Transcript
Speaker: Played.
Speaker: Well played.
Speaker: Especially with your localization, you know?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, not bad.
Speaker: Not bad.
Speaker: Not bad.
Speaker: Not bad at all.
Speaker: You know what else is not bad?
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: Hey everybody.
Speaker: Welcome back to Vixlet.
Speaker: My name is Kevin with me as always with Phil on today's show.
Speaker: We are finishing Dead Space Catalyst sort of, I don't know, we're going to recap it like.
Speaker: Hallelujah.
Speaker: Really half-assed.
Speaker: Put it in the gap up front.
Speaker: Phil actually didn't even read it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I thought about this time.
Speaker: I thought I had two options beyond just being honest.
Speaker: The first one was that I would, um,
Speaker: you know, say, Hey, I, I, I, I didn't get the reading done.
Speaker: Can we push it back a day?
Speaker: And I was like, that's being selfish.
Speaker: Like, like we need to finish this.
Speaker: And, uh, and Kevin, Kevin shouldn't have to sit with this rolling around his head any longer than he has to.
Speaker: Um, and the other one was just to claim that I had and let you just take the lead and, and me and me to pipe in every now and then going, I know that's right.
Speaker: Uh, stuff like that.
Speaker: You got it.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: And I,
Speaker: I'm not against it because this is, this book is literally the worst one we've read.
Speaker: Oh, it is so bad.
Speaker: It is just so bad.
Speaker: So like, here's the thing is we,
Speaker: have a pretty good track record of actually finishing the books.
Speaker: Uh, in most, you know, in a, in the real world, if we were trying to read a book, this, that it would be a, it would be a DNF.
Speaker: It would be a did not finish up on my, up on my good reads account.
Speaker: I think, honestly, I think the first one may have been one for me too.
Speaker: If it wasn't this, there are a handful that I, and that's the thing in the world, in the books that I read for myself.
Speaker: Um, um,
Speaker: It takes a lot for me to drop out.
Speaker: I have to see through the end just in case.
Speaker: But there have been several on our show that have made me go, I would have dropped this by now.
Speaker: I would have been done.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I would have dropped this by now.
Speaker: But we are...
Speaker: we were just talking about how the books that we're ending the year with, and we got a, we got another King's quest book coming up.
Speaker: It will be, Phil will be taking the lead on that one.
Speaker: And we're finishing the year with, uh, near automata long story short, which is the adaptation of near automata into a novel.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So those could be interesting.
Speaker: I'm looking forward to that.
Speaker: I never finished near automata, but, but you know, just the, the, the pedigree it has around.
Speaker: I played it through long enough.
Speaker: I got the first ending that you get.
Speaker: There's like six endings to, to like finish the game.
Speaker: You basically keep replaying it and play it from a few different characters, points of view and stuff.
Speaker: I got like the first ending and I was like,
Speaker: well, that's the end of that chapter.
Speaker: And I moved on to something else.
Speaker: I mean, it was fun when I, while I played it, but you know, we've talked about this though.
Speaker: Like we are past the point in our lives where we're willing to like play a game all the way through again, just to get another ending.
Speaker: Uh, at this point, I, I, I have to, I have to really want it.
Speaker: Uh, which is why 2023 is number one game for me was aliens.
Speaker: Dark descent.
Speaker: Uh, I have played that games all the way through four times, I believe.
Speaker: Uh, so,
Speaker: So when it works, it works.
Speaker: Phil's game of the year, Aliens Dark Descent.
Speaker: Beat out Baldur's Gate 3, motherfucker.
Speaker: Beat out Baldur's Gate 3.
Speaker: A buggy mess of a game that Phil was extremely disappointed by when he first played it.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Grew like a festering boil.
Speaker: Fell in love.
Speaker: And it popped and released the pustules of game of the year sauce.
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: It's like meeting a girl who's really mean to you and you're like, oh, fuck that bitch, you know?
Speaker: And then like the next week, you're like, hey, whatever happened to that girl?
Speaker: You're like, well, we're in love.
Speaker: And we moved in together.
Speaker: We moved in together.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that's.
Speaker: The game negged you.
Speaker: The game successfully negged you into loving it.
Speaker: It totally did.
Speaker: And I think, I think part of it comes from the fact that I'm certain there will not be a sequel to this.
Speaker: There will be no DLC.
Speaker: There will be no sequel.
Speaker: It just didn't, it just didn't warrant that.
Speaker: It just exists in its own little sphere.
Speaker: It's complete.
Speaker: It is what it is.
Speaker: So I have to just, I have to re-enjoy it just to get a little more hit of that strategy game.
Speaker: Which is what I thought Alien Isolation was going to be like until we found out.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: Relatively recently that Creative Assembly has been given the go-ahead to start working on a new Alien Isolation game.
Speaker: That is some exciting shit.
Speaker: They were taken off the Total War Assembly line and said, you kids go have fun.
Speaker: Go have fun.
Speaker: Knock yourselves out.
Speaker: Before we get into the episode, just shout out to our patrons who have really, really loved and supported us through the years.
Speaker: And we love and support you back.
Speaker: Go to patreon.com slash pixelitpod if you're not a patron.
Speaker: You can join for free.
Speaker: Joining for free gets you the episode a little bit early if I manage to get it out early.
Speaker: Otherwise, $1 gets you access to some of our blog posts.
