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0:00:07 Intro
0:01:43 News - Switch 2 Cold Takes
0:24:25 News - BAFTA Most Influential Games
0:32:27 News - Game Informer is Back
0:36:51 Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
0:53:56 There is No Game: Wrong Dimension
1:03:59 The Case of the Golden Idol
1:24:31 Feature - How it all started
Tom and Phil return to host Australia’s longest running video game podcast and talk over the latest video game news including Nintendo Switch 2 details, the return of Game Informer and the BAFTA most influential game poll. We also talk about the games we think are the most influential before going on to give our reviews of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, There is No Game and the Case of the Golden Idol.
Finally, we revisit the How It All Started segment where we talk about the most relevant games in successful franchises, like Super Mario, Doom, Call of Duty, The Elder Scrolls and more.
Transcipt:
Tom: Hello and welcome to episode of The Game Under Podcast.
Tom: I'm Tom Towers, and I'm joined by Phil Fogg.
Phil: Hello, Tom.
Phil: How are you?
Tom: I'm good, but unfortunately we've got bad news for followers of the show.
Phil: Yes, yes, indeed.
Tom: We are going to have to be increasing the price of each episode, unfortunately.
Phil: Well, yes.
Phil: I mean, now this episode, however, is going to be free.
Phil: So if you've already downloaded it, if you've already downloaded it, we're not going to invoice you.
Tom: The good news is, the good news is we'll be keeping our sales policy, which is generally a % discount, but the price will be going up.
Phil: Yes.
Phil: And if we are actually going to be, are we going to be providing upgrades for better quality sound?
Phil: Like maybe $per show?
Tom: Yeah, I think so.
Tom: And we'll be able to download it at a higher bit rate.
Phil: I think it is probably time for us to change the model, the business model of the podcast.
Phil: Because we have been following the value for value model, which was started by John C.
Phil: Dvorak and Adam Curry of the No Agenda Podcast, where they get thousands of dollars in each episode from listeners, because they value the content that much, then they just give what they think the show is worth.
Phil: That hasn't been working out well for us at all.
Tom: Well, we've not been following that.
Tom: We've been following the nothing for value model.
Phil: Or possibly the, what is it, the vow of poverty?
Phil: Anyway, you know, money is what everyone's talking about.
Phil: So Nintendo, we'll go over the details here, not all the details, because the details are changing every hour.
Phil: And so by the time we record this and put it out, it'll probably be wrong again.
Phil: But Nintendo has released the sequel to the Switch, well, they've announced the sequel and they've shown it in a full hour long demonstration and all sorts of things.
Phil: And it seems to be a capable piece of hardware, seems to be pretty impressive, really.
Phil: And when you look at the specs on it, just comparing it, say, to the Steam Deck, which I'm completely enamored with, we'll just get through some of the technical specs there.
Phil: It's got a by screen, whereas the Steam Deck has by inch LCD compared to inch OLED on the Steam Deck.
Phil: Got a custom NVIDIA Processor, which can do Ray Tracing and DLSS.
Phil: And I'd be interested, and the Steam Deck has a AMD Zen -core -thread RDNA GPU.
Phil: Do you know what that, is that good?
Tom: It's good enough.
Tom: I think the CPU slash GPU in the Switch has to be significantly more powerful than that.
Tom: Given that it offers Ray Tracing, I think you'd be hard pressed to try Ray Tracing in most games on the Steam Deck.
Phil: Oh, that's for sure, yeah.
Phil: And in terms of RAM, Nintendo and Nvidia have not specified how much RAM is in it.
Phil: It's speculated that there is gigabytes compared to the Steam Deck gigabytes.
Phil: But, you know, we won't know that until someone buys it and takes it apart.
Phil: Storage, who cares?
Tom: And a proprietary console like the Switch would need less RAM anyway.
Phil: Absolutely.
Phil: Yeah, there's a lot less overhead with their Nintendo operating system.
Phil: Even though, you know, SteamOS...
Tom: Also known as NOS, I believe.
Phil: NOS, is that what it's called?
Phil: And then SteamOS is a Linux-based, of course.
Phil: So it's a lot less flabby than, say, Windows, for example.
Phil: But, yeah, it would be...
Phil: I think they're probably both going to be very efficient, but way more efficient than a Windows operating device.
Tom: I would presume it would be more efficient than Linux even.
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
Tom: Because Linux is capable...
Tom: Well, SteamOS is Linux-based, I believe.
Phil: Yes, it is.
Phil: Yeah.
Tom: So it's an OS designed to be able to do more things than NOS might be.
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
Phil: Video output, K at frames per second, that's docked.
Phil: And then compared to the Steam Deck, which does K at hertz or K at hertz.
Phil: So, you know, I mean, if you're looking at the hardware too, it looks pretty solid.
Phil: It looks a lot less flimsy than the current Switch.
Phil: It is the same width, which kind of annoys me.
Phil: I really don't like the thin feel of it, but maybe you're not having the the joy pads, you know, stretching around or make it feel a lot, you know, a lot firmer, a lot more substantial.
Phil: But all in all, from a hardware perspective, I thought it was pretty pretty impressive.
Phil: What did you think?
Tom: I think we're comparing it to the wrong console.
Phil: Okay.
Tom: I think we should be comparing it to the PSPro and whatever the more powerful version of the Xbox is called.
Tom: Right.
Phil: Well, Nintendo themselves are comparing it to the PlayStation Pro in terms of its capabilities.
Tom: I think that's a questionable decision on their part, given the price that they're asking for it.
Phil: Right.
Phil: Right.
Phil: Because the price, I guess, when we come down to it, the price in...
Phil: Well, which price we...
Phil: The price for the hardware itself is...
Tom: The price for the hardware.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: So, in Australia, it's going to be Australian dollars.
Phil: So, bucks.
Phil: And if you could look up what the price of a PlayStation is, that would be great.
Tom: I believe the PSwhich is bundled with either Fortnite or Astrobot in its digital version, ranges from dollars to
Tom: And the CD version is to
Tom: And for some reason, the Fortnite version is more expensive than the Astrobot version.
Phil: Well, that's...
Phil: Yeah, that's the one.
Phil: I get it.
Phil: I get it.
Phil: That's going to be a lot more popular than Astrobot.
Phil: Not for me, but anyway.
Tom: And correction, I think they may actually both be digital version.
Tom: I'm going by JB Hi-Fi Price prices, and the way they've organized, it is a little bit confusing.
Tom: So a PSPro is as much as dollars.
Phil: That's what I thought.
Tom: So it's in the price range of the base PS
Phil: Well, right, right.
Phil: But see the Steam Deck in Australia, the entry level LCD is dollars, and it's for the OLED.
Phil: So for LCD, for OLED.
Phil: The Australian price is for the Switch
Tom: I would still be comparing it to the PSthough, and the Xbox.
Tom: I think that's its direct competitor more so than what is essentially a version of PC gaming, even though it is a handheld console.
Phil: Yeah, okay.
Phil: That's fair.
Phil: That is fair.
Phil: They are competing for the console space, because obviously when it comes to the games, in terms of value, you know, the PC is always going to provide a significant edge.
Phil: But if you're into console gaming, then yeah, that's probably true.
Phil: So, when you compare Australian dollars for the Switch compared to, well, I don't know that you could compare it to the PlayStation Pro, probably just the entry level PlayStation at bucks, I mean, that's comparable.
Tom: I think that's the logic behind their pricing.
Tom: I don't think the pricing has anything to do with inflation.
Tom: I don't think it has anything to do with how much the console is manufactured for.
Tom: I think when it comes to pricing something, you're going to be looking at what your competitor is selling it for and be wanting to price it at something that makes sense based on that.
Tom: And they're releasing it in between generations, so they don't want to be releasing it at a reasonable price in terms of what it's offering based on when a PSor whatever is going to come out.
Tom: They're going to be pricing it based on what their competitor is and they can't price it too low, so that it doesn't look like something old, like the original Switch.
Tom: That would be my hypothesis on the logic behind the pricing.
Phil: I think too, if you, from a value proposition, if I was Nintendo, I'd say, well, look, this is as powerful as the competition, but you can take it with you and it's something you can play on the go and it's a form factor that has worked very well for them.
Tom: Exactly.
Tom: So you're still getting more for your money than if you were getting a PSof an equivalent price.
Phil: That's, in terms of the software, did you have a look at some of the games that they're showing there?
Tom: I did.
Tom: In terms of the software pricing, you mean?
Phil: Yeah, well, why don't we just talk about the games that are on offer?
Phil: I mean, I think it's again hard to get around the price, because the prices are different depending on the game that you're buying.
Phil: I think the stupidest thing I heard all week was charging $for the tutorial.
Tom: Yeah.
Phil: I mean, that is just a known goal.
Phil: And as soon as I saw that, I remembered in Reggie Fee Ami's book how he was talking about how he got into the closest he'd ever gotten to an argument with Miyamoto, because they wanted to pack in Wii Sports as free when they released it in the United States.
Phil: And Miyamoto is like, well, no, why would we give it away for free?
Phil: We worked hard on it.
Phil: A lot of, you know, we went to a lot of trouble to make this thing.
Phil: We should be charging for it.
Phil: Which is sort of a weird way to look at it.
Phil: And so they went ahead and packed it in in North America.
Phil: They charged for it in Japan, however.
Phil: And yeah, so again, I think this is probably the same.
Phil: There's no one there to argue with anyone over this stuff anymore, but like $for a tutorial.
Phil: It's terrible messaging when you've got all these other things going on as well.
Tom: It's absolutely bizarre.
Tom: But on the other hand, I don't think the tutorial is going to have the impact of something like a Wii Sports anyway.
Phil: No, no, especially the one that they've shown.
Phil: It looked neat.
Phil: And when I was watching it live, I was like, oh, that looks pretty cool.
Phil: And then they get to the end and said, price to be announced later.
Phil: They're like, what?
Phil: Price to be announced later?
Phil: Donkey Kong and Mario Kart.
Phil: So Mario Kart World, forgetting about the pack-in, which is a little bit discounted, is $USD, which is $Australian.
Tom: Do we know how much it will actually cost here?
Phil: Well, Donkey Kong and Mario Kart, yes, we do.
Phil: They are selling it for $Australian dollars.
Phil: That's listed on Harvey Norman's website, for example, which, in comparable value, is only $USD.
Phil: You know, dollar for dollar, Australians are paying less than Americans.
Tom: But it's still a big increase from what Switch games usually cost, which is, I think, at RRP, about $
Phil: Yes, yeah.
Tom: And this is, there's no question what the cause of this is.
Tom: It's price gouging.
Phil: I, there's no, there's no other explanation.
Phil: It's no, especially for digital, digital stuff.
Phil: Like, they can't blame tariffs for that.
