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00:00:01
ULTRAKILL
10 Plays1 day ago
MANKIND IS DEAD
BLOOD IS FUEL
HELL IS FULL
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Transcript
Introduction and Opener Change Discussion
00:01:01
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake, and I'm joined by my co-host, as always, Dave. How's it going today, Dave? Oh, so good. Nice.
00:01:12
Speaker
Glad to hear it. I have thought about whether we should just change the opener, even though it's... existed for so long for forever years literally um just because i know that we want to spend less time talking about the weather and stuff like that or the very nature of asking people how they're doing at the beginning of the episode um but today's not that day In the future, I'll say, Jake, stop putting others before yourself. How are you doing? And you'll be like, I can't talk about my feelings right now. Let's talk about this game instead. And that's how we transition.
00:01:54
Speaker
That's fair. So let's talk about this game instead.
Introduction to Ultra Kill and Its Evolution
00:01:57
Speaker
ah Ultra Kill. You people, you people, usually have a review to our listeners. ah You people might have heard of this because we talked about it last time.
00:02:11
Speaker
But Dave, Dave over here was like, I'm pretty sure I could fill at least an hour, maybe two with additional lore and thoughts and opinions.
00:02:23
Speaker
And for my part in this, I've made it like I was going to say a halfway through the game, but i don't know if that's strictly true. There's a lot of content that's been added since I'd say you're probably around half for what's currently out.
00:02:36
Speaker
Yeah. um but for the people who didn't catch last week's episode, ultra kill, it's a boomer shooter. It's early access. It's been an early access for like five years, but they've been doing work in those five years.
00:02:51
Speaker
Um,
00:02:54
Speaker
That's good. And that's it. There you go. That was nowhere near two hours. What are you talking about, Dave? So Jake initially played this a long time ago, and I was playing whatever I was playing at the time, but refused to expand my horizons at all to any other type of game probably besides like I've guessed Dota or Binding of Isaac i was gonna say sinking a lot of time I think when I was playing this you were playing a different boomer shooter math blaster um yeah yeah bit of a different angle on that more of a second person to shooter if you ask me uh-huh also misleading name because I hear math blaster and I'm like finally I get to take out all my aggression against
00:03:40
Speaker
But no, they're trying to teach you math. yeah It's actually getting blasted by math more than anything else. um but I remember there was like a...
00:03:52
Speaker
A guy who was like too thick. There was like a really small alien that could get through holes. yeah And then the lady also had an ability. Like they all had like a specific thing that they were designed to unlock or help you progress.
00:04:07
Speaker
I just don't remember which is which. They need to bring it back. And so I'm saying maybe without the math, but you know. Blaster, I guess, doesn't have as good SEO, but that's fine.
00:04:19
Speaker
You started playing Ultra Kill though. Yeah. ah Got on the train very late comparatively. um And then just recently, ah Jake has been catching up on some of the content since he initially played. And how much would you say that how much is new for you?
00:04:39
Speaker
I mean, so for me, I've reached the same. What's funny is I think I reached the place I was at. Um, the last time that I played. So I started from scratch just because, you know, I wanted to be familiar myself with the game.
00:04:54
Speaker
Um, but do know that some of the encounters and things that I've had, um, I'm pretty sure they've changed. Like I think that they haven't only done development forward. They've also added secrets. that's very clear. and I think they might've reworked some of the fights a little bit.
00:05:13
Speaker
Um, some of the mechanics in them. Um, And also the weaponry because, ah correct me if I'm wrong, but basically as soon as you get the first variant of a weapon, all of the alternates are purchasable.
00:05:28
Speaker
And a lot of those, alterts some of those alternates were not in the game the last time that I played. So like, um for instance, the rail cannon did not have, you know, all of its alternates unlocked.
00:05:42
Speaker
um So, Most of the content has been similar, um but ah I would say the gameplay is maybe a little bit better in in some core ways.
00:05:54
Speaker
ah Hard to tell because the last time I played was literally three years ago. um But at the very least, it's definitely held up. And yeah, looking forward to playing more of it, working my way through the rest of the the new content.
00:06:07
Speaker
And I will try and be like a fly on the wall against Jake's many protests so I can live vicariously through him while I simultaneously also play the game. Yeah. ah But again, I know I kind of we kind of mentioned this last time, um but it is very fun to play. Like I've been going back trying to get some secrets or do like a special challenge for a level.
00:06:33
Speaker
And. Except for maybe like. some much later stuff trying to do like a challenge it doesn't feel like a chore it feels like i go in i can either do it within like two minutes or like maybe i need to restart but it feels like an extra thing that i can do versus something that i feel i have to do yeah yeah but it's been fun just to go back Like, I really do enjoy the gameplay, like between the shooting, the grapple, which that always pops you up a little bit, even if you grab an enemy that you're pulling to you. i mean, if you're in the air, pop you up.
00:07:14
Speaker
Right. But between that, the slide, the slamming down on the ground, the dashes, it feels very good to move around. And I don't know if anybody's played Halo 2.
00:07:28
Speaker
ah But that is a comparatively very slow shooter. You're kind of just walking and shooting. We're talking about the first Halo at least. But yeah, as shooters have evolved, the more freedom you can give the player. This is a phrase that Jake says a lot and I've now adopted. There's much higher room for a skill expression.
00:07:53
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. um This
Gameplay and Design Philosophy Comparison
00:07:56
Speaker
game is absurd for that. I would, I'd 100% agree. I also, you mentioned something that I wanted to, wanted to discuss a little bit more because we've, we've covered some other games that I think benefited from this return to pace.
00:08:09
Speaker
um Notably like doom 2016, obviously there's been more entries in that series. I haven't played um dark ages, doom, the dark age in order to judge that one way or the other. I know they're doing other things with that, but 2016 was kind of a return to form.
00:08:25
Speaker
especially after um doom three four i can't remember exactly what the number was but the one where you were like in a space station and it was more of a traditional shooter with a flashlight and stuff like that oh that was three three okay yeah um and part of the hype around 2016 because it is an it's it's an excellent game like doom 2016 is a very good game was how engaging the pace was like um It didn't... in In a lot of ways, the things that it was reintroducing were just things that games had already done in the past, right? It's like, enter a room, kill a bunch of enemies.
