Transcript
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Tastes fine.
Speaker: Something about if you drink the water between this date and this date, you will get a disease.
Speaker: I can't remember the days.
Speaker: You can't remember the days.
Speaker: It's fine.
Speaker: Legionnaire or Giardia.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: One of those.
Speaker: God.
Speaker: God damn it.
Speaker: You know what else is Giardia?
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome back to Pixlet.
Speaker: My name is Kevin.
Speaker: With me today is Jesse, and we're still fucking reading this goddamn book.
Speaker: Yeah, let's just call it.
Speaker: I don't know if we need to talk about anything that happens.
Speaker: I almost feel like I should share the screen with my notes on them because they just get more antagonistic and worse as this book wraps up.
Speaker: Yeah, my last few.
Speaker: It was going from like me trying to figure things out and like trying to give the book some degree of a benefit of doubt or of the doubt.
Speaker: And then eventually it just turns into fuck off.
Speaker: Fuck off.
Speaker: Fuck you.
Speaker: What is this?
Speaker: Fuck you, book.
Speaker: Fuck off.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So yeah, just picking right up, right.
Speaker: So we don't, we're just going to rip this bandaid off.
Speaker: It's chapter 15.
Speaker: And my first note is my disdain for this story only grows.
Speaker: That is, that is my note that I wrote to me so that I could read it now.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: Accurate.
Speaker: Accurate.
Speaker: Moen takes them to about an hour outside of the village.
Speaker: And he's like, you're going to go in.
Speaker: I'm not going to go in.
Speaker: Fuck off.
Speaker: And they continue.
Speaker: And they're going in to get the stuff they need, which is like a sample.
Speaker: Some bullshit.
Speaker: And they walk through the jungle for a bit and they get to the village, which is described as literally every village ever has been described in any media ever when it comes to people that are in a tribe.
Speaker: It's like it's got some dirts and it's got conical huts.
Speaker: Stick huts and there's some deity they maybe worship.
Speaker: And you ever seen Tarzan movies?
Speaker: It's basically like that.
Speaker: You ever seen Tarzan movies?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Tarzan is there and...
Speaker: There's Jane.
Speaker: So the zombies are attacking what's left of the villagers.
Speaker: The gang, and every time I call them the gang, it makes me think of like...
Speaker: It's like the It's Always Sunny gang.
Speaker: Okay, yeah.
Speaker: I was thinking a little more Scooby-Doo, but I guess that's... The Scooby-Doo, but I feel like the Sunny gang would be... Maybe does fit them better, yeah.
Speaker: I could see them saying some of these lines.
Speaker: Danny DeVito would say some of the stuff that... Who's the guy we hate, Logan?
Speaker: He would say some of Logan's lines, I feel like.
Speaker: But he wouldn't mean anything by it.
Speaker: That's just what he says.
Speaker: That character is actually maybe the one, the catchphrase that we referred to in the last episode that I will not repeat.
Speaker: That is maybe something Danny DeVito's character on It's Always Sunny would say.
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: He would.
Speaker: But like in regular conversation.
Speaker: In regular conversation.
Speaker: You know, just the bit about, there's like a whole episode where it's like he's talking about how he's not a kid diddler or something like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's writing a song about not diddling kids.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: I got to watch more of that show.
Speaker: So anyway.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Content warnings for the last episode apply to this episode.
Speaker: Unfortunately for the same fucking shit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Tell you what we're coming up on it.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So they climb the trees and a zombie bites Sam, takes a chunk out of his calf.
Speaker: And then Sam and Perna and Logan shoot all the zombies from the trees like fish in a barrel.
Speaker: And then I wrote, oh, I got to look this up then because I wrote, just told myself to look up page 233 for some reason because I was particularly annoyed about something that he wrote on page 233.
Speaker: And oh, that's it.
Speaker: Sam felt enervated, but at the same time, so alert, it was like a caffeine buzz.
Speaker: He felt heavy and weightless, centered and scattered, light and dark, time seen meaningless.
Speaker: And at the same time, he was almost achingly aware of every passing second.
Speaker: And I was like, this is the best of times.
Speaker: It was the worst of times.
Speaker: It was the blurst of times.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was the blurst of times.
Speaker: This is one of those things that this book just does constantly where it's just over flowery.
Speaker: Like it's just so needlessly beautiful prose for this.
Speaker: Purple prose.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: For something that doesn't.
Speaker: really apply in a moment where perhaps we need to just get on with the scene like sam b has not struck me as the character whose mental state is this beautiful it seems like it flips between him being sort of gangster hood american this is what i think black people act like and then the other half of it is like he's just shooting stuff and like excited about it and having a good time but like thinking about the morality of it but not like this the
Speaker: He's not, you know, he's tender, but like this.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He contains, he is, he contains multitudes.
Speaker: He is both based and cringe.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Isn't that what we all aim to be is a little Sam B on the inside.
Speaker: A little based, a little cringe.
Speaker: A little based, a little cringe.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like scenes from Italian restaurant, but instead of a bottle of red and a bottle of white, it's a little bottle of based and a bottle of cringe.
Speaker: Oh boy mix it together you get a little Bottle of Bottle of Cringe It's like those Old drinks that were like two halves And you pour it out and they mix together Like the chocolate vanilla stuff So they did that And then they meet the witch doctor Who bows down to them for saving them And gives them a dagger Sure
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Chapter 16, the villagers are going back to the research center to get their blood drawn by Dr. West and Logan is going with them.
Speaker: And then Sam and Perna are going with the witch doctor to the burial site because they need fresh, fresher ish body.
Speaker: So they get to the tomb and Sam opens the tomb and they go inside and there's dead bodies everywhere.
Speaker: But the real fresh shit is all the way in the back.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's like they're looking for the milk that doesn't expire for like four months.
Speaker: They're going all the way to the back.
Speaker: You got to get it from the back.
Speaker: Everyone tells you this when you're at the grocery store.
Speaker: Get the milk from the back.
Speaker: It's the freshest.
Speaker: No one's touched it.
Speaker: It just came out of the cow.
Speaker: It just came out of the cow.
Speaker: It's...
Speaker: It's freshest in the back.
Speaker: You got to get all, get your arms in there.
Speaker: That was the thing when I worked at the liquor store, because we would, we would do first in first out.
Speaker: So we'd put the, the good cans in the back and people would always be like, yeah, I'm getting the good cans from the back.
Speaker: That's the beer.
Speaker: That's the freshest.
Speaker: And I was always like, you're it's, it's Budweiser, dude.
Speaker: It's all four months old minimum.
Speaker: Okay, so in Canada, are liquor stores separated from other stores?
Speaker: So in Canada, we have multiple provinces and territories that all operate somewhat differently.
Speaker: In Ontario, I can speak pretty confidently on this because I worked for the government mandated liquor store.
Speaker: So we don't have like liquor stores that are fun and cool and like Jimmy's Ace Liquor or like...
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Kevin's got the drinks.
Speaker: We have the Ontario liquor store, the liquor control board of Ontario.
