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How to (Not) Do an Ending | Windbreaker Podcast
6.9k Plays3 months ago
On this week’s episode of Windbreaker, Yahtzee, Frost, and Marty chat about what goes into a satisfying video game ending, and what causes some finales to stumble.
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Transcript
Introduction to GameMaker and Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
This video is brought to you by Game Maker. The free, fast, and easy-to-use 2D game engine that helps power modern classics like Undertale, Hotline Miami, and Hyper Light Drifter. Starter templates, official asset bundles, and a wealth of tutorials are available to help bring your ideas to life. And you can export and share your game for free on all non-console platforms. But you don't have to take my word for it, I'm just some jerk. We have an actual bonafide Game Maker-er on hand. Oh shit, that's me. Yes, I've been using GameMaker for a long time. It's probably the most powerful and easiest to use engine for making 2D games out there, suitable for both amateurs and hardcore coders, and with all the Steam and console integration stuff for when you're ready to start monetizing your hobbies. I used it to make my recently released game, Starstruck Vagabond, which has already delighted thousands of sci-fi cozy game aficionados, thanks to GameMaker being so bloody great. Head on over to the GameMaker link in the description to begin your game development journey today.
00:00:59
Speaker
Hello there chaps and chapatas. Welcome to the Windbreakers podcast. I'm Yachty Croshaw. I'm joined by Frosted Marty as always. Love Chapata. Well I'll take you back from his big slack off week last time. It was incredible. I went to a place called Punta Cana. Oh nice. so The point of... Spanish is very bad, let me tell you. Is that point of Kana? Yeah. The point of Kana. It was great. Does that mean place where the fat twat goes? Yeah, that was me. They let me in. It was very nice of them. But anyway, enough banter. This
Hosts Introduce Game Endings Discussion
00:01:33
Speaker
week, we're talking about endings. No particular reason. I suppose I was left a little blue balled by flintlock last week because the fucking game crashed before the ending. Anything in particular inspire this topic, Marty?
00:01:46
Speaker
Just always always thinking about death, always thinking about the end of our time on this mortal coil. Jesus. So I like thinking about which endings worked for me, which is which is our good friend Solid Snake there, or Naked Snake over there in the corner, and which endings didn't work for me, and why why certain endings work and certain endings don't. Well, this is a topic I've covered before in Semiramplamatic, of course, when I was talking about American Arcadia, which is the last time I felt a game's ending. Really made me go, yes, satisfied. I will now sit back and enjoy my credits. he and That's been like a year. What about before that? What was the gap like? Before American Arcadia, what was the last satisfying ending?
00:02:25
Speaker
Well, the reason why I felt like highlighting it, because I feel like there are so frequent infrequently satisfying endings in video games. I
Challenges of Crafting Open World Game Endings
00:02:33
Speaker
mean, with the trend for live servers in open world games, firstly, the live service never bloody ends, because it has to keep ah setting things up for the next whatever season, like the Suicide Squad springs to mind. But then the trouble with open world games, as I've said frequently, is that they almost invariably have to end in such a way that you can immediately go straight back to the open world and finish off the last few side quests. Which inevitably
Discussion on From Software Game Endings
00:02:58
Speaker
means that the ending you're given when you reach the end of the story story
00:03:04
Speaker
feels like it's not wrapping things up in a satisfying way. And when you do finish, like 100% completing it, there's never, there's usually not like a second ending after that. Usually it's just, well, guess we're done. Guess I'll just stop playing now. And which
Should Game Endings Have Final Bosses?
00:03:19
Speaker
also feels like an anticlimax.
00:03:23
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like yeah, both live service games and open world games like inherently have a how do we end this? Annoyingly, that's most triple A games now. and You're not allowed to close up shop on an open world, are you? Yeah. well happy one state those ah Tell me as someone who's finished Shadow of the Earth Tree, how that ends. Well, I'm not going to just, I'm not going to just straight and spoil it but i will say that what I would, I would, uh, despite, uh, I would say enjoying or treat by and large, uh, I thought it's, uh, final boss didn't live up to some of the best final bosses in, in soul's history. I think like Dark Souls one, Dark Souls two.
00:04:04
Speaker
Bloodborne, and from everything I've seen because I'm too scared to play it, Sekiro had these really kind of incredible final showdowns that did feel like final exams, which I'm sure is something we'll talk about with, do we think ending should sort of culminate in a final exam? I'm not sure I agree. I think a lot of From Software games suffer from bad ending syndrome. Bad endings are bad last third syndromes. Maybe, yeah. yeah i i don't I can't think of of a From Software game who's like ending cinematic actually felt satisfying, you know? I feel like those games are all more about the journey than the end. And the final boss fights, Gwyn, as like a final representation of the whole game. Really? It works as one? Yeah, I think the run-up to him and everything, I think the music, I think the kindling that first flame, I think that's all very exciting.
00:04:56
Speaker
But he's just like, ah the have have you learned how to parry yet? If not, oh well. I mean, it's a metaphor for unplugging your dad at the end, you know? It's like, all right, old man. And that's my turn to get into the machine.
