemy.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: Just to buy a little bit more time.
Tom: Yeah.
Tom: But the ability to just go through these areas undetected makes it more like an open world exploration game, or rather as that element to it, which is not there in either Uncharted or Tomb Raider.
Tom: Additionally, the climbing and platforming elements, I would say, are more rudimentary than both Uncharted and Tomb Raider.
Tom: But I think the rudimentary nature of it at least makes it feel different to them.
Tom: Whereas if they were doing more elaborate climbing sequences, it would feel less of its own game, for sure.
Tom: The hand-to-hand combat in a first-person perspective, obviously, completely sets it apart to both of those games as well.
Tom: It's once again very simplistic, so it doesn't get into the territory of first-person combat games like Xeno Clash, for example, despite feeling somewhat similar to it.
Tom: I think they managed to make it its own unique modern adventure game, which makes it enjoyable.
Tom: The fact that everything within that is mechanically really simplistic, including the puzzles, they're usually pretty straightforward to solve, and more so a matter of just performing all the steps than trying to actually figure something out.
Tom: I think makes it maybe a little less interesting over the course of the game.
Tom: I'm certainly finding it somewhat of a chore to continue with it, but the setting is enough that I want to continue with it.
Phil: Well, I was going to say, just in summary, it is set in as you attempt to thwart various groups who are trying to harness the power connected to the great circle, which refers to mysterious sites around the world that form a perfect circle when put together on a map.
Phil: The game spans numerous real world locales, and I don't think this is a spoiler because everyone knows.
Tom: I think we have a term for this, right?
Tom: It's a common stationary tool, right?
Phil: Like a protractor?
Tom: Exactly.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: The game spans numerous.
Tom: I think with a protractor, you could do exactly the same thing.
Phil: Indiana Jones and the normal protractor.
Phil: I think that would be a good name.
Phil: But people would think it's a tractor towing game or something like that.
Phil: Because of protractor league.
Tom: The protractor, yeah.
Phil: The protractor league, yes.
Phil: The PTL.
Phil: The game spans numerous real world locales.
Phil: And this isn't a spoiler because obviously the game can't take place in the Vatican the whole time, but such as the Vatican, Thailand, Egypt, and Shanghai.
Phil: I think those other places sound a lot more exotic and fun to explore than the Vatican.
Tom: I don't think so.
Tom: Yeah, well.
Tom: I think they're more generic settings.
Tom: How many games are set in the Vatican?
Phil: How many games are set in Thailand?
Tom: That one sounds interesting.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: Egypt.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: Everything.
Phil: Shanghai.
Phil: I can't remember a game set in Shanghai.
Tom: That's because of the greatest status of China today.
Tom: You need to replace Shanghai with China.
Tom: And you'll probably find a lot of game, a few games anyway set in China.
Tom: But now it's Shanghai.
Phil: It'll be interesting to see if they do something political with that as well.
Phil: It's a bigger city in China today.
Phil: It'll be interesting.
Phil: It's an interesting thing to do too, because you've obviously got to avoid all the politically correct portrayals of Chinese people and all the rest of it as well.
Phil: I am going to be greatly...
Tom: There'll be no Winnie the Pooh references.
Phil: No Winnie the Pooh references, that's for sure.
Phil: I'm going to be really interested to...
Phil: I hope you do persevere.
Phil: If you're all a third of the way through, obviously something is gripping you.
Tom: The Vatican.
Tom: I mean, there are a lot of things that grip people in the Vatican, aren't they?
Phil: That's true, yeah.
Tom: If you've forgotten your mustache.
Phil: That's right.
Phil: Audio design.
Tom: This is where we start getting into one of the things that puts me off the game.
Tom: Audio design in terms of sound effects and music, all of that sort of thing is fine.
Tom: There's one massive problem with the game to me anyway, which isn't just an audio issue, but I think a direction of the game full stop issue.
Tom: Troy Baker, I think, has received a lot of plaudits for successfully imitating Harrison Ford's voice, right?
Phil: Including on his podcast.
Tom: Yep.
Tom: Unfortunately, he does not imitate an ounce of Harrison Ford's irony or charisma.
Phil: Okay.
Tom: To me, this is an abysmal performance and it's not entirely his fault.
Tom: This is the direction the game has chosen to take of doing absolutely nothing with the character.
Tom: Sorry, that the writers have chosen to take of doing absolutely nothing with the character whatsoever.
Tom: They've apparently decided Harrison Ford is the final word on Indiana Jones.
Tom: And even though we don't have Harrison Ford, we're for some reason going to tell some dude to just imitate his voice.
Phil: Well, they do have his likeness.
Phil: They obviously paid to use his likeness.
Phil: So you're not going to pay Indiana Jones.
Tom: I think an AI imitation of Indiana Jones would have been equally as interesting.
Tom: That's how bad it is.