Speaker: $5 gets you access to the ad-free episode and the bonus content that we record before every episode.
Speaker: And $10 gets your name shouted out.
Speaker: in every episode.
Speaker: And to that end, I want to thank Jesus Loves You, Kyle Seaman, Ruthless Mudder, Middle of Things, Sigma Sal, Chut Beaks, Dumbeth, Thick and Friendly Friend.
Speaker: Thank you for being a friend.
Speaker: To that end, I think it's time we put this body in the marsh.
Speaker: Let's marsh it up.
Speaker: Let's marsh it up.
Speaker: When I tell you to dump a body in the marsh.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So changing it up a little bit.
Speaker: Uh-oh.
Speaker: Uh-oh.
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: Oh, she got in early this time around.
Speaker: Hey, kid.
Speaker: Hey, girlie, how you doing?
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: What's your shirt say?
Speaker: Billionaire Girls Club, which is what is it?
Speaker: What's his name?
Speaker: The guy who did the Lego movie recently.
Speaker: Pharrell.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's his line.
Speaker: I like it.
Speaker: I like it.
Speaker: Oh, thank you.
Speaker: That was good.
Speaker: That was real good.
Speaker: Just, just a little, just to remind you, I love you.
Speaker: And here, this is proof.
Speaker: It's perfect timing, actually.
Speaker: So what are you playing?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Anyway, what were we going to do again?
Speaker: Never mind.
Speaker: What were we going to do again?
Speaker: I'm not recapping this to the fullest extent of the law.
Speaker: Phil, you didn't read it because good for you.
Speaker: I read it.
Speaker: Because I'm a human being and we're not yet getting paid for this.
Speaker: Basically, to sum up what happens in the last third, in no particular order, is that the guy, Brent...
Speaker: Brinson or whatever his name, the evil unitologist doctor figures out that Istvan is like connected to the marker somehow.
Speaker: And he's he's talking to the marker and he puts the other doctor, Dr. Callie in the brig because she's a woman of science and he's a man of faith.
Speaker: And and she's like, you're letting your faith blind you.
Speaker: And he's like, no, to jail with you.
Speaker: And we get a lot of scenes with Henry.
Speaker: And there's also something where the ship that what's his name?
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: Is this for me?
Speaker: Yes, this is for you.
Speaker: Oh, thank you.
Speaker: Sandwich time.
Speaker: Very nice.
Speaker: Ooh.
Speaker: I got fed a sandwich.
Speaker: I was about to say, not bad.
Speaker: Not bad at all.
Speaker: So what was I talking about?
Speaker: Okay, yeah.
Speaker: So basically, so you remember Gen Z was on a ship, right?
Speaker: He was on the freighter ship.
Speaker: They get there and they get blown out of the sky by a mine.
Speaker: And Gen Z ends up taking an escape pod down to the surface.
Speaker: And then we don't hear from him for a few chapters while the escape pod stuff is happening.
Speaker: Meanwhile, the marker is fucking people up more and more.
Speaker: It's like making them lose their minds.
Speaker: And they're like banging their heads against walls.
Speaker: Suicides are up.
Speaker: They start just throwing bodies down the hole that they dug earlier.
Speaker: And then eventually it gets to a point where...
Speaker: The marker sends out another pulse and this guy, one guy who kills himself, starts necromorphing and he turns into one of the butterfly necromorphs, which starts flitting around and shoving its proboscis into people's foreheads and turning them into necromorphs.
Speaker: So Callie is in the brig while this is happening and like she's safe more or less, but the guard that is outside her door just kills himself by banging his head against the door until he dies.
Speaker: And there's the same thing happened to Epstein, right?
Speaker: That was basically the same.
Speaker: Yeah, it's pretty much, this is pretty much what the soft disclosure of how Epstein was killed.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So yeah,
Speaker: The guard dies, turns into a necromorph, but it can't get to her.
Speaker: Henry, as we all remember, works on the prison planet, is basically freaking out.
Speaker: He tries to figure out what to do.
Speaker: He shoots out.
Speaker: And after the security team's wiped out by the necromorphs, he decides to shoot out the glass.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm trying to remember what, what's the German word for that?
Speaker: Because it's what Hans Gruber says in die.
Speaker: Oh God.
Speaker: I don't even remember.
Speaker: Shoot the class.
Speaker: I'm sure this really had in mind.
Speaker: So he shoots out the glass and it depressurizes the entire base, except for like certain hallways and rooms that he's in.
Speaker: So, okay.
Speaker: Everybody's dead except Brinson and Istvan who have gone to the other building where the marker is being kept.
Speaker: Dr. Callie is in the brig and Henry is in the control room locked up and he's just basically waiting to die while necromorphs wander the hallways.
Speaker: Enter Jensie.
Speaker: Jensie crash lands and he gets himself a gun.
Speaker: Jensie's got a gun.
Speaker: I was literally going to make the same joke.
Speaker: When you're born of a certain time period and that those those sounds come up, you have no choice but to reference that.
Speaker: He figures out pretty quickly that shooting him in the head doesn't work.
Speaker: You got to you got to shoot him in the legs.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: To steal a quote from what's his face, the makeup guy from Night of the Living Dead.
Speaker: Tom Savini.
Speaker: Tom Savini.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You got to shoot him in the head.
Speaker: Shoot him in the legs.
Speaker: Kind of Jack Nichols.
Speaker: So, yeah, a little bit.
