Transcript
Speaker: Hey there everybody, welcome back to Pixel It.
Speaker: My name is Kevin and today on the show we are talking about Far Cry 5.
Speaker: That's right, we have just finished Far Cry Absolution and we are going to review slash just I don't know talk about the Far Cry 5 and the seed siblings and all that fun stuff.
Speaker: So with me today
Speaker: It really makes it worse, doesn't it?
Speaker: With me as always is Phil.
Speaker: Hello.
Speaker: And today we have a special guest, Jamuel from the YouTube channel, Jamuel.
Speaker: And Game Library is his series on YouTube.
Speaker: Jam, welcome aboard.
Speaker: Glad to be here.
Speaker: Glad to realize we're finally starting and not like earlier where I thought we were starting.
Speaker: Listeners, Jam's been talking for the past 25 minutes thinking that we were ready for him on the show.
Speaker: It was mortifying.
Speaker: I've been rambling about the game and Far Cry and how spiritual we can get together, but...
Speaker: No, I have a series on the internet called Game Library, which is similar to this, where I talk about video game books.
Speaker: It's not a podcast, but it is.
Speaker: I do my best in Vegas.
Speaker: I think that's the best way I can describe it.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And yeah, so you're a kindred spirit in terms of diving into the novelizations of video games and really getting into the guts of them.
Speaker: It really makes a big difference, doesn't it?
Speaker: Yeah, the extra lore supplements that may or may not be canon, half the time they're not, unless it's a Halo novel, but that's a fucking terrifying discussion for another day.
Speaker: It's such a deep well.
Speaker: Oh, so much Halo.
Speaker: God, there's...
Speaker: That actually is one of the things that scares me.
Speaker: I'll make a whole thing out of that later.
Speaker: But my most recent video that was out at the time of this recording was Deus Ex Blacklight, which is great.
Speaker: But by the time this comes out, I will have released my next video on Arkham Knight, The Riddler's Gambit, featuring an interview from the author, Hadab.
Speaker: Ooh, that's something that we've been talking about doing.
Speaker: And then we, I don't know, haven't.
Speaker: We did get in contact with the author of, um,
Speaker: of the Resident Evil novels that we started out the entire podcast with.
Speaker: And she told us, so we'd love to have you on.
Speaker: She was like, I'm kind of afraid of being on a podcast, which is a totally rational reaction.
Speaker: But she did say she would do a Q&A if we came up with questions.
Speaker: So we just need to actually, you know, do that.
Speaker: Because it's what a lovely opportunity that it's being wasted, damn it, wasted.
Speaker: The Resident Evil novels scare me, not because they're supposed to be horror novels, but because of what they are and what's in them.
Speaker: But I'll tell you this as far as interviewing an author, it's a scheduling nightmare.
Speaker: I believe that.
Speaker: I've interviewed two authors so far.
Speaker: The first was William C. Dietz, and I totally recorded that.
Speaker: But Wizards stole away my recording.
Speaker: Totally.
Speaker: Of course.
Speaker: It was... I don't know how that happened.
Speaker: That was over a Hitman novel.
Speaker: Scanded in the night it did and the last one I actually successfully recorded um, well, let me tell you it's a scheduling nightmare Um, yeah, and then a month later It's like I can probably do this in like three weeks at a particular time and it only really helps if you're jobless if you have a job good luck um I've also reached out to the author of the deus ex novel and
Speaker: After the video was released, he finally responded like I could probably respond in a text email shoot them.
Speaker: I will answer them and I'm like, okay, maybe I'll just make it on that and I still haven't gotten a response after I sent them.
Speaker: So with with with what's going on in the world and with his own schedule, because he's writing like a billion things and he lives in the UK.
Speaker: I don't I don't blame him.
Speaker: I'm not mad, right?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I'm very happy.
Speaker: He was actually able to get back, but it is an absolute scheduling nightmare.
Speaker: Not to mention the fact.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I messaged the Arkham Knight Riddler's Gambit author when he was on vacation of all times to actually message him.
Speaker: Seriously.
Speaker: It's just a bit of like, I'm going to go to the ballgame first.
Speaker: And it's like, well, you have fun with that, sir.
Speaker: And it was a good interview.
Speaker: You'll hear it on the episode sometime this week once I...
Speaker: Looking forward to it.
Speaker: The it actually reminds me of when I did a video on XCOM and after I released it, the the the PR flack or representative for Julian Gallup, who created the XCOM series, just like commented on the video saying, hey, you know, if you had just asked, you could have interviewed Julian for this.
Speaker: I think that's the thing that a lot of us still aren't used to with just...
Speaker: Twitter sometimes where it's like, oh, you know, those the guy who wrote a lot of your favorite Vampire the Masquerade source books that you read when you were in high school and stuff like that.
Speaker: Yeah, he's going to be your friend on Twitter in like 10, 15 years.
Speaker: So just hang out.
Speaker: And, you know, all those authors, you're going to be able to actually reach out to him.
Speaker: It's just a matter of actually doing something with it.
Speaker: That's the difference and making it work.
Speaker: Just keep doing what you're doing and eventually something will stick.
Speaker: You'll make friends with the craziest people.
Speaker: It's weird, isn't it?
Speaker: You just, you just keep knocking on doors.
Speaker: Eventually somebody is going to answer and say, yes, come in, make yourself at home.
Speaker: If I, if I shitpost hard enough on Twitter, maybe one day I too will be followed by Barack Obama.
Speaker: Alright, am I the only person in this chat who has not been followed by him?
Speaker: I'm frustrated.
Speaker: I know so many people.
Speaker: Like, when he first popped on there and he was just following everybody, anyone who responded to him, I didn't get fucking followed and it pisses me off.
Speaker: I'm actually not followed by Obama.
Speaker: I hope he doesn't follow me.
Speaker: I do nothing but like shitposts and talk about my series.
Speaker: It's boring for the former US president to look at.
Speaker: He's got better things to do.
Speaker: Like, release memoirs and
Speaker: do his own thing i don't know just do whatever i guess whatever make yeah i think he's making netflix documentaries now i mean that's a cushy job he's yeah he's he's keeping busy you gotta you gotta give him that but after being president of the united states uh you gotta figure uh anything that we would consider busy is just nothing for him at this point
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You got to do something so your hair isn't so white anymore.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: From all the stress.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: You got to, like, reverse the process.
Speaker: I think those before and after pictures you see of the president, like, before they were elected president, after they left office, it's so funny when you look at those, the only one who seems to be unaffected
Speaker: was Trump.
Speaker: And that's because he didn't really look like that in the first place.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's just like, Oh my God.
Speaker: That was never what he actually naturally looked like anyway.
Speaker: So it doesn't matter.
Speaker: It really doesn't.
Speaker: It's all spray tan to me.
Speaker: I mean, you can't age Photoshop, my friend.
Speaker: You just can't.
Speaker: We're talking about Far Cry 5 today.
Speaker: Damn right.
Speaker: And it takes place in Hope County, Montana.
Speaker: And it is an open world game or sandbox game.
Speaker: If you were born in like the 1980s, you might still slip and call it that.
Speaker: Do you not call them sandbox games anymore?
Speaker: I'm a millennial-er, I don't know what I am.
Speaker: I was born in 97, I still call them sandbox games sometimes.
Speaker: Oh god, thank god, thank god someone's speaking sense out here.
Speaker: Oh man.
Speaker: Uh, yeah.
Speaker: Phil and I were born in the first half of the 1980s, so I'm the youngest then here.
Speaker: That's fun.
Speaker: What do they say they call us?
