Transcript
Speaker: It was abrupt.
Speaker: It was definitely abrupt.
Speaker: Um, and it kind of makes sense if you've played the game in the sense of like, they took the game takes it, uh,
Speaker: an extra couple of steps further than the book does.
Speaker: So they kind of had to just like, and the ghost came out and took care of it.
Speaker: Like, that's it.
Speaker: You know, it's, it was very abrupt.
Speaker: The end.
Speaker: Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker: I mean, it's, it's not, it's, it doesn't, they don't, they don't like, they don't take anything clever with it.
Speaker: They're just like, and it doesn't work and he's dead.
Speaker: Like it does kind of just abruptly end.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know what else abruptly ends?
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome back to Pixlet.
Speaker: My name is Kevin.
Speaker: With me as always is Phil.
Speaker: On today's show, we're finishing The Seventh Guest.
Speaker: It actually does kind of abruptly end a lot of times.
Speaker: I do cut off the cutoff bit quite a bit at the end of the episode.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: I mean, it's fun.
Speaker: It's fun.
Speaker: The people love it.
Speaker: The four people who wait until the very end of the episode.
Speaker: They love it.
Speaker: Yeah, it's it's we're finishing seventh guest.
Speaker: And but first, before I tell you about seventh guest, I want to tell you about the seventh best website in the world, and that's patreon.com slash pixel at pod.
Speaker: It's a wonderful website where you can go and join.
Speaker: You can join it for free, right?
Speaker: But also you can pay us money.
Speaker: And when you pay us money, you get things out of that.
Speaker: Mainly just the love and affection from us.
Speaker: But also we have three tiers and each tier grants you more stuff, more goodies.
Speaker: The top tier is
Speaker: gets your name shouted out in every episode.
Speaker: So I would like to shout out Jesus Loves You, Kyle Seaman, Ruthless Mudder, Middle of Things, Sigma Sal, Chet Beaks Dumbath Thick, and Langolier, as well as Friendly Friend.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: Thank you for being a friend.
Speaker: Uh, so, yeah, that's, that's, that's, uh, that's the Patreon spot for tonight.
Speaker: Um...
Speaker: We're finishing up this book.
Speaker: I think it's going to be an interesting ending based on... Oh, yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We marsh this motherfucker.
Speaker: We marsh this motherfucker.
Speaker: So let's put the body in the marsh.
Speaker: Let's do it.
Speaker: Body.
Speaker: Marsh.
Speaker: Now.
Speaker: When I tell you to dump a body in the marsh, you dump them in the marsh.
Speaker: We start off at chapter 23.
Speaker: Our young street urchin Tad finds Temple in the game room where he had been freaking out before.
Speaker: We left him having a panic attack because he's kind of realized what the plan here is.
Speaker: He's intuited it somehow.
Speaker: Temple properly freaks the kid out and the kid runs.
Speaker: Showing that tab might be the most logical and thoughtful person in this entire book.
Speaker: The only one who acts like a real human being.
Speaker: Yes, exactly.
Speaker: Yeah, we come to Eleanor and Temple.
Speaker: They find a doll room.
Speaker: It is it is filled with dolls and the dolls are they contain the souls of the dead children and they've been gathered and they find out through them that they've been gathered there to do a sacrifice.
Speaker: It will require the sacrifice of this.
Speaker: And let me let me be let me be specific.
Speaker: Let me be clear.
Speaker: Um, it is that it, these dolls contain the souls of the dead children.
Speaker: The dolls start talking to them and it is awful.
Speaker: Yeah, it is.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: It is the only scene in this book that made my skin crawl a little bit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Is that these, it was like, oh, the, the toy dolls that the kids had, they,
Speaker: The kids died because the dolls like sucked their souls out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The, the, the, the, the dolls act as like a plus 10 vampirism curse object basically.
Speaker: It just drained them and just took their souls into them.
Speaker: And it's, I mean, that's, it's properly spooky.
Speaker: It really is.
Speaker: It, it, we get, we get a handful of those moments.
Speaker: It's pretty interesting to the point where we've got another book from this author coming up that is also got some opportunities for spooktacular spooktacular.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I'm looking forward to seeing how that that goes.
Speaker: We got to we are at Chapter 24.
Speaker: Dutton solves a coin puzzle.
Speaker: It's another one of these instances where it's like a puzzle and it's just kind of they don't give us really any specifics.
Speaker: We just know that he solves it.
Speaker: Yeah, he solves it.
Speaker: And I'm like, OK, this is one of the last times they do this.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: Thankfully, because I got my eyes kind of glaze over as as they talk about the puzzles.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I went through a I watched most of a playthrough of this game because it's been a very long time since I played it just to get up to snuff on the original source material.
Speaker: And I got to say, there are like three, maybe four of these moments in the book, and they had lots of opportunities to do this.
Speaker: They shouldn't have done it at all.
Speaker: But they could have they really could have worked that shit into the ground.
Speaker: So thank you for your restraint, guys.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I suppose.
Speaker: One guy to write the puzzle, one guy to make it worse.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: That's pretty much it.
Speaker: So Dutton finds an altar room where the choir sound that he that drove him batty a few episodes ago was coming from.
Speaker: Here we go.
Speaker: He solves a floor trap.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: That's like he steps on the wrong color and it like shocks him or whatever.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And it's like hurting him.
Speaker: It's this pain thing.
Speaker: You know, I liked to think of it as the, the floor trap and, and last crusade with like electricity or something like that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I did actually imagine Dutton going Jay and just busting through the, the floor, even though that wasn't in the book.
Speaker: I, I still, I, I gave myself that, that little treat.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So he makes his way to the center of the altar and he sees a vision of Stauf as this high priest, like full on Anton LaVey velvet robes, high priest kind of guy.
Speaker: And he's given this glimpse of the good life that he'll get if he agrees to sacrifice Tad.
Speaker: And he's given a knife to to to.
Speaker: do the deed, I suppose.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: To figure it out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He would be a lot cooler if he was Anton LaVey, though.
Speaker: That would be that would be at least interesting.
Speaker: That would be this guy.
Speaker: This guy's just kind of they're all kind of schlubby villains.
Speaker: Honestly, that's the thing.
Speaker: Stauf, we don't see enough of him to feel particularly threatened by him.
Speaker: And these other people don't really do it for me.
Speaker: So at least LaVey would have some level of at least some level of like pretentious menace.
Speaker: Uh, you know, something, but, uh, not, no, no doing that.
Speaker: Uh, right.
Speaker: Done here.
Speaker: Um, we do, but speaking of stuff, we do, uh, cut back to him and his, his, I it's either a camera room or he's like over a cauldron, uh, like Skeletor style and just like seeing all this shit.
Speaker: I just imagine he's doing the thing from Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, where she's like, she's spitting into the thing and scratching it with her nails.
Speaker: I have seen a death.
Speaker: The painted man.
Speaker: He haunts my dreams.
Speaker: And Alan Rickman is like, what do you say, witch?
Speaker: I like that movie.
Speaker: It's not a good movie, but I like it.
Speaker: It's not a good movie, but I got it.
Speaker: I feel like I need to rewatch it.
Speaker: It's it's fun.
Speaker: If you come to it with an open mind, Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves was the 89 90.
Speaker: I remember seeing it.
Speaker: It was the summer of I got to look this up now.
Speaker: Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves.
Speaker: I know I was over.
Speaker: We were in Germany.
Speaker: 1991.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And I was it was we're we're down the shore.
Speaker: I forget which beach we were going to at that time for summer vacation.
Speaker: But yeah, I remember, you know, us going to see it in the movie theater.
Speaker: It's like one of those early memories.
Speaker: I guess I would have been seven years old when it came out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think we did a similar thing.
Speaker: We were on base and it was one of those old military theaters where it's just an old-fashioned theater with one screen and this is the movie we're showing this week.
Speaker: I think that's what we did.
Speaker: And yeah, I still have really fun memories of that movie.