Speaker: You go there, and that's where the only place you could buy spirits, the only place you could buy, like, vodka, whiskey, whatever.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Some beer you can buy at a store called, I shit you not, The Beer Store.
Speaker: That's what it's called.
Speaker: And you just go, it's like a family, or not a family guy, it would be like a Simpsons joke.
Speaker: Like, you want to go get some beer from where?
Speaker: The Beer Store.
Speaker: The Beer Store.
Speaker: It's literally called that.
Speaker: So, yeah, we don't have, like...
Speaker: a lot of options.
Speaker: You kind of, if you want to get liquor, like hard liquor, you got to go to the liquor store.
Speaker: So I grew up in it's it's like that in the U.S. with some there's not a lot of states that do it.
Speaker: But I grew up in Pennsylvania and in Pennsylvania, it's like that.
Speaker: There is its own store that is run by a government entity.
Speaker: And so when I was growing up, my parents would always talk about like, oh, we got to go get groceries.
Speaker: And we got to it was called the state store.
Speaker: We got to go to the state store.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It was just the term that we used.
Speaker: And then when I moved to Florida, I was like in the grocery store.
Speaker: I was like, huh, there's just the fucking, there it is.
Speaker: It's right there on the shelf with everything else.
Speaker: Huh.
Speaker: We started changing some things here.
Speaker: We started changing things so you can start selling.
Speaker: We sell wine in some like domestic beers and grocery stores.
Speaker: I think they're just changing things.
Speaker: So like in a couple of years, you'll be able to buy hard liquor at the corner store.
Speaker: That's probably not a good idea.
Speaker: That'll be the next thing.
Speaker: There was something there was something I was going to say was very funny.
Speaker: Oh, and I was in when I went to Boston for the first time, we needed to drop off our luggage at like some luggage drop off because we were staying at Airbnb, not at a hotel.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: So we're looking for one of these third party luggage things.
Speaker: Leave your your valuables with some stranger.
Speaker: I'm sure they won't steal it.
Speaker: Give them five dollars.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So we're looking for this place and it's all we can see at the location on the map is this liquor store.
Speaker: And I'm like, it's a liquor store.
Speaker: Why else would, why would that be the place you could take the luggage?
Speaker: So I go inside.
Speaker: I'm like, Hey man, where's the luggage thing?
Speaker: He's like, right here.
Speaker: And I was like, what do you mean?
Speaker: You sell booze.
Speaker: You can't do other things.
Speaker: Um, turns out you guys just liquor stores are just stores that mostly sell liquor.
Speaker: Just fucking doing things.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Sometimes watch after your luggage.
Speaker: You want some frozen food?
Speaker: Sometimes we have some.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: We got liquor.
Speaker: We watch your luggage and we sell scratchers and Marlboros.
Speaker: Beautiful.
Speaker: See, now that's my kind of store.
Speaker: I don't even smoke.
Speaker: But you just feel comforted knowing that there is a wide selection.
Speaker: Just knowing that there's some rants behind the guy.
Speaker: I know I'm in a good place.
Speaker: Of cigarettes and cigarillos all up in there.
Speaker: So what the fuck were we talking about?
Speaker: This book.
Speaker: Oh, this goddamn book.
Speaker: We're at the part.
Speaker: I'm just trying to drag it out.
Speaker: I just don't want to talk about it.
Speaker: We're at the part.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: So, yes, content warning for sexual assault.
Speaker: Again, Jesus fucking Christ.
Speaker: So they get to a tomb that... So they're inside, and they walk by, like, a little...
Speaker: path that's going off the main path that's covered with a rock and it sounds like there's somebody behind that rock and they're like is there somebody stuck in here and the witch doctor's like nah ignore it and he wants them to just keep going and perna's like no we're gonna look into this and they open up the rock and yeah there's a woman she's bound and gagged in there and um
Speaker: So they like untie her and Perna's like, you speak English?
Speaker: And she's like, yes, I do.
Speaker: And then the witch doctor's like, he kicks Sam in the face and then he tries to brain this woman with a rock and Perna shoots the shit out of him.
Speaker: And yeah, so he's dead and they're going to get the sample and get out of there.
Speaker: So now we're in chapter 17 and this is it.
Speaker: They get back.
Speaker: Sam gets back to the lab and tells Logan what happened.
Speaker: They found this girl.
Speaker: Her name is Yorema.
Speaker: She was the daughter of the witch doctor.
Speaker: She left the tribe to go explore the world.
Speaker: Just wanted to see what was out there.
Speaker: When she came back, she was like, hey, shit's pretty cool out there.
Speaker: Why don't we go take a look at what's going on?
Speaker: And fucking her dad had all the guys in town rape her.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That happens, and then they all turn into zombies.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's the catalyst for the entire infestation of this area.
Speaker: The entire zombie apocalypse is because of this moment, because then they eat, the people in the town eat the brains of the guys that turned into zombies.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And put her into, so rewinding it, all the way back to the prologue.
Speaker: We got a lot of stuff to explain.
Speaker: All the way back to the prologue now.
Speaker: That was right after...
Speaker: this scene, this like happened with her dad.
Speaker: That's, that's her being put into the tomb and them eating the, the brains of the zombies, uh, that were made, uh, from assaulting her.
Speaker: And then because there's something about the virus changed people who were, uh, immune stopped being immune and the entire town started dying.
Speaker: Yeah, so that's awful.
Speaker: I would never write that down with a keyboard pen in my brain.
Speaker: I cannot believe that that's where they went with it.
Speaker: We already had a messed up, terrible thing happen to another woman in the story.
Speaker: And then we get introduced to another one that has an equally, if not more so terrible thing happen to her that we have to read about.
Speaker: Again, in a game based on Dead Island.
Speaker: And this character...
Speaker: is in the original she's in the game right she's in dead island um and is like a like a native dark-skinned woman with like poofy black hair done in dreadlocks in the game and she when you find her in the game it's not in this stone tomb that her father buried her in she's just in a literal cage in a police station
Speaker: Yeah, I like what.
Speaker: Sure, I forgot how awful this game was like the more we talked about this in the last one.
Speaker: But man, the more we talk about this book and the more we look into what the game was about and what was going on, man, maybe maybe Techland should have like not maybe they should have just not.
Speaker: Maybe they shouldn't have done that.
Speaker: There was actually some controversy around the first game as well that I thought was pretty, given everything we've come to learn, pretty telling.
Speaker: So I want to make sure I'm saying the right thing.
Speaker: I'm going to look it up here real quick.
Speaker: Sure, sure.
Speaker: Go ahead.
Speaker: I got to do some journalism here.
Speaker: Hold on.
Speaker: Let's do a journalism.
Speaker: We're doing a journalism.
Speaker: Yeah, so somebody did some code hacking.
Speaker: Somebody broke into the matrix of Dead Island and found out that in the original code of the game, Perna's special ability was called, and I'm quoting here.
Speaker: I want to make sure I'm quoting correctly.
Speaker: So the skill in the game is called Gender Wars.
