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You're not my DAD! (Driver: Nemesis - Part 2)
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Julia Jaybird reminds us twice that Tanner is in fact not her father.
https://nogamesforgenocide.com
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
Yes, and that one, that's totally different. That's a whole other bag of wax. That was different. That was a whole bag of wax. Yeah. You know what else is a whole other ah bag and or ball of wax?
00:00:13
Speaker
What's that? Hey, there
Introduction to the Pixel It Podcast
00:00:15
Speaker
everybody. Welcome back to Pixel It. My name is Kevin. With me as always is Phil on today's show.
Is 'Driver' a Clever Book?
00:00:19
Speaker
We're diving deeper into driver. I could have said driving deeper.
00:00:24
Speaker
could have, but you know. We could have, yeah. Does this book really deserve that level of cleverness? No, it doesn't. ah You know, i was ah somebody on our Discord, Josh, ah ah with parentheses.
Reflecting on Missed Humor
00:00:40
Speaker
He has a YouTube channel. um I was talking about that we missed out on a huge joke ah with the first in the first episode. Well, the guy's name last name is Tanner. Tanner.
00:00:54
Speaker
Oh, he's from San Francisco. ah Full house references could have been could have abounded. we missed an opportunity. Yeah, we missed an opportunity. We'll try to make up ah to you, Josh, and to you, the listening audience. I take my work very seriously.
00:01:16
Speaker
ah I'm a man of faith and I don't know when I'm going to be putting on this headset again. There's a line drive out to left field by Castellanos.
00:01:29
Speaker
I felt like, you know, I to had to go there some at some point because I know Nick Castellanos is going to be being cut from
Engaging with Patreon Supporters
00:01:38
Speaker
the Philadelphia Phillies soon enough. um If you want to hear more, though, about our Discord, go on to patreon.com slash pixelipod. It's a wonderful website and you can find our Discord link on there. You can also find it in a number of other places, including below this episode in the description. But Patreon.com slash Pixel It Pod. You can go there. You can follow us for free. You can give us a dollar. That gets you access to the blog post that Phil makes where he talks about his favorite and least favorite horror books that he's reading. $5 gets you access to the bonus episode that we record before every episode. And $10 gets your name. Shout it out. in every episode. To that end, I want to thank, and you are hiding, Song 85, Jesus Loves You, Kyle Seaman, Ruthless Mudder, Middle of Things, Sigma Sal, Sanguine Flatulence, Jet Beaks, Dumb and Thick, and Friendly Friend, thank you so much for being a friend.
00:02:35
Speaker
Patreon.com slash PixelitPod. Do it today. Do it today. Do it today. Yeah, i ah yeah and I think we could go ahead and put the body in the marsh. You know what? We should. We might as well.
00:02:52
Speaker
We got a lot to talk about with this book. Yeah, we do.
Analyzing Plot Twists and Escapes
00:02:55
Speaker
ah ah We don't have to, but, you know. we don't have to, but we got a marsh. We got a body. Seems like it would be a waste. When I tell you to dump a body in the marsh, you dump them In the marsh. they're going around marshes too because it's like Louisiana. So there's a lot of bodies and marshes in this book.
00:03:17
Speaker
That's true. Especially in this section. i You know what? i've gone back I've gone back to writing my notes by hand. i I want to start doing that again because it's just it's pretty satisfying. But God, it it takes a while. it It does take a while. It takes Um, so anyway, we're chapter 11. Uh, Tanner has, uh, Quentin in his car. ah they arrive and Tanner gets out of the car because they are a man down there. They're one muscle man down because they just, uh, Sean Shields is nearly dead.
00:03:51
Speaker
Uh, Quentin doesn't like that. But the gang makes their way through the marsh towards a dilapidated fishing lodge, and they watch as a drug deal between the LLR and ah the Colombians goes down.
00:04:08
Speaker
ah while it's it progresses a little bit, and then they strike. um They go through the the fishing lodge. They kill a bunch. Well, they don't kill anybody at first. They just take a bunch of people and zip tie them, hog tie them, and all that. Jericho tries to take one of the guys hostage to get the last ah Colombian guy to drop his weapon. Instead, both the hostage and the last dude end up dead. The the last guy just shoots the hostage, and then Jericho shoots the last guy in the head.
00:04:37
Speaker
Um, it's like when you start out trying to, to go light side, you know, yeah in in a game and and then something fucks up, you're like, Oh fuck it. And just everyone, everyone gets killed. We're going all the way down.
00:04:50
Speaker
yeah um So ah Tanner's not happy about this. um They load the score and there's a moment where Tanner thinks he can hear his car cars coming, but everybody else is like, nah, that's nothing. That's like you're you're you're imagining things. ah And then at Julia at some point during this heads to the bathroom ah while Tanner goes back to his car and waits.
00:05:16
Speaker
ah Tanner then puts two and two together that the motors that he's hearing are airboats ah coming through bayou. um And ah he kicks ah he starts driving the car back to where the fishing lodge is and he kicks Quentin out of the car and he drives back to save Julia.
Character Chemistry and Tensions
00:05:36
Speaker
We're in chapter 12 now and Tanner gets back to the lodge to witness them unload the bad guys unload on Julia's car. but she is not in it. Lavanche goes nuts and he tells us guys to, ah to search the forest.
00:05:52
Speaker
And then Tanner sneaks into the lodge and he finds his way to Julia who accidentally shoots at him and alerts all the guards. And this is like a, this is like a metal gear solid moment where it's like you spend all this time sneaking through a level and there's like a gunshot. You accidentally pull the the trigger on the gun and you just hear the we
00:06:12
Speaker
snake snake. um Yeah. It just, say God, God damn And just start over. Tanner and Julia run and hide in a walk-in freezer. And then Tanner shoots the floor out of the walk-in freezer with his shotgun. And they fall through it and begin crawling through ah the space that's in between the house and the bog.
00:06:35
Speaker
They take off towards the forest and the LLR begins shooting at them as they run. Tanner trips and hurts his leg and Julia helps him get to the road. ah And then they get to the car, which starts right away, despite it having taken several gunshots.
00:06:50
Speaker
And now we're in chapter 13. Tanner gets back to his apartment and finds Tobias there. Toby moved moved shields and got him medical help. The cover is that Tanner would handle the body himself.
00:07:03
Speaker
They debrief after Tanner takes a shower and Toby cooks some eggs. They have a real, like... Like they would be, they they could be a cute couple kind of vibe.
00:07:14
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I was totally getting that too. If this is 2000s and it's like, ew, gay, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Got to address that immediately. You know? Yeah.
00:07:25
Speaker
like come put You know what? Just put them together. yeah Come on. Come on. Take a goddamn chance. ah Apparently, Powell, the ah police chief, is happy with the way things are going. They talk about Julia's part in this, and Toby says that Tanner is spreading himself too thin trying to fix people.
00:07:41
Speaker
Then ri Julia shows up on the ah fire escape, and Toby hides. ah Julia comes into the apartment and Tanner and Julia shake hands, get weirdly flirty, and then go out for a drive.