Tom: I think it would have been more interesting because you would have had all the weird shit where the AI fucks up.
Phil: I think from an artistic perspective, you're right.
Phil: From a commercial perspective, you're wrong.
Phil: Commercially, they needed Harrison Ford's likeness.
Phil: So once you've gone that step, you need his voice.
Phil: Then obviously, they have to take a backseat to Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford approving this whole thing.
Tom: Surely, there's a way to do it with adding an element.
Tom: This is what I'm saying though, if you're copying a character, because that's what essentially they're doing or a portrayal of a character and you're doing a pastiche of it, then you've got to copy the things that make that good.
Tom: The things that make Indiana Jones films great, or at least one of them great.
Phil: Sense of irony and what was the other one?
Tom: It's irony, it's charisma, it's a batshit take on all the stuff that was being pastiche.
Tom: Like the shooting scene that I referenced earlier, that takes someone who's going to do that in a, act that out in a unique way, to work.
Tom: Harrison Ford is like Arnold Schwarzenegger, right?
Tom: Where you are getting someone who is not acting in a normal sort of manner.
Tom: He's obviously a more normal sort of actor than Arnold Schwarzenegger, but there is that element to his performances.
Phil: So with his performances, I'd say that in Indiana Jones, of course, they were copying the s, you know, serials.
Phil: So it was more of a exaggerated, almost vaudeville-like portrayal of his hero.
Phil: And he just brought his normal Harrison Ford, you know, bag of tools over from Star Wars.
Phil: But yeah, there's something obviously very unique about Harrison Ford and him and I don't know that I can fault anyone for not being able to impersonate Charisma.
Tom: I'm just saying the writers and the actor should be focusing on trying to imitate the things that made that character and performance great rather than trying to make the voice sound like him.
Phil: Right.
Phil: And I think-
Tom: Or to at least try and do both at once.
Tom: I see a lot of effort put into imitating the voice and imitating lines of dialogue.
Tom: I do not see much effort put into trying to copy the things that actually made it great, which is bizarre because in Wolfenstein, there is a similar sort of humor at work as there was in Indiana Jones.
Tom: Yeah.
Tom: And as there is in Harrison Ford performances.
Phil: Definitely.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: If you look at Wolfenstein, it's right there.
Phil: It does match that energy.
Phil: I think this-
Phil: I'm not going to fault the voice actor for it.
Phil: I'm going to fault the audio director.
Tom: And the writers as well.
Phil: And the writers as well.
Tom: Yeah.
Phil: But I'm not going to give an imperson-
Phil: I'm not going to give a voice actor a hard time for doing a spot on impersonation of a voice because he's got to work with the material he's got.
Tom: I give him great credit for his imitation of the voice actually.
Phil: Excellent.
Phil: All right.
Phil: So you and Jeff Gershman are not of the same view in that perspective.
Tom: But I think it's a terrible direction for The Game.
Tom: I criticize him for not imitating the parts of Harrison Ford's performance that made it great, because that is on the actor as well.
Tom: Even if the director is saying, copy Harrison Ford, do nothing else.
Tom: That should logically include copying the parts of Harrison Ford's performance that made it good, as opposed to merely copying the voice.
Phil: I groove your perspective, but I'm going to have to hold judgment until I can actually play the game myself, and then I'll come back and let you know what I think.
Tom: For the moment, you're still on the fence, which you should be until you actually play.
Phil: Exactly right.
Phil: I groove your perspective, and then I'll tell you whether or not I groove it.
Phil: Even though this is an action adventure game, it's not in third person.
Phil: Everyone knows these facts already.
Phil: It is in first person.
Phil: How effective was that?
Phil: Is it jarring?
Phil: Is it superior?
Tom: I think it works fine.
Tom: I think in this day and age, enough games have made platforming and hand-to-hand combat in first person work, that if you don't succeed in it, you really should be doing better.
Tom: I don't think that those are difficult things to do in this day and age.
Phil: Well, what else is notable about the game you'd like to bring to us?
Tom: I think that's probably at this stage, all the things that stand out to me.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: Well, thank you very much for that.
Phil: It's a game that I know a lot of people have enjoyed and considered for their game of the year for
Phil: Another game that is on Game Pass that I've been playing.
Phil: Now, I haven't been playing it on Game Pass.
Phil: I've been playing it on my Steam Deck.
Phil: It's a game I wanted to play for a long time, and that is Pentament.
Phil: Now, Pentament, I couldn't believe this, because I thought it was a fairly recent game.
Phil: It was released in
Phil: It's from Obsidian, which is famous for, I know Fallout Las Vegas, for example.
Phil: A ton of other games.
Phil: They are known themselves as a good working studio, and they were under Bethesda.
Phil: Now, I think actually, they've never been under Bethesda.
Phil: They were bought outright by Microsoft separately.