00:09:07
Speaker
That's supposed to be the fun part. Maybe you do some secret exploration, things like that. But these are like the roots of the boomer shooter. And I'm not just talking about 2016 here. I'm also talking about Ultra Kill, right? Like, Ultra Kill made the same design decisions as far as Let's speed it up, right? Let's give people different ways. It's not just like ah you have a couple weapons and you just have to get good with those, but rather here's an entire arsenal.
00:09:37
Speaker
You inexplicably have all of them at the same time. Don't worry about it. um And whichever weapons that you get good with or you enjoy using or you want to experiment with,
00:09:50
Speaker
That's all just part of the gameplay, right? And both of these games really operate in that space. The difference, I think, is Doom 2016, by comparison, is almost subdued.
00:10:02
Speaker
to the insanity that is present in ultra kill. Yes. i Some of that is I'm going to say studio based, uh, just because like for a more mainstream audience, I don't think a lot of them are going to attach to, hey you want to do some like crazy shit.
00:10:20
Speaker
A lot of people were just like, i just want to shoot. Like I want to hop in a battlefield or a call of duty. I realized I'm kind of generalizing here, but ah the faster pace thing is a lot less common versus when you see an indie studio studios, they're willing to turn that up to 11 just because who's going to say no, you know? Yeah.
00:10:42
Speaker
We have a fun idea. Let's keep building on that. um But both of these, I think, do a good job of helping accelerate that pace by having blood be a resource in the case of ultra kill.
00:10:57
Speaker
um And in Doom 2016, you can execute enemies or chainsaw through them to like get ammo back. Yeah. Right. So you're incentivized to keep going forward and killing enemies and not, oh, I have 20 health.
00:11:12
Speaker
I need to find where a health pack is. And you're kind of like camping behind a rock. Yeah. Because it's just it's not fun. i'm not. I wasn't a Gears of War fan, to say the least. Pop and pop.
00:11:26
Speaker
um Yeah. And the other thing doom 2016 had and, uh, God of war also does this a lot is like, you'll have enemies become stunned and then you can like grab, finish them. That's, that was the other way to heal a bunch. You're right. The chainsaw was more for getting your ammo back, but healing for the most part came from like the, um, uh, synchronized execution finishers and things like that, which I think is like, it's fine in doom to a point.
00:11:53
Speaker
Um, A lot of them are look cool, but you're not going to care about it the 50th time you did a leg sweep. They even, like in their design it's design ah decisions for Doom, they specifically allowed you to like start the finisher from different angles. Are you like looking at their feet when you do it, or the side of them, or their head, or whatever? Or are you in the air? All of these things are variations that actually don't impact the gameplay at all, as far as I know.
00:12:23
Speaker
um It just gives you different kill animations. It's just for the coolness. That's good. I'm not criticizing this. It's good to have variety in that.
00:12:34
Speaker
But it's also necessary because if they didn't do it, you'd just be looking at the same animation every single time. Right. And so they're actually kind of like paying down this design decision to have the execution kills in the first point because they now have to make sure that they don't get overly tedious. Right.
00:12:52
Speaker
um And I think there's actually even like, I can't remember if it was 2016 or one of the later ones, like an upgrade you can equip to speed them up even more. It literally just makes the executions go faster.
00:13:04
Speaker
um And that is nice in the game. Like you're already kind of getting tired of seeing it a little bit and it speeds it up. Ultra kill sidesteps this entirely because blood is fuel.
00:13:18
Speaker
And you don't have these synchronized executions. So, you know, they're not doing animation or anything like that um specifically to like kill these enemies. But it accomplishes the same thing by forcing you to get up in danger or otherwise to vary up your play style in order to get that healing off of the enemies.
00:13:37
Speaker
um Since they're bleeding all over the place and you have to be there to just you know, catch it in the air with your mouth or whatever. And it's your body. But yeah, it's it informs the gameplay loop.
00:13:51
Speaker
Yeah. And I mean, definitely when I started out, I was mentally thinking a lot more like I need to figure out the enemy enemy' is doing and keep my distance line at my shots, et cetera, et cetera.
00:14:04
Speaker
um But as you play through more of the game and you get more tools or you go back and do a level, you're like, oh, I don't need to be playing super safe. I'm familiar with this enemy. I'm familiar with this weapon.
00:14:16
Speaker
And then it becomes like, oh, let me start to style on him with what I've learned since. Yeah. Right. Like this is me two hours later coming back in. They're like, oh, I'm just going to goomba stomp these enemies because I forgot that was an option I can I can do. hmm.
00:14:33
Speaker
Yeah, the way they built it out with like the slow weapon progression and also the introduction of enemies, it really does start out from like kind of holding your hand like, hey, we'll walk you through this And you're like, oh, okay. I kind of understand what's going on. And then you're like, all right, now you you go.
00:14:54
Speaker
Right. ah But it does accelerate at a pace that I think is good. yeah Even if you're not super familiar with the FPS genre, like the difficulty definitely will get harder over time. But at no point did it feel like a massive jump to where I was thrown into a situation. I'm like, I don't know what to do here.
00:15:15
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. A lot of it's very intentional from a game design perspective as well. Right. Like, oh, one last note for the blood thing. I know we talked about that a fair amount, but it also allows you to kind of like it supports different play styles or encourages different play styles.
00:15:30
Speaker
um Notably, you can be more aggressive. right? Like avoiding damage, especially on standard or violent difficulty doesn't really matter as long as you have the ability to heal it back up.
00:15:42
Speaker
Right. So you can be hyper aggressive. You can be a berserker. The one it's and just anticipate that you're going to take damage as long as you find opportunities to heal good enough. You're maybe going faster right now. I think taking damage does lower your combo score, but like, um,
00:16:00
Speaker
It's still a valid way to play the game up to a point. um Yeah, i I think for a lot of games, this is definitely true of Rivals of Aether 2 and Ultra Kill. It's nice to have like a weave in and out type thing.
00:16:16
Speaker
Like if I like you can definitely keep distance with enemies. Like if you're at full health and you don't need it, but we start to drop a little bit. you're like, OK, maybe I need to play up a little more. And again, with like the three dashes you have that will recharge yeah and you have iframes in those.