00:07:56
Speaker
but It's, it's, yeah. ah Yeah. Go on. Sorry. It's, it's uncomfortable. I'm not, it's uncomfortable. yeah Yeah. Yeah. Not happy. Chapter 14. Julia is driving Tanner's car and is pulling all sorts of tricks to and she's pulling all sorts of tricks in the car to his chagrin. She then takes them out of the city and Tanner has mixed feelings about sitting in the passenger seat. Not because he's a misogynist, but he just doesn't like giving up control. Yeah.
00:08:23
Speaker
To a woman. To a woman. ah Toby texts him about reminding him to not tell her that he's a cop. He puts the phone in the glove box. Now, I was like, this is oh that's like this is going to come back to bite him, right? He just turned the phone off and he put it in the glove box and she's going to find him, ah find the phone and read the texts or whatever. right ah No, that's not.
00:08:47
Speaker
No. Don't worry about it. um but nothing Nothing that clever. don't don't don't work Don't you worry your pretty little heads over it, guys. Now, you've always called it a glove box, right? Yeah.
00:08:57
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. yeah I was thinking about the song ah that death cab for cutie song where they call it a glove compartment. um part Oh, I guess I have heard that. Yeah. Yeah. I guess heard that.
00:09:12
Speaker
I guess glove box doesn't have enough syllables for singing a ah whiny song. i Well, i actually i I think I picked it up from a song as well, but it was Outkast Outkast The Offspring's ah Bad Habit and like their song about shooting people on the highway when you open your glove box, reach inside and wreck this fucker's ride.
00:09:37
Speaker
yeah um So I think that's why. Love compartment is inadequately named and everybody knows it.
00:09:50
Speaker
So I'm proposing swift orderly chain. We got to have a song about this death cap. Very similar songs. They've got similar vibes. you know Yeah. Death Cab for Cutie and the Offspring. People have said that before. They've said that. They've said people people are always saying it. that People are saying it are always saying it. You got to keep them separated.
00:10:15
Speaker
Love it. Love it. That was how was Offspring, right? Yeah. Yeah. No, you nailed it. I Boom. Just fucking nailed it. Knocked it out of the park.
00:10:27
Speaker
i was like, i was thinking it was like, it's, it's either, what it's one of the two art, the article, uh, like article name bands, the offspring or the deftones. Yeah. Yeah. ah Yeah. No, no. but yeah Yeah. You got it you You got it. Right. good Yeah. Okay.
00:10:49
Speaker
All right. ah So he puts the phone in the glove compartment. They pull up next to a Jeep at a stoplight. At some point in the text here, the guy calls the Jeep a modern day Mustang.
00:11:00
Speaker
um And I don't know if motherfuckers seen a Jeep. um He also doesn't say what kind of Jeep it it it is because there are a number of Jeeps ah that i i maybe the Wrangler would be kind of like a raceable version of one. but None of them are modern day Mustangs. None of them are modern day Mustangs, though. they don't They don't explain that one. And I think that's unfair. ah
00:11:31
Speaker
Yeah. so Because I had a lot of questions. Like, what the fuck? against a modern day Mustang. be like No, fucking Jeep is not a modern day Mustang. It's not a muscle car. That's not even in the same category. what are you Sure, a lot of douchebags drive Jeeps, but i i've had I've had Jeeps.
00:11:51
Speaker
ah I'm not inviting comparisons though. Mustangs? Yeah, that to Mustangs. Comparison is mustangs the thief of joy. Yeah, to mustangs ah comparison is the thief of joy ah Don't you guys know that?
00:12:08
Speaker
and Is that a Marcus Aurelius thing? What? hoop Comparison is the Seath of Joy. all right. We're going to have to find out. yeah It's attributed looking something up time on Pixel It. Oh, Teddy Roosevelt.
00:12:28
Speaker
Well... I'm seeing a lot of people. I feel like that's... I feel like... I'm going to say Teddy Roosevelt said it. Ew, ew, I got a PragerU bite. neverle never um Never mind, forget it, I don't care. Ew, ew, ew. guess it was Teddy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no. yeah Gross. All right. um Anyway, they start racing ah because the boys in the jeek mock Julia and Tanner because she is driving.
00:12:55
Speaker
Um... there ah Julia starts pushing the challenger to its limits and Tanner is worried but he gets she gets the jeep to swerve into a ditch to avoid a truck.
00:13:07
Speaker
ah Tanner finally pushes her to answer why she's doing all this and she admits it's because of her dad. Tanner always liked her dad and she offers him ah offers to take him to see him.
Julia's Quest for Vengeance
00:13:20
Speaker
So you know it's her dad. That's why she's doing all this this crazy stuff. that's That's new. As far as character progression and advancement is concerned, um having a character who is affected um by their dad, ah especially a woman, that's really that's neat. I think it's a little weird.
00:13:46
Speaker
little weird. It's a little weird. But... I'm going to let him ride with it. Roll those dice. Come on. Yeah. Turns out, yeah, chapter 15 turns out he's dead.
00:13:58
Speaker
Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Well, yeah. ah She takes Tanner to Ernesto's grave and then she says she's going to show Tanner where he was slaughtered. ah And then she takes him to where her dad died.
00:14:16
Speaker
He was killed during the robbery of the 7-Eleven him and Julia owned. ah Julia also got a nasty scar on her head from it. She says the man who murdered her dad was the Indian who she says well she'll only call him by his real name Andres Sepion.
00:14:31
Speaker
ah She asked Tanner to help her in her quest for vengeance. And he goes, you know what? I'm in. ah They go to a diner for coffee. i'm in You son of a bitch. I'm in. They go to a diner for coffee and talk about how they need to impress the Indian to get his attention. Tanner then has a run in with some truckers involving some spilled sugar.
00:14:50
Speaker
ah Really dumb scene. ah But then he's like, wait a minute, I have an idea upon seeing the truckers truck. ah And by the way, this it's never cleared up what what happened with the truckers.
00:15:05
Speaker
that They're just going to be having his truck now. um We get a point of view scene from a from the point of view of a man named Ghostbeard. who is at LeVanche's main house as like doing guard duty with a few other people. And Ghostbeard is the only one who's like paying attention.
00:15:26
Speaker
And he hears the cars being stolen and he's just trying to get everybody to like, hey, like something's happening. And everybody is like, ah, no, go fuck off. And then the cars are all stolen because ah Tanner and Julia have one of those car transport trucks.
00:15:43
Speaker
um And they just load all the cars onto. And ah the they the car the truck drives away. And they're like, Ghostbeard, this is all your fault. You didn't do your job.
00:15:55
Speaker
This is a new character, by the way. New character. New character. New POV character. Didn't know we were still adding those. ah he was called it Yeah, didn't know we were still adding those. We're in Chapter 16. Ghostbeard is called Ghostbeard because he can't grow beard.
