Transcript
Speaker: for how personal he was going to take this assignment.
Speaker: Like he just blew this out of the water.
Speaker: It was crazy.
Speaker: Oh God.
Speaker: You know what else is blown out of the water?
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome back to Pixlet.
Speaker: My name is Kevin.
Speaker: With me, as always, is Phil.
Speaker: And today we're finishing up Cyberpunk 2077.
Speaker: No underscore coincidence.
Speaker: Oh, boy.
Speaker: This is going to be a little bit of a manic episode.
Speaker: My notes are all over the place and not because it's bad.
Speaker: Normally, my notes are like weird when it's bad, but it's.
Speaker: It also can be weird when it's really good and be like, I don't know what to write.
Speaker: And it feels weird just like recapping beat by beat after reading that.
Speaker: So we're, yeah.
Speaker: That's pretty much it.
Speaker: That's all I, that's.
Speaker: So that'll be the episode.
Speaker: We're not going to recap it.
Speaker: Goodbye.
Speaker: No, we're good.
Speaker: You guys will see you next week.
Speaker: Patreon.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, the stuff.
Speaker: Whatever, guys.
Speaker: Whatever.
Speaker: We've never phoned it in before.
Speaker: Why not?
Speaker: Just give us this once.
Speaker: Give us one phone in.
Speaker: This once.
Speaker: We've been doing this for two years.
Speaker: No phoning it in.
Speaker: Hold on.
Speaker: Hold on.
Speaker: Hold on.
Speaker: It's a beautiful sound.
Speaker: What do we got today, sir?
Speaker: Hold on.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: I'm drinking Waterloo Sparkling Water.
Speaker: It's orange vanilla flavored.
Speaker: It smells like a creamsicle.
Speaker: Lovely.
Speaker: And it tastes like water.
Speaker: It tastes like water that was sneezed on by a creamsicle.
Speaker: An orange creamsicle.
Speaker: There was like a giant vat of water, like the size of the vat that the Joker falls into.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's like a giant vat of bubbly water and like a single creamsicle fell into it.
Speaker: Just dropped it, stick and all.
Speaker: And that's it.
Speaker: And that's it.
Speaker: That's the whole thing.
Speaker: It's one trillion parts water, one part creamsicle.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: One part to the trillion creamsicle.
Speaker: The essence of creamsicle.
Speaker: Essence of creamsicle.
Speaker: They got three creamsicles and they turned it into an essence and that's how you make the potion.
Speaker: A tincture of creamsicle.
Speaker: That's a... I made a Baldur's Gate 3 joke.
Speaker: We're not even... We'll get to it.
Speaker: We're not even What Are You Playing Yet.
Speaker: We'll get to it.
Speaker: But first, we're going to put the body in the marsh.
Speaker: Let's put the body in the marsh!
Speaker: What kind of fucking size a dog is that?
Speaker: That's a big fucking dog, man.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So this book goes places.
Speaker: It does at that.
Speaker: Chapter 11, my notes get more frantic as the book kind of goes on.
Speaker: Chapter 11, we open with a flashback scene of an Air Force AV flying to do a bombing run on some warships after an attack on a suburb that killed, quote, Nicole and Brad.
Speaker: The pilot lines up the shot and gets ready to release the missiles, and it's interrupted by the gang is in the kitchen of Albert's apartment.
Speaker: Zora is asking Ron about what happened after they were picked up at the police station.
Speaker: You know, they were arrested in the last episode and and the animals were like, hey, Ron, what's up?
Speaker: And Ron was like, I gave the animals the slip.
Speaker: That's a lie.
Speaker: He definitely did not give the animals the slip.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: In that scene.
Speaker: In fact, the animals were like, hey, why don't you tell us where the container is and we'll get it for you.
Speaker: They're so nice like that, those animals.
Speaker: Yeah, they're so nice like that.
Speaker: Let's pick it up for you.
Speaker: Albert is telling Aya that he hasn't found where Maelstrom is keeping Juliana yet because he's a lazy piece of shit.
Speaker: Piece of shit, yes.
Speaker: And Zor and Aya say they were let go by some young detective at the police station.
Speaker: Ron pitches that they steal the container for Warden and just keep it because it's worth more money that way.
Speaker: But no one else likes that idea.
Speaker: Meanwhile, Albert identifies a wireless device on his network that is designated ARS03.
Speaker: So ARS03, there's all these like little interstitial pop-ups throughout the book about the activities, the Wi-Fi network activities of ARS03, and we have no idea what they are.
Speaker: And that's one of the things I love about this book is that all the chickens come home to roost.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Every goddamn thing that happened.
Speaker: All parts of the buffalo are used in this book.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: That's absolutely it.
Speaker: We don't know what ARS-03 is yet, but now one of the main characters is like, oh, wow, this is a thing I can connect to, and it's super fast.
Speaker: I have no idea what it is, but all right.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Zor is messing around with a sniper rifle that he got for trading in all of his box tops for education.
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Where was that prize when I was a kid?
Speaker: Or a teacher, for that matter.
Speaker: Actually, when I was a teacher, I could probably, probably they would have wanted to keep me away from that one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, Kellogg's.
Speaker: Kellogg's.
Speaker: Kellogg's does that, right?
Speaker: Or...
Speaker: I think so.
Speaker: General Mills?
Speaker: I'm not even going to look it up.
Speaker: I don't care.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: It doesn't matter.
Speaker: It doesn't matter.
Speaker: I feel like both companies were founded to prevent kids from masturbating anyway.
Speaker: Anyone for masturbating, really.
Speaker: For anyone.
Speaker: Anyone, not just kids.
Speaker: Let's not split hairs here.
Speaker: Let's not split hairs.
Speaker: uh yeah you want to eat those cornflakes anytime you think a carnal thought think of cornflakes eat those cornflakes chew them chew them chew them chew them and then lick a rock um like harvey harvey kellogg is that was that his name is that somebody else
Speaker: John Harvey Kellogg.
Speaker: John Harvey Kellogg.
Speaker: God damn.
Speaker: Pull that out of the air.
Speaker: Pluck that one out of the sky.
Speaker: I don't ever want to hear you claiming you're not good with names ever again.
Speaker: The proof is in the nutritious and flavorless pudding, my friend.
Speaker: They're great.
Speaker: They're great for keeping your boner down.
Speaker: So he's playing with the sniper rifle, speaking of boners, and Aya interrupts him with sexy time.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: Yeah, it's it's it's can I can can someone really gain so much in such a short amount of time kick ass brand new and they make a point of said it is true what the the pawnbroker said it is brand new untouched sniper rifle action and then and then sexy time that's two kinds of porn slapped together.
Speaker: His stripper girlfriend who lives in Canada shows up with his uncle who works at Nintendo.
Speaker: I think they call her Scatchewanny.
Speaker: Scatchewanny.
Speaker: Oh God.
Speaker: We're punchy tonight, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker: You're just going to have to deal with it.
Speaker: Feeling punchy.
Speaker: You know, it's been like a week and a half since Phil and I were allowed to record because, and now we're just like, you know, we got to get it all out.
Speaker: We're backed up, baby.
Speaker: We're backed up.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I give some after... Okay, so while this is happening and Ron and Melina are doing their business as well, Albert turns on the cameras in the apartment and he's like, Ew.
Speaker: Sex.
Speaker: I know!
Speaker: Oh!
Speaker: As if I didn't want to throttle this little idiot more.
Speaker: He's like, you disgusting perverts.
Speaker: And they're like, okay, Albert, just do your net running, man.
Speaker: Dude, just, yeah.
Speaker: Fucking...
Speaker: Jesus Christ.
Speaker: And so afterwards, Juliana.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: I give some background on Juliana.
Speaker: She was the daughter of a coworker who was killed and she took her in.
Speaker: And I is not actually able to have kids of her own.
Speaker: And Zor promises that when when this is all over, they'll find her and they'll move to San Francisco.
Speaker: And this is when, are you going to San Francisco?
Speaker: Started playing in my ear.
Speaker: It was like, we're going to get out of this dump, baby.
Speaker: It's going to be different.
Speaker: And we're going to go to San Fran.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just like, okay.
Speaker: And I got a brand new puppy, by the way.
Speaker: And they say that my uncle, his cancer's clearing up.
Speaker: And you're like, okay, we're really setting ourselves up here.
Speaker: This is not great.
Speaker: Give Lenny the rabbit.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Uh, meanwhile, dumb, dumb and company are just chilling, wondering why the group stole the container in the first place.
Speaker: Uh, and also they noticed that Juliana has to, has this natural ability to pick up, uh, video games.