00:05:11
Speaker
Better than fucking Demon's Souls ending, I'll give you that. Sure, yeah. Where you stamp on a blob for a few minutes and then... arbitrarily pick an ending. I love it. You said the earth tree. Do we count those DLCs to me at the very least from software ones don't feel like they have an ending. They feel like an imposing middle. Yeah, this is happening alongside the rest of the timeline. Even after the DLC was added to Dark Souls one Gwyn was still the quote unquote end of the game. And it was true of Dark Souls two.
00:05:42
Speaker
Yeah Dark Souls 3 it felt like the actual like the Ringed City and getting to the end of that was an actual like ending of the Dark Souls trilogy which is probably the end to du the original Dark Souls 3 ending felt a bit um yeah here's this here's this again sort of fight yeah You said there is that weird like do you just kick us back out to a save point beforehand? Do you give us new game plus do you you know the the most exciting thing I think would be to present a world that is cognizant of
00:06:15
Speaker
what we've done and let us see how the world has changed there. But I feel like that would just take a lot of work in open world games, which, you know. Well, it's a lot of work, but I always fucking appreciate it. I mean, that goes back to, I want to say, Earthbound was the first time I felt like that happened. You actually had a chance to go back through the world you had saved and see all the impact you'd had. Yeah. I think there's like directly reference that like, oh, the evil has been vanquished and things are different now. I mean, this is one of the things I liked about the American Arcadia ending, because throughout the credits, it gives you like little snippets of information about what happened next. You get a sense for where everyone went after that. ah You feel like you got some closure. There's too many games that just end with, ah right, that's that cut to black and with you just sort of standing there in the middle of the empty boss arena. something so in But what now? What now? Imagine for yourself, player, what now?
00:07:07
Speaker
I may not wish. Yeah, no. Urgery. Not to spoil the ending. i was I was like, did I go the right way? Oh, no. I think I missed something. I don't look it up. Like, who's the last boss? It's like, okay, I'm there. um Not sure what happened here. To its credit though, Elden Ring, once you beat the game, does leave the world, like essentially devastated from your actions. Like I'm pretty sure the pit is still there. um the Like the table, the hub, right? Still in ruin, like that's not recovered and I keep playing it. And so I do i do like that where it's almost like, I mean, that's what the new game plus is for, right? Like go ahead and leave the world in ruin. And if I want to change it back, then I'll just roll it back if I feel like it.
00:07:51
Speaker
Yeah. It's tough also to marry a satisfying mechanical ending with a satisfying narrative ending, right? I think that's ultimately the sweet spot. That's kind of tough to pull off. We have yeah Metal Gear Solid 3 is in the thumbnail and I think that's a rare game of that size that I think its final encounter with the boss is just incredible. incredible very personal fight that is uh engaging mechanically feels like a final exam for everything you've learned about the combat throughout the game but it's also story wise like you're fighting your mentor and and what you have to do after that and then sort of the the kind of loss of innocence that that snake has afterwards is just really powerful it's like that is an ending with
00:08:33
Speaker
multiple moments throughout its very extended ending that really stick out to me. And that that's why I chose that image of of the Snake given the salute. Because like when I think of good endings in-game, that's probably the one ending, i like the image I think of at the end of a game. Set the one with the horse. It's the was horse. That's why the Bloodborne ending. um I forget which one of them it was. ah You're fighting the crazy creature is a good one. It's because it's the horse scene yeah done again. I love it. I'm sorry. it's just
00:09:05
Speaker
um ah I have a formula for what an open world game should do in post-ending fuckabouts mode to create a satisfying ending from that. give it a and What it should do is that firstly it should unlock ah like a new thing you could buy either an upgrade or in like the in-game store or something that costs like a million billion cash that you'd have to like do it basically every side quest to be able to afford. right And once you can afford that, it should be an item that in some way destroys the game. Maybe literally, like you could just drop a huge nuke. Maybe it's some kind of ability or movement ability that basically makes every single challenge in the game completely moot. But it should be something that after you've got it, you've there's just nothing left to do but piss about. Are there any games that really nail that? Super World. Super Land. Yeah. I struggled to think of one. I was shooting for to do something like this in Starstruck Vagabond.
00:09:58
Speaker
but there's the story end and then there's the ending where you have to get 100% completion and once you've done that ah you unlock a new cryonic suspension booth and if you get into it basically resets the entire universe again. So Krita then sends you into a sort of zen mode where there's no story, but a million missions and deliveries to do. I like that. And then you're your own dad. Because here's the thing, I feel like to have a satisfying ending for a game, you almost have to make another game at the end of your game, which and that's a bit imposing, isn't it? Yeah.
00:10:34
Speaker
Well, you know, I've relatedly I've said that basically every game that has a decent core gameplay loop should basically just tack on a roguelike mode. You just don't see some of that. Yeah, like what Bloodborne does with the challenge dungeons. Because if it's fun, if it's, fund war if if it's fun to play, just give us the chance to play it infinitely in some way. I mean, that is the best sort of excuse because the binding of Isaac is a essentially in purgatory. like you You don't really know what's happening here. like I like to think at the end of Bully, because it's the never-ending summer, right? School's out, everything's done, you get to go through the world and finish. They could have ended that with like him getting hit by a car cutscene and then he's just like, whoa, it's like never-ending summer. It's like, oh my God, I think he's dead.