00:16:15
Speaker
be So it's bearded ghost. That's too, there's too much thought put into that one. Too, it's, yeah, too clever by a half. It's a, and we we got, we got hats on hats here. Right.
00:16:30
Speaker
That's when I was, when I was younger, ah we had, we had friends who had nicknames. Everyone did. And I had a friend whose name ah nickname was spaghetti. I do not remember his name.
00:16:42
Speaker
He was just spaghetti. And it was because when we, and a group of other people, we're all army brats. And when we met each other at the yak, the youth activity center, ah someone asked him what his name was. And he sarcastically said spaghetti. And that's just who he was. Spaghetti. For the next three years.
00:17:03
Speaker
Spaghetti. And I don't know. We all moved and and and maybe he kept that thing going. I don't i i don't know. But spaghetti. If you're listening, spaghetti. Hi.
00:17:18
Speaker
Hi. Do you prefer pesto or... or you bolonaise guy Your guy Bolognese guy. got the the red sauce. What do we want? work no well With your sketchy.
00:17:32
Speaker
Anyway, the cars give chase ah to the LLR. LLR cars give chase to the truck. And there's a big budget Fast and Furious action sequence with Tanner on the side of the truck. And he's like releasing a few of the cars ah from the truck and they roll off and they're they're causing the LLR goons to like crash and swerve and all that stuff. And then ah ah he gets back into the cab of the of the truck and Julia calls him Indiana Jones. And they're going to head off to to show their haul to Jericho.
00:18:09
Speaker
Uh, they, they pull up with the truck and Tanner gets out of the car and he says to Jericho that he wants to meet the Indian at at now because it's a matter of respect.
Gang Celebrations and Predictions
00:18:21
Speaker
Yeah. And and and i'd like to I'd like to draw everyone's attention to Kevin's original prediction that ah that the Indian and ah Jericho were one in the same. ah So just keep that in your head. Let's keep that in our in our head.
00:18:37
Speaker
yeah The gang is having a party celebrating their big wins over LLM. LLM in this, I just realized it could also be large language models. Yeah.
00:18:48
Speaker
That's immediately right. The name of the gang is LLR. I wrote down LLM. Yeah. Yeah. I wrote down LLM because I was, you know, thinking about, you know what it was, it was probably the stupid Larry and stuff ah that came out today where they're like, yeah, we're the CEOs. Like I'm pushing ai to be used in the everyday words. It's true.
00:19:11
Speaker
Damn it. It's just these people. The people that you you like. You're cool. You used to be cool, man. You used to be cool. Now you're not.
00:19:21
Speaker
Now you're not. i like my I like my video game. my My horny video games artisanally made. Exactly. Made by horny human beings.
00:19:35
Speaker
Yeah. that's That's what I want. Damn it. they they know No one knows horny like human beings. And AI cannot simulate the warmth of horniness. it cannot simulate It cannot simulate the depths.
00:19:47
Speaker
No. To which a human will go. to to dep deprive themselves The depravity. depravity. What does an AI know of these things? Nothing, I tell you. What does an AI know of prostrating themselves in front of the altar of depravity? I think nothing is what they know.
00:20:04
Speaker
Nothing. In fact, if you ask most AIs, they'll be like, I'm not allowed to talk about that. Yeah, most AI will be like, that's a great question. I'm going to kill myself. And you're like, great, good.
00:20:16
Speaker
Good. go there Good. um Bowman takes some time to confront Tanner about the coincidences of of Tanner and Julia having known each other back in San Francisco, as well as the fact that Quentin has ba bailed after the last heist. Tanner wo warns Bowman to step off.
00:20:35
Speaker
10 minutes later, Julia finds Tanner acting. ah Julia finds Tanner and she's acting drunk and dancing provocatively. He doesn't know what she's playing at, but he warns her to stay away from Bowman. Tanner leaves to get his gun from the car.
00:20:49
Speaker
Tanner comes back and he watches bowman julia Bowman and Julia dance and daydreams plans of knocking him out and saving her. But he has to pee. Yeah.
00:21:01
Speaker
He does. He has pee. I gotta pee, though. I gotta pee. He's gotta pee. Tanner goes to the bathroom to find and then comes back to find out that she's left now with Jericho.
00:21:12
Speaker
Oh. not the dude he got. Tanner runs from bar to bar looking for her but can't find her. She calls him and says, why do you think you can replace my daddy? Um...
00:21:25
Speaker
Tanner finds Julia doing target practice out by the lake. They get into a back and forth about why he's being so protective of her. And the arguments gets cut short when Tanner gets a text saying it's his turn and only his turn to meet the Indian.
00:21:41
Speaker
So take note of this beat of them arguing about him being overprotective because it's about to happen again in like five
Facing the Antagonist
00:21:49
Speaker
pages. Chapter 18, Tanner is driven by some of the Indians dudes to one of his houses. When he gets there, he sees Julia there as well as Jericho. She's are she's armed, but Tanner is not. He left his guns at home.
00:22:02
Speaker
Julia and Tanner wait in a room while Jericho talks the Indian and the Indian's dogs are barking constantly. And Tanner can see Julia is very nervous. The Indian is a great big fat man.
00:22:14
Speaker
He is just a lot of text. A lot of ink was spilled describing how grotesque the Indian actually is. lot, and a lot, a lot. Yeah, yeah. They want you to know he is fat and we are not happy about that. We are not happy about his fatness. He is you like he's definitely some part Indian, as you can tell by his by the phrenology that we're about to go into. And he's also fat.
00:22:40
Speaker
ah Yes, we we find out. Oh, by the way, we do find out. ah We get it confirmed that this is a a Native American Indian as opposed to a Bengali or something like that. Yes, he is Native American um because of his nose.
00:22:55
Speaker
um is Which is rotting. Which is rotting from the amount of cocaine that he does. Yes. He also seems to have lost his damn mind at some point. ah Tanner, thinking that Julia is going to do something stupid, causes a distraction by kicking one of the dogs.
00:23:17
Speaker
Uh-huh. As hard as he can. yeah And then when there's when everybody's like, ah, and Julia falls into him, he lifts Julia's gun from her and puts it into his pants so that she can't do anything stupid.
00:23:33
Speaker
Phil, how easy would it be to remove what was described as 45? This is like a wallet. Yeah. this This is a fucking wallet. This is a 45. This is not a little. Yeah.
00:23:51
Speaker
Just stuff it in the back of his pants. ah It is a way of to seal your asshole shut ah with a misfire. That's not going to. That's not going to. Let's see. up me It is a 45 Ruger, um which I like. i I think it's armor piercing. Yeah.
00:24:10
Speaker
But anyway, it's not a it's it's it's not like a it's not a huge gun, but it's also not like it's not a wallet.
00:24:22
Speaker
you You're lifting a gun. and we're just kind of And we're kind of like also the other detail that we kind of dance over is the fact that you just kick the shit out of a dog.