Speaker: It gives her 15% more damage against male zombies.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Whatever.
Speaker: That's funny.
Speaker: Yeah, why not?
Speaker: Okay, sure.
Speaker: Is it?
Speaker: Whatever.
Speaker: It's a joke.
Speaker: But the actual name in the code is, and I'm quoting, Feminist Horror Perna.
Speaker: Wow, okay.
Speaker: That's what they wrote in the game.
Speaker: That's great.
Speaker: Good for tech land.
Speaker: This is just... What the fuck?
Speaker: Like, what were they doing?
Speaker: Don't... It's... Ugh.
Speaker: Ugh.
Speaker: Disgusting.
Speaker: There's no other word I could use for it.
Speaker: Just like... This is like, you see this shit, and you look into this stuff, and it gets bubbled up, and...
Speaker: you are then like, you know, was it four years later, Gamergate happens and the boys are upset that, uh, it games are being called out amongst a billion things.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like, so it's, there's the Zoe Quinn stuff.
Speaker: There's the, uh, uh, there's the Anita Sarkeesian stuff.
Speaker: It's like, it was, I mean, obviously the Zoe Quinn, uh,
Speaker: story kind of precipitates the whole avalanche, but then it becomes this hydra of shit that just spreads out through the internet.
Speaker: And one of the things I remember seeing so often was that
Speaker: that guys were upset because people were calling games sexist.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And that there was no, like, it was like, why, well, why do you care?
Speaker: And it doesn't matter.
Speaker: Games aren't sexist.
Speaker: And it's there for men anyway.
Speaker: And we're like, fucking, this is four years prior in the code to this game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like the developers are like, they were doing this shit.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: You know, fuck, they're like, fuck our female characters.
Speaker: They suck, you know?
Speaker: So I don't know.
Speaker: It's a bummer.
Speaker: I would, I hope that we are on a path that is getting better.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: But I can't say for certain that we...
Speaker: Like shit that would fly 10 years, was it 13 years ago now?
Speaker: Doesn't necessarily fly today.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: But still shit's, shit's bad out there.
Speaker: Um, 35,000 people have been laid off in the game industry.
Speaker: BT dub.
Speaker: Uh, yeah.
Speaker: I mean, what is it this year?
Speaker: We're already at like four or 5,000 or something.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it's not great.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Anyway, fucking...
Speaker: Back at the lab, the rest of the villagers are all infected anyway.
Speaker: So like all the people that they sent to go get tested at the lab were all showing signs of infection.
Speaker: Chapter 18, not even going to get into it.
Speaker: Sam and Jin are chatting at length about her trauma.
Speaker: Oh, moving on.
Speaker: Chapter 19.
Speaker: Good call.
Speaker: A lot of my notes for that section is, are you fucking kidding me?
Speaker: I was like, I'm not going to recap this.
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: You read the book.
Speaker: Chapter 19.
Speaker: They return back to the lab, but everyone is missing.
Speaker: As they get closer, they find pools of blood.
Speaker: They think it might be a prison breakout.
Speaker: Nah, nah.
Speaker: It's actually the people are infected, and there's going to be dozens of infected, and we basically get what amounts to a house of the dead sequence as they move through the lab.
Speaker: I was imagining it more as a typing of the dead sequence.
Speaker: Okay, yeah, because it's book.
Speaker: Just typing that in, just seeing what happens.
Speaker: Fuck.
Speaker: Damn.
Speaker: Zombie.
Speaker: Mavis Bacon teaches typing of the day.
Speaker: There you go, yeah.
Speaker: Teaches zombie hunting.
Speaker: Uh, they get into the lab.
Speaker: They find Dr. West is dead.
Speaker: He's been torn to absolute shreds.
Speaker: Um, but they save you, Rema, who is now the last of the Karuni.
Speaker: Um, I love that move.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's what it's called, right?
Speaker: The last of the last of the Karuni.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: With Tom Cruise.
Speaker: People were saying Mohican.
Speaker: I don't know what they were talking about.
Speaker: They were watching the wrong one.
Speaker: It's the one with Tom Cruise or Daniel Day Lewis.
Speaker: I can never remember one of those guys.
Speaker: They look all they all look the same.
Speaker: I don't know what it is.
Speaker: After Vanilla Sky, everyone looks like Tom Cruise to me.
Speaker: Everybody looks like Tom.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Chapter 20.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: They're off to the prison.
Speaker: They're navigating the mines to get to the prison.
Speaker: And the guy Moen is like, fuck it, I'm out of here.
Speaker: After he drops them off and they get to a fence and Ryder White turns the electricity off and they have to kill a bunch of zombies.
Speaker: Gameplay.
Speaker: Gameplay.
Speaker: White is watching them on a CCTV and he's unlocking doors they need to get in.
Speaker: They talk, they chat, they banter.
Speaker: I've stopped caring.
Speaker: And suddenly, suddenly, Jin is held hostage by a big man with a knife because that is Jin's only purpose in this goddamn is to be victimized.
Speaker: Just victimized.
Speaker: And then by her, I know we skipped it, but by her friends get like lectures about how she needs to just get over it already.
Speaker: It's whatever.
Speaker: It's not even that sad.
Speaker: My note for this section is Jesus dude justice for Jin.
Speaker: Give her a fucking break.
Speaker: Just hashtag justice for Jin.
Speaker: Chapter 21 they're in a standoff until some dork named Kevin intervenes and says it's always some dork named Kevin.
Speaker: He intervenes and he's like I'm going to come with you guys for some reason and I'm going to be the representative for the prisoners.
Speaker: Um
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I kind of started skimming at this point.
Speaker: Point is they have a Kevin now and they're continuing.
Speaker: Good for them.
Speaker: Good for them.
Speaker: Chapter 22.
Speaker: Kevin draws a map, uh, using a knife and he, he's talking about pencils and pens.
Speaker: Uh, Oh, I, I'm going to pull this one up because it's another thing that made me really annoyed.
Speaker: Uh,
Speaker: It's ironic, isn't it, that because pens and pencils are regarded as dangerous weapons in our sweaty little hands, I have to resort to using a knife as a writing implement.
Speaker: What a crazy world we live in.
Speaker: A writer definitely wrote that.
Speaker: The pen is mightier than the sword, brother.
Speaker: Thanks, Kevin.
Speaker: Thanks for joining us.
Speaker: Self-insert.
Speaker: Shut up.
Speaker: It's like piss on your wedding day.
Speaker: God.
Speaker: I don't... I don't know.
Speaker: Let's just get through the rest of it.
Speaker: There's a big fight with grenades and guns.
Speaker: Logan gets bit and passes out.
Speaker: And he wakes up, and they wake up in another room post-battle.
Speaker: Jean May... Hey, I remember her.
Speaker: She's also part of the team.
Speaker: She lost most of the skin off of her arm in that fight.
Speaker: Gross.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: They put a bandage on it, so it's fine.
Speaker: It's like healing in a video game.
Speaker: It's like you got shot in the arm.
Speaker: It's all right.
