X-COM: UFO Defense Part 1

Transcript

Speaker: in a very weird place with this where i'm just like i don't know what's i just don't know what's going on i just don't know what's going on here and it's kind of fascinating so yeah i don't know so who who knows what's going on i don't know what's going on my dog definitely doesn't know what's going on no but you do you know who does know what's going on who's that

Speaker: Hey there, everybody.

Speaker: Welcome back to Pixel It.

Speaker: My name is Kevin.

Speaker: With me, as always, is Phil.

Speaker: Hello.

Speaker: And today, we are starting a brand new series.

Speaker: And it's this guy right here.

Speaker: It is Mach X. It's backwards on my screen.

Speaker: Mach X. It's backwards on mine, too.

Speaker: XCOM UFO Defense.

Speaker: A novel.

Speaker: A novelty reading.

Speaker: I always love that when books just have like a novel on it.

Speaker: And I don't know what the actual like what's the background behind just like putting a novel.

Speaker: Is there is it to describe to differentiate it from like a novel?

Speaker: A stethoscope?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: XCOM UFO defense.

Speaker: A pack of cigarettes.

Speaker: Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker: I think the only thing I can think of with that is that it's an adaptation of a video game using the video game's cover art from the time period released around the same time as... Like, just to...

Speaker: Just to really emphasize the point that's like, don't insert any of these pages into your floppy disk drive.

Speaker: They will not install XCOM.

Speaker: This is XCOM, a novel.

Speaker: So what are we doing here?

Speaker: We're talking XCOM.

Speaker: Phil, who wrote XCOM?

Speaker: Diane Dwayne, who's she?

Speaker: Aside from having a last name, that's a first name.

Speaker: Yeah, pretty much.

Speaker: It is really funny when we do this show and we have all of these authors who sometimes I might know a little bit about, often don't.

Speaker: And you just find out that they have this crazy,

Speaker: crazy library of work, this enormous body of work.

Speaker: And Diane Duane is one of those people.

Speaker: She is best known for a young adult series she did called Young Wizards, but she also wrote extensively for the Star Trek franchise.

Speaker: She's written for several TV shows.

Speaker: She's written for

Speaker: just like the franchises go on and on.

Speaker: She did a trilogy of Spider-Man novels.

Speaker: She did a series called The Middle Kingdoms, which was, I'm getting here that it's kind of an LGBTQIA plus kind of series, which is kind of fascinating because they came out in the late 70s into the 90s, which is,

Speaker: So that's really interesting.

Speaker: I might be getting bad information, but if that's the case, that's kind of groundbreaking.

Speaker: That's just not a common thing for that time period.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Interesting.

Speaker: Yeah, really interesting stuff.

Speaker: She's covered, done a lot of short stories, done a lot of comic books.

Speaker: She's also written for TV shows like Scooby and Scrappy-Doo, Captain Caveman, if you remember that one.

Speaker: She wrote for DuckTales.

Speaker: And she wrote for some of the earlier episodes of Star Trek, The Next Generation.

Speaker: And she and her husband, who's an Irish science fiction fantasy writer, actually wrote some episodes for Batman the Animated Series and Gargoyles.

Speaker: Wow.

Speaker: Yeah, she's got some serious geek cred.

Speaker: It's kind of amazing.

Speaker: Those are two shows that I grew up on.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, same here.

Speaker: And she's still working, not as prolifically as she used to.

Speaker: But when you're looking at the 70s and 80s and 90s, this woman was really cranking it out back then.

Speaker: It's pretty badass.

Speaker: Just like on her website, as you said, the Middle Kingdoms series that she's...

Speaker: been working on.

Speaker: Debuting in 1979 with the door into fire and causing Dwayne to be nominated two years running for Outstanding Award for Best New Writer in the sci-fi fantasy field, the pansexual, polyamorous, and broadly inclusive fictional culture Dwayne constructed for the Middle Kingdoms was an early example of non-straight representation in the epic fantasy genre.

Speaker: That's crazy.

Speaker: That's fascinating.

Speaker: That's a really big deal.

Speaker: I would like to... So some of the bonafides that you've mentioned have made me curious to read something else that she's written.

Speaker: Because as you and I have been discussing through text and before the show, so far, not...

Speaker: Keen on this book.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: This feels we're working with

Speaker: write for hire professionals here.

Speaker: That is exclusively the people we read.

Speaker: And sometimes they're able to inject some of their own artistry into it, their own personality.

Speaker: This very much feels like a paycheck.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: This was something, it feels like something that she got out to make a car payment or something.

Speaker: Like it just, this was whether they didn't give her a lot of time or she didn't want to take a lot of time on it or something.

Speaker: It feels a little rushed, let's say.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So before we get into it, let's talk about what the game it is based on.

Speaker: It is based on it's based on XCOM.

Speaker: That is the the the real

Speaker: granddaddy of the turn-based tactical squad shooter game.

Speaker: It is a classic.

Speaker: It's not the first, but it's one of the greatest to really set the stage for everything that came.

Speaker: It was created by the Brothers Gallup.

Speaker: Julian and Nick.

Speaker: And I actually did a back when I was still doing YouTube videos, I did a pretty deep dive on the XCOM XCOM's creation.

Speaker: Yeah, it's it's a real fascinating story.

Speaker: I mean, the game was just like

Speaker: In production, it was like canceled twice and they just kept going.

Speaker: And like the company was companies were being acquired or whatever.

Speaker: So they just kept making it and hope that people forgot that it was canceled.

Speaker: It's it's it's it's really funny.

Speaker: But yeah, they they actually they got it out and it really changed changed the course of of gaming.

Speaker: I don't say that lightly because it is the game that inspired Jake Solomon.

Speaker: to become a game designer and ultimately jake solomon's big contribution is the remake of x-com uh which really relaunched that series in the modern day um it's and it's it's pretty faithful uh to the original in in a lot of ways and it changes it up in ways that are

Speaker: important and necessary.

Speaker: And, you know, Jake Solomon has since left Firaxis, but not before, you know, XCOM, XCOM 2.

Speaker: And one of my favorite games is

Speaker: of last year, which was Marvel's Midnight Suns.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: So he was in charge for those three games.

Speaker: He is off on his own thing.

Speaker: But, you know, I wish...

Speaker: With all the hours that I've dedicated to XCOM, both all versions, you know, I wish nothing but Julian Gallup and Jake Solomon and everybody involved.

Speaker: Nothing but the best in their careers.

Speaker: And Julian Gallup actually had an XCOM-like game that he released a couple of years ago.

Speaker: Which one was that?

Speaker: Phoenix Point, I want to say.

Speaker: Oh, gosh, I remember that.

Speaker: I never played that.

Speaker: I never got to play it, but it was not everybody's cup of tea when it came out, but I think it was patched to be something better over time.

Speaker: But yeah, so that's the game that we're talking about, XCOM.

Speaker: And forgot the point of XCOM is you are running a covert game.

Speaker: military operation that is contributed to by all the nations of the earth.

Speaker: And your one and only duty is to stop UFO invasions.

Speaker: And it was inspired by, there's like a few, there's like a TV show on it.

Speaker: What was, I forget the name of the TV show.

Speaker: It might've been UFO.

Speaker: Um,

Speaker: or something like that.

Speaker: It's in the video that I made.

Speaker: Go watch the video that I made.

Speaker: Go watch the video Kevin made.

Speaker: Just go watch the video.