Speaker: It's still it's fun.
Speaker: It's not good.
Speaker: Again, not good.
Speaker: Not a good movie.
Speaker: Not a good movie, but it's Kevin Costner.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: He really tried it.
Speaker: Not trying.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: His his his lack of effort was was very willful and filled with effort.
Speaker: He yeah, he tried it, not trying.
Speaker: And it was a beautiful thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Watch.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Watch Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves.
Speaker: I want to hear what hear what you think.
Speaker: And Christian Slater was Will Scarlet in it.
Speaker: He's Will Scarlet.
Speaker: And he tries to do an English accent, as I recall.
Speaker: It's not good, but at least he made the effort.
Speaker: Yeah, but I appreciate Christian Slater.
Speaker: And I always thought the name Will Scarlett sounded cool.
Speaker: That was my brother's stance as well.
Speaker: That was his favorite character.
Speaker: He thought he was the coolest.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think I probably because he was here, probably because he was played by Christian Slater.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, probably.
Speaker: Because Christian Slater, I don't know if you guys know this.
Speaker: But Christian Slater had like a certain level of effortless cool that he had when he was the word for it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: When he was a young actor.
Speaker: I mean, he's still cool.
Speaker: 90% of that is just his very unique voice.
Speaker: This kind of like like junior Jack Nicholson thing that he does.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: People because they do trot him out now.
Speaker: And he has he's got this level of cachet now that I think Zennials and everybody else is starting.
Speaker: They're starting to be introduced to it in a small way.
Speaker: But but some of you don't realize how big of a goddamn deal he was for about 18 months.
Speaker: He was for a year and a half.
Speaker: That motherfucker was huge.
Speaker: He was a big fucking deal in 1991.
Speaker: Big fucking deal.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, big time.
Speaker: Big time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He follows up Robin Hood Prince of Thieves with Mobsters, where he played Lucky Luciano.
Speaker: Oh, fucks sake.
Speaker: That's hilarious.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He had a voice in Fern Gully.
Speaker: Yeah, it was then he was in 93.
Speaker: He was in True Romance.
Speaker: He looks great.
Speaker: He has not aged a fucking all this talk about Paul Rudd.
Speaker: He looks fantastic.
Speaker: Yeah, he was he's in the new Dexter, the Dexter prequel series.
Speaker: Oh, Dexter original sin.
Speaker: He plays Dexter's dad, Harry Morgan.
Speaker: Oh, fun.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Who was played by what?
Speaker: Fuck.
Speaker: What's his name in the original?
Speaker: A fan of the show.
Speaker: Fan of the show.
Speaker: Friend of the show.
Speaker: A guy that we've referenced a bunch of times.
Speaker: James Remar.
Speaker: There we go.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: James Remar.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Lovely.
Speaker: Lovely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's he's I'm glad he's working.
Speaker: He's he's a.
Speaker: he's a, he's a pretty talented dude and he's, and he's, he's cool.
Speaker: You're right.
Speaker: It, it was, it was young guns with him.
Speaker: That was a big one.
Speaker: Um, pump up the volume was very big.
Speaker: Uh, uh, true romance.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then, yeah, then you've got like Fern Gully and things like Broken Arrow and Cuffs and shit like that.
Speaker: I didn't know that I knew so much about his filmography.
Speaker: Yeah, it's he and he played.
Speaker: Here's something for us to actually look into is he was Edward Carnby in the Alone in the Dark adaptation.
Speaker: Yes, he was.
Speaker: Yes, he was.
Speaker: What was that?
Speaker: That was like mid 2005.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Christian Slater, a guy who never stops working.
Speaker: He's in like seven movies every year and also TV shows.
Speaker: The dude keeps it tight.
Speaker: He's got a guy.
Speaker: He's got, he is a working goddamn actor.
Speaker: Good for him.
Speaker: Good for you, Christian Slater.
Speaker: Anyway, back proud of your buddy.
Speaker: Anyway, back to seven guests.
Speaker: We cut to stuff.
Speaker: Watching, watching old, old.
Speaker: So that was that was watching people to let's let's let's work that out because somebody is going to ask those those staff watching people to the witch in in Robin Hood.
Speaker: Prince of Thieves.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: To Scarlet to brought us to Scarlet, Christian Slater, Christian Slater.
Speaker: There we go.
Speaker: There it is.
Speaker: Here we go.
Speaker: Here we go.
Speaker: We got it.
Speaker: We got this.
Speaker: We know where we know where we're going.
Speaker: There's a whole reason we're doing this.
Speaker: This is all premeditated.
Speaker: So we get we get another one of these internal self monologues, you know, where he's like, oh, you just imagine you do kind of get the witch vibe from Prince of Thieves.
Speaker: It's just this kind of like craggy old man.
Speaker: And we get an internal monologue about him needing this sacrifice and how the kids souls are going to make him more powerful.
Speaker: And it only begins with this and all that.
Speaker: And how his old name was shit house.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Just more Robin Hood.
Speaker: More Robin Hood.
Speaker: Men in tights.
Speaker: Because unlike certain Robin Hoods, I can speak with an English accent.
Speaker: That's a good one.
Speaker: That's a really good one.
Speaker: We cut back to Tad.
Speaker: He's trying to find his way out.
Speaker: We get a lot of Tad moments in this last third of the book where it's like him seeing spooky shit.
Speaker: Like, it's just like you'll get like a page and a half of Tad.
Speaker: And in this case, he's seeing a piano playing itself.
Speaker: And then the chapter ends with him getting grabbed from behind.
Speaker: And chapter 25, we start off again with Stauf.
Speaker: He's
Speaker: He's I love this moment.
Speaker: He basically he's sitting around considering how much easier life is when you're just allowed to play games and not deal with a wife and kids.
Speaker: And I felt attacked in that particular section.
Speaker: Because they literally is like kids and games and puzzles are really where it's at.
Speaker: It's like, can I can I stop?
Speaker: Can I put down the whole murdering children thing?
Speaker: Just a second to talk about how much I love Trivial Pursuit.
Speaker: I just really want to talk about that for a second.
Speaker: And we get, we get, we find out this is, this is his big incel moment.
Speaker: Me and Kevin discussed this.
Speaker: This is, this is the moment where he peak incel.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Peak incel.
Speaker: We find out why he picked the people he did specifically.
Speaker: And it's, it's, it's gone from, it goes from, uh, you think you're better than me, uh, to just full message board, eight Chan incel bullshit.
Speaker: Uh, and, uh, he's like, and it, it's, it's,
Speaker: It's not so crazy until it gets to the women.
Speaker: Big surprise.
Speaker: You know, we talked about the one guy who's like, well, he's got debt.
Speaker: He's easily manipulated.
Speaker: And that other guy, he's a businessman and he'd crush people underfoot if he got the chance.
Speaker: And the magician, he just thinks he knows everything.
Speaker: And then he's like, and Martin thinks he's so fucking hot.
Speaker: She's a woman and she's hot.
Speaker: And she never would have paid attention to me, so she deserves to die.
Speaker: Like and then then poor Julia.
Speaker: Julie gets gets the well, Julie's just a drunk old bitch.
Speaker: I've got plans for her, though.
Speaker: We'll figure something out.
Speaker: So women are either just like, ah, don't worry about it, or they should die because I saw their whale tail that one time, and that was aimed at me in a malicious way.
Speaker: Malicious whale tail.
Speaker: Malicious whale tail.
Speaker: It's the best slash worst kind of whale tail.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Chapter 26.
Speaker: Brian Dutton is the one grabbing Tad from behind, and he's ready to give him up to Stauf.
Speaker: That's the whole plan.
Speaker: He's dragging him up towards the room at the top of the house, I guess, where Stauf is hiding out, which he just knows.
Speaker: Edward Knox and Martine intercept him, and they want to take the boy.
Speaker: So we get, of course, what...
Speaker: other thing would happen in this moment, but a knife fight, a goddamn knife fight, straight up knife fight, straight up knife fight.