Speaker: Just inject something in your left arm.
Speaker: The one you didn't get shot in, you'll be fine.
Speaker: It's like the Far Cry healing where it's like, oh, it's like putting a bandage on the hand.
Speaker: Oh, I have malaria.
Speaker: I better, yeah, bandage my left palm.
Speaker: I'll be fine.
Speaker: This is how they feel like the African people who just died from malaria just didn't bandage their hands enough.
Speaker: Didn't bandage the real problem.
Speaker: Didn't bandage.
Speaker: I feel like now that I think about it, Resident Evil seven and eight are really doing a great send up of like the Far Cry games, the video game healing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Cause cause cause in Resident Evil eight, your character, Ethan gets his hand cut off and he puts it back up the stump and
Speaker: And he pours the healing stuff on it.
Speaker: And he's like, oh, yes.
Speaker: Yeah, he gets full.
Speaker: All of his nerves reattached.
Speaker: It's like nothing happened.
Speaker: And your hand gets cut off by like a witch made out of bugs.
Speaker: Like I just Resident Evil Village was just doing some shit, man.
Speaker: That game was so weird.
Speaker: I loved it, but it was so weird.
Speaker: We're just going to do some shit.
Speaker: There is eventually a narrative explanation as to why he's able to just do that with his hand in the medicine, which maybe makes less sense than his nerves just luckily attaching.
Speaker: Like, I kind of wish they just left it there and didn't give us the explanation that they give later.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Listen, we don't need where we're not.
Speaker: It's not like we're reading a Brandon Sanderson book here.
Speaker: We don't need all the explanation.
Speaker: Yeah, it's not a Mark Morris book.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: Give him a chance.
Speaker: Those Resident Evil developers, they were working hard.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Yeah, they're working hard.
Speaker: So anyway, they walk through another door and oh, it's knockout gas.
Speaker: Kevin, you creeper.
Speaker: They're all unconscious now, but he has a gas mask.
Speaker: Why was he hiding amongst the prisoners?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: He knew he had to stealth his way in to get these guys.
Speaker: He's part of the Black Ops.
Speaker: Snake.
Speaker: This is a sneaking mission.
Speaker: Chapter 23, we find out that... Dead Island.
Speaker: Where's my gas mask?
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: These guys are all unexpected.
Speaker: Right or white?
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: Chapter 23.
Speaker: Kevin is actually named Charon.
Speaker: No, he's not named Charon.
Speaker: Fuck you.
Speaker: Oh, yeah?
Speaker: Karen.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The guy who whisks away the dead to the.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You've all played.
Speaker: You've played Hades.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's the only reason anyone knows any Greek mythology.
Speaker: It's either Hades or Final Fantasy 16, which also has a character named Karen.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Something about it, man.
Speaker: People love because it's cool.
Speaker: You get to have a sort of normal, common, contemporary name of Karen.
Speaker: And then also another meaning.
Speaker: Whoa.
Speaker: I know writers who use subtext and they're all cowards.
Speaker: They're all cowards.
Speaker: Just one level deeper.
Speaker: He works for the organization.
Speaker: Fuck off.
Speaker: It's just called the organization, right?
Speaker: It's just capital T, the capital O organization.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Awful.
Speaker: Uh, who, which is who put all the immune people on the Island to figure out a vaccine for this potential bio weapon or something.
Speaker: Uh, and then I just have random keystrokes for a bit.
Speaker: Uh, and,
Speaker: This is like the evil villain monologue section where Kevin, who was secretly the main evil villain for like 66% of this book, has to explain what he is, what he's doing there, what the infection is, who's doing it.
Speaker: It's actually rich people trying to... It's rich people.
Speaker: take over the world because they want to they want to destroy all these resort towns so that they can own the islands or something and this is i i couldn't honestly i couldn't follow after actually my name is karen um so i'm just trying to remember all the bits and pieces of this but yeah is that on point that's about it okay that's it it's like four pages to explain that it's just rich people rich people are bastards just this guy works for the rich people
Speaker: It's capitalism.
Speaker: Whoa, again?
Speaker: Welcome to Pixel It.
Speaker: Capitalism was the bad guy.
Speaker: Capitalism was the bad guy all along.
Speaker: And, you know, I bet if I work myself up, I could probably get this on Ronald Reagan.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: It was Reaganomics.
Speaker: That's what let it happen.
Speaker: It was Nancy.
Speaker: It was Nancy telling us to not smoke crack.
Speaker: I swear to God.
Speaker: It was Nancy making everyone fucking guy.
Speaker: Making Ronnie wear gray sweatpants all the time.
Speaker: God.
Speaker: Nancy.
Speaker: It was the Depends.
Speaker: They kept making Ronald wear those fucking Depends.
Speaker: And now we have zombies in Hanoi.
Speaker: I hate it here.
Speaker: It's Banoy, not Hanoi.
Speaker: Banoy, sorry.
Speaker: Is Hanoi the place from Dying Light?
Speaker: Hanoi is a place in Vietnam.
Speaker: Or is it a real place?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Hakan is the name of the guy.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's the guy.
Speaker: Banoi.
Speaker: Banoi.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Hold on.
Speaker: I'm not wrong to make that mistake, to be clear.
Speaker: Hanoi and Banoi, they were not being subtle.
Speaker: They were not being subtle.
Speaker: basically everybody was in on it though, except for Ryder White, apparently.
Speaker: Even Moen and Dr. West.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: Yeah, so also he was the guy that was on the radio the entire time and not Ryder White, which begs the question, how the fuck didn't they recognize the guy that they've been talking to the entire time?
Speaker: He was putting on a voice.
Speaker: He's like, hey guys, it's me.
Speaker: It's me.
Speaker: Not Kevin.
Speaker: They should have been, yeah, he should have started saying how he doesn't have enough time and Logan would have been like, oh, it's the dude.
Speaker: Dude.
Speaker: Wait a second.
Speaker: You don't have enough.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Sounds familiar.
Speaker: Flashbacks.
Speaker: Just like.
Speaker: Flashbacks.
Speaker: Start asking him questions.
Speaker: I don't have time.
Speaker: We don't have time for this.
Speaker: So chapter 24.
Speaker: Ryder White, who doesn't actually know anything, is tending to his wife, who is very far gone.
Speaker: The group convinces Ryder that Charon is actually the bad guy.
Speaker: Sam knocks Charon down, knocking the vial out of his hand.
Speaker: Jin picks it up, tries to give it to Ryder, and she is shot to death unceremoniously by Charon.
Speaker: Just pointlessly.
Speaker: She fucking dies.
Speaker: After everything she's gone through.
Speaker: After everything she's gone through, she just gets shot repeatedly in the back.
Speaker: By a surprise villain who was introduced in the last that we just met, who was introduced in the last 15 pages of the book.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: The Colonel gets the vial.
Speaker: Karen threatens him.
Speaker: Ryder gives the vial, pours it in his wife's mouth.
Speaker: Karen shoots him.
Speaker: Colonel's wife mutates into an Uber zombie, which reveals possibly the only good line in the book.