Speaker: Just trust me on this.

Speaker: It'll slate your curiosity for the history of XCOM.

Speaker: With that all being said, what do you say?

Speaker: Should we put the body in the marsh?

Speaker: Let's put the body in the marsh.

Speaker: I spent all fucking night dragging the poor bastard in there.

Speaker: Tell me how they found him so fast.

Speaker: So we start chapter one.

Speaker: A very good place to start.

Speaker: It's a very good place to start.

Speaker: And we're in a terror mission right off the bat.

Speaker: Thrown into the deep end.

Speaker: Terror mission in Ravenna, which is in Italy.

Speaker: And the aliens are doing a terror mission in Ravenna, killing people, blowing up history.

Speaker: And our main character at this point is an ex-com colonel by the name of Ari, who is overseeing the defense of the city.

Speaker: And over the next few pages, we get a lot of military stuff back and forth.

Speaker: Be like, I'm closing in.

Speaker: Oh, I'm shooting.

Speaker: Blah, blah, blah.

Speaker: You know, that kind of stuff.

Speaker: That non-character military action filler jargon.

Speaker: I would say it's not that interesting to read.

Speaker: It's not like...

Speaker: It's not like what's his name from the Halo books who writes like those damn good naval battles where you get really.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Eric Nyland who writes those naval battles that you're like, fuck yeah.

Speaker: But yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, it does feel very much right off the bat like a transcript of a game of XCOM, which honestly, there are times in this first chapter and that first battle, this first scene where that could work, actually, you know, transcribing a battle from XCOM.

Speaker: There are worse things to base your story on, but it leaves a lot of assumptions in there.

Speaker: It's very clear right off the bat.

Speaker: Excuse me.

Speaker: Jesus.

Speaker: that you are to have played this game to understand what's going on.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: We get alien soldiers and troopers mentioned with very little in the way of description.

Speaker: Sometimes there are... The mutons and the sectoids and the... There's not a whole lot of... Yeah, let's not stop and...

Speaker: and describe them, it's like, ah, they're mutants are hulking.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: We all know what's happening here.

Speaker: We all know what a mutant looks like.

Speaker: It's like, well, maybe we don't.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: I will say, though, that the strangest aspect of this fight.

Speaker: Hey, there's a munchkin.

Speaker: Hey, munchkin.

Speaker: Hey.

Speaker: I think the strangest thing in this, and Kevin, did you ever, you played the original XCOM, yeah?

Speaker: Sure did, yeah.

Speaker: And it, I've never played it, but I adore XCOM Enemy Unknown and XCOM 2.

Speaker: They're just MVP games for me.

Speaker: I still come back to them constantly.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: They are difficult games.

Speaker: And the story, the legend, the lore, if you will, among older grognards like us, is that XCOM UFO Defense makes those games look like a walk in the park in terms of difficulty.

Speaker: Yeah, in terms of complexity, definitely.

Speaker: And frustration.

Speaker: Because XCOM UFO Defense is...

Speaker: There's multiple levels to it.

Speaker: Just like the other ones, there's two levels.

Speaker: There's base management and there is the actual combat.

Speaker: But neither of those things are tutorialized

Speaker: In a way that really... Obviously, I think it's one of those things where if you had the instruction manual, you'd be fine.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: But if you are somebody who just didn't happen to have the instruction manual or whatever, and you're playing it, it was one of those games that was very complex in terms of like... The base building level reminded me... You ever play Aerobiz...

Speaker: No.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: It's a it's a Koei game where basically you managed airports and like airports and like airline like connections and things like that.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: It reminded me of that where it was like very spreadsheet-y.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: So yeah, very, oh, what's that?

Speaker: What's that MMORPG that is super spreadsheet-y?

Speaker: The science fiction one that everyone goes... Oh, EVE Online?

Speaker: Yes, EVE Online, very deep group of nerds filling out spreadsheets and shit.

Speaker: And not to that extent, but just enough to make...

Speaker: my like little kid, not great at math brain be like, Hmm.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And, and even in the user friendlier version, that's been coming out in the past 10 years or so, those versions of the game, the four axis versions, um,

Speaker: Um, it, there's still a lot of frustration, even, even in the earlier levels and that sort of thing, you, you do get to a point where you feel real cocky and confident.

Speaker: And then, uh, you start somehow missing 95% sure things.

Speaker: Um, the math and that is bullshit.

Speaker: And, uh, but yeah,

Speaker: This opening battle is a steamroller.

Speaker: They absolutely kick the aliens ass.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: They talk about like taking several ethereals hostage.

Speaker: Yeah, they take two ethereals.

Speaker: Like one guy single handedly does that.

Speaker: Single handedly.

Speaker: And like just just dozens of dead mutons and all this.

Speaker: And it's just as a guy who has played at least the later versions of these games, I was like,

Speaker: what are you, are you playing on like ultra, ultra, ultra easy mode?

Speaker: Like how the fuck this does not sound.

Speaker: Are you playing with cheats on?

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: You got God mode on or something.

Speaker: It does.

Speaker: It's.

Speaker: It does swing to a somewhat more bitter conclusion, I guess.

Speaker: But it still feels like a real home run for the humans right off the bat, which is not generally how these kinds of books begin.

Speaker: Usually we get them into an underdog situation.

Speaker: Yeah, there's no underdog situation in the first two chapters here.

Speaker: I'm just spoiling that right off the bat.

Speaker: So one of the things I noticed that passes for humor in these opening pages is like,

Speaker: A standard military tough guy talk, as well as like malapropisms.

Speaker: And the one that that made me shut the book was let's not count the chicken before it's home in the fridge.

Speaker: And I'm like, fuck off.

Speaker: You know, shit.

Speaker: Shut up.

Speaker: No, it's like and it's like I know this is 1995 and maybe it's it hasn't become cliche yet to to use malaprop isms for humor.

Speaker: But it's, you know, it was clever when in 1985, when when you have Biff Tannen doing it and back to the future.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Like, yeah, like make like a tree and get out of here.

Speaker: You know, things like that.

Speaker: But, and I seen it, this isn't the first book and I'm sorry, I'm sorry Diane for picking on this one.

Speaker: It's just that we've read, there's been a bunch of them over the past two years where somebody will say a malprop, like an author will put a malpropism in there for humor when there's no, it's never, like the correct version is never addressed

Speaker: It's only funny if somebody acknowledges that it's stupid.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I think that's something people forgot.

Speaker: She's hardly the first person to do that.

Speaker: It's something that they started like just, it's just funny because they're saying it wrong and that's going to have to do.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: It's going to have to do.

Speaker: You don't have future Biff being, you know.

Speaker: Whitty.

Speaker: Leave.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You don't have him screaming at his past self.

Speaker: Like a tree and leave.

Speaker: Like, you know, yeah, you don't have that.

Speaker: You sound like a moron.

Speaker: I love that movie.

Speaker: I haven't seen that movie.

Speaker: It's so long.

Speaker: What?

Speaker: Part two?

Speaker: All of them?

Speaker: Any of them.

Speaker: Just watch.

Speaker: Just throw them on and watch them all.

Speaker: Has Emily watched them?

Speaker: That's a very good question.

Speaker: We have been going through a big trilogy thing lately.

Speaker: So that could be... Back to the Future trilogy might be worth it.

Speaker: That could be worth it, yeah.

Speaker: That's just advice for everybody out there.