Phil: And when they came up with this game, they basically were on the edges of it.
Phil: I know that they were super sick of what they had been working on.
Phil: And one of the game directors said, look, I basically need to work on something other than our main thing, which I think is Shadows of Eternia.
Phil: I need to do something else.
Phil: And if we're about to be brought by Microsoft, they're going to need small games regularly to be released on Game Pass, stuff that wouldn't ordinarily get the green light by a publisher.
Phil: And I've got this idea for a game basically set in th century Germany.
Phil: It's a D game, D and it's going to have a woodcut type art, and it's going to be set in a Catholic Monastery, and it's going to be a murder mystery.
Phil: And basically, the second Microsoft brought him, he got the green light.
Phil: And so this was made by a very small team of about people, and it is a phenomenal game.
Phil: I guess you could call it a role-playing game.
Phil: You play the part of an artist who is doing the script and the pictures for biblical works.
Tom: I think the art style is surely more in the light of that than a woodcut.
Phil: Oh, yeah, yeah, I guess you're right.
Phil: Yeah, yeah, you're right.
Phil: And so more iconography, would that be a good word to use?
Tom: I would just say it's like medieval painting and tapestries.
Phil: Yep, exactly, but it's a bit done with a pen.
Tom: So you're in a modern cartoon style.
Phil: So you yourself, you're the only person who's working at the monastery.
Phil: I don't think it's actually a monastery.
Phil: It's a church or cathedral in Germany.
Phil: And you're the only non, you're the only, you know, non-priest, non who's working there because you're an artist and you're doing this artwork.
Phil: And they're famous for, basically, this is going out because Gutenberg has invented the printing press and people are starting to use modern printing.
Phil: They don't need people who who handwrite these scripts anymore.
Phil: So literacy is becoming an issue and you're a dying breed, but there's still a very rich class of people who desire this type of artwork to be hand produced.
Phil: So that's basically what this place is known for.
Phil: And you spend your work hours at the church and you spend your down hours in the village.
Phil: And it is a really rich narrative game where you're given a choice of dialogue options basically.
Phil: It's a branching path narrative game.
Phil: I'm not really explaining this well.
Phil: And all of a sudden, there's a murder that's committed.
Phil: And because you've got a background in, well, in law, you decide that you're going to start investigating this murder.
Phil: Now, you do get to pick, it is an RPG.
Phil: So like in my particular instance, I picked that I had studied some law.
Phil: You get to pick where you studied law.
Phil: So I happen to be in Italy.
Phil: And there's other things in your history that you can pick when you're in that character creation stage which will help you in your dialogue later on.
Phil: So if, for example, you had selected that you, instead of dabbling in law, dabbled in Latin, that's going to get you more clues later on in the game.
Phil: So you might come across something that's in Latin.
Phil: You're like, I have no idea what this says.
Phil: I'm going to have to find someone who knows how to speak Latin.
Phil: Or in my case, because I knew the law, that helped me going through evidence and making legal points about various things.
Tom: What are the RPG mechanics other than the character creation?
Tom: Do your skills grow over time?
Phil: Your skills don't grow over time.
Phil: It really is just that you're playing the role of a character, and you're deciding that character's destiny through the dialogue choices that you make and the relationships that you form.
Phil: So the game, this is kind of a gameplay spoiler, but the game is split into three acts.
Phil: And so the act that you're playing against, you're playing against, saying you're playing against a timer is too mechanical.
Phil: Basically, you've got a certain amount of days in order to investigate.
Phil: So in this first instance, they say, okay, well, old mate is going to be down here on Thursday.
Phil: Today is Monday.
Phil: So whatever you can do in the next four days, you figure it out.
Phil: And so you have to make choices because all the time it comes up with, you know, these are made up, obviously.
Phil: Tomo says you should go over to the mill and talk to them.
Phil: That's going to take a long time.
Phil: Talk to the people at the mill.
Phil: They know something about this, but it's going to take some time.
Phil: Or, you can go and talk to the widow in the village.
Phil: And, you know, so you go, okay, well, I don't want to waste half a day going over the mill, so go talk to this widow.
Phil: And that's your choice.
Phil: And that will reveal, you know, different parts of the story and different parts of the evidence to you, so that when you get to the trial, you know, you've got to basically go, you made the choices as to what evidence you would surface, and that's going to change the outcome of your success or failure in that trial.
Phil: Now, there's no fail state or success state, and you don't really even know, because like I said, this is a branching path narrative.
Phil: So the way I play it, the way you play it, we get to that trial, you know, there's going to be an outcome, but we're going to point to different people, and then they basically pick that up and then go into the second act with it.
Phil: And the second act takes place ten years later, because I don't want to do any spoilers here, but essentially one of the rich things about this game, well, first of all, that's really rich, because you're developing relationships, you're talking to these people, and from an artistic perspective, as you talk to them, there's no voice acting in the game, their little speech bubbles are getting, they're drawing in the words, right?