00:16:35
Speaker
Like I feel like it's very encouraging to be like. Go get in there. You'll be fine. Yes. And then you realize how much you can get away with. Yeah. Punching somebody in the face or shooting them with a shotgun at point blank generally is pretty close to a full heal, if not for the durable damage, which is something we haven't talked about yet.
00:16:56
Speaker
um I know you started to bring up weapons. I'm good to talk about the weapons too. um How do you feel about the durable damage mechanic? Do you understand it? I guess. No, I found out it existed yesterday. So I was not reading the tool tips early on.
00:17:12
Speaker
Yeah. Just like a brief overview. Cause I'll be completely honest. I don't fully understand all of the sources for it either, but the idea is basically if you're hit with particularly, devastating attacks or attacks that deal a lot of damage or it could just be certain damage types from bosses um or other effects.
00:17:30
Speaker
You have a gray part in your health bar that's non-recoverable. Normally the mechanic is you take the damage, you can heal back through just ah being in the blood splatter of enemies and or spray is a better word for it.
00:17:43
Speaker
um But durable damage will not heal but it goes away after a few seconds. So this kind of prevents the, um, I'm to use bloodborne as an example here with the rally system, right?
00:17:56
Speaker
Um, it prevents some things that could happen in bloodborne where you're just like, Oh, I just took damage. I'm immediately just going to life steal all of that back with endless aggression.
00:18:08
Speaker
Um, there's more of an incentive not to take too many hits. because you're not really getting all of that health bar back. And as long as you're occasionally taking durable damage, you're not going to unlock the durable part of your health bar.
00:18:22
Speaker
You will just lose eventually.
00:18:28
Speaker
so I'll be um honest, throughout all of my gameplay, I've never watched my health bar for that. It's just more so the... if it hits like a low enough threshold, like it'll kind of give you like a little sound cue. And I'm like, oh, I would like some health, please.
00:18:43
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. But it does kind of, it, it, it forces you to vary up your gameplay a little bit compared to just like full aggression, taking damage and dealing damage, which is good. Um, because all of this is building towards that kind of stylish gameplay you were talking about, which is avoiding attacks. Maybe not all of them, but most of them,
00:19:04
Speaker
and then dealing with the enemies in an efficient and stylish way. And then quickly moving forward, right? That's the quote unquote idealized, at least to do with the scoring system, the idealized clear, get through quickly, kill the enemies quickly and in a varied way.
00:19:22
Speaker
um And don't take a ton of damage. Yeah, I've been trying to go back and P rank some levels, which is the highest rank you can get. um And if you just use like the same weapon the entire time, it's harder to build up a combo to get a good score that would be high enough for that pe rank.
00:19:42
Speaker
Also, ah like with a lot of games, let's say you've shot your shot and now you have the animation of loading in a new shot or something else because in this game you have unlimited ammo for your weapons there's just the the cooldown time yeah so let's say it takes like two seconds to reload your revolver even though that is but super not the case uh-huh it might be faster just to switch to the next weapon and fire your shotgun instead
00:20:14
Speaker
and essentially rotate through your options. You always have that uptime for damage with your guns. Yeah, it's it's a good game design. um I don't remember. I don't can't think of another example of a game that does it off the top of my head. I know that others have, but um especially like the starter option, some of the weapons that you unlock earlier, they're kind of like they stay core, essentially. It's like they don't generally have cool down or something like that like the role you always have the option to shoot somebody with a revolver right it's just it's always there you can always shoot somebody with a shotgun but if you're using the alt fire like overload option for the shotgun or the rail cannons the best example of it because it has a literal um like lightning bar on your side you know telling you when it's available
00:21:07
Speaker
um All of those ah don't necessitate, like it doesn't necessitate using them. um But if you use them, you're going to find yourself clearing encounters faster because they're usually more higher DPS options um compared to if you just fell back to the right constant weapons that don't have these overcharge modes and things like that.
00:21:30
Speaker
And it is helpful. The other thing is like they have synergies associated with some of these options. Like I was talking to Dave but before the recording started um about like the coins and the various interactions for them.
00:21:44
Speaker
um And I'm going to explain the coin. Yeah, we go for jump in for coin. So there is alternate version of the pistol ah where you can essentially throw a coin. And then if you shoot that coin, it's automatically going to go to a critical spot of an enemy.
00:22:03
Speaker
So let's say somebody's around the corner, you can throw the coin, shoot the coin, and the coin will hit them. Probably kill them for a lot of the basic enemies. um And it just it feels really good.
00:22:15
Speaker
Yes. um You can also do it, like let's say certain enemies are You're not good at tracking for whatever reason. Maybe it's like a flying enemy.
00:22:26
Speaker
um and you're just like, i don't want to have to deal with this and aim where they're going to be We're trying to shoot at them as they move. I'm just going to focus on the coin. And the coin also has like, there's like a certain rhythm you can do it at. So if you get comfortable with that, you can do coin, shoot, coin, shoot, coin, shoot, et cetera. Yeah.
00:22:47
Speaker
ah But also with the coins, I believe other projectiles can also ah go off of them. There's a certain set. There's certain usually like hit scan type weapons can. Yeah.
00:22:59
Speaker
But yeah, just leveraging something like that is a really cool tool. um To jump ahead briefly, one of the alt fires for the shotgun is you kind of charge up this let's call it a grenade and you can shoot it out. Uh, but if you want to explore, you can shoot it under your feet and you can get a lot of height.
00:23:22
Speaker
Yes. And some of the game challenges I think actually kind of necessitate, ah using and abusing that mechanic. Mm. Yeah. Kind of like a, a rocket jump, but a grenade jump. Yeah. We know, what we know what it is. Demoman exists. TF2.
00:23:35
Speaker
Yeah. Um, and yeah, there's like, there's interactions between some of these weapons. Um, Or ah it could be that certain weapons are better against certain enemies, certain engagements. We were talking about the flyers. I feel like the revolver is the most reliable for me. yeah Because I love using the shotgun and just doing like shotgun parries. But if they're like really far away, i might have to do it repeatedly to be like, okay, actually hit this one enough.