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: The Oregon Trail Generation.
Speaker: Oregon Trail Generation.
Speaker: Or whatever it is, where it's like we were raised without the internet, but we gained it somewhere in high school or so.
Speaker: Yeah, right.
Speaker: That crossover between Gen X and millennials is kind of where we sit.
Speaker: Which would normally annoy me to have that, like to do that kind of, you know, splitting hairs.
Speaker: But I really, anytime someone says something about millennials, I'm like, I just don't feel like I'm a millennial.
Speaker: It doesn't, it kind of does make a difference to me.
Speaker: It's like the word millennial in itself, you know, millennia, you thought it would mean like anyone born on 2000 or afterwards.
Speaker: That's what makes the most sense in my head.
Speaker: But no, it's like you've got to do advanced calculus to figure out what to classify yourself as.
Speaker: Yeah, it was those who came of age around the turn of the millennia, which, sure, I guess.
Speaker: I mean, I was in high school.
Speaker: Close enough.
Speaker: I mean, that's a...
Speaker: That's a standard coming-of-age story.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I watch Stand By Me.
Speaker: We all learned something from it.
Speaker: We all learned.
Speaker: You guys want to go find a dead body?
Speaker: You want to see a dead body?
Speaker: I'll go see a dead body if it means meeting Kiefer Sutherland, which still surprises me when he was in that film.
Speaker: I mean, it would be a mess.
Speaker: It really would be.
Speaker: It's like...
Speaker: He's all anger and rage, and I'm like, oh, can you sign my box set in 24?
Speaker: Bam!
Speaker: He's yelling about where his wife is.
Speaker: What do I say?
Speaker: There's something.
Speaker: I only watched the first season in 24.
Speaker: I gotta watch the rest.
Speaker: I don't know if you do.
Speaker: I don't think I'm allowed to actually review Far Cry 5.
Speaker: Why is that?
Speaker: If we were playing by the internet's rules, because I never finished the game.
Speaker: But guess what?
Speaker: We're not playing by the internet's rules.
Speaker: We're playing by Pixelit's rules.
Speaker: It didn't stop me from weeping softly the last time we reviewed a game.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: You did weep softly into the microphone about Bloodborne.
Speaker: I got real cozy with that mute button.
Speaker: Did you even wake up?
Speaker: I forgot to ask you, did you even wake up the doll?
Speaker: No, no, I only know what that is because of the video you recommended.
Speaker: Got it.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Moving on, we're not talking about Blubber.
Speaker: Not again.
Speaker: Not before another tragedy strikes.
Speaker: Jim, are you going to mock me as well?
Speaker: No, it's fine.
Speaker: We'll discuss that later when Bloodborne 2 happens and something will happen there, but I'm just gonna I'm gonna start a riot like Bloodborne 2 is gonna come out and like yeah, yes, and we're gonna do just sir setting cars on fire Shots fired or disgruntled man yelling about a Japanese video game.
Speaker: Yes respond Gamergate 2
Speaker: oh no no oh my god no um so yeah Far Cry 5 it's it's it's uh my here's my concise opinion on it uh I liked what I played but I didn't feel like I needed to play anymore mm-hmm
Speaker: So I went up through John Seed's territory.
Speaker: So and I referenced John Seed is the main antagonist of the book that we just finished, Far Cry Absolution.
Speaker: So, yeah, I went up through John Seed's territory.
Speaker: I shot him in the face with an arrow a few times.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then it was like.
Speaker: There's something about the fact that there was like two more areas and it was like, I gotta start over, I guess.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Kind of, in a way, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So then I was like, I'm just going to put it down for now.
Speaker: And then Deathloop came out and I just never picked it up.
Speaker: That's fair.
Speaker: That's completely understandable.
Speaker: I think if I hadn't have finished it for the second time by the time you pointed out that ActRaiser Renaissance was a thing, I probably wouldn't have completed it either.
Speaker: But yeah, it's huge.
Speaker: I think that's the thing, especially for...
Speaker: those of us with, you know, wives and kids and lives, uh, it, it doesn't hold the same appeal.
Speaker: Does it?
Speaker: Those, those enormous, like, this is going to take 75 hours off your life.
Speaker: Fucker.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: I still remember where I was the first time I told a non-gamer how long you could spend playing games like Skyrim, for example, and the look she gave me.
Speaker: And I was like, oh, right.
Speaker: There are people out there who are not just used to the idea of a game taking 40 hours to complete.
Speaker: And that's just kind of middling average, like just the look on her face.
Speaker: And I remember exactly what she said.
Speaker: I was dating this woman at the time.
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: And she went, 40 hours?
Speaker: It took you 40 hours to beat that game?
Speaker: And I went, well, yeah, the main parts.
Speaker: And she went, and you're good with spending that time doing that?
Speaker: You're fine with that.
Speaker: That's how you spent those 40 hours.
Speaker: And I was like, yeah.
Speaker: She went, okay, okay.
Speaker: And it felt like the girlfriend equivalent of, I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed.
Speaker: It was really unnerving.
Speaker: I'll never forget it.
Speaker: And then you just kind of naturally fall into this place where you're like, no, I think...
Speaker: an objective or two here and there would be fine, but I don't know if I could spend 80 hours on the next game.
Speaker: What about you, Jim?
Speaker: What's the extent of your experience here?
Speaker: In terms of gaming or just Far Cry 5, just alone, because... Well, you know, mix it up, baby.
Speaker: Mix it up.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: I'm still in a position where I can hang out with my kid, watch him, and still play games quite liberally, but...
Speaker: Thinking about what you've said about telling someone, oh, I played that game for 40 hours.
Speaker: Thinking about it from an outside perspective, I imagine their first thought is in a row.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Which would lead to a lot of concern, I can see.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But I play a ton of games.
Speaker: I'm working my way through dread right now.
Speaker: I want 100% that which is taking years off my life.
Speaker: Oh, I'm trying to finish this video.
Speaker: Good though, isn't it?
Speaker: Oh, it's Jesus.
Speaker: It's very good.
Speaker: It's probably the best Metroid Metroid Metroid game.
Speaker: There is getting my words already confused.
Speaker: It's the best Metroid Dread there is, well no shit there's only one.
Speaker: It's the best one so far.
Speaker: Metroid Dread, the best Metroid Dread.
Speaker: They'll pull a Red Dead Redemption and instead of doing another funky little RDR title with a different R word it'll just be Red Dead Redemption 2, the prequel.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Through me for a loop.
Speaker: No Red Dead Revolution or whatever, just that.
Speaker: But I digress.
Speaker: Red Dread Redemption, the Metroid-ing.
Speaker: Hey, we did it.
Speaker: We were clever.
Speaker: There it is.
Speaker: I think video games are just a great art form as a whole.
Speaker: And as far as Far Cry 5 goes, I've beaten Far Cry 5.
Speaker: I have a love-hate relationship with it.
Speaker: Me personally.
Speaker: talking about the good first with Far Cry 5.
Speaker: I thought the gameplay is very tried and true.
Speaker: They've touched it up a lot from Far Cry 4 and then Far Cry 3, you know, so on before that.
Speaker: I thought the gunplay felt nice.
Speaker: The upgrade system was pretty decent.
Speaker: You do a lot of stuff because it packs a lot of shit for you to do.
Speaker: The driving doesn't feel bad.
Speaker: The graphics are very nice.
Speaker: Of course, it's not a bad game to look at.
Speaker: The voice acting, the performances, very good.
Speaker: Ubisoft knows how to really handle their money.
Speaker: There's a lot of good I could talk about.