00:24:33
Speaker
Just kick the shit out of a dog. And there's no consequences. The dog doesn't get angry or it's just it's just it just makes a loud noise and everyone ah you know just startles everybody. And that's it. Yeah. ah this is This is very anti-pit bull propaganda here at this point.
00:24:53
Speaker
Absolutely shocking. Absolutely shocking. ah But all boys are good boys. All girls are good girls. There's just bad owners. So there's really no excuse for Tanner to kick a fucking dog that is not actively like doing anything to him. Jesus Christ, man. It's just not even a good plan. It's not even a good plan for distraction. Like, it's I know what I'll do for a distraction. I'll kick a dog as hard as I can. How does no one see this happen?
00:25:24
Speaker
Exactly. It's so confusing. I literally went back and reread this part several times where I was just like, are we sure that's it? like are Are we absolutely sure that it goes as far as this and no further? like ah oh Okay.
00:25:42
Speaker
Nobody sees him wind up, take a full ass punt. Not even not even who's on your lap there. This is Ripley.
00:25:53
Speaker
What's that Ripley? fat girl oh Oh, my God, she's gotten so much thicker. Yeah, she's she is thicker than a snicker. Thicker than train smoke. Good Lord.
00:26:08
Speaker
Yeah. She's not, ah she has not taken to, ah she's allowed outdoors as well. Doesn't want do it though. Well, she goes out for a minute and and especially if it's warm, she'll sun herself or something like that. ah But like right now we're dealing with, you know, sub zero, not sub zero, freezing temperatures. were We're dealing with freezing and Jonesy goes out for hours before he finally comes back in. Ripley will want to go out. Trust me. Fucking crazy. shoot She paused at the door to be let out. I let her out five minutes later. She wants back in. And then it's five minutes later. out and She wants but it's back and forth and back and forth.
00:26:45
Speaker
And I'm a parent, which means I'm constantly sitting down and standing up anyway. So I don't need that for my cat as well. yeah ah But anyway, she's not she's she has officially declared herself an indoor cat.
00:26:58
Speaker
She is not interested in that life. ah She eats ah and she ah ah demands pets and she sleeps. That is her thing.
00:27:08
Speaker
And that's you know what? That's fine. You got Jonesy. You got Jonesy out there to, you know, kill some kill some birds. And you got Ripley inside to sit on laps.
00:27:20
Speaker
it's It's both flavors of cat, really. Jonesy did bring us another dead shrew ah about an hour or two ago. ah he is What is he, William Shakespeare? He's really taming those shrews.
00:27:34
Speaker
He's taming nothing. He's killing them. Killing them dead. Oh, shit. Finally. Finally. What we've been waiting for.
00:27:47
Speaker
Now, I thought that he was chewing off the tails. Turns out it is a um a breed of shrew called a short tailed shrew. and Their tails like that big. di Okay.
00:27:59
Speaker
Anyway, he's killed like at least a half a dozen of them, which probably means there's a dozen more that I haven't seen. Oh, yeah, yeah. But the good thing about living in the country is that ah the last time that happened, I just took it and kind of whipped it side armed down the front yard. And Emily was home with ah Graham that day and she she messaged me. She was like, there are like carrion birds circling out in our front yard. was like, There's a dead shrew. They'll take care of it. And indeed they did. They did.
00:28:30
Speaker
They took out. oh and And right around the corner were a pair of bald eagles tearing into a dead deer. I'm not joking. Oh my God. stuff You got to live in the country. This is you get this is better than anything. wild's Wild stuff. It's great.
00:28:47
Speaker
ah Poor little shrews, though. I mean, I'm sure they're kind of annoying. I feel i I wouldn't know that they were out there if it weren't for ah Jonesy killing them. So maybe not. There it is. Short tailed shrews. Just looking at a list of the they're a ah part of the red tooth true a group.
00:29:07
Speaker
Yeah. ah Yeah. Related to common shrews. He's doing he's doing his his, hey, and now Jonesy. he heard his his His ears were burning. um he's doing is He's doing his part because they can you know get into your food and get into your house and all that stuff. so hes yeah He's going to be a barn cat.
00:29:28
Speaker
They're basically a variety. They're like a mouse adjacent yeah type of animal. Yeah. Venomous, but still. They're venomous. I believe shrews are venomous. Yeah.
00:29:39
Speaker
Oh, Jesus Christ. Jonesy, kill them all then. Yeah. i mean he's and He's doing great. He's never been happier. ah he's He's living a good life. Hold on. I've got it. Now, and this is again, I'm going to have to look at it. Are shrews?
00:29:52
Speaker
I believe I heard that they are venomous. Are shrews venomous? Yes. ah Oh, particularly the North American short-tailed shrew. oh well there we go it produced toxic saliva to paralyze or kill small prey like insects mice and even snakes oh toxic teeth they're toxic not not venomous no they are because they they they they use grooves in their teeth to deliver the venom uh not dangerous to humans beyond a little pain and swelling okay there you have it good job you ginger menace i'm proud of you you He's taken to the country life more than any of us, really.
00:30:32
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And it says the man wearing a bolo tie. That's true.
00:30:40
Speaker
All right. um Anyway, yeah post kicking dog. As they talk to the Indian, Tanner realizes that he can't actually the Indian can't actually be in charge because he's a lunatic that has no self control. The meeting ends after Indian does a ton of cocaine.
00:30:57
Speaker
Jericho calls Tanner and Bowman into a room and tells Julia to wait downstairs. Uh, and this is where like Tanner starts like staring at Jericho and is like, wait a minute. Wait a goddamn second.
00:31:10
Speaker
Jericho tells him there's a mole in the operation. He wants Tanner and Bowman to find him. They got the info from the NOPD officer who sold them the, that the info information about the armored truck by way of torture. And, uh, Tanner goes, Oh, so that's who was in the cage that I saw.
00:31:28
Speaker
There's just a guy in a cage. Um, Jericho sends Bowman out of the room and then gives Tanner a punishment task for the car theft because there's a hierarchy in this thing and he yeah he can't just do things on his own. he has to deliver a BMW to someone for a kickback.
00:31:46
Speaker
um The way it's framed here is that it's a zoning officer ah that's been helping them out and he's like, yeah, I got to get it there by a certain time. This is a video game ass mission. Yeah.
00:31:57
Speaker
it's It's true. It's true. Like this is, this is actually as far as games ah adapted into books. This is, this is not bad in terms of its, um in terms of how bad it can be, but this kind of shit pops up and you're like, Oh right yeah, right. This is a video game. Yeah. And, and, and was, this one was never, this book is not a,
00:32:21
Speaker
The story of this book isn't in any of the games, I don't
Book vs. Video Game Comparisons
00:32:24
Speaker
think. it's between the first and the second game, right? It's kind of like a, yeah, I think it's just like a carryover, like a transportation story. I don't know. i'm I'm not wording good right now. It's been a long week.
00:32:38
Speaker
It happens. it's It's Lemon, it's Tuesday. Lemon, it's Tuesday. ah Thank you for returning. so and Seriously, though. Seriously, it's tired. I'm tired.
00:32:50
Speaker
Chapter 19, Tanner and Toby meet at the reptile house again for a debrief. Tanner is shaken that Jericho is the real man in charge. Toby doesn't really believe him though.
00:33:01
Speaker
For some reason, uh, Tanner lays out all the facts. Uh, Jericho has never said anything incriminating on tape and Tanner gets Toby agree to talk to Powell about shifting focus to Jericho as they leave the reptile house. Julia is there.
00:33:15
Speaker
that Tanner makes up a story about how Toby is an ex cop who is his backroom support guy. Julia has the same beat as they had at the lake. So remember like a couple scenes ago when she was yelling at him like you're not my daddy. She does this again now in front of Toby. Yeah.
00:33:37
Speaker
And this 410 pages long. Yeah. this is This is around the time that i I started thinking somebody wanted this to be 400 pages long. as supposeed Because these books typically are about 300 on the nose. We read a lot of roughly 300 page books. We read a lot of 300 page books. And yeah suddenly we got a 400 page book and we're wondering why. This is just, it's fucking driver.
00:34:06
Speaker
the last franchise you'd expect to yeah have more than 300 pages. And yeah I don't know who, i don't know whose idea it was, But I'm bored.
00:34:17
Speaker
ah Yeah, but I'm bored. yeah Here's what I would say. You could have deleted the first one where he's out looking for her and then he just doesn't find her. And then the next day he sees her at the ah with Jericho yeah at the Indians place.
00:34:34
Speaker
Could have just done that. Sure. And then and leave this one in. ah But they did both. So we really know she's disappointed in Tanner. Right. Yeah. so So really know it. Really know it at home. ah Anyway. ah He's like, Tobias is going to help us. And she's like, he's a fucking cop. And yeah he's like an ex cop. Everybody has a second act to their lives.
00:35:03
Speaker
And then she walks away in a huff and Tanner goes to Tobias and be like, I think she bought it. yeah think we nailed it. And then Tobias is like the the stuff with Julia has made it way too personal. You got to be more careful.
00:35:17
Speaker
i're Also and a double beat for Tobias of him. He's already said this like thrice. Uh huh. Julia confronts Toby in the parking lot about Tanner. huh. And he he said and then she she's like, is he a good man?
00:35:33
Speaker
And Toby's like, no, he's he's a good man. And she's like, all right. And she leaves. And then we get a ah moment where it seems like somebody is spying on Julia and Toby by somebody in a Camaro.
00:35:51
Speaker
Tanner gets the keys to the ah to the lockup from Bowman and grabs the BMW. And ah he picks up Quentin on the way. He told Quentin that he would, Quentin, who hasn't left yet because he got spooked. He's like, all right, Quentin, I'll just drive you out of town.
00:36:06
Speaker
I got to go out of town. Anyway, I dropped this car off. They drive the car out of town. And while they're at a gas station, Tanner gets a call from Toby. ah And Toby's like, listen, you're not going to believe it, but here's who the car is actually going to. And he gets in the car and Quentin's like, dude, I think I just figured out who this car is going to. And ah Tanner's like, yeah.
00:36:28
Speaker
And they start driving down the road and Tanner's like, you know what? Let me just check. And he goes into the... Because the car has been driving weird all all night. He goes, he opens up the trunk and we're like, oh there's a big old bomb in the trunk.
00:36:43
Speaker
ah And the car's recipient is LaVanche. ah So. This whole. Yeah. Yeah.
00:36:53
Speaker
Touch me, touch me, touch me, touch me. ah This whole segment reads like nonsense because how the fuck does Quentin is Quentin figuring out who it's going to?
00:37:05
Speaker
He mentioned that he's been telegraphed as like, is that the right term? It doesn't matter. He's been like, he has been ah set up as an idiot, this whole book. And suddenly he's the clever guy.
00:37:18
Speaker
ah Yeah. okay And why does Toby know where the bomb is, where the car is going to? where Where is this information coming from? It's just it's just like for a book that over explains every fucking detail. yeah ah The book literally cuts from Tanner receiving the call from Toby to him knowing that it's going to LaVanche. And then 20 minutes later, him figuring out there's a bomb in the trunk.
00:37:44
Speaker
yeah um to Anyway, chapter 20. Tanner takes a photo of the bomb and he sends it Tobias and then Tobias responds, don't use your cell phone around the bomb because it could be set off by a cell phone.
00:37:59
Speaker
That's how they work. Tobias is like, we're going to get a bomb disposal unit out to you and we're going evacuate the club that the car is headed to. And Tanner says that would blow his cover.
00:38:11
Speaker
And instead, Toby, you need to anonymous anonymous anonymous. phenomenon You need to tip off LaVanche.
00:38:21
Speaker
And people can't know. And people can't know that it was you, Anonymous. There we go. Tanner gets pulled over by some patrol cops. He nearly talks them out of being stupid and then one of them wants to open his his trunk. By the way, um Tanner, if you're being cop, doesn't know the law all that well.
00:38:41
Speaker
ah He doesn't have to open the trunk. No. No. they They don't have a warrant. They don't need just. Yeah. They don't have reasonable suspicion. Anybody who's listened to the song 99 problems knows this.
00:38:56
Speaker
Yeah. So why is an undercover cop missing it? It doesn't make any sense. You do not let have to let the cop cops, the fucking cops into your fucking car. All right.
00:39:07
Speaker
Just don't do it. you don't have to. And you shouldn't. You shouldn't. Don't let them in your house. Even even if you don't have shit. Even if you don't have shit, don't do it.
00:39:18
Speaker
ah Not with ah not with green eggs and ham either. oh No, don't let them into anyway You don't have to let them into your workplace.
00:39:29
Speaker
Nope. ah Cops or ice. Unless they have a warrant. um And not one of those fake ass ICE warrants from immigration court. Those aren't real warrants. They're not allowed in with those warrants. They need a real warrant.
00:39:49
Speaker
And I know this is going to get the podcast flagged for being...
00:39:55
Speaker
terrorist supporting or something like bullshit like that. Something like that. Yeah. Unless there's a warrant, just say no. And if they're putting you under arrest, arrest ah ask for your lawyer and shut up.
00:40:10
Speaker
Yeah. Pixel, it's official motto is come back with a warrant. Come back with a warrant. We're going to translate it into Latin and and put it under our coat of arms.
00:40:21
Speaker
We really should. We really should. and you can put it And you can put it on stuff because cops can't read. ah so ah Works out fine.
00:40:34
Speaker
Works out fine. Oh, i got to i'm I'm going to find out what the official translation for that would be. And then yeah i gotta ah ah I'll get hot cider on that. Yeah.