00:24:04
Speaker
Yeah. Versus hitting them right in the crit spot, the giant eye. Yeah. Yeah. Like the, um, the flying face enemies, the stones that, uh, they're kind of just like rocks with faces on them.
00:24:17
Speaker
Um, those apparently take more damage if you ground pound them or if you shoot them with a shotgun at close range. And, um, the game's basically trying to incentivize certain, you know, mechanics to get you up there doing stylish things.
00:24:34
Speaker
Um, And that's that's just excellent. the pistol One of the pistols I know that wasn't in the game was the the red pistol. can't remember the name of it. um It might be Marksman pistol or something. I'm not sure.
00:24:48
Speaker
It's the one that has the ricochet shot. Yes. And I didn't realize you could see it in the trailer for the game. But you charge the ricochet by just spinning the gun of like a horizontal spin. It's just like eSports ah Wild West nonsense.
00:25:05
Speaker
um And then you just fire it. Does that make any sense at all? No, it doesn't. It doesn't matter. It's it's ultra kill. Like this is a game where shooting the coin increases the damage of the projectile that is then reflected into a weak point. Right.
00:25:22
Speaker
It's entirely video game logic. It does not matter because the game is meant to be just like an arcade shooter. um Is it fun? Basically? Yes.
00:25:32
Speaker
is I'll chime Yes, it is. I do think it's fun.
00:25:38
Speaker
Yeah. But that's the what they use when you know determining design decisions for the game. I think for the most part. You did show me that there's like a secret fishing section or something. so Maybe there little bit... And I did do the witness. There are some ah secret... I think...
00:25:56
Speaker
A lot of the floors will have a secret mission, um which some of them are a pain to find. I definitely needed to look some stuff up, but it's all optional content and it's going to be stuff that is outside of ultra kill. So it's not going to be ultra kill gameplay.
00:26:12
Speaker
Typically, it'll be like a mini game for something else like the fishing thing that Jake was talking about. Yeah. And they're nice little. breaks i guess like you can check out something that's a lot less serious a lot slower paced right like fishing uh versus chasing down and pushing through demons right yeah Um, good
Creative Aesthetics and Level Design
00:26:40
Speaker
level variety. Also, that's the other thing I mentioned or the other thing I noticed coming back to it is and a lot of this, you'll get a great teaser in the trailer. Honestly, if you have any interest in Ultra Kill whatsoever, watch the first stream trailer.
00:26:53
Speaker
Um, Dave identified the musician, the artist whose music they license for it. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. Yeah, pretty much immediately. I wasn't familiar with them beforehand, but I did look up their music's not on Spotify, unfortunately. But they actually took it off because of something with Spotify. I just saw like an article.
00:27:13
Speaker
but i believe it or a headline. It makes sense. And yeah, um but their stuff is available Spotify. YouTube and the song they use is Robot Stop for this. And it's just it's an absolute banger.
00:27:26
Speaker
And ah so my brain is tickled in a certain way when music is ah lined up to the beats of like a good edit for a game or something like that.
00:27:41
Speaker
And by by that, I mean, like, as the song is going on, they're actually cutting the gameplay. to match the music drops and things like that. And it's really good. Like, I just love this in general. This is not even related necessarily to the trailer, but the trailer is a good example of it.
00:27:59
Speaker
Yeah. It's a good example of punctuation for something. Certain stuff's going to hit harder if you have, the right context around it yeah um using the tutorial as an example like you start out just in a room you have to like break some boards go down a hallway and journal all this stuff yeah and then it's like it's just a pitch black room and there's just like a a gun on a pedestal and when you pick it up because there's no audio before that that's when like the music drops in you have like the title card um and you're like oh okay hi
00:28:37
Speaker
That's a good example of that going from no audio to your drop. Yes. Yeah. Really well designed. um And the other thing I was going to mention for that trailer is it shows a lot of the locales um for the game.
00:28:54
Speaker
And it's very interesting, very hype. They they have a lot more variety. In some ways, I think like the early levels in Ultra Kill, in particular, the very starting one is kind of the most boring. It's kind of like industrial black and red, um like tiled walls and things like that. It doesn't seem like there's a very unique motif going on.
00:29:17
Speaker
And I mean, if you're playing the game specifically for... to experience the art of the levels and things like that. This is also not the game for you. Like, this is probably not not going to be it if that's your main motivation.
00:29:33
Speaker
ah Because it the graphics are bad. And when I say bad, I mean, like, intentionally low poly. um And during the tutorial, they have you select between like standard graphics and like PSX graphics for like PlayStation one. And you can make them even worse if you want to there you can legitimately just make the game look worse.
00:29:58
Speaker
Um, But despite that, like, I do think that there is some creativity in the later levels and emerging into, you know, a new ah circle of Dante's Inferno. ah It does.
00:30:17
Speaker
Sometimes you're like, oh, that's that's really interesting. Like you were showing me the. um ah the water level for Wrath, I think, which is also shown in the trailer.
00:30:29
Speaker
I was like, oh, that's unique. That's that that's very unique compared to like some of the other stuff I've seen in the game. Yeah. It's... A good example of like that kind of world tour of we want to show these different things. Here's our interpretation of them.
00:30:48
Speaker
and It's always really interesting to see how people will take an idea and bring it to life because like you could to have so many versions of like, this is my Egyptian desert wasteland. Uh, but they do enough to keep things thematic throughout a given floor. Um, so I think for each main floor, typically there's going to be four levels and each of those will have the same theme throughout, but every single one is different as far as what it wants you to do as the player. Yeah.
00:31:23
Speaker
Um, cause certain things you're like, oh, I need to move some keys around to push through. Other things might be a little more platformy based. certain things might be like laden with traps and more futuristic.
00:31:37
Speaker
Um, but at no point was I like this feels super out of place. i'm just like, Oh cool. This is what they thought this would be. Like, I kind of want to talk about what are your thoughts about talking about the, the, the Minos fight?
00:31:56
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, we can talk, we can talk about a fight. Um, So I want to preface briefly by saying, forget if I mentioned this the week before, but they do a great job as far as.
