Transcript
Speaker: and he goes into a lot of pop stuff.
Speaker: Basically, I'm aware of pop music because of Todd and the Shadows.
Speaker: But other than that, I don't have as much music stuff as I'd like.
Speaker: I need to check that out.
Speaker: That sounds awesome.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know what else is a yeah?
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome to Pixel It.
Speaker: Speaking of dumb, these are just getting dumber as I do.
Speaker: That was just... You said it, not me.
Speaker: Welcome to the Offspring Fancast.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Welcome to... We're pretty fly for... We're pretty fly for a pod guy.
Speaker: For a pod guy.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: Good night.
Speaker: You know, we put in a good, like, you know, 18 months of this shit.
Speaker: I think we did everything that we could.
Speaker: Let's wrap it up.
Speaker: Not even that.
Speaker: 14 months of this.
Speaker: 14 months in, and I think we hit rock bottom right then.
Speaker: We did it.
Speaker: We hit the bottom.
Speaker: We hit the top.
Speaker: We hit the bottom.
Speaker: We got through.
Speaker: We got through the crust and into the...
Speaker: Into the dumbosphere.
Speaker: The dumb-dumb.
Speaker: Yeah, no, we're talking Infinity Blade 2 because we did Infinity Blade 1 last week, so it would only stand to reason that we would follow it up with number 2.
Speaker: Dumb.
Speaker: So, Phil, can you can you give us a little recap of what what the hell happens in Infinity Blade part one?
Speaker: You mean you mean aside from Brandon Sanderson, like really just overwriting the fuck out of this?
Speaker: Yeah, aside from that.
Speaker: Fruit Ninja Advanced game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And aside from Brandon Sanderson world building the deepest lore ever for Fruit Ninja Knights and Wizards Edition.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Pretty much.
Speaker: So, in the first part of Infinity Blade Awakening, we find a small town, this little town full of people.
Speaker: They are dealing with what they believe is the new leadership, basically.
Speaker: Out with the old, in with the new.
Speaker: This really greedy dude who used to be a tax collector who claims that he has been chosen and smiled upon.
Speaker: by the, what do they call him?
Speaker: The God King.
Speaker: The God King, that's right.
Speaker: And he starts basically bullying his way into a position of power.
Speaker: When the people start pushing back a little bit, he gets ready to start laying the smack down.
Speaker: But our young hero comes in and basically tells him to kick sand, get the fuck out of here.
Speaker: You are not welcome here.
Speaker: We find out that he has defeated the God King.
Speaker: Basically, we are in the end.
Speaker: We are after the end of beating the game.
Speaker: So for all intents and purposes, this is a bit of a sequel.
Speaker: He has returned.
Speaker: No one expected him to win.
Speaker: He's been raised since birth to be a sacrifice, essentially, just as everyone in his family...
Speaker: generation after generation have been raised to go and fight the God King, only he's the only one who ever came back.
Speaker: And he basically gets told by the town... He wins.
Speaker: Yeah, he wins.
Speaker: He doesn't know what to do with himself anymore.
Speaker: He does decide that he's going to start keeping a list of things that he likes, which, good call, kid.
Speaker: All he literally has ever been done... All he's ever done is trained.
Speaker: He's like, think about an Olympian.
Speaker: But times 10 and with a whole lot more murder, not all the murder, but more murder than your typical Olympian, more than average for an Olympian.
Speaker: And he's just he's just thinking he wants to eat pie.
Speaker: And, you know, there are vague thoughts of a girlfriend and all that shit you hope a kid would do after Johnny comes marching home again, that kind of thing.
Speaker: And but the townspeople basically, the powers that be, tell them, you got to get the hell out of here because they believe that the these these figures, the undying figures that are also deathless, the deathless.
Speaker: I keep calling the undying, the deathless.
Speaker: The undying is is another distinct intellectual property.
Speaker: Yes, Clive Barker is involved in that one, I believe.
Speaker: But yeah, he thinks that they're going to come for the Infinity Blade, so they're going to come and wreck the town.
Speaker: So he's basically been forced to leave.
Speaker: He says goodbye to his mother.
Speaker: who makes him a peach cobbler, writes in his notes, note to self, love, love, love, peach cobbler.
Speaker: The main character in Infinity Blade is Southern.
Speaker: It's canon.
Speaker: He's Southern.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He eats grits and peach cobbler.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he heads out and he decides he's going to go back to the place that he fought the God King.
Speaker: So they can't trace him back to the village.
Speaker: He wants to keep them safe and everything.
Speaker: Long story short, he ends up making his way back into that area.
Speaker: He finds like all kinds of...
Speaker: technology.
Speaker: He gets a little, like he meets a 40 year old troll.
Speaker: He gets his life threatened by a bandit in there.
Speaker: And, uh, he's just getting all the way back into trouble and realizing he did not in fact fully kill the God King.
Speaker: So he decides I've got to actually, I might actually have to go ahead and do that.
Speaker: So he is getting back on that wagon, so to speak.
Speaker: Long story short.
Speaker: And when we last left off, he had basically decided he was going to tie up his who's the who's the the companion, the thiefy companion.
Speaker: Issa.
Speaker: who is, uh, she's a, she's a, she's basically a band, a thief.
Speaker: She has betrayed him on several occasions and he wants her help, but he doesn't at the same time.
Speaker: In any case, if she's going to keep coming along with him, he basically has to tie her up.
Speaker: Uh, uh, sexy, sexy, uh, every time, uh, he's going to, you know, throw up camp or something like that.
Speaker: He does not trust her.
Speaker: And, uh, so we are in the thick of it.
Speaker: Uh, we also get a,
Speaker: glimpse into the God King and basically how this is clearly a world that is in the distant future at very least.
Speaker: That, you know, we talked about in the last episode, kind of that Asimov style quote of, you know, anything that we can't understand technologically is indistinguishable to magic.
Speaker: That's what we're dealing with a lot of young people.
Speaker: Yeah, that's, yeah.
Speaker: We got machines and robots and all that stuff.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You've got a quote unquote magic mirror and it's a monitor.
Speaker: That sort of thing.
Speaker: Cameras.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And so the God King has awakened again and our hero has given him a bit of a fright because it's the closest he's ever come to actually dying, dying.
Speaker: as opposed to just, you know, dying long enough for his resurrection chamber to bring him back and for the whole cycle to start all over again.
Speaker: So that's where we are.
Speaker: Thrills, chills, spills, betrayal and a guy who keeps dying and coming back from the dead.
Speaker: It is a modern day Easter story, really.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He is.