Speaker: Is Tom Savini still alive?
Speaker: Yeah, should be.
Speaker: He's got a studio, like a school.
Speaker: Yeah, I would love to see Tom Savini get a crack out of Necromorph.
Speaker: Oh my God, he would have so much fun with that.
Speaker: And as extension, so would we.
Speaker: Yeah, so would we.
Speaker: He would do a really good job with that.
Speaker: Tom Savini is still alive, but you know what?
Speaker: We're going to take a moment, pause, moment of silence for Tony Todd.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Because I was thinking of Tom Savini, and then I remember that Tom Savini directed the remake of Night of the Living Dead in 1990, starring none other than Tony Todd as Ben.
Speaker: And one of my favorite moments in the movie is there is a little, like, the house catches on fire, like a little bit on the wall.
Speaker: Tony Todd is like pissed off about all these zombies and he just he doesn't even I don't even remember I think he looks he just punches the fire out like he just goes bam yeah that sounds like a Tom Savini movie alright
Speaker: That's amazing.
Speaker: But they remade Night of the Living Dead because Romero had lost the rights to Night of the Living Dead due to a copyright issue.
Speaker: So basically the remake in 1990 was so he could earn some residuals off of it, off of the script at least.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: Because I believe it was the same script.
Speaker: The movie was just redone with Tom Savini directing and starring Tony Todd.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Tony Todd, who, by the way, by all accounts was like a super nice guy.
Speaker: By all accounts is super nice guy.
Speaker: If you are a fan of the, of the channel, YouTube channel, dead meat, listen to their podcasts or watch the kill count.
Speaker: You probably know that James A. Janisse, who is the host of the kill count was absolutely floored by the death of Tony Todd, who was someone that he, he,
Speaker: he was a real big fan of, had spoken with a lot.
Speaker: He even sent an email out to the patrons just expressing his heartbreak over Tony Todd's death.
Speaker: So yeah, it's...
Speaker: It's a bummer.
Speaker: You know, it's a bummer.
Speaker: It's a bummer.
Speaker: He was too young.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's a fucking legend.
Speaker: Honest to God.
Speaker: Just real.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's the candy man.
Speaker: Which if you haven't seen that, by the way, guys, it's still I watched it recently with my wife and it holds the fuck up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's amazing how well it holds up.
Speaker: It's it's really impressive.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And yeah, his night, the night of living dead remake was two years before Candyman.
Speaker: That was a pre Candyman, Tony Todd.
Speaker: I did not know that.
Speaker: I think I kind of assumed it came out afterwards.
Speaker: That's fantastic.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He had supporting roles before that.
Speaker: He was in Lean on Me.
Speaker: He was in Bird.
Speaker: He was in Platoon.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: He was in Platoon.
Speaker: Holy shit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then Candyman is really his breakout role as...
Speaker: kind of a horror icon.
Speaker: I mean, Night of the Living Dead, sure, but Candyman is the thing that, and then, you know, he has memorable appearances in so many things, including The Rock.
Speaker: It was like, you know that song, Rocketman?
Speaker: I don't listen to that soft rock shit.
Speaker: LAUGHTER
Speaker: Well, that's it.
Speaker: You're the rocket man.
Speaker: That's such a fucking legend.
Speaker: Boring out for a legend.
Speaker: Boring out for a legend.
Speaker: See, I just talked about Tony Todd rather than this book.
Speaker: Anyway, way, way, way, way more important.
Speaker: Uh, Jensi, uh, figures out, yes, kill, uh, chop off the legs.
Speaker: Uh, he finds Henry and, uh, he convinces Henry that he is a real person because Henry doesn't think he's a real person.
Speaker: Um, he thinks he's like paranoid and all that stuff because the effects of the mark, the marker, um,
Speaker: Eventually, Henry comes with him.
Speaker: Meanwhile, what's her name?
Speaker: The girl that was in the brig, Callie, is rescued by another scientist named Amy, who was part of Brinson's group, but kind of seen that
Speaker: he has lost the plot.
Speaker: And Shoshi rescues her and they fight through the base together to try to like, you know,
Speaker: that try to figure out a way to, to stop this madness and to get out.
Speaker: Real quick.
Speaker: Isn't this basically what exactly what happened in the first book in the sense that like, there was nothing, there's nothing, there's nothing.
Speaker: And boom, in the third and final act, we finally get like action swarm of necromorphs.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Henry and, and Jensie hop on a, a little lunar rover cart thing, and they start driving across the surface of the planet to the other base, um, that is on the, on the moon.
Speaker: Um, and, uh, it's not really, is it a moon?
Speaker: It's kind of like, just like a small planet, a small rock, uh,
Speaker: They start driving across and they get broadcast at saying this is like a restricted area.
Speaker: You can't come any closer.
Speaker: And right before they try to respond, they get hit by a rocket.
Speaker: And they get thrown off the cart and Henry is injured.
Speaker: And also they are running out of oxygen because remember there is no air on this planet.
Speaker: So Gen Z runs forward, figures out a way to get in, goes back, gets Henry, opens up the airlock.
Speaker: On the other side of the airlock is our other two people, the Amy and what did I call her name?
Speaker: Callie, there it is.
Speaker: Dr. Callie.
Speaker: Callie.
Speaker: They are, they see the airlock open and the two men come in and Amy's like, no, they're, I'm just going to kill them because I don't trust them.