Speaker: Yeah, that's good medicine for all of you, really.

Speaker: That's good chicken soup for the soul right there.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: is the Back to the Future trilogy.

Speaker: Because guess what?

Speaker: Back to the Future Part 3, it slaps.

Speaker: I don't care what you say.

Speaker: It's a Western and it's fun.

Speaker: It's pretty good.

Speaker: It's got ZZ Top in it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's fine.

Speaker: The rest of the movie's good.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Guys, look, you know, we have, we have, we, you know, we're old enough to remember when, um, return of the Jedi was the shitty star Wars, you know, things, things, things could get a lot worse.

Speaker: So just, just take, take your third movie in a loved trilogy that you thought maybe was a bit lower quality than the rest and hold it close to your, to your bosom and thank it to your dear dead heart.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Thanks, Christopher.

Speaker: It could be worse.

Speaker: It could be Godfather Part 3.

Speaker: Yes, it can always be Godfather Part 3.

Speaker: It can always be worse.

Speaker: And so comparing Back to the Future Part 3 to a lot of other trilogies, end of trilogies, come on.

Speaker: It's pretty far up there on my book.

Speaker: Yeah, I couldn't argue with that if I wanted to.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So the other thing that was that actually made me LOL a little bit was referring to the mausoleum as a giant tit.

Speaker: That was pretty funny.

Speaker: That was pretty.

Speaker: Yeah, we've got we've got one one trooper asking the other one over the radio where over the comms.

Speaker: Where are you?

Speaker: I'm hiding under the giant tit.

Speaker: That's a mausoleum.

Speaker: You fucking moron.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Pretty funny.

Speaker: Actually pretty funny.

Speaker: That's a good moment.

Speaker: That is a good, kind of dumb soldier line right there.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Super colonial Marines style.

Speaker: Colonial Marines.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Love it.

Speaker: Good stuff.

Speaker: Is good joke.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Is good joke.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: At some point there's a line and I forget if it's in this part or the next part, but there's a line about the previous terror attack on Rome and how the Colosseum is rubble and the Pope is underneath it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: They just threw that in there.

Speaker: Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Speaker: Why was the Pope at the Colosseum?

Speaker: They just threw that in there.

Speaker: It's not referenced again.

Speaker: At least it's just the Coliseum went down with the Pope underneath it.

Speaker: Like what?

Speaker: Why?

Speaker: How?

Speaker: Why are we telling that story?

Speaker: That sounds really interesting.

Speaker: How did the Pope?

Speaker: Why did the Pope end up in the Coliseum?

Speaker: Yeah, your climax is the Colosseum.

Speaker: Somehow the Pope standing on top of a pile of sectoid corpses shooting like stolen alien technology, like Chewie at the end of Vector Prime, just fucking...

Speaker: That's what, where's that book?

Speaker: Holy shit.

Speaker: I would read the book out of that.

Speaker: The Pope fending off an alien invasion and become, and getting crushed like Chewie at the end of vector prime.

Speaker: Why not?

Speaker: That's, that would be metal as fuck.

Speaker: Um, and that's the thing.

Speaker: That's the thing.

Speaker: You know, Phil and I are not religious, but we do realize that it only takes like one degree of, of subversion to make, uh,

Speaker: some of that shit metal, you know?

Speaker: Yeah, it's true.

Speaker: It really just like, boop, and I'm like, oh, wow.

Speaker: Mm-hmm.

Speaker: To borrow something from Hess, now that would be bitching Van Art.

Speaker: Exactly, yes.

Speaker: It's... Oh, boy.

Speaker: I mean, you know, that's the thing.

Speaker: I've got my issues with the Catholic Church, as I know you do, Kevin, but it's difficult to not describe it as metal.

Speaker: It's pretty fucking metal.

Speaker: So, just for all the wrong reasons.

Speaker: Aesthetically.

Speaker: Aesthetically, it's very metal.

Speaker: Blasphemous, the video game.

Speaker: Metal.

Speaker: Metal's fuck.

Speaker: Metal's fuck, bro.

Speaker: So there's a lot of names and they're mostly unmemorable first names.

Speaker: I have a problem with everybody using their first names.

Speaker: It's like Bobby and Timmy.

Speaker: Especially with a military kind of thing.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: There's no call signs.

Speaker: It's not last name.

Speaker: It's just...

Speaker: you know, names.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So there's some concern over someone named Doris.

Speaker: And then when she shows up.

Speaker: Which what the hell?

Speaker: Doris.

Speaker: Doris, you know, XCOM's deadliest Doris.

Speaker: XCOM's deadliest.

Speaker: She's the she X. Doris was a sniper.

Speaker: Her her nickname was was dead.

Speaker: Eye Doris.

Speaker: She was from Iowa.

Speaker: I'm making all this up, by the way.

Speaker: Dead.

Speaker: I actually, when you said that, I was like, I was like,

Speaker: Was that in that?

Speaker: I missed that.

Speaker: That sounds actually pretty cool.

Speaker: No, but that would be pretty badass, right?

Speaker: So Doris shows up and she's clearly mutating from a chrysalid implant.

Speaker: Like her arm is melting or whatever.

Speaker: And she's like going.

Speaker: And she attacks Ari.

Speaker: And meanwhile.

Speaker: Back home at the ranch.

Speaker: Our other main character, Jonel Barrett, is the commander of the XCOM outpost in Earhill Mogoun, which is a mountain in Morocco.

Speaker: And she's lingering over a letter she got recently promoting her to be the commander of a new base in Switzerland that she will construct and use to oversee European operations.

Speaker: And she's also listening in on the mission.

Speaker: And we get a lot of backstory about how she was promoted from Colonel to a commander to take over this failing base.

Speaker: She's like throwing darts at the old commander, a photo of the old commander because he let things get so bad.

Speaker: She did a full on Elon Musk and sold everything and fired all the staff pretty much.

Speaker: Yeah, this section is actually where I think because I think the the author's intent gets pretty good.

Speaker: I don't care much for the writing style itself.

Speaker: It's a personal thing.

Speaker: It feels a little rushed.

Speaker: But I think that this section of the book actually exemplifies the.

Speaker: Xcom in a nutshell, it's actually some really solid adaptation because you don't think about the fact when you're playing Xcom that you are earning money and selling things on the black market.

Speaker: But it's just kind of a standard issue shit for a video game.

Speaker: You know, I bought leather armor in the last village, but they've got chain mail now.

Speaker: So I'm going to sell the leather armor and buy chain mail.

Speaker: It's just something you do without thinking about it.

Speaker: But she actually addresses the fact that this is a worldwide possible calamity, like an invasion from a hostile alien force.

Speaker: And she had to come in and get her capitalism on to make things work.

Speaker: It's kind of hilarious and actually very, it's very good for the game.

Speaker: She says something like,

Speaker: Like I had to sell a bunch of sectoid corpses on the black market.

Speaker: And she's like, I don't know what they're using them for.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Snuff films, maybe.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: She has no idea.

Speaker: She has no.

Speaker: She just knows that she makes a certain amount of money at pop and they need that cash.

Speaker: So, yeah, she comes in and just has a fucking garage sale.

Speaker: And when she gets things up and running, she's like, we're really good at making laser rifles.

Speaker: Like we have a surplus of laser rifles in our in-house factory and we sell those.

Speaker: And like, she's just waiting for the day when a country, a country's leader gets overthrown with laser rifles that she created in her factory.