Speaker: that I think Logan says the one good thing Logan says in 335 pages of a book, she's becoming a fucking Uber zombie.
Speaker: Thanks, bud.
Speaker: Thanks, pal.
Speaker: Thanks.
Speaker: Like, um, fuck.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, Jin is dead right away.
Speaker: Honestly, sorry.
Speaker: I had to pause because I just, I couldn't, I was trying to remember the emotional state I was in when this happened.
Speaker: The quote where they're explaining how she transformed.
Speaker: Within seconds, she had enlarged to twice, maybe three times her normal size, and had become so grossly malformed that she was barely recognizable as human.
Speaker: My quote for this, or my note for this, what was it?
Speaker: I cannot believe we are fucking doing this...
Speaker: We have five more pages.
Speaker: Like this, this book is almost over and we're doing zombies can transform into bigger zombies.
Speaker: If you give them too much zombie juice, I'm like the books over the books over.
Speaker: We already skipped all the special zombies that they had in the game.
Speaker: We've skipped them all.
Speaker: We had the explore this moment.
Speaker: We had the children zombies.
Speaker: We don't have enough time for big Uber zombie.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So yeah, she turns into a zombie and, uh, I don't know.
Speaker: They fucking get out of there and Caron like does the matador thing and has the Uber zombie run off the edge of the helipad.
Speaker: They're out in the helipad now.
Speaker: Fuck it.
Speaker: Um, and she goes off and she, you know, Wiley coyotes off the edge and then a helicopter comes down and they all get in the helicopter and they fly away.
Speaker: My last note for this book is under section 25 of my notes, bullet point C of the outline.
Speaker: fucking sucks what do you mean what do you mean uh there's a point where where karen on the helicopter as they're flying away perna says to him um after he tells them to get in perna says where are we going and and karen smiles a crooked smile and says magical mystery tour
Speaker: The Magical Mystery Tour.
Speaker: The Magical Mystery Tour.
Speaker: And I was like, wow, I can't believe.
Speaker: I cannot.
Speaker: I just, I don't, I don't have words.
Speaker: It's terrible as maybe not putting it into, like, properly explaining this.
Speaker: If this was a movie, I would have it burned.
Speaker: All of it.
Speaker: Every part of it.
Speaker: The computer made to put it together.
Speaker: I would have had it burned.
Speaker: This is like...
Speaker: If this was the if this is actually the plot of the video game, which I have not played all the way through.
Speaker: If this is like even 85 percent, the plot of this video game, I might actually go to Poland and and commit a crime.
Speaker: There might be an office that gets that gets destroyed, defaced in some way.
Speaker: I'm not going to say which the face is some way.
Speaker: I'm not going to say which one, but so what's wild is I looked up the plot of the game and there's it's like a mostly beat for beat ish with the book.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Characters are characterized differently.
Speaker: The Urema stuff is different.
Speaker: But at the end, there is no Karen.
Speaker: There is no the organization.
Speaker: It's right or white.
Speaker: And at some point, it's at the showdown is against Ryder White.
Speaker: Jin like releases his wife.
Speaker: And his wife goes and bites him.
Speaker: And he shoots Jin for releasing his wife so that he got bit.
Speaker: And then Rider White takes the vaccine and he turns into the uber zombie.
Speaker: And that's the final boss fight.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Huh.
Speaker: So basically the same thing, but this one tries to make it like a lover's final moment as opposed to whatever this is.
Speaker: I don't have words.
Speaker: I'm so... Fuck.
Speaker: Bad.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Bad book, bad story.
Speaker: I feel bad about ever saying I was... It was like, oh, I think Dead Island is underrated.
Speaker: I feel bad about ever saying that now.
Speaker: Ha ha!
Speaker: It was rated.
Speaker: It was, if anything, perhaps overrated from the sounds of it.
Speaker: Perhaps overrated.
Speaker: People played it and talked about it.
Speaker: And the developers got to go on and make three more games that are basically the same game, basically, gameplay-wise anyway.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: You know, we've been having that controversy now, controversy?
Speaker: Conversation.
Speaker: Now around DMC Devil May Cry, the soft attempt at a soft reboot of the Devil May Cry universe.
Speaker: And there's been a lot of like, that game was improperly...
Speaker: regarded and people gave it a lot of shit because they were mean to the whatever like there's a lot of background on that which makes it look particularly bad like ninja theory was very um i would say straight up homophobic in their um presentation of the care like yeah they're like oh we don't want to make a character like dante we want to make a character like you know cool western guy like tyler durden the guy you want to be right everybody wants to be tyler durden they're like the old one too gay
Speaker: We don't want to make a gay character who's gay like Dante from Devil May Cry 3, 2 and 1.
Speaker: And, you know, I see the support and the love and I'm like, man, guys, I know we're trying to be nice to things and, like, give people some respect.
Speaker: Let's not give props to the game that has the shot, or not the shotgun, the sniper rifle abortion.
Speaker: Let's just not do that.
Speaker: Let's not.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: Let's not give that game its laurels.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Like Dead Island.
Speaker: Maybe let's not say based in Epic.
Speaker: Let's just remember the bad things and then not say something.
Speaker: Sometimes the bad things are bad and then we should leave the bad things bad and they're bad forever.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And we can say that, you know, I like here's the thing is is I am all for I am the guy who is.
Speaker: I almost never have am staunchly antagonistic toward a game.
Speaker: Like I'm not a bad reviewer.
Speaker: You know, I'm not like somebody who's going to give a game a bad review.
Speaker: I don't.
Speaker: Either I drop off the game or I'm like, oh, I was doing some fucking neat things.
Speaker: You know, it might not have been everybody's cup of tea.
Speaker: If it's not worth regarding, just don't fucking knock on it.
Speaker: I usually, well, I'll find something to get into.
Speaker: This is on me for skipping literally all of the story of Dead Island.
Speaker: And when I have played it, whenever I've played it, just skipping all the cut scenes, just not paying any attention.
Speaker: And now reading the book, I'm like, oh, was this it the entire time?
Speaker: I am...
Speaker: regretting a lot of things I've said about that island.
Speaker: I don't know, guys.
Speaker: I think it's pretty good.
Speaker: What do you think of the story, Kevin?
Speaker: You're like, I don't know.
Speaker: It's probably all right.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: It's probably fine.
Speaker: It's fine.
Speaker: How could it be bad?
Speaker: I get to attach nails to a, I don't know, umbrella.
Speaker: How could it be bad?
Speaker: The humans have attached nails to a board.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: No, I get it.
Speaker: And I get it.
Speaker: And DMC, I never played DMC.
Speaker: But I have noticed that...
Speaker: that discourse bubbling up, I guess, starting, I want to say it's been about a year now where we're still, we get people reappraising things.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, reappraising it.
Speaker: I, I, I know there's always a game.
Speaker: I feel like every year that warrants that reappraisal reappraisal reappraisal, whatever.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And people are like, oh, yeah, we were kind of shitty to that.