Speaker: He's Jesus.
Speaker: He's Jesus.
Speaker: That's the thing.
Speaker: That's what the infinite in Infinity Blade is about.
Speaker: That's the infinite.
Speaker: He's the Alpha and the Omega.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We got news for you people.
Speaker: Good news.
Speaker: It's that if you got a cool sword, you don't have to die.
Speaker: That's the good news.
Speaker: That's the good news.
Speaker: So it's chapter five and things are hella awkward between Cyrus and Isa now, to say the least.
Speaker: And they're walking along and they realize that they should probably, they need to change course because the knights are out looking for him.
Speaker: There's people out looking for him.
Speaker: They've realized that shit has hit the fan.
Speaker: People are aware that the sacrifice did not sacrifice himself.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Which is, it's right there in his name.
Speaker: It's right there in his name.
Speaker: It's the thing he's supposed to do.
Speaker: It's the one thing that he's supposed to do.
Speaker: One thing, dude.
Speaker: One thing.
Speaker: So they change the course and during their little trip around through the other side of the island, Cyrus begins trying out things that he would like to do.
Speaker: And he starts doing a rope swing and Issa, or Issa calls him a child.
Speaker: And he kind of is, though.
Speaker: I mean, that's he kind of is basically.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Do you figure he is at this point?
Speaker: He can't be that old.
Speaker: Like, I figured he's 17 years old.
Speaker: He's yeah, he's like 20 ish.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: 20, I assume.
Speaker: I think the number 20 is thrown around somewhere else.
Speaker: And one of the moments Cyrus notices there's like lands just on the other side of the hill that Drems Maw is in that is like perfect for farming and like having a self-sustaining like town or village.
Speaker: And he's like, oh, like this, the people of Drems Maw, like all they know is this horrible cave life where they mine stalactites.
Speaker: But they could be living out in the sun.
Speaker: And he's like, that's a bummer.
Speaker: Surely this won't come back.
Speaker: We won't revisit that idea, I'm sure.
Speaker: We won't come.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Issa then mentions that they get into a discussion about how the concept of honor is a method that the rich and powerful use to keep the poor down.
Speaker: And I was like, that's an interesting thought.
Speaker: That is a very interesting thought.
Speaker: She's like, I mean, the duels, like the one-on-one duel is, it's like bullshit.
Speaker: Like you had, if you guys just rose up, they couldn't stop you.
Speaker: We got, are we, are we, I don't, here's the thing, Kevin, I don't, I feel like we're being too,
Speaker: I think we're reading too much into this because I have been informed several times by very learned men on the Internet that fantasy is meant to be just that, that it isn't meant to draw any metaphors from real life or anything like that.
Speaker: So I feel like we might be going in too hard on this one.
Speaker: Yeah, I think this might be we might be reading into politics that aren't actually there.
Speaker: I think that's that's our bad, everybody.
Speaker: It's not guys.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: It's the character is not actually saying anything of substance in terms of political policy and.
Speaker: Observe as I thoughtfully stroke my chin.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Good book.
Speaker: Just ignore, just strike that from the record.
Speaker: Issa says it, but doesn't.
Speaker: It's out.
Speaker: She says it, but she doesn't mean it.
Speaker: She's just joking, guys.
Speaker: Honor is totally cool.
Speaker: You know what else is cool?
Speaker: The status quo.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: You know what else is cool?
Speaker: Being rich.
Speaker: Being rich.
Speaker: The status quo.
Speaker: Keep it.
Speaker: Keep that status quo.
Speaker: Keep it going, baby.
Speaker: Keep it going, baby.
Speaker: Things can only get better.
Speaker: Drill, baby, drill.
Speaker: Drill, baby, drill.
Speaker: By the way, and this is like this is like this is coming out months after it happens or a month after it happened.
Speaker: But the video of Dick Cheney calling Donald Trump the worst thing to ever happen to democracy is.
Speaker: Whoo boy.
Speaker: I mean, that is that the irony is, is annihilating.
Speaker: I feel like, you know, you, every now and then when you're, especially when you're younger and you read these kinds of weird epic fantasies, like Lord of the Rings and shit, you go, maybe one day I'll live to see a huge war between good and evil.
Speaker: I didn't know I was going to live to see a point where there'd be a war between demons and more demons.
Speaker: It's basically Diablo.
Speaker: This is exactly.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: It's a war of hell.
Speaker: Asmodeus and Belial and like the whole fucking canon is here.
Speaker: Belial is calling Asmodeus the worst thing to ever happen to hell.
Speaker: What is life?
Speaker: So, yeah, they, they,
Speaker: Basically, and then Cyrus says he thinks the only thing he points out that the Deathless cannot be gods because otherwise he wouldn't have been able to beat the god.
Speaker: And he thinks their only power is knowledge, which is like dun, dun, dun.
Speaker: He's getting on the same.
Speaker: He's on to something.
Speaker: He's on to something.
Speaker: And yeah.
Speaker: Then they hear somebody screaming because a few moments earlier, Issa had been like, hey, that's a perfect ambush spot.
Speaker: And yeah.
Speaker: Oh, look, a threat.
Speaker: And somebody got ambushed at that ambush spot that she pointed out.
Speaker: And so in Chapter 6, Cyrus runs into the confrontation, even though Issa's like, you probably shouldn't.
Speaker: Yeah, I love that she literally tells him like, hey, you probably shouldn't just run right into this whole thing.
Speaker: We want to keep you nice and alive to fight the God King.
Speaker: And he goes, bye!
Speaker: And just Leroy Jenkins.
Speaker: Leroy Jenkins is right into it.
Speaker: Right into it.
Speaker: Leroy.
Speaker: So for you kids at home, Leroy Jenkins was...
Speaker: Everybody remember WoW?
Speaker: How about that?
Speaker: Remember WoW?
Speaker: Yeah, some people are still playing it.
Speaker: People are still playing that fucking game, Jesus.
Speaker: Yeah, fucking Crandor is still making like a YouTube channel dedicated to it still.
Speaker: Good Lord.
Speaker: I mean, look, every now and then I get the urge.
Speaker: I used to play that game a lot and I just, oh man, I can't invest in that.
Speaker: They added Crandor as an NPC.
Speaker: Oh, by the way, that's a thing.
Speaker: Sorry, I'm just having like my nerdy favorite, you know, Twitch streamer flashbacks back when I actually watched that shit.
Speaker: So for the kids at home, Crandor is an old wow streamer.
Speaker: And he is known for being good friends with Jesse Cox and they have podcasts together.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: That really does need to be explained.