Phil: They're drawing in the words as they speak.
Phil: You can adjust the speed of that, of course, but it's in all these old fonts, and depending on the person's literacy and their background, like if they're from Germany, it'll be in a very German script.
Phil: If they're a laborer, it'll be in a different script.
Phil: If there's someone who's come over from France, it'll be different, and it's a fantastic touch.
Phil: Every time you mention the Lord or Jesus, they'll write all of the words in the speech bubble, and then go back and write the Lord or Jesus in red at the end, because that's how the Bible does it.
Phil: Every time the God or Jesus speaks in the Bible, it's printed in red.
Tom: He's a God of blood, after all.
Phil: Yeah, well, the sacrifice of Christ, the blood, all that stuff.
Phil: So it is a very detailed game.
Phil: It's a very enjoyable game.
Phil: So you get into the second act and this is the last story spoiler I'll reveal.
Phil: It's about years later.
Phil: And you've gone, you've left the place for reasons I won't disclose.
Phil: And you happen to be coming back.
Phil: And a lot of the stuff that you did when you were in town last time has consequences this time around, except that six year old you talk to is now
Phil: That year old you talk to is now
Phil: That year old you talk to is now
Phil: And they do that, I don't remember the phrasing of it, but they'll do that, Tom will remember this.
Phil: Every time you make a choice or a decision, it'll tell you, hey, it's going to come back to you one way or the other, either good or bad.
Phil: And yeah, so the funny thing was, as an indie game, I was like, it's not an indie game, it's a small team game.
Phil: As a small team game, I got to the end of the first act.
Phil: I was like, okay, I enjoyed that.
Phil: Well, they wrapped that up quick.
Phil: Okay, I guess this is the end of the game.
Phil: And then the second act comes and then the third act comes.
Phil: And you're like, okay, this is, and it wasn't in a bad way.
Phil: It was usually when I think a game is about to end and it doesn't, it's a very negative thing.
Tom: Yeah.
Phil: Usually, I'm like hours into a game.
Phil: And then they're like, surprise, another or hours to go.
Phil: And you're like, yeah, okay, I was ready for this to end.
Phil: But in this game, the relationships that you develop, the character development, the whodunit like plot, which is underutilized, I think in video games, the art of it, the humor of it is just top notch.
Phil: And like if I was in game publishing or developing, I'd write the names of those people down.
Phil: I'd be like, anytime these people need a job, I'd hire them, because these people are all acting, they're all performing at the very top of their craft.
Phil: Yeah, so I call it a flawless game, which I don't think I've done so before.
Phil: It was unique, which is saying something, and it was flawless.
Phil: And to the point where it's a D game with this iconic, you know, iconography, characters and stuff like that.
Phil: But there was actually a point in the game where I was playing it, and I got a chill down my spine.
Phil: Like something happened, I was like, oh, shh, you know, well.
Phil: That doesn't happen often in the game, and it wasn't a jump scare, it was a, holy Christ, what the, you know, like.
Phil: Yep.
Phil: What was that?
Phil: Oh my God, what's happening?
Phil: So yeah, any questions about it at all?
Tom: I think you say you thought Chapter was the ending.
Tom: Does the initial mystery expand into some sort of large conspiracy?
Tom: How exactly without spoilers, do they expand on that?
Phil: I think that what you've said is enough.
Tom: Yeah.
Phil: So, it's worthy to say that you're not just solving a single murder, that there is in fact a grand conspiracy that underlies the entirety of this game, and that's drawn out over three acts.
Phil: And I think that there's so much good about this game, but I think the real value of it is when you see those characters through the three different acts, age and die, and you remember your relationship with them when you were a young man and now you see these people when they're close to death, but you understand who they were, and all that stuff really comes home.
Phil: You understand these characters, not like you would have sully in Uncharted sort of thing, but you're like, yeah, I knew you when you were young, I knew you were in middle age, and now, okay, you're later.
Phil: It just has a richness of it, and the way that it's delivered, as I said, is flawless.
Phil: It's a game that I can't imagine that most people who, the billions of people out there who buy video games would have any interest in based on, they'd be put off by the aesthetic alone.
Phil: And if you don't like reading, you are not going to like this game.
Phil: So if you're put off by the aesthetic, and I'm quoting the developer of the game, the director, if you don't like how it looks and you don't like reading, you're not going to like this game, because that's a lot of the game.
Phil: They mix it up with some gameplay elements.
Phil: There's some minor platforming, some puzzle solving that's enjoyable.
Phil: There's an element of the game where every time you eat, you're sitting down with people and talking with them and selecting the food you're going to eat, which is a nice way of doing it.
Phil: But yeah, no, it's a perfect game.