Speaker: It's like a big one was Prey.
Speaker: Which is wild to me.
Speaker: That game was so good.
Speaker: I cannot believe it just like didn't get love right out the gate.
Speaker: I think, you know, in six years, it's going to be forespoken.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, I think people are going to be like, oh, we're just kind of being shit to that game for some reason.
Speaker: I saw one cutscene and I just wrote the whole thing off.
Speaker: I saw a cutscene on Twitter and then I said it's cringe.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And I decided I am not cringe and I will not be part of that cringe game.
Speaker: I will not be playing a game that has an ice surfboard.
Speaker: That's what we're writing off, the ice surfboarding game, because it's a little cringe.
Speaker: You guys all have Twitter accounts and use them.
Speaker: And you can't have Twitter.
Speaker: You can't on Twitter.
Speaker: You're on Twitter.
Speaker: You can't skate on an on a plaque of ice.
Speaker: So ultimately, you're more cringe than Forspoken Lady.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: See, don't don't throw the first those who live in cringe houses shouldn't throw the first cringe.
Speaker: But you know what is cringe?
Speaker: My camera went out of focus.
Speaker: My camera, I think my camera's boring.
Speaker: It can tell how cringe you are.
Speaker: It's had enough.
Speaker: It's had enough.
Speaker: It's cringe guy.
Speaker: I put my finger right on it.
Speaker: It's like the opening to a vlog.
Speaker: Follow my finger.
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: Don't.
Speaker: Damn.
Speaker: Hey, follow my finger.
Speaker: Maybe facial recognition.
Speaker: This is good podcasting.
Speaker: Technical issues, folks.
Speaker: Technical issues.
Speaker: So I think I know your opinion of the book, but if you have a final summary of what you thought of...
Speaker: Any if you have any final thoughts, I think we've gotten all of it out of the way.
Speaker: This is the kind of book that makes you want to rip your hair out of your head because you cannot believe the words that you're reading.
Speaker: It's it's one that feels like it's wasting your time and never doing anything with the moments where it doesn't feel like it's wasting your time.
Speaker: when it feels like it's trying to progress the plot forward, you're still asking what is going on all the time.
Speaker: It's so bad.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker: I think this book could have been done in like 20 pages.
Speaker: Easily.
Speaker: I feel like there's the actual story beats are few and far between.
Speaker: We get a lot of discussions and dialogue between characters that neither advances the plot nor builds character nor makes the world any more that they are in.
Speaker: It fails on all levels of dialogue.
Speaker: Like it's not even exposition.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, no.
Speaker: It's just pages and pages of like describing a let's play of the game.
Speaker: The characters walked over here and then hit this guy with a weapon and then walked over here and shot a gun and then walked over here and hit the guy with the sword.
Speaker: Like I can only do so many pages of that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And in the end, the story is the characters are unlikable, almost on almost top to bottom, unlikable with the exception of Jin, who is unlikable.
Speaker: literally only fucking use there as a punching bag.
Speaker: Um, like, Hey, let's, you know, let's have somebody that we've, that we center all the wrongdoing of humanity on this one character.
Speaker: And then she just gets killed at the very end for zero good reason.
Speaker: It's not even like it doesn't complete a character arc, like character arcs.
Speaker: What's character arc?
Speaker: Never knew her.
Speaker: The only arc I know where the golden arc is.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: I'm arc in it.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Boom, baby.
Speaker: We did it.
Speaker: It's so frustrating, though.
Speaker: You're right, because she's anti-violence for the moment you meet her.
Speaker: And she she flips on that when she has that horrible, awful thing happen to her in the middle of the book.
Speaker: But like you think the wraparound here would be she comes to, you know, accept the nonviolence and like commits an act of heroism to protect everyone.
Speaker: And like if you want to kill her, like, you know, at least do something with it.
Speaker: Don't just like have her die because that's what happened in the game.
Speaker: Just a lot of stuff that happens in this book does not happen in the game from the sounds of it.
Speaker: So like just own it.
Speaker: Just like do something more interesting if you're going to have some artistic license.
Speaker: You had the chance to be better.
Speaker: And we talked to authors, we've talked to authors several times about how, about
Speaker: what they get from the company that contracts them.
Speaker: But clearly given the differences between the book and the game, this author had some leeway in changing things.
Speaker: And in almost every instance, it all, it all, it feels worse.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like some of the things are, are some of the worst lines I've ever read and they're not in the game.
Speaker: So like you could have done anything and you were like, what if I made this 1000 times worse?
Speaker: What if now hear me out?
Speaker: I said this line that is going to be just scarred into my brain forever.
Speaker: And I don't want to say it out loud, but it's bad.
Speaker: Just go to the second episode of the series and you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker: But content warning for that in the line.
Speaker: Fuck it.
Speaker: Jesus Christ.
Speaker: Anyway, this book is bad.
Speaker: Towards the bottom of my list of books that we've read in terms of in terms of content, it is possibly no.
Speaker: It is the worst in terms of content, in terms of writing.
Speaker: It's like structure wise, like structurally, I'll say it's better than dead space.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: like, Oh wow.
Speaker: Dead space.
Speaker: Big praise.
Speaker: Well, yeah.
Speaker: The big praise.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Dead space was like just a fucking unstructured mess of a book, um, that made zero sense.
Speaker: Uh,
Speaker: Yeah, you could say this book does have a beginning, middle, and end.
Speaker: Scenes begin, and then they end.
Speaker: They do go from one place to another, and you can follow it.
Speaker: That is, wow.
Speaker: 8.5.
Speaker: Goodreads, 3 out of 5.
Speaker: Can't believe it.
Speaker: 3 out of 5.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: So yeah, out of all the books we've read, we've read, I don't know.
Speaker: I remember, I think we've done, we're in the 60s now of books that we've read.
Speaker: This one is probably number 63.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, this is the worst book I've ever read.
Speaker: Like easily.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's, it's, I mean, you know what?
Speaker: The, the, the metal gear book that we read way above that at least to have fun with itself.
Speaker: It turned solid snake into a furry.
Speaker: So like it turned solid snake into a furry.
Speaker: So I can't, you know, I can't hate that.
Speaker: We all win.
Speaker: It's what the internet was meant for in the end.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So with all that being said, Jesse, what are you playing?
Speaker: I have been playing a lot of stuff.
Speaker: I've been playing the Prince of Persia, The Lost Crown, the new Metroidvania 2.5D game from Ubisoft Montpellier, the French studio behind...
Speaker: Rayman Legends and Rayman Origins as well as other games.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: And it's been a lot of fun.
Speaker: It's really, really good.
Speaker: It's fast-paced.
Speaker: It takes the... It really is an amalgamation of Prince of Persia and also where the Metroidvania genre has gone over time.
Speaker: It feels a lot like the Jordan Mechner game, but also it feels a lot like Sands of Time.
Speaker: And it also feels a lot like the 2008 one.
Speaker: And it also feels a lot like Hollow Knight and Castlevania, like the DS ones.