Speaker: It's amazing.

Speaker: She actually said, she's like, yeah, we're kind of creating an Al-Qaeda situation here.

Speaker: We're just like, but we need them.

Speaker: We'll deal with that after the aliens are gone, I guess.

Speaker: It's...

Speaker: Actually, like, yeah, kind of.

Speaker: That would be a strange, that would be a beautiful, like, spiritual sequel to XCOM where it's like aliens are gone, but you have to deal with the aftermath of all that shit.

Speaker: And there are revolutions.

Speaker: There's revolutions and terror groups.

Speaker: And it's like the terror attacks aren't aliens anymore.

Speaker: It's just people who fucking stole, you know, alien tech and are using it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: White Christian nationalists have like UFO tech now and the Midwest is fucked.

Speaker: Like that's some fascinating shit.

Speaker: Like that's, that is a really interesting notion.

Speaker: And I don't think we're going to get into it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Get Ron Perlman to narrate that opening.

Speaker: You know, it's like Iowa, Iowa never changes.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's it's I don't.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So I don't think we're going to address them in this book, but she hits on some really fascinating ideas that really pull the context of the game into a laser focus.

Speaker: It's very interesting.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So I wish we were just with Jonel like the entire time.

Speaker: I mean, I guess developing Ari is important because he seems like he's one of the main protagonists of the story.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But that whole stuff with Jonel was a lot more interesting than the battle sequence.

Speaker: It's it's fascinating.

Speaker: It is a fascinating look into the world we're dealing with here.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So we get back to the terror mission and Ari was saved by everyone in the squad shooting Doris.

Speaker: And then the chrysalid thing that came out of her.

Speaker: The squad ends up getting pinned down by a bunch of alien dudes, but they really can't see anything.

Speaker: They make it very clear that even with...

Speaker: like night vision goggles, their eyesight is still worse than like the aliens natural vision at night.

Speaker: So they're like, they're getting pinned down, but they're not really sure where they're shooting from.

Speaker: And so there's a scene where Ari borrows money from people.

Speaker: He's like, I got an idea.

Speaker: That's right.

Speaker: And so he's like, anybody have, it was like 200 lira.

Speaker: It would have been lira then, right?

Speaker: And they're like, no, I got, somebody's like, I got pesos.

Speaker: And another person's like, I got francs.

Speaker: And he's like, ah, you're all useless.

Speaker: So he gets the money and he's like, oh, you guys got to cover me.

Speaker: and everybody's trying their best to cover him, and he just runs out in the middle of this square.

Speaker: He starts running towards a church.

Speaker: He gets into the church, and he puts the money into this lighting setup, and it lights up the whole square.

Speaker: There's just lights turn on everywhere, and suddenly the XCOM squad is able to see where the aliens are located, and they just wipe them out.

Speaker: And, you know, huzzah.

Speaker: Heck yeah.

Speaker: One of the squad members, Elisabetta, is like, hey, how did you know that was in there?

Speaker: And Ari is like,

Speaker: A gentleman never tells.

Speaker: And then, you know, we actually get into the fact that Ari and Janelle are in an inappropriate workplace relationship.

Speaker: They took a vacation together to Ravenna.

Speaker: Really inappropriate.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: They took a vacation together to Ravenna, and that's when they saw it.

Speaker: Ari doesn't say that to anybody, but...

Speaker: That's why he knew because he had been there before.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And this is the first of two times in this section of the book that something in my brain flashed, oh, sounds like our author had a vacation in Ravenna recently.

Speaker: It's so specific.

Speaker: And like that, that totally, I haven't looked it up.

Speaker: I haven't, but that exists.

Speaker: I have to believe that that exists.

Speaker: And Diane Duane went out with her husband or with some friends or whatever to Ravenna and went, oh, for 200 lira, you hit the thing.

Speaker: And it lights up the whole square.

Speaker: And she wrote that down and put it in her pocket.

Speaker: It's so specific that I refuse to believe that that isn't real.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So we get to chapter two.

Speaker: We're at the base and Janelle is giving Ari a right chewing out for being really dumb and taking a risk by turning lights on and determines that because of this, she can't trust him to be commander of the current base when she leaves and that he has to come with her.

Speaker: There's no other reason.

Speaker: No reason whatsoever.

Speaker: No, of course not.

Speaker: Smooth, real smooth lady.

Speaker: Ari's like, I understand your decision.

Speaker: And then Janelle is like, all right.

Speaker: let's go look at these maps.

Speaker: She has all these maps of Switzerland laid out.

Speaker: Um, and they're sorting through the maps to find the best spot for a new base, uh, which is going to seem like pointless by the end of this chapter.

Speaker: Um, she also mentions that if he doesn't get his act together, he'll be managing the fake base.

Speaker: That is their UN cover rather than have any XCOM duties.

Speaker: Um,

Speaker: So there's a little moment where she's like, did you know the Chevrolet logo was based on the shape of Switzerland?

Speaker: This is where we start to get stupid.

Speaker: And I was like, I didn't know that.

Speaker: And Ari's like, oh, I guess it kind of has like four blobby areas.

Speaker: So I had to look it up because I was like,

Speaker: So no one actually knows the origin of the Chevrolet logo.

Speaker: There are several theories.

Speaker: One is that it's based on the Swiss flag, which is just a cross.

Speaker: The other is that it was based on a wallpaper pattern that the founder saw in a hotel room.

Speaker: And he tore it off the wall and is like, this is cool.

Speaker: And like, I want my logo to be this.

Speaker: And another is that he was just doodling

Speaker: you know, logo ideas at the dinner table.

Speaker: According to his daughter, he was just doodling logos at the dinner table one night.

Speaker: And and that was what he landed on.

Speaker: That was it.

Speaker: So I've not I have not I didn't find a single theory that it was based on the actual shape of Switzerland.

Speaker: No, of course not.

Speaker: So, it's too easy.

Speaker: Anyway.

Speaker: It's such a random fucking moment.

Speaker: And we're getting a lot of these.

Speaker: It's padded.

Speaker: It feels like Tarantino dialogue.

Speaker: It's like...

Speaker: This is not a long book.

Speaker: This is a 240 page book.

Speaker: This is actually one of the shorter novels we read among the ones we've read.

Speaker: And it's already adding in like, again, Tarantino-esque asides that do not come back up again, are kind of pointless.

Speaker: And it's just, again, I think someone had a little vacation and had some trivia to share with friends, families, and readers.

Speaker: It comes out of nowhere and it feels really weird.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: They land.

Speaker: They decide on a place called Andermatt.

Speaker: Don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: Somebody will tell me and decide that that's probably the best place to go.

Speaker: Janelle talks about how a lot of the mountains are hollow in Switzerland for military purposes.

Speaker: This is also not really a thing.

Speaker: This is also bullshit.

Speaker: Okay, so I looked it up, and, like, the Swiss, because they have so many goddamn mountains, they have done a lot of, like, tunneling through mountains and, like, digging out the base of a mountain to use as, like, a hangar or something like that for airplanes.

Speaker: It's not like...

Speaker: they actually hollowed out a mountain.

Speaker: You know what I mean?

Speaker: It's not like real construction inside of a mountain.

Speaker: Yeah, it's not James Bond villain ship.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Yet.

Speaker: We know what you're up to, Swiss.

Speaker: Um, so, uh, still at the base.

Speaker: Then they go for a walk.