Speaker: And Callie's like, wait a minute.
Speaker: And then Jensie's like, yeah, I'm Istvan's brother.
Speaker: And they're like, oh, your, your brother's the reason this is all, this is all happening.
Speaker: Well, we're definitely going to kill you now.
Speaker: And then Amy accidentally steps on a mine and,
Speaker: And her legs are blown off.
Speaker: Like the top bottom half of her torso is blown off.
Speaker: And then Callie's like, oh, we got to shoot her arms off.
Speaker: So they do that as well.
Speaker: I thought you were going to say she's like stood up and couldn't.
Speaker: She can make it.
Speaker: She can make it.
Speaker: They keep going and they get to they find Dr. Brinson who is like doing evil man monologuing.
Speaker: He's like meh.
Speaker: Twirling mustache.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then one of the necromorphs like reaches down from the ceiling and they
Speaker: kills Henry, um, and, uh,
Speaker: Jens, he's like, yeah, I'm not going to dismember him.
Speaker: He was my best friend.
Speaker: And Callie's like, well, you better hope he doesn't come back to kill you.
Speaker: They carry on.
Speaker: There's a bunch of scientists in this research room who are just observing the marker.
Speaker: And basically, they just hold the guns up on the scientists.
Speaker: They're like, don't you fucking move or we'll execute every last motherfucking one of you.
Speaker: Classic.
Speaker: Classic.
Speaker: You know.
Speaker: Classic.
Speaker: Pulp fiction.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: We all saw that coming.
Speaker: I think before they go in, they go, I love you, honey bunny.
Speaker: I love you too, honey buddy.
Speaker: Aim for the, aim for the arms and legs, honey bunny.
Speaker: So they go, they get through the room and they get into the main room with the marker and it's, it's Callie and, and, uh, Jensie with the guns and there's Istvan and Brinson and, um,
Speaker: basically callie's like well uh there's your brother and jenzy's like it's me your brother and isthvan's like no you're not i don't believe you and callie's like well you tried let's just kill him now because that'll solve everything and jenzy's like no and he tackles callie to the ground um and like knocks her out um and then uh
Speaker: At some point, Istvan kills Brinson.
Speaker: And then Istvan, well, no, before that, Istvan beats Gen Z nearly to death because he thinks he's not his brother.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then he kills Brinson when he realized that Gen Z is his brother.
Speaker: And then Gen Z wakes up and all this while Istvan's like, oh, the marker, the marker, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: bullshit um it's fucking dumb I guess I guess yeah and uh then you get Jensi uh waking up and Istvan's like no don't you see brother we can control the marker we can we can do it we can you and I can reshape the world and Jensi is not in good shape he Istvan really beat the shit out of him um
Speaker: like broke one of his arms yes he's minorly concussion gents he's like close your eyes brother and Istvan's like okay I'll close my eyes sounds good um
Speaker: Give him the rabbit, Lenny.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: I'm sure we're going with this.
Speaker: I'm sure I can trust you.
Speaker: La, la, la, la, la.
Speaker: So Histavan closes his eyes and then Jensi's like, you trust me, right?
Speaker: And Histavan's like, of course, you're my brother.
Speaker: And then Jensi shoots Histavan in the chest.
Speaker: And then Instavon dies, but then the marker reprograms Jensie's mind to be the new catalyst.
Speaker: Oh, should have seen it coming, people.
Speaker: Should have seen it coming.
Speaker: And then Jensie's like, no, I don't want to do this.
Speaker: And then he's like, I'm going to destroy this whole facility.
Speaker: And because he thinks it, the marker knows it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then he goes out of the room and he's like,
Speaker: pointing at the necromorphs with the gun.
Speaker: But every time he tries to point it with the necromorphs with the, at the gun, he'll like blink and the gun will be back in his mouth.
Speaker: It'll be like, it's like, it's like in his mouth.
Speaker: So like, no matter what.
Speaker: And then the book ends with, um, uh, Jens, he points the gun away, or at least he thinks he does.
Speaker: And he pulls the trigger.
Speaker: That's how the book ends.
Speaker: That's how the book ends.
Speaker: I'm going to take a bite of my sandwich now.
Speaker: Jesus tap dancing.
Speaker: Christ.
Speaker: That's,
Speaker: That is, well, it's not good.
Speaker: That's there was.
Speaker: And here's the thing.
Speaker: You were describing some moments that I was like, well, that's pretty cool.
Speaker: That's an issue.
Speaker: I mean, that's and that's how I felt about X3 with the last dead space when they got when we got some necromorphs.
Speaker: There was actually some pretty cool shit to be had.
Speaker: But by that time, it was just too little too late.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: So, yeah, here's the problem.
Speaker: I didn't give a shit about Istvan and Jensi.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I didn't give a shit about the relationship either because we never really saw, we were told that they have a good relationship sort of, and that they're brothers and they do anything for each other, except the only things we actually see or are shown are them not be like,
Speaker: jiving.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's, it's, it's, it's Istvan leaving in a huff and yeah, it's true.
Speaker: There's no, there, there are not a lot of moments of actual like, yeah, the only thing that comes to mind.
Speaker: No, that's not even a thing.
Speaker: It's fun running head first into the frigging airlock thing.
Speaker: And like, yeah, it's just weird.
Speaker: It's just weird.
Speaker: And like, you know, you have Dr. Callie who becomes kind of like a main character in the last part of the book.