00:11:18
Speaker
I think he's actually dead. He's a guy. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I get to easily quickly tie that in and like, I'd say the series. Enjoy. I thought you were, I thought you were going into sort of a time loop direction. tell you the thrilling summer So very, and you get hit by a bus or if I could meet your rifles from the sky and you wake up, but it's the start of summer again. I say, Oh, I got the chance to romance someone else or something. I mean, a game that kind of does that, I guess, slight spoilers for 2012's Journey. um But when when you read your whole goal is to reach the top of the mountain and you do that and you seemingly die, but then you experience this kind of moment of awe in the afterlife as you are reborn and that rebirth takes you all the way back to a shooting star you saw at the beginning of the game, right, as your character stood up. So it's kind of it it yeah is just like truly about the the circle of life and the circle of of existence in the world. Um, which I found in a game like that, very poignant. I don't know if I'd want that in a, you know, in a Mario game or anything, but. Wasn't that, uh, limbo? Don't you like end up right back to where you started essentially? Yeah. I remember speaking of limbo inside is one of those endings that really sticks with me, even though I've only played it the one time it first came out, both, uh, sort of. I wouldn't say it was a satisfying ending, but it certainly sticks with you, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah.
00:12:41
Speaker
You basically turned into a human Weetabix. Yeah. I think there could be done more, but like I said, it almost requires a whole part of the game that you don't expect for people to watch. Like um someone brought up Skyrim. Imagine, yeah, and these sort of RPGs where after you've done saving everything, now you're just, I don't know, you want to be a merchant. You're just going to be the town merchant. Your hero can retire to like that sort of modest life. I don't think you necessarily need to create a hold of the game as you described. I mean, I'd be perfectly satisfied if it had like the original Fallout ending where it just gave you a recap of what happened to all the characters after you were done and and response to the choices you'd made.
00:13:21
Speaker
Do you like it when documentaries do that? That ending where it's just like... Where are they now? Yeah. And now al Gore is crying. Stand by me. and Oh, he got drafted to Vietnam and he died. He is currently serving a 25 to life in San Quentin prison. original or Not the original, but ah link to the past. Zelda for Super Nintendo did that where during the credits you have kind of montages of all the characters you met along the way and what their life is like after you've saved the world from the dark world and you know families are reunited characters who were transformed into one thing are back to humans like
00:13:57
Speaker
scary monster places are getting cleaned up, um, small things like that. That's like, Oh, the world acts like what I did made a difference to things people I met along the way. Yeah. I like, uh, I like the left open ending. If it ends with like the characters leaving the world in which that we knew behind by the wind waker ending. Yeah. so That was like satisfying. They were like, hey, let's just piss off now. Let's piss off to the next adventure and leave our sister looking sad because we're an asshole. as the That's like the Lord of the Rings ending, isn't it? Yeah, I was going to say the one part of the Game of Thrones ending I liked was that like Arya got to be like, well, I'm going to go sail, see what's going on west of here, yeah west of Westeros. And I was like, that's a cool ending for her character. She feels like she deserved to
00:14:43
Speaker
start going on new adventures eventually sailed off the edge of the world and died oh no oh no it's a flatter i want to see that text at the end was like she got gout and died otherwise you're setting up for a spin off but i don't trust you he discovered hawaii and got murdered by natives like captain cook oh no poor captain cook Um, I guess for, for final encounters for final bosses, do you, do you like it being the sort of, uh, you know, this is going to be the toughest fight of the game. This is where you're going to have to prove that you've mastered what we taught you or do you want it to be like, Oh, this should be a victory lap. This should be, well, I've already proved myself. Let me just beat the shit out of everything.
00:15:23
Speaker
I like a boss that like sort of goes through all the different stuff we've done, like most end end of Zelda game bosses. I don't like it to be just ah monstrously hard. As you know, I've been a bit down on games just being massively hard at the end. yeah I'd i just like it to walk that line where it's not hard, it's so hard that it feels like the game's dangling the ending over you and you will never quite reach it. I think the nine souls end boss is way too hard. Yeah, yeah, I think ive heard a lot of people make the same complaint the rest of the games boss fights.
00:15:58
Speaker
ah ah The mostly fairly straightforward towards the end, they start getting a bit bullshitty. But you know, if you just memorize the patterns, you're fine. The last boss was a little bit unreasonable to me. In fact, truth in fact, cards on the table. I gave up from what's the ending on YouTube. I don't, I don't blame you. I did the same thing. I was just replaying parasite Eve for a video. I got the last boss. I'm like, this is just way too hard. We're just gonna, we're just gonna watch the, we're just gonna watch the ending. Yeah. But I still got to the final boss. So it still counts. Oh, yeah.