Speaker: And then what happened with me was I played this and I finished it up again recently and I'm like, okay,
Speaker: Yeah, that's a game.
Speaker: Let me try restarting a fresh new save.
Speaker: And it made me realize, wow, this game feels completely different if you go from like a late game save to something completely new.
Speaker: It's more than a nerf.
Speaker: It feels just like you're having everything stripped away.
Speaker: You have no upgrades, no special, like extra slots for weapons.
Speaker: Like having two weapons at the start is such a crime.
Speaker: It feels weird going from I need a pistol, but I also need a shotgun and a machine gun.
Speaker: Well, how is that different from how you would do it with just about any other game that has that slow upgrade creep that happens?
Speaker: I guess it's just like...
Speaker: Playing Far Cry 5, you kind of come to use the upgrades as a crutch, more or less.
Speaker: It feels good having all of them.
Speaker: And the variety in Far Cry 5 is another good thing about it.
Speaker: Going from a sniper, you know, if maybe you want to sneak this, or maybe you want to get the bear companion.
Speaker: I forget his name.
Speaker: Peaches was the... Cheeseburger.
Speaker: Cheeseburger.
Speaker: Peaches was the cheetah or tiger, whatever the fuck it was.
Speaker: Yeah, Peaches is the mountain lion.
Speaker: Mountain lion.
Speaker: And Boomer was the good boy.
Speaker: The good boy.
Speaker: Far Cry 5 kind of relies on having all that power.
Speaker: So going from like this high level, having four guns, being able to mix it up easily to nothing kind of takes away from the experience.
Speaker: I'll say that.
Speaker: So Far Cry 5, like creeping into the negatives, the replayability factor, at least on a new save, doesn't feel great.
Speaker: Playing through Far Cry 5 again, you kind of see just how some things feel weird and...
Speaker: I'm very in the middle about Far Cry 5, whether or not I absolutely love it or hate it.
Speaker: I'll tell you that for free.
Speaker: It's like, there's a lot of good.
Speaker: And then it's like, why are the U.S. Marshals only sending like a team of three who are very ill-equipped?
Speaker: When you should be sending like a whole militia.
Speaker: And a brand new guy, a guy who has no business, you know, doing anything but stopping people for speeding tickets.
Speaker: It's no big to cuff a religious fanatic.
Speaker: My headcanon for that, to make everything just make more sense, is that his name is just coincidentally Rookie, or they, or she, whatever you went with.
Speaker: Their name is just Rookie by pure coincidence.
Speaker: That's all it is.
Speaker: That explains how you can do all this John Wick nonsense.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: Simple but effective.
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: I think that's good.
Speaker: If there's anything I've learned about reading all these video game Italians and trying to make them make sense is that you have to compromise a lot in what makes sense in logic.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Oh, surely.
Speaker: So some parent out there just had the last name Rookie or named their child Rookie.
Speaker: Rook for short.
Speaker: Rook is a good name.
Speaker: I'll say that.
Speaker: Rook's a good name, yeah.
Speaker: Rook is a good name.
Speaker: And I did think it was kind of clever, but like, I thought the character customization was maybe a little lacking.
Speaker: And the only time it really appears is the wanted poster, which I thought that's cute, but there's got to be more, which is probably why they went from a static.
Speaker: Do you want a named protagonist of Danny to be male or female?
Speaker: Um, almost harkens back to Far Cry 2 where you just got to select who the fuck ever.
Speaker: Just like a bunch of people.
Speaker: There is.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The one thing I remember of Far Cry 2 is that there was a guy from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I know that because I used to live in Oklahoma.
Speaker: And that'll tie into a lot of what I have to talk about here because, oh boy, Far Cry 5 is certainly an experience.
Speaker: Oh, man.
Speaker: You mentioned that, what was it, John Seed was the antagonist of the fucking book?
Speaker: Yeah, they very briefly mention, well, Joseph Seed is the... Well, he's the overall, but yeah.
Speaker: No, John Seed, they mention briefly the father.
Speaker: They do not mention Jacob or Eve, or Faith, Eve, Jesus.
Speaker: Faith, yeah.
Speaker: Some religious name, you know.
Speaker: They don't mention Jacob or Faith at all.
Speaker: There is a brief one line about Jacob, I think.
Speaker: Oh, I think you're right, actually, yeah.
Speaker: It's something about the mountains or something like that.
Speaker: Yeah, those were his domain or something like that.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: There's a brief one.
Speaker: But yeah, Faith, not mentioned at all.
Speaker: The book is all about how John Seed is...
Speaker: He feels like basically the second most important person in the entire overarching Far Cry 5 story, the way he's kind of set up in the book.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then when you get to Far Cry 5...
Speaker: that kind of that sort of makes sense because like all right well his area is actually the he holds the actual town you know yeah he's holding the region that has has the town in it and i think it makes sense that they were like if they if the if they if ubisoft or whoever like said to the author you know urban weight they were like hey listen uh probably the first bad guy that that
Speaker: the players are going to deal with is, you know, Joseph.
Speaker: So, so maybe, maybe focus on him as the big bad novel or something like that.
Speaker: So people are really kind of, John, John.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: They're all J's and it's not cute anymore when you're trying to remember who, but yeah, I feel like they, they said something like he's going to be the first big bad.
Speaker: So maybe focus on them a little bit, get their blood pumping to, to take this guy out.
Speaker: And so and Jam going back to what you're saying, and I think what you're saying about the the nerfing going back to like a fresh start is so you're saying that like the end game combat loop.
Speaker: with all the upgrades feels right.
Speaker: That feels like a good combat gameplay loop.
Speaker: And then when you go back to the beginning of the game without all that stuff, it is a nerf in the way, but it also kind of breaks the loop a little bit.
Speaker: Is that what you're saying?
Speaker: Yeah, it does.
Speaker: And also thinking about what you said earlier about how you beat the first third of the game and that was kind of enough.
Speaker: Piggybacking off of that, it's like if you do enough side stuff,
Speaker: you could be at that power creep, like, at that level by the end of the first boss.
Speaker: You could have, you know, four weapon slots.
Speaker: You could have, like, all this sneak attack.
Speaker: I forgot all the powers.
Speaker: If you're a completionist, you can be ready to fucking beat the game by the end of that section.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And one of the problems that kind of, you know, piggybacking off what you said, you know, after defeating John Seed is that
Speaker: You don't really get anything else after that.
Speaker: You get all these menial upgrades.
Speaker: You can get neat cars and neat weapons.
Speaker: But like one thing I found is that like none of them are really locked off from the start.
Speaker: Not to mention you can spend real money just to get the fancy skinned weapons that transfer between your save files.
Speaker: But like Ubisoft money.
Speaker: I love money.
Speaker: money money but it's like it doesn't feel like there's anything else for you to get you've got a bow you've got a sniper you've got another weapon and then a pistol and then you can tackle pretty much everything it's cool to get it's cool to get all the you know the companions that come with each territory you know cheeseburger peaches boomer and then all the rest I guess Herc is also the
Speaker: poster child of Far Cry Mimory.
Speaker: Pretty much, yeah.
Speaker: Pretty much.
Speaker: Transcending time to become a caveman with a very bad accent, which just feels... okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Far Cry Primal's a game, but... That is a game.
Speaker: I also beat that one twice.
Speaker: That's... yeah.
Speaker: I'll get into my relationship with Far Cry in a minute.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think the takeaway is that like Far Cry 5's gameplay is probably where it shines.
Speaker: I think Far Cry has always been about the gameplay because when you start to like pick apart the story, it gets a little goofy at times.