00:32:10
Speaker
What's the word here? Foreshadowing enemies are like things to come. ah So i I did think I mentioned before they have some statues throughout, which just kind of looks like ah David, the thinker, just holding an apple.
00:32:25
Speaker
And you'll see like these statues throughout the levels like so many times. And then, like, at the end of the prelude, like, one comes to life. And you're like, oh, that's a thing.
00:32:36
Speaker
Yeah. So then, going forward, when you see these, you now have that question of, are they going attack me? Like, what's what's going to go on here? um But even, like, for bosses and things, too.
00:32:49
Speaker
Another level I showed Jake had... like the same theme kind of liate motived throughout the level, uh, where it starts out with like a very quiet, slow version.
00:33:02
Speaker
ah but then when you get to the actual boss encounter, they go full in, and it's very upbeat. I shouldn't say upbeat. Like it's very aggressive, very, uh, you're in there type type thing.
00:33:18
Speaker
Yeah. A lot of times you, I think they do that repeatedly for, um, because the the, the level at the end is the climax level. Like that's the end. That's where the boss fight's going to happen.
00:33:29
Speaker
um And they'll tease the notes, like you said, the leitmotif of the upcoming boss fight in the lead up to it. And then there's usually a drop and then it goes into the more aggressive, ah like you said, upbeat or um ah pounding sort of adrenaline-esque version of whatever the track is, um which is really good. And I imagine it was also helps for like repeat playthroughs, which Um, like you mentioned, you're going back and and and playing through some of these, um like,
00:34:06
Speaker
It's nice to have that kind of consistency. I imagine that that does good things for your brain. If you enjoyed a boss fight and you go back and you start the level again, you know, maybe after doing some other things or whatever, and like the themes starting to trickle in already. Right. It's basically prepping you for the fight to come and you won't get that the first time because you don't have that familiarity with the You don't have that connection yet. Yeah. Yeah. yeah But later, I mean, I got it even in my subsequent playthrough.
00:34:32
Speaker
um for um ah for the pyramid and the boss there. Or I was like, I started the level and I was hearing the theme and I was like, I know this theme. I know where this is going. I know this. thing um And the bosses are actually really cool in this game too. They have like a decent mix from what I've seen between your um absurdly huge monstrosity and your a smaller, like more agile. I'm you size. Yes. Uh-huh.
00:35:05
Speaker
um it's definitely not you couldn't level the criticism that Dark Souls sometimes got where it's just like every boss is some sort of variant of a person with a sword like some sort of knight and then the bosses that were outside of that nobody liked where's my ceaseless discharge fanboys you know i just yeah they don't exist yeah um Moonlight Butterfly let's go yeah yeah Super exciting. a lot of active gameplay in that one. Gaping dragon. These also... A lot of these sound like euphemisms, I'm realizing. But that's fine. I'd i'd say the two main boss archetypes are the gigantic thing... Yes.
00:35:51
Speaker
That's meant to be kind of a very... a highlight boss that's been like built up to yeah and that just falls with in line with the uh just fun in video games for the sake of fun yeah it's similar to like anime where you're hyping up like this enemy in one punch man and they have like a three episode arc type thing it's nice to build up that anticipation so it has more of that payoff um It's also just good game design. Like um I was going to say some of the bosses are kind of like Shadow of the Colossus-esque, but it's not really true. It's more like God of War.
00:36:29
Speaker
They're like they're very, very large monstrosities and things like that. But it's nice for people who are paying a little bit of attention to get some hints of what's to come.
00:36:42
Speaker
um But you're also providing a payoff for those people where it's like, hey, I've succeeded in my passive perception check to actually see something that was in the background of this level. um Or later, as you're getting closer to the boss, um it seems like they like to use some tell tells that you're more much more likely to see.
00:37:03
Speaker
um But it's all building in anticipation towards the encounter, which makes it a lot better than if it just dropped on you from a presentation perspective. Yeah.
00:37:13
Speaker
The Prelude does this with... but This is the other type of enemy, the U-sized, with the sword bot. Whereas you're going through the level, I think you see them like...
00:37:26
Speaker
two or three times, ah maybe more if you know where to go. ah But they're essentially playing through another part of the level that you don't have access to yet. Yeah. um But it's cool because you know their existence. It makes them more tangible because you see them like going through and like fucking up enemies and then like running off. You're like who the fuck was that? And you to fight them. You're like, oh, is he going to fuck me up?
00:37:48
Speaker
Right. So it's nice to, again, have that... connection so it's more of like a point from a to b as opposed to a teleports to b yes exactly right um also the in the world the u-sized fights tend to be a lot more fast-paced um which It's a good mix between alternating from like the large monstrosity, maybe a little bit slower, bigger tells, to the... Oh, this one's fights like I do. Oh, shit. Yes.
00:38:22
Speaker
Basically, for the fights, the U-size fights that I've had, they're all... my engagements have largely been like it was a cat fight. it just jump We just jump at each other and then struggle and I die 20 times, but it doesn't matter because when I do win, then the game reg progresses. So it's kind of been the nature of those types of fights for me, but I could also probably eventually get better. but I mean, even going back, I've still struggled at some of the same points. Yeah. um They're tough.
00:38:57
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's it's a tough game. um And it's definitely one where like. This is going to sound really stupid, but like skill matters a lot and improvement in skill yields massive dividends.
00:39:15
Speaker
um Not just from like the style angle, because there's ways you could do stylish things here, which are not strictly the most optimal, but it looks really cool.
00:39:27
Speaker
um But like legitimately just understanding the enemies, finding ways to dodge, finding ways to get damage and is usually the decider for whether whether you succeed it or not.
Difficulty Settings and Replayability
00:39:42
Speaker
And I'm somebody who likes a little bit of science in my games. I like trying to figure out how to overcome something or get past something or in my case, finding where the fuck that last secret is type thing.
00:39:55
Speaker
Yeah. Mm hmm. ah But if that's not for you, there's also like a good variety of difficulties. Yes, true. So if you're really not comfortable in that space, you can start out with I Think there's just like ah it's it's very hard for you to die mode um were Like the enemies are very very slow and yeah, you can start at that until you get more comfortable because right now I'm playing through hard which I think is the recommended default for the game
00:40:27
Speaker
ah But there are levels above that that I'm a little bit scared to try. Because while I have gotten as far as I have, um I feel like a lot of that is through determination and a little bit of luck with some parrying stuff.