Speaker: Dutton's brought his knife and it knocks, gets it away from him and stabs him a couple of times.
Speaker: And and Tad runs away in the kerfuffle going on.
Speaker: And Martine pursues him.
Speaker: Tad makes a break for the basement.
Speaker: He figures that I've gone up far enough.
Speaker: Every place I go further up is locked.
Speaker: Let's go down to the basement because that's always worked out for people in the past.
Speaker: Chapter 27 Temple finds a portal door.
Speaker: It's yes, it's it's very vaguely talked about and it's never addressed again.
Speaker: Um, he just, he just walks into this one door and ends up in a completely different part of the house.
Speaker: Uh, it's, it's, it's per, you know, it's per the video game, but it's like, I feel like, I feel like we should talk more about that if you're going to include that.
Speaker: Um, anyway, but forget about all that the authors did, uh, he ends up in a mad scientist lab, basically.
Speaker: Um, uh, you can totally imagine it.
Speaker: That's just the, the old, like Frankenstein set with like the Tesla, uh, uh, lightning, you know, shit.
Speaker: It's, it's that kind of vibe.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Um, he's looking for tad.
Speaker: Uh, he finds a diary where staff has very, uh, considerably written out everything, everything from the exposition that we, he basically, you know what?
Speaker: He found this, he found a copy of seventh guest, the novel, uh,
Speaker: It's that scene in Spaceballs where they're like, we're going to watch the script.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Where they're like, we're going to watch Spaceballs on VHS.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's exactly it.
Speaker: That's basically what he does.
Speaker: It just gets him up to speed.
Speaker: We're looking at now, sir.
Speaker: Everything that's happening now is happening now.
Speaker: I totally expected like a never ending story moment where he starts reading.
Speaker: And then that, that meddlesome magician started reading my diary.
Speaker: What the fuck?
Speaker: And the nothing comes and takes them all away.
Speaker: That would be a better situation.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So basically the deal is that these voices are otherworldly beings.
Speaker: They want to enter the world.
Speaker: That's what the sacrifice is for.
Speaker: They're sick of working through people like Stauff and they want to come in themselves.
Speaker: And he's trying to set up a portal for them.
Speaker: And that's going to require the death of this seventh guest.
Speaker: And the other six are meant to basically assist him to to fight them.
Speaker: I got the impression that the other six people.
Speaker: Yeah, it was like, bring the boy to me.
Speaker: But it was also like, I'm going to throw these people in because I don't like them and fuck it.
Speaker: Let's see how many of them die on the way.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It feels a little personal.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: So we get another really random moment here where Temple sees a vision of a man operating on another man.
Speaker: And like, again, to continue the Frankenstein theme, like lifting a brain, he's sawed off the top of this guy's head and he lifts a brain out of a jar.
Speaker: And presumably he's going to implant it in this random ass guy.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And yeah.
Speaker: And Temple is.
Speaker: says no no none of that that's a distraction from what is important this is just ghost bullshit this is this is ghost gulf of america that's what this is it's a distraction from the shit that really matters and
Speaker: And just like the portal door, he leaves to go find Tad and it's never addressed again.
Speaker: It's never explained.
Speaker: It's just like, this is just some generic horror bullshit.
Speaker: I don't have time for it.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: I don't remember which one it was, but it's one of the Wayne's worlds where they're like, it's the climax and they're planning to pull off this big thing.
Speaker: And Wayne like says, walks into a warehouse and there are all these special forces people training and stuff.
Speaker: And they were like, what's this room for?
Speaker: He goes, oh, nothing.
Speaker: I've just always wanted to walk into like a clandestine operations room where like secret service agents are like training and shit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's kind of like that.
Speaker: It's just like this random moment of spooky.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It does become, as the book goes on, more and more of just like a haunted house kind of thing where you're walking through it and people jump out out of nowhere.
Speaker: There's no real plot to speak of.
Speaker: We got a munch.
Speaker: Hi.
Speaker: Hey, kid.
Speaker: How you doing, sweetie?
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: I'm glad to hear that.
Speaker: What are you up to?
Speaker: You would have been very pleased.
Speaker: Graham was up and kind of walking around a pretty significant amount today.
Speaker: She missed that.
Speaker: Bye-bye.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Bye-bye.
Speaker: She texted me the other day and she was like, is Graham walking around yet?
Speaker: And I was like, a little, a little bit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Anyway, yeah, it's it just becomes this haunted house thing where you're just walking on a path and people jump out and go, boo.
Speaker: And you go, OK, it's literally the haunted mansion.
Speaker: You're just in the haunted mansion at this point.
Speaker: That's pretty much it.
Speaker: With with with less money.
Speaker: With no windows and no doors.
Speaker: I do remember being on.
Speaker: Was that the which one was the one in Disney World that had the elevator, the haunted elevator thing?
Speaker: Tower of Terror.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: The Tower of Terror.
Speaker: I do remember being on that.
Speaker: And like the guy who was our host, like came out of nowhere.
Speaker: He had just been in the back behind like a curtain and he just kind of like walked.
Speaker: He like he did a good job.
Speaker: He like hovered in.
Speaker: You barely saw his feet move and it scared the piss out of this woman.
Speaker: To the point where she actually may have wet herself.
Speaker: She screamed and it scared the rest of us half to death because we didn't know what the fuck was going on.
Speaker: So it was and if I were that guy, I'd be like, oh, you I love you so much.
Speaker: You have set this whole thing off perfectly.
Speaker: It's perfect.
Speaker: It makes you know what it just reminds me of is this seeing the ring in the movies.
Speaker: And this would have been in Scranton in 2002, 2003 or something like that when I was at the University of Scranton.
Speaker: I'm in the back row.
Speaker: I'm watching it.
Speaker: And the scene at the end where Samara is coming out of the television.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Iconic scene.
Speaker: Iconic scene.
Speaker: The woman, there's this woman towards the front just runs out screaming her head out, just runs out of the theater.
Speaker: And we're like, oh, OK.
Speaker: And like 30 seconds later, she runs back into the theater, still screaming.
Speaker: to grab her jacket oh that's and runs back out screaming again good for her good for her she committed
Speaker: That woman committed committed to the screaming.
Speaker: No, nothing but respect for that.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: Nothing but respect for my scream queen.
Speaker: Nothing but respect.
Speaker: So we cut to Martine and Knox.
Speaker: They run after Tad, leaving Dutton to bleed out Martine.
Speaker: Martine resolves her big takeaway from this is I need to manipulate people more often.
Speaker: Yeah, th is is working well.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She literally says she literally like goes, oh, I didn't have to do any of the dirty work.
Speaker: I just talked to this guy in a murdering other dude.
Speaker: That's an unbridled level of power I have.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: And she just becomes the spookiest member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and just fucking like with her.
Speaker: shit.
Speaker: Uh, and I do have in the notes, good for her.
Speaker: Uh, because that's fine.
Speaker: Uh, that's probably for her.
Speaker: Uh, I hope she enjoys it.
Speaker: Uh, chapter 28, uh, Eleanor, uh, she is heading to the third floor to stop stuff.
Speaker: She knows he's up there.
Speaker: She knows that the, uh, someone's going to be heading up there with tad at some point.
Speaker: And she's basically going to like guard the door, uh, and try to try to stop.
Speaker: We get a lot of, um,
Speaker: Internal monologue from her about, like, how did my fucking life end up this way?
Speaker: I kind of loved it.
Speaker: I felt bad for her.
Speaker: Like, it was just it was actually some of the most relatable writing in the whole thing where she was just like, when did my husband become a jackass?
Speaker: It must have been before this, but I never noticed.
Speaker: I never realized it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She's like, I used to be independent.
Speaker: I used to have my own thing going and now I'm just in his.
Speaker: It's like I used to have dreams.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Go for it, girlfriend.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Do it.
Speaker: She's just so she's just we get a lot of a couple of pages, really, of her like wondering how the fuck did I end up with a cheating, murdering husband?