Speaker: Um, uh,
Speaker: Zor is finally getting his wish.
Speaker: So Zor and Milena have worked out.
Speaker: Milena has told Zor when the corpo that he wants to kill, where he's gonna be, and what his chance to kill him is gonna be.
Speaker: And we haven't been told what the corpora, who the corpora is.
Speaker: So like the way this scene is written is amazing because it's really played up for tension, right?
Speaker: So yet you're jumping between three scenes.
Speaker: You're jumping between Molina and she is talking to Katsuo, who is, and they're negotiating this Arasaka and Militech deal to get Militech involved in Arasaka's Project Aeneas.
Speaker: Meanwhile, Stanley, who is a, you know, he's a carpet bag and piece of shit that you're just like, oh, it's Stanley.
Speaker: Clearly.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He's some security guy.
Speaker: And Stanley is like, I'm taking my time.
Speaker: I am eating a big stack of
Speaker: pancakes for breakfast.
Speaker: Meanwhile, Zor is like all amped up.
Speaker: He's pacing around.
Speaker: He's got his in a tower 1.2 miles away from the target.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So while this is happening, Stanley is doing his thing.
Speaker: He's testing security on the first floor.
Speaker: He's getting his pancakes.
Speaker: Milena is doing her negotiation with Katsuo.
Speaker: Milena and Katsuo's negotiation falls apart.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Falls apart.
Speaker: That doesn't sound right.
Speaker: Who does?
Speaker: Who thought, didn't think that was going to happen?
Speaker: Kevin, are you sure?
Speaker: I'm sure.
Speaker: It's bad.
Speaker: Negotiation didn't happen.
Speaker: And meanwhile, Zora's like, you know what?
Speaker: Instead of just a sniper rifle bullet, I'm going to go with an explosive round.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: So Melina is leaving and she's waiting outside the elevator bank.
Speaker: And Zora's entire time, Zora's been saying, yes, when the person is in the elevator, I'll shoot them.
Speaker: And then Katsuo comes out and he's like, he dismisses his attendant and he starts talking to Milena like, okay, please come to my house.
Speaker: I'm inviting you to dinner.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Come by for dinner.
Speaker: We'll discuss some things there.
Speaker: And it's great.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: That sounds great.
Speaker: That doesn't sound suspicious or bad at all.
Speaker: No, it's not at all.
Speaker: Stanley gets into an elevator, but he's going up.
Speaker: Wait a minute.
Speaker: Zor's target is going is supposed to be going down.
Speaker: And then and then Katsuo and Milena get into an elevator and they start going down.
Speaker: And then Zor gets a facial confirmation on his target.
Speaker: His target is Katsuo.
Speaker: Oh,
Speaker: Of course it is.
Speaker: Of course it is.
Speaker: And because we were explicitly told if once that bullet hits Katsuo, everybody in the elevator would get turned to goop.
Speaker: So Zor shoots and he's on reflex or reflex stimulants and all that stuff.
Speaker: He shoots and he's just sitting there and he's like thinking about it.
Speaker: He's making sure the bullet stays because it's a mile away.
Speaker: It's going to take a little bit to get there.
Speaker: It's going to t ake a minute.
Speaker: Even more when you're on a reflex booster.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Just thinking about it.
Speaker: You're like, it doesn't feel right.
Speaker: This guy should know what he did to me.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: It's just upping the ante constantly.
Speaker: Just, yeah.
Speaker: Moving those goalposts.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: To be honest.
Speaker: But good thing for Milena that he does, because at the last second, he diverts the bullet off into the Coronado Bay.
Speaker: And Milena doesn't die from just an explosion in an elevator that she would have zero time to react to.
Speaker: Well, that's something at least.
Speaker: I can see.
Speaker: You know what, Kevin?
Speaker: You've always been the optimist.
Speaker: I can see how you can spin that as a positive.
Speaker: I get it now.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Is it a positive that she didn't die?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We'll circle back around.
Speaker: Yeah, we'll put a pin in that.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So in chapter 12, Albert is realizing he has he feels sad about his mother and then he stuffs that right back down.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Those feelings are for humans.
Speaker: I am not a human.
Speaker: Feelings are for weak liberals.
Speaker: For weak liberal cucks.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: He's a real facts don't care about your feelings.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I'm going to buy somebody else's company in a little while.
Speaker: This is going to go great.
Speaker: Yeah, he is the Ben Shapiro of the impromptu gang.
Speaker: My God.
Speaker: Yeah, so Milena and Aya go out to get some coffee because Milena realizes that she nearly died.
Speaker: Uh-huh.
Speaker: oh, I'm gonna have to think about all of this again.
Speaker: And she's going out to coffee with Aya, and Aya actually, her hand malfunctions again while they're getting coffee.
Speaker: And Aya starts talking to Milena about what actually happened to her hands.
Speaker: So she's missing her hands and her feet.
Speaker: And
Speaker: So there was a in her neighborhood, there was always like, you know, gangers driving by whatever.
Speaker: But, you know, the kids just played outside.
Speaker: And then one one day, one of the kids got killed by a stray bullet and they would all stay inside.
Speaker: And then eventually one of the gang houses nearby, a bunch of cars rolled up, killed everybody in there and drove away.
Speaker: And kids, being the curious lot that they are, they go over to the gang house and they check out what happened.
Speaker: And Aya goes inside and there's bodies everywhere.
Speaker: Everybody's dead.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Whole pile of bodies.
Speaker: This is a bright and cheery book.
Speaker: So she... It really is.
Speaker: It's just wonderful.
Speaker: By the way, this is 15 years ago.
Speaker: So this is 1962 and just...
Speaker: to remind people, I didn't say it, remind myself, in the previous chapter, Melina mentions the incident of 62.
Speaker: All right, so keep that in mind.
Speaker: Hold that in your brain pan.
Speaker: So this is 1962, and Aya,
Speaker: just a teenager or whatever.
Speaker: You know, she doesn't have a mom or a dad or what have you.
Speaker: And she's playing around, looking around, there's these dead bodies and she finds these terminals, these computer terminals, and she had never really seen them before.
Speaker: So she starts like just messing around with them.
Speaker: And then,
Speaker: there's a flash, an electrical explosion and her hands and her feet get blown right off.
Speaker: And she, for the next year, she just is a kid begging on the sidewalk with no hands and no feet.
Speaker: She doesn't really remember how she managed to stay alive during the course of that year.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: She would get Chrome, like cheap Chrome installed that would always break.
Speaker: And then some one day a couple took her in and gave her some newer Chrome.
Speaker: And she got a second chance.
Speaker: And then Melina is like, oh, huh.
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: Was it was it a voodoo boys hideout?
Speaker: And she's like, yeah, I think it was voodoo boys.
Speaker: Good guess.
Speaker: Good guess.
Speaker: Melina is like, OK, OK.
Speaker: I was going to say something, and I'm not.
Speaker: I'm just going to hug you instead.
Speaker: I was going to say, but not anymore.
Speaker: Not anymore.
Speaker: We'll find out more about that later.
Speaker: Albert's meanwhile, Albert finds where Maelstrom and Juliana are hiding out and Zor's like, took you long enough.
Speaker: And Albert admits that he only had one of 30 processing threads dedicated to finding Juliana.
Speaker: You could just a pile of shit.
Speaker: You could just leave that information out if you wanted.
Speaker: You didn't have to tell her that.
Speaker: Didn't have to say any of that.
Speaker: He tells that to Zor and Zor's like, don't tell Aya.
Speaker: Please, please.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: So the Maelstrom gang is hanging out like they do.
Speaker: And and they're like, hey, Dum Dum says to Dixie, hey, go send them our offer for Juliana.
Speaker: This is what we we want.
Speaker: Meanwhile, Milena is driving around and she runs into Ron at his office.
Speaker: Funny.
Speaker: He had said before that he couldn't go back to his office because the animals would recognize him.
Speaker: And now he's like, yeah, whatever.
Speaker: Ron is mid-surgery on somebody.
Speaker: Melaina talks to Ron about the incident in 2062.
Speaker: Basically, they were the corpse were working on a thing that involved the black wall.
Speaker: And there was an EMP explosion that was designed, that was supposed to stop the rogue AIs from coming through.
Speaker: But the only thing that the EMP explosion did was disfigure a poor little girl.
Speaker: And the media chalked it up to a gang war and it tanked the reputation of the Voodoo Boys.
Speaker: And then Malena's like,
Speaker: The kid was Aya and and she and then Ron's like, OK.
Speaker: And Malena's like, don't you get it?