Speaker: I need to pause and explain about the 40 year old streamers that are in existence.
Speaker: It's like it's already weird enough
Speaker: that we're a part of a demographic, an age demographic, where we have to explain certain things about cartridge games or analog games and shit like that.
Speaker: But that we're actually, we're old enough that we, that we'll actually, it's not that we're old enough.
Speaker: It's that the audience is potentially young enough that we even have to go, well, back in the day, there was a Twitch streamer that you've never heard of because you're too young.
Speaker: And oops, I hanged myself.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That happened.
Speaker: That happened.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, boy.
Speaker: Yeah, that's a whole separate thing.
Speaker: It's a whole thing.
Speaker: The streamers from our era, they're still around.
Speaker: They're still around.
Speaker: They're still doing their thing.
Speaker: They're still doing their thing.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Where was I?
Speaker: Oh, yeah, Cyrus runs in like Leroy Jenkins.
Speaker: That's how we got there, Leroy Jenkins.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Leroy Jenkins is right into a pack of Dayrails.
Speaker: And he he ends up it's a pack for Dayrails.
Speaker: Issa ends up having to save him.
Speaker: And then from the last one, she drowns one of them like Jesus Christ, Issa.
Speaker: Okay, we're there.
Speaker: We'll be drowning.
Speaker: Okay, there will be drowning.
Speaker: And then another pack of seven day rolls attack and they fight back to back for a while.
Speaker: And meanwhile, Cyrus is having dark thoughts from the sword.
Speaker: He believes they're from the sword anyway.
Speaker: And he's learned he's remembering all these ways to like fight against groups that aren't the ages forms the one on one dual combat battles.
Speaker: And Issa gets stabbed in the stomach by one of the day rolls after he like as he's killing them off.
Speaker: She she falls.
Speaker: And the so she's she's dying in the water.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And basically the the golem, the thing that they saved was a golem.
Speaker: It was basically that has basically been following them this entire time.
Speaker: And he's like, do something.
Speaker: And the golem's like, do I have to?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't I mean, I don't feel like that's necessary.
Speaker: Should I?
Speaker: Should I?
Speaker: So the golem, the golem, the golem does happen to know surgery and basically stitches up Issa's innards and gets them back inside of her and then sews her up nicely.
Speaker: And she's
Speaker: She'll make it.
Speaker: You know, she'll be fine.
Speaker: But yeah, there's it's this golem named Tel.
Speaker: T.E.L.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Cool name, by the way.
Speaker: I liked that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: It works for one of the deathless and it.
Speaker: this it is able to shape shift based on the material around it.
Speaker: So when they first find it, it has like it's using bamboo as it's like construct like constructed form.
Speaker: And then it switches over to like a rock form and picks and is able to pick up and carry her while they like move out of the area.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Yeah, so Tal keeps, he keeps asking, Cyrus keeps asking Tal, like, what's going on?
Speaker: Just break it down.
Speaker: Tal's like, I can't tell you, man.
Speaker: And finally, he asks what a QIP is.
Speaker: And the way it's explained is that a QIP is a,
Speaker: familial soul or it's it's like a soul or something, but it it it could sometimes be possessed by multiple people or something like that.
Speaker: It's like a familial soul thing.
Speaker: Then QIP is is just what they call it.
Speaker: It stands.
Speaker: I forget what it stands for.
Speaker: Quantum something particles or something like that.
Speaker: Yeah, it gets really like fantastic sciency again.
Speaker: Fantastic.
Speaker: It dips into sci-fi real hard.
Speaker: It's like the meter goes from like hard fantasy to hard sci-fi in the blink of an eye.
Speaker: It's like actually the meter is broken.
Speaker: It doesn't go all the way.
Speaker: It's like the needle goes down the other way.
Speaker: You don't even notice it.
Speaker: It's like a horseshoe theory, but for sci-fi.
Speaker: Just splits.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Oh my god.
Speaker: My cat's threatening me.
Speaker: Is that Jonesy or who is that?
Speaker: Hold on, I'm gonna get, let me see if Jonesy wants to come inside.
Speaker: Come here.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: What, you want in?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He wants in.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: Look at, geez, dude.
Speaker: very upset.
Speaker: He just I think it's just that the doors closed and, you know, ever since we moved, the doors rarely closed and he doesn't really care for it when we do it on occasion anymore.
Speaker: He is.
Speaker: You know, we got him.
Speaker: right when COVID started in and we were both working from home.
Speaker: And so he is such a needy monster that we actually had to put him on Kitty Prozac when we both started working out of the house again because he lost his mind because he thought we were abandoning him or something.
Speaker: And do you know what Kitty Prozac is?
Speaker: Prozac.
Speaker: It's Prozac.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It's just like, it's like a two milligram dose of it instead of like 20 or 30.
Speaker: It's not a euphemism.
Speaker: It's just a low dose Prozac.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: There's one animal in this entire house that doesn't need Prozac and it's the other cat.
Speaker: That's all.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: Everybody else.
Speaker: Hi cat.
Speaker: Hi, Jonesy.
Speaker: Jonesy's like, no.
Speaker: No, you don't.
Speaker: Just walking back and forth.
Speaker: He wants me to know he's here.
Speaker: He probably wants to be let out into the garage.
Speaker: He likes hanging out in the garage.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: The cat was threatening me.
Speaker: We can proceed.
Speaker: The cat was threatening him, everybody.
Speaker: So that's...
Speaker: You heard it here first.
Speaker: I'm under threat of a cat.
Speaker: He's under threat by a redheaded cat.
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: He's a dangerous animal.
Speaker: So Cyrus is putting together from his conversations with Tell that he is descended from Deathless.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And Issa wakes up from her brief unconsciousness, her comatose state,
Speaker: And they come to an understanding that Isa won't try to kill him anymore.
Speaker: And trust has been restored.
Speaker: Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: For some reason.
Speaker: For some reason, he trusts her again.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, they fought back to back.
Speaker: I suppose that makes some sense.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They went into the back to back stance.
Speaker: I think once you do that...
Speaker: It, that was actually, that is actually how Kevin and I became so close in grad school.
Speaker: We did the back to back fight against a bunch of day rules and you know, so I shouldn't, I shouldn't make fun of them, I understand.
Speaker: Yeah, in Savannah it's actually swamp zombies that, that appear.
Speaker: Yeah, for the last time, Kevin, those were tourists.
Speaker: Those tourists.
Speaker: They were just on a ghost tour.
Speaker: They just look like swamp zombies.