Speaker: And
Speaker: It just mixes a lot of what that genre, what that franchise has looked like while delivering a new fun spin on something that I think has been missing from the gaming space for a while.
Speaker: It's a blast.
Speaker: Oh, that's cool.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I've been wanting to get into that.
Speaker: I actually just bought it the other day and I have it.
Speaker: I installed it on my Steam Deck last night.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Using...
Speaker: It's one of the one of those side launchers heroic launcher.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm using heroic launcher logged into the epic store so I can I can play it on my Steam Deck.
Speaker: But yeah, I'm really looking forward to getting the cassette.
Speaker: Let me tell you, Metroidvania is perfect Steam Deck game.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: Anything 2D awesome on the Steam Deck automatically.
Speaker: But those games in particular where you got to do all that backtracking and stuff.
Speaker: Perfect.
Speaker: Perfect.
Speaker: Yeah, I can just sit there while my wife watches old seasons of Keeping Up with the Kardashians.
Speaker: Oh, is that what yours is watching?
Speaker: Mine's watching Criminal Minds while I'm jumping around.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, nice.
Speaker: Equally content-wise, basically the same show.
Speaker: Basically the same.
Speaker: They're about serial killers, right?
Speaker: That's what Keeping Up With The Kardashians is about.
Speaker: That's all it's about.
Speaker: You know, you got Kanye's in there and he's... He took all of his teeth out.
Speaker: Did you see that?
Speaker: What?
Speaker: He ripped all his teeth out and replaced them with platinum dentures.
Speaker: Kanye West teeth.
Speaker: Yeah, metal teeth.
Speaker: Huh.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: He did that.
Speaker: Well, uh, sure.
Speaker: I mean, he'll never be able to not bite through something, I guess.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: He can bond.
Speaker: He's a bond villain now.
Speaker: If he wants to get into a, what do you call them?
Speaker: What do you call them?
Speaker: We call them freezes.
Speaker: Oh, are you talking about the ice pops?
Speaker: Ice pops?
Speaker: I hate it here.
Speaker: I'm never coming on this podcast ever again.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Are you talking about the... The long tubes of frozen juice?
Speaker: The long tube ones.
Speaker: I don't think I have ever had a specific name for them, but yeah, fuck those things.
Speaker: Yeah, but he'll be able to bite through the plastic, no problem.
Speaker: He'll barrel right through.
Speaker: I mean, I have to get in there with my side teeth and kind of grind it around a little bit.
Speaker: Just exacerbate the DMJ just to get in there.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean...
Speaker: I do have that.
Speaker: That's not a not a fun thing.
Speaker: The the clicking.
Speaker: It used to be a lot worse.
Speaker: The TMJ.
Speaker: I used to just have like it would feel like my jaw would freeze and then I would just go.
Speaker: It would just like go and pop open.
Speaker: And it was just like, oh, OK, I guess just like a little rest on the joint.
Speaker: Basically, just a little WD-40 in there.
Speaker: You're set.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Full dad, full dad.
Speaker: What about you, Kevin?
Speaker: What are you playing?
Speaker: Right now, I'm continuing on my CRPG journey, which, I mean, last year, Baldur's Gate 3 just made me obsessed again.
Speaker: I was like back in my teen years playing Fallout.
Speaker: So I was like, you know what?
Speaker: I'm going to keep going through it.
Speaker: So I played Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader.
Speaker: I beat that.
Speaker: And now I so I installed pillars of eternity to dead fire and I booted it up and it was like, would you like to import your pillars of eternity one save?
Speaker: And I was like, I do not have that.
Speaker: So I shut down pillars of eternity to and started pillars of eternity one just so I could have a save for pillars of eternity to.
Speaker: So, you know,
Speaker: I'm going to play the 100 hour game so I can have a save for the other 100 hour game.
Speaker: Nice!
Speaker: Good!
Speaker: Good!
Speaker: No, it's just like Mass Effect, you know?
Speaker: You start to play Mass Effect 2, you're like, shit, I need to Mass Effect 1 save.
Speaker: Nice!
Speaker: What did you think of the end of Rogue Trader?
Speaker: It is fascinating that like it gives you so many ending cards.
Speaker: Like a lot of CRPGs would do this thing where it would be like Fallout did it, too, where it's like every story point that you had over the course of the game, it gives you like a little ending card about it.
Speaker: Like, oh, you remember this thing you did?
Speaker: Here's how this plays out for the next few years and into the future.
Speaker: Like the 90 movie ending where it's like this character went on to go to prison.
Speaker: Boingo Boingo's goodbye goodbyes playing in the background.
Speaker: Didn't think that would fit the tone of work of a road trader.
Speaker: But you know what?
Speaker: It works.
Speaker: It works.
Speaker: It works.
Speaker: So yeah, I'm, it's, it's kind of cool.
Speaker: So you have, you have a few options at the very end.
Speaker: They really depend on how you've been playing the entire time because there's three ways to play the game.
Speaker: There's the iconoclast, which is like just trying to be a good dude.
Speaker: There's a heretical, which is like the cartoonishly evil,
Speaker: And there's dogmatic, which is cartoonishly evil, but in a Warhammer 40k way that everybody is cool with.
Speaker: Um... I'd be like, nah, this bro just really loves the god emperor.
Speaker: It's fine.
Speaker: He's a chill fascist.
Speaker: He's chill with it.
Speaker: He's like... It's like, it's fascism, but it's cool, bro.
Speaker: Um... The, um...
Speaker: So, yeah, there's this there's a whole ending sequence.
Speaker: And then you get all these cards with like, oh, this happened and this happened.
Speaker: And it's in true Warhammer 40K fashion.
Speaker: It would be like things were good for a couple of years after you you tried to make things better for everybody on this planet.
Speaker: And then, you know, a fucking thing broke out and the planet had to be nuked.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: You saved your best.
Speaker: It's good now.
Speaker: Nothing wrong.
Speaker: Oops.
Speaker: Got nuked.
Speaker: A billion people died.
Speaker: Moving on to the next story.
Speaker: Sucks to suck.
Speaker: The whole planet got nuked.
Speaker: Womp womp.
Speaker: Womp womp.
Speaker: It's just like everything was like that though, where it's like, oh, no matter how it reinforces that theme of like,
Speaker: No matter how good an individual tries to be, and this is one of the things with Rogue Trader or a 40K rather, is that individuals can try their damnedest, but without systemic change.
Speaker: it's not really going to matter in the end.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So like you can be an individual and be like, yeah, you know, I'm doing my best.
Speaker: I'm recycling.
Speaker: But unless, you know, there is a massive systemic change, there's going to be dolphins with, you know, the bottles with Stanley cups in their blowholes.
Speaker: Um, so like, yeah, and I feel like a lot of RPGs are like, oh yeah, you were the best.
Speaker: You were the best in the universe and you saved the universe and everybody is better now forever.
Speaker: And Rogue Trader's like, you were great.
Speaker: You made people's lives better for like five years.
Speaker: After that, who's to say?
Speaker: Whoops.