Phil: It is available on Game Pass for free if you want to give it a go.
Phil: And that's pretty much all I've got to say about it.
Tom: The only other thing I would ask is, so all the gameplay unfolds in dialogue choices and related dialogue choices, does it?
Phil: Other than the mini games that they added in there.
Phil: I watched the documentary, Danny O'Dwyer documentary on the game, which I wouldn't watch until you've played the game.
Phil: And they basically said, look, we can't, we've got to mix up the action here somehow.
Phil: This just can't be all reading and walking.
Phil: Yeah, we're very well researched as well in terms of the era and the place and the politics and everything that was going on in the world at that time.
Tom: It sounds like something I should definitely play.
Phil: Definitely, if not just for the unique nature of it.
Tom: Are you going to give it a score?
Phil: Oh, it's a
Phil: Absolutely a
Tom: Is this the first you've given on Game Under Podcast?
Phil: I'd be embarrassed to know what games I've given a to in the past.
Phil: This one is, like I said, if I was in game development, anyone who worked on this game to me would be immediately hired.
Phil: I'm looking at our score archive, which is not complete by any measure.
Phil: I see a lot of out of s.
Phil: out of for Doom
Phil: out of for The Last of Us.
Phil: Holy crap.
Tom: So there's one.
Phil: Zero out of for Killzone Shadowfall.
Tom: So we've got a flawless game and a totally flawed game there, I presume.
Phil: You gave a game called The Plan a out of
Tom: Yep.
Tom: Is that the Fly Game?
Phil: No, I don't think so.
Phil: That Fly Game is the one...
Tom: The Plan is the Fly Game, but I think there might be another game called The Plan.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: Yeah, no.
Phil: So far as I can see, that's the only other I've given was for The Last of Us, which was quite some time ago.
Phil: And yeah, I thought that was a good game at the time.
Phil: Still is.
Phil: I'll give it that.
Phil: I can't see any other s from you.
Tom: I'm surprised there's even one.
Phil: Oh, hello.
Phil: Spec Ops The Line.
Tom: I don't think I gave that a
Phil: No, I gave it a
Tom: I think I gave it a out of
Phil: So there you go.
Phil: This game enters the pantheon with Spec Ops The Line, which I think is still worth a in The Last of Us, which I think at the time, for what it was doing at the time, was definitely worth a
Phil: Absolutely.
Tom: There is also The Plan, which is a French game apparently, about stealing Rembrandt paintings.
Tom: Are you familiar with that?
Phil: No, no.
Phil: That's not the game that you are.
Tom: So we can't say that's the plan, I gave a out of
Phil: No, no.
Phil: So the only game you've given a perfect score to, you can't even remember.
Tom: I remember the game.
Tom: I just don't remember giving it a out of
Tom: I think I may have given it a out of because you hated it so much.
Phil: You think it was one of those.
Phil: I don't usually put those in the score archive.
Tom: Because I think you might have given it a out of
Phil: Revenge scores, I don't usually put in the archive.
Tom: I think you might have.
Tom: We'll have to go back to that episode where we covered it and listen.
Phil: Indeed, that was episode
Phil: And it is about the fly.
Phil: This week we had a plan.
Phil: Well, actually, we had the plan.
Phil: The recently greenlit game on Steam that is free, megabytes and takes about minutes to beat.
Phil: In the spectrum of indie games where gone home is a and guacamole is a I put it in the middle of the spectrum almost.
Phil: In any case, it would be worth your while to give it a play before hearing our impressions of it.
Phil: Sincere apologies for getting to mention the PlayStation game, Car, Mr.
Phil: Mosquito.
Phil: We also talked about Red Steel and Alcatraz, a new game from a German adventure game publisher, Daedalic Games.
Tom: I believe I wrote a review for that.
Tom: I do believe my best review.
Phil: The caption of the fly that couldn't get through the, I remember this game now.
Phil: The caption of the image on this is a fly against a screen.
Tom: Yep, a fly wire screen.
Phil: My caption underneath it was, it's a metaphor man.
Phil: Before we get into e-mail, I just want to tell you there's been a few steam sales recently, and I just want to go over my haul because it's a good way to talk about games that we're interested in our perspective on the value and whether or not you are aware of them or even played them.
Phil: The first game that I got was a $purchase of a game from the early s called Flat Out.
Phil: It's a demolition derby game.
Phil: I had played the demo on Dreamcast.
Phil: Have you heard of it?
Tom: Yeah, I think I've played it or at least a demo of it.
Phil: Yeah, well, yeah, I played the demo again, and I found it memorable enough that it turned up in my list of games I've been playing.
Phil: So, and yeah, for $I did play the game, and I was amazed by the visual remastering of it.
Phil: Whatever it had done, even if they've done nothing, just playing it on a modern video card, it looks absolutely fantastic.