Speaker: Yeah, I apologize to all the people on ghost tours that I killed in Savannah from 2007 to 2010.
Speaker: It's why we ended up leaving.
Speaker: We're not welcome back to the city.
Speaker: Nobody will take our money.
Speaker: We are banished.
Speaker: We are banished from Savannah.
Speaker: The entire town just goes aggro once you get within city limits.
Speaker: You can't reset that.
Speaker: Yeah, you can't.
Speaker: Full five stars right off the bat.
Speaker: Full five stars.
Speaker: Military gets called in.
Speaker: Got to lay low in the paper factory for a bit.
Speaker: Yeah, you need to distract them with a few explosions and just hightail it to Tybee Island and hope for the best.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Chapter seven, they decide their Issa and Cyrus have been camped out for a few days.
Speaker: They just chill, you know, they're just, you know, hanging out.
Speaker: Issa is teaching them how to cook.
Speaker: I loved this part.
Speaker: It was such a nice moment.
Speaker: All of his joys outside of the occasional rope swing seemed to be centered around food, the few things that he's allowed to have now that he's most excited for, food.
Speaker: And so she's helping him to appreciate it better and create it.
Speaker: It was a really lovely moment.
Speaker: And I like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's nice.
Speaker: It's like they're bonding.
Speaker: And then and then tell comes back to the camp and tells been spying on the Deathless's palace and says that there's four champions that he would need to fight on the way into the castle.
Speaker: And then tell turns into a little plant kitty.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's so weird.
Speaker: Tells whole thing is strange for the record.
Speaker: Whole thing is not really.
Speaker: I don't get it.
Speaker: I can't even picture it really in my head that well.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because at this point he was a cloth golem.
Speaker: He was just like he was basically I just imagined that he was a Jawa.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then speaking of, hello, hello, Jonesy.
Speaker: And then he drops the cloth aesthetic and becomes a cat.
Speaker: A cat made out of plants.
Speaker: That was about the most like anime kind of thing they could have thrown into it.
Speaker: It was just like immediately I was like,
Speaker: Oh, that's the angle we're going with.
Speaker: Got it.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I feel like I'm following you better now.
Speaker: They should have included a cat plant like way sooner or plant cat.
Speaker: I forget.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Cyrus realizes that since he killed an ancestor of his after killing the God King,
Speaker: The Infinity Blade might actually be active and it might be good to go.
Speaker: So did you listen to it?
Speaker: How did they pronounce the next Deathless's name?
Speaker: Was it Sadie?
Speaker: Say it again.
Speaker: Was it Sadie?
Speaker: Yeah, I think it was Sadie, as I recall.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: OK, Sadie.
Speaker: So they're they're approaching Sadie's castle and Cyrus is like, oh, shoot, tell I forgot my cloak.
Speaker: Can you go get it?
Speaker: And tells like, oh, boy.
Speaker: Yeah, he's got that kind of vibe.
Speaker: Oh, geez.
Speaker: Oh, man.
Speaker: OK.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: They're going to kick dirt in my face.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's like kissing a raisin.
Speaker: They're going to call me Rubberneck and Livineck.
Speaker: That was my impression of what was those guys that did the prank phone calls?
Speaker: The Jerky Boys.
Speaker: The Jerky Boys, yes.
Speaker: That one, that one, that's that's an even deeper, older cut.
Speaker: That is a deeper cut.
Speaker: And I don't recommend anybody go back and listen to them because I have not confirmed how any of these things hold up.
Speaker: I do not.
Speaker: I can assure you they do not.
Speaker: It is just a vague memory in the back of my head.
Speaker: I do not take responsibility for any of the bad aging that might have happened to their content.
Speaker: I do not take responsibility for any of the bad parts of the 90s that you'll have to listen to.
Speaker: In the 30 years that since I have listened to 30 years.
Speaker: 30 years.
Speaker: 1992 was 30 years ago, Phil.
Speaker: Yeah, it was.
Speaker: I was 10.
Speaker: I was eight.
Speaker: Oh God.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That happened.
Speaker: Oh God.
Speaker: So, um, forging on through the ennui that is settling in my soul.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We're like just the rest of it.
Speaker: We just start smoking cigarettes and talking about the inevitable void at the end of the tunnel.
Speaker: So, you know, when, when you die, there's nothing there.
Speaker: It's nothing.
Speaker: It's just nothing.
Speaker: It's blackness.
Speaker: And that nothingness really stares back at you.
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: And it's the only TV show to watch, my friend.
Speaker: It's the only thing that's left.
Speaker: No commercials.
Speaker: No commercials.
Speaker: The Void TV all the time.
Speaker: The Void TV.
Speaker: That's what you're going to be watching at the end of Days, my pal.
Speaker: The Days, my friend.
Speaker: It's just blackness.
Speaker: So they approached Sadie's castle.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I need a good book.
Speaker: There's no books in the void.
Speaker: None.
Speaker: Only Discovery Plus.
Speaker: No!
Speaker: Don't mix the vegetables with the gravy.
Speaker: Don't mix the vegetables with the gravy.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: Yes, so...
Speaker: Cyrus does that just to get Tell off his back and then he tells like, promise me you won't go and do anything while I'm gone.
Speaker: And Cyrus is like, I promise.
Speaker: And then Cyrus goes in and it's wild how quickly he fights through all the champions.
Speaker: It's like, yeah, it's ready.
Speaker: It's like he gets ready to kill the first one and then it like jumps to him killing the last one.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because he was like, because Brandon Sanderson was like, oh, right.
Speaker: I wanted this to be a novella and not like an actual novel.
Speaker: Yeah, this is a short story.
Speaker: This is a novella.
Speaker: We should keep it tight.
Speaker: So he fast forwards.
Speaker: Fast forwards right through all that.
Speaker: And we get to the final champion, who's just basically the mountain from Game of Thrones.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And Cyrus kills him.
Speaker: He's working.
Speaker: He worked through these dudes like a hot knife through butter.
Speaker: And then he gets Sadie to tell him where the the worker of secrets or the is it the worker of secrets?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: The worker of secrets is kept.
Speaker: And Sadie's like, oh, yeah, it's you go down the road and it's over there and there's this prison.
Speaker: And then Sadie realizes that.
Speaker: that he's holding the infinity blade and she's like, oh, fuck, but forget all that because I'm going to kill you right now.
Speaker: And she attacks him and she nearly gets the better of him.
Speaker: She nearly she nearly ends him and he has to be the only like full full fight we get, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, totally.
Speaker: It's the only full fight we get in the book.