Phil: Because tariffs are not applied to, to software, like digital sales, for example.
Phil: This is just price gouging.
Phil: This percent.
Tom: And if it was tariffs, it's not Nintendo who will be setting the price.
Tom: It's the whoever is selling it in America because it's the American seller who is being taxed on it.
Phil: Well, the tax is being paid by the party who is importing it.
Phil: So the tariff is going on the party who is importing it.
Phil: So they would be the person who is selling it on to the, they would be the person who is selling it on to the retailers.
Tom: So you are saying Nintendo would be the one selling it on to the retailers.
Phil: Exactly.
Phil: I am saying that Nintendo is the guys with the shipping containers that bring the games into the distribution centers in the US for example.
Phil: And then they sell it to Harvey Norman and JB Hi-Fi and Amazon and all the rest of it.
Phil: So they would be the ones paying the tariff.
Phil: But even so, okay, let's say that is a % tariff, then a $game would now be $which is why, you know, the $price bit.
Phil: I think that is just an excuse.
Phil: This is really just price gouging.
Tom: As is, as is arguably the base price already.
Phil: Yes, yeah.
Phil: And I think this, this is probably the most hubris we've seen from Nintendo since I don't know when.
Phil: Probably the Nintendo, like the original Nintendo, Nintendo era, once they had success with that.
Phil: Because, you know, this is right up there with, you'll get a second job to buy a PlayStation hubris after the success of PlayStation
Phil: And this is right up there with Don Matrix comment about, well, what if I'm on a US Marine sub and I don't have access to the internet?
Phil: How am I going to play my games?
Phil: And he said, well, for people who don't have internet, we have a system for you.
Phil: It's called the Xbox
Phil: These companies have, it's an oversimplification to say that these companies, after they've had tremendous success, you know, usually have some, a slump, you know, Switch is going to be the best-selling console of all time.
Phil: It's hard to follow that up.
Phil: But honestly, like, it's hard to stuff it up.
Phil: It looks like they've done a good job with the hardware.
Phil: But these prices for games, and being the leader of it, you know, I'm not the first one to say it.
Phil: I'm probably the millionth person to say it.
Phil: But now, if Rockstar has got to be considering, Take-Two has got to be considering, well, maybe we should charge $for Grand Theft Auto when we bring it out later this year.
Tom: I think the rumors were that they might be charging even more than that.
Tom: Because those rumors, I think, preceded the announcement of Switch pricing.
Phil: Well, there was an analyst who was saying that they should.
Phil: So that has been out there.
Phil: I don't know that...
Tom: And I think they'll both get away with it.
Tom: But again, reading comments and even media commentary on these prices, the amount of people defending it is, to me, just astounding.
Tom: And a complete reversal in attitudes by consumers and by media compared to even years ago.
Phil: Oh, yeah, definitely.
Phil: Hey, so like, that's how the apologists are all saying.
Phil: And it's a compelling argument.
Phil: You know, hey, well, this is Mario Kart.
Phil: You know, you're going to be playing it for the next to years.
Phil: bucks, you know, that's really a bargain when you look at it like that.
Phil: So if you came back to when Gran Turismo was at its peak, if Polyphony Digital had said, look, you know, you remember the fantastic work they did for every Gran Turismo.
Phil: They basically replicated every car on the planet down to how it sounded and handled and the whole thing.
Phil: You go, well, yeah, I mean, that's a tremendous value.
Phil: If Gran Turismo, a game that you like, made the same sort of value proposition, would you be like, yeah, I get it.
Phil: It's a lot of work.
Tom: No way.
Phil: You wouldn't be for it?
Tom: No, definitely not.
Phil: I don't know.
Phil: I mean, like when I look at some RPGs that I played, like Animal Crossing is not an RPG, but like you look at Animal Crossing, you go, wow, I put plus hours into this game.
Phil: You know, I'd like to give them, give the developer something more back.
Phil: But, you know, I guess Nintendo is saying, well, you know, it's because of all the extra work that goes into it.
Phil: This is why we're going to have this variable pricing.
Phil: You know, a lot of work went into this.
Phil: It costs a lot of money to make.
Phil: But then you look at it and you go, well, how much do you think Grand Theft Auto is costing to make?
Phil: It's just not an argument.
Tom: The argument doesn't make sense in the first place because they're not producing some sort of artisanal product.
Tom: They're producing a mass-producible product which creates extra value on supposedly more effort by being sold more because there's essentially no cost in or an extremely low cost in printing the product again and again.
Phil: Also, you could make the opposite argument.
Phil: You look at a game like, what's the flow, the Children of Light game, for example.
Phil: Development costs on that are going to be way lower than say on Fortnite.
Phil: Even development costs on Fortnite, well, they kind of overdo it, but it's not going to be on the same level as like a Call of Duty type thing.
Phil: But people go, well, we didn't put that much effort into this game.
Phil: It doesn't really cost us that much to keep the servers going.
Phil: So we're only going to charge $
Phil: It's just inane.
Phil: You see the chat tool they've added, basically video chat.
Tom: Which you are apparently going to have to start paying for in the future, rendering one of the buttons on the controller completely useless if you don't.
Phil: Yes, it's the first button on a console that you have to pay to use in the history of gaming.
Phil: I think, yeah, probably.
Phil: Yeah, maybe unless someone's had like an Xbox Live button or something like that.
Phil: But yeah, they're going to start charging for that after a year.
Phil: And I guess probably, I don't know if this is piling on or not, but you know, the upgrades to the Switch games.
Phil: I was expecting that I just put a Switch game in and it would look better because, you know, it's running on a Switch, it's running on better hardware.
Phil: But they're actually charging between and dollars depending on the amount of work that goes into the visual fidelity upgrades.
Phil: So again, that's just a puzzling again.
Phil: It's just, it's too complicated.
Phil: It's too complicated.
Tom: Do you have to pay for, I thought you had to pay for upgrades on PSand Xbox games.
Phil: There was something, there was some games where you could pay to basically play it on your PlayStation
Phil: So if you already had it on the last consoles, for you to play it on the current consoles, yeah, there was something like you paid a bucks and then, you know, it was automatically, you know, just looked better because you're playing it on better hardware.
Tom: But you still had to pay to play the upgraded version.
Phil: That's right.
Phil: And again, you don't, you can still put your Switch game into the Switch and just play it.
Phil: You don't have to pay just to have that benefit.
Phil: So I think that's probably piling on a little bit.
Phil: But again, it's just adding to the confusion.
Phil: And then a whole bunch of Switch games won't boot, by the way.
Phil: So they were talking about how the games will be compatible, but there's hundreds of them that just do not boot.
Phil: And Nintendo says they're looking in two ways around that.
Phil: So that's basically it.
Phil: I think, for me, the hardware is good.
Phil: I like the hardware pricing.
Phil: The hardware pricing is fine with me.
Phil: But the game model just doesn't work for me.
Phil: And that's really across the board with consoles right now.
Phil: Yeah, I'm just not enthusiastic about lining up to pay $every time I get a game.
Tom: I would presume it will be at least $
Tom: Or did you say we have the price confirmed for Australia?
Phil: Yeah, we have the price confirmed for Donkey Kong and Mario Kart at $Australian dollars.
Phil: And as we know through this show, if every game you bought was a complete banger and gave you tremendous value, that, you know, okay, well, $I'd probably just limit my buying to games a year.
Phil: But as you and I both know, not every game is a banger and there's not a lot of options for getting that value back once you want to get rid of that game.
Phil: So where does your enthusiasm level lie with this?
Phil: Could this potentially be the first Nintendo console you don't buy?
Tom: I think there have been multiple Nintendo consoles I haven't bought.
Tom: Although since the GameCube I have had most of them.
Tom: But there's absolutely no way I'm spending $on an LCD screened Switch.
Phil: Yeah, that was a bit of a letdown too, the LCD as opposed to OLED.
Tom: I think Nintendo games, I'm not interested in them for the power of them in terms of impressive graphics or anything like that.
Tom: And Mario Kart, I've seen a lot of people say doesn't look very impressive, but I think it looks pretty phenomenal when you consider how much detail there is in everything on the screen and the number of characters on the screen as well.
Tom: I think it's actually technically very, very impressive, but will that make Mario Kart significantly more fun than it was previously?
Tom: I don't think so.
Tom: And I think that applies to most Nintendo games.
Phil: Yeah, I can still play Mario Kart on the DS.
Phil: And it's just as fun as playing Mario Kart on Wii U or on the Switch.
Phil: Like, it's, you know, it's, it's not that...
Phil: I'm not there for the graphics.
Phil: I can still play it.
Phil: I regularly play it on the Wii U.
Phil: And there's nothing wrong with it.
Phil: It looks fine.
Phil: It's good, you know.
Phil: It did look spectacular, though.
Phil: I mean, I really like the look of Mario Kart World.
Tom: I was very impressed by it.
Phil: Yeah, yeah, it was good.
Tom: But the only game that I would really want to play is Metroid Prime and there will be a Switch version of that.
Phil: Yes, yeah.
Phil: What did you think?
Phil: How did it look to you?
Tom: It looked like Metroid Prime.
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
Phil: All right.
Phil: Well, enough.
Phil: I guess, Nintendo, if we have to put a bow on it, I'm going to say it seems like the hardware is good value.
Phil: I'm not excited about the software and what that means for my future of buying Nintendo games.
Phil: But, you know, honestly, I've probably only been buying it, well, for my own interest, there's certainly some Nintendo games I'm interested in.
Phil: But then also for my child, you know, I could see myself buying three or four games a year.
Phil: But, you know, at some point, they're going to bring out a Steam Deck, too.
Phil: And she's just going to have my Steam Deck, you know.
Phil: So and then she can play a whole sea of games.
Phil: But yeah, they won't have Princess Peach or Mario in them.
Phil: Story number two, Bafta.
Phil: This was a story.
Phil: Did you hear the story about Bafta's most influential game list?
Tom: I heard that Shenmue won it.
Phil: Yeah, that's it.
Phil: And this isn't this wasn't like an official proclamation from Bafta.
Phil: They basically polled their members and said, hey, you know, just submit what you think is the most influential game.
Phil: So more people listed Shenmue as the most influential game of all time, which was the Dreamcast game made by Yu Suzuki.
Phil: It's probably the I mean, in terms of influence, it it's slightly influenced Yakuza.
Phil: You know, now the Like a Dragon series.
Phil: I don't know.
Phil: I mean, I'd be interested to know what games you think are the most influential, but we'll just go through the list quickly.
Phil: Might give you some inspiration.
Phil: Number one is Shenmue.
Phil: Number two is Doom.
Phil: Number three, Super Mario Brothers.
Phil: Four, the original Half-Life.
Phil: Five, Ocarina of Time.