Tom: I think it's just a PC port.
Tom: I don't think it's a remaster.
Phil: Yeah, it's just a PC port.
Phil: They haven't spent any money on this game, making it look better or worse or anything.
Phil: It's just that I was just impressed at how it looks on a modern PC.
Tom: Do you have any interest in FlatOut which I think is also about $at the moment?
Phil: I didn't know there was a FlatOut but now I have interest in it, so let me write that one down.
Tom: Not only is there a FlatOut there's also a FlatOut called Ultimate Carnage.
Tom: Yeah.
Phil: Look, the game's got increasingly sensationalist, and I think they got a bad rap because they have crazy taxi-type mini games in them, where you propel the driver of the car out of the front windscreen into a target, because the part of the original.
Tom: In fact, correction, sorry, FlatOut Ultimate Carnage is apparently an enhanced port of FlatOut
Tom: I think that means it's a remake.
Phil: Yeah, they cashed this game in for all it was worth, and it was basically built on a decent demolition derby game.
Phil: You don't get a lot of them.
Phil: Plus the, at the time, controversial ragdoll physics of having someone go flying through a car windscreen.
Phil: The next one I got was Telling Lies, which I haven't played, but it came in a bundle with Her Story.
Phil: I think it's by Sam Barlow as well for $.
Phil: So it's another full motion video game where you have to figure out who's lying and who's not.
Phil: Haven't played that one because it's not compatible with the Steam Deck.
Phil: Spiritfarer, I picked up, which I'm actually playing now and quite enjoying.
Phil: $$.
Phil: It is a very unique game.
Phil: It's like Animal Crossing meets Harvest Moon meets Wind Waker.
Phil: With a pretty deep, I wouldn't say narrative, but a very deep theme.
Phil: You're basically a young person who's picking up souls that are about to depart the world and making sure they're comfortable before they leave the world.
Phil: Have you seen that?
Phil: Any interest in it?
Tom: I think I've heard of it, but I have not played it.
Tom: It certainly looks interesting.
Tom: What are you enjoying about it the most?
Phil: The gameplay hook.
Phil: It has a really good gameplay loop rather.
Phil: Where there's always something to do and you're always getting, not rewarded for what you're doing, but everything that you do gives you progress.
Phil: So it's one of those kinds of games where the more you put into it, the more you get out of it without feeling like a job simulator.
Phil: Picked up Untitled Goose.
Tom: Thatchers, sorry, just to interrupt you there, not feeling like a job simulator, we'll now have lost all interest in it.
Tom: This is the podcast for people who love job simulators.
Phil: Untitled Goose Game, bucks.
Phil: As from what I've played of it so far, it's unique and fun, a little too twee for my liking.
Tom: There's currently an Untitled Goose Game exhibition at ACMI here in Melbourne.
Phil: It's wearing a pooh hair.
Phil: It's sort of like, okay guys, do you really want to run this into the ground?
Phil: Just go make another game.
Tom: I don't think that's the developer's fault.
Tom: That's whoever curates the NGV's fault.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: Okay.
Tom: But if you did enjoy Untitled Goose Game, I would recommend the exhibition.
Phil: Well, of course.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: And I'm enjoying it now to a point, but again, it's a little too twee for me.
Phil: But I'll finish it.
Phil: That's for sure.
Phil: Pillars of Eternity from the aforementioned Obsidian.
Phil: It's the sort of Baldur's Gate top-down D isometric RPG game that's critically acclaimed.
Phil: I had the first one, haven't played it.
Phil: It's going to take forever to beat.
Phil: But I figured it might be something I can enjoy on a Steam Deck.
Phil: Got that for bucks.
Tom: Do you think there's any chance of you finishing it?
Phil: I don't think there's any chance of me starting it.
Phil: I'd like to go back and play Pillars of Eternity, because it's just a good, very basic grind RPG, looter type game, a la Diablo.
Phil: I love those games, but I've got to be in the right frame of mind for them.
Phil: That's why I thought if I can play them on the Steam Deck, that's the perfect frame of mind.
Phil: It's like something I can play a little bit of, stop, play it in bed, that sort of thing.
Phil: I don't know that I've given Steam Deck hardware impressions on this podcast yet.
Phil: We'll have to save that for the next show.
Tom: I don't think you have because you write a review.
Phil: I did write a review.
Phil: So we'll do that next show.
Phil: Frog Detective Game.
Phil: I'd heard of it and I'd heard that it was unique, so I bought it and I tried it.
Phil: It's got prep of the rapper style artwork, and you're a frog who's trying to solve a mystery.
Phil: And for the small amount that I played of it, I enjoyed it so far.
Phil: Four bucks.
Tom: Now, where have you heard of this game?
Phil: Just on various podcasts.
Tom: Give me an example of one podcast.