00:16:32
Speaker
ah but I think I'm petty. i don't and I don't look for the ending after the fight. i that's it ah If it's multiple endings, that's the only time I'll actually look. But if it's like an ending, I I guess I prefer the model where the final boss isn't the hardest boss in the game because it makes because that we're making the assumption that ah this is the standard experience for people who just want to get to the story, experience the story, and leave the actual hardest, hardest boss to that one weird optional one. Like, I like that. Yeah. Mano's Father of the Abyss or the 100 trials and Paper Mario Thousand Year Door.
00:17:10
Speaker
Yeah. um a lot of and A lot of JRPGs do that, where obviously Seven's hardest bosses are the the weapons that are totally optional, that kind of thing. Yeah. I'm ah i'm a bit mixed because I'm the type to be like, well, for this person to be the big bad, he has to be bigger and better than the others. So yeah, I kind of do want them to be ah the most difficult. Otherwise, I don't believe the cronies would have stood around and just allowed this guy to take all the power. you know Well, maybe they just understood he was the smart one. Maybe he was like, he was the tightwind Lannister, not not presented as like the combat powerhouse of the series, but yeah, just the most powerful motherfucker in the kingdom just because he knows how to stare. He dies on toilet. Yeah, but especially he should have should have stared harder. that's what i say
00:17:56
Speaker
Especially for games like Bioshock where it was mostly about like subterfuge and wit. But in the end, he's like, all right, then I'm going to have this massive machine. Yeah. That's like ah bosses that almost mechanically or narratively seem to just like completely contradict what happened beforehand. Always feels a little silly to me. like my Yeah, it was a problem, wasn't it? Yeah. And we were casey and i recently replaying the development cry games for the streaming series. I think definitely cry two or three. One of them just ends in the last boss is a rail shooter. You know, this isn't what the game has been. And the final challenge is now this kind of like rail shooter segment. Like, why? Why is this last thing something completely different? Sonic games tend to do that. I think Sonic Frontiers, the final boss, was same like bullshit um the of to the air.
00:18:47
Speaker
What was that like Star Fox game that did that where it was like mostly like a Zelda like game, but then at the very end they then they remembered, Oh shit, it's a Star Fox game. so somebody ventures yeah Yeah. So the last fight is like back in the spaceships. Oh yeah. I said, um, Thematically, it's one thing, but Evil West was a victim of this one, the ending boss. Your character is not a mobile cowboy. He's like a slow moving slugger, bit of a dash, but now it's like, all right, you gotta watch out for these environmental hazards. Oh my dear God, this has not been used at all up until now. Who is this kind of agent? Yeah, I was thinking he was the main buddy. That's how I thought of the Joker at the end of Asylum.
00:19:33
Speaker
Who else were you gonna fight for the final boss? after side Yeah, he just juiced himself. Yeah, I don't know. I think ki like whimsically shooting himself in the face with his own, like, super soldier tonic was sort of in character for him. You know, chaotic and all that. i guess Hey, let's let's see what happens if I do this sort of attitude. Yeah. I've tried everything else kind of thing. I don't know. and know what What do you think about games where the boss final boss is just something that's never been a character up to that point? I wasn't in Final Fantasy IX where you've beat the big villain of the story and then there's just a thing. Oh, we just remembered RPGs have to end with you killing God, so here's one.
00:20:16
Speaker
I mean, the Persona games do that, right? You like you have a sort of a a humanoid or like a clear antagonist, and the last thing you fight is just giant scary angels. That's what kind of annoyed me about Persona 4, thinking back. I was like, a yeah, we've been fighting like normal people, and if yeah and if you don't suspect there's another ending, You could just go away from the game thinking, yeah, we just and it just ended with us fighting ah the people that we'd gotten to know over the course of the game. But then if you do find the actual ending, it's like, oh, hey, Evil God was behind it all along. Yeah. Vintage Evil God. it I mean, it works when it's grounded, I feel. I remember like in old fighting games where you would get to the last guy and then it's like selling it to Kuma. And then after that, it's like, oh my God, it's Seth. I'm like, Jesus Christ, how much buffer do these guys get? Yeah. So like went to
00:21:07
Speaker
Oh yeah, like in even old Tekken, where you fight the normal dude, I think it's just Montezuma, and then he's this big monster creature thing you're fighting, like she's, that'll do a number on you, for sure. Yeah. It's kind of that when you keep having to ratchet up the stakes, eventually at the end of something, does the thing get kind of silly? Yeah. Where it's like, oh, I'm just a little speck fighting this big thing. Yeah, a lot of people misunderstand stakes is just bringing out the bigger monster. I mean, imagine if Metal Gear Solid 3 ended with you killing the boss. And then after that, fucking Senator Armstrong from Metal Gear Rising Revenge shows up and says, haha, I was telling the boss what to do all along. Now you get to fight me. Yeah.
