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Somewhere over the Rainbow (Death Stranding Vol. 2 - Part 1)
300 Plays8 days ago
In this episode Kevin and Phil cover Episodes 7, 8, and 9 of Death Stranding Vol. 2. We totally would have read this sooner had we known how quickly Vol. 2 picks up after Vol. 1. Our bad! They are basically one book divided evently between the two.
Games mentioned in Whaddya Playing:
- Crabmeat — Steam
- Resident Evil Requiem — Steam
- Graveyard Keeper — Steam
- Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader (with new DLC) — Steam
- Death Stranding (discussed as background/source material, not currently playing) — Steam
Other media mentioned during the episode:
- Metal Gear (Kojima's other series)
- Neon Genesis Evangelion
- Somewhere Over the Rainbow
- The Wizard of Oz
- Jason and the Argonauts
- Ray Harryhausen
- Army of Darkness — mentioned alongside the skeleton battle comparison
- Flatliners
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ("So Long and Thanks for All the Fish")
- Junji Ito's manga
- Warhammer 40,000
- Persona 5
- Little Nightmares
- Stardew Valley
Recommended
Transcript
3D Printed Board Games Discussion
00:00:00
Speaker
them into like a book that you you 3d print the book and then it's so it's just sitting on sitting on your bookshelf and then you flip it open and it's like oh it's chess and here's the chess pieces and it's like oh okay and he has one for ah like chutes and ladders he has one for ah connect four has one for battleship it's like it's really cool and it's like fun yeah yeah you know what else is fun What's that?
Pixel Podcast Introduction
00:00:31
Speaker
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Pixel. My name is Kevin with me, Zoys is Phil. On today's show, we are getting into Death Stranding, Volume 2. ah And yeah, we're we're back in the Death Stranding verse.
00:00:46
Speaker
um Death Stranding is a game that we have talked about before. a weird ass game by Hideo Kojima. And the book does not make it any less weird. No. In fact, the book makes it is probably the best selling point for the game is because you're like, oh, this is fucking odd. I would like to see the visuals. Yeah. um Yeah. For some of these things. That's actually ah that's absolutely what happened when we read the first half of this for me, because I had no interest in this game. I still don't. But the book got me pretty close. Like it got me pretty damn close. So, yeah. but Yeah.
Patreon Promotion
00:01:28
Speaker
How about that? um And how about a website? Oh, Tell me more. It's called patreon.com slash pixel at pod. And you can get on this website and you can give us money.
00:01:43
Speaker
You can follow us for free. ah You can give us $1 and read Phil's book reviews ah and occasionally my book reviews. I have i have books to review. Yeah, you're reviewing.
00:01:55
Speaker
I reviewed one so far. i have another one i can i can fire up at any time. Yeah. You can do it anytime Anytime want. i could quit any I could quit not doing it anytime want. Exactly. I can start anytime I want.
00:02:12
Speaker
$5 gets you access to the bonus episode, which we just recorded. And $10 gets your name shouted out in every episode. To that end, I want to thank And You Are high Hiding, Song 85, Jesus Love You, Ruthless Mudder, Middle Things, Sigma Sal, Sanguine, Flatulence, Shia Lude, Beaks Dumbeth, Thick and Friendly Friend. Thank you so much for being a friend.
00:02:33
Speaker
Patreon.com slash PixelitPod.
Death Stranding Volume 2 Introduction
00:02:37
Speaker
it today. Woo woo! ah So Death Stranding, nothing has changed about the game since we last talked about it. Not like nothing has changed that not a goddamn thing. Nothing has changed about the author since we last talked about them or the translator.
00:02:54
Speaker
ah So we could probably just circ circumvent that whole. i think so. like There's nothing to add because it's just the same book. It's just the second, literally the second half of a book.
00:03:07
Speaker
It's just the second half of the book. That's the thing. I don't think I totally realized how much of this is just
Plot Continuation in Death Stranding
00:03:15
Speaker
part two. Like it says volume two, but you know, volume two to me intimates that it's like something like a new, a new book, uh, in some way, but no, this book is, we're going to start, uh, with the body in the marsh.
00:03:35
Speaker
police have confirmed that the body of the man found dead in the Fenway marshes yesterday afternoon is that of Timothy Delahunt, undercover policeman for the city of Boston. the Yeah, the body's been in the marsh for months. The body's the the body is actually ah there's actually a police presence in the marsh.
00:03:53
Speaker
um Yeah. and they they're They're dragging it. This tape, it's it's a whole thing. It's a whole. and we're returning to the marsh to check on that body to make sure it's still there. And it's it's not there. No, no.
00:04:06
Speaker
I spent all night. in three foot footer mood. through I'm embarrassed to have been a big fucking dog. I'm embarrassed. I'm embarrassed.
00:04:20
Speaker
Fucking that man. That man is this just. I love that man. That actors. I don't even know his name, but he pops up every now and then. And I'm just always so happy to see him. Yep.
00:04:32
Speaker
Yep. ah The cops are saying ah saying he's a cop, so I won't look for the cop.
00:04:43
Speaker
Yeah. um and So episode seven, ah the chapters are called episodes and we start with we don't start back at chapter one.
00:04:55
Speaker
No, we're in episode seven. Continued. We are. ah It's it's it's literally continuation of the previous books. Episode set. The last book left off in the middle of the chapter. That's how much this is just one book.
Character Journeys: Sam and Deadman
00:05:12
Speaker
yeah And had I totally realized that you would have just gotten these back to back, but I didn't.
00:05:19
Speaker
I made some assumptions. And now here we are six months later, eight months later, whatever it is. And it's episode seven continued. You can imagine my surprise to Kevin. Kevin messages me and he says, he says, hey, ah up to but not including chapter 10 for the next segment. I go, great.