Phil: The Next Lander Podcast, the Player One Podcast, Jeff Guzman Podcast.
Tom: Not The Game Under Podcast.
Phil: I don't think we've talked about it, have we?
Tom: We have talked about it in episode of The Game Under Podcast.
Phil: And I did love your impressions.
Phil: Frog Detectives, episode what?
Tom:
Phil: And you gave final impressions of one and two, and I haven't even heard about the sequel yet.
Phil: Yeah, you gave final impressions.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: But granted, you only talked about it for six minutes.
Tom: I think I may have been writing a review for a website at that time.
Phil: Okay.
Tom: So the impressions were short.
Phil: Do you remember your impressions of it?
Tom: I think I liked it.
Phil: Yeah, I'm digging it.
Phil: I didn't realize it was that old.
Phil: Next game I picked up was Pentament for bucks, which I think was half off.
Phil: If you want to pay for it, you can of course get it for free, which means I paid bucks too much for it.
Phil: NASCAR Heat because I'm a sucker for driving games, paid $for it.
Phil: And then about two days later, they announced that they're pulling all NASCAR games off Steam, or actually they announced they're pulling all NASCAR games off the digital platforms.
Phil: So that was a fortuitous one.
Phil: A game I'll talk about in the next podcast is X or X.
Phil: This was a crowd-funded game that takes on an s pastiche and has about four or five s arcade games that it emulates with a narrative behind it.
Tom: Could you even play that after UFO with its games?
Phil: Well, it's a bit cheap, isn't it?
Phil: They're just giving you four of them, but this has a narrative and blah, blah, blah.
Phil: Firewatch, Titanfall Planet Coaster, Civ and Doom Eternal, because I forgot that Doom Eternal was the bad one, not Doom
Tom: I think Doom Eternal is meant to be pretty good, isn't it?
Phil: No, I don't like it.
Phil: They got too fancy with it.
Phil: They said that, well, when you guys played Doom you guys played it wrong, so in this game, we're going to force you to play it right.
Phil: So you've got to string together combos.
Phil: Which is antithetical to the whole concept of Doom in my mind.
Tom: I think they're correct.
Tom: I think they're correct.
Phil: They're correct?
Tom: Yeah, I think they were right.
Tom: You're the one who is wrong in this scenario, I think.
Phil: How so?
Phil: Do I go string to get a combos, to get a kill?
Tom: I think the Doom remake is all about combos and stylish gameplay.
Tom: It's essentially a beat-em-up just with first-person shooter mechanics.
Phil: It was much more enjoyable.
Phil: Yeah, but they didn't punish you for not playing the game their way.
Phil: You could still play it like a straight-out shooter.
Tom: I'm sure there's a way to play Doom Eternal as a straightforward shooter.
Phil: If you're ready, well, I'll give it a try.
Phil: I'll download it again and give it a try.
Tom: You just need to commit to it.
Phil: All right.
Tom: I'll prove them.
Tom: I don't know if that will prove them wrong or not, but commit to the way you want to play the game and find a way.
Phil: I'll give it a go.
Phil: So we'll close out this podcast with an e-mail.
Phil: Are you ready?
Tom: I want to ask, how have you been able to download all of these games?
Phil: Okay.
Phil: Most of the ones I've told you about are small, and I download them between o'clock at night and o'clock in the morning, which is my off-peak minutes.
Phil: Or I wait until my internet is depleted for the month, and I've already been slowed to K or something like that.
Phil: Then I just download it because, well, I'm not getting penalized for it.
Phil: I don't care if it takes hours or hours to do.
Tom: Okay.
Phil: So that's how I've been being around it.
Tom: So you find a way there, I'm sure you can find a way.
Tom: Play Doom Eternal how you want as well.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: I have the tenacity and resourcefulness to figure it out.
Phil: We'll close out with an email from Madison.
Phil: So put your listening ears on.
Phil: It's from Madison, a human, not Madison, Wisconsin.
Phil: And Madison writes-
Tom: Where's human?
Phil: Madison, yeah.
Phil: Nowhere near where you are.
Phil: I can assure you of that.
Phil: Madison writes, what is your favorite, what is your favorite gaming experience with a game that was outside your normal gaming comfort zone?
Phil: So game-
Tom: I feel like I've been asked this question before.
Phil: Oh well.
Phil: Let's see if you give a different answer.
Tom: That's a good point.
Tom: I have to think about that.
Tom: So this would be like a trying a game in a genre you don't normally play for the first time.
Tom: Yep.
Tom: I think maybe playing Dark Souls
Tom: Because it's not-
Tom: it wasn't a new experience in the sense of playing a hard game because I usually play games on hard.
Tom: By default, so Dark Souls isn't really that much more difficult than a lot of games are when you actually play them on the hardest difficulty available.
Tom: But I had been just totally put off ever playing a Souls game due to how fucking obnoxious Souls game fans are.