Speaker: Sometimes it's okay.
Speaker: Like, okay, weapons dealer in Africa.
Speaker: This is Far Cry 2, you know, doing some heinous shit.
Speaker: Go get him and help liberate.
Speaker: And then you get malaria and that's half the game.
Speaker: Um, Far Cry 3.
Speaker: Crazy man.
Speaker: Cole, I didn't finish Far Cry 3.
Speaker: I'm pretty much a pariah on the internet now.
Speaker: Um...
Speaker: Careful, careful.
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: And then Far Cry 4, Pagan Min, and all that.
Speaker: You know, Far Cry's been about those two things.
Speaker: Crazy antagonist and pretty damn solid gameplay.
Speaker: I can't fault them, because all their antagonists, like the main central ones,
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: They've got a lot of potential.
Speaker: Good designs for what they're worth.
Speaker: Good voice acting, especially good voice acting.
Speaker: Jesus.
Speaker: Michael Mando got his big fucking break because of Far Cry 3.
Speaker: I wouldn't be surprised.
Speaker: Well, I mean, Trey Baker's, you know, Trey Baker.
Speaker: But I wouldn't be surprised if voice actor's name, who I'm totally not looking up.
Speaker: Greg Burt.
Speaker: Is that who voices him?
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: Thank God.
Speaker: It wasn't even anyone that you would have.
Speaker: Voice and likeness.
Speaker: Greg, Greg Brick.
Speaker: He has a Y in his name.
Speaker: I'm going to cry.
Speaker: Yeah, that guy whose name I totally didn't just Google right now.
Speaker: I remember that.
Speaker: Yeah, I remember it too.
Speaker: It's so clear.
Speaker: How great Greg Brick.
Speaker: Yeah, he is.
Speaker: I wouldn't be surprised if a few years online we started seeing him in more and more stuff.
Speaker: He probably isn't a lot of stuff that I haven't seen.
Speaker: But all this to say is that as far as the gameplay is good, it does lack in, you probably hit that cap a little too early.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: And it doesn't really expand much beyond what you get.
Speaker: Like after the first part or so.
Speaker: And then the other stuff falls apart.
Speaker: When I replayed Far Cry 5, I was losing my shit.
Speaker: My husband was watching me play and we were both kind of losing our shit.
Speaker: Like, he's a little on the nose.
Speaker: You know, Joseph Cetus is like, Joseph Cetus is like, behold, a white horse.
Speaker: And the fucking officer's name is White Horse.
Speaker: One word.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They're singing Amazing Grace and like, and this, this for my husband is also especially kind of prevalent.
Speaker: My husband, he, because Far Cry 5 is about religion, I'm about to, about to touch into some territory here.
Speaker: So if we have to cut it, I apologize.
Speaker: Yeah, we're totally go do it for it because we've already okay.
Speaker: We've already done a lot of the religion stuff Full disclaimer.
Speaker: I respect whatever you want to believe in I might not agree with it I might not partake in it, but I fully respect the desire to believe in it I think everyone is absolutely free to believe in whatever whoever they want you that is your
Speaker: Ironically enough, God given right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Or otherwise.
Speaker: But my husband, this was a little particular him because he's a part of a community called Fundy Snark Uncensored.
Speaker: And for the uninitiated.
Speaker: I love him already.
Speaker: For the.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, it gets great for the uninitiated, which is to say the audience at home.
Speaker: Fundy Snark as a whole.
Speaker: is about fundamentalist Christians, aka fundies, who take Christianity to a very, very fundamentalist level.
Speaker: And funny snark is just kind of snarking on them, discussing them, and maybe poking a bit fun at them because they post a lot on social media.
Speaker: Now, funny snark aren't your, like, fundies aren't your, like, typical, oh, I go to church every Sunday, yeah, God's great, cool, kind of Christians.
Speaker: They're, like...
Speaker: You ever heard of Quiverfuls?
Speaker: Oh, yes.
Speaker: They call themselves that because it's like, I don't know the exact reason, but like... Treat the woman's vagina like a clown car.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: My God.
Speaker: And have as many children as you humanly can, which leads to very mixed results because they get a lot selfish about it.
Speaker: It's like...
Speaker: He's telling me a story today about how the mother in this one fundy family got kicked out of Like the delivery room that her daughter was in because she was trying to make it all about herself Because she was jealous that her daughter was having kids and she wasn't and it was just kind of like your wife God fuck and it's not like it's not like their children having children like she was an adult you know the daughter was an adult having kids and
Speaker: But it's like, um, oh god, what was that one family he told me about?
Speaker: The Duggars, who are very notorious in the Funny Star community.
Speaker: You might have heard of them.
Speaker: Oh, yes.
Speaker: Yeah, because they had a TV show.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: What was it?
Speaker: Not 18 Kids and Counties.
Speaker: I think it was that.
Speaker: It was one of those and counting.
Speaker: Something like that.
Speaker: My 800 Kid Life.
Speaker: Yeah, something like that.
Speaker: Josh Duggar turned out to be a pederast.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Who's surprised?
Speaker: That was a thread and a half where everyone was just like, holy lord, ironically.
Speaker: And so for him watching this, for him watching, for my husband watching the Far Cry 5 go on, and for also he and I had just watched Midnight Mass.
Speaker: Great show.
Speaker: A lot of religion in that.
Speaker: We're kind of sitting there like, this is really on the nose.
Speaker: Oh, sure.
Speaker: This is...
Speaker: This is just like you could have done more.
Speaker: It's like, oh, okay, you're hitting all the marks here.
Speaker: Overtly Christian imagery with the not Christian cross, which, yeah, I mean, I guess I joked when I first played it, I joked it was Scientology.
Speaker: It's got a little feel to that, doesn't it?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, a little bit like if Scientology and Catholicism had like a very demented child.
Speaker: Um, and then and then it's like he's watching.
Speaker: It's like, oh, okay, checking all the boxes.
Speaker: Oh, really Christian imagery, praying to God, um, rednecks with guns, and then most of all, amazing grace.
Speaker: I was just going to say, singing Amazing Grace.
Speaker: It's always Amazing Grace.
Speaker: I went to church every Sunday for a long time.
Speaker: And there are a lot of good songs in those hymnals.
Speaker: I got to say, one thing you can't take away.
Speaker: There's some pretty good songs.
Speaker: Why do we keep sticking with Amazing Fucking Grace?
Speaker: I guess you could say it's the normie Christian song.
Speaker: That must be it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But like, I don't know about you, but if I heard singing about God and it was in English, I'd be 99% sure that it's about Christianity and it's a Christian song.
Speaker: It doesn't take much.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like another game, Wasteland 3.
Speaker: Beautiful game.
Speaker: It does Americana, like post-apocalyptic Americana better than Fallout does at all.
Speaker: Highly recommended.
Speaker: Great CRP.
Speaker: Is it a CRPG?
Speaker: I guess it is a CRPG.
Speaker: Yeah, it is.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's also it's also created by Brian Fargo.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Who was the the president of Interplay when Interplay made Fallout.
Speaker: Yes, so it's effectively the real Fallout 3.
Speaker: I mean, you're not wrong.
Speaker: They use... You're truly speaking Kevin's language at this point.
Speaker: I need to finish that game.
Speaker: I need to finish that gameplay to the OC, but the point I'm trying to make is that...
Speaker: When dealing with religion in Wasteland 3, they didn't stick with Amazing Grace.
Speaker: They made a banging ass cover of Down in the Valley to Pray, Washed in the Blood of the Lamb.