00:40:46
Speaker
yeah We get another ghost beard scene about how the LLR folks are getting ready to chase Tanner from because they got ah they got news. Oh, by the way, I forgot. ah I forgot to mention Tanner trips one of the cops, takes his gun, points it at the other one, ah tells them that he's an undercover cop and that you're you're fucking up his spot. And then he handcuffs the two of them together. um We got to get a ghost beard segment about how the LLR folks are getting ready to chase Tanner because they got an anonymous tip. um
00:41:17
Speaker
Then we get a back and forth perspective action sequence that culminates in a game of chicken. Tanner tells Quentin to jump out of the car as they're about to collide and ah the bomb goes off and all the LLR guys, except for Ghostbeard, who jumped are killed, except for Ghostbeard, who jumped out of the car as well. And he just limps down an alleyway. That is the end of chapter 20.
00:41:40
Speaker
Um, that scene that I kind of just breeze through is like five pages long of. Yeah. That's a quick one.
00:41:49
Speaker
Bullshit back and forth. Ghost beard point of view stuff. ah Phil, what are you thinking so far?
Appreciation for Ghostbeard
00:41:55
Speaker
I'm just glad ghost beards. Okay. I know, you know, spirit goatee ah is is my favorite character in the book so far.
00:42:04
Speaker
um And Rafe's spirit goatee. Yeah. And, ah you know, yeah, he's. Well, if he died, he would have become the Holy Ghost beard. but Yeah, exactly. So we know it it, maybe that's what he needs. Maybe that's, maybe that's the, that's the climax. That's the thrilling climax.
00:42:20
Speaker
ah This book is so padded and um it's, it's just getting sillier. it it It was, it started out where it's like, okay, you know, this is a product of its time. This is a, this is a, you know, just a common as, as bathwater kind of a fucking, you know, cop,
00:42:42
Speaker
action race car kind of thing. It's it's it's it's too fast, too furious. ah you know and And that's fine. It's just not terribly interesting to me personally. And then as it goes, it just starts losing pieces. Things start to fall off it and it starts making less and less sense.
00:43:02
Speaker
um This is also the section where we we got we got some ah terrible slurs thrown in oh sure yeah randomly. we got We got a bundle of sticks thrown at us. We got a bundle of sticks thrown at us. Yeah, which that ain't cool. ah So anyway, it's it's I think it's greatest sin still, though, is that it's just dull.
00:43:24
Speaker
It's this you can always tell how boring a book is by how you and i you and I go off, get off track all the time. But it's always that much worse when it's a dull book. And this is a dull book. ah It is a dull fucking book. The character is is bland as fucking bathwater. Yeah.
00:43:47
Speaker
yeah The only thing I will say for it, the only thing I will say for it is this writer is good at. I don't know if they've written them or they're choosing them. The similes and metaphors they throw in. Sure. Are are pretty, pretty terrific. What was the one I wrote down? I told you about it. ah Eyes like ah eyes like a widow's buttons.
00:44:06
Speaker
Eyes like a widow's buttons. I love that. Yeah. There's a lot of good little little dis descriptive licks of prose in this book. um Just they're sandwiched between just some of the most boring character moments yeah in the world. Oh, it's tall.
00:44:30
Speaker
It's so dull. Like we never get an explanation as to why Julia is pretending to be drunk. and Sure don't. um I don't.
00:44:41
Speaker
I just don't get it. I'm going to tell you one thing. I'm going to tell you one thing. If he ends up with Julia at the end of this, I'm going to fucking lose my shit.
00:44:52
Speaker
ah yeah it's he knew her as a child as a child and and it's just and it's just more evidence of the the whenever you hear a guy say i see her like a sister nine times out of tens he is fucking lying uh uh that is just it's it's so gross it's so weird and and i'm not i'm i'm if they get together man i'm not gonna be phil's not going to be happy and you Phil is not going to be happy about that. Shit's fucked up when Phil starts speaking in the third person.
00:45:25
Speaker
Shit's fucked up. Shit's fucked up. This book's bad and you should all feel bad for listening to us talk about it. Yeah. yeah you you You are now. up What's the word? You're complicit. Culpable. You are now. Yes, exactly.
00:45:41
Speaker
Yeah. You're part of this now. Suck it up, buttercup. We're all in this together. Yeah. Oh, Buttercup. Rob Reiner. again oh yeah. but Yeah.
00:45:52
Speaker
Rob Reiner died. Everybody. Yeah. He was a man of many talents ah and ah he was a cool guy. We loved him. We're Rob Reiner fans over here.
00:46:04
Speaker
oh yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, Princess Bride. ah Even some of his his weaker works, I would say, you know, because I would say the bucket list is probably ah one of a weaker Rob Reiner movie.
00:46:18
Speaker
But. It established a um a term that people use to this day. so True. It really popular is the term the bucket list. So RIP Rob Reiner, you would have hated driver nemesis.
Homage to Rob Reiner
00:46:36
Speaker
It's true. Boy, he would have not. Yeah, he would. But he would have had fun making fun of it with us. Yeah, he would have. He would have. Yeah. ah Phil, what do you plan?
00:46:47
Speaker
Yeah. Don't even have it in me to do the voice. Just fuck it. Yeah, let's just get on just get out and's get out of that this and go into what you're playing.
00:46:58
Speaker
Yeah, I played a bunch of demos. I'm still playing Knights of the Old Republic. still It still holds up so well. I'm really enjoying myself with that one. i Yeah, it's it's just it's my little, it's the end of the year. I don't have to keep playing games that came out this year. It's my little treat to myself. Little treat.
00:47:20
Speaker
play my KOTOR. It's great. um But I did play a bunch of demos. um A few of them are, a few of them were like fine. and And one of them was really, really good. ah So the first one ah was a Never Looted Dungeon, which was recommended to us. ah Recommended to this to us.
00:47:44
Speaker
on, ah on, on, yeah, John Klein on Blue Sky recommended this one to us. It is a dungeon crawler is the idea. And it's, it's got this kind of self-aware sense of humor. um You are just another anonymous adventurer making your way through this dungeon, watching out for traps and that sort of thing.
00:48:08
Speaker
Do you mind?
00:48:11
Speaker
digging around in the boxes do you need more attention is that what this is jackass jackass yes it's a what's the word not procedural um Immersive sim.
00:48:27
Speaker
ah There are lots of ways to do things. i like It was fine. It's fine. it's It's clever. It's got its own level of cleverness. There is, again, a very self-aware sense of humor to it. Like there are signs that are like lit up with neon lights. They're like, the treasure is this way. And it's it's which I i got a kick out of. Sure. That was that was fun. um it was It was fine. I was i was ok with it ah um Never looted dungeon.
00:48:55
Speaker
you Never looted dungeon. Yeah. ah yeah Worth a, worth a, worth a whirl, especially cause I know how much you like ah immersive Sims. So might, you might, you might get more out of it than I did. um I played ah the demo for Vastophobia. Yeah.
00:49:12
Speaker
This... Yeah. yeah that's that's Yeah, that's the idea. ah and this is one of your back rooms games. The liminal tile wall back rooms thing, which...