00:21:45
Speaker
ah god So that's why I'm strong fight is great in the confines of that game. Like it makes sense in that game, but yeah, doing it somewhere else would just kind of make me roll my eyes. Cause it's fucking nuts. And that game's fucking nuts. ah What about, yeah we sort of touched on the idea of multiple endings. I know. Yeah. So you've talked about the, what'd you call it? The an ending Tron 3000, ending Tron 3000, which is the worst way of doing it. Well, you're just at the end of the game, there's just a panel of buttons or a dialogue choice or whatever you picked. it None. irregardless of everything you've done up to that point, decides the ending. First, it coined when I reviewed ASX ah Human Revolution. Because the problem with that is that it ends because as a narrative specialist, I yeah think endings are very, very important. They pay off everything that's been established up to that point, and they leave you with the feeling you're going to feel about that game as you go away. And if you get an ending from the 2000 situation, then what you end up with is a feeling that none of the endings really count.
00:22:45
Speaker
because the first thing you do after you've seen one is reload your last save and try another. Yeah. That was a big wasn't that a big? Or I guess a big talking point around Mass Effect 3 was that like, yeah, that was a classic ending John 3000. Everything you've done for this entire trilogy, the many choices you'd made in the course of the trilogy that the game made a point of sticking from game to game. And then at the very end, it's just ending from 3000. What flavor of ice cream do you want to give everyone in the universe? That's basically what it was. yeah like Are there examples of games where you make choices and it feels like the ending is actually good? Like the ending like it does sort of reflect?
00:23:31
Speaker
Um, like I said, like those, the fallout games that ended with like a summary of everything that happened after that based on the choices you'd made. Yeah. ah Um, how to outer worlds does that to a certain extent.
00:23:47
Speaker
Speaking of good ending, I really like the ending of Outer Wilds. Sorry, the outer, or the outer. Triggered me every time. How confusing, isn't it? Just every time. Oh, did we? I mean, we kind of touched on it, but the the more thematic, the last boss is a weary old man. Did I do it for you?
00:24:08
Speaker
If it's there with the story, like the old King Elant or whatever, and Demon's Souls, i like I didn't really have a connection to that, but i I do like, speaking of a couple of just old weary men slugging each other at the end of Metal Gear Solid 4, where the painting adventure that yeah Yeah, where the two of them are just beating the shit out of each other and kind of going through the history of the series where it's funny because that really works for me um as like someone who's a fan of the Metal Gear series. Like that feels like a kind of incredible at the time culmination of what they thought would be the end of the series. ah And it didn't feel like it was pandering or anything or like sort of playing on our nostalgia. Whereas without going into the spoilers, like I saw the new Deadpool movie over the weekend and I was just
00:24:54
Speaker
like kind of in shock of how, how just like empty everything in that movie was. Like it felt like it was a movie just made to be 55 Easter eggs in Deadpool and Wolverine. Not a Deadpool movie, not a Deadpool I'm not losing sleep over it, but I'm just like, Oh, none of this, none of this worked on me. So maybe that sort of nostalgia stuff is a case by case basis. to that end I mean, yeah, no one would, I would argue quite a lot of people who have played all the Metal Gear Solid games wouldn't know what the fuck was going on at the end of Metal Gear Solid 4. Very confusing. A lot of weird shit going on. Yeah. Yeah. True. What was it? But you know it's ah it's another hard line to walk because you go you want to pay off all the fans who've stuck around since the beginning, don't you? At the same time, this might be the current player's first game. What can you do?
00:25:49
Speaker
Yeah. Well, yeah. What about those? Cause we said the issues were like live service and open world are almost like the fact of bad endings. What about the more like cinematic linear adventures nowadays? Like I just got back. I don't think it's that old. Is it a way out that I finished with the will? Oh yeah. We got there both endings. That was awful. just Yeah. it's somebody something and It's a pretty bad game. why Just, yeah, no, no choice. I mean, we essentially had no choice even after everything we had ah gone through together. And I'm like, there's no way this is how it ends. Okay. As you as you said, very ending Tron, like, okay, just press the button. And it's like, whatever happens, happens. No choice to override it. No, nothing. I was like, we were in prison together. You know, you'd think you'd have some sort of attach or talk it out or something, but no, it ends with, you know, as it does one or the other.
00:26:45
Speaker
I mean, it's kind of cool from a gameplay perspective for a co-op game to end with finally turning the two players against each other. Yeah, I think that's like an interesting narrative. Sort of not not a rug pull, but a twist. Yeah, twist more of that like throughout the game, though. I mean, even Castle Crashers does that after you beat the level, you you fight each other and then you go on to the next one. Yeah, I've had more moments where you are turning on each other. But some it's more so like the ending. It's like this is the first time we're actually fighting it out and it went that way. All right. Yeah.
00:27:19
Speaker
I guess that's what the many games are for, huh? Get used to competing against each other. indeed Connect four or whatever. Checkers. Connect four and checkers. There it is. And then about bummer endings. Do we like bummer endings? Bummer endings? Yeah, that's just sad as shit. and You're like, Oh, none of this is, this is the opposite. skill and bing park drudge By the ending of scorn. We'll go like the ending of scorn. Yeah. I did that. Yeah. That definitely made me feel like, well, what the fuck was the point of all that then? That was what I went away from school on feeling. I didn't finish it.