Speaker: It's the boss fight for the book.
Speaker: Right, exactly.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: It's the book's boss fight.
Speaker: That's exactly what it is.
Speaker: He has to use his healing ring to heal himself.
Speaker: And he manages to kill Sadie with the Infinity Blade.
Speaker: So that's a permadeath for this Deathless.
Speaker: Sadie's down.
Speaker: She's not getting back up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And in true male gaze fashion, he notes that she was pretty.
Speaker: Yeah, of course.
Speaker: As her body lays there dead, she was kind of pretty.
Speaker: And I'm like, cool.
Speaker: Cool, this is not information that we actually need at this point.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: She's dead.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She's dead.
Speaker: The shame is...
Speaker: And now we did.
Speaker: Did we go over the whole thing with the ring and why our thief friend wasn't able to use it and stuff like that?
Speaker: Or.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So he's thinking.
Speaker: So to back up a little bit, Cyrus believes that his lineage is that he is descended from the deathless.
Speaker: And that's why the ring works.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It only works for for people who are like even partially related to the deathless.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: That's the going theory at this point.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he kind of picks up on, he tries to get, what's her name?
Speaker: He tried to get Issa to use it when she was dying.
Speaker: To use it and she like ran from it.
Speaker: She was like, nope.
Speaker: Like horrified of the concept of using it.
Speaker: Can't do it, can't do it.
Speaker: It's not gonna work, you idiot.
Speaker: It's not going to work, you dumb dumb.
Speaker: My guts are spilling out.
Speaker: It's not gonna work, you stupid fool.
Speaker: But I only ask because I do remember I had to reread parts of it because the way that death, real death works for the deathless versus for regular people, I had to I had to go over it again because it wasn't entirely always clear to me.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Cyrus decides to explore the garden area for loot as one does.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This is one of the only times he does that.
Speaker: I'm like, come on, man.
Speaker: Are you an adventure or not?
Speaker: Or not.
Speaker: And he finds this little obelisk with like a little keyhole in it that's in the shape of the Infinity Blade.
Speaker: And he's like, oh, I saw these at the God King's castle.
Speaker: And it means that the Infinity Blade's the key.
Speaker: And he's like, I wonder what happens if I stick the Infinity Blade in it.
Speaker: So he sticks the infinity blade in it and the thing closes and goes into the ground taking the infinity blade with it.
Speaker: And he starts trying to use the teleport ring and the God King steps out from the shadows like, yeah, that's not gonna work buddy.
Speaker: It's totally, it's totally his space balls.
Speaker: Like, I can't believe you fell for that man.
Speaker: Like at the moment.
Speaker: The God King as played by Rick Moranis.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: It's totally that moment.
Speaker: And he deserves it.
Speaker: Because for God's sake, that is some stupid shit.
Speaker: He's like, no, no, no, no.
Speaker: I'll give it back to you.
Speaker: Whoop, no.
Speaker: That's exactly it.
Speaker: Like next time we're going to put an obelisk up there and it's gonna be shaped just like your penis and balls.
Speaker: Yeah, how that goes.
Speaker: He didn't, yeah, this guy was trained since birth to be a killer, not a thinker.
Speaker: Not a thinker.
Speaker: And then the God King's like, he's like, Cyrus is like, oh, you sent that golem to spy on me.
Speaker: And the God King's like, I don't know who sent that golem.
Speaker: I didn't need anyone to spy on you because the dumb ring that you're wearing transmits everything, every dumb thing you say back to me.
Speaker: God King's like, I've known where you are the entire time.
Speaker: And this was the part of the book that I really thought to myself, I was like, am I pulling for the wrong guy?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Cyrus is a fucking idiot.
Speaker: The God King is smarter than everyone.
Speaker: Like, you're just like, oh yeah, you lose.
Speaker: That's what happens next.
Speaker: He's like, and I love a good competent villain.
Speaker: Where the God King's like, the God King's like, you are so stupid.
Speaker: I had you at every single turn.
Speaker: This is all me.
Speaker: You had no agency in this.
Speaker: I was always in control, you fucking idiot.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's the end of seven, except instead of, you know, someone's head in a box, he's got the sword underground.
Speaker: You lose.
Speaker: John Doe has the upper hand.
Speaker: Yes, John King has the upper hand.
Speaker: What's in the facts?
Speaker: So for you kids at home, seven.
Speaker: David Fincher used to be a director.
Speaker: You see, David Fincher used to make things.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: My God.
Speaker: Do you ever watch Mindhunter?
Speaker: I watched the first couple of seasons.
Speaker: I liked it, but not enough to like be really bummed out when it got canceled and everything.
Speaker: Well, that's the thing is it's not canceled.
Speaker: It's just kind of perpetually on hold right now.
Speaker: It's on hold.
Speaker: It's basically on hold until David Fincher feels like making more.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Real cool to view David Fincher.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: What a generous god our David Fincher is.
Speaker: What the fuck?
Speaker: I mean, don't get me wrong.
Speaker: They do respect that on a certain level.
Speaker: It's like I'm not a fucking monkey.
Speaker: But at the same time, like, come on, man.
Speaker: You're committed to a TV show.
Speaker: Make the fucking show.
Speaker: Or give it to somebody else.
Speaker: Let somebody else play with.
Speaker: Yeah, let them ruin it.
Speaker: You don't have to be the one ruining it.
Speaker: You are going to ruin it eventually.
Speaker: We all know that.
Speaker: But just let someone else ruin it.
Speaker: Know that.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So... Mindhunter the Snyder Cut.
Speaker: Presented in 4x3 to respect the artist's vision.
Speaker: I hate entertainment.
Speaker: I just... Our entertainment is so stupid these days.
Speaker: Oh my god.
Speaker: He says the co-host of a video game novelization podcast.
Speaker: I'm...
Speaker: What do you, yeah.
Speaker: Why do you think we have a show?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I'm just, I'm just, I just, I just like biting the hand that feeds me.
Speaker: What can I say?
Speaker: Constantly, you know, let's just, let's just take a little nibble of that, of that hand.
Speaker: A little nibble every now and then.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So great.
Speaker: So basically the God King starts calling Cyrus a different name, Aucer.
Speaker: And is about to kill him with the infinity blade.
Speaker: And wouldn't you know it, Issa shows up and looks like, oh, she's going to save him, right?
Speaker: She's going to shoot the God King in the back.
Speaker: Instead, Issa shoots Cyrus in the fucking head.
Speaker: Just right between the eyes.
Speaker: With a bolt right between the eyes.
Speaker: Just kills him dead.