00:05:38
Speaker
No problem. And I sit down. I don't pay attention to what the first chapter is called. Right. But I've got it on my Kindle and I'm going through it and it's this long chapter and I'm noticing I'm getting to eight, nine, 10 percent finished. And I'm like,
00:05:55
Speaker
What? I've got nine more chapters. How does this fucking work? If we're reading a third of the book and then I get to the next chapter it's like, this is chapter eight. I'm like, oh, oh, oh, okay.
00:06:08
Speaker
All right. Jesus. Oh, yeah.
00:06:14
Speaker
So yeah, the ah the book continues on. its just to basically give you, ah i actually, I'm even using the same Google doc.
00:06:25
Speaker
I didn't start a new one. i was like, okay, I'm going back to the old one. Genius. Because the previous book ends in Mountain Knot City. The chapter is called Dead Man.
00:06:37
Speaker
and ah I'm just going to read off the notes for the previous chapter seven before I start into this chapter
In-depth Narrative Discussion
00:06:43
Speaker
seven. So Mountain Knot City, Sam is thinking about Lochney and Malingen and all that jazz and we realizes that BB is screaming.
00:06:51
Speaker
He calls out for Lou and he finds Deadman in his room having been warped there by Fragile. Deadman is giving Sam the whole song an ance about BBs. He mentions that the child is gaining weight and brain function activity is increasing. But despite that, there would be a 70% chance of catastrophic failure if he was removed from the pod. Deadman continues, though, that he knows how to fix BB and he can realign it between the land of living and the dead.
00:07:16
Speaker
But it may erase its memories. Then Deadman starts taking his clothes off and goes in the shower. Deadman continues talking as if the conversation is going on, but he keeps darting his eyes around to different parts of the room. Sam realizes that the room is bugged and gets into the shower with Deadman, who removes his cuff and Sam's. So it gets real sexy at the end of the one. It gets hot.
00:07:38
Speaker
It gets hot. It gets hot. GDT and Norman Reedus together in a shower. and i i mean, who wouldn't who amongst us would?
00:07:48
Speaker
Yeah, I'm just I'm just a man like I just i've I've only got so much strength and pride. Only so much strength and pride. ah Dead Man starts talking about the original bridge baby experiments and how they were originally ordered by the previous president. ah But he died when Manhattan voided out the previous president. Remember, in Death Stranding verse is Donald J. Trump. ah Yes. ah ah President Strand then publicly shut the experiments down, but kept them going in secret. And the goal for BBs was to create bridges for anyone to go back and forth between the beach. Deadman also says a lot of stuff seems to be hidden about Die Hardman. And he asked Sam if he knows anything else or he has seen his face. and But Sam says he was already wearing the mask when they first met 10 years ago.
00:08:40
Speaker
Deadman also tells him that up ahead he will meet with Hartman and his team of scientists, but he will take care of the BB and get it back to him as soon as possible. ah Sam realizes that even if BB's memories are erased, it would be better for
Character Development and Themes
00:08:51
Speaker
the kid.
00:08:51
Speaker
the book And the book ended with Sam thinking about the darkness that Bridges might be hiding. But continuing on in Chapter 7, it's been four days since Sam left Mount Not City, and he's climbing through the mountains while thinking about conversations he had with Bridget.
00:09:06
Speaker
Um... Conversations he had with Bridget when he was a kid about westward expansion and how the Strand family are natural explorers and bridge builders. Oh, my God. Monitor. Stop it.
00:09:18
Speaker
Never ends. My other computer is also plugged into this monitor and it's doing some update stuff. And my monitor keeps asking me, hey, do you want to switch to that computer while it's doing things? And we're like, no. No. Stop it. Yeah.
00:09:34
Speaker
So he thinks about a conversation he just had with Lockney, how she is uninterested in returning to bridget to work for Bridges despite Mountain Not City be being back on the Chiral Network. And he's doing all of this without Lou, ah the BB he had been carrying since the beginning of the story, as he's with Deadman for repairs. Sam is on his way through the mountains to deliver medicine to a local geologist when he gets a call from Hartman.
00:09:58
Speaker
Hartman tells Sam that he's getting closer to being in his operational area for the chiral network and also ah that he would be online soon. That also the person Sam is about to see had just made a discovery about fossil beaches, which would give information about extinction events. events A snowstorm arrives violently and Sam must take cover in place. He's also nearly crushed by a rockfall and during the commotion, he goes into a waking dream where he thinks about the ideals of the babies being a bridge through life and he weeps.
00:10:31
Speaker
Then he sees Amelie's eyes flowing with black tears as it falls onto the BB and dissolves it and Sam wakes up on the slopes screaming and crying in the snow. He's now surrounded by BTs and uses the cutter on his cuff and loads up a hemostatic grenade, killing them before moving on to the geologist's shelter.
00:10:50
Speaker
When he gets there, the geologist is clearly in need of the chiral medicine because his his speech patterns are kind of weird. He keeps speeding up and slowing down. ah He begins info dumping on Sam about how the Death Stranding was supposed to be the sixth mass extinction event and also describes the connection to the beach in a science-y way that Sam understands intuitively.
00:11:11
Speaker
ah Thank God for that, by the way. Thank God for that. Yeah. ah The guy basically is like, here's all
Backstories and Lore Exploration
00:11:18
Speaker
the science behind it. And Sam's like, oh, I already know all this just by doing it. Yeah.
00:11:23
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Deadman calls Sam to tell him that the BB, formerly known as Lou, was ready and repaired. Sam is annoyed at Deadman's cheeriness and begins to head back.
00:11:36
Speaker
He gets warned suddenly by a call from Lochney that the chiral density is increasing. ah He's once again pulled into a storm cloud by a gale force wind and sees a whale floating and twisting in the sky, which...
00:11:51
Speaker
I feel like some of this has to be, is that a reference to like, um, what's it the, uh, so long and thanks for all the fish or something like that. I don't. Well, later on, we're going to get a reference to, uh, uh, somewhere over the rainbow. So my head immediately goes to the tornado and wizard of Oz in this situation. that Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true.
00:12:15
Speaker
um So ah we're getting we're we're now in Chapter eight, ah titled Clifford. ah Sam wakes up in a dilapidated town and is contacted by Deadman, who was sucked up into the storm as well.
00:12:33
Speaker
They're they're on a World War Two battlefield, according to Deadman, who is a World War Two nerd. And they meet up and Deadman gives him Lou back. Deadman asks if the BB had the shared memories that he had before, and Sam says that it does not seem like he does.
00:12:48
Speaker
ah They need to find the man that was the key to to Sam getting off of this beach the last time this happened. We are then introduced to Cliff, the man behind these beaches, as he sends soldiers forth to capture Lou and Sam.
00:13:03
Speaker
Sam fights his way through waves of skeleton soldiers and confronts Cliff. It's a very second edition D and D like it's very second edition D and D. It's very Jason and the Argonauts. Uh huh. Yeah. Yeah. Harryhausen. Yeah.
00:13:23
Speaker
Harryhausen. It's Ray Harryhausen stuff going on here. ah Army of darkness. If you, if you want. Yeah. yeah So, yeah, ah ah he confronts Cliff, who wants the the BB back.
00:13:39
Speaker
Sam stops him by simply putting the finger into the barrel of the gun that Cliff has. It's like a real daffy duck. Supposed to work. It's supposed to work. i I just wouldn't want to be the person testing it out is all.
00:13:54
Speaker
I just wouldn't want to. it's its sp Is it supposed to work? It's supposed to work. Yeah. Like that is actually you'll you'll lose your hand essentially. But. I don't know. I don't know how true that is, but I have heard that that is actually supposed to work.
00:14:09
Speaker
Interesting. I mean, um it's like it's like hitting something basically immediately. So it's not going to go where it needs to go. Right. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. um Yeah. So true the deaf that's what I've always heard. it We're going to say that it's 100% true. Let's go with that. Yeah. We here at Pixelit believe that you should use your fingers to plug up the barrel of a gun. do it.
00:14:38
Speaker
ah Actually, I'm not going to. Don't do it. Don't do it. tell just Don't just do it. Just do it. It's OK. Don't. It's okay. Do it. It'll be fine. Don't. Don't. Do it.
00:14:50
Speaker
Do it. Do it. and Do it. Do ah Have you heard the tale of Darth Plagueis? The the the gun finger stuffer.
00:15:08
Speaker
He just it was fucking crazy, man. Let me tell you something. He had way with powers that some might think cartoonish. yeah
00:15:23
Speaker
Oh, God. ah Where the fuck was I? ah Harryhausen. ah Yeah. Skeleton warriors. Yeah. Skeleton warriors finger in the gun. ah ah Sam goes through a metaphysical ocean.
00:15:39
Speaker
ah Oh, yeah. Cliff, it gives Cliff enough pause. And then the ah set of cathedral doors opens and sucks them all out of the Sherrod Beach. And Sam goes through a metaphysical ocean and and wakes up in a private room in Mountain Knot City.
00:15:52
Speaker
Sam calls out to Lou and the BB is sleeping peacefully. And then a hologram of dead man appears. He's already back in Capital Knot by way of Fragile's beach teleportation. Sam ah brought back a dog tag from the beach and it was of the man Clifford Unger, who was US Special Forces.
00:16:10
Speaker
Deadman then also apologizes to Sam about his connection to Lou. And we find out that Lou was the name Sam was going to give his own kid. Sam once had a wife named Lucy who was pregnant with their kid.
00:16:24
Speaker
And we get a flashback to Sam and Lucy. She was his therapist at one point. She was convinced that his aphanophobia was a result of his mother's lack of affection and that the whole thing with Amelie was false memories.
00:16:38
Speaker
Sam proved to her that he was a repatriate, threat though, and they ended up hugging. And after this, Lucy tendered her resignation because she had developed feelings for a patient. Her and Sam end up getting together. And then when she gets pregnant, she starts having terrible nightmares regarding the baby and the beach and all that.
Complex Storytelling Analysis
00:16:55
Speaker
And she ends up killing herself by taking...
00:16:59
Speaker
A bottle full of pills and injecting herself with all the sedatives that she has. Just and it and it's like they're not working fast enough. So I have to just keep at it. It's it's bleak. Even for even for death stranding. This is some bleak shit. This is ble some bleak shit. Yeah.
00:17:16
Speaker
Causes a void out. Dead Man apologizes for dig digging into Sam's past and then reveals that he won't ever know a beach himself because so much of his body is harvested from cadavers. As we find out, he's not necessarily called Dead Man because he was coroner. It's called Dead Man because 70% of his body is repurposed dead people, ah that he's basically Frankenstein's monster. Right. Right.
00:17:42
Speaker
ah um He said sometimes he hopes that the beach is just so some sort of shared delusion. It's not actually real. So you wouldn't have to feel bad about what he is. Then he says something to Sam about not cutting ties and walking away, which triggers Sam because all the ties he had ah to his mother ah were nothing but lies. And the dead man basically says, I thought we were friends. And he ends the call.
00:18:07
Speaker
It's pretty sad when you when you think about it being ah Del Toro. You're like, oh, hear from i hurt his feelings. That's not what I want to do Just so this little, you know, chubby little man. you all i want to be is his friend so
00:18:30
Speaker
ah oh god um what we're now in episode nine uh which is the last episode we're covering tonight but it's also like a thousand pages long yeah um episode nine heart man So it's seven days later and Sam is back at it again and he's bringing Mama's body to Hartman's research lab. ah They want to figure out why Mama's body hasn't decomposed even a little bit.
00:19:00
Speaker
When Sam arrives, Hartman is in the middle of being resuscitated. This guy is Fucking crazy. ah yeah And so have you, you know, the movie was it flat liners? I've never seen it, but I know i know what you're talking about. Yeah.
00:19:20
Speaker
This is one of those early nineties thriller horror movies. ah Basically people like keep killing themselves and resuscitating themselves to see what the other side is like. And i then they bring something back. I can't remember. Right. Yeah.
00:19:35
Speaker
Basically, Hartman, though, is just flatliners. ah His heart stops every 21 minutes for three minutes so he can go to the beach and look for his dead family and hopefully join them on their beach someday.
00:19:50
Speaker
it used to be voluntary, ah but now his heart is so scarred and fucked up that it will happen to him no matter what. So ah Sam gets the body out and Hartman starts messing with it.
00:20:02
Speaker
And Sam is like, this is gross ah because like mama, he's like, he makes a good point. is's like, mama, even though her her body is dead, is still alive inside of Lockney. Yeah. Like it's, it's again, bleak. This is a, this is a bleak half of the book.
00:20:25
Speaker
<unk> Yeah. So he's just like poking and prodding yeah at Mark. He's just poking and p prodding at Margaret Qualley's body. um And would just that's what I'm like. Oh, that's Margaret Qualley.
00:20:39
Speaker
What are you there, buddy? Yeah.
00:20:43
Speaker
That's jailbait Margaret Qualley on top of everything else. So yeah, top of everything else. Yeah. um So it is upset Sam. And then he pulls something else out of the bag that Sam didn't know was in there.
00:20:55
Speaker
It seems to be a glass container with a BT tether in it. Hartman showed sam a photo shows Sam a photo of a mammoth and a photo of an ammonite with similar tethers attached to them and then talks about beaches and that Clifford Unger might be involved because he's being put up to it by Higgs.
00:21:13
Speaker
Hartman then has a cardiac arrest and Sam has to wait three minutes until he comes back. um and Hartman also mentioned that while in the real world, only three minutes would pass.
00:21:23
Speaker
But when he's in searching for the beach, it's going to to him, it feels like a very long time. Yeah. um So Sam then spends that time thinking about Higgs's motives and why Higgs doesn't just use more void outs or nukes to accomplish whatever his goal is.
00:21:38
Speaker
Hartman then comes back to life and talks about how he lost his wife and daughter, and Sam says he also lost his family. We go into a flashback about Hartman's early days in the Death Stranding when he had an artificial heart put in.
00:21:50
Speaker
he was a researcher pouring everything into the idea of extinction events, and while he was recuperating from his heart surgery, his wife and kid were killed in a terrorist attack near Mountain Knot City. Put a pin in that. Yeah. ah That's where he experienced the beach for the first time as his artificial heart failed. And he saw his wife and daughter walking away from him. And now he keeps returning to the beach to find them.
00:22:12
Speaker
Fucking bleak. Yeah. but Yeah. it's ah It's a lot. it's It's Jesus Christ. It's a lot. Yeah. Yeah.
00:22:27
Speaker
So Hartman makes a request of Sam to reconnect the scientists to the West by the fossil beach ah and then go to Amelie.
Game Mechanics and Narrative
00:22:36
Speaker
But he shows him a map of tar formations that have been growing around the various cities and that Higgs must have something to do with it. So there's like a tar formation that blocks the West from the East.
00:22:46
Speaker
Hartman dies again and Sam gets a call from Die Hardman, who tells him to carry on like Hartman asked. But Sam notes that Die Hardman is colder to him now that he thinks it at to him now. And he thinks it's because both Hartman and Deadman are hiding something from Die Hardman.
00:23:03
Speaker
Sam leaves and a day later is carrying on through the snow using an active skeleton when he is startled by something. A group of hooligans are out and about and they don't seem to be the mules that we saw earlier. And the mules are the guys who are obsessed with packages. Yeah. um They're more like some sort of armed militia and they aren't interested in Sam's cargo.
00:23:24
Speaker
Sam makes a run for it but finds himself more afraid than usual and he realizes that the fear is coming from lou something lou is particularly afraid of these dudes and tries to calm him when they start shooting he uses his blood grenades to blind the guys and the skeleton keeps sam running and moving they keep chasing him and he uses his bola gun to trip some of them up it's basically like gun that shoots a a rope i think that goes yeah the all less yeah um
00:23:56
Speaker
Like a lasso, almost. Yeah, yeah. ah At one point, the leader of the bad guys has his BB and Odor deck start to react as if Sam and Lou are BTs.
00:24:08
Speaker
ah Eventually, the battery runs out on the active skeleton and Sam has to hide in the rocks, but he's in a lot of pain because earlier, when he was in the World War II beach, he took a gunshot to the leg. Yeah.
00:24:22
Speaker
As you do. you As you do as you do as you do When you're in a metaphysical hell loop ah populated by dead soldiers who constantly spawn and re-die on a beach that during world from World War two That's going to happen.
00:24:39
Speaker
That's just. That's going to happen. Yeah. I'm surprised you didn't know already and and avoided the situation entirely, but that's just me. Yeah. um He ends up choking a guy out using a rope and then he shoots another guy with a bullet gun. um And the final guy, the leader, spears Sam and they tussle until Sam takes off his cuff and basically starts ah cutting him up using the blade part.
00:25:02
Speaker
And the guy just like stops. ah And then Sam carries on. ah And ah we get some ah backstory. Oh, I must delete a line. Okay, so he arrives, ah he's on his way to see the ah evolutionary developmental biologist who basically, she sees Sam ah coming and then we get into a backstory of a previous porter that the Evo Devo biologist knew.
00:25:38
Speaker
Um, and basically i got confused in this section because I thought I was like, is this her and Sam and she's calling Sam the porter? like I also, I was worried about, I wondered about the same thing.
00:25:51
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's a it's a flashback to her and her old porter friends. ah Her name is Scandinavian. We never find it. We never hear it. shit But she just gets called Evie because that's what she does. yeah ah The other the other porter ah in this flashback had spent a long time talking with her about the nature of the tar, as well as what the death stranding means and prior extinction events and how they each prepared the earth for what came next.
00:26:20
Speaker
The porter over time started having nightmares and losing his mind and breaking down in front of her. Then one day he left after seemingly being mentally broken. But Evie tried to get him to come back and talk and like, the let's talk about this.
00:26:36
Speaker
A few days later, the colony outside of Mountain Knot had blown up in a terrorist attack. Now, this what I put a pin in earlier, this was the event that killed Hartman's family. Yeah.
00:26:50
Speaker
um When Sam arrives, Evie asks about the BB. um The porter she knew had said that his would whisper things about extinction and the end of the world to him. And Sam responds, no, this is Lou and he's my partner.
00:27:05
Speaker
Yeah, he's my little buddy. He's my little buddy. He would never say stuff like that. oh it's not like he doesn't say anything. That's it. Just such on his thumb. It's great. It's the best.
00:27:17
Speaker
ah Sam then realizes that perhaps the thing that the porter had and what the man who just assaulted him had weren't actual BBs. Evie then plays a hologram recording of the porter in which the porter talks about how he was going to wipe out the colony near Mountain Knot City because according to Higgs, it was all part of the extinction entity's plan.
00:27:39
Speaker
Suddenly Higgs appeal appears in the hologram and congratulates Sam for hooking up the chiral network and how breathtaking it is. And it fucks and then fucks with him a little bit. Sure. Then Sam notices that Higgs is wearing Amelie's kipu.
00:27:51
Speaker
ah Higgs says that he'll see Sam on the beach and cuts the connection. Both Sam and Evie are shooketh by Higgs's sudden appearance. Evie says the work must continue to ah figure out the extinction entities plan and says, sure, this situation is frightening, but I don't have time to be scared.
00:28:11
Speaker
Evie is is ah she's a real one. She's real. Yeah, she's she she she handled that whole thing a whole hell of a lot better than I did. Or I would have it didn't happen to me. Didn't happen to me.
00:28:25
Speaker
I read the book and poop my pants. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. And nothing else. That's all. And nothing else. um
00:28:35
Speaker
Let's see. did the that Days later, Sam is out working on repairing a waypoint for Evie near the tar. She sends messages about how there are animals ah as now that the chiral network is is up, she can find information on animals in the past, like the mammoth and the ammonite. There were extinction entities themselves.
00:28:55
Speaker
Then he gets a call from Hartman ah rambling about where the Knot cities are located. And also that Bridges has some sort of plan that is super secret. ah But Deadman recently told him ah and Deadman recently told him about involving that it involves Lou.
00:29:11
Speaker
And Deadman is scared that Die Hardman knows and knows that he knows. And then Hartman dies again.
00:29:19
Speaker
I really got it. It's bleak, but it was kind and not hilarious, but it's a fascinating ah conceit that where it's like it's like and he tells me this and can talk about that. and then he dies and I wait three minutes and he comes back and literally at one point goes, what were we talking about? yeah ah It's just an amazing character. It is. it's It is. I've never heard of anything like this. i You know, say what you want about Hideo Kojima, but the the the man's got a unique ah brain, let's say.
00:29:55
Speaker
And then he just dies. Yeah. And he comes back three minutes later. But for him, it's been, i don't know, a fucking month.
Impact of Storytelling on Players
00:30:01
Speaker
Right. A fucking month where he's been searching for his family, you know, in vain.
00:30:08
Speaker
And that's the thing. If he ever found his family, he just wouldn't come back. Right. Right. He just stay there. ah so It's all it's all good. It's just it's fucking terrible. It is terrible. Yeah.
00:30:24
Speaker
Yeah. um So Sam arrives at the shore of the tar belt and ah Sam decides that if anything looks like the apocalypse, it's this.
00:30:34
Speaker
ah He gets the waypoint back online and then gets a call from Hartman, who starts talking to him, ah but then cuts off and begins talking through the radio on Sam's cuff instead so that the headquarters can't listen in. He tells him stuff we kind of already knew about, knew that like that mama was in a state of both being alive and dead simultaneously. He also mentions that the umbilical cord that Sam had brought was from Bridgette.
00:30:59
Speaker
And that a dead man was sorry he couldn't tell Sam about it, but it needed to be hidden from everyone else. Bridget had a strand and between Evie's theories and Hartman's. He says that means that Bridget might have been the extinction entity, which means that Amelie might be one as well, which is why Higgs kidnapped her.
00:31:21
Speaker
While Sam sits there after Hartman dies again, Higgs appears out of the tar and confirms everything that Amelie is an extinction entity, that she controls death and that life isn't just going extinct, but creating the next phase of existence. Sam is pissed off at him and lunges at him and Higgs says he's just going to put Amelie on a crucifix and end it all.
00:31:44
Speaker
Sam attacks Higgs, but Higgs uses the tar to stop him, and then Higgs just disappears. The tar then covers up Sam, and he feels like he's ah suffocating and then dragged into the belly of a rotting beast.
00:31:59
Speaker
Then suddenly he's awake again, vomiting up the tar, seemingly across the tar shore. And then he hears someone's voice welcomes welcomes him. Woo!
00:32:10
Speaker
Yeah. yeah Jesus Christ. Yeah. Higgs is like, I'm going to crucify your sister. to it It gets real neon Genesis Evangelion. Yes, it does, doesn't it? Yeah.
00:32:25
Speaker
ah Yeah. gets real Christian metaphoric. What does this feel like? And it feels vibe wise, there's some definite neon Genesis Evangelion stuff going on. Yeah. just without it its like It's neon Genesis without the mechs.