00:27:54
Speaker
You're not missing out on much. Do I have to watch it? Okay. No, you're fine. You are totally fine. um Yeah. I mean, there's, there's sort of the dour endings that do a good job of recontextualizing stuff that came before it. Like spec ops, you don't know, pretty much no matter which ending you choose in the end there, it does kind of a great job of, of ah reframing everything you, you yes did up until that point. I think Sandhill 2 does that pretty well also. yeah The endings don't change what happens, they just sort of reframe the way James like moves on from them.
00:28:30
Speaker
Yeah. That's like endings where like you fail. Like a movie or a story where the characters fail. Like Halo Reach. You can't survive. You can grab as long as you can, but you ultimately can't win. That's a good failure though, isn't it? Because you're sacrificing yourself so that your friends can live. Yeah. What about like Hellblade though? That's a good mechanic. Yeah. Well, I mean, there are stories to end with failure, but it's usually in a narratively satisfying way. That's what audiences ask for, that it has to be justified. Yeah, you're Red Dead. Yeah. How people feel on the moral ones, I guess, like The Last of Us. I think that was the big hangout for the first one. I was just like, that's not a choice I would have made. I was like, well, it's a choice Joel made. Yeah, you're playing a man named Joel Miller. He's not you. But I paid for it.
00:29:26
Speaker
Well, that applies to both of those games, I suppose, or it just ends with the main characters making really poor decisions. And then you're like, well, that's what I figured would happen, you idiot. Yeah. I mean, people in desperate times like that make bad decisions. People in normal times make bad decisions. So like, I didn't. I don't know. I mean, it's not it's not a very hopeful message, though, is it? That's probably why it gets people down. You want to end in a way that makes us go. ah Yes, that's basically worked out as well as could be expected. Did you finish Soma? Yeah, I finished Soma. That didn't end well for that man. It ended poorly for that man. Well, it ended poorly for one of that man. For one of that man. Listen, if you're going to ever upload your consciousness to something, you got to read the fine print and be like, am I going to be the consciousness or am I going to be the man who's left here? Yeah, the fine print is, did you watch the prestige? Maybe watch the prestige again. See all those hats? Yeah, we're not all those hats. Yeah. Yeah. I think if nothing else, I'll take me a nice little twist, even if it is a bit bleak. The endings of Dredge, I enjoyed them. The ending of Atomic Heart. After all the implications are through and you're like, oh no, I'm brain dead and that's my wife. The weird thing about Atomic Heart is that the bad ending is the one that takes more work to get. Yes, it does. You get the good ending if you decide to peace out before the final boss.
00:30:50
Speaker
Yep, yep. I mean, shoot, Liza P. does that, I think? I think the bad ending is the one you have to fight for, whereas the other one, like, it ends there. Regardless, it still leaves you on the cliffhanger of, like, whoa, whoa, whoa, cinematic universe. next I mean, you know, game pisca design 101, you'd think the ending should be more satisfying if it's the one you had to put more work into. ah picture I don't know, that's a gambler's fallacy to me.
00:31:21
Speaker
or but to gamblers I'm not sure you know what the gamblers fallacy is. Oh, it's just the assumption that's like, oh, I'm on a hot street. And that's more so I guess just the correlation I paid more, so it's gonna have more quality. I worked harder. So it should be, you know, invert or not inversely, it should correlate with my satisfaction. Yeah, I think having played enough Metroidvanias Yeah, it's more about the completion than the actual ending. Oh man. Well, that's always how I play. Metravenia's gotta fill out every square in the map. different then that's the low All the endings. And then you just get like a really dinky boss fight for some reason. Cause it was, well used again, like the really hard one was probably optional and hidden somewhere. Like Galamoth in Symphony of the Night.
00:32:07
Speaker
Yeah. ah holiday night like I finished Hollow Knight and then there was all the but road to pain or whatever the fuck it was. well but I'm not doing this. This is too spicy for me. yeah out here Yeah, that was good. I'd say, yeah, they had good bosses. And then if you want to go beyond, sure, why not? Yeah, Binding of Isaac as well. If you get like the thousand percent completion or whatever, those bosses really put the fuck on you. The tarnishing of Juxia? That's one I did have to go look for the super spicy ending. I don't even think it was an ending. It was just a side character that was hella hard. That's the name of a game? The tarnishing of Juxia? The tarnishing of Juxia was like the fourth review I'd done at the old place.
00:32:50
Speaker
I wanted to say Gesundheit. That was a rough one. These episodes where we are pretty much just riffing and like bringing up games. One day I just want to bring up a fake game and just kind of. roll see if everyone Yes. Who could forget the example of little Kreia Sisko's bongo? Yeah, the incredible ending of, uh, honey, I shrunk the kids on the NES, uh, really, really moved me. You know what I like in a, in a charming, colorful, lighthearted game? I like when I get to fuck shit up during the credits. I was recently playing Astro's Playroom and you're interacting with the credits. Smash Bros always lets you interact with the credits. At the end of Katamari, you can usually like roll up all the countries during the credits. I like doing that. At the end of, uh, Sam and Max hit the road, you can shoot all the credits.