Speaker: 400 pound boars just showed up.
Speaker: Mutilated by the boars!
Speaker: But you did nice things though.
Speaker: Thanks bud.
Speaker: You did nice things though.
Speaker: The boars ate them bones and all.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Bones?
Speaker: To shreds you say.
Speaker: Bones and all.
Speaker: And their children?
Speaker: To shreds you say.
Speaker: To shreds you say.
Speaker: They will go through the bones like pasta.
Speaker: Good stuff.
Speaker: Watch the thing, by the way.
Speaker: Oh, yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Tell me about the thing.
Speaker: It's Kurt Russell.
Speaker: Beautiful man.
Speaker: He could do whatever he wants.
Speaker: He's got the beard and the flowing hair.
Speaker: He's just a big ball of hair with a face in it.
Speaker: But the whole movie...
Speaker: really really good like i love the suspense yeah i loved the practical effects were really impressive obviously i think people talked about that a million times but seeing that the first time i was like some of this has to be cg right no the thing that impressed me the most though even more than that was the dog acting the dogs were like really good when the ones uh i mean they have that scene where the you see the transformation for the first time um yeah and the dog is like biting at the wire fence to get out i was like holy shit
Speaker: That's a smart dog.
Speaker: The dogs killed it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: God.
Speaker: They should win an Oscar every year.
Speaker: The goodest boy.
Speaker: For the goodest boy.
Speaker: For the... Yeah.
Speaker: And what's his name?
Speaker: Wilford Brimley.
Speaker: Did I tell you or what?
Speaker: He really crushed it in that movie.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Goddamn.
Speaker: He's in that cage.
Speaker: He's like, let me out.
Speaker: Let me out.
Speaker: I'm okay.
Speaker: It's not me.
Speaker: Anyone have my Olympic?
Speaker: I need my metformin.
Speaker: But he's trying his best, man, and he's killing it.
Speaker: He did really, really good.
Speaker: I think everyone that was great.
Speaker: Hearing Keith David talk pre-being an icon was super weird.
Speaker: Because it's like so undersold.
Speaker: His voice and everything, I feel like after that, is like, let Keith David say the cool thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: In this, he's just like, are you guys stupid?
Speaker: And I'm like, man, yeah, I am stupid.
Speaker: You're right, Keith.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Well, and the thing I love about Keith David's character is that he's there...
Speaker: And but he doesn't actually come to the forefront until a little over halfway through the movie is when was when Childs starts becoming more of a primary character.
Speaker: It's it's just great.
Speaker: You know, when you're trying to figure out like who's who was who's shadow is that who who who was infected first to actually who's the who's the bad guy here?
Speaker: Uh.
Speaker: Keep an eye on Clark.
Speaker: I think so his character Childs, because we're talking about this in the midst of us working on these episodes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: While watching the thing, Childs had maybe the perfect review for the Dead Island book where he screams in the middle of the movie.
Speaker: I just cannot believe any of this voodoo bullshit.
Speaker: I was like, dude, there you go.
Speaker: There's my review of Dead Island.
Speaker: There's the review of Dead Island, the book by Keith David's character Childs from John Carpenter's The Thing, 1981.
Speaker: 29 years earlier, he knew what was going on.
Speaker: The line that lives in my head is when Wilford Brimley is smashing the radio
Speaker: And you just hear him screaming.
Speaker: And he's like, nothing.
Speaker: That thing.
Speaker: You think that thing wanted to be a dog?
Speaker: It couldn't make it as a dog.
Speaker: It wanted to be us.
Speaker: I love that whole sequence where he's smashing the shit out of all the radios and Buddy's just sitt ing in the corner all scared.
Speaker: You can see they're all trying to hold in their laughs as Wilford Brimley is just throwing things around the room like, fuck, I hate it here, just shooting at them.
Speaker: They run up with the table, everyone's just holding in their laughter, man.
Speaker: That must have been fucking killing them.
Speaker: It must have been an amazing, oh God.
Speaker: And then the, just one of the greatest line reads ever by the, what's his name?
Speaker: The guy who's like the president in the clear and present danger, the Harrison Ford, Jack Ryan movies.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Now, I know you gentlemen have been through a lot, but if you wouldn't mind, I don't want to spend the rest of this winter tied to this fucking couch.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: That's so good.
Speaker: So good.
Speaker: That whole sequence too was amazing where they're trying to like, they're doing the blood thing, like the tension.
Speaker: And then the reveals.
Speaker: The blood test is... Yeah.
Speaker: So good.
Speaker: It's funny too, because they don't believe him.
Speaker: Like they don't believe McCready at all.
Speaker: And then eventually they see the blood thing happen.
Speaker: They get through the whole fight.
Speaker: They kill the thing.
Speaker: And then you just see the guy with the flamethrower with him.
Speaker: Like, okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You were right.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's what I thought, child.
Speaker: That's what I'm going to do you next.
Speaker: Alright.
Speaker: What a film.
Speaker: What a film.
Speaker: Well, that's all for tonight's episode.
Speaker: Thank you so much, Jesse, for being with us for these great episodes.
Speaker: I don't think I could have made it through this book with anybody but you.
Speaker: I'm glad I could be here to endure this torturous experience along with you.
Speaker: Yeah, it's it's been it's been a thing.
Speaker: That's putting it nicely.
Speaker: Before we go, Jesse, do you have anything you would like to plug?
Speaker: Yeah, you can find more of my work over at Noclip, the Noclip podcast every week or almost every week.
Speaker: We put out our thoughts on video games, talk about what's going on in our lives and updates with the Noclip work, documentaries, stuff like that.
Speaker: You can find us on YouTube, wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker: And you can follow me on Twitter if you want, if you use that or Blue Sky, same name, at G-U-A-R-A-S-C-I-A.
Speaker: You can find me there where I'm talking about whatever I'm doing.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: And before we go, I just want to give a shout out to our top tier of our patrons.
Speaker: The Geek Scholar tier.
Speaker: We have Friendly Friend, we have Jesus Loves You, and we have Ruthless Mutter.
Speaker: Thank you so much for your patronage.
Speaker: It is deeply, deeply appreciated.
Speaker: If you want to go find out more, go to patreon.com slash pixelitpod, or you can just type pixelitpod.com in your browser.
Speaker: That'll redirect you right to your page, right to our page.
Speaker: And you can follow us for free on there.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: That's what we decide.
Speaker: When we were going to redirect our URL to Patreon, it was because you can go on there and you can just follow us for free and you can get updates on what we're doing.
Speaker: And you don't have to worry about following us on Twitter or Twitter or Instagram or whatever.
Speaker: just go right on that Patreon page and see what we're up to.
Speaker: Uh, but otherwise, if you do want to follow us on Twitter or X or whatever the fuck, um, you can find us at pixel at pod.
Speaker: You can find us on Instagram at pixel at pod.
Speaker: You can find us on blue sky at pixel at pod.com.
Speaker: Um, and, uh, otherwise thank you so much for listening and, uh, have a good evening.
Speaker: Bye.