Speaker: That's weird.
Speaker: She finds the toy room and gets this feeling of evil power in the room.
Speaker: She hears children's voices begging for help from the.
Speaker: from the dolls there.
Speaker: And she's, she's trying to get through there and she starts to feel slower and bogged down until she realizes that she is being turned into wood.
Speaker: And she, it, it describes her clattering to the floor, which I loved.
Speaker: I thought that was great.
Speaker: Like a, like a dining room, you know, chair, you know, a dining, you know, just, just dropping to the ground.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Thought that was pretty cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was like, I was like, Oh, this is, Oh, how is this going to get reversed?
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Well, yeah, well, you mentioned in the last episode that this this this is just this is just the continuation of how fucking Stephen King this whole thing is.
Speaker: It's very Stephen King like that.
Speaker: That sounds to me like how King would off somebody like turning right to wood, turning them into a piece of wood where they fall over and wobble around.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And the only thing you hear people think people hear in the distance is.
Speaker: Bang.
Speaker: Like somebody drop a bowl.
Speaker: Her husband's like, Eleanor, no, she does make that sound sometimes.
Speaker: Chapter 29, Tad in the basement.
Speaker: He is running.
Speaker: Here's more, more haunted house shit.
Speaker: He runs past illusory corpses, coffins with their lids popping off and, and, and dead bodies, skeletons and shit, like all talking to him and threatening him.
Speaker: There's blood on the walls and he knows this is all fake.
Speaker: This is all fake.
Speaker: So he's trying to eyes straight ahead.
Speaker: Get the fuck out of here.
Speaker: He is intercepted by Martine and Knox, but not.
Speaker: But and they're about to drag him away, but not before Temple arrives and gets into a fight with Knox and appears to kill him.
Speaker: I read it.
Speaker: I don't because Knox has the knife now, but I don't.
Speaker: I read it twice.
Speaker: I didn't know.
Speaker: Yeah, no, he throws he kind of like judos, knocks his way.
Speaker: And what happens is knocks, stumbles, and I think he hits his head against the wall.
Speaker: Yeah, something like, yeah, it just wasn't.
Speaker: Yeah, it wasn't.
Speaker: Yeah, it's very abrupt and kind of like anticlimactic, especially based on how people have died in this and how they will continue to die.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Especially the next death.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Speaking of which, Martine fucking melts into a bottle of green goo.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So first, what happens is she like starts to like mutate and like it like turns into this like briefly turns into like this, like her skin starts peeling and her tongue grows out into this demon tongue.
Speaker: And she's like, and then she like starts melting and her skin's like bubbling and she just like falls apart into a pile of green goo.
Speaker: And it's like, it's really grotesque.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: It's nasty.
Speaker: And it just kind of, and after a guy dying from getting thrown against a wall too hard, it's, it's, it's a lot.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Stauf's face appears in the puddle and like winks at Tad, which is there.
Speaker: So the less said about that, the better.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We assumed Dutton had been had had died.
Speaker: He was he was he is bleeding out, but he was playing possum.
Speaker: So Knox and Martine would leave the.
Speaker: Uh, the, the hall that he's in and he sneaks away, uh, to his room.
Speaker: He finds his room on the, on, on the second floor.
Speaker: I want to say, uh, and inside he finds a suitcase filled with money.
Speaker: He says that there must be at least a million dollars in that.
Speaker: And he, uh, interprets that as like, this is, this is me getting paid, uh, by, by staff.
Speaker: This is my reward.
Speaker: I did good.
Speaker: And the bed is lush and beautiful and he's exhausted and very, very tired.
Speaker: I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that he's losing copious amounts of blood.
Speaker: So much blood.
Speaker: So much blood.
Speaker: And he does what we all want to do when we're bleeding out.
Speaker: He crawls into the big, fluffy king sized bed, gets under the covers and sees the frozen face of his long dead brother above him.
Speaker: And that's a that's a scene wrap on
Speaker: And then he just bleeds out.
Speaker: Yeah, just bleeds out, dies in bed.
Speaker: Good for him.
Speaker: Good for all of them.
Speaker: They all.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Temple and Tad Temple like gets Tad's trust.
Speaker: uh, uh, right in time to die.
Speaker: Uh, I'm going to skip.
Speaker: He's right in time.
Speaker: It's like, you know, right into just in time.
Speaker: And, and, and he's getting, he's getting Ted's, uh, you know, like we're going to get out of here.
Speaker: That's what I'm here for.
Speaker: I don't want to take you to the guy.
Speaker: And so Tad joins him.
Speaker: And then this like piano wire or something just kind of like, uh,
Speaker: flies out and like strangles him and lifts him like hang.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: A garrote basically like it's like a garrote comes out from the ceiling and hangs him and just strangles him to death.
Speaker: Strangles.
Speaker: Cuts his throat.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's it's yeah.
Speaker: The end of our show.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He just fucking fucking dies.
Speaker: And you find out it's it's Julia in a hidden compartment above the hallway that they're in.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's just it.
Speaker: And we cut to chapter 30 and we find out immediately that Julia is the one who did that because on orders from stealth, basically.
Speaker: So she retreats and she finds a mirror and sees herself in the mirror.
Speaker: And she's she's giddy with the idea of getting younger.
Speaker: And she starts to.
Speaker: rejuvenate in the mirror.
Speaker: Like she gets really young.
Speaker: She catches the Benjamin button disease and starts getting really young.
Speaker: And then it just, then it just keeps going.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Then she's like 12 and then she's like a kindergartner and then like she becomes a fetus and, and can't see or hear or speak or anything like that.
Speaker: And then pops back up and she's back to herself.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: and has this moment of like, okay, all right, I gotta go tell Stealth.
Speaker: I'm gonna tell him specifically where in that process to cut it off.
Speaker: He was just trying things.
Speaker: I understand that.
Speaker: I accept that.
Speaker: So she goes out and finds Tad and now it's her turn to gain his trust.
Speaker: And she does the whole kind of mother hen thing and, and Tad like trusts in her and she grabs him by the hand, starts leading him to Stealth.
Speaker: Chapter 31, Tad's getting suspicious and ultimately escapes Julia.
Speaker: He runs into the toy room where he finds Eleanor under a pile of toys.
Speaker: She is turning into a doll.
Speaker: Her arms and legs are just wooden sticks.
Speaker: Her face is normal.
Speaker: She can talk and she's begging him for help.
Speaker: And he gets the fuck out of there.
Speaker: He's like, I can't do anything.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He's correct.
Speaker: He is correct.
Speaker: But there's also like just a child.
Speaker: There is very little internal struggle, though.
Speaker: Like you expect anybody to look and go, what should I do?
Speaker: And like, I'm sorry, I can't.
Speaker: You know, he's just like, oh, I can't do this shit.
Speaker: He just fucking leaves.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah, he understands.
Speaker: Good on that kid knowing what's up.
Speaker: Like, yeah, hopefully that was what it was.
Speaker: And not just like, fuck you, bitch.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, that would not quite the kid we like.
Speaker: He is caught by Julia and she forebodingly takes him up the house's final flight of stairs.
Speaker: Cut to chapter 32.
Speaker: Our anonymous figure who we have off and on again, followed kind of ghostly character through the halls.
Speaker: We got a quick chapter with him.
Speaker: Watching Eleanor as she changes into a doll completely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And she kind of sees him somehow like she recognizes his.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: His presence.
Speaker: And what we understand what I understand is that this is supposed to be the player character.
Speaker: That's that's the impression you get.
Speaker: Like, and I'll tell you, this is yeah, this is this is where it becomes clear that that's what is happening.
Speaker: This is this is the character that represents who you play in the game.
Speaker: And I gotta say, that's a first.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's the impression you get, you know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So he knows not to knock on wood.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: He knows that that would be considered disrespectful, given the circumstances.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We get to chapter 33.
Speaker: More Stauf internal monologue.
Speaker: He's contemplating the gaps.
Speaker: If you ever knock a...
Speaker: Anyway, good night, everybody.
Speaker: This has been a great last episode of Pixel It.
Speaker: And I appreciate sometimes I find continuing the bit while you're talking is actually the best way to go about it.
Speaker: It's very satisfying.
Speaker: Don't don't.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And right away.
Speaker: No, wait.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: And give it a minute.
Speaker: Give it a minute.
Speaker: Give it a minute.
Speaker: Let it percolate.
Speaker: It's all about timing.
Speaker: It's all about.
Speaker: It's all timing.
Speaker: We get it's just more in time.
Speaker: I walked right the fuck into that one.
Speaker: I was a professional comedian.
Speaker: I mean, I was a professional comedian, but yeah, I walked right into that.
Speaker: We get more.
Speaker: He keeps staff is contemplating all the dead people basically just like kind of kind of giving himself kudos for for everyone being dead.
Speaker: Killed all these people.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: Good for me.
Speaker: I did good.
Speaker: I did good.
Speaker: I arranged all these deaths.
Speaker: He is Charlie Manson.
Speaker: He arranged all this without actually getting his own hands dirty.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Chapter 34, we cut back to the PC Tad ghost character watching everything unfold.
Speaker: And we start getting into...
Speaker: alternate histories it's very vague and not very well done um basically the idea is that i had to reread the page a couple pages because i thought i like did the page was there a no no it's it's it's just not very well done where basically the gist is
Speaker: is that this character is Tad.
Speaker: It's the person that Tad could become an alternate reality Tad, this ghostly alternate reality Tad.
Speaker: He's the man that he could grow into and he can intervene somehow and change history so that Tad doesn't get...
Speaker: murdered.
Speaker: And I think, I think, and maybe I'm giving them too much credit here, but the way I interpreted that was like when you play a game and you die a bunch of times before you get it right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's how I interpreted it.
Speaker: He's basically one of the guys that has been through this before with the player trying to finish this game, try to solve the puzzles.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like in a in a future in which Tad doesn't he comes from a future in which Tad survives.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But he's also stuck in this weird timey wimey bullshit.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's it's very vague.
Speaker: It's very vague.
Speaker: And basically, it's just like.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: It just feels like it's like.
Speaker: not super well thought out of a concept.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: It's if I, if, if, if we're, if we're right about that assumption on like what he's meant to represent that, that could be clever.
Speaker: There's something there, but it isn't it isn't executed well at all.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, yeah.
Speaker: So, uh, last chapter, chapter 35, Julia brings Tad to Stauff, um,
Speaker: Yeah, this is this is where we're getting like Tad's ghost man, like watching all of this happening.
Speaker: Stauf betrays Julia, pukes on her and she dissolves into the puddle of puke.
Speaker: Very Mortal Kombat 2.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like it.
Speaker: See, as she's sinking, it's literally like you betrayed me.
Speaker: It's like, yeah.
Speaker: Like, why is why is everyone always surprised in this moment?
Speaker: We do get an interesting moment here where I don't know where this came from, but Tad is looking at her and he refers to her ancient face.
Speaker: And I thought for a second that she was doing the age thing again, that she was like becoming a wizard.
Speaker: No, it's just that she's in her fifties and therefore she has an ancient face.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: uh i just i thought that's just looking at her and going yo bitch i mean that's it it's just the fucking mate she was on the mayflower this bitch is so old and it's it's i just thought that i literally in my notes wrote in quotes her ancient face that really threw me um so south uh uh
Speaker: has this prehensile tongue that comes out and is trying to grab tad with it and his teeth and mouth get bigger and bigger.
Speaker: It's it's it's night bearish, honestly, but also very vague.
Speaker: And the house starts to transform and tentacles are coming up.
Speaker: Basically, the house starts to look like the last level in Contra and just just everything coming out of nowhere.
Speaker: And the older Tad and Tad proper Tad, original formula Tad, older ghost Tad and Eleanor, a doll, a doll Eleanor and all of the dead kids start crying out for help.
Speaker: Yeah, they'll start demanding help.
Speaker: And somehow this triggers a weird rewind situation where it just it just you go back.
Speaker: We go back a little just like about five minutes and suddenly Julia gets off again and all this.
Speaker: And in this moment, somehow.
Speaker: uh, ghost tab convinces the children, the ghost children to join him in defeating staff.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And they, and they all kill staff and he's reduced to like a skeleton.
Speaker: And as tad young, tad runs out of the house, the sun comes up.
Speaker: The end.
Speaker: The end.
Speaker: The end.
Speaker: So, yeah, all the guests, other guests just fucking die.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Were they actually needed to be there?
Speaker: No, probably not.
Speaker: He just needed.
Speaker: He just needed Tad.
Speaker: Tad would have gotten there eventually.
Speaker: It's an old town.
Speaker: She would have been bullied going in.
Speaker: She would have checked it out.
Speaker: So, yes.
Speaker: And also, it's just like, let's take the agency away from the main the character, I guess.
Speaker: I guess.
Speaker: By having a future self version of it that doesn't.
Speaker: It's an interesting.
Speaker: There's something there.
Speaker: And it just, there wasn't enough time.
Speaker: Just out of reach.
Speaker: Because this is a 220 page novel.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And for something like this, you get the distinct impression that Prima, the publisher, said very specifically, look, we don't want it to be much more than a couple hundred pages.
Speaker: Paper's expensive here in 1995.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You get the impression that they didn't they weren't allowed to go as much into it as they were.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And Prima was a walkthrough publisher.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think they still are.
Speaker: I think they still exist.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I thought so.
Speaker: I mean, that might just be Prima guides.
Speaker: Oh, their website is still active and their websites.
Speaker: Yeah, they is.
Speaker: They are present tense on Wikipedia.
Speaker: Look at that.
Speaker: Look at that.
Speaker: Their parent company is gamers.
Speaker: Gamers Group.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't know if they still make.
Speaker: Well, maybe they do.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But this is this is a rare fiction piece from them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I don't.
Speaker: I wonder if it's, it's, it's one of two things.
Speaker: Either the authors wanted to get into something very meta, right?
Speaker: Very clever.
Speaker: Uh, uh, and they just didn't have the time or they got chopped down to, to, you know, nothing on, on the details.
Speaker: Um, or they had an idea and they just went, fuck it.
Speaker: I'm on deadline.
Speaker: I I'm done.
Speaker: Here's, here's, yeah, here's, here it is.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: Thank you very much.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: Having said that,
Speaker: I'm going to just kind of restate what I said last week with this one.
Speaker: I admire a lot of the adaptational choices made in this book.
Speaker: Sure, yeah.
Speaker: There's a lot here that is genuinely creative and genuinely clever in terms of taking it from a video game to a book.
Speaker: If you've played the game or watched the game on a long play or something like that,
Speaker: There's a lot of stuff that's left out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And as it should be.
Speaker: Like the fact that the fact.
Speaker: So like if you if you watched a long play, you would notice that the game, like all the guests are already dead and it's just ghosts kind of reenacting their deaths sort of in like you're a ghost going through and trying to fix some ghost bullshit.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Whatever.
Speaker: You know, as much as I know about the game, you're like, oh, they're all ghosts people, I guess.
Speaker: And that's a pretty big one, but it makes sense for what they were trying to do here.
Speaker: We
Speaker: mentioned the voices they exist uh in this other alternate world and they want to come over here the game ends with you in that world you actually go through into this other dimension uh to solve puzzles in their world to beat them at their own game i guess right so there's a lot that is left out and i think i think in a in for the best properly for the best absolutely um
Speaker: That is not the same as it being good.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's interesting.
Speaker: Kevin, ultimately, what did you think?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Most of the characters suck.
Speaker: There's some cool scenes.
Speaker: That's about it.
Speaker: Yeah, some decent horror stuff in there.