Speaker: Washed in the Blood of the Lamb.
Speaker: When I heard at the very beginning of the game, the first mission, you hear a radio and it's washed in the blood of the Lamb.
Speaker: It's like, oh man, this...
Speaker: This slaps and it's also really weird.
Speaker: What is going on here?
Speaker: What is going on with this?
Speaker: There's so many good things in there and they just always go with the lazy, obvious choice.
Speaker: There's so much good shit out there that is spooky as fuck.
Speaker: Christianity is spooky as fuck, especially if you're Southern.
Speaker: Southern Gothic Christianity is terrifying.
Speaker: Oh my god, yes, I lived in Oklahoma that's very deep south.
Speaker: I love that photo you put in the chat.
Speaker: Phil's a Georgia boy.
Speaker: Oh man.
Speaker: But all this suffice to say is that like when it comes to Far Cry, it feels like
Speaker: Somebody wrote down a really, really great idea.
Speaker: It's like, oh my God, a crazy sandbox open world game with Far Cry gameplay, but it's about religion and like what that could mean entail.
Speaker: That's great.
Speaker: Why don't I only give it half the effort and kind of only go to the midway mark and just kind of cruise along comfortably there without really breaking new ground.
Speaker: And this that's actually that's a that's a really good point because
Speaker: Ubisoft is famous for always claiming, ah, it's not political.
Speaker: We're not, we're not political.
Speaker: And, and now that you point that out, I can, I'm like, yeah, I agree.
Speaker: Cause it's a half measure.
Speaker: It's, it's, it has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But it doesn't and it still doesn't say anything about the nature of religion or or or right wing conservatism.
Speaker: And then the tragedy of it is that it wouldn't take much to actually say something.
Speaker: It's deeply frustrating.
Speaker: It wouldn't take much, really.
Speaker: A tweak here and there.
Speaker: And you could have a really powerful game that games critics and historians will be talking about for fucking decades.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: But they don't want to run the risk of missing out on the money they can make this week for the legend of following years.
Speaker: I mean, that's video games in a nutshell.
Speaker: The industry, anyway.
Speaker: Yeah, it's short-term gain over long-term, I guess, impact.
Speaker: Precisely.
Speaker: Because it's not necessarily even like a... It's not short-term versus long-term financial.
Speaker: It's short-term versus long-term, I guess...
Speaker: historicity or impact or whatever you want to call it, just like their place in the industry is always going to be seen as this company.
Speaker: And as more stuff has come out about Ubisoft, it's actually become less and less surprising that it's a company that would take half measures on stuff like this, because obviously,
Speaker: The leadership at the top was toxic.
Speaker: It was a toxic work environment.
Speaker: People were abused, sexually harassed, sexually assaulted.
Speaker: From the very top, it's a rotting fish rots from the head.
Speaker: And I think when you look at Ubisoft, you look at a company that
Speaker: They are only concerned with... They're not concerned with the making... They're not concerned necessarily with making art.
Speaker: They're concerned with making as much money as possible as quickly as they can.
Speaker: They don't give a shit about the future in the long-term sense.
Speaker: They care about how much am I going to make right the fuck now.
Speaker: That's what microtransactions are about.
Speaker: And it's...
Speaker: Yeah, and it's a shame because when you do look at Far Cry 5, as this, you know, Jam, you mentioned, there are some balance issues with the upgrade pathing and stuff like that.
Speaker: But in terms of gameplay, actual core mechanics...
Speaker: There has never been a game where I felt so satisfied sneaking around the fucking tall grass with a bow.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: And just popping people, popping people in the face with a bow and arrow.
Speaker: Like, I just I was like, oh, this feels nice.
Speaker: You know, guys, it feels so good.
Speaker: It's it's I think that's always been the issue.
Speaker: I think I we've we talked about this on one of the episodes of the book.
Speaker: And for me, it's like I am I am.
Speaker: Kind of at a point where I don't even have a kid or a wife.
Speaker: I have a fiance and that's close.
Speaker: But, you know, it's like I but I'm also at the point where I look at these 50, 60, 70, 80 hour experiences and I'm just like, oh, no, thank you.
Speaker: Could I could I please have something that I would enjoy that would last eight hours?
Speaker: That sounds great.
Speaker: I would play that instead.
Speaker: The only exception to that rule over the years has been Far Cry.
Speaker: I keep coming back to Far Cry.
Speaker: I have beaten and played three through five, including Primal, including Blood Dragon, all of them.
Speaker: I've played through all of them twice, at least, because they bring me so much comfort.
Speaker: There's something about the gameplay that just gets its hooks into me that if it was an Assassin's Creed game and I got in there and they're like, hey,
Speaker: There's music over here that you can unlock, and you find all the music notes in this area, and you can find all the scientist notes over here, and it becomes a collect-a-thon.
Speaker: I go, go fuck yourself.
Speaker: I'm going to go play Sonic the Hedgehog.
Speaker: I have no interest in this.
Speaker: Far Cry is the only exception to that rule.
Speaker: And yeah, it's so frustrating to me because the balance...
Speaker: it's as a writer, you look at that balance and it kind of wants to be, you can tell the writers, the writers kind of want you to think they're deep.
Speaker: That they're, they're, they're, you know, it's like, yeah, like that's like, we're thinking big, big, you know,
Speaker: we're thinking about the big picture here and da-da-da-da.
Speaker: And it's like, in 3, it was all about the insanity.
Speaker: And, you know, oh, someone heard that old saying about insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again.
Speaker: And it blew their fucking mind.
Speaker: And they based an entire storyline around it.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: You know, 4 was about family and how far you're going to go for that.
Speaker: And 5.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, and Five's religion.
Speaker: And by the way, I bought the pagan men outfit in Five, and every now and then I would see the wanted poster of myself, and I go, pagan men?
Speaker: Oh, that's me.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I'm wearing that.
Speaker: And Five, you know, they all creep right up to the edge of saying something, and then instead they give you Herc.
Speaker: You know, they start to say something and instead they go, but wouldn't you rather meet a guy who has a weird obstacle course based around these zombified, you know, bliss takers instead?
Speaker: It feels that the moment you feel like you're getting close to something, you know, smart and yes, dare I say the word deep, you it Grand Theft Auto's itself.
Speaker: Yeah, right.
Speaker: And it goes into that over-the-top silliness, which can be fun, but it feels like you're getting whiplash.
Speaker: The tone shifts.
Speaker: And you know what's the biggest irony is, I would say GTA V actually had things to say about, like, on the topic of masculinity.
Speaker: Oh, yes.
Speaker: It actually it actually had statements and theses about like the types of masculinity and toxic masculinity and all that.
Speaker: It's not like it's not like the best that one in the thing in the world.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: It's like it's like it's like, oh, well, I could see they were they they they actually went over the line.
Speaker: They didn't do what the Far Cry writers and just tiptoe up to it.
Speaker: They were like they actually took a little step.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Not a big step.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They took a step and said something, you know, and Red Dead Redemption to similar thing said something more about, you know, the relationships that the found family and the relationships we build and all that stuff.
Speaker: It's it's just a little bit more.
Speaker: But then you have that you do have that tonal whiplash in particularly in Far Cry 5.
Speaker: And we're talking about that with that, with the with the book, how absolution.
Speaker: Now, Jam, we were talking about when we were talking about the the the book Urban Weight is basically he writes like Cormac McCarthy.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It is a very... Urban Wade gave this video game franchise way more credit than maybe it was due.
Speaker: Oh my god.
Speaker: Let's put it that way.