Speaker: It's the title of the book.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But there's no coincidence.
Speaker: There is no coincidence here.
Speaker: It wasn't.
Speaker: It's not really a gang of people who didn't know each other.
Speaker: We're we're starting to suss that out here, really, as as it had to do with Militech and Melina.
Speaker: And meanwhile, Ron is like, I.
Speaker: I feel like I know Zor from somewhere, but I'm not sure.
Speaker: And, um, Malina asked what, what, what did warden have on you?
Speaker: And Ron's like, doesn't say anything.
Speaker: And instead just hugs Malina.
Speaker: Um, good old fashioned physical hug, good old fashioned physical hug to, to get out of it.
Speaker: Um, um,
Speaker: All right, so let's see.
Speaker: Where are we?
Speaker: Melina.
Speaker: Aya is considering the offer that the kidnappers gave and that her implants are going to seize up soon enough.
Speaker: Meanwhile, Zor has snuck into the Maelstrom hideout, and they're not too thrilled with him over this, but he's like...
Speaker: Hey, I just pointed out your defense is bad.
Speaker: Um, and B, uh, why do you guys care what we stole anyway?
Speaker: Like the fact that we could do it in the first place shows that you guys don't have the hold that you thought you had on North side and dumb, dumbs.
Speaker: Like, I guess you're right.
Speaker: That doesn't make me any less pissed off.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Having said all that.
Speaker: Having said all that, you're right, but I don't like you and I don't like your face.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Having said all that, fuck you.
Speaker: How about that?
Speaker: Fuck you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Zor is trying to negotiate a better deal down from a half million.
Speaker: Doesn't go anywhere, but Maelstrom does provide proof of life and they show him Juliana.
Speaker: And he's like, Zor's like, she looks nothing like Bradley.
Speaker: I'm like, no, it's not your son, dude.
Speaker: It's Juliana.
Speaker: Can't believe you didn't pick that up.
Speaker: Okay, great.
Speaker: Come on, buddy.
Speaker: Come on, man.
Speaker: So let's see.
Speaker: Melina is reading some background on Project Aeneas and the Blackwall and the data crash caused by Rache Bartmoss and his Rabbids.
Speaker: She stops reading and instead watches Ron and Aya play some version of chess, and she has, like, this moment of peace, like...
Speaker: Things in like, it's like one of those moments where she's like, this is nice.
Speaker: In another life, things could have been nice.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's heartbreaking.
Speaker: It's so sad.
Speaker: Oh, boy.
Speaker: Ron comes home or Zor comes home and sees that warden is at the apartment and warden gives them the plan.
Speaker: The plan is to come over and kill Renner cause there won't be anyone there.
Speaker: It's just gonna be them and Renner.
Speaker: It should be easy pickings.
Speaker: And meanwhile, in another scene, warden is telling Renner the opposite of the plan.
Speaker: Oh, they're going to come by and they won't have any guns.
Speaker: It's going to be easy.
Speaker: Easy pickings.
Speaker: It's going to be fine.
Speaker: Meanwhile, the operators are losing their shit because the operation has gone off the rails.
Speaker: And then Stanley enters the room and tells the three of them to, quote, boost his motivators.
Speaker: We'll see what that is.
Speaker: That sounds horny.
Speaker: It just does.
Speaker: It sounds horny.
Speaker: Speaking of horny, Dixie, Dum Dum, and Carla, did you think they were a thruple?
Speaker: Yes, they are.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: I don't know what I thought anymore, but this was shocking, even for me.
Speaker: Yeah, so they're banging.
Speaker: Dixie's sucking off dum-dum.
Speaker: It is graphic.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: wow okay like uh he heard my complaint of no queer queerness in the book and he's he's like I I see you yeah here's I see you from the future and you're welcome here is a male male female thruple sucking and fucking yep Eiffel Tower this bitch let's all have a good time
Speaker: God damn.
Speaker: Let's all have a good time.
Speaker: Got really Baldur's Gate 3 in there.
Speaker: It was... Two drows.
Speaker: And a day walker.
Speaker: You see their siblings.
Speaker: God.
Speaker: The aristocrats.
Speaker: Rest in peace, Bob Saget.
Speaker: We miss you.
Speaker: Rest in peace.
Speaker: Anyway, they get a message.
Speaker: Dum Dum gets a message.
Speaker: Meet at 3 p.m.
Speaker: for the transport, which definitely has to do with the container.
Speaker: Of course.
Speaker: We get at Chapter 13.
Speaker: We get a brief scene with Liam.
Speaker: He's identified basically everybody else in the gang at this point now, and he is no longer a cop.
Speaker: He's not a cop.
Speaker: Not a cop.
Speaker: He's not a cop.
Speaker: He is freelancing this bitch.
Speaker: He is figuring this out because he's like, fuck it.
Speaker: This is too weird.
Speaker: So he's going to continue.
Speaker: And the rest of the chapter is this gigantic showdown at the warehouse.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So so much happens in this scene.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The impromptu gang shows up and Renner is there and there's just like everybody's everybody's got guns.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Everybody's fucking pointing guns at each other to get the container.
Speaker: And at a certain point, it's like.
Speaker: oh, what are we going to do about it?
Speaker: And then Zor's, and then there's like gunshots happening up on the roof.
Speaker: And Zor thinks it's Maelstrom, who he tipped off.
Speaker: And they're just killing everybody.
Speaker: And Zor's like, yeah, you want to wait for whoever's coming down those stairs?
Speaker: Well, guess what?
Speaker: It's not Maelstrom.
Speaker: It's the animals.
Speaker: Because Ron told the animals when it was happening so that they would forgive his debts.
Speaker: You can't trust anybody.
Speaker: So the animals come in and they're just fucking shooting everybody.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's not just a clever name, the animals.
Speaker: Not just a clever name.
Speaker: And they're getting shot and they got these big, beefy, steroided muscles.
Speaker: And every time the muscles get shot, it's just like a book, like a water balloon of blood.
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: Like the video game term of spongy comes to mind.
Speaker: The animals are quite literally spongy.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: It's bad.
Speaker: They take a lot of bullets, but also the, the, you squeeze a lot of blood out of them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, they are gross.
Speaker: They are gross.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah, basically what ends up happening is they have this big old standoff.
Speaker: People are getting shot.
Speaker: One of the first people to go down is Ross.
Speaker: He gets he gets blown away.
Speaker: The animals are getting shot up.
Speaker: They have guns on everybody.
Speaker: Everybody has guns on everybody.
Speaker: Then Maelstrom shows up.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: You didn't think they were just going to ignore this one, did you?
Speaker: Of course they're there.
Speaker: Of course they're there.
Speaker: They show up.
Speaker: Carla shows up dramatically stabbing Renner through the chest.
Speaker: And now Renner's dead.
Speaker: And now Maelstrom is like, hey, well, we don't fucking need you guys.
Speaker: And they're trying to turn.
Speaker: They're trying to kill the other people.
Speaker: They're trying to kill the impromptu gang and they're killing the animals and the animals are dead.
Speaker: And then Carla is like, is like doing this whole back flippy thing.
Speaker: And Zor shoots her, shoots her arms off.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But not before she manages to land on Ron and double impale him through the chest.
Speaker: What the fuck?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Ron is dead.
Speaker: Is he?
Speaker: Is he?
Speaker: No, Ron gets double impaled through the chest.
Speaker: Now, this is...
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So he gets double impaled.
Speaker: Dumb Dumb is get shot and then just kind of like staggers away so that he can appear in the video game.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: He staggers away to his actual from where you know him from.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh God.
Speaker: And, um, yeah, uh, it's, it's, uh, it's not good.
Speaker: Uh, and then Ron remembers as he's dying, he remembers where he remembered Zor from, uh, but it doesn't really matter.
Speaker: No, it doesn't matter.
Speaker: So, um,
Speaker: The only other thing that chapter is Albert waxes poetically about the idea of transferring one's consciousness.
Speaker: Jesus Christ.
Speaker: I hate this fucking kid.
Speaker: If he hates this kid, continue reading.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, you're going to love this book.
Speaker: Don't you worry.
Speaker: Oh God.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So chapter 14, uh,
Speaker: All right, we start out with a Freak Seek, like, recap of the gang fight that happened.
Speaker: Um...
Speaker: Also, I guess they never did.
Speaker: They get the container.
Speaker: I forget.
Speaker: They didn't get the container at this point.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Do they have the container?
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: I don't think so.
Speaker: It's not yet.
Speaker: OK.
Speaker: OK.
Speaker: I don't I don't think they have the container.
Speaker: Either way, Freak Seek recounts everything.
Speaker: Liam is continuing his investigation.
Speaker: He's talking to Byers.
Speaker: Byers is still alive, by the way.
Speaker: The operators are losing their shit.
Speaker: They're like, fuck.
Speaker: What's going on?
Speaker: The ARS-03 has like, they're saying he's passed his thing with flying colors.
Speaker: And then they mentioned someone fucked up Russo's psych profile, who is Malena.
Speaker: So, okay.
Speaker: So these operators, we knew they had something to do with Stanley, but obviously something is weird where they have details on everybody.
Speaker: Yeah, so Milena and Zor are going to meet with Katsuo.
Speaker: Basically, Milena decides that she is going to take Katsuo up on that offer and that Zor is going to play her partner.
Speaker: Now that Ron is dead, Ron would have gone, but he is no longer.
Speaker: The Ripper Doc is no longer with us.
Speaker: He is the first main character to eat it.
Speaker: The Ripper Dock is no more.
Speaker: The Ripper Dock has been ripped.
Speaker: So they, Milena and Zor go to Katsuo's house and it's, you know, very customary Japanese style house.
Speaker: They're having tea and all that fun stuff.
Speaker: And they're having a discussion about Project Aeneas.
Speaker: And it gets to the matter of AI and the nature of AI and the nature of getting through the black wall.
Speaker: All these things that Albert has kind of been talking about the entire time actually pop up a little bit here.
Speaker: And that the corpse are like trying to figure out a way to create an AI that is controllable instead of one that would end up going rogue like the ones that are on the other side of the black wall.
Speaker: That's the goal, right?
Speaker: While this is happening, because Zor still wants to kill Katsuo because Katsuo gave the order that killed Zor's family.
Speaker: He shot the rockets.
Speaker: He shot the rockets out of the warship that demolished...
Speaker: you know, and we're getting these flashbacks to, um, Zor when he did this, this is 20, 2070, it's seven years ago.
Speaker: And, uh, Zor was, uh, took that, his, took the AV with the missiles and he, he blew up some more ships and then he was shot down and, you know, he's, he's got a broken leg and it's cutting back and forth between the scene of him having a broken leg.
Speaker: And, uh,
Speaker: Katsuo and Milena continuing their negotiation.
Speaker: Except at one point, Zor starts having like the flashback is like breaking a little bit because he's having this these memories of.
Speaker: maybe being in a hospital, maybe not.
Speaker: Starting to get a little shifty there.
Speaker: It's starting to get a little shifty.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then there's a point at which
Speaker: uh katsu is like so basically we wanted the we wanted to create this ai that was controlled with emotion it was weighed down with emotion like how would we do that blah blah blah malena are still talking and um malena goes
Speaker: So what exactly do you need from me?
Speaker: I don't I don't work for Militech anymore.
Speaker: There's nothing I can give you.
Speaker: And Katsuo goes.
Speaker: You've already given him to me.
Speaker: And it's like.
Speaker: Yeah, you get that Jaws camera.
Speaker: And Zor like breaks a bowl, a ceramic bowl, and he holds it to Katsuo.
Speaker: And he's like, you son of a bitch.
Speaker: You killed my family.
Speaker: And Katsuo is like, listen to me.
Speaker: The memory you have never happened.
Speaker: And he's like, no, no, no, no.
Speaker: He's like, there is no suburb north of Night City.
Speaker: There never was.
Speaker: And Zora's like, you're lying.
Speaker: Listen, man, we total recalled the shit out of you.
Speaker: I need you to take my word for it.
Speaker: And yeah, Katsuo's like,
Speaker: Buddy, I've never been in the military in my entire life.
Speaker: I would not have given any orders to shoot any missiles from any warship because that is not my division.
Speaker: And Zora's like, and then the security breaks in and there's like a gunfight, right?
Speaker: Shooting the security guards and stuff like that.
Speaker: And Katsuo is like just a little bit cut from the ceramic, which triggers like the medical team to, that's some pretty damn good insurance.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, that's pretty cool.
Speaker: Huh.
Speaker: To like dispatch to him right away.
Speaker: And yeah, so so, you know, this this is all happening.
Speaker: Katsuo's daughter comes out and Zora's is like sees that he like Katsuo is like.
Speaker: stops and sees like cats was a human for like for a moment.
Speaker: And then Zor grabs Molina and they just get the fuck out of there.
Speaker: And as they're running out, the medical AV is landing.
Speaker: They get out into the yard and there is one of the guys, one of the med techs is like taking cover and he's like aiming a gun at Zor and, but he hesitates.
Speaker: He doesn't shoot Zor, even though he has a dead to rights.
Speaker: And he goes, Jay?
Speaker: Jay?
Speaker: And Zora's like, whatever.
Speaker: And they get into the thing, and they fly the fuck off.
Speaker: What is happening?
Speaker: What the fuck?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I just dumped all that scene at once.
Speaker: But meanwhile, Aya is trying to figure out what to do about Juliana and Albert is still working on like the Terran source code to break through the black wall and is talking about copying his his body over.
Speaker: But Jesus Christ, it's it's just the level of you getting fucked with really, really starts hitting home here.
Speaker: So just to recap, Zor's memories are implanted.
Speaker: Mm hmm.
Speaker: According to Katsuo.
Speaker: Ron is dead.
Speaker: Mm hmm.
Speaker: That's that's really all I have to fill in right now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Hey, do you happen to remember that story about how Milena hurt her ankle?
Speaker: How she got into that car accident?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm sure that has nothing to do with anything.
Speaker: I'm sure it's completely unrelated.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This author seems like the kind of guy who will just live and let live with some of his plot threads.
Speaker: Some of those details.
Speaker: Oh, I forgot to mention Liam gets a message from his wife saying his kids are missing.
Speaker: Oh, good.
Speaker: During this chapter.
Speaker: Because he didn't drop the case.
Speaker: And then at the beginning of chapter 15, Liam finds his kids.
Speaker: They just happen to be like out playing and realizes I'm dropping the case.
Speaker: Yeah, fuck this.
Speaker: Fuck this.
Speaker: I'm done.
Speaker: I'm done.
Speaker: That's not.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: Not even a little bit worth it.
Speaker: Liam, literally, it's not even the end of the book.
Speaker: Liam, forget it, Jake.
Speaker: It's Chinatown.
Speaker: Yeah, it's true.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: Out of the book at the beginning of chapter 15, not at the end of chapter 15.
Speaker: No, the beginning of chapter 15.
Speaker: The beginning.
Speaker: I love this feeling of, I just love that.
Speaker: I just love that feeling of like, my integrity is not for self.
Speaker: My integrity is for self.
Speaker: It's, it's, you know what?
Speaker: I'm not a cop anymore.
Speaker: Forget it.
Speaker: I'm not, I'm no fucking co-op.
Speaker: No fucking co-op.
Speaker: We're good.
Speaker: We're good.
Speaker: Oh God.
Speaker: So they're flying this medical AV around and Zora asks, okay, Melina,
Speaker: Is it was what he said true about this suburb and Molina is like, yes, there's never been a suburb in north of Night City where you you say that.
Speaker: And so it's like, I don't know what the fuck's going on.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Melina, he's like, he offers to drop Melina off just so that she's done with this whole thing.
Speaker: Melina's like, no, I'm staying with you.
Speaker: They go to the Maelstrom HQ, fly the thing to the second floor and Melina jumps out of the, onto the second floor through like a hole in the wall and like goes to grab Juliana.
Speaker: So earlier,
Speaker: the twink in the thruple and the net runner install the chip into Juliana's head.
Speaker: And that made her do something.
Speaker: She's like a little bit more aware now.
Speaker: So Melana tries to get Juliana and Juliana is like, nope, not leaving.
Speaker: So Melana just grabs the girl and picks her up and starts like walking away with her.
Speaker: And Juliana hits her in the head with a tablet and
Speaker: And then a maelstromer comes in, and the maelstromer is like this old ganger, and he's like about to kill Melina.
Speaker: And then another maelstrom lady comes in and shoots the shit out of the older guy.
Speaker: And basically...
Speaker: She shoots the shit out of the older guy and then she takes her mask off and it's Aya.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Camouflaged as a maelstromer.
Speaker: And they're like, all right, let's go.
Speaker: And now these other maelstromers are coming on and Juliana is not going with them.
Speaker: And Aya is trying to drag her and...
Speaker: And Juliana is like, no, I want to stay with the males.
Speaker: She doesn't say it, but in her actions, she wants to stay with Maelstrom.