Speaker: And chapter eight begins with the God King being like, what the fuck?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The fuck was that?
Speaker: And he's like, all right, you know, all right, go after her.
Speaker: Get some guys together and burn this body.
Speaker: All right, whatever.
Speaker: And God King leaves with the Infinity Blade.
Speaker: And and then Cyrus wakes up in the rebirth recuperation chambers.
Speaker: And this is kind of where things begin to unravel pretty fast for like our knowledge of who Cyrus is.
Speaker: So basically, Isa knew that Cyrus was a deathless like she put it together really early on and didn't was being really coy about it.
Speaker: That's why he could use the rings and she she was like,
Speaker: You idiot, I can't use the ring.
Speaker: And it's not that he is descended from Deathless.
Speaker: He is a Deathless.
Speaker: One of the original Deathless by the name of Osir.
Speaker: And he begins to have all of these memories come start start flooding back and the dark thoughts that he's been having, they weren't from the Infinity Blade.
Speaker: Those were the thoughts of his real self.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Break, breaking through the illusion of who he thought he was.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Every, every time he started to think like, she's laughing at you, kill her or like they're, they're mocking you, destroy them.
Speaker: It was not the corrupting influence of the infinity blade.
Speaker: It was him.
Speaker: It was the actual him trying it, like trying to come through.
Speaker: He was, he was not a good dude, uh, uh, at, you know, at most points in his life.
Speaker: Yeah, Ulster was not only a deathless, but one of the worst.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: um so isa had gathered his remains basically it was just like a burnt crispy body um and brought him into the recuperation chamber and it's been weeks weeks have passed and isa's just been kind of hanging out there um but uh cyrus is like all right let's let's continue our adventure and isa's like
Speaker: I don't think I do.
Speaker: I want to.
Speaker: I'm going to take my leave because you are one of those people that does crazy shit.
Speaker: The death race.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just like kill a town because you're bored type of shit.
Speaker: So I'm going to go and easily.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He says.
Speaker: He says.
Speaker: She does the most level-headed thing of anyone in this book and says, no, thank you.
Speaker: Moving on.
Speaker: Moving on.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I'm out of here.
Speaker: Peace.
Speaker: Then Tell comes back and starts explaining a little bit more about how it works, how Osir wanted to get the Infinity Blade from the God King.
Speaker: I forget the God King's real name.
Speaker: They mentioned it a few times.
Speaker: And he would fight the God King and then Tell would gather basically his soul and bring it back to the town.
Speaker: And he would hypnotize some woman who had just given birth or something like that.
Speaker: and put the soul into a baby's body and make the the woman think that she was the mother of this baby or something.
Speaker: It was something like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: basically just find a new mom every time he dies and have someone raise him, you know, like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so his memories will be wiped in between each life.
Speaker: So the only thing he really remembers is being Cyrus, like this 20 years, and some cracks of who Osser is, like
Speaker: his actual memories.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And every time and tell says every time you resurrect from this point forward, you're going to risk bringing back more and more of officers memories like that.
Speaker: That part of your personality is going to take more and more control.
Speaker: The real you, quote unquote, the walls become thinner.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So and and that's that's pretty much it.
Speaker: That's like that's the that's where the book.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's just this realization of what he is now.
Speaker: And yeah, like it's pretty good for part one of a of a like.
Speaker: Does the other novella pick up after this?
Speaker: I have to assume it had better.
Speaker: It had goddamn better.
Speaker: Because, yeah, this is like, there's a cliffhanger and then there's like this.
Speaker: Where it's like, Jesus Christ, guy.
Speaker: It was, yeah.
Speaker: It's a weird choice.
Speaker: It's more than a cliffhanger.
Speaker: It's like an entire world's hangar.
Speaker: World hangar.
Speaker: You heard it here first, folks.
Speaker: World hangar.
Speaker: World hangar.
Speaker: Not just one cliff.
Speaker: All the cliffs in the entire planet.
Speaker: That's what we're hanging off of right now.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Changes the entire perception of the character and the world that's in.
Speaker: I really, I had a lot of fun with this.
Speaker: It packed more into a short novella than some of the books we've read packed into three times the length.
Speaker: Oh, without question.
Speaker: Without question.
Speaker: I feel the same way.
Speaker: I think it was just
Speaker: expertly written, very creative.
Speaker: It went in directions you didn't expect, the light and dark, the background, the humor.
Speaker: I will say one thing, though.
Speaker: It's kind of funny because
Speaker: This is we've talked many times on this show about when the author is allowed to just play and and that kind of thing.
Speaker: And that's when you really get a story that kind of shines that's different from the game that you can really sink your teeth into.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's almost like you could have had this written and then tweaked a few things to make it tied in with the game and it would have serviced perfectly well.
Speaker: So, I mean, I love it, but I'm not going to give too many bonus points on adaptation, if that makes sense.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I loved it, but... Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: No, I agree.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: And I just looked it up.
Speaker: The other one, Redemption, takes place between Infinity Blade 2 and 3.
Speaker: So whatever plot lines are left hanging, I assume, are answered by Fruit Ninja Knight's Quest number two.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Now, that's true.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: I never played Infinity Blade 2.
Speaker: So maybe this actually is very elegantly tied into the second one.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's a good point.
Speaker: So there might.
Speaker: And I think that's the thing is Infinity Blade 2, for the most part, is lost media now.
Speaker: I mean, you can't.
Speaker: There's no real way there are some like, uh, yard sale.
Speaker: The high seas, maybe ways to get it.
Speaker: That's a weird, that's a weird sound you made there, Kevin.
Speaker: I don't, I don't know what that could possibly symbolize.
Speaker: Yarr.
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So there's some ways to get it like that.
Speaker: But otherwise, yeah, I think I think it's supposed to tie in dovetail into whatever's happening in Infinity Blade 2.
Speaker: And it's really unfortunate that that's a piece of lost media now because, you know,
Speaker: For as much as.
Speaker: Yeah, as much as I like it.
Speaker: And I guess that's the thing with tie in novelization is is is you can't it can't.
Speaker: Oh, it's not always going to stand on its own, you know, and this clearly doesn't necessarily stand on its own.
Speaker: It's it's part of a bridge story.
Speaker: It's it's it's just taking you from the first game to the second game.
Speaker: But God damn, it takes you to the first game and the second game in a way that I'll say it.
Speaker: Infinity Blade probably never really deserved.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: I mean, Infinity Blade was really cool in the cat's pajamas, but in terms of what it was, yeah, it's pretty extra.