00:33:38
Speaker
Give me, give me a little bit. of I feel like it that wouldn't work in like a last of us, something sad. I think it works in a, in a nice little, uh, you like yeah like being able to fuck up the credits. That's fair. yeah look what i was I was doing that just a few weeks ago in Astro's play room, just running into a bunch of Japanese men, just slapping their names. Or be a good, like sober, like depressing ah gameplay, giving to have over the credits. It's just the music. Maybe um character drinking alone at a bar and every time a name comes they just like are slowly drowning their sorrows. Yeah just sad post credits like here's the developers that were fired immediately after. ah That's too real. just Yeah anyone who's worked at Embracer it's like here's the list of everyone who doesn't work here anymore. Oh god.
00:34:25
Speaker
prefering my Maybe it's like a credit sequence that is unskippable, but you have to manually turn a little crank to make the words scroll by. Oh, Jesus. You got to bring your cranker out. Get your crank on. Oh, you've got a cranker. And a cranker. That has been dead for a while. But I have a cranker. I just want everyone to know I have it, and I know where it is. We've gone a long way. It was Far Cry 3. It ended with a scrolling text and a sword stuck in the ground on the left side. That's what that was. It could be simple. Did Voss have a sword? Was he a sword man? I think it's the sword you used to... Well, you might... Yeah, I think you killed Voss with it, didn't you? I haven't played Far Cry 3 since it came out since. That was a rough ending. That was some kind of just overstay. I'm like, this could have ended so much sooner.
00:35:15
Speaker
I wanted to kill all my mates and stay on the island. what you have Wait, why do you want to kill your mates? So I can stay on the island. You can stay without killing them though. Don't tell people where the island is. We don't want them. This is our island. That's that game's ending from 3000. You can either ah leave the island and kill your new girlfriend, or you can kill all your previous mates and stay on the island with your new girlfriend. But if you do, that actually kills you. The big two? Oh, that girlfriend. Okay. That's right. That's the one you start with. who You have to rescue who's part of your like group of asshole white rich kids. And then there's the new girlfriend who's like the leader of the rebels in the, on the first Island and, uh, who's the, like the sister of ours. And if you side with her in the end, you have to murder all your friends and then she has sex with you and then she stabs you to death. a real if weird Just like the fortune teller told me.
00:36:14
Speaker
Um, I feel like the last three, the last three endings I had written down that I really liked, they're all also kind of bummers in their own way, were Shadow of the Colossus. And I like how it ties back into Eco. I think that's a really, that's a really great ending of like, ooh, it wasn't good. That's a cool little oh shit moment. Yeah. Cool little, oh shit. This was a franchise all along moment. Yeah. um for Zelda games. I think by and large, I like how the Zelda games and I really like how Link's Awakening ends in the like, all right, we're waking up from a dream. Goodbye, everyone. You don't exist anymore. Like that's a that's a nice little bummer. And then without going to spoilers, both near automata and near replicant. I feel like those are always the games we talk about when we talk about good editing. That's the thing is we can't and you can't just go because if you spoil it, it's too much. It's too much. so but It's too much. It's too much. You won't get it. But um yeah, real good stuff.
00:37:07
Speaker
Now we get to Super Chats. Yeah, let's have a go. We got so many Super Chats. These are some of the examples. Also, thanks. You know what? You know what I'm going to say? Thanks to our sponsor, Game Makers. Thanks for sponsoring us at Game Maker. Thank you very much for sponsoring us and for providing a wonderful piece of software that I use to make games with. Also, go buy Atty's games. Yeah, go buy Starstruck Vagabond. It's really it's very good. Right. Greatest ending of all time. All 26 endings. Jesus. Vernier. That's us a bit much.
00:37:40
Speaker
Yeah, one for each letter of the alphabet. Anyway, Pierre Tadras gives five Canadian dollars and says, we'll watch post work, but I am always a sucker for last stand endings. I think they were great in games as you can combine the narrative and gameplay. Yes, like the aforementioned Halo reached on the aforementioned Red Dead Redemption. Yeah. No, one have a last stand ending, does it? It does. Yeah. It has a final battle that you cannot win, but you don't die. It is kind of like a final encounter where the guys keep coming until you go. They just keep coming through. It was card four. It's a Modern Warfare 1 or 2 with the deagle. I want to say you shot Shepard? I forget who it was. It was the deagle? All the Modern Warfare games had a last stand ending, yeah. Yeah.
00:38:28
Speaker
And a bit where the character you're playing as gets killed. One and three. Those are something I'm like, what? No way. I'm driving. No way. Well, it was, it was a no way moment in the first modern warfare game. And then it sort of started becoming inevitable. Oh yeah. And crisis, crisis score of Final Fantasy was Zach's last end. Although they kind of read, read, they changed that all with the Final Fantasy seven remix. That got really nerdy. I'm sorry. Talk about the next thing. RTPirer gave us five pounds and says, brutal legend is one of the top letdowns. I've taken a great action adventure game and veering wildly into clunky RTS just let the whole thing down.
00:39:05
Speaker
Well, as Jay passed on to me from Tim Shafer himself, it was always intended to be an RTS in the first place. And it wasn't just at the ending it was introduced, right? It was like, well, it was like the whole game. I think it might've been only the final boss where the final battle where the RTSing was actually kind of necessary to win all the rest of the time. You could kind of just do everything yourself. Yeah, ah but as as someone who was a big fan of ah Double Fine and and Tim Schafer and LucasArts and not a big fan of ah heavy metal music or real-time strategy things, that was always a tough pill for me to swallow.