Speaker: He gave he gave he gave so much effort to a Far Cry novel and it made me actually want to try to.
Speaker: Yeah, bless his heart.
Speaker: It made me actually want to try to like read some of his other books because he he was he was given it is all with with that Far Cry novel.
Speaker: God, he tried.
Speaker: He tried.
Speaker: The whip, the the tonal whiplash between Far Cry Absolution and Far Cry Five is hilarious.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: It absolutely is.
Speaker: When I read Absolution for myself and make a video on it, I'll touch on that.
Speaker: I'm excited to hear about that.
Speaker: Well, how different is the tone?
Speaker: Is the book, like, darker?
Speaker: Like, how would you describe that tonal difference?
Speaker: It's very serious.
Speaker: Very, very based on, like, you know, it's kind of... Very grounded.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And Kevin pointed out immediately when we started reading it, he was like, he describes the forest a lot.
Speaker: There are a lot of...
Speaker: deep descriptions of the place around us.
Speaker: And it's... There's a very...
Speaker: again, a very Cormac McCarthy, a man being a man, but in a literary kind of way, examining the toxicity of being a man while also taking part in it.
Speaker: And very, very smart.
Speaker: And a lot of introspection.
Speaker: There's a lot of introspection.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And then Far Cry 5 just gives you Herc.
Speaker: Pretty much!
Speaker: And a goofy bear named Cheeseburger.
Speaker: Guys, go to Twitter, pet the doggo, hey, at can you pet the dog, follow our account.
Speaker: I will say, possibly the greatest connection between the book and the video game is you do get the Cheeseburger origin story.
Speaker: I didn't know.
Speaker: It's so fucking fair.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: No, you get the cheeseburger origin story.
Speaker: It's not confirmed.
Speaker: They were confirmed.
Speaker: But goddammit, that's the cheeseburger origin story.
Speaker: It's the cheeseburger origin story.
Speaker: Of all the things.
Speaker: Man, and like, I'm hearing all this and I'm thinking about it more and more.
Speaker: You mentioned Blood Dragon and that's kind of like, now is the moment where I realize, wait a minute.
Speaker: I think Far Cry Blood Dragon might be one of the best Far Cry games because it's not about anything and it's not trying to be about anything.
Speaker: It's just a goofy fucking... Exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: They're just like, we're just going to... Yeah.
Speaker: You like these games?
Speaker: We're going to do it.
Speaker: We'll just get the guy... I think it was Terminator.
Speaker: One of the actors from Terminator who played... I forgot.
Speaker: I haven't watched Terminator in ages.
Speaker: But we'll get that actor to play Rex Colt.
Speaker: We'll just make it so over the top and goofy.
Speaker: We're going to match our turn your brain off gameplay with a turn your brain off story.
Speaker: And then everyone loved it.
Speaker: That's why everyone shit their pants when Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon came to Steam and had like a... Wasn't it recently announced that it was getting like an HD remaster or something like that?
Speaker: Is it?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: There was some announcement a while ago that it showed off Blood Dragon.
Speaker: I could have sworn...
Speaker: Maybe I'm crazy.
Speaker: Maybe I'm just Mandela affecting myself, but like you may remember that there's there's an there's an animated series being made for that's probably what it is.
Speaker: And that's why Adi Shankar Adi Shankar, who did the Castlevania series.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: Oh, thank god, yeah.
Speaker: I was trying to remember, wait, was he the good guy or the bad guy from the Castlevania series?
Speaker: Because one of the creators was not a great dude and got nixed because of sexual harassment.
Speaker: Oh god.
Speaker: I'm losing track.
Speaker: I think it's Adi Shankar.
Speaker: I think Adi Shankar is the, I'm looking at his Wikipedia right now and there is no, nothing about him on his Wikipedia.
Speaker: So I think it's, I think this is the right one.
Speaker: Go to Wikipedia, immediately look for the controversy tab.
Speaker: If there's none, you're good.
Speaker: You can follow their work.
Speaker: Personal life or controversy.
Speaker: Okay, it's good.
Speaker: Yep, we're clear.
Speaker: We're clear.
Speaker: But, like, that's the thing as well.
Speaker: It's like, I'm thinking about Far Cry, and it's like, the best Far Cry games don't hammer home about politics.
Speaker: That's why Far Cry 1 was such a success, because it was just like, you're this guy who's souped up on, like...
Speaker: I don't know what the fuck.
Speaker: And then you go and stop a drug running plot.
Speaker: And I think that was also the gun running thing for Far Cry 2.
Speaker: And then Far Cry 3 tried being a little very high school philosopher, very high school art.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then Far Cry 4 had Troy Baker.
Speaker: That's all I know about it.
Speaker: And Far Cry 5, it just continued the trend.
Speaker: And apparently Far Cry 6 does the same fucking thing.
Speaker: I haven't played it or read it, and I'm not going to spoil anything I've heard about it.
Speaker: But it's nothing to write home about.
Speaker: Yeah, all I know about Far Cry 6 is they got rid of the upgrade paths, and it's only weapon upgrades now.
Speaker: And I'm really nervous about that.
Speaker: Oh my lord, that's... I haven't touched it yet, I've got so much to play, but...
Speaker: And I know, and that's the thing.
Speaker: I know when, because that's the thing.
Speaker: When I start playing that, it's going to be just that for a little while.
Speaker: So I need to put that off for a minute.
Speaker: And thank God they took it off Steam, because honestly, it's not on Steam.
Speaker: And if it was on Steam, we would not be here right now.
Speaker: I'd be playing the game.
Speaker: It's not on Steam.
Speaker: What happened?
Speaker: Did it get taken off?
Speaker: They've got it on the Ubisoft store, and they've got it on, what's the other one?
Speaker: Epic.
Speaker: Epic?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Everything's on Epic Game Store now.
Speaker: Yeah, and they have, apparently they have no interest in putting it on Steam at the time.
Speaker: Oh, so because it's not on Steam, it's not, the ad for it is not in front of your face every time you open Steam.
Speaker: Precisely.
Speaker: And it was on my, and that's the thing, it was on Steam for a little while when it was like in the pre-order mode, and I had it on my wish list, and you know, you get the little notifications.
Speaker: They delisted it.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, and if it was, if it was,
Speaker: That's the thing.
Speaker: If it was on Steam, I would have bought it by now.
Speaker: It's just the convenience of it and everything.
Speaker: And the fact that it's on another platform, it's so silly, but there it is.
Speaker: So one of the things about Far Cry in general is that it seems like when it is... So there's like...
Speaker: In front of it, there are two paths, two paths diverge in the road.
Speaker: One is is make a statement about the topic that you're trying to actually make a statement about and just do it.
Speaker: They could do that and make a very artistic game or they could just lean into the Saints Row of it all and be Saints Row.
Speaker: Oh, God, I can't believe I forgot.
Speaker: Saints Row.
Speaker: There it is.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah, that's that's a way to describe it.
Speaker: Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker: Like I just be another Saints Row type of series and you'll be fine.
Speaker: It really says a lot when you kind of sit down and think about Ubisoft's work ethic, aside from all the allegations.
Speaker: And you're like,
Speaker: Man, it's surprising and kind of disheartening when Mario and Rabbids is a more political game than fucking Far Cry 5 is.
Speaker: Isn't that amazing?
Speaker: Jesus.
Speaker: It's just like...
Speaker: And to be fair, Mario and Rabbids is just XCOM re-skinned to be much brighter and more colorful, but I digress.
Speaker: Oh, man.
Speaker: But, like, I... Far Cry 5, it has the potential to really hit the mark.