Speaker: Yeah, they really, it was a fun game.
Speaker: It was an amazing demonstration of what games can be on a mobile phone and stuff like that.
Speaker: But it was, you know, in its own way, it really was an extraordinary piece of tech.
Speaker: But fuck, they didn't have to come this hard with the storyline.
Speaker: I think also it demonstrates why Brandon Sanderson has become basically the fucking guy.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Over the last, like, decade and a half has become, in terms of your fantasy fiction writers, Brandon Sanderson is...
Speaker: The guy, you know.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: He's the dude par excellence.
Speaker: Like there's there's just no there's no getting around it.
Speaker: He is probably the biggest modern fantasy writer alive right now.
Speaker: So, yeah, that's yeah.
Speaker: Makes a lot of sense.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, we've we've reached out to his his people to see if we can we can get him on the show.
Speaker: I mean, we we shoot our shots.
Speaker: We're not we're not afraid of of of asking people to come on the show and talk to them.
Speaker: We try.
Speaker: God damn it.
Speaker: We try.
Speaker: We tried.
Speaker: And so that's kind of just in process right now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We'll see.
Speaker: We'll see.
Speaker: As of right now, I'm saying it seems unlikely, but we're trying.
Speaker: I'm an optimist, man.
Speaker: And even I'm like, I'm not sure this is happening.
Speaker: But we'll see.
Speaker: We'll see.
Speaker: Reach out to Brandon Sanderson's people if you want to see him on our show, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker: all flood actually don't do that don't tell them we sent you though yeah that would that might act like you don't act like you don't know us and just say randomly you want to be you want him to be on the show
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Just casually mention it.
Speaker: Casually mention it.
Speaker: So that's Infinity Blade Awakening.
Speaker: We'll probably get around to Infinity Blade Redemption at some point.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: And I would love, love to figure out a way to fly the black flag and roam the high seas and play Infinity Blade Redemption.
Speaker: Man, so would I. That is – I do remember it being a really excellent game for your mobile.
Speaker: Like it really was a fun damn game.
Speaker: So, yeah, fingers crossed that's something we could find in the near future on the high seas.
Speaker: Yar, our flag means emulation.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, speaking of emulation, Phil, what are you playing?
Speaker: Oh, I am actually between a little, a little touch of the Rona and, uh, and, uh, my, my, uh, computer being, I am going on a, uh, uh, uh,
Speaker: I am going on a, uh, what is it?
Speaker: Is it Theseus's ship?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Ship of Theseus.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Ship of Theseus journey right now where, uh, piece by piece, my computer is not the one I started with.
Speaker: Uh, so, and between that and, and, and frankly, even if I had had all the pieces I needed, uh, I've been laid up in bed, uh, for, uh, for, uh,
Speaker: almost a week.
Speaker: But I've been doing a lot of reading, if that counts.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: So hold on.
Speaker: Hold on.
Speaker: What are you reading?
Speaker: Ah, I like it.
Speaker: This is a literary podcast.
Speaker: We can talk about reading every now and then.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: From time to time.
Speaker: From time to time.
Speaker: You mean it's not 90% of what we do already.
Speaker: What are the books that I'm reading that aren't for this show?
Speaker: What are the non-pixelate books that are on your list right now?
Speaker: I don't remember if I told you that I fully finished House of Leagues.
Speaker: Oh, yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That one, I will say I get why it is such a – for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, House of Leases is this really dense, big book that came out in the mid-2000s.
Speaker: And it's kind of a horror story about this guy who lives in a home where this –
Speaker: that has a maze inside of it that just pops up one day, and it goes on forever, and the house shifts and collapses in on itself.
Speaker: And as you're reading about that, you're getting footnotes from this other guy who's giving you insights, mostly into his own life, let's say.
Speaker: And then you're getting footnotes on that guy, and you end up reading the book in this very strange order.
Speaker: You go back and forth with footnotes and appendices, and basically reading the book in and of itself is like a maze and a labyrinth.
Speaker: And it is it's something that horror geeks and lit geeks talk about all the time because it's a very unique book.
Speaker: And so having read it, it took me like a month and a half to fully read.
Speaker: And I'm a pretty quick reader and it took forever.
Speaker: And it's one of those things that I totally see why everyone is.
Speaker: uh talks about it as much as they do it's a it's a fascinating idea i'm done with it i'm fine with being done with it i've heard from a lot of people where they were like oh this is this actually might be the kind of book that you end up coming back to over and over and over again because some people get really obsessed with it and really read between the lines and all that stuff i don't think i'm going to be one of those people uh
Speaker: I'm glad I read the book.
Speaker: I'm grateful for it existing.
Speaker: I gave it a solid three and a half stars out of five.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: It didn't fuck my life up in that sense.
Speaker: And then after that, I ended up just been reading like novellas.
Speaker: Like I've been devouring like QuickBooks.
Speaker: Tenebrous Press.
Speaker: is this indie horror press that they've only existed for like a couple of years, I think.
Speaker: And they released two novellas this year.
Speaker: And I read both of them.
Speaker: And one of them is called Lore.
Speaker: It just came out.
Speaker: It's a really fantastic folk horror, body horror, mermaid story.
Speaker: It was really spooky and really good.
Speaker: And about 100 pages
Speaker: long and it's it's a real nice quick read and then I read uh one hand to hold one hand to carve uh which is first off just a great goddamn title and it is this uh and it's also about 100 pages long and it's this body horror
Speaker: satire in a way which it's about this body that's been bisected split down the middle and the body wakes up in a morgue and both sides are two different people basically there's left and there's right and it's like they're twins and
Speaker: And they escape the morgue and slowly another side of them grows in.
Speaker: And it's about their relationship.
Speaker: And it's really strange and horrific and kind of really sad and beautiful at the same time.
Speaker: It's such a strange book and it's about codependency and relationships and why we love the people we love and family and also about two corpses that come to life.
Speaker: And like, it's weird.
Speaker: It's a it's a it's a weird and I loved it.
Speaker: I loved them both.
Speaker: I'm just I'm really getting into the idea of finding these cool, small indie presses and like supporting them and reading.
Speaker: Yeah, so Tenebrous Tenebrous Tenebrous Press.
Speaker: I I'm going to they've got another book coming out soon.
Speaker: They've got a couple of other books that are already out that I'm definitely going to pick up.
Speaker: I am smitten with these guys.
Speaker: I think they're outstanding.
Speaker: They're definitely worth a look.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: That's where I've been reading.
Speaker: What are you playing slash reading, Kevin?
Speaker: What am I playing?