00:49:29
Speaker
That is just not for me. ah Not in the sense that it scares me. Quite the opposite. i i i I guess I could look at it i because you're walking through the halls and every now and then there will be a spooky artifact or something, which I thought was neat. Right. But eventually they started adding so much to it that it was it was definitely a hat on a hat moment where it was just like, oh, I think this liminal thing is spooky way. Wait until we add this, and then we'll add this. And it just loses its... Limit all things. Yeah. but
00:50:00
Speaker
Backroom for you, you know. Yeah. it It loses some of its initial charm. And and when it's just... Because I played a Backrooms game earlier this year, the demo of it, and I still didn't get the... piece ah Well, all right. Let me put it this way. It doesn't work for me. i played one of them Backrooms. Yeah. back in the day. i from the back rooms. We had to live it.
00:50:27
Speaker
It doesn't do anything for me. I got locked in a mall overnight. I mean, i was those were the plot lines for our movies growing up. So yeah. Actually, I was just thinking of a Chopping Mall.
00:50:40
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Way more robots than you'd expect. ah It's a good movie. If you've never seen it, Chopping Mall is a movie about ah some teens who get locked in a mall overnight. And there is the mall has a new ah robot security guard.
00:50:59
Speaker
yeah that gets struck by lightning and now is is killing, hence the chopping. so Yeah, yeah it's it's it's a little weak. um it's ah So anyway, yeah. So it's not, the back rooms thing is not going to it doesn't affect me in the same way that I've seen people. It really does fuck with them. and i But I get it. Like I can look at this and look at it and go, oh, I see what it is.
00:51:27
Speaker
I see what it is that's frightening people and and and I respect it. ah But like I said, this one just kind of like keeps growing and adding and adding and adding until ah it's it's a it's a ship of Theseus kind of situation. You know, it's like at a certain point, like, what are we doing here? um It might be worth a look for some people. If you're if you're into the back rooms thing, it's worth it. It's a little indie developer ah called Beyond Reason. um they've They've got a game coming out at some point called Planet Prospector. So it's its it might be worth a look. It's got positive reviews. um
00:52:06
Speaker
Fine. Totally fine. ah Played a demo for Nova Roma. Uh, you are, it's a, it's a city builder. You're a bunch of people who left Rome after it was sacked for the final time, found a little island and you gotta build your own city. Uh, it's just, it's, it's just every indie city city builder you've ever played. with a little taste of ancient Rome. um And you've got, and I think the one thing that i I noticed that was a little different is you build temples like you would in Civ or anything else. Sure. You actually have to choose, you choose choose different gods. to dedicate. You don't just pick one who who's a patron deity. You choose different gods for different temples and they give you quests. So you got your Jupiter, you got your Mercury. You got Neptune. It's all of that and and and very cool. I think that's neat. um but otherwise By the way, I think it's fucking lame that we name the planets after the Roman names of... Yeah, the copycats. The copycats.
00:53:11
Speaker
Yeah. Like... Like, what are we doing here? It's totally lame. It's totally lame. It's lame. Because in in in historic, like, in in everybody's mind, it's the Greek names.
00:53:24
Speaker
And they're they're like, what? Jupiter? and you're like, oh, it's like when Rome stole the religion from Greece and just, like, changed your homework. Like, copy my homework, but change it up so you...
00:53:36
Speaker
Yeah. yeah like stopping It just filed the serial um serial numbers off. It's yeah it was it was never about the religion. to them It was just like, oh, we need a religion. Thanks. i guess we need a religion. We're going to plug this one in.
00:53:48
Speaker
Exactly. we'll We'll take that one. People seem to enjoy that one. Yeah. um Yeah. So it's fine. Again, it's got it's got kind of a ah cool ah low poly kind of style to it. It's pretty fine.
00:54:03
Speaker
Whatever. Sure. Yeah. But I played the demo for a game called I'm on Observation Duty 8. Oh, I've seen people play the earlier Observation Duty games. Okay.
00:54:20
Speaker
this is This was news to me. I had never heard of this franchise. I'd certainly never played it. um For anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about, it is, you are, know,
00:54:36
Speaker
On observation duty. And you've got several screens that you can flip between. At first, I was thinking like, I'm getting kind of Five Nights at Freddy vibes because it's a similar kind of thing. You're clicking between different screens and stuff. But it's a missing object game.
00:54:51
Speaker
You have to... Keep an eye out for anomalies in the area. And you have to remember, okay, I'm pretty sure there were five mousetraps there instead of the six there are now.
00:55:05
Speaker
And sometimes it is as subtle as that. And sometimes it's super not subtle. It's very obvious. You suddenly click the camera and there's like a ghastly man just standing in the room staring me like, well, that's an anomaly. I'm going to have to report that one.
00:55:23
Speaker
It's terrific. And and and it's it's well done. It's scary. It's kind of funny. It's got a funny sense of humor. um and it's And it's just something. it's It's really easy to get really wrapped up in it. And just kind of. Because I. Yeah. If you go too long, you lose. You can't. You have to.
00:55:41
Speaker
There are. Those anomalies are there. And if you don't notice them fast enough, it's game over. And. It's really engaging. just I was just like leaning forward going, okay, all right, and going through it. And every now and then I'd get something like, Jesus, okay, that was, okay, cool. That's fine.
00:55:59
Speaker
It's not so bad. And this might be the first game I've ever seen. ah at first like hidden object slash missing object kind of game that has a boss that has boss fights.
00:56:10
Speaker
thank you They have managed to implement that. I don't know if they did it in the other ones because sure as as Kevin ah mentioned and and as the name suggests, this is the eighth I'm on observation duty.
00:56:23
Speaker
ah yeah They have been putting these out I think one a year ah for for eight years and I am... flabbergasted that these are not bigger.
00:56:35
Speaker
ah they are they They've got all the right pieces of like indie goodness. it's got It's got some jump scares, but i think I don't think they're cheap jump scares. I think they're well used.
00:56:46
Speaker
um It's got a ah vibe to it. It's got a a creepiness to it. And it's funny. It's got an actual funny sense of humor too. And I think that's fucking sick. I i'm i was really, really impressed by this demo. In fact, I just did my the fucking Steam year-round wrap-up thing, and yeah the demo for this game was my top game played in December.
00:57:10
Speaker
how That tells you. That tells you something. I was really impressed. it it it it's it was It's one of those rare demos that I'm like, I think I actually am going to pick up the full game for this, because it's...
00:57:22
Speaker
It's pretty cool. And I think it's I'm glad to hear that that people are obviously it's got a level of success. It's they've been making this many of them. Right. but they deserve more flowers than that.
00:57:35
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I know Markiplier used to play them. Okay. Good. Good. yeah da this is Yeah. This is great. Maybe it's just that I'm an old man. I don't watch Twitch streams or something, but yeah ah i the fact that I'd never heard of this ah surprised me and maybe it's just because I'm old and that would be acceptable. I can live.
00:57:55
Speaker
That's an acceptable answer. It is absolutely a cromulent answer, a perfectly cromulent answer. um But that's that's me. I'm looking at some games, ah some old games that I haven't gotten to play. I'm at that point in the year where I'm like, ooh i never I never finished Outlast 2, you know, or something like that. So yeah I'm at that point.