Phil: Six, Minecraft.
Phil: Seven, Kingdom Come Deliverance
Phil: Have you heard of Kingdom Come Deliverance ?
Tom: Yes, I have.
Tom: I've not heard of its massive influence, though.
Phil: It came out three months ago.
Phil: So, you've got to give it a break, you know.
Phil: I'm thinking that there may have been some ballot stuffing here with the development team from Kingdom Come Deliverance
Phil: Number Super Mario number Half-Life
Phil: Apparently, Half-Life is so influential.
Tom: Doubly so.
Phil: Yeah, it influenced Half-Life
Phil: Number The Sims, Eleven Tetris, Twelve Tomb Raider, Pong, Metal Gear Solid, World of Warcraft, Baldur's Gate a game that came out last year.
Phil: Final Fantasy VII, Dark Souls, Grand Theft Auto Skyrim, and then Grand Theft Auto, the original.
Phil: That's your top
Phil: I don't think Shenmue is a very influential game at all.
Phil: I don't see it as being influential whatsoever.
Tom: In terms of direct mechanics or structure, you would have to say no.
Tom: Other than on Yakuza.
Tom: But there is another element to influence, which would be inspiration.
Tom: And I have seen numerous developers say they were highly inspired by it.
Tom: So I don't know about the most influential video game of all time, but I think one of the most influential an argument could certainly be made.
Phil: I think you'd put it in the top
Phil: I guess it was actually more groundbreaking than that.
Phil: It was more groundbreaking than that.
Phil: It was, you know, would you say it sort of got you there for the open world stuff?
Phil: But, you know, if you look at games like WoW, they're even more open world than Shenmue.
Tom: I think it's not about it being open world.
Tom: It's about it attempting to present a tangible and realistic portrayal of everyday life.
Tom: Which I think is groundbreaking for the time.
Phil: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Phil: I think, but keep in mind that Dreamcast came after the PlayStation by about five or six years.
Phil: Maybe, yeah, five or six years.
Phil: And there was games on the PlayStation like Tale of the Sun, which is a notoriously bad game that I actually didn't mind.
Phil: Where you basically, you've got to look it up.
Phil: It's a ridiculous game.
Phil: I think I've written a review of it somewhere.
Phil: But like it is a mundane, like it is a very mundane game.
Phil: You're basically out in the wilderness and you have to survive.
Phil: And there's barely anything to do.
Phil: And the time moves in real time.
Phil: I think if you have to be other games on the PlayStation that got to this same sort of thing.
Phil: I mean, if you look at the depth of the game, like being able to open a drawer and look inside of it and see stuff.
Phil: I guess you could say that sort of had an impact on Deus Ex.
Phil: But I don't even know that Shenmue predated Deus Ex or System Shock and all those sorts of games.
Tom: I think they predated it.
Phil: There's got to be some PC games that hit on the same stuff.
Tom: There are a lot of Japanese PSgames with similar ideas, but I don't think they were structurally quite different and were usually more focused on family.
Tom: So doing that in a blockbuster sort of video game, I still would give it credit for being ground breaking.
Phil: So what game would you say is the most influential?
Tom: I would probably go with Pong.
Phil: Pong.
Tom: Pong.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: I considered Pong.
Phil: Why would you say it's influential?
Tom: I think Pong, there are other examples, but that's probably the biggest and most successful early video game where it's to use a cliché that is inapplicable most of the time and here I think is beautifully inapplicable, was a visceral experience.
Phil: Yeah, yeah, okay.
Phil: Look, it's obviously, it was the first time, you know, other than the Odyssey, where you could be playing games on TV.
Phil: So it basically would have been the most influential because you would have had thousands of people around the planet going, hey, I can do something with this TV that's interactive.
Phil: Like we can do stuff with this.
Phil: So yeah, so I see its influence there.
Phil: I'd probably make an argument for Doom because the first-person shooter genre is still dominant and Doom was the first one to really, well, I don't have to tell you what Doom did.
Phil: I think Doom is-
Tom: Did you go for Doom or Wolfenstein though?
Phil: I'd go for Doom just because Wolfenstein, Wolfenstein was pretty good though.
Phil: Yeah, and it still is.
Phil: It's funny when you go back and play Wolfenstein now because you're like, how do I jump?
Phil: How do I aim?
Phil: Because you're not really aiming and you're not really aiming in Doom either, I guess.
Tom: And instead of Doom, you've got to pick Doom or Wolfenstein for influence.
Tom: I think you've got to go for Wolfenstein for the non-modern version of first-person shooters.
Tom: If you go for modern first-person shooters, I think you've got to go for Quake.
Tom: So I think it's an argument between Wolfenstein or Quake.
Phil: Yeah, I agree.
Phil: Yeah, so, um, other influential games...
Phil: I actually thought about Space Invaders.
Tom: So did I, but then I thought everything that makes Space Invaders visceral is all set out in Pong.
Tom: Yeah, you've got the immediate tactile bleeps and bloops and instant feedback.
Phil: Anyway, so just want to say that was not the official Bafta, like, it is their list, they put it out there.
Phil: But it was really just a poll of their membership, not a declarative, hey, these, you know, we're giving an award to Shenmue for the most influential game of all time.
Phil: Maybe they will, who knows.
Phil: A final story, I don't know if you heard about this, this is a couple of weeks ago now, credit for this one goes to gamespot.com.
Phil: Game Informer is back.
Phil: So Game Informer, if you don't know, was a, I'd say a second string, maybe even a third string, video game website.
Phil: It was, to my knowledge, the last published video game magazine to come out of the US.
Phil: And it was owned by GameStop.
Phil: And then GameStop, or stopped it, and gutted it, you know, basically shut it down.
Phil: They didn't sell it.
Phil: But the business was shut down in August and the magazine has returned under new ownership.
Phil: Gunzilla Games acquired the rights to Game Informer, and brought back the entire editorial team, and also the technical team as well.
Phil: So everyone who is working there on the last day in August of has come back and is working for the organization.
Phil: So they're not just doing a website.
Phil: They are going to bring back a physical magazine as well.
Phil: So, yeah, and Gunzilla, they're, I had never heard of them.
Phil: They're currently working on a Battle Royale game called Off the Grid.
Phil: So you go, I can't, okay, first of all, this is seemingly good news.
Phil: They're going to have editorial freedom to do what they wish.
Phil: But, like, I just don't know.
Phil: I've never heard of this company that's bringing them back.
Tom: I haven't heard of them either.
Phil: No, or their game and an upcoming Battle Royale game.
Phil: Good luck.
Phil: I mean, welcome to six years ago, you know, or seven years ago.
Phil: So it had to be-
Tom: years ago with a magazine.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: It had to have been pretty compelling to have every single person come back.
Phil: But it doesn't, it's not like if I had a decent job somewhere else and then I'm told, hey guy, you know, come back to the old job.
Phil: We're getting the whole team together again.
Phil: And, and this company is called Godzilla is going to fund it.
Phil: Oh yeah.
Phil: And who are they?
Phil: They haven't released any games yet, but they're a game company and it's going to be a battle.
Phil: Battle, we're going to battle.
Tom: It's the hot new thing.
Phil: The name of the game is off the grid.
Phil: I think Game Informer is going to be off the grid.
Phil: In six months' time.
Phil: I mean, look, it's good.
Phil: I mean, it is legitimately good news, if not for the fact that they were able to bring back the entire archive of the website and magazine archive.
Phil: You know, it hasn't been lost to the ages.
Tom: This has got to be some sort of scheme, surely.
Tom: Let's look at, on the Gunzilla website and here's where their funding comes from.
Phil: Russian Mafia.
Tom: They've got million dollars of funding from Coin Fund, Avalanche's Blizzard Fund and Republic Capital and Morningstar Ventures.
Tom: As well as previously unreported equity and validator sales.
Phil: Yes, so they have studios in Frankfurt, Kiev and London.
Tom: This has got to be some sort of money laundering scheme, I think so.
Phil: Oh, this is great.
Phil: I almost said this.
Phil: Their upcoming game Off the Grid is a cyberpunk themed Battle Royale that integrates blockchain technology.
Phil: There we go.
Phil: So, yeah, this might not be good news for the Game Informer team, but on its face, good for them.
Phil: I mean, they got the whole team back together, which is amazing in this day and age.
Tom: Well, it's free money for them, probably from drugs and other such things, but they'll be getting paid, I presume.
Phil: I guess it has to be, like if you had to launder money, what better front do you have than a print publication?
Phil: Yeah, we put all the money in here and the magazines come out the other end, and profits.
Phil: Okay, so, do you want to get into what we've been playing?
Tom: We may as well.
Phil: Okey-doke.
Phil: Do you want to lead off?
Tom: Well, I finally finished Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.
Phil: The Great Circle?
Phil: I thought it was called Indiana Jones and the Hole Punch.
Tom: That's one of its names, I believe.
Phil: Okay, because when I read the show notes, I wasn't sure if the Hole Punch was a separate game that you played.
Tom: It's one of the ways you can make a perfect circle on a map.
Tom: You can use a hole punch.
Phil: Excellent.
Tom: Or you can find ancient artifacts.
Phil: Is that part of the game?
Tom: Unfortunately not.
Tom: They chose to find ancient artifacts to be able to do this.
Phil: Okay, fair enough.
Phil: All right.
Phil: Everyone knows about this game.
Phil: You've been playing it on Game Pass presumably.
Phil: Correct.
Phil: Machine games.
Phil: Does this add to their legacy?
Phil: Because they've got a pretty good legacy.
Phil: You know, with the Wolfenstein games, they've built a pretty good reputation for themselves.
Tom: And Chronicles of Riddick in their previous incarnation as well.
Phil: I don't know that we get to count that, but you know.
Tom: I think it's a cult classic.
Phil: Oh, no, no, no.
Phil: Don't get me wrong.
Phil: Chronicles of Riddick is fantastic.
Phil: It is.
Phil: That is.
Phil: Talk about influence.
Phil: That is an influential game.
Phil: But I'm just saying, I'm not sure that we can give machine games credit for that.
Phil: Just because a lot of them did come over from Starbreeze.
Phil: It's, you know, it's still not a machine games game.
Tom: That is true.
Phil: Yeah.
Tom: But I would still bring it up in discussions.
Phil: For sure.
Phil: As we have.
Phil: As we have.
Phil: Yep.
Phil: So yeah.
Phil: So the last time we talked, you'd gotten out of the Vatican and you were in Egypt, and you thought it was pretty blind.
Phil: And I said, no, no, no.
Phil: Just wait.
Phil: Just wait.
Phil: You're going to go to Bangkok.
Phil: You're going to go to China and, you know, that's got to be something that...
Phil: I don't remember going to China before in a game.