Speaker: I was like C plus level of interested B minus and after parts one and two and then after parts three, I was like, it's sort of like that line from the clerk's cartoon where the guy says, well, the pod race was pretty cool.
Speaker: that's that's pretty much where I'm at with with this one
Speaker: The way a couple of them died was pretty cool.
Speaker: Like that's the way, honestly, that's when they wasn't that cool.
Speaker: It was like, you ever see that scene in scanners?
Speaker: It's basically, you know?
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's the thing.
Speaker: There, there actually, there are some good horror moments.
Speaker: And as you pointed out correctly, if, and honestly, people, if you, if you follow this,
Speaker: all three of these episodes, go ahead and find a, uh, all deaths video for seventh guest and, uh, watch them and compare them to what we've described here.
Speaker: It, it, as I pointed out in the very first episode, the difference between the genuine, uh,
Speaker: They're trying to do in this book versus right.
Speaker: Schlocky FMV stuff.
Speaker: It's miles apart and probably for the best.
Speaker: It's a good it's different.
Speaker: This is an adaptation.
Speaker: It is adapted.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And yeah, totally.
Speaker: The the the deaths are much better written than they are in.
Speaker: the god damn game yes like i remember watching like what's her name uh it was like it was each death was was uh a lot dumber in the game i'll say that yeah uh so that's oh and by the way i watched the watched several of the deaths in the vr remake of seven yes yes
Speaker: And they are even lamer because several of them are just like one guest shot the other guest.
Speaker: Like they just did that a few times.
Speaker: And they're like, oh, there's just a fucking gun that people fought.
Speaker: And they both reach for the gun.
Speaker: The gun, the gun, the gun.
Speaker: It's so bad.
Speaker: Understandable.
Speaker: Understandable.
Speaker: Mary sunshine.
Speaker: No, but I, I'm just in such a weird place with this book because it's not good.
Speaker: I, I, I'm not, I didn't enjoy reading this, but honestly, as far as an adaptation of,
Speaker: Is considered the the lengths to which the authors attempted to create something new out of the source material and not just transcribe it.
Speaker: It might be one of the better books we've read for that purpose.
Speaker: Yeah, it's I mean, OK, so if we're given it like.
Speaker: I would say we give it its report card, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's it.
Speaker: We're checking the report card in the book with a book as our as our child.
Speaker: We're checking the report card and it's like F F F B minus F F. Right.
Speaker: That's yeah.
Speaker: Honestly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's it's we we've been doing this for a while now for years now and
Speaker: looking at how something is adapted and we've watched people make the same stupid ass mistakes over and over and over again.
Speaker: And this is one of those things.
Speaker: It's like a song.
Speaker: If you cover a song, don't do it exactly the same way the fucking Beatles or whoever did it.
Speaker: Make you have to put your own spin on it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And they succeeded in that.
Speaker: while also creating something that isn't very good.
Speaker: So it's fascinating.
Speaker: I think this is genuinely one of the more fascinating books we cover.
Speaker: It's like when Madonna did a cover of American Pie by Don McLean.
Speaker: Not good.
Speaker: Not good.
Speaker: Different.
Speaker: Different.
Speaker: Or when the chicks did a cover of Landslide.
Speaker: Oh, I like that cover.
Speaker: I think that's a good cover.
Speaker: It's a fine cover, but it's... I think that's a good cover.
Speaker: But it's, you know, when you're going against... What's your name?
Speaker: Well, Stevie Nicks.
Speaker: Stevie Nicks is... But there's no use in pitting two bad bitches, four bad bitches against each other.
Speaker: Four bad bitches?
Speaker: I think so.
Speaker: Well, Stevie Nicks and then the chicks.
Speaker: And then the three of them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I told my wife years ago...
Speaker: on Friday nights, I used to spend, I used to spend my Friday nights playing civilization, getting drunk.
Speaker: Uh, and, uh, I told her, uh,
Speaker: I said, if you hear me singing along to really sad songs or something like that, I don't want you to panic.
Speaker: I want if you hear me singing along to a really depressing Tom White song, I'm having the time of my life.
Speaker: So don't worry about it.
Speaker: I said, however, if you hear me in there singing along to landslide, I need you to check on me.
Speaker: That's that's where I draw the line.
Speaker: That's where it's like that I might actually be going.
Speaker: Have you listened to landslide since you became a parent?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: And now that you're, I'm just, I'm working through that in my head and I, I'm already following you on the, yeah.
Speaker: Go fire up landslide just real quick, you know, after, after the show, um, because I was listening to it the other day and I was like, oh no,
Speaker: And it's, I'm getting older too.
Speaker: I'm getting, I'm getting older too.
Speaker: And I'm just staring out the middle distance through the, the, the back door of the, of the house with my coffee.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: God damn it, Stevie.
Speaker: You got me.
Speaker: What a fucking legend.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Well, that's another book done and dusted.
Speaker: That leaves one final question for you, Kevin.
Speaker: What are you playing?
Speaker: What am I playing?
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: So I played and finished and beat 1000x resist over the past week.
Speaker: God damn that game straight up wrecked me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It is... And it's wild.
Speaker: There's two sci-fi games that sci-fi... Well, Mouthwashing is sci-fi horror.
Speaker: Whereas A Thousand Exorcist is like... The setting of it is like sci-fi dystopian thriller.
Speaker: But the writing in it is so good.
Speaker: And it's about...
Speaker: grief and guilt and forgiveness and parenting a whole lot of parenting stuff in there like being a parent and and fucking up and trying to be trying to be better and not and failing um and and then it's it really destroyed me um
Speaker: And here's the thing is like when I first played it, I was like, I was like, this is weird.
Speaker: I'm not sure I'm grokking what this game is actually putting down in like after like the first 30 minutes.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So I put it aside and this was like last year.
Speaker: I remember.
Speaker: I remember you started this.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then I came back to like, fine.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: I'm coming back to it.
Speaker: And then it clicked what the game is.
Speaker: Like, it's one of those where you have no idea what the fuck is going on at the beginning.
Speaker: Or really in the first 30 minutes, you're not entirely sure what am I doing here?
Speaker: Who am I talking to?
Speaker: Why am I talking to these people?
Speaker: All that.
Speaker: And then you get it.
Speaker: You're like, oh, okay.
Speaker: So we're here, we're doing this now, and this is the story.
Speaker: And okay, I'm in the... And it actually does one of those things that I had said a long time ago is that if you're writing far future sci-fi,
Speaker: the world should seem very unfamiliar.
Speaker: Like it should be a little bit hard to latch on to the world because if it's in the far future, it should be outside of your comfort zone and area of experience.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And it does that to a T in like the first the first few hours.
Speaker: But then you start to settle in when it as the story kind of folds out and you understand how like the elements that are taking place in present day or the scenes you see in present day and all that.
Speaker: It's it's a it's a brilliant game.
Speaker: I thoroughly recommend you check it out.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: I beat it in like eight hours.
Speaker: I know it said time to beat on the website on the time to complete website was like 11 hours and that completionists are 14 hours.
Speaker: I think part of the thing is, is like, even though it's fully voice acted,
Speaker: I was in a zone of like, well, I'm reading it faster than their voice acting it.
Speaker: I'm the same way.
Speaker: I feel bad for it because I love the work the voiceover artists do.
Speaker: And some of the voice acting is tremendous and I would let it play out.
Speaker: But if it was just like basic conversation stuff, I was like, click, click, click, click.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just haul an ass through it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So 1000X Resist, I went back and this is the first time I've done this, but I'll probably do it more often is I went and I tagged it into the bet the my game of the year 2024 Steam collection.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Because it would have been on my list easily.
Speaker: So I'm slapping those things back in there as I go through.
Speaker: I think that's fair.
Speaker: And part of my year.
Speaker: A retroactive award.
Speaker: Retroactive.
Speaker: Because you had a mention for 2023 this year, I believe.
Speaker: Yeah, for a 40K rogue trader.
Speaker: Because...
Speaker: it wasn't realistic.
Speaker: We're not professional game reviewers.
Speaker: It wouldn't have been realistic for me to play enough of that game in December when it came out in time for a list.
Speaker: So, yeah, I think Retroactive's totally valid.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's totally valid.
Speaker: What else did I play?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I also beat what's it?
Speaker: Ender Magnolia, which... Oh, okay.
Speaker: Yeah, which I will say I didn't care about the story and the gameplay.
Speaker: We're out.
Speaker: It's welcome.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Pretty much all I'll say about it is like it's a Metroidvania.
Speaker: I beat it.
Speaker: I like the first one better.
Speaker: The second one was fine.
Speaker: give it C's across the board but I don't have anything to say about the story I'm sure it's an interesting story but it didn't grab me in any way possible like I couldn't not get into it but
Speaker: And then there's like, there's an, I beat the game and there's like a completionist entire extra zone.
Speaker: If you collect the things and I'm like, no, thank you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I rolled credits moving on.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's where I'm at.
Speaker: We've talked about this before.
Speaker: That's where I'm at.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: It has to be a really special game for me to be like, oh, I actually do want to.
Speaker: I mean, I go back to Rogue Trader like I'm back in Rogue Trader and doing the bullshit there because I really love I love the gameplay of Rogue Trader and I love being a rogue trader in the 40K universe.
Speaker: I love the idea of profit factor, just the concept of of your character being so wealthy that you don't actually need to care about your money.
Speaker: You just buy things.
Speaker: That could be a lot of fun.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like the fact that you'd be like, you have to be like this level of like quadrillionaire or whatever.
Speaker: Like I imagine rogue traders are make Elon Musk look like nothing.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: In terms of wealth generated in the 40K universe.
Speaker: It's just it's non-existent.
Speaker: It's just, give it to me.
Speaker: I'm a rogue trader basically.
Speaker: Like, you're a rogue trader.
Speaker: I have a profit factor of 15.
Speaker: So give me your stuff.
Speaker: And I'm good for it.
Speaker: And the merchant's like, yes, you are.
Speaker: Here's all of our inventory.
Speaker: And you as the character are like, my people will take care of this.
Speaker: And yeah, and they will.
Speaker: It's it's they're starting to do that more and more with tabletop games.
Speaker: And God damn it, if that isn't a better way to handle that shit than like individual gold pieces.
Speaker: Now, don't get me wrong.
Speaker: Some people are dungeon crawlers and that's the fun for them.
Speaker: Whatever.
Speaker: That's fine.
Speaker: But.
Speaker: that's just, I think it's just a cleaner way of handling it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like you could, you could do a, like a modern day or futuristic setting where your car, your ability to buy things is based on like, it could be like a, a credit card system, right?
Speaker: Whereas you level up, like you, you move up at like, once you get the black card, then you can get anything you want from merchants or something like that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Kind of in a similar way.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like a, it's like a, a, a security clearances.
Speaker: Yes, exactly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's a neat little concept.
Speaker: So, yeah, playing Rogue Trader.
Speaker: And today I started Keep Driving.
Speaker: Oh, nice.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm not sure yet.
Speaker: It's very, very interesting.
Speaker: But it's one of those where I'm like, I don't know if I am I doing it right?
Speaker: It's just challenging enough and just up to sometimes enough.
Speaker: Yeah, I know what you mean.
Speaker: Yeah, it's like, should I?
Speaker: Like I pitched it I was like I'm like alright well I guess the main quest of the game is to get across the map and get to the concert by the end of the month I assume right But also I picked up a hitchhiker, but this hitchhiker wants to go backwards and be like do I should I?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, is it worth it to you?
Speaker: I love when you have to stop and like, you're like, oh, fuck, I'm broke.
Speaker: I have to stop for three days and just do an odd job on a farm somewhere.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So yeah, so we'll see.
Speaker: I'm playing.
Speaker: I'm hoping that they have an update that's coming out soon, they said, for controller like that, that you can use a controller with it.
Speaker: Oh, that'll be nice.
Speaker: That'll be nice because it's like a game where I'm like,
Speaker: I don't like this feels like a Steam Deck game that's currently not made for Steam Deck because it doesn't really have a controller set up.
Speaker: It's very mouse based.
Speaker: There's like this feels like it should be Steam Decky that I can just sit and play this, you know, while I'm watching TV.
Speaker: So, yeah, that's what I've been playing.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Phil, what have you been playing?
Speaker: Oh, I also started the full form of Just Drive today.
Speaker: It's the first I've played since the demo.
Speaker: And I'm with you in the sense of, for me, having a controller would be very valuable simply because this is a game for me that you want to lean back on.
Speaker: and play.
Speaker: You know, this is a lean back game.
Speaker: Having to click on everything with a mouse is like, is unchill.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's very not chill.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So, I just got into it.
Speaker: Um...
Speaker: I'm I'm I'm very positive on it so far.
Speaker: Uh, it's hitting me in the same way the demo did.
Speaker: There's something so blissfully nostalgic about it.
Speaker: Uh, there's this, you know, for anyone who hasn't played this game, but doesn't know what we're talking about.
Speaker: You, you play, uh, a teenager, basically.
Speaker: I think it's before they go to college.
Speaker: It's like after they graduate from high school or something like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And you're just going on this long road trip and, uh,
Speaker: There are how you get around things and there's there's puzzles and it's like it's not match three exactly, but it's that kind of thing where you run into potholes.
Speaker: And so you have to you have certain abilities you can learn from just experience or from people you pick up along the way.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Very clever.
Speaker: And it's very I forget who was somebody in our chat.
Speaker: was talking about it and how fascinating it was because it couldn't have been any less like the games these developers have worked on before.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I was curious and I looked at their right.
Speaker: They've done some weird ass shit before this.
Speaker: And this game is just this is a mellow indie rock.
Speaker: Yeah, it's got a great soundtrack and you can.
Speaker: It's amazing because one of the one of the things I liked was that you can go you can go into your disk, your your disks, right?
Speaker: And you can set up the playlist how you want it.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: And it's it's they've thought of everything that you would think of if you were going on a road trip.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I really appreciate it.
Speaker: I haven't played much of it, but but it just it just gives me lovable feel goods.
Speaker: I have but more in more depth in the past week, I finished tactical breach wizards.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Really enjoyed that.
Speaker: That's just I mean, it's a that's one of those great games where the strategy elements of it, the XCOM style, calm and everything like that.
Speaker: That's a lot of fun.
Speaker: Don't get me wrong.
Speaker: But I was there for the world they created.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a fun little world.
Speaker: It's a fun world.
Speaker: It's very smart.
Speaker: It's sarcastic.
Speaker: It's silly.
Speaker: And it's like where magic exists, but it's still the future in a weird way.
Speaker: And so you've got you've got, you know, your necromancer who is like a med school dropout.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And this what are they called?
Speaker: Necromedic.
Speaker: Necromedic.
Speaker: One of the first characters you play isn't a Navy SEAL.
Speaker: He's an ABC-er.
Speaker: And I love it.
Speaker: He's like a Merlin's beard type with a goddamn rifle.
Speaker: And this is how I know that I love the world.
Speaker: It made me want to set up a tabletop campaign similar to this.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Like, like for, for you and me and some friends to like play in this world a little bit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: My favorite recurring boss was, um, was a traffic cop.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I loved him.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: What a fun ability.
Speaker: Cause they're, they all have, it's like, it's like X-Men.
Speaker: They all have like powers.
Speaker: Like, yeah.
Speaker: So basically like if somebody becomes a magician or a wizard, uh, the, their power is kind of like bespoke to them sort of.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: In a way.
Speaker: Nobody else really does it.
Speaker: It's yeah.
Speaker: And yeah, so this guy, traffic cop, he summons spectral cars.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's just like once every turn, he just sends this line of ghostly cars down and you can get knocked over by one of your one of your characters absolutely hates this guy.