Speaker: She wants to stay with this Maelstrom gang.
Speaker: And I his leg is like starting to not work and they make it back to
Speaker: Towards the gap between the building, they're still trying to drag Julianna.
Speaker: Julia ducks out and stands with the Maelstrom.
Speaker: Malina and Aya get onto the AV, and Maelstrom just starts shooting at them, shooting and shooting and shooting.
Speaker: Meanwhile, Albert's doing his transfer thing, and he starts using that ARS-03 processor to do it.
Speaker: At some point during this, Malina is shot.
Speaker: At some point during this encounter, Melaina gets shot.
Speaker: So she is dying and they're like, we're going to get you to the hospital.
Speaker: And Melaina's like, no.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: Don't trouble yourself, I think.
Speaker: Don't trouble yourself.
Speaker: It's, you know.
Speaker: I think we all saw this coming.
Speaker: I think we all saw this coming.
Speaker: It's fine.
Speaker: It's fine.
Speaker: And as Melina dies with, you know, she takes one last cigarette and smoking it because she's cool right to the fucking end.
Speaker: Just stone cold bitch.
Speaker: I love her.
Speaker: She tells Aya that Warden didn't have anything on her.
Speaker: She just joined up because she wanted to feel alive.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: I feel good.
Speaker: Picture wrap on Melina.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Bye, Melina.
Speaker: Jesus Christ.
Speaker: I mean, my God.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: So Albert, like, breaks through the black wall and kind of, like, with his little thing, and he begins his transfer, and
Speaker: Night City airspace has been closed.
Speaker: Everything is shut down.
Speaker: The data is transferring.
Speaker: And Aya's body is starting to lock up more and more.
Speaker: And Zora is lying to her saying, hey, we're only 90 minutes away from San Francisco.
Speaker: And like, there's no way they're only 90 minutes away from San Francisco.
Speaker: They're like, they're hours away from San Francisco at this point.
Speaker: She might as well just be like, yeah, we're five minutes away if you can just hang on.
Speaker: Five minutes till Disney World, honey.
Speaker: Yeah, put on your shoes.
Speaker: Then a drone interrupts them and they're trying to get Albert to deal with it.
Speaker: So like the drone has them at a standoff and they can't go anywhere until the drone is out of the way.
Speaker: Zor lets...
Speaker: Albert.
Speaker: So Albert tells Zor, hey, ARS-03 is in your head.
Speaker: You need to give me access to it so I can do some stuff.
Speaker: Albert doesn't tell Zor what the fuck he's doing.
Speaker: He's like, oh, let me do things to help you.
Speaker: Yeah, super cool things.
Speaker: He's only doing it so that he can transfer the data faster to the other side of the black wall.
Speaker: This fucking kid.
Speaker: He's a rock star, this kid.
Speaker: He's the best.
Speaker: So while Albert is in cyberspace, Dixie, the erstwhile lover of Carla and last standing member of that thruple, because Dum Dum has gone missing.
Speaker: Yeah, we're not.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Dum Dum's out.
Speaker: Dum Dum's out.
Speaker: He's not dead.
Speaker: He shows up later in the video game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But he's he's he's licking his wounds.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Maybe literally.
Speaker: Yeah, literally.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Dixie shows up to Albert's apartment and just kind of plugs a little program in there into Albert's brain and says, like, hi, I'm Dixie's automated program.
Speaker: You I wanted to kill all you and all your friends, but just you will suffice.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, so Albert's like, I just got to hold them off until my consciousness transfers.
Speaker: And then like the consciousness transfers.
Speaker: Suddenly Albert has his fucking Soma moments.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I was just going to say it's a total solo moment.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Wait a minute.
Speaker: So spoilers for the game Soma.
Speaker: But basically the guy, he realizes that like just because he's transferred his consciousness doesn't mean that he, his current consciousness is going to be awake on the other side.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He is still him no matter what.
Speaker: And that consciousness, like for all the fucking metaphysical thinking he did,
Speaker: This kid misses the entire purpose of everything.
Speaker: And like, no, buddy, your consciousness is tied to your body.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's copy paste, not cut paste.
Speaker: Like it's, yeah, it's, yeah.
Speaker: It's a copy paste, not a cut and paste.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Dixie slices up Albert slowly.
Speaker: It takes his time with it using Carla's mantis blades that, that Zor shot off her arms.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And yeah, so that's the end of Albert.
Speaker: Fuck that kid.
Speaker: Dumbass.
Speaker: Little dumb fucking twerp.
Speaker: And the best thing about it is this is the coup de gras, the coup de gras.
Speaker: Dixie then takes a look at whatever the fuck Albert was doing.
Speaker: And he goes in and he goes, oh, he, uh, he, he made a hole through the black wall.
Speaker: Oh shit.
Speaker: Those rogue AIs are just tearing apart those green cubes that he sent to him.
Speaker: Like it all gets destroyed.
Speaker: Everything.
Speaker: Literally nothing Albert does makes any impact whatsoever.
Speaker: None.
Speaker: He transfers his consciousness across the black wall.
Speaker: Guess what?
Speaker: Some fucking A.I.
Speaker: T. rexes just ripped it apart.
Speaker: Chomped them up.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: Fuck him.
Speaker: Thus always to tech bros.
Speaker: Just always to tech bros.
Speaker: So Dixie's like, that was fucking stupid.
Speaker: And, you know, leaves satisfied.
Speaker: Dixie gets what they want.
Speaker: That's, yeah, that's.
Speaker: Dixie's like, I'm good.
Speaker: I'm good.
Speaker: I got some vengeance.
Speaker: You know.
Speaker: Happy ending for me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: While all this is happening, Zora is flashing back more and more between present day and past seven years ago.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Fictional seven years.
Speaker: Fictional seven years.
Speaker: And eventually they end up... So...
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: They end up crashing.
Speaker: Zora's half dead.
Speaker: Stanley comes.
Speaker: And I'm just kind of like saying what happens.
Speaker: Kind of get into what happened.
Speaker: Zork, they crash.
Speaker: Stanley shows up to the crash site.
Speaker: Zora is half dead.
Speaker: Aya, inconclusive, doesn't really say if she's dead or not.
Speaker: Stanley goes up to Aya and says, good work, and blinks his eyes and unlocks her arms and legs.
Speaker: And then tells them, all right, well, AOS03 was a failure.
Speaker: Move on to AOS04.
Speaker: End of book.
Speaker: Okay, so.
Speaker: Jesus Christ, okay.
Speaker: All right, so let's unpack this a little bit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: All right, so the flashback, the flashbacks start going between seven years and two, let's say it's like a month ago now.
Speaker: It's like two months ago.
Speaker: In the beginning of the book, we hear a story about that Freak Seek talks about, about a car accident on the road where a bunch of people got killed.
Speaker: There is a video of a guy trying to save a little boy out of a burning car, and he's being restrained by his fellow medical people, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker: That guy is Zor.
Speaker: Zor was never in the war.
Speaker: He was a medical technician.
Speaker: He was a pilot for one of these medical technician planes.
Speaker: He sees a little boy and his name isn't Zor, it's Jay.
Speaker: So let's just line up the events.
Speaker: Two months before the book starts, Jay, a.k.a.
Speaker: Zor, is a pilot for a medical thing.
Speaker: He is in a – they get called to a severe car crash caused by Melina's driver.
Speaker: Melina only walks away with a sprained ankle.
Speaker: Meanwhile, there's a boy trapped in a car who's burning to death.
Speaker: He's trying to... Jay, the pilot, who's not even supposed to be out there saving people, is trying to save this kid.
Speaker: His duty officer restrains him and then shoots him in the head because he disobeyed orders.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Jay is taken to a ripper dock.
Speaker: A Ripper Doc who used to be a Ripper Doc to the stars and a hot top flight surgeon, but has fallen on hard times and is in a lot of debt.
Speaker: This Ripper Doc's name is Ron.
Speaker: Ron installs a bunch of tech into into Jay and making him Zor.
Speaker: Then Militech wipes Ron's memory of the event.
Speaker: Ron does not have an active memory of doing this.
Speaker: That's why the entire time Ron's like, you look vaguely familiar to me.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because it's not like a thorough thing.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: Then we get no coincidences.
Speaker: This is all kicked off by a car accident that Milena started.
Speaker: So then we get to Aya, right?
Speaker: Aya has this high end technology.
Speaker: It's made to look organic.
Speaker: She's on tough times.
Speaker: So she does jobs for a guy.
Speaker: She never really met him.
Speaker: And as she, when she does the job, she gets maintenance on her, on her Chrome.