Phil: So it's got to be something, you know, it's going to be something about this.
Tom: The Shadowrun Hong Kong, I believe.
Phil: Yeah, Hong Kong.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: You went to mainland China, didn't you?
Tom: I haven't.
Tom: I think one of the most flagrant instances of the Game Under Podcast being copied is the fact that an American YouTuber, one of the largest American YouTubers of today, iShowSpeed, barely a month after I returned from China, was on his own tour of China.
Tom: And I can't help but wonder where he got that idea from.
Phil: Well, we haven't disclosed to our listeners that you went to China, but that's how dedicated you were about playing Indiana Jones.
Tom: I think that's one of the most shocking things about this instances of plagiarism.
Tom: One of us must have accidentally invited him into our telegram group, I can only presume.
Phil: Well yeah, probably.
Phil: It's probably this Craig thing that we've got here, recording all of our conversations.
Phil: Okay, so, Indiana Jones, tell me about it.
Phil: Tell me about China.
Phil: Tell me about Hong Kong, Bangkok, whatever.
Tom: I think it's Shanghai.
Phil: You went to Shanghai, okay.
Phil: And was it cool?
Tom: Indiana Jones, I went to Shanghai.
Phil: Yeah, was it cool?
Tom: It was okay.
Tom: I think they noticed how bland and boring the Egypt section was, so they didn't bother doing a normal Explore the Area section and basically had a series of action set pieces and some QTEs for you to play through in the setting of Shanghai.
Tom: And then after that, you end up in Thailand in I think Sukhothai.
Phil: Well, was any of this mildly racist or couldn't be in a game made in ?
Tom: It wasn't racist, but when you get to Sukhothai and you're interacting with the Thai people, it becomes very apparent that while they have altered the skin tones and the facial features of the characters, they're using the same dimensions for the skeleton, skeletons of the character models, creating a rather surreal and bizarre effect.
Phil: What do you mean?
Tom: Like...
Tom: They're the same proportions and same heights, if I remember correctly, as the characters from other countries.
Phil: Oh, okay.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: So, alright.
Phil: And did it spice up the game?
Tom: I think...
Tom: the only interesting part of the Shanghai section was the fact that the Geyser section had been so bland and uninteresting.
Tom: But Sukhothai, I think, was a return to form and enough that I was glad to continue playing it, because it structurally was similar to Geyser and the Vatican and would not have been interesting if they didn't copy the Wind Waker and make exploration boat-based.
Tom: So you are essentially in a swamp setting where you sail through the swamp, sorry, row through the swamp from island to island, much in the vein of the Wind Waker in a miniaturized form.
Phil: That sounds cool.
Tom: I enjoyed it.
Tom: The exploration isn't as interesting in terms of detailed complexity as the Vatican or setting probably, but doing it by boat shakes it up enough that it's interesting.
Tom: And the tombs you're exploring are a lot more interesting than the ones in Giza.
Tom: They contain more interesting puzzles and once again are much more Zelda-like.
Tom: Again, no doubt due to the Wind Waker's influence.
Phil: So, did they introduce any new gameplay elements other than rowing a boat?
Tom: In terms of the puzzles they do, there are cogwheel puzzles where you've got to get gears in a certain order and there's a chess puzzle, which I don't believe occurred earlier on in the game.
Tom: So, they introduced new puzzle mechanics essentially.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: So, and how do they wrap it all up?
Phil: I mean, obviously, you're going all around the world, you're collecting this stuff, you're trying to solve the Great Circle mystery or whatever.
Phil: Do they bring it together?
Phil: Does it work?
Phil: Or does it feel like a game with five different levels and then a cut scene and credits?
Tom: End up in Iraq after Sukhothai.
Phil: Oh, cool.
Tom: I think the climax of the game is enjoyable enough.
Tom: I think the big issue with the game in terms of the narrative and coming up with a satisfying ending, and I'm not sure anyone else who has played the game agrees with me.
Tom: But it grew worse and worse as the game continued was the complete soullessness and lack of charisma of Indiana Jones, which I think is exemplified in Sukhothai by the fact where at one point you are separated from your female sidekick.
Tom: They realize Indiana Jones himself is adding so little to the narrative that with being unable to come up with a way that makes sense for her to be able to accompany you through the dungeon you are exploring, they introduce a totally random female character to accompany you for a single dungeon who is never seen from or heard of again after that point.
Phil: Wow.
Phil: That's extreme.
Tom: So it's essentially a game without a protagonist, which takes away from the villain's final moments and the fact that he's, instead of having some showdown with Gina, your female companion, which might have been narratively somewhat interesting, he's having it with a character who doesn't exist instead, which is a great disappointment because he's been an entertaining villain throughout the game.
Phil: Do you think that when you said that it's a game that lacks a protagonist, is that because of the first-person perspective that you feel?
Phil: Like, if you look at Chronicles of Riddick, which is a first-person action game, and you look at this game which is first-person by design, though I think you can shift it to third-person whenever you want, I think.
Phil: Do you think that disembodiment is what's happening there in your mind, where you're going, well, I can't see the guy, so he's not there, you know?
Phil: And then doing that, perhaps, because they want you to be Indiana Jones.
Phil: So they don't want you to be watching or moving Indiana Jones.
Phil: They want you to be Indy.
Tom: I don't think so, and especially not from machine games.
Tom: I think in the case of Wolfenstein, the best character in those, at least the first one, I haven't played the other ones, but in the first game was, without a question, the protagonist, BJ.
Tom: Blazkowicz, and all of the other characters played off him.
Phil: Yeah, I'd love to play that game again, now that you've said that.
Phil: I was not a fan of the second one, by the way, or even the spin-off, which has his daughters in it, though it had its moment.
Phil: I just thought there was way too much walking and talking in the second game, just so you know.
Phil: Okay, so do you think that at least from their perspective, their philosophy was, hey, we want you to be indie, so we're just going to get out of the way and make this character less of a character?
Phil: Or do you think this is just a disconnect somewhere in terms of the directing of Troy Baker?
Phil: Or?
Tom: I think it's the decision to have a as technically accurate a copy of Harrison Ford's performance as possible, instead of either adding something to the character themselves or having the actor add something to the character themselves.
Phil: Yeah.
Tom: I think for the sort of character it is, that's absolutely not the way to go.
Phil: I think it's in a tough position, because the name of the game is Indiana Jones, and so who do you think of?
Phil: You think of Harrison Ford.
Phil: I think if they had not used Harrison Ford's image and voice as a reference, I don't know that it translates.
Phil: I don't know.
Phil: I don't know.
Tom: Well, commercially they definitely made the right decision.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: Yeah.
Tom: But I think for me, it makes the narrative significantly weaker than it should have been, considering how good the villain was and the moments the villain had with the supporting cast members at times.
Tom: And I would also add, I think it's not the sort of writing they've demonstrated themselves to be good at in previous games as well.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: That's a very good point.
Phil: So what about technical chops?
Phil: I mean, do you see this and you go, wow, you know, these guys know how to make a video game?
Tom: I think it's a lot more janky than Wolfenstein was.
Tom: It's certainly not a mechanically satisfying experience as Wolfenstein was at all.
Tom: The shooting feels generally pretty weak.
Tom: The platforming is very janky, but it makes up for that with the charm of the structure of the Vatican and Egypt.
Tom: Not so much in Giza, but that's still two-thirds of the game where they're making up for the questionable mechanics at times.
Tom: And it works in the sense that by making all of the mechanics less complex and interesting, or that they then all blend together in a easily manageable way.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: Well, it sounds to me like there's enough there for me to want to play the game.
Phil: Would I be an idiot to play this game?
Tom: I would highly recommend you play it.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: All right.
Phil: Hang it to the list.
Phil: Is that all you've got to say about Indie?
Tom: I think that probably covers it.
Tom: Overall, I'm glad I played it to the end.
Tom: I think it's worth sticking through the less interesting moments, for sure.
Tom: And the one thing I would add is the one area of the game that is mechanically satisfying, except it is only useful for a minigame, is the melee combat.
Tom: With the way the battles play out in normal combat out in the world, you don't need to be doing blocking or dodging or anything like that.
Tom: You either stealth people to death or gather them all together in a row of idiotic IA that you can just bludgeon over the head with a large weapon in the one attack.
Tom: But there is a boxing minigame which is quite challenging and very satisfying once you figure out the timing of blocking and dodging and your own melee attacks.
Tom: So mechanically, that is definitely a highlight and enjoyable in a similar sense to the shooting in Wolfenstein.
Phil: Final question for you.
Phil: If this was not called Indiana Jones, if this was called Daytona Smith, and it was an original character, not Indiana Jones, didn't have the sweeping soundtrack of John Williams and all that nostalgia and pastiche of Indiana Jones' world, would it have been a better game perhaps?
Tom: I don't think so.
Tom: I think other than the protagonist, they use the Indiana Jones aesthetic, music, and even the story very well.
Tom: It's really just an issue to me anyway, the approach they took with the character of Indiana Jones himself.
Tom: And I think there is more to Indiana Jones than simply the character.
Phil: Oh, for sure.
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
Phil: I would say that brings an end to our indie games coverage, but I have been playing in...
Tom: We're not finished with Indiana Jones just yet, as the Die of Destiny has not been rolled.
Phil: Oh, excellent.
Phil: I'll get my mini-Fogg figure ready to countermand your...
Phil: Just do what you do.
Tom: Unfortunately, however, unfortunately, however, I cannot find the Die of Destiny.
Tom: So what we're going to do instead is spin a wheel with a value of to on it.
Phil: Where'd you get a wheel with a value of to on it?
Tom: From pickerwheel.com.
Phil: Oh, a virtual wheel.
Tom: A virtual wheel.
Phil: Why didn't you go to randomnumbergenerator.com?
Tom: Because we're talking about Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.
Tom: Oh, okay.
Phil: Alright.
Phil: Fair enough.
Phil: Alright.
Phil: Spin your wheel.
Phil: See if it's more accurate than your stupid die destiny.
Tom: And Indiana Jones receives a out of
Phil: Okay, I'm going to roll the mini-fog of truth.
Phil: And it says, you gave it actually a out of
Tom: I think that's too high.
Phil: You do?
Phil: Would you go for a ?
Tom: What did I give Uncharted ?
Tom: Did I give that a or a out of ?
Phil: I'll ask AI, what did Tom Towers give Uncharted ?
Phil: See what comes up.
Phil: Okay, Uncharted Uncharted
Phil: You gave it, score coming soon.
Phil: So you talked about it in episode
Tom: I think I might have given it an out of
Tom: And apparently I gave the original Uncharted a out of
Tom: And I gave from memory Uncharted a out of
Tom: To which I think you responded, you're an idiot, I think.