Speaker: Great gameplay, and if they just really said something more, then it'd be great, because the music is pretty... The music is pretty good, the atmosphere.
Speaker: They pretty much almost nail everything except the stuff that they're supposed to.
Speaker: I have no doubt in my mind that, like, despite the gameplay change they made, I wouldn't doubt that the Far Cry 6 gameplay is probably going to be pretty good.
Speaker: I bet it's going to be beautiful because, you know, Far Cry has always prided itself on being, you know, a shit show with weapons and ammo in a beautiful locale.
Speaker: That's all it needs to be.
Speaker: I bet it'll feel real good, and I bet it'll creep right up to the edge of saying something and then dance merrily away.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: That's my expectation, too.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, man.
Speaker: Because that's what they've been doing, you know, for the past, what, 10 years, 15 years, whatever.
Speaker: And not just with Far Cry, but with their other titles, too.
Speaker: Like, Assassin's Creed doesn't really say much.
Speaker: That game has been on life support for ages.
Speaker: They almost did with Assassin's Creed 3, and then they went in a completely different direction.
Speaker: I mean, Far Cry 4 was great, but not for any overly political reason.
Speaker: But again, I digress.
Speaker: I think that was my favorite of the modern era of Far Cry.
Speaker: That was everyone's favorite.
Speaker: I could go back and replay it.
Speaker: And it makes me both afraid and very hopeful for Skull and Bones, which is just, you like Far Cry, you like Assassin's Creed ship combat?
Speaker: Here's a multiplayer game, and that's going to be a hot dumpster fire when it releases in 2030.
Speaker: It's going to be, and they're going to get my money.
Speaker: That's the world we live in now.
Speaker: I hate it.
Speaker: I'm like, that's going to suck.
Speaker: I can't wait to give them my money.
Speaker: That's how it goes, baby.
Speaker: That's just it, baby.
Speaker: That's video games for you.
Speaker: That's what it is.
Speaker: It's so frustrating.
Speaker: Oh God.
Speaker: I love this hobby of ours.
Speaker: Thinking, thinking about, um, thinking about Far Cry 5 and it really is overtones.
Speaker: Um, and how it also misses some things and how like it was way too on the nose, like amazing grace.
Speaker: It reminds me personal anecdote from my life that I mentioned in the server a couple of times that, um, like Kevin and I share and just kind of other people, um, um,
Speaker: I used to date a very, very religious girl.
Speaker: And mind you, this for me was a mistake in my life for plenty of reasons.
Speaker: And every time I think about Far Cry, I cannot help but think of her, not because of any whimsical, oh, she gave me this copy.
Speaker: No, but because she's very, very similar to a character that appears in there.
Speaker: Like, to an absurd degree.
Speaker: I can't name names because privacy reasons.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: But, um, let's call just for the sake of actually talking about this, a fake name for her, uh, Eve.
Speaker: Uh, so, yeah, hey, hey, there we go.
Speaker: Hey, look at that.
Speaker: Doing the funny Fortnite dance in my chair.
Speaker: Um, so,
Speaker: So, Eve, I met her in college, and I always thought she was just kind of shy and introverted.
Speaker: And I was like, I kind of went to know her.
Speaker: She seems a little interesting.
Speaker: She was an artist.
Speaker: She was a painter.
Speaker: And we kind of chatted up, and I could tell that, okay, she's, you know, she's fond of me.
Speaker: Like, she and I were kind of getting along pretty well.
Speaker: And it got to the point where, of course, I met her family that lived in Indiana, which is definitely an oh-no moment.
Speaker: So after taking a 16-hour drive with this woman, um...
Speaker: Which was also very awkward because imagine sitting next to someone, a 20, almost 21 year old woman, and she turns to you and she's like, hey, Sam, what's sex?
Speaker: And I'm just like trying not to crash after hearing that.
Speaker: Well, at least you had a full 16 hours to explain it.
Speaker: I mean, that's about how long it took trying to be very...
Speaker: I, and I'm not joking here, like, she asked, because she didn't exactly know, and I'm like, you're 20 and you don't know that?
Speaker: And I was like, oh man, meeting her parents is gonna be fucking wild.
Speaker: Um, so I met them, and the father looked like Ted from Breaking Bad, and, you know, they're very, very, very Christian, very religious.
Speaker: And so I'm like, okay, I guess I'm along for the ride now.
Speaker: Just because, I guess I thought it was nice, I guess it was, it just devolved into such a thing.
Speaker: So I go to church, and
Speaker: It's not a traditional Christian church.
Speaker: It's... It's one of those... How do I explain it?
Speaker: Maybe I should say doom cult churches where it's like, yep, because of this passage.
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: And because of... Because of this very obscure Bible quote and Donald Trump taking the presidency, the end times are upon us, everybody.
Speaker: Oh, God in heaven.
Speaker: Donate, donate... Yeah, donate to go meet God in heaven.
Speaker: Yeah, really?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like, I'm sitting here and I'm just like, this is a church.
Speaker: It was a mega church.
Speaker: It was one of those auditoriums that had a stage and a band and a little thing for Christmas.
Speaker: I don't see how that's when that's when.
Speaker: Oh, see, my dad's my dad's side of the family is from North Alabama.
Speaker: And we we've got, you know, there are plenty of them up there.
Speaker: The doomsday cultists.
Speaker: But they have at least.
Speaker: The, the, the humility to be tiny, obscure churches out in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker: Oh, mega church.
Speaker: God.
Speaker: Oh man.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I had an auditorium, a big screen and the lyrics to glory.
Speaker: And I'm like, okay, I get those Twitter memes now about Gloria as I'm clapping along awkwardly.
Speaker: Like, yeah, this is great.
Speaker: What the fuck am I got myself into?
Speaker: And this whole time I'm noticing so many weird things.
Speaker: Like, Eve, she was, like, very stiff around her father, just kind of robotically, like, stiffening up and turning her father in an Atlanta bread and being like, I love you, Daddy.
Speaker: And I'm like, oh, Jesus fucking Christ.
Speaker: What the fuck is happening?
Speaker: I got scared because apparently this guy was nearly an Olympic runner.
Speaker: Like if he had trained anymore for the Olympics, he would have gone, but I guess he chose family or some, I don't fucking know, but dude ran at 6am every morning.
Speaker: I bet he's chosen family several times.
Speaker: Uh, I think only three times.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: But like, all of this suffice to say that that was a much more religious experience than Far Cry 5 was.
Speaker: Let alone the fact that, um, they paid for the plane ride back because we drove Eve's car.
Speaker: I remember going to the airport and just feeling sick like, oh god, there must have been just something in the water.
Speaker: Oh, Jesus.
Speaker: So I go to a bar, I'm 20 years old, and I'm just like, can I get, can I get like a quart of alcohol?
Speaker: And then give it to me without carding me.
Speaker: I think they saw just how much the trip affected me.
Speaker: It was such a draining experience.
Speaker: And then I also did NyQuil on the plane, which probably didn't help.
Speaker: My dad, when he picked me up, was like, you okay?
Speaker: You look like you've been on a bender.
Speaker: It's like, I wish.
Speaker: He drove home, thankfully.
Speaker: So... But man, all this to say is that religion, if you do it right, should be draining in a very special kind of way.
Speaker: And Far Cry 5...
Speaker: Far Cry 5 didn't feel that way it was something to laugh at and just feel kind of it's funny.
Speaker: It was great It was good to feel you felt a little superior, you know, yeah.
Speaker: Oh, I also saw a zebra in Indiana.
Speaker: That was cool.
Speaker: That's about it.
Speaker: Um I'm not shitting you I saw like a zebra and a llama They were just in a pen together near hanging out and I was like it's them.
Speaker: There they are.
Speaker: You look at the zebra and the llama and you're like, maybe we can all get along.
Speaker: Maybe we can all.
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: Maybe.
Speaker: Oh, man, in the true spirit of Far Cry 5, we all work better together.
Speaker: That's the takeaway.
Speaker: I think that's the message, really.
Speaker: I can't think of a more appropriate message to go with Far Cry 5.
Speaker: Yeah, also, by the way, if you buy our other products, you get a cool costume.
Speaker: You want to play a Rainbow Six Siege Operator?
Speaker: We'll spend money.
Speaker: You know you do.
Speaker: You want the Far Cry outfit?
Speaker: Not Far Cry outfit.
Speaker: The Assassin's Creed outfit?
Speaker: I don't know why I'm getting confused.
Speaker: Origins, which I got for free because a buddy got a graphics card and just gave me the code.
Speaker: I was like, thanks.
Speaker: I played it for five minutes.
Speaker: I wouldn't mind playing as Ezio in Far Cry.
Speaker: It works.
Speaker: That might have been a costume in 3 or 4.
Speaker: If not, that's a shame.
Speaker: I know it was a costume in Metal Gear Solid 4.
Speaker: I can give you my top... My name is Ezio Auditore.
Speaker: My top two favorite Assassin's Creed games.
Speaker: Number four.
Speaker: Playing a pirate.
Speaker: That was actually really worthwhile.
Speaker: All the good sea shanties.
Speaker: Easy.
Speaker: Because I was in a sea shanty group in high school before TikTok was even a glimmer in its father's eye.
Speaker: That's my hipster cred.
Speaker: And the second one would probably be that shitty QB one that they made for the phone.
Speaker: And the rest of them can burn in hell.
Speaker: I hate them all so much.
Speaker: That's fair.
Speaker: I hate that franchise so much.
Speaker: Because every time I start to enjoy it, they lure me in, and then they yank me out, and it's like, oh, and there's this weird conspiratorial war between, you know, and you're modern times again.
Speaker: And like, I don't want to be modern times!
Speaker: I was a pirate!
Speaker: Oh my god!
Speaker: God.
Speaker: Just let me be a pirate.
Speaker: Just let me be a pirate.
Speaker: Alright, but we're going to save that for when we inevitably read a- I'll tell you what, Jeb, you want to be on when we read an Assassin's Creed book?
Speaker: Yes, because there's a billion Assassin's Creed books, so good luck.
Speaker: No, seriously.
Speaker: There's a whole list I found.
Speaker: The thing that inspired me to make Game Library was I was just browsing Wikipedia and I found an article, just list of novels based on video games.
Speaker: I'm like, wait, this is the opposite of like The Witcher or Metro where the novel came first, the game came after.
Speaker: This is, you know, the novel is based off the fucking...
Speaker: The novel is based off the game.
Speaker: And I guess it also started because the first tie novel I ever read was Mass Effect Ascension.
Speaker: Mass Effect is a series very near and dear to my heart.
Speaker: Very near and dear to my heart.
Speaker: I hate it.
Speaker: I love it, but I hate it.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: And I'm looking through the list and it's like, I'm off the top of my head.
Speaker: Five, ten.
Speaker: There's I see 15 on this list.
Speaker: Assassin's Creed novels, not to mention the wow novels.
Speaker: I'm never touching wow because I don't like MMOs in the first place.
Speaker: But
Speaker: I am upset with how much I enjoy WoW, and I just can't go back to it.
Speaker: That's understandable.
Speaker: Speaking of a lot of novels, Phil is trying to trick me into reading Warhammer 40K.
Speaker: Jesus Christ.
Speaker: And that's just endless.
Speaker: I'm basically trying to trip him as he steps down a flight of stairs.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because if I'm going to fall down this flight forever, I need a friend.
Speaker: You need someone to send down to hell with.
Speaker: Pretty much.
Speaker: You know, just like Resident Evil 5's slogan, face your fears together.
Speaker: I don't remember what the slogan was.
Speaker: That game sucked.
Speaker: It's terrible.
Speaker: Oh, man.
Speaker: So we've I think we've determined the core issues of Far Cry five.
Speaker: We we hate it.
Speaker: We love it.
Speaker: There's things that are OK about it.
Speaker: There's things that are great about it.
Speaker: There's things that are really fucking dumb about it.
Speaker: We just put our hearts, so hands over our hearts and start singing the Star Spangled Banner at the top of our lives.
Speaker: Oh my god, yes, that's pretty much it.
Speaker: America!
Speaker: Hell yeah!
Speaker: Jam, where can people find you on the internet?
Speaker: Okay, so my name is confusing, so write this down.
Speaker: I'll probably change it in the future.
Speaker: If I do, I'll make a big, like, billboard campaign about it.
Speaker: It's...
Speaker: At jam, jam, jam, jamuel.
Speaker: That's four jams and a eel.
Speaker: Spelled like Samuel because that's a funny thing.
Speaker: Very briefly, I'll explain when I got my voter registration card because in the States you have to register to vote.
Speaker: Um, when I got it, um, I guess they misread my name.
Speaker: I signed it with an S, but they like, Oh, Jamuel.
Speaker: So I have an official government document that says my name is Jamuel.
Speaker: Um, so I took it and ran.
Speaker: Um, but if you look up Jamuel and you see Klonoa, that's me.
Speaker: Um, at Jam, Jam, Jam, Jamuel on Twitter.
Speaker: Uh, same thing for YouTube.
Speaker: I have a series called game library.
Speaker: Very soon.
Speaker: I'll have an hour long episode out.
Speaker: where I talk about Arkham Knight, The Riddler's Gambit.
Speaker: Check it out.
Speaker: Watch it with a friend.
Speaker: Tell your friends.
Speaker: Cry that it took forever.
Speaker: Have a great time.
Speaker: Get me to 100 followers on Twitter.
Speaker: Let's go.
Speaker: Hell yes.
Speaker: 100 followers on Twitter.
Speaker: I'm almost there.
Speaker: That is the new goal.
Speaker: That should be too hard.
Speaker: If you are listening.
Speaker: I'm at 96.
Speaker: I was at 99 like a few days ago, and then I guess they decided, people decided to unfollow me.
Speaker: Thanks weird Japanese VTuber that followed me for five minutes.
Speaker: He had my hopes up.
Speaker: God, his heart's...
Speaker: I even stopped you on YouTube just to be nice.
Speaker: I gotta go fix that those V tubers Those V tubers are coming in and taking our jobs.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: I'm talking I'm looking right at you dark fry What are you gonna guest on pixel at far cry dark fry I quit um We're done here
Speaker: What a hearty talk about America.
Speaker: Very beautiful.
Speaker: America.
Speaker: Well, that about does it for this episode of Pixel It.
Speaker: I hope you all have enjoyed it.
Speaker: If you can, go and follow us on Twitter, at Pixel It Pod.
Speaker: And if you're listening to us on Apple, remember to scroll down to the bottom and hit five stars and leave us a nice five-star review.
Speaker: It truly helps.
Speaker: our discoverability in that search platform within the Apple podcast.
Speaker: Otherwise remember to follow and share, share us with everybody, share us with your family, share us with your friends, uh, share us with your enemies, uh, because your enemies deserve good podcasts too.
Speaker: Good night, everybody.
Speaker: Bye-bye.
Speaker: Good night.
Speaker: Thank you.