Speaker: But we don't really have enough lead up time with her necessarily.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I totally forget what the fuck happens to Grotter and all those people.
Speaker: Doesn't really matter either.
Speaker: No, I guess not.
Speaker: Or the gray man or whatever.
Speaker: Well, we know that he didn't, you know, he didn't blow up the marker or whatever.
Speaker: We know that that didn't happen.
Speaker: So, fuck, I don't know, whatever.
Speaker: It doesn't matter.
Speaker: Gen Z may or may not have killed himself.
Speaker: And there's no resolution to the story other than.
Speaker: that's actually, no, there is no resolution to the story.
Speaker: He kills his brother and then the marker is just kind of
Speaker: All powerful.
Speaker: Whatever you make of it, dearest reader.
Speaker: It sounds to me like... Reader, beware, you're in for a scare.
Speaker: And by scare, I mean we're going to put a gun in your mouth.
Speaker: Oh, it makes me think of...
Speaker: It makes me think of like playing pretend when you're a kid and like X-Men.
Speaker: The cartoon was really big when we were kids.
Speaker: And so everyone I knew, they were like crazy about like coming up with their own mutant.
Speaker: I'm this guy.
Speaker: These are my powers.
Speaker: And most kids played the game pretty well.
Speaker: But there was always that one kid who was like, who basically reinvents himself as Superman.
Speaker: It's like, no, he's immortal.
Speaker: And he's super fast.
Speaker: No, I'm Superman.
Speaker: Like, no, you're not.
Speaker: No, you're not.
Speaker: No, you're not.
Speaker: Stop it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Stop it.
Speaker: Well, you know what's funny is my friends and I also, we had a similar thing where we would draw, we would create Mega Man villains.
Speaker: Oh, sure.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: We did that too.
Speaker: And we would like draw them out and like, like in this style of Mega Man.
Speaker: And, and it was, it was fun.
Speaker: I remember, I remember pretty much nailing grenade man, like years before grenade man, before he was a thing, before he was a thing.
Speaker: But yeah, no, it's, it's, I, I totally recall that.
Speaker: Oh, like a little sandwich bit there.
Speaker: There we go.
Speaker: It's a problem with facial hair, kids, is that it just savors the flavor, even when you don't want it to.
Speaker: Even when you're not asking it to, exactly.
Speaker: Even when you're not asking it to.
Speaker: So, Phil, what did you think of the last third of the book?
Speaker: Well, it sounds like it was a real, it feels like it was a real cop out in a way.
Speaker: Like it just sounds like it was just like kind of rushed and vague and there's no resolution and I would be hard pressed to actually tell you what, like maybe the themes of the book were.
Speaker: or anything like that.
Speaker: There's not much there.
Speaker: And here's the thing is, I feel like Dead Space lore is, in and of itself, is a little... The whole Church Unitology Earth... I feel like the lore is a little messy.
Speaker: I feel like it's a little messy in that it doesn't have a real concrete...
Speaker: of creating villains or heroes.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It plays... Like, it's okay to play in the gray space, but this is just all gray.
Speaker: And, like, it's... There is no...
Speaker: Yeah, it's all gray.
Speaker: It's just.
Speaker: And that's one thing when you are writing, you know, audio logs that a player will find while, you know, killing monsters and doing all that shit.
Speaker: It's another thing entirely when you have written you're writing a novel.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: As a very, very different set of circumstances.
Speaker: You can't, you have to have some definition there.
Speaker: And yeah.
Speaker: And like, that's the thing.
Speaker: And that's the nature of dead space is that, and we, we bring it back to this is that a lot of the, a lot of the horror and backstory in, in horror video games is,
Speaker: done in a tried and true epistolary format.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: It's done in the, in the form of letters and logs and all that stuff.
Speaker: It works for Dracula.
Speaker: It's going to work for alien isolation.
Speaker: God damn it.
Speaker: God damn it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, uh, don't you dare say otherwise.
Speaker: And it's basically kind of that way for dead space too.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Um, and one of the things that I noticed is that we, in the book, we talk a lot about like, oh, they're going mad and they're killing themselves, but there's nothing,
Speaker: there's nothing there.
Speaker: There's no, there's no juice there.
Speaker: It's, it's like, I don't, okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: I mean, there's, I, I'm not, the language being used isn't even drawing me in as a reader.
Speaker: The prose is not,
Speaker: We need some more lurid pros in order to get me there.
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm working.
Speaker: I'm working on a, and I don't, I don't mean to bring this back to what I'm working on, but I'm, I'm going to go.
Speaker: Actually, we, we could just talk about that for the rest of the episode.
Speaker: That'd be fun.
Speaker: That'd be fun.
Speaker: I'm, I'm working on a book right now.
Speaker: And, and,
Speaker: a huge part of it is, um, just chaos, just chaos and like literal hell on earth stuff.
Speaker: And so there's monsters galore and creature feature shit, and it just goes and goes and goes and goes.
Speaker: And that's, and, and that's super fun to write.
Speaker: Um, but as I have been writing it, I've realized that I need to implant flashbacks and, um,
Speaker: just life moments for these characters so that they feel real and we actually give a shit what happens to them.
Speaker: And they're not just sent to the meat grinder.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And I feel like this book has the opposite problem.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's like it's all background, but still not done very well.
Speaker: Because like you said, Istvan and his brother don't really.
Speaker: We are told they have a great.