Tom: So I think taking into account Uncharted I don't know if I could give it more than that but maybe.
Tom: So it's in the range maybe of a reasonable score.
Phil: Okay, well, game I've been playing and have finished is called There is No Game, Wrong Dimension.
Phil: This is a game that's developed and published by a very small team of people called Draw Me a Pixel.
Phil: It is a point and click adventure game.
Phil: Now you're into these point and click adventure games, aren't you?
Phil: This is basically, it's available for, it just came out, it just came out.
Phil: I just, this game, I thought this game just came out.
Phil: It got released for Windows in so it's been around for a while.
Phil: And basically, it's like an interactive story.
Phil: And you're, it's very meta.
Phil: So right from the very start, you start the game and there's a computer talking to you and saying, hey, just go away, there's no game.
Phil: Okay?
Phil: We're sorry, we didn't get the funding we needed.
Phil: You've been scammed, you bought this game.
Phil: It's not really a game.
Phil: So there's no game, so just go away.
Phil: And so you're stuck there staring at a screen and basically, you've got limited ways to interact with it.
Phil: So you just have to figure out yourself how to progress this game.
Phil: And you literally have to break the game.
Phil: Like you have to, if there's a circle, for example, up in the top right-hand corner that appears to be a spotlight or something, you've got to figure out a way to smash that off so that you can use it as a coin to unscrew some, you know, some screws which will give you access to the back of the computer and then you can start mucking around with it sort of thing.
Phil: So there's six different levels and they're all differently themed.
Phil: And I think, yeah, I'm not a point and click enthusiast.
Phil: I didn't, I went into this game completely blind.
Phil: I just heard a lot of good things about it and I thought, okay, well, it's on sale.
Phil: I'll pick it up.
Phil: And it breaks the fourth wall definitely, like right from the start.
Phil: But then even as you get into the game deeper and deeper, there is actually a twist in the later chapters where I'm not going to spoil.
Phil: But it does, I can guarantee that it does get more interesting as the game goes on.
Phil: It's not just a homage to, you know, point and click games.
Phil: The first level is pretty creative and it's really more of a tutorial.
Phil: The worst part about this game for me is that the second level was severe homage to Lucas Ames, Lucas Games point and click adventures.
Phil: To the point where I was like, f**k this game.
Phil: I am not going to play this game.
Phil: I had my phone open the whole time, just going, what do I do next?
Phil: Just tell me what to do next.
Phil: It was so infuriatingly illogical.
Phil: They do have a system.
Tom: Do you have any examples?
Phil: No.
Phil: It's just stupid, inane things like drag the chicken onto the power cord because that's going to do this, that or the other.
Phil: It's like, okay.
Phil: Well, if the name of the game is just basically combine every illogical element until something happens.
Tom: Maybe we are meant to be electrifying or electrocuting the chicken.
Phil: It doesn't matter.
Phil: I just made that up.
Tom: That's perfectly logical.
Phil: I think that's where some point-and-click adventure games fall down, where if you can't get into the mind of the person who's creating it, or you haven't lived the life of the person who's creating it, you don't know all those stupid little in-jokes and stuff.
Phil: At the same time, you don't want to make these things so obvious that the person doesn't feel smart for solving the problem.
Phil: I mean, when you have these puzzles and games, a big part of it is making the person feel good about solving, getting to the solution.
Phil: So, they do have an out for this.
Phil: So basically, there is a hint section, and you can go, okay, just give me a hint, and they'll give you a hint.
Phil: And it will be pretty vague, but then you'll be like, oh yeah, of course, it's right there in front of me.
Phil: It's a three-stage hint system, where then, you can then reveal a second and a third.
Phil: The third clue is typically just telling you exactly what to do.
Phil: I didn't need that in most sections of the game other than to get me through the LucasArts section.
Phil: And it was a real shame, because I could see what they were doing.
Phil: They're starting up with a tutorial, then they're going to what I call severe homage of one of the most well-liked developers of this type of game.
Phil: So you can't really blame them for that.
Phil: But after that, they go through a fairly lengthy presentation of a Zelda Link to the Past type game for the Super Nintendo.
Phil: It's not an RPG, you're still trying to break the game to advance the character and make him do what he needs to do.
Phil: And it was a pretty wry satire of Zelda on top of that.
Phil: And then the chapter after that is basically going back through that level again, but now it's been glitched.
Phil: And so you're having a second run-through.
Phil: So it was kind of a, okay, I had a tutorial, then I had a really bad experience with the game that I wanted to throw away.
Phil: That's really on me, not them.
Phil: Then they have a Legend of Zelda level, which is enjoyable.
Phil: But then one of the things I hate the most is going back through the same level again for the next level.
Phil: And it wasn't until I really get into the fourth, fifth and sixth levels where I was like, oh, this is fantastic.
Phil: It really started to click.
Phil: And then, like I said, there's a pretty weird twist towards the end of the game that makes it pretty delicious.
Phil: And it's done in such a bad way that you're not sure that they're meaning to do it that way or, you know, because they're not English speakers natively.
Phil: You're not quite sure if they think what they're doing is good, but it's not good or is that beard supposed to look like a real beard sort of thing?
Phil: So yeah, I don't really want to spoil it much more than I already have.
Phil: But ultimately, by the end of the game, I was like, okay, you know, for a genre that I don't enjoy, it was a passable experience.
Phil: And as I said, it was meta as all hell.
Phil: There was no fourth wall left at the end of this game whatsoever.
Phil: And again, I think it's a game I'm going to remember, which is probably the highest compliment I can pay a game these days.
Tom: So you said it switches to a Zelda-like sort of gameplay.
Phil: Yeah, top-down.
Tom: Yep.
Tom: Does it change to other genres or is it just point-and-click and Zelda?
Phil: Well, the Zelda game is still point-and-click, so you still have to break elements of the game to make it work.
Phil: So it never changes.
Phil: The gameplay itself never changes from point-and-click.
Phil: It's just that the point-and-click options, you often have to look at things like things in the graphical user interface.
Phil: How do I break this part off of the graphical user interface so that I can use it to muck around with the game sort of thing?
Phil: Yeah, and there's one really good level where they tell you, okay, the game is over and here's the credits.
Phil: And you're like, okay, well, I got ripped off, but all right, that's fine.
Phil: But then you have to figure out there's a way, a very creative way that develops and builds on itself, where you have to figure out how to break the credits to continue the game.
Phil: And that was the absolute best level.
Phil: I mean, like, if I could send you that level by itself somehow and go just play this, yeah, that's the very best part of the game.
Phil: And I thought it was super cool and creative.
Phil: And that's, I think when I said it started to click, that's when it really started to click.
Phil: It was like, okay, I'm real, you know, I'm understanding what they're asking for here.
Phil: And I found that to be enjoyable.
Phil: I should say this game is available on Windows, Android, iOS and Switch.
Phil: Yeah, so I'm not sure if these guys have done anything since because I had trouble finding much about them on the web.
Phil: But yeah, I mean, you're into this genre, aren't you?
Tom: Yep, very much so.
Phil: The team operates remotely, spread across France.
Phil: They're working on a new unannounced project.
Phil: The only last game was, they were created in
Tom: So if it's from France and it ends with a twist joke ending from the sounds of it, that you're not sure is deliberate, you can probably presume it is deliberate.
Phil: Yeah, you're right.
Phil: You're probably right.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: So unless you've got anything else you want to ask me about that game, would I recommend it?
Phil: If you like Point and Click, I'd say it is a must play.
Phil: If you don't like Point and Click, you've got to have an appreciation for different types of games to really be able to play it.
Phil: Because if you don't like Point and Click games, it's really probably not a game for you sort of thing.
Tom: What score would you give it?
Phil: I would give it, because of its breakthroughs in storytelling at the end of the game, I'd give it a
Tom: So you hated it?
Phil: No, no, 's a decent score.
Tom: It's as good as Indiana Jones.
Phil: Yes, indeed.
Phil: The game that you've been playing, you've told me about is a game called the Case of the Golden Idol.
Tom: Another Indiana Jones game, I believe.
Phil: Yeah, yeah, Indiana Jones and the Case of the Golden Idol.
Phil: I had not heard of this game, it was released in
Phil: I thought this was a new game also, but it's on everything.
Tom: It's so old I think there's been a sequel for it.
Phil: Is that right?
Phil: So how did this come up on your radar?
Tom: A friend was playing it and I discovered it was on Game Pass.
Phil: Oh, really?
Phil: Okay.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: All right.
Phil: So even though it came out in it was imported to consoles and mobile until
Phil: It's a Latvian game.
Phil: Did you know that?
Tom: Yeah.
Phil: Yeah, Latvian.
Phil: So you don't know.
Phil: I don't see a lot of Latvian product.
Phil: But tell me, I know nothing about this game.
Tom: The sequel, I believe, came out last year.
Tom: So it's set in, I believe, the late s in what is, as far as one can tell, a fictionalized version of some part of Britain, most likely England.
Tom: And it is sort of a point-and-click adventure detective game that I would say is also influenced by Papers, Please and very much The Obra Dinn.
Phil: Oh, the Lucas Papers other game, Return of the Obra Dinn.
Phil: Did you finish that game?
Tom: No, I didn't.
Phil: I've started it a couple...
Phil: Why do you think you didn't finish it?
Tom: I think there was more emphasis in some ways on narrative than in Papers, Please.
Tom: And I didn't find the narrative at the beginning anyway at all interesting.
Tom: And the puzzles were also more drawn out than in Papers, Please.
Tom: I think if I went back to it with more time apart from Papers, Please, I would be more likely to stick to it because I wouldn't be expecting such an immediate experience.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: I got to say, you know, Papers, Please for me is one of my favorite games of all time.
Phil: So it was a bit of a letdown for me when I went into it.
Phil: And I think the graphics kind of threw me a little bit too, honestly.
Phil: I've started it like twice.
Phil: But again, you know, perhaps after having played Spiritfarer recently, perhaps my tolerance for a notebook game, like, you know, having to have a notebook beside you to take notes and all the rest of it.
Phil: But I think my tolerance for that has been greatly increased.
Phil: Yeah, so I was probably a bit more of a Twitch gamer when I went, when I was playing Obra Dinn, but yeah, I'll definitely have to go back to it.
Phil: By the way, just taking a break from your coverage of The Case of the Golden Idol, which you said the sequel came out last year, The Rise of the Golden Idol.
Phil: We've got to, when we played Roblox, we both decided we're going to play a game and go play Roblox, for example, and see what it was all about.
Phil: I think that was a pretty good experience.
Phil: Yes, we're talking production notes on a show that I know that, but I was thinking, do you want to go and play, do we want to give Fortnite a proper go, or another game in classic like World of Warcraft?
Phil: I thought if we could attack a game that neither of us were really into, but that is big and notable.
