The best part of that is his reaction. He goes, all right. He's like, he's okay. Try to read this. our are earn And he goes, what the fuck? We really talk like that?
00:00:13
Speaker
It's the best reaction. Like where he just has this mind blowing moment where he's like, oh my God. That is actually how we speak. And then with the other guy, go like, over-enunciate, Aaron. Aaron earned earned iron an iron. And iron earned.
00:00:32
Speaker
And you're like, yeah, you're right. That sounds pretty fucking stupid, too. Damn. What do we do? ah Mary, Mary, and Mary. Mary, Mary, Mary. That's another thing. mary if there's a there's like that's a That's like a dialect test for, like... the ah that People who are smart about all that yeah can pick out where you're from based on which of those three sounds similar. So, yeah. very I mean, I say I'm all the same.
00:01:04
Speaker
Merry, merry, merry. Merry, merry, merry. and And ah happy holy Christmas to you. Okay.
00:01:15
Speaker
Got it. Mary, Mary, Mary, Mary. got that. i got that That would be if if I was if I was saying Mary as in Merry Christmas in a non Christmas context, I'm probably going to be saying it strangely anyway, like false staff style, you know, to me. Yeah.
00:01:37
Speaker
Mary or ah what's her name? ah Fucking from A Mighty Wind. um Oh, Catherine O'Hare. Mary.
00:01:49
Speaker
Mary. Yeah, using the Schmitz Creek accent. Yeah. You know what else is Schmitz Creek? What's that? Hey there everybody, welcome back to Pixelate, my name is Kevin, with me as always is Phil on today's show.
00:02:02
Speaker
We are, god damn Elgato, you piece of shit. It was fine, you were fine, the way up until now, we've been talking for almost 20 minutes.
00:02:17
Speaker
I unplug the damn thing, and I plug it back in, and It fucking waited for It was hunting me. It waited for me. This is just a great way to start the show, though. you know saw that coming from a mine It saw you before you were even fucking born. it was ready.
00:02:34
Speaker
that Oh, Lord, he coming. That's hilarious. Oh, my God. ah So if you want, you can go to get out of here. I cloud. What are you doing?
00:02:48
Speaker
You can go to Patreon dot com slash pixel pod and you just buy me a new webcam that doesn't do this fucking thing. Because if you give us ten dollars a month, you You get your name shouted out in every episode. And to that end, I want to thank.
00:03:06
Speaker
And you are hiding song 85. Jesus loves you. Kyle semen, ruthless mutter, middle of things. Sigma sal, sanguine, flatulence, flatulence, flatulence, childude, beaks, dumb, my thick and friendly friend. Thank you so much for being a friend. Patreon.com slash pixel. Pod do it today. i didn't even introduce the book. We're finishing fucking Code Veronica today. We are all i was just we off to the races, my friend. This is our best start ever. Distinctly our best. No question.
00:03:38
Speaker
I'm just staring myself at at myself in the camera hub, Elgato camera hub, making sure it's not going to hang out on me. Yeah, you're going to goddamn paranoid now. Who could blame you? I'm not going to read my notes. I'm just going to stare at myself. That's probably fine. That's probably fine. Probably for the best. And eventually you'll just, like, interrupt the silence to say, what are you playing? Like, that's that's really...
00:03:59
Speaker
Yeah. the whole What is on your shirt? Keystone Truck and Tractor Museum. Yeah, that is. But it's not in Pennsylvania. So no it's not. That's what's interesting. It's it's here in Virginia. um Yeah, I was confused by that as well. would they they ah my My wife took me there for Father's Day.
00:04:22
Speaker
Last year, last Father's Day, I would imagine because you've that's how long you've been in this house, right? Well, well but but we live we still but we've lived in this area for... for Oh, that's right. You've been involved in Virgin... Yeah, yeah. yeah so But we passed it a bunch of times when we were going someplace. i forget Oh, you know what? We passed it a bunch of times when we were looking for houses. ah Because it's like on the way out into the country. Yeah.
00:04:47
Speaker
and i every time we pass it i'd say something like i want to see what that's about i want to see what they're about and uh and so for father's day we went couldn't be a more father's day appropriate kind of thing um and they they aren't lying they had hundreds of goddamn tractors in there um and trucks and like work vehicles and honestly Kind of fucking great. It was a really good time. I can imagine.
00:05:13
Speaker
yeah By the time you leave, you will have ah you you will have made like hard opinions on farming equipment ah that you otherwise have no reason to ah to understand or to know. Have you considered getting one of those tiny excavators?
00:05:32
Speaker
The ones that are like golf cart size. Have you considered buying one of those? I have because our our land is really uneven. And so we walk a lot right now. We've got plenty of flat land to like grow stuff and put things down. But eventually we are going to have to. even everything out a little more and something like that would probably come super in handy for something along those lines.
00:05:55
Speaker
Yeah. Just ah remember to what's is it? Do you guys have that one of those numbers where it's like you dial the number before you you dig? um Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's the county. We just have to reach the county.
00:06:09
Speaker
Okay. Yeah, Florida has like a 9-1-1, but it's for like fucking digging. So it's like you just put the three and you tell them where you are and they're like, yeah, there's a, you know, there's Comcast stuff underneath where you're standing. Fortunately, all of the wiring, well, it's kind of a fortunate, unfortunate thing. All of the wires like cable and shit like that are all up in the air in a pole in the middle of our front yard. Sure. Kind of an eyesore, but we know where that shit is. What we have to watch out for is the septic tank and the leech field.
00:06:47
Speaker
um So we know where all that is. what now? Yeah. That sounds more foreboding than it is. The leech field. this is where it sounds like a Dark Souls area. It kind of is. if you like it's it's ah It's the part of the yard where the the septic tank lets the filtered pee-pee water out.