Speaker: Uh, Ari and Janelle are walking around talking about the people that they're promoting to Colonel and taking with them as well as watching.

Speaker: What the fuck was this game?

Speaker: They're watching a game called crud.

Speaker: Oh yeah.

Speaker: From the description seems to be full contact billiards.

Speaker: Um,

Speaker: that's a stretch.

Speaker: Cause they're just using the billiard balls to like what they have.

Speaker: It's two billiard balls, one that's on the table and the other one that people are basically fighting over physically fighting over to hurl at the one on the table in order to knock it into a pocket.

Speaker: This is just being drunk and there happens to be a pool table handy.

Speaker: I've played this game.

Speaker: Uh,

Speaker: It's not a game.

Speaker: It's just I'm drunk and there are two balls on the billiard table and oops, I have a concussion.

Speaker: Like that's what we called the game.

Speaker: Oops, all concussions.

Speaker: I wanted to ask you because you have played the original.

Speaker: Is this a reference?

Speaker: Is this a thing?

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: Again, I just and it's never brought up again.

Speaker: Yeah, other than Janelle was the best at crowd ever.

Speaker: Right, yeah.

Speaker: Fucking Mary Sue bullshit.

Speaker: I suppose she's a Jedi master, too.

Speaker: Woke, pandering garbage.

Speaker: Look, men and women should just be equal, is all I'm saying.

Speaker: It felt really dirty.

Speaker: I didn't feel good about that.

Speaker: My stomach hurts.

Speaker: Yeah, like a sergeant gets a billiard ball thrown at his head.

Speaker: And the author even makes a point of going, it's totally not on purpose, you guys.

Speaker: Wink.

Speaker: What the fuck, man?

Speaker: It's like we get a glimpse into how Animal House the XCOM project is.

Speaker: It really felt like we were like, all right, well, this is just like some random ass most icely cantina bar game that they're playing.

Speaker: Yeah, it really does.

Speaker: So weird.

Speaker: Figrin Dan and the modal nodes are over there in the corner playing their jizz.

Speaker: Jizz.

Speaker: I had to explain that to Emily that the music and that is jizz.

Speaker: It's jizz.

Speaker: It's not jazz.

Speaker: It's jizz.

Speaker: And then one of the

Speaker: Oh, it was the scene in the first of the new trilogy where they go into the little, the criminality den out in the middle of nowhere.

Speaker: They're playing.

Speaker: It's basically meant to stir up the images of Mos Eisley Cantina.

Speaker: And Emily looks right at me and goes, they're playing jizz.

Speaker: And I was like, I love you so much.

Speaker: You fucking nailed it.

Speaker: Do do do do do.

Speaker: Play that song again.

Speaker: Play it again.

Speaker: Just keep looping it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Anyway, so Ari guesses that she's going to leave DeLonghi in command because he was up for it alongside her and is a bit of an asshole.

Speaker: But the good kind.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Like, oh, this kind of ass.

Speaker: So they talked to the guy who's like, yeah, I captured two ethereals by myself.

Speaker: And I'm like, no, you didn't.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: That feels very suspicious.

Speaker: No, you didn't.

Speaker: Sus.

Speaker: Sus, yep.

Speaker: And there's a lot of description about how ugly that dude is.

Speaker: He was the kind of ugly that stopped most fights before they started because nobody wanted to find out how he got that way.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: I didn't need to feel bad for this guy this early on.

Speaker: All right, fine.

Speaker: Fuck it.

Speaker: Whatever.

Speaker: So they're going around and they walk to the science area, the science-y area.

Speaker: Science.

Speaker: And all the scientists are sleeping, except for the guy that they're going to talk to, Trenchard, who's the head of research.

Speaker: And they're going to ask him about coming with them to look at the new location.

Speaker: And he's excited, but he says, okay, I can't go for more than two days because he doesn't want to leave his assistants rudderless for too long.

Speaker: And he's in the middle of researching the ethereals, which he thinks are the aliens in charge, and trying to figure out how their big old brains actually function metabolically.

Speaker: Because he's like, it doesn't make sense.

Speaker: They don't seem to intake enough calories to actually...

Speaker: work that thing right like basically all of their organs are atrophied their their limbs don't work not it's just but but yet uh they make it work with that big ass brain of theirs

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So they're off to Switzerland and it is cold there.

Speaker: It's cold outside every morning.

Speaker: What is this, Miami Beach?

Speaker: Miami Beach?

Speaker: Put your little hand in mine.

Speaker: Anyway.

Speaker: Anyhow.

Speaker: How's everyone doing?

Speaker: Y'all having fun out there?

Speaker: Good.

Speaker: Oh, gosh.

Speaker: We're back to the future.

Speaker: Groundhog's Day.

Speaker: We're just rolling out classes.

Speaker: It's a reference episode, ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker: It's a clip show, everybody.

Speaker: It's a clip show.

Speaker: Call it, people.

Speaker: So they meet up with their Swiss intelligent liaison named Kony, who is there to give them the real estate tour.

Speaker: And apparently Swiss intelligence has no official name because they're super secret.

Speaker: I didn't bother looking that up.

Speaker: I didn't look that one up either.

Speaker: I'm just going to take them at their word.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Fine.

Speaker: That's fine.

Speaker: I'm sure lots of research went into this.

Speaker: So why not believe them?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: They ride a helicopter to a train station and then that train takes them into a mountain.

Speaker: And whoa, it's like Batman all up in there.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And then they hop.

Speaker: They hop into an elevator and they ride two men's to the top.

Speaker: And oh my gosh, the whole top of the mountain is hollowed out.

Speaker: Like, it's a perfect base.

Speaker: Why wouldn't Kony just skip the step of making Jonel pick out a location or whatever?

Speaker: I guess agency?

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: That's just my notes word for word.

Speaker: Why did she have to do the whole thing with the map to begin with?

Speaker: Why didn't Kony just be like, oh, I know a perfect place.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: This is it.

Speaker: Done.

Speaker: Easy.

Speaker: It's like, he's the Switzerland expert.

Speaker: Simple.

Speaker: Finished.

Speaker: So she's like, we'll take it.

Speaker: And then Ari's like, hey, is this pole still work?

Speaker: We'll sleep here.

Speaker: What's this swing?

Speaker: You know, try it out.

Speaker: Try it out.

Speaker: I just need now.

Speaker: We now need to watch Ghostbusters.

Speaker: I just got to.

Speaker: Clearly.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: The chapter ends with Adrian saying to Rocky win.

Speaker: Sorry.

Speaker: I mean, Coney saying to Jonelle, kill them all.

Speaker: It's the most intense real estate agent moment we have, because at this point, this guy, I know he's intelligence and everything, but it really does feel like he's just a real estate agent where he's just like, well, if you look over here, there are four bathrooms.

Speaker: uh and uh this could be a nursery and yeah it's that kind of thing and then and then it's like okay great you need anything for me kill the motherfuckers kill them dead stop their guts out feed them their children like okay jesus all right bake their children into a pie and feed it to them it's that was the idea we were gonna i am titus andronicus

Speaker: See, Lavinia, see what I do for thee.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's pretty messed up.

Speaker: But it's just kind of random out of nowhere.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Oh, you get a Titus reference in there.

Speaker: I'm really pleased.

Speaker: I'm not going to lie.

Speaker: That feels really good.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I felt good.

Speaker: I feel like my MFA wasn't wasted.

Speaker: It's not wasted.

Speaker: We're doing a podcast.

Speaker: How could it be wasted?

Speaker: Of course.

Speaker: That's all an MFA can be for anymore.

Speaker: Master of podcasting arts.

Speaker: The F is silence.

Speaker: Yes, yes.

Speaker: It's a PH.

Speaker: M-P-F-A.

Speaker: Podcasting.

Speaker: M-P-F-A.

Speaker: Kill me.

Speaker: Anyway, that's the first two chapters of this book.

Speaker: I mean, we've been given our thoughts as we've gone, but.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: How are you feeling heading into the next two thirds of this book?

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: I'm very of two minds about this.

Speaker: On one hand, there's been a lot of groundwork that's been set here that could lead to something really interesting.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: But I've said that about books after the first third of them.

Speaker: So many books on this show.

Speaker: Kind of a lot.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And I don't think it usually works out.

Speaker: So there are so many interesting ideas that have been thrown down that I don't think are gonna get any more attention than this.

Speaker: And it does feel very much like, with respect to Diane Dwayne, because clearly she's a fucking pro.

Speaker: Like she's got a hell of a resume.

Speaker: Uh, this feels rushed.

Speaker: It feels padded.

Speaker: It, it, it, it, it's almost like a Michael stack pole situation where we were really excited for his take on dark souls.

Speaker: And then it was like, what is this going on?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You've got somebody who has serious, legitimate chops.

Speaker: And you're like, oh, you needed to pay for a house.

Speaker: Got it.

Speaker: I understand.

Speaker: There was a job.

Speaker: You clicked.

Speaker: You said yes.

Speaker: And then that's pretty much the extent of it.

Speaker: And that's the thing.

Speaker: For any of you who've been listening to us for this long, we give these authors shit.

Speaker: I will admit happily, I wish I was in a position for a couple of, you know,

Speaker: middle-aged tools to get on and be like, this feels like a rush job.

Speaker: And I can go, yeah, motherfucker.

Speaker: And it paid for a car.

Speaker: Like, like I don't, yeah, that's,

Speaker: I wish I was in that position.

Speaker: I wish I had the opportunity to fuck around through an adaptation of a book.

Speaker: Absolutely.

Speaker: Munchkin 2.0.

Speaker: Hey, she is.

Speaker: She's getting comfy now.

Speaker: Yeah, she knows she's a part of the show.

Speaker: She knows.

Speaker: There she goes.

Speaker: Just a face.

Speaker: Just a big old...

Speaker: Big old grin.

Speaker: Yeah, I agree.

Speaker: I feel like there's a lot of stuff that is like could be cool, could be not cool.

Speaker: I don't have a lot of faith in the action writing sequences of this book.

Speaker: And it also feels like what they're setting up here ought to be in a much longer novel.

Speaker: Yeah, because we're a third of the way through and we're, you know, we're just getting a base.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, it's like almost like this should have been chapter.

Speaker: And we say this so often is like, this probably should have been chapter one.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So happens a lot.

Speaker: Happens a lot with this show.

Speaker: Happens a lot.

Speaker: It's but I think that's obviously the benefit of, you know, hindsight is looking back on these works and and being able to identify and

Speaker: And I think also, you know, we've kind of honed our edge on these adaptations, I think, a little bit.

Speaker: I mean, it's been two years.

Speaker: We've read a ton of them.

Speaker: We've started to see patterns that maybe... Yeah, there's patterns.

Speaker: And like, this book started too early.

Speaker: This book started too early.

Speaker: And that's a common thing.

Speaker: That's like a common issue we've run into is just starting too early in the story.

Speaker: It needed to pick.

Speaker: We need to pick up a little bit later.

Speaker: So I don't know.

Speaker: Um, we'll see.

Speaker: We'll see how the rest of it turns out.

Speaker: It's a short book.

Speaker: It's easy to read.

Speaker: We're still, we're still giving you, it's still going to be three episodes, even though it's a short book.

Speaker: We're trust us.

Speaker: We like making, we were trying to keep it three episodes.

Speaker: If we had a 30 page book, we would do tip 10 pages at a time.

Speaker: That's not true.

Speaker: And it's, it's verifiably untrue, but verifiably untrue.

Speaker: We did that with, uh, with Evelyn from, uh, I am.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So that's absolutely untrue.

Speaker: Uh, but, but it, it, it is, it, it is at least an easy read and I don't think I'm not trying to sound condescending.

Speaker: It's, it's just, it's a, it's not, uh, bogged down too much in bullshit.

Speaker: It's a, it's a page turn.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker: With all that being said...

Speaker: What are you playing?

Speaker: Oh, I'm so glad you asked.

Speaker: I beat Bramble, the Mountain King.

Speaker: Fantastic.

Speaker: Just a great overall experience.

Speaker: If you like your insides, if you like your brothers, a tale of two sons, these kind of

Speaker: Fantasy, fairy tale, horrifying consequences kind of story games.

Speaker: I highly recommend it.

Speaker: I really enjoyed it.

Speaker: And the final boss was really fun.

Speaker: And it has a happy ending, despite how bleak it is at a lot of moments.

Speaker: But it is equal parts whimsy and just sheer folk horror.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Which I love.

Speaker: That makes me happy.

Speaker: That is my aesthetic of choice.

Speaker: If you can be evil and cute at the same time, I love you.

Speaker: So I beat that.

Speaker: That was great.

Speaker: And I have also started playing Amnesia, The Bunker.

Speaker: Oh.

Speaker: Which you got me.

Speaker: I did.

Speaker: For our two-year anniversary.

Speaker: As an anniversary present.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: And I've been talking to our friend Pim about this one.

Speaker: Pim, who is an excellent YouTuber who talks quite a bit about horror games and that sort of thing.

Speaker: They're just wonderful people.

Speaker: And we've kind of been bonding a little bit over this.

Speaker: And I asked Pym today, would it be weird if I said that this is kind of, I think the best amnesia game?

Speaker: And Pym made it clear, he's like, I don't totally agree with you, but I see where you're coming from.

Speaker: And it's because I really enjoyed the first Amnesia.

Speaker: I wasn't as huge of a fan as Machine for Pigs.

Speaker: And I haven't played, as we discussed, I haven't played the one that came before this.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: But this feels like the best use of your amnesia.

Speaker: Like it's got all the stuff that made the first game work.

Speaker: It's got, you know, amnesia.

Speaker: It's got really interesting flavor text that you find throughout the game.

Speaker: It's got madness and all kinds of good stuff, but it adds in this self-contained bunker that you are in a lot of back and forth, back and forth.

Speaker: It's almost like, in a weird way, it's like a horror Metroidvania.

Speaker: Oh, that's cool.

Speaker: It's really interesting because you got to go get an item to open this thing and do this to get to that thing and go back and forth and back and forth.

Speaker: And while you're doing that, you're keeping a generator running because you're being hunted by a horrible creature that lives in the walls.

Speaker: Very alien isolation.

Speaker: You got to listen to the sound effects.

Speaker: You have to hear it creeping.

Speaker: You have to pay attention to where it is.

Speaker: It digs holes like a rat and there are holes throughout the place and you can find boxes to kind of shove them up against the hole.

Speaker: I don't know if it's effective or not.

Speaker: But it is fun.

Speaker: It is really, really fun.

Speaker: And I think there's some replay value to it.

Speaker: It's just a very effective use of puzzles and atmosphere.