Phil: I think that'd be good homework for us.
Tom: Well, it couldn't be World of Warcraft because I got a character to level I think, in World of Warcraft.
Phil: I think now if you start World of Warcraft, they start you at level after about minutes.
Phil: I remember in level your bust was a thing.
Tom: At the time, I think it was not the max level, because I think that was just when a new expansion came out, that raised it to the one after Burning Crusade, if I'm remembering the names correctly.
Tom: But I only had the original and Burning Crusade.
Tom: It sounds impressive, but it only took, I think, maybe hours, because I was playing with a friend who I played RuneScape with, and he had multiple max level characters in World of Warcraft and knew how to do it incredibly quickly.
Phil: I didn't know you played RuneScape.
Tom: Yep.
Tom: I played a lot of RuneScape, from the original version of RuneScape at that.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: Yeah, well, okay.
Phil: Well, damn, man.
Phil: I have seen magazine photos of WoW, but I have had zero exposure to it.
Tom: It's all right.
Phil: I'm thinking I've got a...
Phil: I mean, it might be interesting for you to dip back in, but I don't know.
Phil: What do you think about Fortnite?
Tom: I think it's a good idea.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: All right.
Phil: Well, add Fortnite to the list.
Phil: Maybe that can be our homework and we can get online, even try to play it together and see what is going on with that, because apparently that's been roadbloxified too.
Phil: Like, it's not just a straight vanilla game anymore.
Tom: Is Fortnite the epic one, right?
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
Tom: And what about Minecraft?
Phil: Oh, Minecraft.
Phil: Have you played it at all?
Tom: No.
Tom: I've got the classic anecdote of being sure I pre-ordered it.
Phil: That's right.
Phil: Yeah, you got screwed, man.
Phil: You paid like $for it and never got the actual game.
Phil: And then meanwhile, dude's over there of his candy room living in Los Angeles.
Tom: Exactly.
Tom: $of that candy room is for me, you fucking bastard.
Phil: There is at least one jar of Jolly Ranchers in that man's house that is ill-gotten gain.
Phil: I have Minecraft on Xbox, on Switch.
Phil: I can probably, I'll probably go and pick it up on Steam.
Phil: Can you even get Minecraft on Steam?
Tom: I tried to play the VR version of Minecraft, which was free with the Quest but on the Oculus platform, but could never get it to work.
Tom: Well, but I believe it is on Game Pass.
Tom: So in theory, I should be able to play it there.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: Well, I will see if it's on Steam deck.
Phil: This is the insidious thing that Valve has done.
Phil: If I can't get Minecraft on Steam, then that sort of turns me off of playing a game.
Tom: You can get Minecraft Dungeons and Legends.
Phil: I sure as hell can't get Fortnite on Steam.
Phil: That's for sure.
Phil: I know I can play Fortnite on...
Phil: Yeah, Minecraft is on Steam.
Phil: Alright, fine.
Phil: Alright, let's do Minecraft, okay?
Tom: Alright.
Phil: That will be on our list of things to do before next week's recording, which will come fast and furious, as our listeners have come to expect.
Phil: Yes, indeed.
Phil: video game.
Phil: I think it's time...
Phil: Yeah, I think it's time that...
Phil: You know, with gameunder.net, we don't just jump on the hottest thing, you know.
Phil: We wait for a game to prove itself before we tip out.
Tom: We wait for it to prove it's deserving of us.
Phil: Yes, that's right.
Phil: And I think it's time...
Phil: I think Minecraft has proven itself to be a game that's stood the test of time and we can jump into it.
Phil: So, alright, Minecraft, that's our homework.
Phil: Now, back to the Case of the Golden Idol.
Phil: It's available for everything.
Phil: It's developed by a developer called Color Gray Games and published by an independent, independent publisher called PlayStack.
Phil: It's not on...
Phil: Yeah, it's on Switch, it's on Android, it's on iOS, it's on everything.
Phil: It's on Game Pass.
Phil: And so, is it the same sort of puzzle-solving type thing as Obra Dinn?
Tom: It's similar and also similar to Papers, Please.
Tom: So, depending on the level, you have different notebook challenges you're meant to solve and put together, but the main structure is the same for every level.
Tom: So, essentially, a scene is occurring, either, I think the first one is just one screen, but other ones, you'll have to sort of navigate around looking at different events occurring within this setting.
Tom: As you're going through that, you'll be collecting words that appear in the text on screen, which could be from characters talking, it could be from a note you find or anything.
Tom: As you collect these words, these words can be used to fill in the blanks in your notebook, which is a statement of what has occurred in the scene.
Tom: Okay.
Phil: How do you know, how do you have those words highlighted?
Phil: How do you pick those words?
Phil: Yeah, the words are highlighted.
Phil: Then you touch them or you click on them or something?
Tom: Yeah, you click on them and they'll be added to your notebook.
Tom: Okay.
Tom: For solving the level, it'll be like John Smith met blank and blank, blank, blank, which resulted in blank, blank, for example.
Phil: So it's like Graham Candy's Blankety Blanks.
Tom: Yes.
Phil: Classic Australian television show.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: So are you playing like as a detective and you're trying to solve a mystery, or like are you just...
Phil: What's the setup?
Phil: Who are you?
Tom: You're playing as a detective working for possibly the king, attempting to work out what's happened.
Tom: You're not a normal detective, I presume, because if I remember correctly, at some point you're speaking to a detective, which makes sense because the narrative is essentially that one of the characters in the game inherits a Golden Idol after the death of one of the characters in the game.
Tom: And this spirals into a revolutionary conspiracy as the Golden Idol has mystical powers.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: So is this a case where the ruler is afraid that this idol has been found and is rising to prominence because it's going to threaten his power?
Tom: Well, all the events in the game have already occurred and you're piecing them together level by level as they transpire, but they've already transpired, if that makes sense.
Tom: So you're piecing together events that have already happened from the beginning to the end.
Phil: They're very much like Obra Dinn.
Tom: Yes, exactly.
Phil: It doesn't sound very innovative.
Phil: I mean, it sounds like they're copying it directly.
Tom: There's a lot of copying going on, I would say, definitely.
Phil: And, like, what's the time pressure?
Phil: Like, is it like, I've got to solve this before this so I can change the course of history, or you've got to...
Tom: No, there's no time pressure.
Phil: Okay.
Tom: Okay.
Phil: And what's this...
Phil: The setting of this is in London?
Tom: It is in...
Tom: not in London, but I would say a fictionalized version of England.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: And what time period?
Tom: The late s.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: All right.
Phil: So a lot of mercantilism and wigs and things like that.
Tom: Yep.
Tom: I think it makes very good use of the setting, one both politically and in terms of the characters involved.
Tom: It has the feeling of that era, the greed and expansion, and some of the other political things going on at the time as well.
Tom: There is a Irish slash Scottish, probably more Scottish analog character that you encounter that is politically relevant as well.
Phil: Now, I don't know, we said these people are Latvian, so like the writing, like this sounds like good writing.
Phil: I mean, the way that you're talking about these characters.
Tom: It's a very good writing and the focus is on presenting you with something to solve, so they manage to suggest a lot through very little.
Phil: Okay, that sounds delightful.
Phil: I don't know how Latvians pulled that off.
Phil: I'm not saying anything about Latvians, but you're reading in English, I'm presuming.
Tom: Yep.
Phil: So it's either very good localization or just very good understanding of English writing.
Phil: So besides the word-based deduction system, is there any other different gameplay elements?
Tom: Yes, so the other one that is present in, I think, all but one, maybe two levels, is also identifying the characters you're encountering.
Tom: So you'll have a notebook page that has the faces of all the characters, and you've got to put the names to the faces, which for most of the levels will also help you put together what happened within the scene when you're trying to fill in the notebook page that describes what happened.
Tom: This works very well for the most part.
Tom: With some of the later levels, it's a little bit annoying having to fill in the names of characters you've already encountered.
Tom: But other than that, it works well.
Tom: Then for each individual level, there'll be a third or fourth or even fifth thing you have to fill in.
Tom: An example of this, and hence why it changes per level, is one of the scenes takes place in the initiation at another ceremony of a cult.
Tom: And you can technically fill in what happened without solving the optional objectives, which is what's happening in the initiation and what's happening in the ritual.
Tom: But both are useful for solving what's happening in the scene.
Tom: But as you can see from that, the context of what is happening usually affects the other things you're solving.
Tom: Another example is a character has been poisoned.
Tom: And one of the things you can solve is where each character was sitting at the table that the poisoning took place.
Phil: The graphics are pretty cool too.
Tom: Yep, it's got a great style, which again makes good use of the setting and the time period, I think.
Phil: Yeah.
Tom: Again, manages to convey a lot with just a pixelated, pixel art sort of art style.
Phil: Yeah, yeah, that looks good.
Phil: It harkens back to the era.
Phil: Yeah, definitely.
Phil: Of video game graphics.
Phil: Okay, well, it sounds like a definite game I'd be interested in.
Phil: I probably would go back and play Obra Dinn first, but the fact that it's got a sequel is also a positive thing.
Tom: I think if you didn't get hooked by Obra Dinn, you might actually be more likely to enjoy this as notwithstanding there being no time limit, like papers, please, there's a lot more immediate positive reinforcement as you're playing on a moment to moment basis.
Phil: Okay, of note, do you know much about the sequel, Rise of the Golden Idol?
Tom: I think the sequel is set in the s.
Phil: Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to bring up.
Tom: Which is, I think, another potentially very interesting setting.
Phil: Yeah, sounds good to me.
Phil: It's actually got very good scores across the board.
Phil: So thanks for bringing this game to us, man.
Phil: I had not heard of it, either one of these games.
Tom: And the DLC for the original also, at least one of them has a very interesting setting, which as far as I can tell, is a fictionalized version of Sri Lanka.
Phil: Oh, really?
Phil: I'm just writing this down here.
Phil: I'm putting it on my Amazon Wishlist.
Phil: Not really, just putting it in my notebook.
Tom: So if any listener, any subscribers of Phil Fogg's OnlyFans, wants to gift him it, they can just check his Amazon Wishlist on his profile.
Phil: Yeah, that would be great.
Phil: Thank you.
Phil: That would be fantastic.
Phil: Okay, well thanks for that.
Phil: I think we'll close out this episode with...
Phil: We'll go back to how it all started segment.
Tom: I think we've got to give it a score.
Phil: Oh, we don't have to.
Tom: Putting the horse ahead of the cart.
Phil: I don't think so.
Phil: Hey, I've almost finished a game called X by High Bit Studios.
Tom: No, I'm going to cut you off there.
Phil: We've also been playing Slay the Spire.
Tom: We're not going to use the rotating wheel this time.