00:40:44
Speaker
ah Because parrying is your friend. There's going to be a lot of projectiles and attacks and other things. um And you can parry everything. Yeah, I haven't parried this much since Sekiro.
00:40:56
Speaker
a Kind of accurate, though, to be completely honest. like Even if a game has parrying, and it doesn't have parrying this much. Yeah, it's typically like a ah Dark Souls thing where it's a nice thing you can do to like punish an enemy, but it's not super common.
00:41:14
Speaker
Whereas I would find this game very difficult if I did not have parry as an option. eat So much so that when they give you the other arm that's not the parry arm, it it fucks me up. It's tough to use it, honestly. Because you you've conditioned all of your interactions to expect to have the parry.
00:41:34
Speaker
And it's really awkward to just not. And then you just get shot in the face and you're like, oh, well, I had an answer to that. I just didn't. I tried punching a bullet with my fist. Why would I think that would work? I did want to pairings also excellent. So much of this game plays into like the style and.
00:41:51
Speaker
You know, you can pair your own shotgun shots, which is hilarious. It's like the the one we found out about was ah with one of the shotgun alts. You essentially shoot a chainsaw that's tethered out.
00:42:04
Speaker
But when it comes back, Jake punched it and it went out again. was like, I had no idea that that was even a thing. Yeah, if you time it right and you're angling so like you can actually see the returning chainsaw, you can just keep keep like keep this chainsaw out there. It's the stupidest thing to visualize.
00:42:21
Speaker
um But very funny. You can also apparently parry slash punch the coins that you can throw up and shoot. And the coin will fly out and hit somebody and then fly up again.
00:42:34
Speaker
At which point you could either shoot the coin or punch it again. ah so it's it's really dumb i'm not yet at a coin punching tech yes the the tech is pretty absurd um you did mention the difficulties i want i want to tell you i want to mention some of these difficulties because they have great descriptions for our listeners they're basically split into three main categories accessible hard and very hard Under accessible, you have harmless, which is what you were describing. Um, absurdly slow enemies and attacks damage is still high, but even a mountain could dodge them.
00:43:16
Speaker
Uh, you also have like double base health. Uh, your stamina regenerates twice as fast, stuff like that. Um, And there's no hard damage, that part that won't regenerate in your your health bar.
00:43:29
Speaker
Then you have Lenient, which is a little bit more than that. I'm not going to read all of these out. um But then you get into the hard difficulties, which are Standard and Violent.
00:43:43
Speaker
Standard is just like normal across the board. Enemies do high damage. um Violent speeds up all of that now the enemies are faster their projectiles are faster They start changing boss behavior and stuff like that um And then it goes into insane basically with the very hard difficulties, which I've literally never attempted nor do I know that I ever would um But in enemies are increasingly aggressive they deal more damage um
00:44:17
Speaker
They have what was it the last one here is called ultra kill must die, which is very funny and for listeners, it's a devil may cry reference where their highest difficulties usually Dante must die or Virgil must ah die, I guess, depending on the DLC you're playing. But um insane like you have to be insanely good at the game to to but the thing is um you can find videos of people who are really really good and like the difficulty i played at which is standard is truly not enough for them to be a challenge uh so those people like want to go into the crazier stuff and
00:45:01
Speaker
And I think the game just supports that really well. Yeah. I think they honestly probably started way more crazy than they're like, we got to tone some of these back. And yeah they made some other difficulties like standard and lenience.
00:45:16
Speaker
Yeah, the game is also, i was talking about how it's very difficult, but there are other like mechanics that can help you out. um There's aim assist you can turn on. um So if you're used to that, like probably can play games with controllers. You can do that. Usually people don't recommend maxing it out because it'll actually disorient you with how fast the game is to have like crazy aim assist. But people say 20%, give or take.
00:45:40
Speaker
pretty fair um But yeah, it's ah i mean, we've we've talked about this before, but I don't have an argument against accessibility settings or having the ability to have lower difficulties. Like if you play through the game and you enjoy it, who cares?
00:45:59
Speaker
Literally, it's a single player game. Who cares? um Like oh if you want to have a quote unquote dick measuring contest with a friend, by all means, you can keep trying to outdo the other. yeah But it doesn't make sense to gatekeep a fun game just because Johnny didn't want to play at the same difficulty you did. You know, that's what the leaderboards for. Like you can see on the leaderboard. i saw Dave.
00:46:27
Speaker
yeah could see it because he's like progressed further than I have in the game and he could see like what my scores were for certain levels and the difficulty I was playing them on and then his times which are generally better but I mean i' you know we're playing on different difficulties so obviously Apple storage you can't compare it's fine But um it kind of reminded me of Ghostrunner.
00:46:48
Speaker
And we did have we had like a brief, maybe a week long stint of ah trying to push people off the leaderboards for for Ghostrunner within our friend group. I don't care about global leaderboards ever. Oh, no, no, no. Under any circumstances, those are always hacked. None of it matters.
00:47:06
Speaker
um But if you have somebody that you actually occasionally play games with, it can be like nudge, nudge. I found a way to shave 30 seconds off that level. I don't know. It adds dimension to your game.
00:47:20
Speaker
And to you as a person. But no, I like i like the the friendly challenge type thing. Like if we're both enjoying it, trying to be like, I mean, two minutes pretty good.
00:47:32
Speaker
It's not 158 though. Yeah, yeah. And then like, oh, son of a bitch, I have to log on and try and beat their time. Like I've seen friends do this with, we were even doing with Megabonk for a little bit. yeah Where people are like, oh, I got this many kills. um And again, if it's like a for fun shits and giggles thing, i love it.
00:47:51
Speaker
yeah yeah yeah it's definitely not bad to include and if you don't care about it you don't have to worry about that aspect yeah um i do want them to complete the game same because like five years in early access is a long time i'm not i'm not going to talk around it that is a long time to be working on this little game um I think initially it started out as just one developer and then they got a team at some point.
00:48:23
Speaker
um But still, that is... i understand how much of a time commitment that can be. yeah um But I think right now they're currently somewhere in layer 8.
00:48:36
Speaker
So I think some more layer 8 levels are planned and then layer 9. And then there's a whole section called Encore. Encore. Okay. Which is supposed to be like a more difficult reprisal of some areas.
00:48:51
Speaker
And think I've only played the one. I'm not sure if the other ones open up after I beat that because I haven't beaten it yet. ah But it is so much more challenging.
00:49:04
Speaker
yeah They don't start you off basic enemies. You're like, remember these fuckers from the late game? Here you go. go through. but I am curious to check out some more of that. And again, just to push myself a little bit further because it's it's nice to see how far I can go.
00:49:21
Speaker
And it's fine if I hit a wall. Sometimes I want to overcome it and I will try to. Right. And if I don't and I'm not feeling it, that's fine too. Yeah, I think so.
00:49:32
Speaker
And you mentioned eight. I had to look up because I wasn't completely up with my Inferno lore. But there are nine circles traditionally. You're not counting the city of deaths in the the layers.
00:49:46
Speaker
Nine circles of hell in Dante's Inferno. You got all these fun ones like Limbo Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Wrath, Heresy, Violence, Fraud, and Treachery. it is i I am kind of curious. I didn't see any gameplay for violence in a game that is literally just ultra-violence. I'm wondering what they do for violence, but I guess we'll see. if Violence is seven?
00:50:12
Speaker
Yes, violence should be seven. You got to see ah one level of that when I was playing. Okay, gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. um Oh, I understand now. I know which one that is. Okay. I like that take. I won't won't spoil that, but I like that take.
00:50:29
Speaker
um Yeah, it's definitely cool. Yeah, it is. itty Best Christian game played recently. What's up? Best Christian game you played recently?
00:50:41
Speaker
ah Probably Bible Man demo disc. Well, i was I actually remember Bible men Man. Man, that is a deep cut to my childhood. But I was going to say the best ultra kill, obviously, since it's been based off of Dante's Inferno, is a Christian game. Just like Devil May Cry, right? like Oh, yeah yeah, yeah. If there's anything that overlaps with the Christian mythos, then it counts. It is actually very funny, just as an aside, like,
00:51:11
Speaker
how there are a lot of people that can't really separate Dante's Inferno from actual religious canon, even though this is distinctly like, like they think that's how it helps like, even in like the religious, religious perspective.
00:51:30
Speaker
And it's just like, you realize somebody just like wrote this book. And then if you extrapolate that logic, even a little bit, it will throw your world into disarray. City of Dis, yeah.
00:51:44
Speaker
Good reference. um Yeah. Ultra kill, though. Pretty good game. ah It makes playing other shooters kind of tough. Because you can move 5,000 miles an hour.
00:51:59
Speaker
want make it seem like it's like Sonic speed, um but it could but it it can definitely get fast. Yeah, but it feels good to be zipping through and then pull like a a drag shot, which I don't know how I can still occasionally do those. Because like that was for my 20s. That was when I actually still played Overwatch. Yeah, yeah. Wait a minute. Overwatch. ah Is that true? would we have been in our 20s when that launched?
00:52:28
Speaker
No. Nah. I mean, I'm 34, so if we're talking at least five years ago... no. Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. Well... We're all one step close to the grave every day.
00:52:41
Speaker
Yeah. That's why we got to grind out these circles of hell, so we can know how we how we're going to get through them. But... I think it's... Was it five is wrath?
00:52:53
Speaker
Yes. um For that one, that's more of like the water area themed. And Jake got to see like the the torrential ocean that was going by. Yeah. And again, it's like...
00:53:09
Speaker
It is a planar mesh that it has some, like, ah what is it? ah Dot map or something to essentially make the elevation change different points. And then it's just a shader for the ocean. Yeah.
00:53:23
Speaker
But between that and, like, the particle system for, like, the rain going, like, sideways... Again, I really like seeing what games can do with minimal stuff. Yes. Like it's not going to be over implemented to be like, this is the ocean.
00:53:39
Speaker
The ripples are perfect. the The sun comes and bounces off here, but not like all of this over the top stuff versus you understand that this is water. Right. And it's cool to see their vision of that and how that played it. I know I touched that earlier, but.
00:53:56
Speaker
It's cool to me. like it. I definitely agree. And the other thing is, and this is just in line with things we've said in the past, the game wouldn't be better if the graphics were better. Like it would it it would literally be a waste of effort because you're like, what are you doing? Are you appealing to different people? Those people would have already played the game or not. Right. Like no one's playing ultra killed for the graphics. Yeah.
00:54:23
Speaker
Like the player character has an awesome design that you never see. Cause it's the first person game. Uh, with one kind of exception, I won't really mention because of spoilers, but like, it's still like,
00:54:42
Speaker
what what would be the point to going through and up-rezzing things? The game was actually designed designed specifically to allow you max out the FOV until like you can barely see anything, and everything is just polygons. And also, conversely, like if they...
00:55:03
Speaker
put even more work into like sound design and even more work into graphics and things like that it's only going to slow down to development more and the game's been in development for five years like what's what is the point the reality is if you tried to hit that line of like professional development make it a triple a game or something like that it never would have seen the light of day yeah and then the whole team would have be fired anyway yeah like what's the point The company would go to another studio yeah and somebody else would buy that. And it's like in the company in this case, like you said, just started as a person. So that person goes to another. They're bought out and that's just slavery. so like that doesn't make any sense.
00:55:45
Speaker
No. But to add on that, it's not to say that like ah the sound design and the design itself is not good. No, I think it's really good, but it's just it's not good modern graphics. Yeah.
00:55:59
Speaker
Because I think a lot of games, at least in the AAA space, you're going to be like on a console. Typically, we'll have very good graphics to show off. Hey, this is what the console can do. Or here's what our game can do in this game engine.
00:56:14
Speaker
And then they're like, OK, now we need to make a game using these pretty features. ah Whereas this felt very much feature first and then Paul or second.
00:56:28
Speaker
Exactly. Which I think that is really how everything should be made anyway. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Because if... it I mean, I'm struggling with that right now. I'm dicking around in Unity, ah trying to make a little game as like a side project.