00:07:08
Speaker
poo-poo pee-pee water. poo-poo pee-pee water. And so its you can't you can you can grow all kinds of shit there, but you don't want to grow anything that you're going to eat. Nothing eatable. nothing Yeah. So no edible, not po not potable, not edible. Exactly. So we've got half of our yard, like roughly half to a third of it. ah And ah bre thank thankfully, we have like the graph. We know where it is. ah But it's a pretty significant portion that we're just to have to dedicate to flowers or some goddamn thing. i don't know. Yeah.
00:07:43
Speaker
Anyway. and i forgotten a barney in that yeah Yeah, let's put a body in the leech field. Let's but' put a body in the leech field. I like it.
00:07:55
Speaker
What can't you believe? i spent all fucking night dragging the pill bastard in the ah We're starting with chapter 10. Chapter 10, right? They just crashed. Yes, they just crashed. yeah they Claire and Steve. laughhel Yeah, they're in Antarctica. Claire and Steve wake up in the crash plane inside of a giant round building built around a mineshaft. And there's no one around. And they're both ah they both got matching head bumps.
00:08:20
Speaker
Steve lowers himself out of the hole in the plane and catches Claire when she drops and she lands on top of them and neither of them move for a second. ah You know, they it's comfy, you know, it's a little she's she Claire Claire is actually got that. Remember that scene in Transformers where the guy has the Romeo and Juliet law it printed on a card? um Yeah, yeah.
00:08:44
Speaker
See, here's the thing. I've never seen Transformers all the way through, but I know exactly the scene you're talking about. So, yeah. That's this with Claire and Steve right now. Yeah. um They're inside of what Umbrella would call a transport terminal built around an old mine, and most of the doors are locked. And one the doors that they do open leads to a bunk room full of freshly infected zombies, at least one of whom Steve recognizes as the cook from Rockford Island. He's just got the worst luck, by the way, in terms of like recognizing corpses. Like, I like i knew that guy. That was my dad. Yeah. And that guy made me a burger once. That's just not me as bad, but still pretty awful.
00:09:24
Speaker
Ham sandwich. It was ham and ah and American cheese, which, you know, American cheese gets a lot of hate. But I got to tell you, American cheese is probably the best for burgers yeah because of its melting point. Yeah.
00:09:41
Speaker
Yeah. I just like it for so it just like if I'm having lunch, I'm having a sandwich handful of goddamn chips. i I just I want American cheese. Let's not get now. Now, do you ah put a few chips on the sandwich?
00:09:56
Speaker
Yeah, depending on the sandwich. But actually, maybe not like maybe not depending on the sandwich. I can't think of many sandwiches I wouldn't put chips on. Yeah, what? I mean, i that's stopping you. You're an adult.
00:10:08
Speaker
Right, right. i i The problem is, is I tend to eat flavored ah chips. So yeah, you want a plain chip yeah because you want it there for the crunch and not for the flavor. You want want you want clean kettle chips. No kettle cook chip. Yeah. Right on top of salt a tuna fish sandwich. Oh, my would go good right about now. yeah that's i mean i'm i'm more of a chicken salad guy but i'm right there with you yeah yeah yeah i mean same concepts yeah it's uh it's a meat with mayonnaise yeah you know do you know they called that i had a friend who was in culinary school i didn't know there was a name for those it's called a yeah a bound salad a bound salad yeah like egg salad chicken salad turkey yeah
00:10:58
Speaker
the The category is bound salads. Bound salads. It's it's you take the ingredients and they're all bound together ah by something like mayonnaise or something along those lines. So is pulled pork a bound salad?
00:11:13
Speaker
Because like it could be bound, like kind of stuck together with barbecue sauce. It could be. It could be. I mean, ham salad. Are baked beans a bound salad? I mean, that's kind of, yeah. I mean, if you want to get real technical, yeah, probably.
00:11:26
Speaker
I don't know if it has to be mayonnaise is the thing. Sure. um But I would bind barbecue together with mayonnaise. i't i'm not I'm not proud. Yeah.
00:11:38
Speaker
I'm not a proud man. I just had, we just had refried beans for dinner. Um, nice. Yeah. I had a nice little, uh, nice little wrap using the mission tortilla wraps. You know, those, they're yes they're like, they, they taste amazing and they got like no calories and 40 grams of fiber somehow. And I'm like, okay, I'll just eat this for everything. Everything. Um,
00:12:00
Speaker
everything whatever black magic is at work with i don't know what it is i don't think i want to know when it comes to that kind of shit you're like fine it's like halo top ice cream you're like i don't know what kind of game you're playing here but i'm not gonna ask too many questions So, yeah, i just had ah refried beans with the mission tortilla. And then I, for the last one, I put some some nacho chips into it.
00:12:27
Speaker
Nice. So full circle, chips on a sandwich. Boom. That crunch. Boom. As a burrito a sandwich. Mm-hmm.
00:12:37
Speaker
who's Who's to say? Who's to say? i So some of the people from the island were evacuated to the Antarctica area and they didn't realize they were carrying the virus with them.
00:12:48
Speaker
um they There's one more unexplored route and it's a dark staircase downwards and they go for it with matches for light and they immediately get sworn by giant moths. ah Hawk size, silent and terrible. These are actual like these aren't just Hawk moths. These are Hawk moths. Yeah. Yeah. they' any Hawk moths.
00:13:12
Speaker
Truly Hawk moths. Ha ha. We have to.
00:13:20
Speaker
etymology nerd or entomology entomology or etymology uh it's entomology is is insects words is insects and animals words yeah so but actually it just doesn't it's for both yeah yeah yeah it's wordplay and it's a wordplay about bugs yeah yeah i mean it it's a it's ah it's so what do they call it uh homophone yes
00:13:44
Speaker
right right it doesn't matter we're we um we are we really don't want to finish this book uh one lays an egg on egg case on steve's back and claire peels it off with a crumpled paper and steve stomps on until it pops uh they duck into an office to catch their breath and they find a bunch of paperwork steve finds some maps and uh you know the rooms that they've been in are blue and the the rooms that they've completed are green uh Yeah. One is a political map of Antarctica showing they're roughly 10 to 15 miles from the from an Australian research station, and the other is the blueprint of the entire building. They figure out where exactly they need to they are and need to go.
00:14:24
Speaker
Claire finds a memo from the facility manager that mentions a screaming monster prisoner somewhere below B2 that workers have been hearing for years, 15 years. Nobody's allowed allowed down there. She decides not to think about it too hard. Meanwhile, Alfred is alive.
00:14:41
Speaker
And basically just his brain.
00:14:45
Speaker
a chained blindfolded creature that screams and pulls at its restraints alfred who seems to have the some kind of clarity of mind moment after leaving rockfor talks to it tenderly and he calls it father here feels we learned that the monster is alexander ashford the twins dad who they drugged and used as a test subject for the te veronica virus fifteen years ago and it basically just fried his brain Alfred plans to feed Claire and Steve to Alexander before Alexia wakes up so she can emerge into a world free of peasant assassins. And he grabs a sniper rifle to go find them.
00:15:19
Speaker
He is not doing too well. No, no. Things are not going too good in his brain. Things are not going too too good for for old Alfred. Roll Alfred. Roll Alfred. Chapter 11.
00:15:32
Speaker
Steve heads leads the ah good runs through the moth corridor at a sprint. ah He opens fire. Claire runs ahead. There's chunks of of moth everywhere. Things get in his hair.
00:15:45
Speaker
um And they get through the door. There's a new room. It's full of zombies. They clear it in the dark. ah And then they finally get towards the mining room where Steve trips over a body and steps on something that crunches. And then Claire cries out and he reaches for her But it's Schmuckbait. She just stubbed her toe. yeah um Schmuckbait in the middle of a chapter is is a lot. That's yeah that's a lot. that's that's and And we haven't had any of that in this particular ah book. No. If I recall.
00:16:17
Speaker
No, I don't think we've had any schmuck bait, but it was it was ah in the middle of a in the beginning of a chapter. that's That's rough. I will say this is probably the weakest of all of the S.D. Perry books. I'm i'm getting that out there right now. Yeah. um If that colors any of my analysis going forward. Yeah.
00:16:38
Speaker
They get inside the mining room and then Alfred shows up with his Remington sniper rifle and he gets to drop on Claire, making her dropper gun and kick into the mining pit. And he asks about Steve, ah who she and she tells him that he's dead. Oh, Steve actually didn't follow her into the room yet. So Steve just hears this happen.
00:17:02
Speaker
Alfred monologues about assassins and the Ashford legacy while Steve creeps around the outside of the door. And then Steve comes in firing and and shoots Alfred, who falls over the railing into the mineshaft.
00:17:16
Speaker
He falls several stories and lands on an ice shelf and he's still alive. ah Sure. Claire grabs the rifle and she and Steve climb up into the mining room cab, a huge yellow ice digging machine with an unfinished tunnel in front of it. And down below, they can hear Alexander screaming. He is definitely loose.
00:17:34
Speaker
Steve fires up the mining machine and figures out how to use it as they go. And Claire points out that the tunnel is unfinished. And ah they this Steve just jams the throttle to to get through it. They grind through the ice.
00:17:49
Speaker
And they emerge near the surface near a helipad with a bunch of snow cats parked around it. There's no helicopter, though, at the top of the tower. And Steve turns to tell Claire and sees something behind her. And it is Alexander.
00:18:04
Speaker
He managed to get out, but he's blindfolded and his hands are still tied behind his back. He's a gray skin mutant with insect appendages folded on his back. um Yeah, he's pretty metal looking. Yeah. um And also he's secreting a gla cloud of poison gas from his chest.
00:18:21
Speaker
Lucky. Fucking lucky. Yeah. Lucky. You know, i wish I had that. I wish I could do that. That'd be awesome. I would. I would get into i get into a little bit of trouble. and not Let me tell you.
00:18:32
Speaker
Let me tell you. instead i have to settle it coming from my butt.
00:18:38
Speaker
we have some We have fun here. Uh, Steve tries to tackle Alexander off the edge while he's still unbalanced. Uh, and then Alexander hits Steve and sends him skidding across the ice and over the edge.
00:18:51
Speaker
Uh, Claire puts the last six rounds into the rifle, of that were in the rifle into Alexander's forehead and his head splits open like a melon. He goes down.
00:19:03
Speaker
Uh, so she murders the shit out of him. Steve is hanging from a support post below the platform edge and he survived and they pull each other ah back and hold on for a while um in the cold.
00:19:15
Speaker
Moving on to chapter 12. We get Alexia waking up. She's been in a stasis tank in the Antarctic facility and she's been aware and watching everything for the past 10 months. um The T. Veronica virus has evolved her consciousness while she was frozen.
00:19:33
Speaker
When Alfred crawls to the base of her tank and dies reaching out to touch it, she reads that as a sign that she's been waiting for and turns off the station machine with her mind powers, steps out of the draining tank and sits on the floor with Alfred's head in her lap and sings him a children's song.
00:19:49
Speaker
She's very sad. ah She reaches out with her senses to check on Alexander and finds him gone, either dead or out of range, and notes that the upper levels of the terminal are full full of death.
00:20:01
Speaker
She finds Claire and Steve nearby in a snowcat and on a whim, tests her power. A giant organic tentacle tears through the ice, wraps around the snowcat, and throws it at the facility like a toy.
00:20:13
Speaker
ah Both of them are alive, though. Chapter 13. Chris arrives. Wesker shows up. What? Wesker? Wesker!
00:20:26
Speaker
Chris made to Rockford by boat. Yeah. Chris made it to Rockford by boat and climb the cliffs. He lost his bag of gear halfway up and he's got three grenades on him. ah He gets into the compound through a cave entrance, which collapses behind him.
00:20:41
Speaker
And he finds Rodrigo. Rodrigo, the guy who let Claire at the beginning. He's really been kicking for, you know, ah for a guy who is critically wounded. He's the fact that he's still alive is amazing.
00:20:55
Speaker
It's impressive. ah Yeah. Rodrigo fills him in about Claire getting away that she was an angel. And he mentioned he heard planes leave and saw a jet take off. ah Before Chris can do anything else, the ground erupts and a giant worm monster ah bursts up through the floor and swallows Rodrigo whole. I mean, goddamn Rodrigo. He survives all this and then, ah you know, the god emperor of...
00:21:23
Speaker
of of Dune and just eats him eats him up that's yeah it's I feel so bad for him it's so fucked up but it's also one of the most resonant evil fucking things to happen at the same time you're like oh yeah yeah yeah that holds up that holds up and Yeah, that that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. ah So the Chris ah grenades it and the worm spits Rodrigo out.
00:21:50
Speaker
Rodrigo is coated in stomach acid. ah And Chris is like, no, you're going to make it, buddy. It's fine. It's fine. um And Rodrigo tells him about the lighter.
00:22:02
Speaker
And Chris finds his old lighter in Rodrigo's pocket. This is the one that he had given to Claire ah a while ago. ah So Chris figures out that he needs to get to Antarctica.
00:22:14
Speaker
Meanwhile, Albert Wesker has been hanging around Rockford the entire time. ah he's been what He's just been there, apparently. I've been.
00:22:25
Speaker
how about that? He's annoyed because Alexia is not there and he's watching an unarmed idiot walk through the facility on camera and goes ah sets the sets out a sweeper, which is just a hunter with poison to go go after him.
00:22:44
Speaker
uh the uh the guy that he's watching which is chris uh throws a grenade and kills it and wesker is like i'm gonna take care of this myself and he finds chris in the lab grabs him by the throat lifts him off the floor and then he recognizes him oh my god it's chris redfield i hate you um chris punches him and knocks off his glasses revealing that he has he now has cat-like gold red eyes Wesker lets Chris see him, tells him he got new employers after the Spencer spencer Mansion incident, and he's better than new.
00:23:21
Speaker
He's about to strangle Chris to death when he hears Alexia's voice laughing in the room. She's awake and and basically mind-projecting herself back to Rockford Island, and Wesker drops Chris and starts running to the plane. Um...
00:23:37
Speaker
Chris recovers, figures out that Wesker was the one behind the Rockford Island attack but ah on behalf of his new employers, and heads to Antarctica with his one grenade.
00:23:50
Speaker
ah Chapter 14. It's short chapter from Alexia's point of view. ah She's aware that there are two groups. ah There are two people coming. There's Wesker ah and Chris, who wants to get Claire back.
00:24:03
Speaker
She stands in the facility's main hall, essentially wishing doors open and walls down with her mind, preparing a path for her guests because she wants them to be able to find her. She's treating this more like a dinner party.
00:24:14
Speaker
ah She decides to start a series of injections on Steve. Chapter 15. Poor Steve. Steve is this isn't going to go real well for Steve.
00:24:26
Speaker
It's not going to go real well. Steve. ah Chris has landed his jet in the roof hanger and has been walking through the facility by walking walks and has been walked through the facility by an unseen force. Doors are locking behind him. Others are opening in front of him. Lights are going out. He figures out that it's not Wesker and he ends up in a fifth basement level standing in the front of a mansion built of white brick.
00:24:49
Speaker
There's a fountain, potted plants, decorative merry-go-round. and He opens the door and it's the same layout as the Spencer estate. And he hears Alexia's laugh from the distance and he goes to find ah find Alexia, but he hears claire finds Claire instead webbed up to the back wall like a ah like a spider, like a spider web. He pulls her free, lays her down, and waits. She wakes up, and they hug for the first time in forever, and she immediately says they have to save Steve.
00:25:17
Speaker
A tentacle crashes through the balcony and trashes the stairs, separating them. Claire hears Steve scream from behind a door at the top, and Chris tells her to go, and he'll catch up. Meanwhile...
00:25:28
Speaker
Wesker enters the mansion and finds Alexia at the top of the stairs. He tries to pitch her on joining forces with his and her his employers. He does the whole st as spiel about how her genius and the T. Veronica virus will change the world, and she just laughs at him. He drops the act, and he just demands the the virus, and then she starts transforming.
00:25:51
Speaker
into uh monster form number one and by the time she reaches the bottom of the stairs uh she is not a person anymore she backhands Wesker so hard he flies across the room he gets up and he tries to uh super speed uh but she conjures fire out of bare marble with the wave of a hand and he's like you know what I'm leaving yeah uh and it's that's This is fine.
00:26:19
Speaker
Bye. This is fine. I'm done. um Yeah. ah Alexia watches Wesker and Chris ah go and decides to let them live for now. And she's got plans for Chris. And she's going to test an insect based transformation on herself. And she'll kill the girl when ah she ah she'll kill the girl first.
00:26:42
Speaker
ah Chapter 16.
00:26:56
Speaker
steve's at the end of the hall slumped in a chair with a halberd pinned across his chest as a restraint he's alive and he tells her tells claire that alexia injected him with sth And told him that she wasn't going to do ah what she did to her father, but get it right this time. So basically she's doing the same thing that she did to ah her dad to Steve, but it's going to work better now. It's goingnna it's it's going to be fine this time.
00:27:24
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, it's going to be fine. He tries to get up. Yeah, he tries to get up and then he mutates. Oh, no. His clothes rip. His skin goes ah gray green, kind of like the Hulk. His spikes pop up from one shoulder, his eyes going red. And then ah Steve pulls a halberd free, stands up and starts running after Claire.
00:27:49
Speaker
ah She runs back down the hall as Steve is swinging the axe at her, and ah she dives through the gate as it closes, and the monster starts hacking through the bars. And then a tentacle comes through the wall and grab grabs Claire, holding her for Steve Monster to finish off. He is about to bring the axe down and stops, and then he ah remembers a promise of, you can get the next one. ah His own promise echoes back through whatever's left of him, and instead he uses the axe on the tentacle and severs it.
00:28:21
Speaker
ah The coil retracts, and then Steve drops, ah untransforms, and ah he ah says that he loves her, and then he dies.
00:28:33
Speaker
Oh, Steve, we hardly knew ye. that was candy i was That was pretty rough for for Steve. Yeah. it's um that is That is pretty rough. That's a rough way to go out for Steve. Rough way. Yeah.
00:28:48
Speaker
Yeah. Chapter 17, Chris is running through the facility looking for Claire and shouting her name. um And then he finds her holding Steve's body and crying. He gently tells her, listen, you've known this boy for like 15 minutes. We have to go. Yeah. yeah I'll get you another Leonardo DiCaprio at home. We'll get you another stupid boyfriend. You're fine.
00:29:12
Speaker
Yeah. Remember Leon? Yeah, he's alive. He's a cutie. He's a cutie. And he yeah you know what? And he didn't die. didn't die. Not like this loser. Yep.
00:29:24
Speaker
And he just won't. This died. And also Leon's of age. so that's That's also nice. That's that's pretty handy, if you think about it. So he like reaches into her pocket and takes out the Romeo and Juliet card. Like, we don't need this.
00:29:39
Speaker
We don't need this, Claire. Claire. Claire, please. Claire, please. um So ah they yeah they start is trying to escape. They find a metal grid platform near the southwest corner of the facility with an emergency evacuation elevator on one wall.
00:29:59
Speaker
Wouldn't be Resident Evil without ah emergency. if When it suddenly gets like, it's just, we're just like metal grids and and yeah evacuation elevators. yeah You know, you're at the end of the game. This is this is very much the the science lab part of the game, which means we're wrapping it up.
00:30:18
Speaker
we're wrapping this baby up. Yeah. Um, he, uh, Chris tries to open the lock and it needs a key that he doesn't have. And, uh, then Claire's like, wait a minute, I have this. And it's the dragonfly key that she found in the Ashford attic. And it's, it's, that's the key. And then, uh, there's, uh, uh, uh, self-destruct code to enter. And Chris is like, it's code Veronica. yeah Claire's like, that's the name of the game. That's you. That finally happened.
00:30:50
Speaker
Finally. Finally happens. ah The door opens, they trigger the sequence, and he grabs the grenade launcher and alarms start blaring. ah Chapter 18. Alexia is furious that Steve is dead and she didn't get to experiment on him and that Claire is still a right alive and that Chris just set off the self-destruct of her home. ah Everyone has to die now.
00:31:11
Speaker
She interrupts. She intercepts Chris and Claire slides out of an organic carrier on the grid platform. And Chris tells Claire to get to the elevator. And she reluctantly goes.
00:31:22
Speaker
Chris then shoots Alexia through the gut with a three fifty seven. And she pushes her hand. She just pushes her hand into the wound and takes the bullet out and tosses it back at him. um she crouches on the platform and starts transforming again her arms fold in her legs disappear and her body turns into yeah you know what it's just giant giant fleshy round mass time yeah um what does that make you think of uh uh uh yeah the penis i was thinking boobs but yeah
00:31:57
Speaker
Yeah. you We're all, we're all in the right track. Really? Yeah. She rises up into a huge tumorous creature, the size of a small house with dragonfly wings and a half human face on top with tentacles just fucking everywhere. um And then that's the end of chapter 18. Chapter 19, the countdown's at four and a half minutes when the fight starts. Bullets are doing nothing.
00:32:23
Speaker
ah Chris shoots two of the four dragonfly wings off and the and Alexia spits acid at him. ah He spots the grenade launcher on the mirror emergency release bar next to the door. It hasn't unlocked yet. The countdown ticks at two minutes. The bar flips up. He grabs it and he fires it into the creature's swollen belly. Massive explosion.
00:32:45
Speaker
it screams. Alexia screams, starts deflating, and just ah falls. It just falls apart. It dies with what Chris can only describe as an absolute surprise on its ruined face.
00:32:58
Speaker
And then drops the launcher and runs through the elevator. And then... Chapter 20. ah Claire sits in front of the jet in the hangar, waiting, ah flipping off the speaker when the countdown voice pipes up. The building starts to rumble, and she's pretty certain that Chris is dead, but then Chris is alive. He arrives. He arrives and he's arriving.
00:33:22
Speaker
Alives. Alives. Alives. And he he says, get it. They blast out through the opening ceiling and break into cloud cover and escape the facility as it explodes below them.
00:33:37
Speaker
And Steve is on Claire's mind the whole time. She asks Chris not to leave her alone again. And he pauses and she already knows. Umbrella, they're not done yet. ah They ah have to settle this once and for all.
00:33:51
Speaker
And she closes her eyes and hopes that she doesn't dream. Meanwhile, in the epilogue, Wesker is flying away and he watches the smoke rise. Figures that Chris is probably dead, dead in there and concedes the guy might mice might be lucky enough to have made it.
00:34:08
Speaker
ah He's more annoyed about Alexia. His employers are going to be unhappy that they lost the T-Beronica virus. He thinks about his mystery contact. Trent, the man who pulled him out of the Spencer Mansion fire and got him fixed up better than new with his new employers. Wesker, who's afraid of basically nothing, em admits to himself that Trent scares him, and he decides to worry about that later.
00:34:30
Speaker
He's pretty sure his side is going to win anyway. The end.
00:34:38
Speaker
And then everyone waits around after the credits and nothing happens. Nothing happens because there's no book after this. I thought there was one more.
00:34:49
Speaker
It's Resident Evil Zero. all Oh, so yeah, so it doesn't it doesn't keep going with the story. We never find out what happened to Trent, and ah I implore you to go and fill out the um the thing that we have below. um Justice for Trent.
00:35:10
Speaker
Yeah, justice for Trent. Hashtag justice for Trent. Absolutely. So, Phil, what'd you think? yeah i I think I agree with you on this being one of the weaker ones in the series. um I never played Code of Veronica, but I did do a little research in the game itself and looked at some gameplay and read the synopsis. And this one, I feel like it follows the game closer than any of the other ones that we've read that were also based on games.
00:35:43
Speaker
yeah um yeah For those of you who ah don't know, these books... ah alternate between based on a game and original. ah So you you get novels that are completely not based on on the game, like the last one we read. ah And this one, if i don't know, ah you've played this, so but it just feels like to a fault it was it was on rails ah to a certain extent. yeah would you would you yeah Would you say that was your experience with it since you've actually played it?
00:36:16
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, i haven't played Code Veronica in a very long time, though. Right. so But it does feel very much on the rails of of what the actual game was, from what I remember.
00:36:30
Speaker
Yeah. I liked Steve. I liked what she did with Steve. He could have been... it's not to suggest that he's like this. Great, you know, amazing character. But based on what he existed there to do, he could have been a lot worse.
00:36:48
Speaker
ah He could have been a much more obnoxious, insufferable character. And he actually had some pathos. i'll I'll give that to him. Yeah, yeah it's just kind of it it opens really strong in in like a lot of action, a lot of moving forward. And even but it starts to kind of run out of steam ah by the end of it. It just wasn't quite up to snuff compared to ah her other books.
00:37:14
Speaker
So what do what do you think? Yeah, I agree. it It just doesn't pop like the other ones. They do... ah She did make um Steve a little bit more palatable than he is in the game. Okay, good to know. Okay.
00:37:31
Speaker
as particularly because we get some thoughts from his point of view and some of the way that Claire interacts and responds to him humanizes him a little bit more we get some of Claire like ah he's probably just a scared kid all that kind of stuff um So, yeah, I think there are some things that are made better by S.T. Perry's touch in terms of how the story went.
00:38:02
Speaker
That being said, um i i felt like this one was the weakest. And and and chronologically, it's the last one of the S.T. Perry books. We will be reading one more, though, and that's going to be, like I said, the Resident Evil Zero one. ah So looking forward to to seeing that. Yeah. To reading that.
00:38:22
Speaker
um But yeah, it's it's um yeah you know what it is. I also think we got I think ah what's his name? Alfred, the protagonist, is I just didn't like him as much as. Yeah.
00:38:37
Speaker
Some of the other antagonists in the in the series. Yeah. um It goes into some kind of tired tropey shit. I also did think i felt it was kind of hilarious that like he's impersonating his sister.
00:38:52
Speaker
it's it's a reveal that she's still around, even if she's in like stasis or whatever. Right. And and. I think for a lot of people, that would be the moment where they'd go, OK, and she wakes up and she's like, my God, what has he done? He's you know, this isn't what I would have wanted ah at all. ah But she's she's just fucking Akira. Like, she yeah, it's like, no, no, no. Let's now that my brother's dead. i'm Now I'm the real villain here. Right. Just keeps that going with powers, really.
00:39:22
Speaker
Yeah, I think it would be interesting if, because we get we find out that she was aware of everything. Like, she's been keeping tabs on everything while she's been in stasis for the past 10 months. Right.
00:39:38
Speaker
And it's only been 10 months, ah so that's pretty quick for ah Alfred to go to start dressing as her. Really loses shit in 10 months, yeah.
00:39:49
Speaker
Especially if she's still technically alive. Yeah, I think if there was if I was rewriting it, I would at least do the maybe play with the idea that she is occasionally possessing him to as like from stasis to do the things that she needs doing. Right, right. Yeah.
00:40:11
Speaker
That wasn't always clear to me. Yeah, I mean, I don't think that's the intent in this story. I see, I see. I don't think that's the intent in this story, I think. But I think if I was rewriting it, ah rewriting for, like, the the remake, I would make it as if it's like, oh, yeah, she just possesses him on occasion. And that would be way more interesting than, you know, the Norman Bates just, you know, standard-ass thing. The norman standard Norman Bates stuff. um Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:40:40
Speaker
So with all that being said, with, uh, the Ashford families laid to rest and with Chris, uh, running, getting away from Wesker again uh, Claire not appearing in another game ever again, which is wild. That is weird, isn't it?
00:41:05
Speaker
It's weird. Uh, lot of Chris, a lot of Leon. ah this Wait, does Claire appear in six? I can't remember six well enough. I don't think she does, no. Really?
00:41:17
Speaker
I don't think she does. um me see. Evil six characters. So it's Leon and Helena Harper, Chris Redfield, because there's partners for each one. right Chris Redfield and Piers Nivans, Jake Muller and Sherry Birkin, and then Ada Wong.
00:41:42
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. No Jill, no Claire. that wild they love inventing new female characters to fuck with um we've got mostly the same too I don't know maybe if I did the numbers like they I mean sherry Sherry was like she was a kid in RE2 and now she's an adult she's an adult in 6 and she's a supporting character 9 um so I guess yeah um so yeah yeah yeah
00:42:17
Speaker
Phil. Yeah. yeah Oh, checking my email says, Dear Strong Bad, what are you playing? Oh, oh, Strong Bad. I'm so glad you asked. I i finished Minos, ah the Minotaur Labyrinth game. Fucking great.
00:42:37
Speaker
ah I got to the end credits. ah There is still more stuff to do, but for now I'm satisfied. I put, let me see, I put a really decent amount of time in there. put 32 hours into that. I think you're good for now. i think you got i think you you got what you wanted. I got what I wanted out of it and then some. ah Terrific, terrific ah turn on the tower defense ah kind of situation. um Just a lot of fun.
00:43:06
Speaker
i i really enjoyed that one. That one was very satisfying, let's say. Um, so enjoy that. I also started, I got, I, well, I mean, full disclosure, I got a, uh, a, a key for this from the developer.
00:43:21
Speaker
Um, I, I played some hotel architect. Okay. Which is, you know, it's your standard kind of, you know, ah business builder sort of thing. You think of Hotel Architect, it's it's your standard tycoon game. I think what sets it apart and makes it kind of charming in a way that I i really enjoyed is that it's very European.
00:43:44
Speaker
um you've got multiple hotels across the world. The first one that you start with is in Gothenburg, Sweden, for example, and the developers are Swedish, so it's appropriate. And the hotels are very boutique, very European style. It's not like Holiday Inn kind of stuff. it's shirts ah So you've got a restaurant in-house, and you've got like it it's more like a cafe sort of thing. Now, can you take the boutique hotel and turn it into a Holiday yeah I don't know yet. And i I suspect you might be able to because one of the levels is Las Vegas.
00:44:21
Speaker
So I feel like there's got to be, I've only, I've played through, i played through Gothenburg and now I'm in Santorini in Greece. um So very resort style stuff, but they have a, it's it's clever, it's cute. ah The characters, you know the you know those really old squeeze ah ah stress things that was like a clown?
00:44:43
Speaker
like way Yeah, and the eyes would go bleep. Yeah, yeah. That's what the characters in this look like. A little more color, but if they are a little disturbing ah to look at. um But I found the the the the but back and forth of it very entertaining, very fun. um ah You've got... ah you have a little more involvement in things like construction. Uh, you, Oh, you know what it looks like? It looks like, uh, it looks like a theme hospital or a two point hospital. Yeah, exactly. a vibe. And it plays like that too.
00:45:21
Speaker
Uh, uh, so there are little interesting, uh, uh, touches to it. Um, it's, it's, it's, you know, what it says on the tin, you get what you get. And honestly though, it's, it's a lot of fun. Uh, I'm really enjoying, uh, uh, the rhythm of it. It's, it's pretty interesting. Um, and finally I started playing vultures scavengers of death and,
00:45:45
Speaker
um this is This is crazy. Have you seen this? No, but that that title makes me giggle. It's amazing. Yes, yes. it's That's like, that's like i am i am so edgy. yeah oh yeah But here's the thing, and it kind of is. ah This is basically based on PlayStation era Resident Evil.
00:46:07
Speaker
um That's what the look is. That's what the ah the puzzles are like. Except it's turn-based strategy as opposed to... Yeah, yeah. I'm looking at it now. You know what it is? It's basically like Resident Evil meets...
00:46:28
Speaker
Kind of Parasite Eve. Sure. Yeah. Which was which was an RPG. But ah yeah. Yeah. i I could see what they're going for. It's it's really enjoyable. I took me a minute to get into it because it's it is. This is a Colombian developer called Team Vultures. So that tells you how many projects they've worked on. Yeah.
00:46:51
Speaker
It's, it is, ah so it's got some jank. It has got some, you know, ah you know single A jank, like you expect. ah and And sometimes that takes a minute to get over, but...
00:47:06
Speaker
It's really enjoyable. ah There is a it i I was surprised at how much I liked adding the strategy element to a otherwise Resident Evil style game.
00:47:20
Speaker
um It's really really fun. It's also really challenging and brutal at times. Just like in Resident Evil, you have to know when it's worth blowing these zombies away and when it's worth you know sneaking past them. And so you have a lot more that you can you can actually do as opposed to in the Resident Evil games. like You can literally put on sneak mode and sneak past the zombies. And if and if if they don't see you, then you're good. You're golden. The combat doesn't start. That's awesome.
00:47:52
Speaker
it's it's It's really clever, ah and i'm I'm enjoying it. i i I admit, the first time I played it, the tutorial went on and on, and that's the weakest part of it. And I actually went, I don't know if I'm going I might ask for a refund on this one. And I went back to playing Minos and 25 hours later or so I went, all right, let's let's give this let's give this another go. And I'm glad I did. It's ah it's very enjoyable. It's ah a super scrappy little team ah developing this and it's got a sense of humor to it. It's got style to it. And I love the retro aesthetic. They do a really good job with it and it feels good. So um that's awesome.
00:48:37
Speaker
I highly recommend, they have a demo. I i definitely recommend giving it a giving it a go. Yeah, I feel like I'm, I think that I'm gonna i'm going to give it a shot. Yeah. It looks... up ah Last but not least, I played the Boltgun 2 demo.
00:48:54
Speaker
ah And, yeah, that's more Boltgun, all right. but but i is This is not a criticism at all. ah it' it's But it is what it is. and And I'm happy about that. I'm fine with it. um I played as the Sister of Battle... um And I gotta say, Alana Pierce, who is is a a ah a very talented woman, and i very you know she's very good at what she does.
00:49:22
Speaker
I wasn't initially convinced at the idea of her being a Sister of Battle. I just had a hard time imagining her like... with that kind of voice with that power uh uh probably because i've just never seen her in a role like that i've never seen her do that unless it's you know reporting uh uh uh kids to their parents for sending her rape threats uh uh which which she does she does more beautifully with a plum yeah with oh absolutely um but uh
00:49:54
Speaker
I was impressed. I really was. it I spent a lot of time hitting the ah the taunt button, you know, and and I just really enjoyed that part of it.
00:50:05
Speaker
um It feels good. I feel like the... they've upgraded the graphics a little bit. It feels, ah I don't know what you'd call it, but that era of first-person shooter where they looked almost like more like still images.
00:50:21
Speaker
Yes. You know what mean? yeah Yeah. Yeah. So like Doom, for example, had the, ah basically it was just 2D images that you were, yeah they had that would kind of like rotate with you.
00:50:36
Speaker
Right. And that's and that's and it there's more of that in this as far as the demo is concerned. um Really looking forward to the full game. ah had a Had a hell of a good time playing the demo. Yeah.
00:50:47
Speaker
I think it's it's just another slam dunk as far as I'm concerned, just because you've got you've got all the pieces. Just give us more levels. It's really bright. It's it's a no brainer. It's it's easy like that.
00:51:00
Speaker
um yeah So that's me. ah Kevin, what do you play in? Oh, okay. So first, I want to say, I i was like, you know what? I'm going to see what the hubbub is all about. I'm going to play Total War 3. Total War 3 Warhammer. Just just just to try it out. and This is why I texted you the other day. like hey, what if ah the Fantasy Warhammer is set after Wouldn't that be interesting? Because it's the same same chaos gods, you know? yeah ah
00:51:38
Speaker
So chaos is is chaos is the constant.
00:51:43
Speaker
So I played it for nearly five hours. I beat the prologue. wow and Wow. All right. Okay.
00:51:57
Speaker
And I was like, wow, that was a complete experience for me. That's amazing. It's like you beat you dedicate like five hours to it. You beat the prologue. You get to the like, oh, we're now. Now. OK, these are the opening credits.
00:52:15
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, oh wow. Okay. Yeah. ah So ah basically, if you haven't played it, Total War, ah the Total War games are a kind of hybrid of turn-based strategy at a macro level ah where you have cities and and all that and units.
00:52:39
Speaker
kind of like in Civilization, and they got research trees and they got buildings and all that fun stuff. And then then there's a micro level real time strategy version of the game where once your units encounter another, an enemy force, you basically go into the battle and it becomes an actual battle simulator where you have like you have your your ranks you have your battalions of of dudes ah different types of dudes and you lay them out in in formations and and all that so uh if you have any prior experience playing like you know so i i remember was it sid meyer's gettysburg um had a very similar style of gameplay where you would set up set your lines and and all that um
00:53:32
Speaker
Very old school war game. Very old school war game where you're trying to hold lines and trying to like there's that you're one of the best things you can do is flank an enemy's line and yeah you got to get the high ground and all that. it's It's all the things that apply to regular war gaming apply here.
00:53:53
Speaker
So that's, I liked it. I liked what I played. I just, after completing the prologue, which is a beefy, it's a beefy prologue. yeah I was like, ah okay, I think I'm good until the 40k one comes out.
00:54:07
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's that's what was my feeling too. I didn't get much interest when I played it. I didn't have much interest in going too much further just because I'm not a fantasy guy. And... and i I do distinctly think that that the 40K version will be... That was the thing that was like holding me back from really loving it. It's like, okay, I'm just not into Warhammer fantasy.
00:54:31
Speaker
Like, pretty much full stop. It it doesn't really... ah It's not really... um scratching an itch that i have that i like there's other fantasy stuff that I enjoy more ah the 40k stuff really hits a spot that I don't get many other places so 40k is already kind of fantasy in and of itself it's got yeah it's medieval quality sci-fi fantasy yeah um what do they call when those two genres are merged together science fantasy science fantasy yeah yeah definitely that um so anyway total war warhammer 3.
00:55:15
Speaker
ah Let's see. i also, most of the week has been spent playing Mina the Hollower. I saw that. That looks like a lot of fun. ah It is fun. It is Yacht Club Games. ah They are best known for Shovel Knight and the 50,000 DLCs that they released for Shovel Knight, which came from um basically what happened was when they were doing the Kickstarter for Shovel Knight, they set a good a stretch goal for the DLC
00:55:51
Speaker
ah Be like, we'll make these DLCs for free. um well Free DLC. And ah they did, they hit the stretch goal and then they spent years so many years working on those DLCs. um And they had to like...
00:56:09
Speaker
figure out ways to make money off them. They would resell the game as askew different SKUs and stuff like that, whatever they had to do to to kind of tide them over. and They've been working on Mina the Hollower ever since, which is a very, very much in the Game Boy Color aesthetic.
00:56:27
Speaker
And it is... It's basically a a a top-down Bloodborne for all intents and purposes, the way the healing works.
00:56:39
Speaker
um It's very Souls-like in terms of you have ah little checkpoints that you hit, the levels double back on each other with shortcuts and things like that. it I would say it's ah it's like if you had a Game play game Boy Color demake of Bloodborne, it would it would look pretty similar to Mina the Hollower. um And it for despite its cute aesthetic of like the main character, she's an adorable mouse girl, and all the the other characters, there are so many things in it that are just like an absolute bummer.
00:57:15
Speaker
ha ha! Okay, alright. There's like, there's there's like these little things like, there's this one point where you you face off against a boss named the Duchess, and after you beat her, ah you can go back and find this guy named the Duke.
00:57:32
Speaker
And you can he's like, I'm looking for my my my lady, can you take me to her? And you take the Duke to the Duchess's tomb, and he's like, okay, just go ahead and and put me in the crypt.
00:57:47
Speaker
And you put him in the crypt, in the casket, and you close it, with the heavy stone casket thing. and he's like i'm i'm waiting for my my duchess now and you can just like leave but if you keep talking to the crypt uh he'll he'll continue talking back he'll be like you know i didn't account for the lack of air in here
00:58:14
Speaker
like just this little shit like that it's hilarious um So yeah, Mina the Hollower, i recommend it. It is very difficult and they have a ton of difficulty settings in the game.
00:58:31
Speaker
But if you are in a person who likes getting achievements, as soon as you make the game easier with any of the difficulty settings, achievements are turned off. There you go. So there you go. Which I've always disliked that. um Especially because some of the difficulty settings are just like, it would just be like a little thing. Like, I just want this one thing to not happen. um And then be like, nope, achievements are off if you do that, buddy.
00:58:59
Speaker
And you can never get them back. Right. um So you can't like turn them off for a boss and turn it back on. the The achievement function is just disabled for that account for that like save file.
00:59:12
Speaker
That stinks. I don't know what the point of that is really. Yeah, I don't dig it, but ah I like the game in general. I think I'm almost at the end. So it's like a 20 hour game.
00:59:27
Speaker
Nice. yeah I love the aesthetic of it. It's it's just so charming and old school. It's cute. It's adorable. Yeah. Yeah. yeah And I i like Yakob games. i like I would like them to continue making games.
00:59:43
Speaker
um So that's it. That's it for me. That's what I've been playing. ah Thank you so much for listening. Go ahead and follow us on social media. Find all the social media platforms that we're on. If we're on pixlet if we're on a social social media platform, it'll be under the name PixletPod.
01:00:02
Speaker
um So yeah, that'll be it. And one other thing. Jonesy lives. Jonesy lives.