Phil: Oh no, f*** that thing.
Tom: In the theme of The Golden Idol, we're going to ask an online magic -ball what score I should give it.
Phil: Ooh, magic -ball.
Phil: Well, a digital magical -ball.
Tom: Yep.
Phil: Okay, well, that's...
Tom: So I asked what score should I give the case of the Golden Idol.
Tom: The magic -ball's answer is As I See It.
Tom: So I'm going to have to do a little bit of interpreting here.
Phil: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Phil: Which is, yeah, okay.
Tom: It's a magical -ball.
Tom: And I asked what score should I give it, and it responded As I See It.
Tom: I'm going to assume the only thing it can be seeing is the number
Tom: So I'm going to give it an out of
Phil: How?
Phil: Oh, here's an -ball.
Phil: Oh, that's very clever.
Tom: And that's as the magic -ball sees it.
Tom: That's the only way I can interpret the statement as making sense in terms of numbers.
Phil: I asked Chat GPT what score you should give The Case of the Golden Idol.
Phil: And it came back and said, That depends on what aspects of the game most matter to you.
Phil: The Case of the Golden Idol has received widespread praise for its innovative, deductive mechanics, compelling narrative and satisfying mysteries.
Phil: If you enjoy detective games that challenge your reasoning skills, you may write it quite highly.
Phil: Critics and players generally scored it between and out of
Phil: But if you value unique puzzle design and deep storytelling, it might be even higher in your book.
Phil: Higher than out of ?
Phil: Oh, okay.
Phil: Conversely...
Tom: Higher than to out of so out of
Phil: Conversely, if you prefer more traditional adventure gameplay or find its art style less appealing, your score might lean lower.
Tom: Can you ask ChatGPT what score would ChatGPT give it?
Phil: Uh, what score would ChatGPT give the Case of the Golden Idol?
Phil: Yes, I type like a boomer.
Phil: I can't speak for ChatGPT, but I can tell you that the Case of Golden Idol has received glowing reviews from players and critics alike.
Tom: So ChatGPT can't speak for ChatGPT?
Phil: No, no.
Phil: Which is why we still have chance.
Tom: Ask ChatGPT who is it speaking for then?
Phil: Yeah, who are you speaking for?
Phil: Who are you speaking for?
Phil: This is a compelling content, I don't care what people say.
Phil: I speak for myself.
Phil: My purpose is to assist, inform and engage in conversations with you.
Phil: I don't represent any external companies or individuals, and I don't have any personal opinions.
Phil: Instead, I analyze information, synthesize insights, and provide responses tailored to your interests.
Tom: How can you speak for yourself if you don't have a personal opinion?
Phil: Yeah, that's true.
Phil: All right, we're going to go back to a segment before we forget it exists, called How It All Started.
Phil: Now, there is some merit-
Tom: Ask ChatGPT how it all started.
Phil: Yes, there is some merit that game series garner more cultural relevance and improve as games as the longer they run.
Phil: And some games don't really start at their first release.
Phil: So, for example, you know, Halo comes out, but Halo may have been the breakout, or Halo Reach, or Halo for example.
Phil: So, we've got some franchises left in this barrel.
Phil: We may as well empty this barrel today, so we don't have to go back to this segment.
Phil: And then we can do a How It All Ended segment.
Phil: So, for you personally, what is the first relevant entry in the series?
Phil: And then also from the greater gaming community's perspective, what do you think is the first relevant entry in the series, or the pinnacle of the series, right?
Phil: So, here we go.
Phil: Call of Duty.
Tom: Can I suggest?
Tom: No.
Tom: I'm going to suggest a different series based on the recent Bafta Award.
Tom: What about Shenmue?
Phil: Well, I've never played Shenmue or Shenmue
Phil: So, yeah, I can't have a take on that.
Tom: I think it's got to be Shenmue for both.
Phil: It did introduce-
Tom: Someone who has watched the intro for Shenmue.
Phil: You haven't played it?
Tom: No.
Tom: I watched the intro on the Xbox version of Shenmue
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: Well, I played it.
Phil: I did the forklift stuff.
Phil: I did the looking-for-sailors.
Phil: Yeah.
Phil: That may have colored my criticism of it.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: So starting with Call of Duty for you, which is the first entry-
Phil: It wasn't necessarily the first game, but to you, what was the first time you looked at Call of Duty and went, yeah, this is it?
Tom: I think the original, unless it was a demo of Call of Duty
Phil: I can distinctly say it was Call of Duty because it was an Xbox launch title, and it really looked good.
Phil: It looked amazing.
Phil: Now, I went back and played it not too long ago, and it still is a very good game.
Tom: But for everyone else, everyone else-
Tom: I would go with Call of Duty
Phil: Is that Modern Warfare?
Tom: Yeah.
Phil: Yeah, definitely.
Phil: Modern Warfare is the culturally is the peak there.
Phil: For me, Call of Duty really was where it took off.
Phil: I'm not going to say that's where it peaked because I love Call of Duty.
Phil: I absolutely loved it until it started to be gig downloads, unfortunately.
Tom: Before we move on from Call of Duty, can I just add, if you remember, there was Call of Duty and then there was Call of Duty and everyone was sick of World War games.
Tom: Oh, and Call of Duty sorry.
Tom: Then there was Call of Duty World at War, Modern Warfare Black Ops, Modern Warfare Black Ops Ghosts, Advanced Warfare, Black Ops Infinite Warfare, World War finally.
Tom: It took three years for people to get sick of World War and I think years for people to get sick of Call of Duty
Phil: I agree.
Phil: I actually, I really enjoyed most Call of Duties, including Ghosts and Advanced Warfare.
Phil: I have no problem with Call of Duty whatsoever, I've got to say.
Phil: The only problem I have with it is, I have two problems with it.
Phil: One of which is that it's one of the top ways people find gameunder.net, the website for this podcast, because you did an article that was called Call of Duty Porn.
Phil: And so that's like our fifth most trafficked site on our page, on our website, because people feeling horny and they're like, hey, what do I like?
Phil: I don't like porn.
Phil: What else do I like?
Phil: Call of Duty.
Phil: Hey, I wonder if there's any Call of Duty porn.
Phil: And guess which is the only website in the world that has combined those two concepts, which is not what you were talking about.
Phil: You were talking about a glorification of war or something.
Tom: So what you're saying is, it's time for a follow-up.
Tom: What other game should we do porn for?
Tom: You're the OnlyFans model, you tell me, you're the expert.
Phil: Well, I would say Fortnite, but that's got to exist already, you know, you've got to go.
Tom: I think there's a lot of that.
Phil: You know what?
Tom: I'm reliably informed.
Phil: Obra Dinn porn.
Phil: Oh, it would be the only website in the world, you know, because people are like, oh god, I'm feeling horny.
Phil: What's the name of that game?
Phil: Oh, Obra Dinn, yeah.
Phil: I love that game.
Tom: Like the Call of Duty game that inspired that article, I think Obra Dinn is aesthetically interesting enough that that would work.
Phil: There's going to be the show title, by the way.
Phil: So, I think, you know, people, you know, you know what would make, I always used to say, what I used to say, how would you make this game better?
Phil: I always used to say at a ATV, you know, a quad bike and a sniper rifle and a shotgun, you can improve every game percent.
Phil: Yeah, adding porn, you know, maybe that's what Obra Dinn missed, you know?
Tom: Maybe.
Tom: That's why we didn't stick with it.
Phil: Well, we didn't finish it, if you see what I'm saying.
Phil: Okay.
Tom: That's very true.
Phil: Yes, Doom.
Tom: We have to finish with another game.
Phil: Doom, Doom, Doom.
Phil: Let's go back to my room.
Phil: So, first relevant entry in the series.
Tom: Haven't we done Doom before?
Phil: No, we haven't.
Phil: I crossed them off the list as we go.
Tom: Okay.
Tom: Well, the answer for me is combined this time.
Tom: Doom, the original.
Tom: I think both came to prominence with that.
Tom: And also, that was my entry point to it.
Tom: And I think I can say I've probably played a lot more Doom than I have Doom
Phil: Yeah, Doom is good, but it's really just more of the same.
Phil: And Doom was not good.
Phil: It wasn't really until like Doom or whatever it was.
Phil: You know, the Doom got good again and then Doom Eternal sucked.
Phil: And now that we've got Doom Dark Ages, do you have any interest in that?
Phil: It's probably going to come to Game Pass.
Tom: That's the third one in the modern version, right?
Phil: Yes.
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
Phil: This is a snap back from the dumb platforming combos thing.
Tom: I think I need to return to the second one to prove you wrong.
Phil: Yeah, yeah.
Phil: I bought Doom Eternal recently by accident because it was on sale.
Phil: I thought it was the real Doom and it's the second dumb one.
Phil: I call it, it's like Doom ODST.
Phil: It's horrible.
Phil: Go with an easy one, Super Mario Brothers.
Phil: You got one, two, three and World.
Tom: Yep.
Tom: Which is the first non-jump man Super Mario?
Phil: Well, Super Mario Brothers, the first one.
Tom: Okay.
Tom: Well, then I think the answer is Super Mario Brothers for the World in general.
Tom: This is a hard one for me to answer because I did enjoy the SNES Super Mario, but not as much as I enjoyed Busby.
Phil: Bubsy, you mean?
Tom: Bubsy, yes.
Tom: So I'll probably have to go with, for me, Super Mario Galaxy.
Tom: I don't think any previous Mario Brother games really stuck with me until I got to Super Mario Galaxy.
Tom: And I don't think any since then have really stuck to me, with me, to the same degree either.
Tom: I've been playing Super Mario New York City, but I only ever play it if I'm on a plane and I don't feel any desire to play it in any other time.
Phil: Yeah, New Donk City.
Phil: Yeah, I wasn't going to expand it out to the whole Mario platforming world.
Phil: I was just thinking between and in world.
Phil: For me, world is where it stuck for me.
Phil: And I suck at it.
Phil: And I've probably played that game more than I've played any other game in my life.
Phil: On the original Super Nintendo.
Phil: And I absolutely suck at it.
Tom: I'm terrible.
Phil: I'm absolutely terrible at it.
Phil: But I love it so much.
Tom: I'm also bad at D platforming solely in Super Mario Bros.
Tom: And I don't know why.
Tom: Because I'm good.
Tom: I'm reasonably good at D platformers everywhere else.
Tom: And I can get very good at them if I can be bothered to.
Tom: Yet there is something about Super Mario Bros.
Tom: That does not make sense to me.
Tom: And I don't know what it is.
Phil: I think for the globe, it's Super Mario Bros.
Phil: For me personally, Super Mario Galaxy is the absolute pinnacle.
Phil: I thought Galaxy was fantastic, absolutely sublime.
Phil: And then somehow they managed to top it with the second game.