Speaker: In the middle of the book, or in the first third of the book, after she fucks up the one mission, she gets another message, and she doesn't like the contents of the message.
Speaker: We are never treated to what the contents of the message were, though.
Speaker: Until the end, when Stanley tells her, good job,
Speaker: The job, Aya's job, was to be Zor's escort for the remainder of the time.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Jesus Christ.
Speaker: Okay, so Zor is ARS-03.
Speaker: The idea was to implant a memory into an artificial intelligence system
Speaker: To make it seem like the target, because they want an AI to be able to kill a target, but how do you control AI?
Speaker: Because that was the whole problem with the black ball in the past.
Speaker: He laden them with emotional baggage.
Speaker: The emotional baggage was the target was responsible for Zor or ARSO3's family getting killed.
Speaker: Jesus Christ.
Speaker: Except Katsuo was not involved and there was no family.
Speaker: And he was just a pilot named Jay who got shot in the head that Ron replaced the gear, the stuff in his brain.
Speaker: Yadda, yadda, yadda.
Speaker: It's so bizarre.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: It is such a mind fuck of a book.
Speaker: Stanley hired Warden to get the container.
Speaker: So what was in the container?
Speaker: It doesn't matter.
Speaker: It could have been empty.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The whole point of the entire thing was, was to see if you could basically Manchurian candidate, a real person with AI and emotional baggage and have them kill somebody.
Speaker: That's the whole thing.
Speaker: In the end, everybody's dead.
Speaker: I am might be alive.
Speaker: It's not, it's not conclusive with the way it's written.
Speaker: And yeah, and that's the end of that.
Speaker: And what's funny is like it could have gone completely different way had Albert not been a piece of shit.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: Had Albert not been such a navel-gazing piece of shit, it really relied on him being like so self-centered about his bullshit for it to all work out.
Speaker: He was so caught up in his own fucking bullshit that, like, yeah, the one person who might have gotten them out of this shitty, shitty situation because he was so full of his own stupid bitch juice, he just had to...
Speaker: Yeah, which I guess there's a message there.
Speaker: I guess there's a message there.
Speaker: I guess there's a message there.
Speaker: What the fuck?
Speaker: Everybody dies.
Speaker: I looked into it more.
Speaker: There's a character named Mr. Blue Eyes in Cyberpunk 2077.
Speaker: People think that that might be Stanley.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Because they referenced that Stanley, when he does his mind control thing to Aya, his eyes flash blue.
Speaker: Oh, I do remember that.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: So he might be a character, and also there's some weird... There's a particular quest in Cyberpunk 2077 that doesn't really have a super satisfying ending.
Speaker: It just kind of peters out, but it might be related to this program.
Speaker: as well.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So it's a real narrow thread between the book and the game, but it's there.
Speaker: But it totally exists.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's really interesting because that's the thing.
Speaker: Like there's this part of me now that it's finished that having never played Cyberpunk 2077, all I can do is go, wow, well, I enjoyed the hell out of that.
Speaker: I lost nothing by not having played the game.
Speaker: It is just a really solid piece of cyberpunk.
Speaker: with or without that franchise.
Speaker: Um, but I knew as we were wrapping it up, I was like, I know, I, I know Kevin's going to have like some of the Easter eggs that are inevitably in there that, that is just going to make it that much more fun for someone who has played the game.
Speaker: So for a while I was like, is the container have anything to do with the Arasaka relic?
Speaker: But it's Arasaka relic is mentioned, but that's not it.
Speaker: And the Arasaka relic is the it's the thing with Johnny Silverhand on it that you get put into your head towards the beginning of the game.
Speaker: So that's why you see Keanu Reeves everywhere you go.
Speaker: I thought that's just part of being an American.
Speaker: That's just part of being an American.
Speaker: You just see Keanu Reeves.
Speaker: You just see Keanu.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he tips his head to you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's just part of it.
Speaker: It's just part of it.
Speaker: So with all that being said, Phil, what did you think of the book?
Speaker: I loved it.
Speaker: I thought it was really, really... No book that we've read so far has hit me in the guts with that kind of pit of bleakness that this one has.
Speaker: At the end of it... Now, some people aren't into that kind of thing.
Speaker: I am.
Speaker: I don't mind it anyway if it's in service of a good story.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: The fact of the matter is that this is the first time we've ever read a video game novelization or tie-in that has that level of emotion attached to it for me.
Speaker: This might be the best book we've read on this show in terms of just sheer craftsmanship and skill.
Speaker: Yeah, I can't say enough good things about it.
Speaker: What about you?
Speaker: Yeah, no, it's amazing.
Speaker: It's a wild book and just like all of the threads, it is so thoroughly threaded with plot.
Speaker: Like this is what, so like, and this is what I say why,
Speaker: When you're writing something, it's better to often focus on doing something that is driven by character because it's really, really hard to make something that is plot-driven that is guaranteed going to work.
Speaker: But that being said, Rafael Kosick...
Speaker: had this plot, this meticulous plot, like perfectly weaved.
Speaker: And obviously you need good characters to pull it off, but it's a very, it's a good, it's an example of good plot driven story where it's like, okay, yeah, this is fucking amazing.
Speaker: You know, the, every single thread, there's no loose ends.
Speaker: There is no loose ends.
Speaker: There are no coincidence coincidences in the entire goddamn book.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Even like little shit like Byers and Sons.
Speaker: The way it's written in the beginning, you assume that Zor has been working with Byers for a while, right?
Speaker: He's only been later in the book when Liam talks to Byers, Byers is like, yeah, he worked for me for two days and then wrecked one of my vans.
Speaker: The window in which Zor existed is really, really narrow.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: It's so quick.
Speaker: But he has this entire life that he knows and imagines where he doesn't drink really only on his on one day a month where you order something like he's got this like kind of vague recovering alcoholic feel.
Speaker: And he's been living under the grid off the grid for seven years and, you know, all this stuff.
Speaker: And it's like.
Speaker: It's so thoroughly done and it's all fake.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's exactly it.
Speaker: It has so many little details.
Speaker: There's no stone left unturned.
Speaker: And it's completely fake.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's...
Speaker: It's fucking crazy.
Speaker: It's heartbreaking.
Speaker: That's the thing.
Speaker: This book is tragic on so many different levels.
Speaker: The level of a world just not giving a shit about you from beginning to end is there.
Speaker: And because you're a human being and a reader and you hope...
Speaker: Maybe like someone's going to get out of this and, you know, either become a badass or escape into the sunset somehow.
Speaker: No, not a single fucking person.
Speaker: Not a single person.
Speaker: The best that you can do is be a cop and drop the case.
Speaker: Like that's the best you can do.
Speaker: Liam's best case was he retired.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm done.
Speaker: I'm out.
Speaker: Early retirement.
Speaker: Sick.
Speaker: I'll take it.
Speaker: He is the only person who had anything resembling a happy ending in this.
Speaker: And it's still pretty bleak.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: As you know, he's still going to live in fear for his kids and everything else.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So there's one detail I forgot to mention at the end of the book is that after they crash...
Speaker: Zor tells Aya like Aya is like alive and Zor's like, we'll start over in San Francisco.
Speaker: Whatever's in the container will help us.
Speaker: The last thing Zor sees in his life, because he is dead by the time Stanley gets there, the last thing Zor sees is
Speaker: is that the container has nothing in it.
Speaker: Empty, completely empty.
Speaker: And it's just like, just imagining what's like going through that person's head.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: It's kind of wild because you kind of wish, there's a part of me that wishes we could have seen exactly how he reacts to that.
Speaker: On the other hand,
Speaker: the bleakness of that and then just finding his body later is just like, Oh, I don't think we need that.
Speaker: That's Jesus Christ.
Speaker: It's just his dead body is staring blankly at the empty container.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: When Stanley finds him, that's just fuck.
Speaker: Fucking Stanley, dude.
Speaker: It's so bleak.
Speaker: Oh man.
Speaker: This fucking book, Kevin.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Oh, we're going to read something with a little hope and happiness next.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Something that's got some.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What's what's next on the.
Speaker: What is next?
Speaker: I better check.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: Never mind.
Speaker: Forget I said anything.
Speaker: What is it?
Speaker: Our next book is actually our first ever 40K book.
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: Warhammer 40,000 Fire Warrior.
Speaker: That's not going to be bleak.
Speaker: That's not going to be happy.
Speaker: That's going to be bleak.
Speaker: It probably will.
Speaker: It probably will.
Speaker: That's like, that's double bleak.
Speaker: That's double bleak.
Speaker: I don't, I don't see how it could be anything, but I actually, I don't know if it's double bleak.
Speaker: I'd say this story and Warhammer 40k are probably on par.
Speaker: Probably on par.
Speaker: Honestly, I don't know.
Speaker: This might be worse.
Speaker: This might be worse.
Speaker: This is worse because there was hope.
Speaker: Yes, exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: When you go into 40K, you're like, well, there's no hope, so whatever.
Speaker: That's fine.
Speaker: That's fine.
Speaker: You read a book called 14 Hours because the soldiers on that planet have an average life expectancy of 14 hours.
Speaker: And you don't figure your protagonist is going to limp away from the whole situation.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: You expect a good 14 hours.
Speaker: 14 hours.
Speaker: Before the flamer decides that everyone is a heretic.
Speaker: And that's it.
Speaker: And that's it.
Speaker: Jesus.
Speaker: Jesus.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, anyway.
Speaker: Anyway.
Speaker: That's the end of that book.
Speaker: It sure is.
Speaker: I rate it 2077 stars out of 2077.
Speaker: I rate it 2077 mantis blades out of 2077.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: R.I.P.
Speaker: Carla, you sick, twisted body, blood artist.
Speaker: We hardly knew ye.
Speaker: We hardly knew ye.
Speaker: My God.
Speaker: With all that being said, what are you playing?
Speaker: Oh, goodness gracious.
Speaker: Well, I just came back from a little vacation with my wife, and so I didn't do a lot of gaming there.
Speaker: My wife.
Speaker: My wife.
Speaker: But I had, as I mentioned last week, just gotten done with Bowler's Gate 3, and in the past few days, I have managed to go ahead and pick up and play Blasphemous 2.
Speaker: which is more blasphemous.
Speaker: They should just call it Blasphemous 2, more blasphemous.
Speaker: And that's exactly what I wanted.
Speaker: There are more weapons, more spells, more everything.
Speaker: It feels just as good as the original.
Speaker: I'm having fun peeling back the layers of the onion.
Speaker: I think the only...
Speaker: part that has given me pause.
Speaker: I've only fought one boss and killed her, but the bosses so far are a little less full-on monstrous than they were in the first one.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: They're still spooky as hell, but they're not the big abominations.
Speaker: I've only done one, so it might pick up.
Speaker: I am probably like 90% through the game.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And I can echo that criticism.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That the game feels, Blasphemous 2 feels unfortunately a little less tuned down on the abomination front.
Speaker: Yeah, and I'm a monster guy.
Speaker: That's what I'm about.
Speaker: One of the things I loved about the first Blasphemous was the bleakness of the world, but also these bleak, monstrous abominations like, you know, the guy who's a skeleton and you're just fighting the people that are holding up his corpse and the fucking giant baby.
Speaker: Yeah, the giant baby.
Speaker: The shit like that.
Speaker: I'd say the bosses in Blasphemous 2 tend to drift a little bit more towards Castlevania-y.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Where they're still monsters, but they don't have that blasphemous panache of...
Speaker: of like, oh, I feel bad looking at this.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: I actually, I am not a religious man and I do feel like I'm committing some sort of weird sin even looking at this.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: And it doesn't have that and that's unfortunate.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a little,
Speaker: Yeah, that's the thing is the game is I really enjoy Blasphemous 2.
Speaker: It's also, yes, I'm playing it also.
Speaker: But I'll say it feels a little bit muted compared to the first one.
Speaker: And I wish they had gone so far in the other direction.
Speaker: Like, I wanted them to shock me compared to the first one.
Speaker: And it feels like they pulled back given that maybe that they thought this one was gonna have a little bit more mainstream appeal.
Speaker: Maybe, yeah.
Speaker: I feel like they gave you more toys to play with.
Speaker: I've got all the weapons now.
Speaker: There's more toys.
Speaker: You've got three weapons.
Speaker: And that's fun.
Speaker: What's your main weapon do you find to use?
Speaker: I almost never use the hammer thing.
Speaker: Oh, it's the opposite for me.
Speaker: That's my main.
Speaker: Oh, that's your main.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Because I like to parry a lot of enemies.
Speaker: I'm a dodge guy.
Speaker: I use the twin rapiers.
Speaker: That's the one I use at least.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Look at that.
Speaker: That's like a Dark Souls.
Speaker: That's right there.
Speaker: That's a Dark Souls thing.
Speaker: Yeah, right there.
Speaker: Yeah, I try to get that parry in.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I agree so I've only played I guess I got four hours in something like that and I've played a fair amount of it I've beaten that one the embroidery maiden which thank god because have you played her yet have you fought her yet which one is she
Speaker: She's the one who tells you on guard and has the rapier.
Speaker: Oh, God, yeah.
Speaker: She's basically... Okay, so I didn't like that boss at all.
Speaker: Not necessarily... I mean, fighting her was annoying, but also she seemed like an almost exact ripoff of a boss from Sekiro.
Speaker: Oh, interesting.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Like, to an unfortunate extent.
Speaker: I was like, this... Game kitchen...
Speaker: So, uh, I just, I, it just drove me crazy because she takes her, you, you get down there and it's, and it's, you know, it's, it's a blasphemous.
Speaker: You're going to have to fight the boss multiple times.
Speaker: You're not just going to beat them on the first try.
Speaker: And, uh, and I go down there.
Speaker: I find, I get to her again.
Speaker: And every single time she hops down, takes her time, pulls out her blade, blows,
Speaker: bows to me, says, en garde.
Speaker: And five minutes later, we're fighting again.
Speaker: And it's like, Jesus.
Speaker: And I can't skip it.
Speaker: You can't.
Speaker: And that drives me up the wall.
Speaker: It's like the first time I saw it, I was like, that's pretty cool.
Speaker: That's pretty spooky and strange and very vampire-less stop.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Rock and roll.
Speaker: Let's do this.
Speaker: But on the fifth or sixth or seventh time, can I just fucking fight her?
Speaker: I need to kill her.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that's, that's all I've played really.
Speaker: So I'll say I like it.
Speaker: I don't know if it'll crack my top 10 because, which is a big shame.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because it's compared to coming off what I loved about blasphemous one.
Speaker: It's disappointing.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's not blasphemous one.
Speaker: That is for damn sure.
Speaker: It's, it's like, it's black.
Speaker: It's diet blasphemous.
Speaker: A little, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's still a good game.
Speaker: If you're into Metroidvanias.
Speaker: Oh, it's damn good.
Speaker: If you're into Metroidvanias, go and check it out.
Speaker: And if you aren't into the wanton gore and weird monsters, play Blasphemous 2 instead of Blasphemous 1.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: Because Blasphemous 1 gets fucking weird.
Speaker: God, it's so weird.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: And this one, there is only one scene so far where I was like, oh,
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But otherwise, the creatures have not, and a lot of them are retreads from the first one.
Speaker: So I don't know.
Speaker: Maybe we'll see what the next one holds for us.
Speaker: What else are you playing?
Speaker: Is that it?
Speaker: That's literally it.
Speaker: Have you been playing anything else?
Speaker: Yeah, so I've been playing a little game called Baldur's Gate 3.
Speaker: Okay, so I play Blasphemous at night on my Steam Deck because it's a good Steam Deck game while watching TV or what have you.
Speaker: And I got Armored Core 6 Fires of Rubicon, which I will probably be playing on my Steam Deck after I finish Blasphemous 2 because apparently it works fine on the Steam Deck.
Speaker: So I'm just going to... I've already put in like an hour and a half into Armored Core 6.
Speaker: fucking slaps, love it.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: Just like, it's really good.
Speaker: But it's just kind of like falling off just to the wayside a little bit because I want to finish Blasphemous 2.
Speaker: I want to play Armored Core 6 on my Steam Deck and I want to finish Blasphemous 2 on my Steam Deck before I do anything else.
Speaker: So there's that.
Speaker: I also started playing the newest of the Bethesda games, Starfields.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: And you know how Bethesda really likes to draw out their introductions to their games?
Speaker: I'm familiar with it, yeah.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: Just get to the good shit.
Speaker: Like, I just played Baldur's Gate 3, and Baldur's Gate 3 starts with the Mind Flayer putting a fucking tadpole into your goddamn eyeball, and then you fight your way out of a Mind Flayer spaceship.
Speaker: That game fucks.
Speaker: It fucks, and it gets straight to it.
Speaker: It just gets straight to it.
Speaker: You know how Starfield starts?
Speaker: I'll tell you how Starfield starts.