Speaker: And World War I, which is an underrated war in terms of your horror atmosphere.

Speaker: Yeah, World War I, fucking terrifying.

Speaker: Yeah, the whole thing starts with you in the trenches, like running through the trenches stuff.

Speaker: You're picking up things, crafting them.

Speaker: You've got a gun, but you're literally picking up one bullet at a time.

Speaker: And it is not to use to scare away the monster, although you can use it.

Speaker: Again, very, very similar to Alien Isolation.

Speaker: Scratch is a very similar itch.

Speaker: There's some jank.

Speaker: There is some indie game jank, I won't lie, but it's worth it.

Speaker: And the other thing that does bug me a little bit, they love saying on the loading screens, they'll say things like, there are multiple solutions to everything here.

Speaker: If you can try, experiment, if you can...

Speaker: Think about it.

Speaker: If you can come up with it, you can probably do it.

Speaker: And I just want to go, okay, guys, there's a chained up door that I threw a grenade at and it didn't blow up the chain.

Speaker: And I understand that you want me to get the fucking chain cutters from this puzzle and blah, blah, blah to make it work.

Speaker: But let's not start sucking each other's dicks over.

Speaker: Oh, this is immersive.

Speaker: It is.

Speaker: No, it's not.

Speaker: It's not.

Speaker: It's a very, very solid horror game.

Speaker: But you have not created Deus Ex.

Speaker: So let's all just chill out.

Speaker: Stop sucking each other's dicks right now.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: It just, it's just very, it is a really, really solid horror game and that's enough.

Speaker: It doesn't have to be this like, oh, but you know, ooh, you could, you really can't.

Speaker: There aren't that many solutions to these puzzles.

Speaker: It's pretty straightforward.

Speaker: Having said all that, I'm really enjoying it.

Speaker: I'm enjoying the hell out of it.

Speaker: It's great.

Speaker: But most, sorry, go ahead, go ahead.

Speaker: You finish your thought.

Speaker: I was just going to say the last game that I played.

Speaker: Okay, just to comment on World War I being horrific.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Metallica did a music video for their song One.

Speaker: And spliced into that video are scenes from a film called Johnny Got His Gun.

Speaker: And that is about a World War I movie.

Speaker: veteran who comes back from the war with no arms or legs, eyes, ears, nose or mouth.

Speaker: He is just trapped in his own body.

Speaker: And it's like that kind of like that kind of stuff from one is like terrifying.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So, yeah, Johnny got his gun.

Speaker: I still want to I want to watch the movie.

Speaker: I've never seen it.

Speaker: Trumbo.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, it's Dalton Trumbo's first and only movie that he directed.

Speaker: Oh, I didn't know that.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: He didn't.

Speaker: I mean, he wrote a bunch of stuff.

Speaker: Oh, well, yeah.

Speaker: But the only movie he directed was Johnny Got His Gun.

Speaker: And it's starring Timothy Bottoms and, oh, Jason Robards.

Speaker: I love me some Jason Robards.

Speaker: Nice.

Speaker: In my films.

Speaker: He's in my favorite Western of all time.

Speaker: What's that?

Speaker: Once Upon a Time in the West.

Speaker: Oh, that's a good one.

Speaker: I haven't seen that one in years.

Speaker: Oh, so good.

Speaker: So good.

Speaker: Here's my recommendation.

Speaker: Go have yourself Trilogy Night.

Speaker: Go watch some.

Speaker: And then do a wildcard trilogy of...

Speaker: do a wild card trilogy of the, uh, of the Lee of Leone Westerns, just like pick three, you know, and my recommendation would be, would be, um, uh, I, I would, I would definitely recommend throwing once upon a time in the West in there.

Speaker: It's an amazing movie with, you know, it's got Chuck Bronson in it.

Speaker: He doesn't really have to speak much, which really plays to his strengths.

Speaker: Sure.

Speaker: Not talking.

Speaker: Just staring.

Speaker: And it has Henry Fonda playing a villain, which at the time, yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You know what?

Speaker: I don't think I have.

Speaker: I think I'm thinking of Fistful of Dollars.

Speaker: Yeah, no, you might be.

Speaker: No, check out Once Upon a Time.

Speaker: It doesn't have Clint Eastwood in it.

Speaker: Yeah, okay.

Speaker: It's Charles Bronson, Jason Robards, Henry Fonda, and Claudia Cardinal, who... I gotta check that out.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You'll fall in love with Claudia Cardinal a little bit.

Speaker: I'm sure.

Speaker: Here's another recommendation for you people.

Speaker: Oh, well, the last game, as you well know, that I played was HeroQuest.

Speaker: Oh, yes.

Speaker: Yeah, because Kevin and his family came to visit up here in old South Carolina, and they came over, and his kid was saying, do you got a board game we can play?

Speaker: And I said, ah, because I mostly have geek board games and that kind of thing.

Speaker: And she took one look.

Speaker: I was like, well, come over here.

Speaker: Let's take a look at the game closet, see if anything piques your curiosity.

Speaker: And I don't think I told you this, Kevin, but I took her over there, and she looked, and it just went.

Speaker: You could see in her face.

Speaker: I was like, what the?

Speaker: fuck is all of this?

Speaker: Like, okay.

Speaker: And I, and I said, well, there's, there's this one.

Speaker: And I, cause HeroQuest, for those of you who don't know, is a board game that originally came out in the mid, early mid nineties.

Speaker: And it's a cooperative dungeon crawl, D and D light kind of experience.

Speaker: And it's very simple, very easy to play.

Speaker: And, and I thought she might be the right age.

Speaker: And I was like, well, do you want to play this?

Speaker: We can try that out.

Speaker: And she was like, yeah, sure.

Speaker: And by the end of it, the girl was role playing unbidden,

Speaker: was coming up with ideas of things that her character was doing and everything.

Speaker: And so me and Kevin and his wife and his daughter played HeroQuest and got wiped.

Speaker: We got party wiped, baby.

Speaker: We got totally party wiped.

Speaker: We just opened too many doors, let out too many nights, and it didn't work out for us.

Speaker: Well, that's the thing is like, I think it was, I think we were either going to get wiped.

Speaker: I think we're going to get wiped regardless because we didn't have enough, our spell casters didn't have a lot of spells left.

Speaker: We're pretty relatively low on hit points and we just weren't getting, we're getting some bad luck of the draw on room searches.

Speaker: We were we got we got a lot of wandering monsters and you got hit by two traps in a row.

Speaker: I got hit by a few traps and yeah, and that shaved some points off.

Speaker: But yeah, I did kill one of the chaos nights or whatever they're called.

Speaker: Oh, yeah.

Speaker: They have a different name now.

Speaker: They have a different name, but you know, it's one of the one of the chaos space Marines.

Speaker: I killed it.

Speaker: Pretty much.

Speaker: Real nasty motherfuckers.

Speaker: Real nasty one too.

Speaker: We can keep this going, people.

Speaker: We can keep this going.

Speaker: We can keep this going forever.

Speaker: And that's the thing.

Speaker: I don't even know if anyone else realizes that that's a Ghostbusters reference.

Speaker: It's just the intonation.

Speaker: The intonation makes a big difference.

Speaker: You get the real Ackroyd into it.

Speaker: You've got to get that full Ackroyd into it.

Speaker: Full, full Canada Ackroyd in there.

Speaker: Just, ah, the nose.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, it must be some Twinkie.