Speaker: And before you fight him, you're talking shit about him in the hallway and he calls out to be like, you know, I can hear you.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: I thought, yeah, that stuff like that was really clever and fun.
Speaker: It's a fun game.
Speaker: It was really fun.
Speaker: Having said that, I there's there are like little extra.
Speaker: bonus levels that are like anxiety dreams and stuff, which I got a real kick out of.
Speaker: But I haven't finished those yet.
Speaker: I don't I'm going to have to come back to them.
Speaker: But I got credits on that one.
Speaker: And that was it.
Speaker: I'm really proud of myself.
Speaker: I'm really hauling ass on my backlog lately.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: That's a good feeling.
Speaker: Speaking of backlogs, I also played Civilization Seven.
Speaker: Oh, how was it?
Speaker: How is it?
Speaker: So I know it's early days and it's usually Civ.
Speaker: Every Civ release in early days is rough-ish.
Speaker: Well, it's good.
Speaker: It's good.
Speaker: I think it's a good start.
Speaker: I really some of the changes I love.
Speaker: I love the era thing because for anyone who doesn't know, basically normally in Civ, you pick your civilization, the French, the English, the chair, whatever.
Speaker: And you just play that from the age of antiquity to future.
Speaker: In this, there are three distinct ages, the ages of antiquity, the exploration age and the modern age.
Speaker: And every time.
Speaker: And then you have this certain amount of time in each one of them.
Speaker: And every time it moves on to when you first start out, you have all these ancient civilizations to choose from.
Speaker: You've got things like the Greeks and the Romans, but then there are like the Mississippians and stuff like fucking cool.
Speaker: Like that's so cool.
Speaker: They mound builders and that sort of thing.
Speaker: Really, really neat.
Speaker: When you get into the exploration age, you have a list of kind of middle age, Renaissance era civilizations to choose from.
Speaker: And based on what you were doing before and.
Speaker: You know what you're aiming to do.
Speaker: Some might be better than others.
Speaker: Some might be more natural than others.
Speaker: You might get bonuses for choosing one over another one.
Speaker: And so my Mississippian culture became Norman in the age of exploration, which I got a real kick out of.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Really interesting.
Speaker: And you take a lot of those gifts that you had in the age of antiquity and bring them into the exploration age.
Speaker: And then.
Speaker: When you get into the modern age, you pick modern civilizations.
Speaker: And that's when I became Russia.
Speaker: I was playing.
Speaker: I was playing Catherine the Great.
Speaker: And that's another thing you pick a leader and you pick your civilization.
Speaker: They are not connected.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: As they were before.
Speaker: I like these changes because they give you.
Speaker: way more customization to what you're trying to create here.
Speaker: You can try and follow it as close as possible.
Speaker: Today, I finished a game where I tried really hard.
Speaker: I started as, uh, no, I was, I was, yeah, I started as Mississippian and, uh,
Speaker: Then I became Hawaiian in the age of exploration, and then I became American in the modern age.
Speaker: And that was a lot of fun to naturally go through that.
Speaker: And I was playing as Benjamin Franklin.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: It was fun.
Speaker: It's a lot of or you can just fucking go ham with it.
Speaker: It's it's which is what civilization has always been about.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I've seen a lot of criticisms.
Speaker: A lot of the people are criticizing it for its simplicity.
Speaker: And there are two parts to that.
Speaker: On one hand, yeah, there are a couple of.
Speaker: What's the expression?
Speaker: quality of life changes that they've made that have simplified some things.
Speaker: They've taken out builders, roads naturally get built, which is something I complimented the foundation game for, and I enjoy it here.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I mean, I think that's a good thing.
Speaker: I mean, I think that's a good thing.
Speaker: I mean, I think that's a good thing.
Speaker: I mean, I think that's a good thing.
Speaker: I mean, I think that's a good thing.
Speaker: I mean, I think that's a good thing.
Speaker: I mean, I think that's a good thing.
Speaker: I mean, I think that's a good thing.
Speaker: yeah it was always pretty light in terms of the 4x games yeah yeah it was always pretty toward you know towards the light end of the spectrum um so and and that's why it's always attracted people who maybe otherwise wouldn't play the game um the other part of its simplicity is that uh as you pointed out correctly it just came out and and so sure there's a lot
Speaker: they're going to do with this as as they always do they always have it actually they actually launched as an early access game right yeah uh well no no they they i think they is it hold on i have to check now that you put that in my head i don't think it was oh no it's it's it's real launched okay yeah they just they just i think you got like bonuses you've got you could play it early if you pre-ordered with that kind of gotcha um but uh
Speaker: They're planning on adding more stuff and beefing it up as you go.
Speaker: And I think people always forget, and it's an easy thing to forget, to be fair.
Speaker: If you just got done playing Civ VI and you had all the DLC and all the changes and had forgotten that it didn't originally come with like Congress and stuff like that, like all those extra bunches, then it's really easy to look at this and go, th is is kind of bare bones.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's not.
Speaker: It's it's I think it's pretty good.
Speaker: I think they've done a lot to make the replayability even more enticing.
Speaker: You can you you advance leaders as you play them more frequently and get bonuses based on how frequently you play them and can work that into your game.
Speaker: Yeah, it's they've made a lot of choices here, and I think that's pretty cool because I don't just want the same goddamn game with a coat of paint.
Speaker: I still have six.
Speaker: I still have six.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I have four.
Speaker: I can go back and play those games.
Speaker: Nothing's stopping me.
Speaker: This is just this is just a different version of the game.
Speaker: If there's one thing that actually totally stuck in my craw,
Speaker: It is they the day one DLC is atrocious.
Speaker: It's atrocious.
Speaker: They have Great Britain behind a paywall.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: It is DLC you have to purchase.
Speaker: That is gross.
Speaker: That is foul.
Speaker: It is foul.
Speaker: One of the most popular sibs to play as.
Speaker: And it's like you have to you have to buy like the fifteen thirty dollar whatever package to to get to play them.
Speaker: Fuck you.
Speaker: You know, it's that's it's it's bad enough that I would have had to preorder it to get to play.
Speaker: I think I forget who it is.
Speaker: It's like the creek or something I love.
Speaker: I love how Siv does Native American cultures.
Speaker: They're always so much fun to play.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And it's bad enough that that kind of thing happened.
Speaker: But like one of the most popular Sivs
Speaker: putting it behind it's it's gross it's just gross and that by itself is enough to put a lot of people off their lunch and fair enough yeah and that's I assume that's because 2k right as the publisher
Speaker: Yeah, too good.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's their choice, I'm sure.
Speaker: The unexpected thing that I don't appreciate about the game is that they put in all these new leaders and it's fantastic to see all the new leaders.
Speaker: I did not, however, expect to have to declare war on Harriet Tubman.
Speaker: And
Speaker: I don't appreciate being put in that position for access.
Speaker: But she was getting in on my shit like she was fucking like attacking my scouts and all that.
Speaker: I was like, I have to I have to fight Harriet Tubman.
Speaker: It's wild.
Speaker: It was bad enough when you were getting nuked by Gandhi.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: It's bad enough.
Speaker: Harriet Tubman.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: It's not fair.
Speaker: It would be one thing if it was John Brown, because like that tracks.
Speaker: If they could do, oh my God, that would be a, oh, that would be DLC I'd pay for.
Speaker: That would, I would want to play John Brown.
Speaker: That'd be sick.
Speaker: His body ain't moldering in the grave anymore.
Speaker: No, sir.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: That's what I'm playing.
Speaker: That's me.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So that'll do it for tonight's episode.
Speaker: Thank you so much, everybody, for listening and or watching.
Speaker: If you're watching on YouTube, remember to like, comment and subscribe.
Speaker: That helps us out.
Speaker: Otherwise, go ahead and follow us on Blue Sky.
Speaker: That's where we do the majority of our posting and also our Patreon and join the Discord.
Speaker: The Discord's great.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Do you have anything else for the people at home?
Speaker: Uh, absolutely.
Speaker: I do want them to know.