00:32:46
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. but But it's still got the angels, though. Like, you're still dealing with giant skyscraper fucking size. Weird ass. Yeah. Those are still here. Not everybody can see. Yeah. yeah they Not everybody can see them. ah Right.
00:33:03
Speaker
ah Sam can kind of guess where they are Fragile can see them. um But yeah, it's ah it's funny how Fragile gets mentioned a bunch in this in these three chapters and doesn't actually appear. Doesn't show. here Yeah. Doesn't actually show up. Yeah. Just kind of like a rat. and She's just like, oh, yeah. Fragile is teleporting people.
00:33:25
Speaker
Yeah, it's it it is. interesting For how long? Because according to my Kindle, we just got through 41 percent of the book. Yes. ah and And so for ah nearly half of the book, for her not to show up at all is kind of fascinating.
00:33:41
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And it's weird. So like it it that's 41%. It's like more than we normally do, but it's kind of there was no other stopping. We didn't really have any choice. Yeah.
00:33:53
Speaker
Yeah. And ah but it's a for as dense it is as it is. It's still kind of a breezy read. The the pages flip. The pages absolutely flip by. ah Yeah. Yeah. Especially for how heavy the content is as well. And one of the things that I'll say in the book's favor, ah well, in the story's favor in general, is that it explains the same concepts Over and over again. But every time it does it, it does it from a different angle. So, like, you'll hear about Beach and you'll hear more from Sam and Fragile's intuitive point of view as so as people who experience it.
00:34:40
Speaker
But then you hear it from Hartman and the scientist's point of view. and then you start, you start, like, getting into the nitty gritty of, like... the metaphysical concept of like extinction as a thing that happens. It's almost like there's a, it's almost like there's a, it's an argument for like, I don't want to say intelligent design, but almost in a way of like, there's intelligent design, but there's no designer.
00:35:12
Speaker
It's just, Yeah. We talked about this a little bit with the first half of the book, I think, where it was like there is there's a definite almost Theosophical ah attitude here, um but it isn't. I don't know. It is. There's an this is this this book slash game ah is kind of like the definition of what people say horror is nowadays where the bad guy is trauma. And it's. This is like, this is like the apex version of that. and And I think what's fascinating about it is one minute I'm like rolling my eyes and being like, Oh, dead man's Frankenstein's monster. And no, I get, okay. And, and, and, and, uh, heart, yeah you know, die Hardman like, Oh, got it. Got it. Like, like these little, this like, you're not very subtle Kojima and then something else. yeah And I'll turn a page and I'll go, what the,
00:36:16
Speaker
fuck are they talking about go back and forth so much in this with like what what are we even talking about ah sometimes i'm like oh well op yeah sure of course and i get real smug and then and then we get like what even is he fucking talking about um yeah yeah Yeah.
00:36:38
Speaker
the And yeah this is coming from a creator who he took his like, he's like, I here's this game about fun spy stuff. Right. And I'm like, I'm going to ah make.
00:36:56
Speaker
I mean, at the time, you know, I was a teenager. Like, I'm going to make these teenagers who are my primary audience. I'm going to make them sit there and watch two hour cut scenes, basically movies, just talking about the military industrial complex. Yeah.
00:37:11
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah.
00:37:15
Speaker
Pretty impressive. Honestly, it's like just you're going to you want your fancy spy shit. You got to watch this part. Yeah. Like but America is dragging the world down along with the military and the military industrial complexes is the engine which which is doing it. Yeah. it's like Wow. okay but Okay. right you can't You can't argue with results, can you? You can't argue with results. um So, and this is ah whereas, the yeah, and whereas this um is more, Metal Gear was more of like the
00:37:54
Speaker
The military and and countries and superpowers, not not superpowers like superheroes, but superpowers like countries that are massive and have an agenda to to control the world and all that.
00:38:08
Speaker
ah This is like, ah what if that, but existential? Yeah. Yeah. And religion and God and what it means to be a country when nothing else, ah when everything is gone. Yeah.
00:38:30
Speaker
You know, are we a country or aren't we? Are we starting something new? are we part of something old? It asks really big goddamn questions. Is it worth starting something new or are we just delaying the inevitable? Yeah. ah From like Higgs's perspective, are we just delaying the inevitable? is Are we just staving off this extinction events that...
00:38:54
Speaker
ah it didn't get It didn't quite get us, but it's still ongoing and it's still it's going to get us eventually. So we might as well lean into it, yeah is is what Higgs and his people say. And it's it's wild, all the stuff that's in here. I probably, i don't know if I would have gotten it I never would have gotten it from the game because I've tried playing the game a number of times and it's like I'm entertained by it for a bit and then I put it down and I don't have the urge to pick it up again. Right.
00:39:26
Speaker
But the book is just like, know, we're just cutting straight to the, the, the cutting straight to the, the meat of
Novelization and Sequel Speculation
00:39:34
Speaker
it. Yeah. Yeah. And that's just it. you know it's and that's And I think that's part of it, too, is that what I know about the game is how the first two hours of it, an hour and a half of it is just ah cut scenes, ah yeah which makes me crazy.
00:39:52
Speaker
ah sure i i I really persona five. The fact that I got as far through that game as I did ah is a miracle that it it's a testament to how good the gameplay is when you finally get to play the fucking thing. ah Right. And it's and it and and that's that's what it is with this.
00:40:13
Speaker
But with a book, I know I'm coming into a goddamn book. Like it's not going to, the book isn't going to stop and turn around and go, all right, now play a game. You it's, it's, real I know what I'm getting into and that's good. Yeah. I, cause I remember firing up death stranding and being like, oh, you know, the, the whole game opens with an entire cut scene of him losing his, his bike, his motorcycle.
00:40:42
Speaker
Right. um Which to this point, he has not gotten back um and meeting fragile before you you get going again. um But yeah, it's it's a I'm liking it so far. And i I know there is a novelization of Death Stranding 2.