Speaker: So...

Speaker: what I've been playing.

Speaker: Aside from Hero Quest.

Speaker: And that was an amazing time.

Speaker: That was so much fun.

Speaker: We've been looking at getting it ourselves just because it w as a lot of fun to play.

Speaker: And Camilla had a blast.

Speaker: She really liked it.

Speaker: I was not sure.

Speaker: With kids, you know, with cooperative games, they want to beat somebody.

Speaker: Yeah, it really could.

Speaker: But she had a blast.

Speaker: She had an absolute blast.

Speaker: Let's see.

Speaker: What have I been playing?

Speaker: I'm still playing the System Shock remake.

Speaker: I didn't actually play that much because we were traveling.

Speaker: You know what I have been playing?

Speaker: And I forgot to mention that I beat Power Wash Simulator.

Speaker: Oh, wow.

Speaker: You beat your relaxation time game.

Speaker: I beat my relaxation time game.

Speaker: Oh, it's tragic.

Speaker: It's tragic.

Speaker: There's some bonus levels, but I rolled credits and then I was like,

Speaker: I guess I'm done.

Speaker: Or am I?

Speaker: Yeah, I beat Power Wash Simulator.

Speaker: So it's like, all right, well, what's another game?

Speaker: And I picked up, it's like House Flipping Simulator or something like that.

Speaker: Okay, so you can get a lot of the same...

Speaker: A lot of the same dopamine hits.

Speaker: It doesn't control as well as Power Wash Simulator, but it's fine.

Speaker: Did you ever play Lawn Mower Simulator?

Speaker: I haven't.

Speaker: I got that one last year and really enjoyed the let's throw on a podcast and mow this rich guy's lawn aspect of it.

Speaker: I really that might that might tickle something proper.

Speaker: That might that might really that might really.

Speaker: Oh, that might be the what I'm.

Speaker: Yeah, that might be what I'm feeling.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: upgrade your lawnmower and you know you gotta you start out by doing a little recon you go through make sure there aren't any toys or rocks or anything in the tall grass yeah it's it's pretty relaxing i put i put a an upsetting amount of time into that one yeah recommended by one friend and that is you that is me

Speaker: That is me.

Speaker: This game is not for everyone.

Speaker: It's barely even for me, but worth a look.

Speaker: Here's your review.

Speaker: That's my review.

Speaker: Yeah, this is just on my path.

Speaker: This is just on my path to settling into eventually playing Euro Truck Simulator or...

Speaker: I love it.

Speaker: I haven't played Euro Truck Simulator or American Truck Simulator in a while, but I have very fond memories of those games.

Speaker: It is very, very zen.

Speaker: I quite enjoy those games.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So that might be where I'm going with my gaming is just slowly down that rabbit hole of just like...

Speaker: You're either playing that or from software games.

Speaker: It's either that or something that is notoriously difficult.

Speaker: There's really no in between for me.

Speaker: It's either difficulty or I'm just gonna do everyday tasks, but on my Steam Deck.

Speaker: That's flawless.

Speaker: I love that for you.

Speaker: I think that makes so much sense, actually.

Speaker: I've known you for a long time, and that is it.

Speaker: You nailed it.

Speaker: That's perfect.

Speaker: I love it.

Speaker: It's like hardcore dad mode is what it is.

Speaker: I feel like I didn't dad enough today.

Speaker: I got to dad some more before I go to bed.

Speaker: It's more dad again.

Speaker: I got some more dad in me today.

Speaker: I didn't build anything.

Speaker: No power tools today.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So I think my point with my problem with house flipper is that it doesn't necessarily control that well with a controller.

Speaker: It's one of those games where like, yeah, it probably is better with mouse and keyboard.

Speaker: You got to play those games with a controller.

Speaker: You got to lean back.

Speaker: Just like this.

Speaker: Just like...

Speaker: There's like a little head tilt, you know.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Mouth open.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: If a moth can't like land on you without noticing, you're doing it wrong.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: You're playing too hard at that point.

Speaker: Playing too hard.

Speaker: And no one wants that.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's like, I should just make a meme of myself where it's like leaning back and it's like sim games and then leaning forward, it's FromSoft.

Speaker: That's it.

Speaker: Oh, God.

Speaker: Well, this has been a heck of an episode.

Speaker: But before we go, we have a Patreon.

Speaker: Actually, a slight update.

Speaker: I'm changing the URL of the Patreon to patreon.com slash pixelitpod.com.

Speaker: Because that brings it in line with literally every other thing that we're on.

Speaker: I didn't want to make the change until I announced it in an episode.

Speaker: But going forward, if you're looking for us on Patreon, it's going to be patreon.com slash pixelitpod.

Speaker: And yeah, go there.

Speaker: It's a great website.

Speaker: It's a great website full of great things.

Speaker: We've actually recently announced a super exclusive book that we are getting ahead of basically everyone to read for this summer.

Speaker: And the only way you can find out ahead of time what we will be reading is to be a Patreon subscriber.

Speaker: And you know you want that special knowledge.

Speaker: You know you want it.

Speaker: And you know what?

Speaker: If you want to take part in our polls and get access to special bonus episodes that we're going to be rolling out soon.

Speaker: We recorded while we were in person last week, we recorded some special bonus episodes that are going to be for our sweet, sweet baby patrons.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: So look forward to it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's fun.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: A dollar, a dollar a month.

Speaker: You can afford a dollar a month.

Speaker: You can afford a dollar.

Speaker: You're buying the video games for $50 a month.

Speaker: So.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And so are we.

Speaker: And we need your money to keep doing that.

Speaker: To help us do that.

Speaker: And then you start a Patreon for your thing to get games for your purpose.

Speaker: And then she starts a Patreon and they start a Patreon.

Speaker: And it goes deeper and deeper and deeper.

Speaker: Before you know it, the snake is deep-throating its own tail just down as far as it can go.

Speaker: It's called a Patreon Ouroboros.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And it goes far enough that it winks out of existence.

Speaker: Yeah, so, I mean, this is just really a ploy to end the universe.

Speaker: I'm looking forward to that.

Speaker: That's going to be a lot of fun.

Speaker: It should be a lot of fun.

Speaker: Let's get this gravity out of here.

Speaker: You know, speed of light.

Speaker: Who needs it?

Speaker: I don't need any constants.

Speaker: Let's get these constants out of my face.

Speaker: I'm sorry, laws of thermodynamics.

Speaker: You're not welcome here anymore.

Speaker: You're not welcome here, metaphysical constructs of space and time.

Speaker: No, no, just end it all.

Speaker: We're good.

Speaker: Shake my fist at you.

Speaker: Give me the neither warm nor cold embrace of the void.

Speaker: Can't wait.

Speaker: Really looking forward to that one.

Speaker: Really looking forward to it, but that'll do it for tonight's episode.

Speaker: Aside from Patreon, please go check us out on Twitter and Instagram at PixelitPod on our website, PixelitPod.com, where you can sign up for our newsletter and we'll have special things coming through the newsletter.

Speaker: Don't you worry about it.

Speaker: And aside from all of that,

Speaker: please leave us a like or a five-star rating or a whatever on whatever podcast platform you're listening to.

Speaker: And if there's a comment box, just comment like, hey, Pixel, it's the best.

Speaker: Capisce?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You don't have to go into like great detail or just like chef's kiss or something.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You know?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: That's all.

Speaker: That's all we need to do.