Speaker: They have a good relationship.
Speaker: They have enough of a brotherly relationship that Gen Z would become obsessed with finding Istvan.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: His brother who killed a man and was taken to jail.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's, you know, which is weird as hell, by the way.
Speaker: Not that I'm like pro that.
Speaker: No, you know, I'm I'm I personally have I'm going towards prison abolitionist on my own.
Speaker: But, you know, you know what I mean?
Speaker: It's just like, sure.
Speaker: In broad daylight, his brother shot a man for zero reason.
Speaker: So at some point you go, you know what?
Speaker: That's I'm sad.
Speaker: And I wish I knew more because it's my brother.
Speaker: But I should just try to live life a little bit.
Speaker: That would be nice.
Speaker: That would be real nice.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So we brought this on ourselves.
Speaker: We did this to us.
Speaker: Yeah, we did this to us.
Speaker: We can't blame anybody.
Speaker: We can't even blame BK Evanson.
Speaker: This book is out of print.
Speaker: Dude was just trying to get a paycheck, man.
Speaker: Dude needed to pay his rent for six months in advance so he could write something he actually wanted to write.
Speaker: And I can't fault him that.
Speaker: So there's a reason why this one is out of print and the other one isn't.
Speaker: And it's because this one is so much worse than the first one.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Is it the first one out of print too?
Speaker: No, I think martyr is still for sale.
Speaker: Oh, no shit.
Speaker: I thought it was just less expensive.
Speaker: They're both blindingly expensive when you try to buy them.
Speaker: But no, you know what?
Speaker: You're right.
Speaker: Martyr can be bought on Kindle at least.
Speaker: Yeah, you can get a Kindle version of it.
Speaker: Yeah, just hard copies are a little harder to come by.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Anyway, Michael Altman had a theory that no one would hear.
Speaker: It cursed our world for centuries to come.
Speaker: Spoopy.
Speaker: Spoopy.
Speaker: All right, well, I have one further question, Phil.
Speaker: Oh, please.
Speaker: Uh, what are you playing?
Speaker: Oh, I'm so glad you asked.
Speaker: Uh, actually I, I have been, um, big surprise hammering away UFO 50.
Speaker: I'm up to 51 hours.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: I really love it.
Speaker: I have I finished a chariot, as I mentioned before, a grimstone.
Speaker: And I also cherry night manner, which I adored.
Speaker: I loved it.
Speaker: It's like for anyone who hasn't played this yet, it's like a shadow gate adventure style thing.
Speaker: But they built in like a chase alien isolation kind of thing to it as well.
Speaker: um very clever uh a lot of fun um just a only a few moon logic kind of things in there um the rest of it's pretty but you know what's funny is that i didn't even put together that any time that the the guy pretty much showed up anytime i i made noise oh yeah sure yeah i like i like didn't even put that together towards like oh i broke the window i broke the mirror
Speaker: And then he showed up.
Speaker: It was around the time that he showed up right after I flushed a toilet that I realized that that's probably what I was dealing with.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So, yeah, I feel you on that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I loved that one.
Speaker: Really, really, really did.
Speaker: And I finished.
Speaker: I got a gold disc on.
Speaker: Oh, what is it called?
Speaker: Rock on Island Caveman Tower Defense.
Speaker: I love a tower defense.
Speaker: I and and that's and here's the thing.
Speaker: The thing about that game was that it was it kind of put into clear resolution what kind of unifies all these games in the sense that there's no instruction guide.
Speaker: And so a lot of these games, you feel like you're, you know, kicking water uphill until you realize
Speaker: one thing until one thing clicks into place.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And for me, it was upgrading my caveman as opposed to just upgrading my my caveman, my my soldiers and that.
Speaker: And then suddenly everything fell into place and I started just whipping ass.
Speaker: So it's it's funny how that works.
Speaker: And and also I got a quick gold disc on that one.
Speaker: little racing game with little UFOs.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Which is fine.
Speaker: Yeah, I can't remember what it's called.
Speaker: Yeah, it's fine.
Speaker: I'm playing a lot of Bushido Ball right now, which is frustrating as hell, but fun.
Speaker: It's frustrating.
Speaker: It's just an interesting concept.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Because there's like controls that you're... I'm sure there's like controls in there that I just never picked up.
Speaker: It just...
Speaker: It's just you get to a point where the fucking the challenge level just amps up like unfairly at a certain point.
Speaker: So I'm doing that.
Speaker: And right now I'm just kind of digging through it and seeing what else.
Speaker: So that's that's still something that has just absolutely devoured a lot of my time.
Speaker: I beat mouthwashing.
Speaker: Oh,
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I need to get back to that.
Speaker: But what was your vibe on that?
Speaker: That was unlike any horror game I've ever played.
Speaker: It was deeply unpleasant.
Speaker: It was very unpleasant.
Speaker: Really well written.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, well, really well written.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: deals with deeply unpleasant topics, but the storytelling is kind of masterful, and you get kind of a twist at the end, and it's all told out of order, which you wouldn't think would work with a video game, but it works so well.
Speaker: It took me about three hours to beat, and it was...
Speaker: Worth it.
Speaker: It's because I want to get it for ten bucks, something like that.
Speaker: Twelve bucks.
Speaker: It was absolutely worth it.
Speaker: The PS one style graphics are kind of silly at first.
Speaker: And then the more you play it, the more you're like, this is very upsetting, actually.