Phil: Odyssey was very, very, very, very good.
Phil: I mean, I don't particularly enjoy D platformers.
Phil: So for it to even be something I'd consider talking about or enjoying, let alone beating, was pretty phenomenal.
Phil: But of the original four Super Mario World, to me is the breakout.
Phil: Zelda?
Tom: Zelda, I think for the world, it's got to be Ocarina of Time.
Tom: I think the D ones were certainly important, but I don't think they reached the just total acclaim and supposed influence as Ocarina of Time did.
Tom: And for me personally, I would say The Wind Waker.
Phil: Oh yeah, that was a good one.
Phil: Look, for me personally, Zelda hasn't resonated ever.
Phil: You possibly make the argument these days that for the world, it's Breath of the Wild, because no one has played more Zelda than Breath of the Wild, like in terms of selling.
Tom: That's true.
Phil: Yeah, and I think...
Tom: And in terms of hours.
Phil: Yeah, exactly.
Phil: I think that's the one.
Phil: But it's so hard because Links of the Past on the Super Nintendo is so beloved, so highly rated and appreciated and loved.
Phil: And Ocarina of Time, similarly on the Nwas a transformational game.
Phil: You know, for myself even.
Tom: I would still go with Ocarina of Time over Breath of the Wild though, because it has been...
Tom: How long is it since Breath of the Wild released?
Phil: Oh, like seven years or something?
Tom: Seven years.
Tom: That's long enough.
Tom: I think at the time, Breath of the Wild, there were a lot of calls by fans for greatest game of all time.
Tom: But I don't see people making that statement with the same sort of regularity that people have with Ocarina of Time ever since it was released.
Tom: No, Ocarina of Time was a masterpiece.
Tom: I think Ocarina of Time has outlasted it.
Tom: I've got to give it to Ocarina of Time.
Phil: I don't use this word very often.
Phil: Ocarina of Time was a masterpiece.
Phil: It really was.
Phil: It was a masterpiece.
Phil: It was like leaps and bounds over other games.
Phil: I don't even like, necessarily like Nintendo, or Zelda, or any of it.
Phil: Yeah.
Tom: Wow.
Phil: You look at something like Zelda to Ocarina of Time, it's like, what are we talking about?
Phil: I think for the world, yeah, Ocarina stands.
Phil: Then for me personally, I didn't like the first Zelda at all.
Phil: I didn't like the second Zelda at all.
Phil: The Link to the Past is considered to be a breakthrough game as well.
Phil: So it's very tough for me to come down on any of that.
Phil: But yeah, you can't go past Ocarina.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: We've got last two and they're both Bethesda games.
Phil: We'll go with the boring one first, which is Fallout.
Tom: Fallout for me, the original, no question.
Tom: I think this is probably one of the more challenging ones because if you look back at PC gaming, I think Fallout was absolutely massive.
Tom: I think people underestimate how huge that was at the time.
Tom: And a lot of people probably inclined to give it to Fallout or
Tom: But I think Fallout at the time was just as massive, if not even bigger.
Tom: So I think I'll go ultimately with Fallout
Phil: Yeah, okay.
Phil: Well, me personally is Fallout
Phil: And then I think, well, the best Fallout game is Fallout New Vegas.
Phil: So I'm going to say for me, Fallout New Vegas, I think for the world, it was Fallout
Phil: And I think, I think they have never touched, Fallout has never touched the heights of where they were since
Tom: I'm still going to go with
Tom: Because one thing you have to consider is the greater market share, market potential, sorry.
Tom: That exists when Fallout is released compared to Fallout
Phil: Yeah, it was a blockbuster and Fallout is probably the better game.
Phil: But did you play the Brothers of Steel spinoff?
Tom: Don't think I did.
Phil: I think I have a sealed copy of that for the Xbox.
Phil: Anyway, finally, this one, I think maybe we might have the same answer for both Elder Scrolls.
Tom: Elder Scrolls, I think the answer is...
Tom: No, actually, I was going to say both the Me and the World, Morrowind, but that's, I don't think, correct.
Tom: I think the correct answer for The World is Skyrim.
Tom: And for me, without any question, Morrowind, Morrowind and Oblivion are the only two that I have played to completion, and I don't know how, but I spent probably almost as much time in Oblivion, hours or something, as I spent in Morrowind, yet I enjoyed not even close to hours in Oblivion, but Morrowind I thought was just an amazingly crafted world, an engrossing setting and one of the most interesting and enjoyable narratives of any other game, of any game, sorry.
Phil: Yeah, I mean, for the world of Skyrim, and it's going to be difficult for them to, like how do you replace Skyrim at this point?
Phil: You know, people have been playing it for ever.
Phil: And there's people that don't, it's funny because like for me, Morrowind is obviously the answer.
Phil: And it was funny because like when Oblivion came out, you know, I was thinking of it as Morrowind
Phil: And you know, there are going to be people thinking that the, you know, the next game is going to be Skyrim sort of thing.
Phil: It's like, no, it's not going to be Skyrim
Phil: I honestly wish they'd flush Fallout just so they could focus on nothing but the Elder Scrolls.
Phil: Morrowind was a life changer for me.
Phil: Oblivion was also very impressive as an Xbox launch game.
Phil: They're great games.
Phil: Skyrim, I've somehow managed to finish it as well, a couple of different times.
Phil: So, you know, I love everything about it.
Phil: All the jank, it's fine.
Phil: Morrowind, though, man, like I can hear that music in my head.
Phil: You know, it's there.
Phil: It's there.
Phil: It's a real place for me.
Phil: Like you've just gone to Hong Kong or China or whatever, and you can think back and go, yeah, I was there and I remember it.
Phil: And that was a real place.
Phil: There's four or five places in Morrowind where I can remember being.
Phil: And I was there, you know.
Phil: It is a weird trick that they managed to pull it off.
Phil: So, yeah, for the world, Skyrim, and as I predicted, we'd have the same answer on this one, Morrowind.
Phil: And I was playing the janky Xbox version.
Phil: It was just fantastic.
Phil: And the expansions were all great.
Phil: Yeah, so where it all started.
Tom: Before we move on from Oblivion, I've just got to recount my experience of getting and playing Oblivion.
Tom: I pre-ordered the special edition.
Tom: And when the shop got it, I think the came with...
Tom: I think they might have been die, special die, but they'd apparently been damaged in shipping.
Tom: How do you damage a die?
Tom: I don't know.
Phil: So your six-sided die is now a seven-sided die?
Tom: Potentially.
Tom: It might not have been die though.
Tom: I can't remember what it was.
Phil: It might have been a wizard's hat or something.
Tom: Maybe.
Tom: But so all it was, was just the metal container with the game in it and nothing else.
Tom: And the computer I had at the time, I wasn't sure would run it.
Tom: So I got the game, I installed the game, I figured out a DirectX workaround because it wasn't meant to work with the DirectX that my video card was capable of outputting.
Tom: But I didn't want it because it didn't have the special edition stuff and it was more expensive than the normal version of it.
Tom: So I copied the game and returned the special edition that was not a special edition and started playing Morrowind without any colour in the game.
Tom: Because to have colour in the game, you required the later version of DirectX.
Tom: So I was playing it with various shades of white.
Phil: So it looked like Skyrim.
Tom: Exactly.
Phil: Completely washed out without colour.
Tom: Yet the game was running at way more than FPS.
Tom: So the video card was powerful enough to play it, it just couldn't for bureaucratic reasons.
Tom: Essentially.
Tom: So my first experience with Oblivion was in a colourless version of the game.
Tom: Eventually I get a faster PC that can play it in colour and I'm disappointed to discover that the game, I actually prefer this weird white aesthetic of my original experience with the game.
Tom: The world without that was a much less magical and more disappointing place.
Phil: When you started this story, I wrote down emergent gameplay because everyone has these emergent gameplay moments.
Phil: I thought you were going to tell me about something that actually happened inside of Morrowind, but you have this amazing story about something that happened outside of the gameplay.
Tom: Well, the emergent gameplay moments were much more interesting in Morrowind than in Oblivion.
Phil: Oh, for sure, yeah.
Phil: And I found my play.
Phil: That's the best part of the Elder Scrolls.
Phil: I found myself in Skyrim and I'm playing as a goody two shoes.
Phil: I'm in these people's house and then you pick something up and you're just looking at it.
Phil: And they're like, oh, the girl says, oh, you stole it.
Phil: Like, why are you stealing from it?
Phil: So I was like, in my head, I'm like, oh, I wasn't stealing.
Phil: I was just looking at it.
Phil: And then eventually, she calls her father in and oh, you're going to have to tell all the people in the village you are the thief in the house.
Phil: I was like, I'm going to have to kill this entire family.
Phil: So I had to kill them all, which is completely out of character, hide their bodies, you know, under the furniture and everything else, and just get the hell out of Dodge.
Phil: And other things that have happened in various games is like, how am I going to beat this boss?
Phil: And you just find that you can cheese him into a corner and get him stuck behind a pillar and then just keep stabbing him with your rat knife or whatever.
Phil: Those are the things that make the Elder Scrolls game so amazing.
Phil: But in Morrowind, it was always just that, and I talked about this in Half-Life just the exploring, just going out and walking, you know, and getting into a yurt and going, okay, I found this yurt, am I going to be able to sleep in this yurt?
Phil: Is someone, is the guy who owns the yurt going to come along at some point and kick me out of the yurt?
Phil: What is a yurt?
Phil: You know, yeah, fantastic, fantastic series.
Phil: Well, that's how it all-
Tom: Can I just say?
Phil: Yes.
Tom: As someone who stated that they can't differentiate their memories of Morrowind with reality, I'm very glad you said that murdering a whole family in Oblivion was out of character.
Phil: Skyrim, yes, yes.
Tom: Skyrim, so yes.
Phil: Yeah, absolutely.
Phil: That did not happen in real life.
Phil: But it was, you know, it's just like stupid how the snowball was rolling down the hill.
Phil: It's like, oh god, I'm gonna have to kill all these people.
Phil: And I think that's what Bafta's most influential game of whatever it was, the third one on the list has been out for three months.
Phil: I think that is the hook on that game as well, whatever that game is called.
Tom: And it was a massive influence on Skyrim, I believe.
Phil: Yeah, that's how it all started, but this is how it's all going to end.
Phil: Thanks for listening to The Game Under Podcast.
Phil: Amazingly, we've been doing this since
Phil: Enjoy this.
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Phil: Thanks for listening to episode
Phil: We got through the whole episode without making any jokes.
Tom: Now I understand the porn theme.
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Phil: I am Phil Fogg.
Tom: I'm Tom Towers.
Phil: He was Tom Towers and that's the end of the show.
Tom: I'm always Tom Towers.