00:56:44
Speaker
um And I very much want to design the world and just treat it like a giant sandbox. Mm-hmm. But yeah, I kind of have to work on how the character moves and interacts a little more to be like, how does this feel? because it doesn't feel good. It doesn't matter how perfect my lava level is designed or whatever. Yeah, right.
00:57:09
Speaker
Gameplay and fun first. Said it once, said a million times. Yes, it's going to continue to be relevant for as long as we talk about games. You need to have some sort of hook, some sort of engagement, some sort of reason to play, even if it's not even traditional gameplay, which is absolutely the case for Ultra Kill, right? Like you're playing it for the gameplay. If you don't like the gunplay in Ultra Kill, if you don't like the encounters when you're fighting enemies,
00:57:35
Speaker
Stop playing because it's not you're not going to experience something else appreciably different from that outside of the fishing Easter egg or whatever. But um however, 95 percent of the development has gone into that space. So, yeah, like that is that's the reason to do it.
00:57:55
Speaker
It's valid for other games to focus on other things. I'm not saying graphics are bad. We talked about that. Oh, definitely not. The Ghost the ghost series. Claire Obscure? Yeah, Claire Obscure. Gorgeous game.
00:58:07
Speaker
Yes. And they didn't i they didn't skimp on gameplay to get there either, but they made the conscious decision to focus on multiple pillars, right? um And other games, like you have your walking simulator type games or your story games, those can be impactful as well. But, you know, they're not focusing on gameplay by by design and definition.
00:58:28
Speaker
And that's fine if they have an interesting story to tell. But sometimes you just want to kill six billion demons. Yeah. I'd much rather kill six billion demons than find out whatever the fuck happened to Ethan Carter. Hated that game.
00:58:43
Speaker
Hated it so much. Yeah. He's just a meet um a magician. That was actually the vanishing of Ethan Carter. He was just like, ah, okay. yeah Ethan didn't pay the bill. ah He got vanished. Yeah.
00:58:59
Speaker
ah But yeah, you know, hopefully, well, I mean, they're going to continue to develop this. um And I want to see 1.0 launch. There's not that many circles of hell for them to fill out. I don't think it's a terrible idea either to continue to develop on a game for as long as you want to.
00:59:19
Speaker
Right. No Man's Sky, a great example of this. um Stardew Valley just had their Among Us crossover or whatever, but they've been in development for forever. um There's like a lot of games, and even beyond the life service space, where like ah a single person or a small team, just passion project, labor of love. I'm not done working on it. Dwarf Fortress, right? but Yeah, exactly. And 86 years of development on that game.
00:59:43
Speaker
Video games i think are a medium where it's a lot easier to be iterative versus like if you're doing film You kind of have to make another movie if you want to like make changes ah similar to like television shows and seasons or even like books But with video games you could be like this was our first pass and we thought it was pretty good And then maybe you come back with an idea later when you're inspired. You're like, you know, it'd really cool. We could add this.
01:00:15
Speaker
Yes. And then you do. And it just makes it a better game because you're not tied to a specific release cycle where you have to just ship it and never touch it again.
Development Priorities and Praise
01:00:26
Speaker
Yeah. I guess like my personal preference would be for ultra kill. If they worked on the critical path and they got a 1.0 version of the game and then they kept developing secrets and stuff like that into it. However,
01:00:41
Speaker
I am actually perfectly fine in this case, since the game is good as it is for the, for the developer to didn't developers to push it in such a way that they're not burning themselves out.
01:00:54
Speaker
If they have ideas where they're like, okay, my recharge after finishing this circle of hell is actually to implement advanced fishing mechanics or whatever. Fine. Whatever. Take your time.
01:01:07
Speaker
Um, I generally try not to judge games until they hit a 1.0 anyways. um If I can. Right. But sometimes games blow their load too quick. just They just come out here and it's like, hey this is our launch. This is all of this stuff. And it's early access. And then there's just no hype to continue.
01:01:27
Speaker
But i think I think you can make an exception for the games that are just fun to play and worth playing in their current state. And Ultra Kill is there. Yeah, 100%. it's It's similar to like a Hades for me, yeah where I liked the part it was at when I came in even though it wasn't quote unquote complete.
01:01:46
Speaker
And I think it technically is already like a complete game. um But yeah, I would love to see them. formally finish it out and have that released because it is really fucking good yes there needs to be more stuff uh in this space as far as first person shooters in my opinion um you're seeing some of them in like indie spaces where basically everything's kind of 2d and then like face towards the player i think there was like a catholic cthulhu one
01:02:18
Speaker
i'm not sure i'm not gonna be able to identify that one unfortunately but probably i believe it yeah there are other good types of games like that they exist but there should be more of them i know i know you're probably referencing a religious game that had to deal with eldritch horrors but i just imagined cthulhu with a pope hat like that's that's where i went in the glass case uh-huh yeah um The other reason they should launch the game is so we can unequivocally recommend this to anyone who would ever touch a shooter.
01:02:51
Speaker
um Because then you're just like, play the whole game's available. There's not going to be some weird... Yeah, it always feels weird to suggest something somebody and then you have to be the caveat like, it's not done yet. They're in there like second and a half season and there's a delay.
01:03:05
Speaker
Yeah. Imagine the egg on my face when Cyberpunk released their first trailer all the way back there and be like, oh my gosh, everybody should play this. And then... Then the game came out. It was released in a state that was not that good. But now it's an excellent the game. Now I can recommend it because it's actually come out. It's had good DLC.
01:03:24
Speaker
Hop on it, Ultra Kill. Just kidding. it's ah It's really good, though. Good game. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you for listening to us as we talked about a first person shooter in the year of our Lord 2025 for an hour.
01:03:42
Speaker
um But occasionally one comes out that's worth talking about for that
01:03:50
Speaker
This is one of those times. ah Thank you for listening. If you have any feedback, all of our socials are down there in the description. We love to hear your feedback on this one. Maybe you really enjoyed Ultra Kill. Maybe you hate it. There are other games you want us to check out. Let us know. Reach out to us. But as always, we'll see you in the next one.
01:04:12
Speaker
May your woes be many and your days few.