Speaker: I think especially for someone my age where it's just like this is tapping into like part of my childhood on some level, especially the the captain, like seeing how the captain is rendered.
Speaker: brutal where his all of his skin is like burned off and he's just wearing bandages yeah the violence he appears in a lot of marketing material as he should as he should that's gonna that's gonna grab people's attention to say the very least yeah um it's it's it the violence is uh very effective and brutal um
Speaker: trigger warning on essay stuff, on just violence in general, body horror and and and just just horrible human beings.
Speaker: You're going to run to them a lot.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I
Speaker: It at first you start to think that maybe it's going to be like a walking sim and there are lots of parts of it that are like that.
Speaker: But the gameplay that they do work into it is is pretty fun and very effective in its way.
Speaker: So it's not a complex mechanical game.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: But it is more than just your standard walking sim, which I appreciate it.
Speaker: I liked that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm trying to think.
Speaker: I think that might be it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I because I beat that and I've been, you know, chewing on UFO 50 for the rest of my goddamn life.
Speaker: So that's pretty much what I'm looking at.
Speaker: Kevin, what are your points?
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So there's a few things I've been playing.
Speaker: Number one is Slitterhead.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Which is Slitterhead's a really interesting game.
Speaker: It's I would say I would say right off the bat, it is a little too expensive.
Speaker: It feels for what it is.
Speaker: It's like 40 bucks.
Speaker: But at the same time,
Speaker: I think it does have a good number of hours to it.
Speaker: Not that I'm like a price per hour type of guy, but still, it feels like a lot of money for it.
Speaker: But still, basically, it's a horror action game where you play as this spirit that has...
Speaker: arrived on this plane to find and kill slitterheads.
Speaker: And slitterheads are these monsters that hide using human bodies.
Speaker: And there's like a lot of groovy like mutation type things where basically like you'll find a slitterhead and the person's head will go like...
Speaker: thingify and turn into this big old thing and then you'll fight it for a while and then it'll just like discard the body and turn into its full awfulness.
Speaker: Um, so, uh, one of the interesting gameplay mechanics is you are a spirit.
Speaker: You're not like a specific person.
Speaker: So you can go jump from person to person.
Speaker: So like these slitter heads will be like attacking a crowd or a slitter head will be attacking a crowd.
Speaker: But you as the spirit can possess somebody and like use their body to fight the Slitterhead.
Speaker: And then if like you're about to die or something, you jump over to somebody else.
Speaker: Now, the other mechanic is that there's a few unique people who, like, synchronize with the spirit, who I believe is called Night Owl or something like that.
Speaker: The first person you synchronize with names the spirit Night Owl.
Speaker: So the people who synchronize with the spirit have, like, unique abilities.
Speaker: So, like, the first...
Speaker: the first girl that is like a unique person and synchronizes with the spirit, she's able to like turn her hands into like these giant bone claws when the spirit enters her for like more effective fighting.
Speaker: So it's
Speaker: It's pretty neat.
Speaker: It's also really wacky in terms of like the writing and stuff like that.
Speaker: It's like not,
Speaker: particularly localized well, and there's no voice acting.
Speaker: But I said, I need to get, you know, I need to finish it.
Speaker: But I said to somebody, I think it's my seven out of 10 game of the year.
Speaker: Yeah, sure, sure.
Speaker: Like, oh yeah, totally.
Speaker: There's like chunks of like presentation.
Speaker: that needed a little extra time to bake or whatever.
Speaker: Just like jank.
Speaker: There's just some jank in it.
Speaker: But I got to tell you, it's like some of it just makes it all more the more endearing.
Speaker: Sometimes jank makes the sauce, man.
Speaker: Sometimes jank makes the sauce.
Speaker: I would say what it really reminds me of
Speaker: And I don't know if I'm the only person that thinks this, but it gives me kind of Parasite Eve vibes.
Speaker: Oh, sure.
Speaker: But more janky and more action.
Speaker: Like Parasite Eve was turn-based, if I recall correctly.
Speaker: And this is more action-y.
Speaker: So anyway, Slitterhead, tell your friends.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I have also been playing, I wanted to play the sequel to Wilmot's Warehouse, so I started playing the first, I never played Wilmot's Warehouse, so I started playing that, and it's like a
Speaker: It's not a Soko Bond.
Speaker: It's more of like an organization game where you have this little dude, Wilmot, and he's just a little square.
Speaker: And you have to like organize the products in the warehouse so that when customers ask for a certain product, you like know exactly where to go and all that stuff.
Speaker: A lot of people have said that it's a cute game.
Speaker: A lot of people said the sequel, which came out this year, Wilmot Works It Out, is really cute as well.
Speaker: So I want to, you know...
Speaker: I want to play the first one and then get into Wilmot works it out.
Speaker: Get the background.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I want to really get into the deep lore of Wilmot.
Speaker: You know, why is this square so goddamn happy?
Speaker: Why is he about to work it out?
Speaker: When, why is he about to work it out?
Speaker: Actually, Wilmot works it out is about him on vacation.
Speaker: Oh, even better.
Speaker: Out of his, out of his little, uh, warehouse.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: I started playing Mind Over Magnet, which is the game that was made by Mark Brown of Game Maker's Toolkit.
Speaker: It's a cute little puzzle game where you play a little robot and you're just trying to get through levels by turning off...