Speaker: You get welcomed to a mining planet where your manager walks you through the mines and tells you all about mining.
Speaker: And she's giving pep talks to fellow miners.
Speaker: And she tells you to pick up a thing.
Speaker: And like, here's how you mine.
Speaker: And you point the laser at some rocks.
Speaker: And then you keep going.
Speaker: And then you watch an excavator dig some holes.
Speaker: And then you go through the hole.
Speaker: The excavator digged Doug.
Speaker: And then there's a thing.
Speaker: There's a thing in the rock.
Speaker: And you touch the thing.
Speaker: And you see bright lights.
Speaker: And you have a real, you know, 2001 A Space Odyssey moment.
Speaker: And you're the space baby or whatever.
Speaker: And then you wake up and you create your character.
Speaker: And then some guy from a group called The Collective comes and he's like, hey, I'm here to get the artifact that you guys found.
Speaker: And then some space pirates show up.
Speaker: And you'd think that's interesting.
Speaker: They're the most boring space pirates I've ever seen.
Speaker: They show up and they try to, because the guy that came to get the artifact has space pirates trailing after him because the ship he flies is apparently legendary for the shit that it has on it.
Speaker: Anyway, you kill the space pirates and you end up killing most of them because even if your background is a chef, you're still the most competent fighter in the goddamn... Naturally, of course....out of the 30 other people that are standing there.
Speaker: And then the guy is like, you know what, buddy?
Speaker: You should take the ship.
Speaker: You should take the ship and you should go to the constellation group that I'm a part of and you should give them the artifact because they want to hear from you because you had the lights and flash experience.
Speaker: And then they give you the ship.
Speaker: And then the first mission is, hey, let's try to get these space pirates off our tail.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm giving it the juice that it deserves.
Speaker: I have played it for a bit now, and I'm like, Bethesda, I understand you want to make these gigantic games with a lot of stuff in it.
Speaker: This is inexcusable.
Speaker: This fucking intro is...
Speaker: banana nonsense splits over here.
Speaker: What are we doing?
Speaker: Also, there's almost no character to the game.
Speaker: Like, all right, Outer Worlds got like middling reviews.
Speaker: It's a fine game.
Speaker: It was made by the people.
Speaker: I mean, it looks like a Bethesda game, but it's not, it's much tighter than a Bethesda game.
Speaker: It was made by the folks who made the original Fallout.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Outer Wilds, or not Outer Wilds.
Speaker: That's a different discussion.
Speaker: That's a totally different game, yeah.
Speaker: Outer Worlds has a thrust to it.
Speaker: It has character.
Speaker: It has color.
Speaker: It has interesting shit right away.
Speaker: And everything in Starfield is just like, hey, we turned your saturation down to 80%.
Speaker: Um, and that's like across the board and I'm going to give it some more time just to see if there's a point at which it gets good.
Speaker: I remember somebody in a review saying, yeah, it gets good after about 130 hours.
Speaker: And, and I'm like, come on guys, what are we doing?
Speaker: Aren't we past this?
Speaker: Just give me, uh, so, um, Starfield, um,
Speaker: I feel that because it's just this, it's just Bethesda doing what Bethesda does, which was really unique and fresh 10 years ago and is getting very tedious now.
Speaker: And it's a shame because I can't tell you how many times.
Speaker: 20 years ago.
Speaker: It's like 20 years ago.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: I can't, Jesus Christ, you're right.
Speaker: Jesus.
Speaker: I can't tell you how many times I've thought to myself, if I've had a few drinks or something and I just want to play some comfort food gaming or something, I'm like, you know what I want to do?
Speaker: I want to go and tromp around DC or something like that.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm going to fire up Fallout 3.
Speaker: Yeah, while some old-timey music plays in the background.
Speaker: I want to do that.
Speaker: And then the intro goes, and it goes, and it goes, and there's no option to skip it, and there's no option to just throw me into this world, and I'll just go, oh, right, and I'll stop playing.
Speaker: I'll put it away and do something else.
Speaker: I don't mind that there's some storyline, but there's got to be an option where we can just pop into it.
Speaker: So writing on games, just an amazing video just today as of recording this, it'll be a few weeks ago when you all listen to this, but about the Bethesda intro problem.
Speaker: And he has an amazing point where he goes, look at all these.
Speaker: You got Fallout 3, you got Skyrim, where you're basically just like you're in the carriage and it's this very on the rails thing.
Speaker: Kind of boring segment where it's like, oh, the dragon attacks.
Speaker: And that's one of their quicker intros.
Speaker: That's one of their quicker intros.
Speaker: You got Fallout 4 has a very slow intro.
Speaker: And then he goes, the thing that stands out the most is Fallout New Vegas.
Speaker: So let's look at Fallout New Vegas.
Speaker: You get a quick cutscene at the beginning where Chandler from Friends shoots you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: A doctor wakes you up, you make your character, and you're in the wasteland.
Speaker: Yeah, and suddenly you got shit to do.
Speaker: Free to do whatever you want to do.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It takes a couple minutes.
Speaker: And it's recognized as probably the most complex and interesting story of that entire franchise.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, it's and it gets you into it faster.
Speaker: You really don't need to bury the intro in all this, all this, this stuff.
Speaker: And, you know, even even with Baldur's Gate three and I hate just constantly, but they're both RPGs.
Speaker: So fuck it.
Speaker: Baldur's Gate three.
Speaker: If you want to start a new campaign, it only takes I timed it six minutes to get through the Nautiloid to the wilderness where the game truly starts.
Speaker: It took no time.
Speaker: It takes no time to start a fresh game because you know what to do.
Speaker: You can just go save us, get us, save Shadowheart, get Lizelle.
Speaker: kill the commander if you want to.
Speaker: Do you ever kill the commander?
Speaker: I didn't.
Speaker: I saw it was a hero.
Speaker: You get a really awesome sword.
Speaker: You throw that on Lazelle and she's just doing like five burn damage every swing at least.
Speaker: God damn it, that game.
Speaker: I want to go back in and try to find the Jurassic Park place they were talking about.
Speaker: Oh, yes, me too.
Speaker: I don't think I found that.
Speaker: I definitely didn't.
Speaker: I know I missed a ton of stuff.
Speaker: Anyway, that'll do it for today's episode, everybody.
Speaker: before we go off and I mean it's already a beefy episode this is just we're an hour into it and we had to break to check the recording at a half an hour into it so this is we're about 90 minutes now but this is what happens when I'm not allowed to talk to Phil for over a week this is what happens guys
Speaker: do your best to get on social media and harass me into never going on vacation ever again.
Speaker: I'm asking you as a friend, a colleague, a mentor, you've got to help me help you.
Speaker: And a gentleman.
Speaker: Gentlemen.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: And a gentleman.
Speaker: Phil, if, if one, if one of those gentlemen wants to give us money, where they, where can they do that?
Speaker: Oh, I believe you're talking about patreon.com slash pixelitpod, where you can join any number of our tiers of subscription, including a free one if you just want to join and be a part of the community.
Speaker: But you will get certain rewards.
Speaker: Let's call them.
Speaker: I call them goods and services in exchange for fundage.
Speaker: But you are going...
Speaker: You're going to be able to pop in there and see bonus episodes, stuff we're doing.
Speaker: We went through some episodes of the Legend of Zelda cartoon show.
Speaker: We are working on the best games of 1997.
Speaker: And we're always asking questions, always throwing stuff at you.
Speaker: Please join us.
Speaker: PixelitPod.
Speaker: Patreon.com PixelitPod.
Speaker: Do it today.
Speaker: Do it today.
Speaker: Otherwise, go on socials, Instagram, Twitter, X, trick tricks.
Speaker: I don't know if we're even posting there anymore.
Speaker: And blue sky at pixel.
Speaker: It pod.
Speaker: Go to our website, pixel.
Speaker: It pod.com.
Speaker: There you can sign up for our newsletter or join our discord.
Speaker: People who are following us on Patreon or signed up to our newsletter, get early access to episodes and
Speaker: Basically, as soon as I edit them, which is usually like 48 hours before they post.
Speaker: So it's a nice little treat for y'all.
Speaker: So think about all that while you lay your head down.
Speaker: Now I'm talking to you, Pim.
Speaker: I'm talking to you, Pim, as you lay your head down to sleep tonight.
Speaker: Are you comfortable?
Speaker: Are you comfortable?
Speaker: Is your pillow at the right temperature?
Speaker: Are you comfy?
Speaker: Everything all right?
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Have a good night, Pim.
Speaker: Have a good night, Pim.
Speaker: Good night.
Speaker: Bye.