Speaker: I have not read anything other than Infinity Blade while we've been reading it.
Speaker: Fair enough.
Speaker: What have I been playing?
Speaker: I've been playing Weird West.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, you were talking about this.
Speaker: Tell us about Weird West.
Speaker: Weird West is an immersive sim.
Speaker: Basically, the vibe you get from it is it's like a Fallout one and two were real time combat instead of turn based.
Speaker: But it the sounds and the towns and all that stuff, they feel it gives you very, very Fallout vibes.
Speaker: But yeah, Weird West is it's set in like a fictional version of the West.
Speaker: There's a fictional religion.
Speaker: There's like so much there's so much lore and backstory to the game.
Speaker: Everything is original to the game.
Speaker: There's no there's no it's not there's no Christianity.
Speaker: There's like some other like religions that they use.
Speaker: Is it like the United States or is it just like a fictional?
Speaker: There's no even.
Speaker: There's no reference to the United States.
Speaker: You're just out in the West.
Speaker: And it's basically an old West.
Speaker: And that's that's it's actually the map is actually procedural.
Speaker: So every time you when you start the game, it generally it changes where the town's locations are.
Speaker: and the names of some of the towns and all of the characters, all of the non key characters, they'll have different names and different portraits and models and all that stuff.
Speaker: When you if you restart your game.
Speaker: So from from person to person, you're going to have a different experience than I have.
Speaker: I mean, there is a there is it is a linear story.
Speaker: That's the thing.
Speaker: That's the interesting thing about it.
Speaker: It's a linear story that's told across five journeys.
Speaker: So you play play as five different characters, but you play them in order.
Speaker: The first one is this bounty hunter.
Speaker: And the game starts.
Speaker: It's not a spoiler.
Speaker: The game basically starts with her waking up from this dream where she where a character is tied to a chair and getting branded and she wakes up with the brand on her neck.
Speaker: But outside when she's waking up, her husband is being kidnapped and her son is shot dead.
Speaker: So you play this this this woman who was a bounty hunter who needs to pick up her iron again and go out into this into the weird West and try to find her her kidnapped husband.
Speaker: And it gets it gets real.
Speaker: There's a lot of neat, weird stuff.
Speaker: There's there's, you know, werewolves and and pigmen and it's it's it's neat.
Speaker: I like it.
Speaker: And and anything, everything you do has an effect on the world around you.
Speaker: That's like the immersive sim part of it.
Speaker: So if you there so I ended up restarting my playthrough just because I realized there was a bunch of stuff that I had hadn't really paid attention to and I kind of missed and I wanted to I wanted to really lean into it.
Speaker: But I played through the first journey with the bounty hunter.
Speaker: And at the end of the first journey, I left some guy alive of a particular villain.
Speaker: I never really had a confrontation with him.
Speaker: I left him alive.
Speaker: So when I started the second journey,
Speaker: He was part of the plot in the second journey.
Speaker: Like he was he kept being mentioned and the gang that he ran would keep popping up in the news as having like raided another town.
Speaker: And I was like, so wait a minute.
Speaker: If I had killed him in the first journey.
Speaker: He would not be a part of the plot in the second journey.
Speaker: And there would be no mentions of this gang still being like still being out there because the gang is is you can get like stopped in on the ride from one town to another.
Speaker: The gang might stop you occasionally and try to try to kill you.
Speaker: So there's also a vendetta system.
Speaker: Yeah, there's also this vendetta system where if you get into a confrontation with a gang and you like kill a few of them, but one of them escapes, the one that escapes might now have a vendetta against you and you can be anywhere.
Speaker: You could just be like on another mission and suddenly it'll pop up and it will say vendetta and this person will show up with their own like posse now to try to kill you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's really neat.
Speaker: That is cool.
Speaker: There's so much neat thought into the game.
Speaker: The game like the controls are a little fiddly to get used to at the beginning.
Speaker: And it was one of those games that was I couldn't really gel with it on a controller.
Speaker: It was like once I switched over to mouse and keyboard, I'm like, OK, yeah, I'm fine.
Speaker: I'm good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, Weird West, I highly recommend it.
Speaker: When did it come out?
Speaker: It came out, I want to say, in the, like, March, April timeframe.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But this year?
Speaker: This year, I think.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: I think I sold on it.
Speaker: You texted me and said that you weren't sure if it would be something I would like, but I'm going to have to give that a try.
Speaker: That sounds really cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And something that just caught my eye.
Speaker: So we're recording this in early August.
Speaker: And now that I'm currently on a Western game kick, Hard West 2 just came out today.
Speaker: Oh, well, there you go.
Speaker: Hard West, the first Hard West, in case you're unfamiliar, is a, it's basically Cowboys and as XCOM.
Speaker: Like, yeah, it's an XCOM game, but with in the Old West.
Speaker: I remember when you played the first one and you were just like, you were really spinning with it.
Speaker: You liked that one a lot.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So hard hard West two is out weird.
Speaker: Like just get all the West game.
Speaker: If it has West in the title, it's probably good.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: And Vampire Survivors updated today.
Speaker: Is it the final update?
Speaker: No, it's not.
Speaker: What are you talking about?
Speaker: It's blue balls.
Speaker: It's version 0.10.0.
Speaker: And I was like, I thought you had to go to one after 0.9.
Speaker: And apparently you don't.
Speaker: It's not.
Speaker: It's not.
Speaker: We're just gonna be in this loop forever.
Speaker: They're gonna be 500,000 achievements.
Speaker: Yeah, this update added two achievements.
Speaker: What am I complaining about?
Speaker: I'm gonna fucking love this game forever.
Speaker: You're gonna fire, that's the first thing you're gonna play when you fire your ship, Athesios.
Speaker: Pretty much.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm going to just this brand new video card, new RAM, new everything.
Speaker: And I'm going to and I'm going to fire up a new processor, new motherboard processor.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The only thing that's staying the same is the case.
Speaker: The case and the memory itself.
Speaker: And the hard drive.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The hard drive.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: Everything else is getting replaced.
Speaker: New fans do everything.
Speaker: This thing is just, I got pieces all around me.
Speaker: It's, it's a mess.
Speaker: So that'll be good.
Speaker: It'll be good.
Speaker: It'll be good.
Speaker: So that'll do it for tonight's episode.
Speaker: If you can, give us a hand and like us, follow us on on the Twitters and the Instagrams at Pixel It Pod.
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Speaker: That'll do it for tonight's episode.
Speaker: Thank you so much for listening and have a good night, everybody.
Speaker: Bye.