Speaker: like magnets and other devices on and off to like move blocks and things like that.
Speaker: And then at one level you actually get a little magnet.
Speaker: Um, so you use this magnet to like manipulate things so that it's, it's fun.
Speaker: It's, it's, it's an adorable little game.
Speaker: Um, yeah.
Speaker: And it's just, you know, a straight up puzzle game.
Speaker: Uh, there's like 10 puzzles per level.
Speaker: And I'm, I think I'm at the end of level two at this point.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So mind over magnet.
Speaker: And finally, Vampire Survivors.
Speaker: Oh, sure.
Speaker: Playing the Ode to Castlevania.
Speaker: It's... I literally...
Speaker: while i was waiting for phil phil was putting his sweet baby boy down to sleep and i was like you know what i'm gonna fire up vampire survivors i unlocked the last character nice of ode to castlevania richter belmont um that's awesome that's awesome i love the right they can actually use the names the characters now that good for them yeah
Speaker: Yeah, I know.
Speaker: It's like you got so many.
Speaker: You got Simon.
Speaker: You got Richter.
Speaker: You got Maria Renard, who is, I believe Maria is the girl from Symphony of the Night and Rondo of Blood, which is the game Richter was in.
Speaker: Maria.
Speaker: Die, monster monster.
Speaker: You don't belong in this world.
Speaker: Speaking of localization, the, yeah, the scripts in those were always flawless.
Speaker: I mean, I love the one line that slaps, even to this day, is Dracula saying to Richter, what is a man but a miserable pile of secrets?
Speaker: That is a great line.
Speaker: That is an amazing line.
Speaker: And he leaves it that, by the way, like just.
Speaker: And then he throws his wine glass and he says, have at you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just I'm just imagining Richard being like, do you want to expand on that or?
Speaker: Ah, okay.
Speaker: You want to know?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Oh shit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You're coming in.
Speaker: You're coming in hot.
Speaker: Coming in hot.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Let's do this.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that's, that's what I've been playing.
Speaker: And it's, it's a lot of fun.
Speaker: I might actually go back and get the other DLCs for vampire survivors now just to, cause I really liked the content.
Speaker: I hadn't really gotten all of the other ones.
Speaker: I don't think.
Speaker: And now I can, I'm going to go back and, and, uh,
Speaker: and pick them up.
Speaker: Yeah, that's that's just that's just the game to just have on hand for when your podcast partner took him an hour to put his son to sleep.
Speaker: That kind of thing is kind of perfect.
Speaker: I might go back and play and finish mouthwashing, though, just because, you know.
Speaker: I recommend it.
Speaker: It won't take you long.
Speaker: It's like I said, it took me three hours.
Speaker: Most people I've seen online have said it took them two.
Speaker: It's like, show up.
Speaker: Which probably means you'll do it in two.
Speaker: But it's, you know, it's.
Speaker: It's pretty good.
Speaker: I really enjoyed it.
Speaker: It is not horror like you usually see with video games.
Speaker: We're not talking about jump scares.
Speaker: We're not talking about, you know, monsters in the traditional sense for the most part.
Speaker: Is it more of a dread?
Speaker: It is deeply dreadful.
Speaker: Uh, it is, there's, there is, it's a, yeah, the, the human experience and, and existentialism and what we'll do, uh, to protect ourselves.
Speaker: And, uh, it's, it's a bummer.
Speaker: Uh, uh, but it was just magnificently written.
Speaker: And, uh, what did that guy do to the fish game?
Speaker: Weird ass fish game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I shouldn't fish is made.
Speaker: yeah how fish is made i shouldn't be surprised uh uh i loved that game it's wild that mouth washing wasn't nominated i don't think for narrative oh those people they don't know what they're doing anyway uh they don't know what they're doing they don't know what the they're doing they're doing them them in their blowholes
Speaker: Up the blowhole.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You all got it.
Speaker: Best narrative.
Speaker: Yeah, no, no.
Speaker: You know, it was nominated for best narrative was a Final Fantasy seven rebirth.
Speaker: Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth.
Speaker: I haven't played it.
Speaker: Well, I've heard that one's actually really, really good story.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Metaphor Re-Fantasio, which a lot of people have been losing their shit over recently.
Speaker: There's no way anyone has beaten that game by now based on everything I've heard.
Speaker: I call foul.
Speaker: They couldn't possibly have beaten it.
Speaker: Isn't it like a persona?
Speaker: It's a persona-like kind of thing.
Speaker: It's like fantasy.
Speaker: And that was the thing.
Speaker: I was thinking about, I even downloaded the demo.
Speaker: I won't even play the demo because the demo was like eight hours.
Speaker: No, I mean, I feel like at some point you're going to have some time and probably get sucked into it.
Speaker: Sort of like when you got sucked into Persona 5.
Speaker: Yes, pretty much exactly the same thing.
Speaker: But yeah, Atlas rolling out another game like that.
Speaker: Jesus Christ, how do they do that?
Speaker: Where do they find the time?
Speaker: I know they're not working 40 hours a week.
Speaker: Two of the games in Best Narrative are published by Sega.
Speaker: Oh, that's pretty cool.
Speaker: Which is wild, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Sega is still doing their thing.
Speaker: Still up and kicking, man.
Speaker: Anyway, that's the end of the episode.
Speaker: Please find us on Blue Sky and every other social media platform.
Speaker: Okay, goodbye.
Speaker: Bye.