Tom: And the narrow, ridiculous way they reduce the enjoyment of the game down to it being enjoyable solely because it's difficult and there's nothing else to like about the game.
Tom: Which these days might sound weird because people now talk about the law in the games.
Tom: They talk about why the gameplay is actually good outside of the fact that it is difficult.
Tom: But when Demon Souls came out and even Dark Souls, that was all these fuckwits could talk about.
Tom: So I went into it as someone who had no interest in playing a Souls game, but thought if I could get a review copy, here's a way to do it for free.
Tom: And then I'd be forced to play it.
Tom: So I'd say probably that because was it difficult?
Tom: Yes, it was similar to hard games that are hard, but within that, the way the combat worked was just beautifully satisfying.
Tom: It was an engrossing world even in, perhaps according to most people, the worst illustration of that in Dark Souls
Tom: So it was just a completely unexpectedly enjoyable experience in many ways.
Phil: I think when you talk about bands of Dark Souls, now I bought Dead Souls back when Sony polished it for the PlayStation
Phil: And I saw its appeal without having been exposed to the fan base because people didn't really catch on to it until Dark Souls, right?
Phil: And I saw its appeal, but I was like, this isn't fun, it's not for me.
Phil: I don't like Ninja Gaiden, games that are hard for the sake of being hard.
Phil: So what do you think about this?
Phil: When you described the fans there that were very narrowly focused on a certain aspect of the difficulty of the game, I think that's a very German perspective.
Phil: And I don't know why.
Tom: I'm surprised that Art Axman doesn't like it then, I have to say.
Phil: Yeah, well, I haven't played this particular game, but yeah, I just think it's a very, it's a very, like, it's a niche thing for people who are over a certain way.
Phil: And then there's been some games in that genre that have been released that are more accessible, that people like, like Elden Ring and whatever the PlayStation exclusive one was.
Tom: I think what it's about is, because if people talk about Ninja Gaiden, for example, of course, they'll mention how hard it is, but they will focus on the brilliance of the mechanics and the depth that is there.
Tom: I think the issue for Souls fans, up until it blew up post Dark Souls, and really not just post Dark Souls, but a good way after the initial reviews of Dark Souls, and that sort of started percolating into the mainstream more.
Tom: I think the key thing was that these people had this game they loved, that didn't have much of a positive critical reception, and that everyone else ignored.
Tom: And instead of trying to explain what made it so great, they wanted to instead demonstrate their superiority in the fact that they could enjoy such a hard game.
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
Phil: Like they're an exclusive club, and the fact that you don't understand it means you don't get it, man.
Tom: You're too much of a shit gamer to be able to enjoy.
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
Phil: Which is a good point.
Tom: I don't mind elitism in games, and there's that element too.
Tom: It's still, which is humorous, with the whole get good to if you've stuck somewhere or whatever, that sort of thing, that's fine.
Tom: That's a standard part of gaming.
Tom: But if that's the sole part of it, then you're not really explaining why you enjoy the game.
Tom: Because you could just become a speed runner at any game, and you could have the same position.
Tom: But yeah.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: Well, thank you for that.
Phil: Thanks for listening to The Game Under Podcast.
Phil: We've been doing this since
Phil: There's a lot of resources on our website, gameunder.net, covering games from that time to now, and our features and editorials as well.
Tom: Are we not going to get Arthur Axman's answer to that email?
Phil: If you'd like to submit a question, use our comment section from our homepage.
Tom: What about Phil Fogg?
Phil: Everyone knows what Phil Fogg's answer to that question would be.
Phil: It would be a game like Halo Wars, which is a real-time strategy, which I hate real-time strategies.
Phil: They stress me out no end.
Phil: But because it was Halo, I was like, I'll buy it.
Phil: I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I never wanted to play it again.
Phil: Along that same way was Brutal Legend, which again was the Jack Black Double Fine game.
Phil: Again, turned out to be a Stealth.
Phil: By Stealth, I mean, not announced before it was sold, RTS game.
Phil: Again, thoroughly enjoyed it, while hating it the whole time, because I hate real-time strategy games.
Phil: They're too stressful.
Phil: And the other one would be Dragon Quest Rocket Slime, which is a tower defense game for the DS, which is one of my top five games of all time.
Phil: I'd never see myself enjoying a tower defense game, and I bought it not knowing that that's what it was, and it was again, as I said, probably in my top five of games of all time.
Phil: So that's my answer.
Tom: I feel like I've heard that before, so I think we have done this before, and I gave a different answer.
Phil: You did.
Tom: And you supplied the same answer.
Phil: I'm consistent, man.
Phil: Thanks again for listening to Episode of The Game Under Podcast.
Phil: I'm Phil Fogg.
Tom: I'm Tom Towers.
Phil: Thank you for listening.