00:58:18
Speaker
ah So i'm I'm looking at, I never played Resident Evil Zero. I might be getting into that one. kid Getting mad. Yeah. Yeah. there's all the all the All the talk about the upcoming Resident Evil, I'm like, oh, itchy. gotta to get Itchy.
00:58:32
Speaker
Tasty. I get my Resident Evil on. What about you, Kevin? are you playing? um ah First, let me just mention the Observation Duty bundle is available on Steam for the all the
Exploring 'I'm on Observation Duty' Game Series
00:58:45
Speaker
games. One through eight is on is on Steam for $47.92 right well right now You could buy eight games ah for the cost of one a ah game.
00:58:58
Speaker
So if you're into that stuff, there there it is might That be worth it. yeah But yeah, they they seem to put out one a year ah because the first one came out in 2018 something like that.
00:59:11
Speaker
Yeah. So that makes sense. That makes sense. And they seem, and they've just slowly increased a little bit in quality and that kind of thing over the years. They're building over the years, you know. but ultimately. It's like they hit something that is like, oh, okay, people like this. Yeah. And it's relatively, they can crank out one of these a year, you know. Yeah. And that's just it. And that's perfect. That's great. Clearly, there's a lot of love put into these. Yeah. so they're using the correct amount of time, I think.
00:59:46
Speaker
Right. Loved it. ah Would report a strange a muscle-bound man pissing off a doc who wasn't there before again. um So what I've been playing is i I went ahead and I bought Marvel Cosmic Invasion because it's it's so much fun. i'm I'm really liking it. I've actually been mixing up the characters with each level just because I've been trying to get like the there's like little characters.
01:00:17
Speaker
sub quests that you can get for each character on each level if you're taking certain ones. So like one level is like you're on a shield helicarrier it's like, OK, you take you got to take Captain America and Iron Man ah for that one.
01:00:33
Speaker
And then and one of them is Savage Lands. So you got to take Wolverine and Storm um for that. So it's it's a lot of fun, though.
01:00:43
Speaker
um i'm I'm enjoying it. It's, you know, I i i love a beat-em-up. I'll take a side-scroll and beaten them ah beat them up ah pretty much any day of the week just because they're they're fun. Hell yeah.
01:00:55
Speaker
um hell yeah So Marvel Cosmic Invasion, doubling your recommendation of of it after you played the demo. Yeah, without a lot of charm in that. lot of charm.
01:01:07
Speaker
Very, very lovely graphics, lovely pixel art. Really pulls on my nostalgia ah when, because it it it reminds me of playing the X-Men arcade game ah back when I was a kid, just pumping quarters into it. I remember we used to go to this, like...
01:01:25
Speaker
and it's It was like one of those action zones with like wall climbing and stuff like that. It had a little arcade and it I remember it having the full six, ah six set up, six panel version of X-Men the arcade game.
01:01:43
Speaker
ah so you could get six. So it had three screens and you could get, you know, six people on the controllers at one time. um Wolverine, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Storm, Dazzler... Who am leaving out?
01:02:00
Speaker
ah Cyclops, right? Cyclops. Cyclops, right? Yeah. Right. Yes. yeah Yeah. Yes. That was an interesting team. Dazzler. Dazzler.
01:02:11
Speaker
i think that I think it might have been the time period. It was the eighty s there were it was It was the 80s. They were really pushing Dazzler. And then they they pivot it to, in terms of like the light-powered X-Men superhero, they they really pivot hard to Jubilee. Yeah. as we as we move into the 90s absolutely absolutely um yeah so been playing that it's a lot of fun uh i have i am close to finishing routine i bring
01:02:43
Speaker
and it is just a lovely game i don't understand the story but i'm not sure that matters You know, sometimes you're playing a game and it things it's ah the story is a lot less.
01:03:00
Speaker
and I'm saying it's like less coherent, but this is not in a negative way. It's just like one of those. You know how Signalis was one of those games where the story was like, what?
01:03:14
Speaker
it that I think that meant something. And yeah you can go on YouTube and you're like, shit, yeah, it meant something because it was referencing X, Y, and I was going to say that. Yeah, you play it and you're like, I better hop onto YouTube and find some think pieces because I've got something here. There's going some comparison to make. There's going to be some comparison in my story about lesbian robots.
01:03:34
Speaker
Right.
01:03:37
Speaker
Then I gotta find it. ah Routine has this has similar things where you're just, there'll be like weird time skips where you're you'll do something and then your character will like black out and wake up somewhere else.
01:03:51
Speaker
And you'll be like, okay, I'm in a different part. I don't know how I got here, but I'm just carrying on. I'm at the very end. I'm in the last chapter of the game. um And ah yeah, i I literally saved it right before coming on here to ah to do the show. And I think I'll be finished either tonight or tomorrow.
01:04:12
Speaker
But yeah. uh routine and if you if you missed my spiel about it last week it is a alien isolation like game uh you are going around uh spooky space station a lunar base and uh there are there are creatures on the base that uh you can't kill you can only hide from them you can stun well you can stun the robots The other things you just have to run away from.
01:04:44
Speaker
ah Or hide. um So... That's... that's ah I like a good stalker enemy. Oh, fuck you. I...
01:04:57
Speaker
Because one of my favorite horror games, I'm saying it right now, one of my favorite horror games right now is is Amnesia the Bunker. I've been thinking on this for a long time, and that's it the whole it's just you against one stalker enemy the entire game. And...
01:05:10
Speaker
um and ah So when it when a stalker enemy is done well, I'm i'm totally for it. I won't say it's it's done like perfectly in routine, but it's good enough um that you're able to just like, you're able to hear him and you're able to to figure out where he is ah depending, you know, with some tells.
01:05:34
Speaker
um So yeah. So routine, Marvel Cosmic Invasion, I'm still plowing through Hades 2. Of course.
01:05:44
Speaker
yeah Did I mention I beat Power Wash Simulator 2? um I did. i beat it. think you yeah. I beat it for now. I know there's always... there They have missions that they roll out later, and then they have DLC over the years that they'll be rolling out. But the main quest has been beaten in Power Wash Simulator 2.
01:06:03
Speaker
um And that is it. I've been considering going playing a Dispatch again just to see if I can do better on on some of the quests and maybe ah get some of the things that some of the achievements that I haven't unlocked.
01:06:24
Speaker
um But aside from that, that's that's it. that's That's what I've been playing. Yeah. Nice. So to that end, I want to thank everybody for listening. If you're watching on YouTube, go ahead and hit that like button. Hit subscribe. It really helps us out. Leave us a comment on YouTube or at Spotify or Apple podcasts.
01:06:45
Speaker
ah Just, ah you know, shout us out from the rooftops. Go out there and say, hey, these guys are are cool. And you should listen to them. And they're handsome.
01:06:58
Speaker
They're handsome. And they're intelligent. And they're intelligent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good night. Bye.