00:39:45
Speaker
check like um i could take her I don't have an opinion on Jack Black. He's totally funny. He's like an a launcher to me. i He doesn't leave a taste in my mouth. like if you with bandda four ah No, I've seen Kung Fu Panda one. I don't think I've seen any other ones. Oh, there's a title that's, uh, what's the term? High concept. Kung Fu Panda? Kung Fu Panda. Yeah. That was everything you need to know. It's very, so yeah, very good. ah Pierre Tardress gives to Canadian Dollars and says, to be clear, endings like Halo reaching Crisis Core. Yes, thank you, Pierre Tardress.
00:40:22
Speaker
Dr. Theo gives $2 and says Fallout 3 is my go-to bad ending example. Yes, we all remember that one, don't we? ahba Where the ending was, you have to go into an irradiated room to save the world. And you've got multiple party members, you could order to do it instead of you, some of whom are immune to radiation, but we're not gonna let you do that because we didn't think of that when we were writing this game. ah starts righting But as someone who will always be my friend, or whatever. If you have one person immune to radiation, you'd be like, well, I should send him in here. Obviously. think they later I think later on they patched the game, so you could get one of your immune to radiation friends to do it. But then the game sort of feels a little anti-climactic, I of suppose. Like, all right, saved the good save the day, now what?
00:41:07
Speaker
ah FoxD gives $2 and says, just outright say, conglaturation, a winner is you. You big racist Fox D. Oh, know Fox D. That was what? What was the game? A winner is you. That was from um what was it called? it Like a wrestling game on the n NES? I thought it was like a shooter. Oh, that was all our base. All your base are belong. That was um zero wing. Was that all your base? I don't know. Yeah. A winner is you was a wrestling game ah whose exact title I forget. Great.
00:41:41
Speaker
Uh, Laurie gives six euros and says, what I hate is when a great ending is undermined by a sequel whose story clearly wasn't planned during the first game. Final Fantasy 10 and Final Fantasy 13 come to mind. Yeah. It's like when they did X more episodes of future armor and they showed that he went back and looked after his dog. Yeah. How would they do that? I always tend to, I give a pass too. Cause that was almost like a silly, silly, like the stakes are so much lower ah lower in this, in this offshoot. Which I'm fine with. Doesn't ruin the thing that came before it. One day I'll get through those games. Yeah. On my deathbed. That's my ending. There you go. So, you know, we appreciate endings because we like to think about our own deaths, as you said, Marty. So, what would be your favorite way to die? What would be your preferred way to die? Never mind.
00:42:39
Speaker
Are you one of those deathbed moments? All the family around? Or do you want to die like pushing an orphan away from a bus? In my sleep, man. Sacrifice would be nice, or like seeing something no human being has ever seen. Did you break an area 51? Yeah, maybe like having my last moments be like, Oh shit, that is real. And then done like, Oh, like, uh, getting sucked into the Stargate at the end of 2001 Space Odyssey. I think i last recorded, you last recorded communication is my God, it's full of stars. Yeah. great Yeah. Yeah. I like finding out that my wife is actually communist ballerina robots. And we fight to the death. There you go. I'll be my name.
00:43:26
Speaker
Uh, yes. Anyway, the brain sturgeon gives six euros and says, speaking of Yahtzee's pet peeves and game endings, the ending Tron 3000. Press different buttons for different endings, like Deus Ex Human Revolution. Well, we know at what point in the podcast that Super Chat came before. Was that the first of the two modern Deus Ex? Mankind Divided was the second one? Yes. Did that- The original Deus Ex was just Deus Ex. Mankind Divided. It was a war, right? Yeah, that was the sequel everyone forgets. Okay. Which, uh, okay. And after that, they did human revolution and mankind divided. How did mankind divide that end? I think it might've just had the same ending. Whatever you did. Oh, I remember it sort of ended on a, Hey, this is like the, the plots isn't over. This is like the second installment of a trilogy. And then, uh, we never got anything. Yeah.
00:44:22
Speaker
Anyway, Danny123451 gives £10 and says, I found FF7 Remake's ending shockingly bad and I have never seen such poorly implemented post-game content in my life. Kingdom Hearts 3 also did not fare much better. thanks i thought we just he says Except he uses F-A-I-R fare when he should be using F-A-R-E fare in that context. Oh, we're going to send a letter to Tetsuya Nomura. Yes, I'm going to write, see me under your super chat with the red pen.
00:44:57
Speaker
Yeah, I think the the the people who didn't like Final Fantasy VII remakes ending, which is totally fine if you didn't like it, are the ones who wanted a very faithful remake to Final Fantasy VII. And then that end of that remake is like, ooh, we're going to change things and we're cognizant of Final Fantasy VII remakes. Yeah, I assumed the intention of remake was, oh, you want to remake Final of Fantasy VII, do you? Well, here it is. Psych! You made me. That was the message. