Transcript
Speaker: in my experience, most of the time be like, yeah, it's a pretty great game or it's a pretty great movie or something.
Speaker: It's just so fucking stupid and woke.
Speaker: That's what pisses me off.
Speaker: And they get mad about that aspect of it.
Speaker: Although there are still people, as you pointed out, who will twist themselves in knots to just, that's where QAnon is.
Speaker: That's all of this stuff.
Speaker: Reality means nothing.
Speaker: But you know where reality means something?
Speaker: Fuck you.
Speaker: you hey there everybody welcome back to picture week my name is kevin alongside with me as always is phil and continuing on from last week dylan is here we're gonna finish off gold max dylan dylan i want you to appreciate what just happened here uh kevin is has in in how many episodes have we had so far kevin
Speaker: Uh, we're 60 something.
Speaker: We're closing it on 70, I think.
Speaker: Yeah, that's right guys.
Speaker: Congratulations.
Speaker: Thank you very much.
Speaker: This is only the second time that Kevin has actually managed to take me completely off guard with the, uh, but you know, what is intro thing?
Speaker: Like he got me on our year anniversary show and he got
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Well done.
Speaker: I was like, I was like, Ooh, he's ranting.
Speaker: This is perfect.
Speaker: You need the producer to keep otherwise.
Speaker: I feel like it's a, I tried to conduct my own, not like a podcast or it was like a, it was something like an interview.
Speaker: Like when you interviewed me that one time, Kevin, there was a YouTube.
Speaker: It was like doing something similar.
Speaker: And neither one of us, we ended up just like ranting about or like just talking about random shit for like three hours.
Speaker: And it was like three hours I did not have to like spend like on that.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: And I afterwards I was like, fuck, I'm like two hours behind.
Speaker: It's just so easy to like do if you just get caught up chatting about any old thing.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: That's what happens when you surround yourself with kick-ass people.
Speaker: It's a mother.
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: It's like, you want to talk about this?
Speaker: And like, ah, damn, did you see this thing later?
Speaker: It's like, oh man, I want to talk about that.
Speaker: Actually, though, we do have to talk about the Golden Axe book.
Speaker: That is the premise of why we are here.
Speaker: Oh yeah, you're right.
Speaker: Let's talk about the show that we are on.
Speaker: Remember Ash Battler?
Speaker: He's doing something.
Speaker: Ash Battler.
Speaker: Ash Battler.
Speaker: More like Ash.
Speaker: Ash.
Speaker: Ass-holer.
Speaker: Nailed it.
Speaker: He did show him a moment of contrition when he got attacked by that skeleton who fucked him up a little bit.
Speaker: That's about all.
Speaker: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker: He's like, oh man.
Speaker: He's a good guy.
Speaker: I think we can all agree.
Speaker: Yeah, he thought about his life and his decisions a little bit at one point, maybe.
Speaker: I wasn't sure.
Speaker: So we're picking up at chapter nine.
Speaker: And Axe, he arrives at the castle.
Speaker: And he just kills so many dudes here.
Speaker: But he's out of potions.
Speaker: And in my notes, I don't know why I wrote this.
Speaker: He's out of potions.
Speaker: What's a bro to do?
Speaker: Anyway.
Speaker: The chapter ends with loud footsteps approaching him.
Speaker: And Axe breaks the fourth wall and says something about how he'd be really bummed if this was anticlimactic.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Oh, I know.
Speaker: That was...
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: There are quite a few moments moving in the castle section that go off the rails a little bit like that.
Speaker: And it's not good.
Speaker: It is certainly...
Speaker: I don't know, man, like my, my hot take about this book is that it's like, it's the good kind of bad.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Where I just, I, I was the whole time I was reading it, I was like giggling and whatever.
Speaker: And then, and what, like what I will say as they say is that sometimes, I don't know if you guys feel this way either, but sometimes in like an action scene or like a, you know,
Speaker: Usually I feel like they're reaction scenes.
Speaker: I almost feel like ironically, even though some of the the variability in like quality and like engagement is so intense, but there would sometimes be bits and I wish I had one like here to give as an example.
Speaker: Otherwise, it's just sound like I'm full of shit where I actually I was like, dang, like that's like an interesting way of describing that or like that was an interesting little addition or like insight into the situation that I thought was like.
Speaker: semi-legitimate, you know what I mean?
Speaker: So I couldn't just, it's like tougher, I don't know.
Speaker: You can't just let that one go.
Speaker: Yeah, you know, it kind of, it recontextualizes the whole thing where you're like, shit, am I like dunking too hard?
Speaker: And then you'll get to the next part and you'll be like, no.
Speaker: Like, no, maybe not.
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: Hey, hey.
Speaker: Dunk is a strong word.
Speaker: I like you.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: America runs on Dunkin' and so does this podcast.
Speaker: You're right.
Speaker: Goddamn right.
Speaker: Goddamn right.
Speaker: Capitalism, man.
Speaker: Yeah, baby.
Speaker: Capitalism, man.
Speaker: Fuck it.
Speaker: I'm finishing my coffee.
Speaker: Um...
Speaker: Also low key, Duncan is really good.
Speaker: Like we don't have Duncan here.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Oh, you don't have in California, man.
Speaker: Like there occasionally you will find one, but they are rare.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We have our between.
Speaker: We have Dunkin' Donuts.
Speaker: It's it's pretty much up and down the East coast now, I believe.
Speaker: I'm pretty sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like, I feel like maybe they start having Duncan at the, the, whatever the divider line where Carl's Jr. becomes Hardee's.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's up with that.
Speaker: The Carl's Jr. Hardys crossover.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Duncan's appear in the wild.
Speaker: In chapter 10, Axe fights two dudes in chapter 10, and they nearly kill him, but they don't, and he wins again.
Speaker: There's no beating this guy.
Speaker: There's no beating this guy.
Speaker: He just keeps on winning.
Speaker: He just keeps on fucking winning, man.
Speaker: And this is what happens, Larry.
Speaker: This is what happens when you meet a stranger in the Alps.
Speaker: He enters the castle and in chapter 11, he beats the shit out of some thieves.
Speaker: There's a room with with thieves just dancing around in it there.
Speaker: I bet they were probably they were probably having some sort of like prayer ritual to the thief God.
Speaker: And he just comes in and interrupts and he just like picks one up and he throws it again.
Speaker: He bops them hard.
Speaker: He throws one against the wall.
Speaker: Oh, man.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: Okay, sorry.
Speaker: No, I'm making this all up.
Speaker: That's worse than usual.
Speaker: And we've had a lot of descriptions.
Speaker: I'm making it all up.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm just adding my own flavor text to it now.
Speaker: Because I think that would be... If you went, like, full Patrick Bateman, I think that would be fun.
Speaker: But this is, like, literally the fourth or fifth, like...
Speaker: scene in the book where like he's he's I go and beat some thieves up and it's like we don't need more of that why are you doing this to us why it's already a 70 page book it doesn't need padding yes it's like well because the actual reason is because these and I again
Speaker: I'm assuming this because I've not even played Golden Axe long enough to have used these potions, but it's very clear that the potions are supposed to be, you know, a major mechanic where like the more potions they're like the supers.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it's like I get this many potions and that allows me to do, you know, the more potions I have, the better my attack is.
Speaker: The better the magic attack is.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And so I assumed because we got so many, it's like, yeah, we need to hear exactly when he gets these potions because the potions most of the time come up in the battles.
Speaker: He's like, here's when I use my potions and something crazy happens and then it explains how he's able to beat them or whatever.
Speaker: But there are in this castle, there are moments in which I swear to God, it just goes like,
Speaker: And then he used the potions in one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, so if that's the case, then you're absolutely right, Phil.
Speaker: It's like, I don't need to hear about the potions then if you're, if we've now gotten to that point where we're just scooting right along and it's not that hyper specific.
Speaker: There are so many moments, exactly that moment where I'm just imagining him like playing the game,
Speaker: throwing the potions.
Speaker: Cause he does like, he does this dramatic, like lift thing and the potions go and he like does it.
Speaker: And you're, you're just watching the screen and you see pause and it cuts to this guy, put his Genesis controller down.
Speaker: And then he, yeah.
Speaker: Use the potion.
Speaker: Yes, absolutely.
Speaker: That is that's pretty much how it happens.
Speaker: If you read the first letter of every sentence, it spells out spells a little bonus scene of that.
Speaker: So continuing on in Chapter 11, he overhears General Heartland, which is actually a character.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: General Heartland is talking to some of his soldiers and the king and the princess are tied up to the ceiling.
Speaker: They're in chains up there, up in the ceiling.
Speaker: And Axe breaks in on this conversation and he fucks these guys up.
Speaker: They're dead.
Speaker: He beats, just bam, kills them.
Speaker: But then, holy shit, Death Adder shows up.
Speaker: Oh my God, it's Death Adder.
Speaker: We're in chapter 11.
Speaker: We're five chapters out and we're getting Death Adder already.
Speaker: That's surprising.
Speaker: And Death Adder absolutely wrecks him.
Speaker: Just wrecks him.
Speaker: Insert more quarters, please.
Speaker: Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker: That's really what it does come down to.
Speaker: This battle... Oh, sorry.
Speaker: Go ahead, Kevin.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: Go ahead.
Speaker: Go ahead.
Speaker: I was going to say, this is where one of my favorite, probably my favorite exchange happens, like actual dialogue exchange.
Speaker: It's between Death Adder and I almost said Golden Axe, Axe Battler.
Speaker: Death Adder says, you will pay dearly for the trouble you've caused me, Axe Battler.
Speaker: Oh, yes, I know who you are and why you're here, but I shall not allow an impudent flea to get in the way of my conquest of Uria.
Speaker: Which is like, you know,
Speaker: Not bad, I guess.
Speaker: Whatever.
Speaker: Fine.
Speaker: And then Axe, an impudent flea I may be, said Axe, but this flea intends to kill the dog upon whose back it sits, not merely cause the dog to scratch.
Speaker: I was like, bro.
Speaker: That's going up on the Sunday quote on Twitter.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: That sure is.
Speaker: Yes, I do not mean to dunk.
Speaker: It's just, it's so funny and like, it's... It's a beautiful line.
Speaker: You know, I'm going to unironically say I love that line.
Speaker: It is actually a good line.
Speaker: Yeah, it's... Sure.
Speaker: That is somebody who read Conan and... Or maybe watched the movies and was like, yeah, this could be... I was going to say, I'm missing that cultural context in this.
Speaker: I never read the books.
Speaker: I've seen the movies.
Speaker: The movies fucking rule too.
Speaker: Don't worry about that.
Speaker: Oh yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: The movies are...
Speaker: If you won't let me scratch the dog, then to hell with you.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It's like the cycle of like six different VHSs that would always be on at my dad's house.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Like in there.
Speaker: That one and Dante's Peak.
Speaker: It's another classic.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: Dante's Peak.
Speaker: There was a whole ass podcast episode.
Speaker: We can't even.
Speaker: Oh, have you?
Speaker: Oh, my gosh.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We've talked about disaster films and how they happen in pairs.
Speaker: Huh.
Speaker: Yeah, they tend to happen in pairs.
Speaker: Dante's Peak, what was that?
Speaker: Was it just called Volcano?
Speaker: That is a movie.
Speaker: I think so.
Speaker: Dante's Peak.
Speaker: I think...
Speaker: Yeah, so Dante's Peak was 1997.
Speaker: Yeah, that's the one.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah, Volcano.
Speaker: The other one's just called Volcano.
Speaker: Yeah, there you go.
Speaker: They both came out in 1997.
Speaker: That's crazy.
Speaker: Tommy Lee Jones is in Volcano and Pierce Brosnan.
Speaker: Yeah, it was a Deep Impact and Armageddon.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Holy crap.
Speaker: I never noticed that.
Speaker: They were like, yeah, right in the same era.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Holy shit.
Speaker: Disaster movies happen in pairs.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: I actually did.
Speaker: I mean, Phil, you had already, both of you would actually like know this already.
Speaker: But when I did, when I was like a script intern for a little bit, my sick unpaid, the first job that I had out of school.
Speaker: And I worked for, actually, I don't know if you should bleep.
Speaker: I worked for bleep.
Speaker: I don't want to give you additional editing.
Speaker: I worked for somebody who was a producer and used to, you know, had enough clout, at least at the time to kind of like get the same scripts as like, you know, WME and,
Speaker: CAA and I wonder if that doesn't happen because you know you would get a script that would come across your desk and maybe like either you would pass on it because you thought you could do it better or someone else picked it up and you thought it actually had potential and then you kind of had a writer come in and make yours is that why that happens?
Speaker: I wouldn't be surprised if it's like oh shit there's a like we wanted this one there was a little bit of a bidding war Fox got it
Speaker: But WB wants it.
Speaker: We can still do it.
Speaker: We've already actually had writers working on it.
Speaker: It's not like the idea is broad enough that we can do it still.
Speaker: And all these producer dick measuring people to not to, again, that's why you gotta bleep
Speaker: Bruce or shit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Nice guy, but you know, certainly yes.
Speaker: It's like, you mean that fucking guy over at WME is going to get to make my script?
Speaker: I don't think so.
Speaker: I'm going to make it better.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't think so.
Speaker: We're making a deep impact.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's going to be so people are going to love this way more than Armageddon for sure.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: We're going to make a really somber movie about a meteor impact.
Speaker: And people are going to have Liv Tyler.
Speaker: Yeah, and that's why people like it.
Speaker: Yeah, it's not going to have Liv Tyler or Aerosmith.
Speaker: No, nothing you can enjoy will actually be a part of this.
Speaker: It's going to have tail, Leonie.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: There's that.
Speaker: Wild Asteroid Wars of 1997.
Speaker: Of 1997.
Speaker: I think that's what you guys said.
Speaker: I could be wrong.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Anyway.
Speaker: Something along those lines.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Ash Battler was.
Speaker: Ash Battler continues.
Speaker: He gets destroyed and then he gets up and he uses some potions to kill the skeletons.
Speaker: But Death Adder still has him on the ropes at the end of chapter 11.
Speaker: It's a cliffhanger.
Speaker: It's a cliffhanger.
Speaker: Until you turn the page.
Speaker: And it's not anymore because the princess screams and it startles Death Adder.
Speaker: And Axe is able to dodge out of the way and fight and kill Death Adder.
Speaker: And that is...
Speaker: That's the end of Death Adder.
Speaker: It's really like lame, isn't it?
Speaker: I remember that.
Speaker: It's super lame.
Speaker: He rescues the king and the princess and the king mentions Death Adder was not the final bad guy and that the real villain is behind that door.
Speaker: Behind this curtain!
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: all right and then axe notices how hot the princess is before continuing he's a man he's a man of needs of course he's uh he's a man and he's been he's gotten days without they did they gave him yeah oh my god you're right it has been like a week long
Speaker: I do.
Speaker: I remember there was a part there's it's like, I guess this is kind of the, you know, the, the, like, he's not like an unthinking brute, but like just about where at one point I just remember it saying, I'm trying to find it now where he like, like glanced, like it's like their eyes met, but then he like looked away and it's like, oh, you know, he's respectful and like, he doesn't want to linger for too long.
Speaker: And then like, you know, like a paragraph later, it's like, like their eyes met again.
Speaker: And this time he did not look away.
Speaker: And this was when he realized like how beautiful the princess is.
Speaker: I'm not reading that verbatim, but I bet you if I'm trying to find it, it's like just about verbatim.
Speaker: It's pretty much that.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It's like they're not going to quite get away without commenting on how the princess is super hot.
Speaker: But that was, I feel like the attempt to to.
Speaker: make him only 60% gross instead of 100.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Which is like... And when was this published?
Speaker: I guess I shouldn't be, again.
Speaker: Well, the game was out in 90.
Speaker: The book was... I want to say, I can find it as we continue.
Speaker: I'll find it.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: He goes in.
Speaker: He goes right into that door.
Speaker: And he's now in a dark path.
Speaker: He is there's only the path is only four feet wide.
Speaker: And as he's walking, there's people attacking him and he's like, ha ha, you can't hit me.
Speaker: And he's like dodging out of the way.
Speaker: And these people are falling off the edge of the of the thing.
Speaker: And it's it's very much a final boss area that he's walking into.
Speaker: That's that's chapter 13 and and continues on its chapter 14.
Speaker: He's just walking, noticing that there's these statues on us on the walls.
Speaker: The statues are like the statues of the bad dudes that he's been he's been fighting.
Speaker: It's a hall of defeat.
Speaker: It's a hall of defeat.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he gets he suddenly the statues come alive and start attacking him.
Speaker: And he's not able to destroy them with his sword.
Speaker: Skull Crusher fails him, but he does push them over the edge.
Speaker: Except he himself falls over the edge.
Speaker: Oh no, what's a boy to do?
Speaker: What's a boy to do?
Speaker: It's like, I know.
Speaker: Dylan, did you find out?
Speaker: Let's pause.
Speaker: This was published in 1992.
Speaker: Two years.
Speaker: Yeah, two years after and very early 90s and we all know the 90s.
Speaker: We're well aware of the 90s.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I'll rescind the degree.
Speaker: It's like, does someone get credit?
Speaker: You know, it's like where you want to make a character 40% less gross in 1992.
Speaker: Maybe some.
Speaker: The editors sent back the draft that used the term titty meat.
Speaker: We feel like several points for accuracy, but we're hoping to be less accurate, if possible.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And we can't we also can't say that her the clap of her ass cheeks was alerting the guards.
Speaker: We got to we got to strike that.
Speaker: Remember their fathers right there, kids.
Speaker: It's we're going to have to watch that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Colonel.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: That was really good.
Speaker: Just so you know, like that was like, if I had my eyes closed, I would have been like, what?
Speaker: Damn, dude.
Speaker: Yeah, I swear.
Speaker: God, I'm serious.
Speaker: I'm trying to sneak around, but I'm dummy thick.
Speaker: And the crap of my ass cheeks is alerting the guards.
Speaker: It's classic.
Speaker: I can't believe that.
Speaker: I was like, Phil, you're aware, apparently, that you know that he can do this.
Speaker: We both have got about a dozen voices in us each, and that's his best one, in my opinion.
Speaker: Oh, man.
Speaker: We did.
Speaker: We did.
Speaker: Well, we did a Metal Gear book.
Speaker: And so half the time I was talking as Solid Snake when I could.
Speaker: And every time our guest on that episode, Jesse Grasio, was just like, God damn it.
Speaker: Yeah, that's good, man.
Speaker: That's solid.
Speaker: No, if only, it's gotta be hard, man.
Speaker: Axe continues on.
Speaker: Yeah, it's actually not that he's- It's gravelly, it's like, no.
Speaker: I don't know how David Hayter does it for- David Hayter, yes.
Speaker: However many recording sessions he does it for.
Speaker: Yes, some of his people.
Speaker: Consummate professionals.
Speaker: So Axe pulls himself up and gets his sword back.
Speaker: Hey, now.
Speaker: Hey, two for- Hey, two for one.
Speaker: He then encounters two gold-plated giants, and he's able to get them to fall off the edge.
Speaker: And he doesn't he's able to he's able to do the the RPG player in all of us what we all do is we hoard potions We got to get that counter.
Speaker: We got to get that counter up to 99 before we get to the final boss That's right.
Speaker: He says specifically he's like I didn't want to use my potions yet in case I need them later in case I needed them.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: That's the
Speaker: Axe Battler is a true gamer.
Speaker: That's strange because it never changed, it never will.
Speaker: He finished Final Fantasy VII with 99 mega potions in his inventory.
Speaker: It's so frustrating, man.
Speaker: Just a big old bag of Phoenix Downs.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And I wrote in my notes, good for him.
Speaker: Yeah, man, that's a good choice.
Speaker: Takes discipline.
Speaker: Yes, it does take discipline.
Speaker: And then in chapter 16, we meet Deathbringer.
Speaker: All right, real quick.
Speaker: Yeah, go for it.
Speaker: Today, when I read this book, and I read Deathbringer, it was the first time I put together that Death Adder is not...
Speaker: He's not named after the snake.
Speaker: He's named that he adds up deaths based on deathbringer.
Speaker: Because he brings death, he adds death.
Speaker: With a name like Axe Battler, I refuse to believe that that's not the case.
Speaker: I mean, dude, you must be right.
Speaker: Dude, I think because there's not a single reference to anything snake like at any point.
Speaker: There's no snake.
Speaker: Holy shit.
Speaker: He could have been called Killdoer.
Speaker: Killdoer.
Speaker: Killmaker.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: I kind of like Killmaker.
Speaker: I would actually.
Speaker: Killmaker.
Speaker: Unironically.
Speaker: I unironically am now going to write a story with a villain named Killmaker.
Speaker: I like it.
Speaker: Damn.
Speaker: I can't believe that.
Speaker: Isn't that ridiculous?
Speaker: Yes, that is absolutely insane.
Speaker: I'm just now- I was today- Killmakers in the next room.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Jesus, I'm more embarrassed that I just didn't put that together at all.
Speaker: I read the whole thing, I'm like- I had that thought after- Yeah, yeah, after when I got to Deathbringer, I had the same thought when I got to Deathbringer.
Speaker: I was like, wait a minute.
Speaker: That's hilarious.
Speaker: Bringer?
Speaker: He's not like Death Cobra, he's Death Bringer.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Yes, yeah, I guess he had no other references in any of the other names to snakes either.
Speaker: He's the half brother of Life Subtractor.
Speaker: Life Subtractor.
Speaker: It's who we're talking about.
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: So he remembers his friend Alex.
Speaker: Do you remember Alex?
Speaker: Does anybody else remember Alex?
Speaker: He was so well defined and written about.
Speaker: He was so well defined.
Speaker: He's your best friend.
Speaker: He's your best friend.
Speaker: Are you a bad enough dude to avenge your best friend?
Speaker: Oh my god.
Speaker: And he is.
Speaker: Yeah, he sure is.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Killsbringer.
Speaker: Really just like hit the same notes these games.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Alex is in the game.
Speaker: He's like a dude that you talk to for like three seconds, like at the very beginning of the game.
Speaker: And yeah, we would match up with that's Double Dragon.
Speaker: Are you a bad enough dude to- No, that's Bad Dudes.
Speaker: No, that's Bad Dudes.
Speaker: Oh, that's bad.
Speaker: Ah, well, I should've- Might be on that one.
Speaker: I knew it was one of them.
Speaker: I guess I should have assumed.
Speaker: That's a double egg on my face over the course of, you know, like three minutes.
Speaker: Death Adder and bad dudes.
Speaker: I'll see you guys later.
Speaker: Are you a bad enough dude to save President Ronnie?
Speaker: And like, honestly, the answer is no.
Speaker: You should probably leave Ronnie for the Sandinistas.
Speaker: Capitalism, man.
Speaker: Fuck capitalism.
Speaker: Fuck capitalism.
Speaker: Fuck it.
Speaker: So he gets the axe, gives it back to the king, and he leaves the castle without saying a word for some reason.
Speaker: And he throws on a pair of sunglasses, and we hear off in the distance, yeah!
Speaker: Yeah!
Speaker: And Bob O'Reilly starts playing and that's the end of it.
Speaker: Or is it?
Speaker: Question mark.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: It does end that way.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: It literally does.
Speaker: Because he's just woven this tapestry of a world for us.
Speaker: How could we not be champing at the bit to find out what happens next?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Or is it?
Speaker: And I urge you to find out more at your local library.
Speaker: Do you guys know if he actually made a sequel to this one?
Speaker: Because I will read it on my own time.
Speaker: Ah, fuck me.
Speaker: I believe the five are all that we got.
Speaker: I think it was a much shorter series in the Worlds of Power book.
Speaker: But you don't have to take my word for it.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: That's a Reading Rainbow reference.
Speaker: Now question, did we get a reading list at the end of this one?
Speaker: I believe so.
Speaker: No, we did not.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: Is there?
Speaker: It did automatically inferior.
Speaker: That's all there is.
Speaker: There is.
Speaker: Well, okay.
Speaker: Well, I. Hold on.
Speaker: I might be betraying my ignorance.
Speaker: This might be me, you know, getting dunked on three times in four minutes.
Speaker: But we do get a list of other books that he's made at the end.
Speaker: Is that a reading list?
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: What we're referencing is at the end of World of Power books, the Nintendo ones, there's
Speaker: Uh, uh, uh, FX nine, uh, our, our dear close and personal friend of the pod, uh, Seth Godin would have an actual list.
Speaker: If you liked this, you might want to, and, and, and it would be hilarious because it would go from like totally appropriate for kids stuff to fucking Heinlein.
Speaker: Oh man.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So like, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Robert Heinlein, like not Starship Troopers, but something else that Heinlein wrote.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I got it.
Speaker: That's the only one I know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Check out, check out.
Speaker: I got to check out this reading list, man.
Speaker: If you like Mega Man 2, why don't you check out I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison.
Speaker: The Children of the Corn.
Speaker: If you enjoyed Ninja Gaiden, why not try out Fascism, Fascism, Fascism by Robert Heinlein?
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: It's like, you know, it's important for our children to have a breadth of knowledge about all different kinds.
Speaker: Well, you know, Wiley's a fascist.
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: He's got an army of robots that I'm sure that all the fascists would love to have.
Speaker: It's very appropriate.
Speaker: It is a battle for the ages.
Speaker: It's a weird battle because Mega Man's a cop.
Speaker: So it's... The Harry Potter.
Speaker: One of the Harry Potter conversations.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: It's a... Don't dig too deep.
Speaker: Read Shogun by James Clavin.
Speaker: Heart of Darkness.
Speaker: I've read Shogun.
Speaker: Have you read Shogun, Phil?
Speaker: I've never read Shogun.
Speaker: It is a long fucking book.
Speaker: Yeah, I remember it was one of the only books I've ever seen.
Speaker: You'll see because I basically live at used bookstores and it's one of the only books I've ever seen.
Speaker: And you'll see it at used bookstores all the time where it's in two volumes.
Speaker: Usually they just.
Speaker: It's a double VHS cassette book.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: You have to change the tape midway through your book.
Speaker: It's fucking crazy.
Speaker: Do you know how long are we talking here?
Speaker: Like approximately?
Speaker: I mean, yeah, I've seen, I feel like I've seen these books go like 1700 pages and they're like, no, we'll still put it in one, you know?
Speaker: So it's got, I think I mean, Kevin, I feel like 1500 pages might not be far off.
Speaker: The word count is 425,000 words.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: Now, for reference, the line for a novel, for something that is a novel, is like 50 to 75, depending on who you're looking at.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: 50 to 75 is like the low end length for a novel.
Speaker: Great Gatsby, I think, was like 47, if I'm
Speaker: Yeah, Great Gatsby's pushing it.
Speaker: Great Gatsby's like closer to a novella, but, you know, we're not going to hold that against that.
Speaker: No, that's just like for page count and everything, you know, for their back.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Shogun is, so the word count is 425,000.
Speaker: Jesus Christ.
Speaker: That's insane.
Speaker: Excuse me.
Speaker: That's 1,152 pages, but that really depends on how you're typesetting that bad boy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I just did some basic math here based on the average kind of words per minute that a person can read.
Speaker: And you're looking at approximately
Speaker: Oh, wait a second.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: 425,000 divided by, it says the average here is about 240 words per minute.
Speaker: So the end result is 1,770.
Speaker: That would be hours?
Speaker: That would be minutes.
Speaker: That'd be minutes.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Let's divide this by 60.
Speaker: It's a 30 hour book.
Speaker: That's 30 full hours of time to read it.
Speaker: That's your basic, you know, that's like the stand.
Speaker: It's probably about the comparable to the stand and it and some of the other books that Stephen King wrote before he gave up amphetamines.
Speaker: Yeah, no kidding.
Speaker: Still easier to read than Atlas Shrugged.
Speaker: Still easier to read than Atlas Shrugged.
Speaker: You read Atlas Shrugged, right?
Speaker: Yeah, you did.
Speaker: Capitalism, man.
Speaker: Capitalism, man.
Speaker: Fucking capitalism.
Speaker: One day I'll actually read it.
Speaker: I love this show so fucking hard.
Speaker: You guys have a great concept here.
Speaker: Final thoughts on this book.
Speaker: Phil, I'll let you go first.
Speaker: What's your...
Speaker: I would say this is the second to worst of the, if you, like you said, if we're putting these, the world of power, Sega game books all on their own little shelf, I'd say that this is the only thing that this is better than would be Mega Man 2.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: I gotta listen to that episode.
Speaker: Jeez.
Speaker: You're going to love it.
Speaker: We did it with Scott and it was it's it.
Speaker: Whereas Mega Man 2 literally was just like this happened, this happened, this happened with one or two inexplicable add ons.
Speaker: Like he's human now.
Speaker: They make him human for like Dr. Light's like, hey, step into this machine and it'll actually improve your powers.
Speaker: Oops, it didn't do that.
Speaker: But it did make you human.
Speaker: And that's never addressed.
Speaker: Damn it again, man.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so this one, this one isn't, it's still very cut and dry, very straightforward, but we do have these interesting, like the turtle conversation sticks up my head, the eagle, even the weird shit with the fucking...
Speaker: ugh, the fatty thing and, like, just killing.
Speaker: It's bad, but it's, like, weird.
Speaker: Like, it keeps you, like, thinking, like, what the fuck is going on with this book?
Speaker: So, it's, but still, that puts it at our, maybe our, in my opinion, our third worst book we've ever read.
Speaker: Gotcha.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Depending on how we're... You're talking about overall rankings if we're merging the two lists.
Speaker: Overall, I would say if I were taking those out of the shelf and individually... Sorting them, yeah.
Speaker: Sorting them, because Mega Man 2 and Dead Space Martyr, I say, are in a dead heat for... For worse.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Because whereas Dead Space Martyr is a far...
Speaker: better written book in terms of i know how to write a novel it is it is one of the most boring stupid uh just like yeah long and it's like this is dead space for god's sake yeah like you have a lot to work with that that's the kind of thing that would frustrate me versus something like this which is just it took it took an hour to read right you know so yeah yeah
Speaker: So yeah, I guess what I'm saying is Axe didn't give it to me.
Speaker: Oh, shit.
Speaker: It's like, bam.
Speaker: Oh man, I wish I had, if I had that song, I'm gonna just start adding that song to my soundboard.
Speaker: So I can just play it whenever, um, whenever that happens.
Speaker: Uh, it's never going to happen again, but just in case you'll be ready.
Speaker: I'll be ready.
Speaker: I'll be ready.
Speaker: And, um, hold on Dylan.
Speaker: Dylan, what did you think?
Speaker: But, uh, I mean, really I would echo, you know, pretty, I mean, I, I've not read those other books.
Speaker: I thought,
Speaker: There it is.
Speaker: There's there's I'm always like five minutes too late on the which actually makes it better.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: It's like that episode of It's Always Sunny where they're like making fun or like they, you know, say something and then like D like a minute later, she's like, and that's why.
Speaker: And then like she's stupid, right?
Speaker: Or like something like that.
Speaker: And they're like, what?
Speaker: Like what you said before?
Speaker: And they're like, oh, my God, D, your comedic timing is so bad.
Speaker: Like, yeah.
Speaker: So it's like even funnier.
Speaker: The I really do love that show that I thought.
Speaker: So like I really I enjoyed this book completely as like, you know, the type of book that we mentioned earlier where it's like a good, bad book.
Speaker: The the the writing itself is like a.
Speaker: I hope this does not sound too mean when I say it out loud because the author... Don't worry.
Speaker: Again, I really do... If he ever sees this, I respect someone who's willing for... I don't care if it's like... It's scary if you think it's actually a good idea, but if it's that or if it's just naivety thinking you're going to be able to make something good from it, I respect anyone who has the chutzpah to actually just take a video game and like...
Speaker: beat for beat, make that into the book.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: When it's like this super, super simple, like whatever the book is not.
Speaker: It's a, the mean thing that I was potentially going to say is that there's this, I need to send this to you guys.
Speaker: Actually.
Speaker: I think you'd both love it.
Speaker: My good friend, Tyler wrote a short story when we were in like third grade.
Speaker: It's called Intro Dimension.
Speaker: And it is like a third graders conception of like a spy thriller, right?
Speaker: Replete with like both, you know, a third graders understanding of the concepts that it attempts to explore.
Speaker: That part's not really analogous to here.
Speaker: The parts that's analogous is it's a third graders kind of like
Speaker: grammar and writing.
Speaker: That's what I'm afraid might be too mean.
Speaker: It's just... It's like so much of the book, and again, this is not even the content, so it's like, you know, I'm almost mean just for, you know, who even evaluates something necessarily on the grammar, like on how it's like written, written.
Speaker: But it is, it's funny and fun.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Like there's so many, like the way, like just some of these lines, like the one that I read or like some of the, uh, Oh no, I actually, I saved one.
Speaker: That is the perfect kind of encapsulation of what I'm talking about.
Speaker: Give me two seconds to bring it up here.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: If this is not demonstrated, it was just so reminiscent of this.
Speaker: And we love this book.
Speaker: We want to edit it and make a little fun thing.
Speaker: Not the Golden Axe with my friends book.
Speaker: It's just got so many funnily phrased sentences that just make you giggle when you hear it.
Speaker: So here's one from Golden Axe.
Speaker: And there are many like this where it says, Who or whatever was holding the Golden Axe still ruled Uria and was still evil?
Speaker: That's like when he realized there's like another big bad behind the door, right?
Speaker: That's like what it says.
Speaker: There's just like some brilliant, it has like the same energy as like that one Half-Life fan fiction where it's like Gordon Freeman back flipped and shot heads below.
Speaker: just like amazing like grammar.
Speaker: It's like those sentences from like an SAT question where it asks you how to rearrange it in like the way and it's hard.
Speaker: You can I feel like this book was written in like two sittings.
Speaker: So like, you know, that feeling that you get like you're both writers when like don't realize that you're starting to kind of like repeat sentences and structures and things like that.
Speaker: Or you start glossing over shit that you had taken like
Speaker: an hour to kind of explore the details of before, like that kind of inconsistency that just made it so funny to get through.
Speaker: And then, yeah, beyond that, you know, it's just like,
Speaker: I've never read a book that so clearly was exactly what happens in a video game.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: And like a simple video game.
Speaker: And there's like these little, we didn't get a chance to like talk about them, but I didn't remember like where they were, but Kevin and I were talking about it, like before we started recording, there's some bits where like the author tries to reference like,
Speaker: makes like these cheeky references to like one of them, like Axe remarked on how there were two houses that both had the number like 1370, like the address 1370, which is very clearly like him trying to make a joke about how the background art probably repeated like in the game.
Speaker: Or like there's parts where of course, when he's describing every little thing that happens with the battles,
Speaker: like, you know, presumably there's some part where there's an exploit where you can like sit there and like kind of chop at people's feet and like it's a part of the game where they can't hit you back.
Speaker: He puts the shit in the book.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like, how do you not respect that?
Speaker: Hidden as a novel.
Speaker: Or a short story.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And I just, I've never, maybe I'm just, you know, not in the game.
Speaker: You guys probably maybe experience, evidently experience this kind of thing more often, but I'd never read a book that was like that.
Speaker: And
Speaker: that just made it this really fun.
Speaker: And of course, you know, our read, it's not dead.
Speaker: It's this other one that that makes you sit there.
Speaker: It comes with the territory, is all I'll say to that.
Speaker: Welcome to our world.
Speaker: I need to go and read some of these other ones.
Speaker: Yeah, we have found ourselves in a very particular niche.
Speaker: And yeah, that's just a lot of these books somehow.
Speaker: I was going to add.
Speaker: Kevin, obviously we still got to hear your thoughts like on the book overall.
Speaker: But when you guys said so those you were ranking the ones that, you know, were probably the biggest stinkers.
Speaker: What would you say is the best?
Speaker: I'm sorry if you get this question a lot.
Speaker: What would you say is the best one that you guys have read thus far?
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that's a harder question to answer, I'm sure.
Speaker: That is a harder question.
Speaker: I think I had a stronger answer last year.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I think Halo, the Fall of Reach is probably number one.
Speaker: That's what I was going to guess.
Speaker: I was going to guess that, actually.
Speaker: Is probably number one.
Speaker: Really good.
Speaker: But also if we're just talking about the general stratosphere, you have Halo the Fall of Reach.
Speaker: You have Far Cry Absolution.
Speaker: I had on this for that one.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And probably Bioshock Rapture.
Speaker: That's what I was looking for.
Speaker: Is up there as well.
Speaker: Yeah, I remember when I watched some of the clips from that one too.
Speaker: I remember you guys were posting it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah, I think those are my top three as well.
Speaker: That's, yeah, easily.
Speaker: Yeah, they're up there.
Speaker: What I thought of the book was it was it happened and the words, they appeared in front of me and I read them.
Speaker: You read them.
Speaker: And I took notes on them.
Speaker: You read the shit out of them.
Speaker: I read the shit out of those words.
Speaker: You did, brother.
Speaker: I kind of want to read Kevin's notes for the other books too.
Speaker: I only started taking notes recently, which is... This is called Diablo.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: You guys could do a Patreon.
Speaker: You could add that on there.
Speaker: Your guys' notes as you read it.
Speaker: It's like a reader bonus.
Speaker: I've got one of these.
Speaker: Hold on, let me see.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: This is the first one.
Speaker: This is the first one.
Speaker: I filled it up.
Speaker: I love the sticker here.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Actually, I remember... Yes.
Speaker: This is...
Speaker: It's like Kevin showed me a picture of this thing or somehow I saw this in a journal.
Speaker: You might have posted it on Twitter.
Speaker: Is that what it was?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It starts out with Resident Evil, the Umbrella Conspiracy and it's all notes and the last one was on Oh, this is Ninja Gaiden.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Oh, there you go.
Speaker: That would actually be like a real supplement.
Speaker: I imagine if, you know, I imagine like a lot of your viewers too, like would be probably like interested, either writers themselves are interested in writing.
Speaker: So having you as someone who literally sells stories like too, for a living, getting your notes on like, it's like, you know, someone that have like game developers will do their like postmortems.
Speaker: And like, I always wonder what's in those.
Speaker: And like, I know that a lot of them are like, I can't,
Speaker: I wouldn't like necessarily give these out because you know your personal notes you'd have maybe have to get them but that damn that would be like a cool supplement to have.
Speaker: That's not a bad idea.
Speaker: We can scan some of the best ones and stuff like that.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: Let's think about doing that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But you know what else I want you guys to think about and maybe you shouldn't have to think about it too hard but what are you playing?
Speaker: Phil what are you playing this week?
Speaker: I just wrapped up before my computer died today, thankfully.
Speaker: I did keep up with the.9 update for Vampire Survivors and keep my perfect score on achievements.
Speaker: Very pleased with that.
Speaker: That's impressive.
Speaker: I did wrap up.
Speaker: I'm still playing.
Speaker: I'm still like...
Speaker: kind of piddling into the newest Leisure Shoot Larry game.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Wet Dreams Don't Dry 2.
Speaker: Oh, man.
Speaker: And it's, I have a real fondness for Leisure Shoot Larry.
Speaker: It was one of the first, like, franchises that I was excited about when I was a kid because it was dirty words.
Speaker: I didn't know you could do that.
Speaker: It's funny writing.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I imagine not a lot of stuff like that.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, and obviously the old school leader suit Larry has problems, uh, in a modern age, but this, uh, this German developer picked them up, uh, picked them up a few years back and did a whole kind of reboot and the first, and, and what dreams don't drive was, was pretty good actually.
Speaker: He's got a stupid dad humor, but that's what you were always going to get from Lee suit Larry.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: It wasn't as sexist or, or I was going to say, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Evolution.
Speaker: That's kind of what you would imagine.
Speaker: It's like a leisure suit.
Speaker: Larry in a modern era would kind of be more wholesome.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's maybe cheesy, but like, it's not like gross.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like an asshole thing.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And he, and he's a, and he is a dirt bag and he's, and he's trying to get laid and everything like that.
Speaker: But there's also kind of a – they've developed them to have kind of more sweeter, virginal almost sort of feel to them.
Speaker: And it's – you know, they've taken care of – in the first one, there was a situation where you end up actually helping two gay men get together.
Speaker: And he's like really working hard to make sure these two men fall in love.
Speaker: And it's kind of cute, actually.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Now, I haven't gotten far into this one, but I'm not sure.
Speaker: We might be backsliding a little bit.
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: We've got an Asian character who is, like, just on the cusp of a voice that maybe is not a great thing.
Speaker: And I'd love to just say that, well, you know, maybe the Germans don't get it, but we all know they absolutely do.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So I've been playing more of that and, uh, and I've been playing a little more of, uh, of, uh, Ravidus fiends, uh, which is the Sweeney Todd video game.
Speaker: That's the Sweeney Todd game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: I've not even heard of that.
Speaker: You play a, you, you familiar with Sweeney Todd, Dylan?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: You play.
Speaker: I've seen so far as I've seen the movie play.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, you, you, you, uh, you play a couple and, uh, one of them instead of being a barber is a tailor.
Speaker: And the other one is a baker.
Speaker: And she has a restaurant downstairs.
Speaker: And on the top, you have a tailor and a clothes store.
Speaker: And people come in.
Speaker: And while you're measuring them, you slit their throats.
Speaker: You take their clothes.
Speaker: You throw them down a chute.
Speaker: And you control both of the characters.
Speaker: And you have to swap between them.
Speaker: And the wife will take the bodies, grind them up, make them into pies or sausages or...
Speaker: you can upgrade them and make, make better pastries.
Speaker: And while she's doing that, you make suits and new clothes out of the old clothes and you're just going back and forth.
Speaker: It's actually pretty high stress.
Speaker: Uh, Oh yeah.
Speaker: It sounds like any kind of control system.
Speaker: Also the idea of like cannibalizing their clothes as well.
Speaker: In addition to like their literal bodies, it's an interesting twist.
Speaker: And you can, and you start getting letters from some mysterious stranger who seems to know when his blackmailing you and, uh,
Speaker: So you're trying to and you're and you're also upgrading both the restaurant and the tailor shop as you go.
Speaker: And, you know, and it's it's got this fun strategy simulation feel to it.
Speaker: It's gruesome and very silly and fun.
Speaker: And it's five bucks.
Speaker: It's it's sure it's pretty good.
Speaker: It's not bringing the house down, but fuck, I'm really enjoying it.
Speaker: Yeah, no kidding, especially for five bucks.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Dylan, what are you playing?
Speaker: I have been playing.
Speaker: Other than your own mod.
Speaker: I play that a whole lot.
Speaker: If you call it playing, I do a lot of play testing.
Speaker: I have been playing.
Speaker: So we had a really stacked couple of months where it was just kind of like post-COVID wedding, so I almost didn't get to play much at all.
Speaker: But I have been still picking away at Elden Ring.
Speaker: I'm...
Speaker: You know, like I got to play it more this week.
Speaker: I get like, you know, pretty hefty sessions and like once every so often.
Speaker: So I'm, I think coming up on the end of Elden Ring and that's been really fun.
Speaker: Of course, if you like, you know, Souls games, not like I need to evangelize Elden Ring, Elden Ring, Elden Ring.
Speaker: To people who, it's like generally speaking, you're probably, if you like that kind of game, you've already beaten it like three times in the amount it's taken me to get through my like first playthrough.
Speaker: Yeah, I've put in probably 250 hours.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Into it in total.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: It's really fucking good, man.
Speaker: At least like that's how I felt thus far.
Speaker: Like I really enjoyed it a lot.
Speaker: And then I've been playing, today actually I got to play like a three hour session of
Speaker: the original Battlefront 2 with a couple of friends, right?
Speaker: Like not the one that just came out, but like the back in the day.
Speaker: The original Battlefront 2.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Which also like, man, I really wish that
Speaker: they would have named the reboots like something a little bit different because we're trying to like search for like fixes and stuff is like an old game.
Speaker: And like, it's really hard when the new one's also called Battlefront 2.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But like, yeah, I'm dude, those games were so good.
Speaker: I'm not like, you know, the newest ones like they're cool too, but they're not like the.
Speaker: Like those things really like the new ones are these, you know, like highly kind of like cinematic, like I would say that, you know,
Speaker: mechanically they might be a little bit tighter in some ways even that's such a vague like expression it's almost meaningless we'd have to you know we'll do like a whole ass dissertation but like damn it if those original battlefront games are not like real sandboxes you know what i mean like where you can just kind of like
Speaker: they're like massive they're open you have a million different vehicles to play with you have a million different unit types to play with you can adjust like every little bit about like how it plays and like what you know the sandbox is filled with like the enemy ai it's never great right but like you can make them like pretty dangerous and just like i don't know like so many of the different mat like the sheer volume of content of course because games back then didn't require quite the level of like
Speaker: you know, ultra quadruple A polish that something like the Battlefront 2 reboot has.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's just like so much content.
Speaker: And like I was sitting at weird by the end of it was like, damn, the issue that we're having is that one of our friends lives in London and or not London, sorry, in England.
Speaker: And so the lag is, you know, a problem because so many of these old games don't have like dedicated servers or anything.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it's a weird preservationist.
Speaker: Somebody's server is running it in California and that's really the only place you can connect.
Speaker: It's either we do that or direct connect where, you know, either me and my friend who live here, it's good for us and shit for our English friend or it's the reverse.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That was rad.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Kevin.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: My boy.
Speaker: What am I playing?
Speaker: I also caught up on Vampire Survivors.
Speaker: Yeah, I see that.
Speaker: I need to add you, Phil, on Steam.
Speaker: I do see Kevin pop up, yes, being Vampire Survivors every so long.
Speaker: Vampire Survivors just running for hours.
Speaker: I also started playing... I'm on a kick where I'm just trying not to buy new games as much.
Speaker: I'm trying to...
Speaker: go through and beat games that I own that I never bothered beating or whatever, get some achievements, all that fun stuff.
Speaker: So not only am I back on XCOM 2, I'm back on Loop Hero,
Speaker: Oh, zero.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because I never finished Loop Hero.
Speaker: I need to finish it now.
Speaker: Wow, all three of us.
Speaker: I need to finish Loop Hero.
Speaker: And I broke my own rule.
Speaker: I broke my rule of not buying a new game because I bought the kitty cat game.
Speaker: Oh, Stray.
Speaker: Yeah, Stray.
Speaker: Oh, I love Stray.
Speaker: It's a fun game.
Speaker: And I texted Phil, if somebody asked me if Stray is a good game, I would say yes, definitely.
Speaker: If somebody asked me, randomly, if Stray was a horror game, I would say yeah, sometimes.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: Because it does have some real creepy stuff in it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And yeah, I can say I'm loving has like a weirdo vibe or like.
Speaker: Yeah, it's in a it's in a weird.
Speaker: Yeah, it's in a weird cyberpunk ish dystopia setting.
Speaker: So you're going to get a little weird stuff.
Speaker: It gets it gets more appropriately.
Speaker: It gets weirder than cyberpunk 2077 ever bothers to.
Speaker: So that's yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, so, you know, try Stray.
Speaker: If you like a lot of the stuff that, you know, Annapurna, yeah, I think that's Annapurna puts out, I would definitely get Stray because they're, you know,
Speaker: To me, as a company that puts out neat indie games, I mean, they publish them.
Speaker: I feel like with the exception of 12 Minutes, which is just a terrible game, they really haven't missed that much overall.
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Someone called them the A24 of publishers.
Speaker: Annapurna is pretty much the A24 of video game publishers.
Speaker: I mean, God, you know, you have this year, you know, you have both Stray and Neon White, which is... I did not know that they did Neon White, that they published that.
Speaker: Yeah, they published Neon White, which Neon White occupied my time for a little bit, too.
Speaker: But yeah, no, that's what I'm playing.
Speaker: And I think I'm probably like halfway through Stray at this point.
Speaker: I don't think it's particularly long because there's an achievement you can get for finishing it under two hours.
Speaker: Well, yeah.
Speaker: It's like a Resident Evil school of thought.
Speaker: I think it's got a Resident Evil vibe where if you know what you're doing, you can pretty much sprint through it.
Speaker: Do you guys know, does it have a PC port or is it just pure, what's it called?
Speaker: PlayStation?
Speaker: No, it's on PS5 and Windows.
Speaker: Okay, I don't know why I assumed that it was only PS5, but I did, so I should.
Speaker: Yeah, I think it's a console exclusive to PlayStation.
Speaker: Ah, gotcha.
Speaker: But it is available on Windows.
Speaker: Fuck you, Xbox.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: 2022.
Speaker: We're still doing this, baby.
Speaker: Yeah, baby.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that'll do it for what I was playing.
Speaker: And that'll do it for today's episode.
Speaker: Dylan, why don't you tell everybody where they can find you and what you're working on and all that fun stuff.
Speaker: So you can find my kind of primary project, my meat and potatoes, is a mod pack for Skyrim.
Speaker: It's called Wild Lander.
Speaker: It is basically an attempt to kind of refashion Skyrim into kind of like an immersive sim.
Speaker: It's very heavily inspired by games like Deus Ex, Kenshi, RimWorld, these kind of very like the world kind of crafts dynamic stories, right?
Speaker: Type of games, which Skyrim,
Speaker: is like this brilliant canvas for, but obviously doesn't quite get there like on its own.
Speaker: So it kind of combines a lot of stuff like that with like survival elements, like role playing elements.
Speaker: There's a lot of things that you can kind of just as an in-game journal where you can talk about all the different stuff that your character has been doing and yada, yada, yada, you know how it goes.
Speaker: So you can check that out at wildlandermod.com.
Speaker: And, you know, we have a discord server.
Speaker: I'm on Twitter.
Speaker: It's I think just Dylan Perry, Dylan B Perry is like my handle and everything.
Speaker: So Twitch, you know, weekly, I stream development and other random stuff.
Speaker: I think that about covers it.
Speaker: That's really the only social media that I, uh, I have any sort of like posting presence on would be like Twitter and the subreddit.
Speaker: I guess we have a wildlander subreddit.
Speaker: Um, yeah, that's me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Thank you guys so much for having me on.
Speaker: It's been an absolute blast.
Speaker: I really love it.
Speaker: It's been, it's yeah, we've been wanting to have you on for a while.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And I, you, what a fantastic title too, to,
Speaker: Dude, I feel like it's like perfect, honestly.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah, I think Golden Axe and Skyrim are close in a way.
Speaker: In some ways, most definitely.
Speaker: In some ways, yeah.
Speaker: But, oh, go ahead.
Speaker: Finish your thought.
Speaker: I was going to say that we used to have an armor armor.
Speaker: There's a mod called I think this was immersive armors that added its own little icon in the Barbarian Easter egg armor.
Speaker: That was, you know, literally nice like a cloth.
Speaker: That's nice.
Speaker: Like a circle of his circle that he wears.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So thanks for listening.
Speaker: If you want to help us out, please follow us on Twitter and Instagram.
Speaker: Our handle is at PixelitPod.
Speaker: Go to our website, PixelitPod.com.
Speaker: There you can find transcripts of every episode.
Speaker: And you can also find links to our Discord and Steam Curator pages.
Speaker: So you can really find a community to talk to about Pixel It.
Speaker: And on the Curator page, you can find our reviews for some of these games that we talk about in the What Are You Playing segment.
Speaker: Oh, shit.
Speaker: If you can please rate us five stars on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and we're on Good Pods now, and you can rate us five stars per episode.
Speaker: That would be awesome.
Speaker: Thank you so much for listening to us, and have a good night, everybody.
Speaker: Bye.
Speaker: That's the end of our show.
Speaker: Bye.