Review of 'Crab Meat' Game
00:41:03
Speaker
I saw that. don't know if it's yeah I don't know if it's a translated yet, though. ah um So, you know, once we finish this, we'll have a better idea if we want to get on on that.
00:41:17
Speaker
So love it. Love it. um Phil, I have one question for you, though. Oh, please. What are you playing? Oh, um interesting. You should ask. I actually just finished a game today ah that I've been playing. It's called Crab Meat.
00:41:37
Speaker
ah All one word, crab meat. um This is, this is another one i my indie darlings. Uh, it is a game where you play, a person who is arrested by a fascist, uh, Australian government, um, uh, arrested for the crime of poverty. Uh, and your punishment is you have uh, you have seven days on a crabbing vessel to, uh,
00:42:11
Speaker
collect ah to trap and collect a minimum number of of craps. And and and ah it's it's got horror elements. ah you You know, you've got these giant king crabs that will like sometimes get on board the ship and you've got to kill them and and all that stuff. But but mostly it's it's it's a crab crabbing game like you have a map and you've got You've got, you know, your your radar of where, you know, ah what is ah ah a group of crabs called? You'd think I know that. um ah A crabule. A crabule, a crabbit, where you see where they are and you drop some traps and you go to the next one and and and drop some traps and come back. And and it's a whole thing. um
00:43:02
Speaker
It's interesting and and it's got a nice atmosphere. I think the biggest hurdle it has is the controls. It's played entirely with the mouse.
00:43:13
Speaker
ah Oh, yeah. No WASDA. ah It's just the mouse. um And that's interesting, especially from the point of view of a guy who's mostly playing this on his laptop.
00:43:27
Speaker
you know, sure Dicking around. You would think that that would make it extra convenient, but it is janky. It's really the controls.
Resident Evil Requiem Discussion
00:43:35
Speaker
It just says something about the game itself that I, I, I pushed through, ah yeah the controls to keep playing because when I hit a rhythm,
00:43:47
Speaker
ah it It is very much about the drudgery of that kind of job. ah Right. at Which is which has been a subgenre that I've been loving lately. ah And, you know, you've got to you've got to learn how to do all the shit on the ship. You've got to set the traps. You've got to learn how to use the arm to pick the traps back up again. all that shit.
00:44:07
Speaker
Um, and it's very interesting and you hit a rhythm and you are cruising all over this map and it's, and it's very low five, but very lovely, uh, at times and also incredibly scary at other times. Um, it's an interesting game. ah it, it doesn't take too long to play.
00:44:26
Speaker
um it's, I, I think, I think people who would like this know who they are. ah yeah i think Take a look. I don't remember if it has a demo or not. I might have just gotten into the grit with this one. ah yeah It does have a demo. So try out the demo um and and and push. and and And by the way, while you're looking ah for crabs and you will find the leftovers of ah other imprisoned sailors before you. And you'll find like notes and you'll find
00:45:00
Speaker
bodies and all kinds of random shit sometimes. and And that's fun because you've got a bunch of locked doors and cabinets and foot lockers and stuff, and you'll find the keys. And it's never, there's no super weapon that you unlock. It's just more notes, but it's pretty cool. It's like, it's, it's, it's, it's pretty good stuff.
00:45:20
Speaker
Um, Just go into it knowing that the that the controls take a minute. ah you're It's going to take you a minute to to get used to it. um Yeah. Let's see. i As I mentioned ah ah in the pre-show, i'm I'm still slowly, slowly playing my way through Resident Evil Requiem. ah Still loving it. ah Just it's it's just more of that goodness, just more of the the the gameplay loop that I fucking love. But it's even more concentrated on the two things that make Resident Evil great and they give you both one at a time.
00:46:00
Speaker
would in good portions, I think, like just around the time I'm kind of sick of sneaking around and all that shit. It goes, hey, by the way, Leon's here, too. And you're like, hey, Leon, and he's going to he's going to spin kick a zombie. Absolutely. I i love it. I really um i I was really impressed with the opening of the game of ah the opening of Leon's part of the game when you're out in the streets, the panicking crowds running past you and that sort of thing. Yeah. Lately, Resident Evil has been a much more
00:46:34
Speaker
personal game ah kind of a right you know and and and yeah especially with the ethan stuff yeah exactly uh uh so to be out in the streets and like pushing past dozens of panicked civilians and and that kind of thing that was pretty cool as this motherfucker and a snakeskin jacket is just like walking yes man set This man is living my fashion truth. i want to look i want I want the gold teeth. I want the snake skin ah trench coat with the hood. i want the i want it all. That guy has got some style, man. And the way he he is shooting people with the dart in the beginning, yeah like something about it I love because of how like... how like
00:47:19
Speaker
I don't know. he feels like ah He feels like a Gary Oldman villain or or something like that. Because he's just like, he's just doing it so casually. Yeah. like And he's just like walking down the street away from the chaos. He might as well be whistling. Like it's that level of like, yep. Doop-a-doop.
00:47:40
Speaker
ah Just yeah like I gotta go. i love that scene. That's it's it's it it it. It immediately gets you into it. and You're like, oh, this is the game I'm playing.
00:47:50
Speaker
Great. Yeah. I love the
Closing Remarks on Projects and Games
00:47:54
Speaker
ah the quieter ah spooky moments with I keep forgetting her name. um Grace, Grace, Grace. ah It almost resembles games like Little Nightmares.
00:48:08
Speaker
where you kind of you like you, you run into some horrifying thing and you've got to kind of watch its patterns and its movements and, uh, and, and I think that's a lot of fun and it's, it's definitely, uh,
00:48:24
Speaker
keeping in the themes that resident evil, the tone that resident evil is always gone on for. um Right. Right. So I'm I'm I'm really digging this. It's definitely going to be the one triple A game on my on my game of the year list at the end of the year, I'm sure. Yeah. um I'm still popping in and out of Graveyard Keeper. That's that's a nice that's just a nice chill.
00:48:48
Speaker
Stardew Valley kind of thing with a more morbid sense of humor. You can play that whenever you want. Exactly. I'm really enjoying that. So, ah yeah. well ah but But what about you? What are you playing?
00:49:01
Speaker
Well, ah I'm back on my bullshit. Oh boy. um Well, Rogue Trader has a new DLC. Yes, sir. So instead of like actually um like being a responsible person and just like picking up one of my old saves that's like halfway through the game.
00:49:23
Speaker
Kevin, started over again. damn it, man.
00:49:29
Speaker
Because why not why not start from scratch with a fresh character? I just really want to experience everything. like So this i just i can't help myself. it's like And I'll do it again for the fourth DLC. I know now. will I know you will. I'll do it again.
00:49:51
Speaker
So amazing I created ah my character. She's a crime lord. I've never actually played. I've never done a full play through the crime lord before. ah But what one of the fun little ah things that um that crime lords have, it's like it's a stacks of surefire plan.
00:50:15
Speaker
um So you can you can do Surefire Plan every turn as long as you have it if so if you have a stack of Surefire Plan and your character dies, they come back to life with half health and you can't get any more stacks of Surefire Plan. It's called like it's a version of it called The Last Plan. yeah So there's like, was like, okay, I'm just leaning into the characters like ah ah stuff. So they're a crime lord um officer.
00:50:48
Speaker
So, ah or not officer. ah What is it? A tactician or warrior or something like that. Anyway, the thing with bring it down, Um, and, uh, you know, where you're like, you're like, Hey, you take an extra turn. I think that's a tactician. I want to say, yeah. Tactician. I can't remember. Um, but either way, uh, it's fun. Uh, it's, it's hilarious because I have this character who never, almost never shoots or swings their, her sword. He's just, she's just basically like, Hey, yeah kill that guy. Yeah. She's buffing everybody. Yeah. Absolutely. Here's a buff. You know? Yeah. That's what goons are for. Of course. Yeah. um
00:51:36
Speaker
And ah so, yeah, i I'm back in Rykad Menoris. ah the ah They haven't stolen the star yet. And...
00:51:50
Speaker
The Dark Elves have not stolen the star. The fucking opening act of Rogue Trader is just just balls to the wall insane. Yeah. If you haven't played it, go ahead and play it, because basically by the end of it, you are escaping a planet that is turning into a demon planet.
00:52:10
Speaker
This is just the end of the first act. ah You're escaping a planet, at turning into a demon planet that's, by the way, there's no so more star in this star system because while all the nonsense is happening on the surface of the planet with a bunch with the heretics, um the the ah the dark elves ah stole the fucking star.
00:52:38
Speaker
Just... They stole the star from this the system. ah It's not there anymore. If anyone who if if there was anyone who who could do it, it'd be the Dracari. That's just yeah, the Dracari. They just take the star. Where do they put these stolen stars?
00:52:55
Speaker
it it it did it It's, I have have no idea. i it's It's like irrelevant. It really doesn't matter. star It doesn't matter. Your your argument isn't valid. I'm a dark elf. You come off the planet and the Jakari, there instead of a star, there's just four cinder blocks floating. earth just Yeah.
00:53:19
Speaker
yeah yeah Yeah, the Trakari, like when they start out, they just steal your catalytic converter. Right. They go from there. like But then they move on catalytic converter. ah You know how many starts you can get for a catalytic converter? Yeah.
00:53:36
Speaker
Surprisingly a lot. Surprisingly a lot. So they steal the star and you basically just have to jump ah off out of the system before everything falls apart because there's now no gravitational well.
00:53:51
Speaker
There's no gravity well in the center of the system. And the planet that you were on is now just a demon planet. Unless you launch thermonuclear attack, like you have some options, right?
00:54:04
Speaker
You can let it turn into a demon planet or you could launch a thermonuclear attack on a generator on the planet and blow it up before it's a demon planet, ah which is actually doing it a kindness. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's that's about as nice as you can get. Yeah.
00:54:21
Speaker
Because once it becomes a demon planet, it's not like it needs a star anymore. No. ah No. They're not keeping the lights on. Jesus Christ. They're not keeping the lights on. It's just fucking demons now. They can heat it up as much as they want. Oh, yeah. ah And they will. yeah And they will. Yeah.
00:54:39
Speaker
yeah Just imagine. that It's like, yeah, we just turned this word world into hell. Yeah. That's basically what happens. Yeah.
00:54:48
Speaker
i love I love the chaos lore. It's so fucking great. It's so fucking crazy. it's ah You know what it It's like, have you ever... ah Read that, oh fuck, why is the Uzumaki guy? um Oh, oh, ah oh my God, Ito.
00:55:11
Speaker
Ito, Junji Ito, there we go. Have you ever read his his story about the, ah was it Death Star Romina or something like that? Basically, there's just like a planet that's out in space and it just starts coming towards Earth.
00:55:28
Speaker
No, And it's sentient. You should read that one. I love the idea. It's very much, very like Warhammer 40k chaos ah demon planet coded. It sounds. That's cool. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So yeah.
00:55:46
Speaker
ah But that's what I've been playing this past week. I haven't played anything new. Nice. Yeah. ah and And I've been mostly messing around with my new 3D printer.
00:55:57
Speaker
um And when it's going, I don't really want to sit in my office because it's loud. Yeah, sure. just just just Just let it go and and go do something else for little while. I turn it on, I id let it go, and I close the door. Sure. um But yeah, ah that'll do it for tonight's episode. Thank you all so much for listening. If you can ah rate us, subscribe to us, give us thumbs up, comment, ah love us, ah give us your tender mercies and care.
00:56:29
Speaker
ah Jonesy lives! Jonesy lives!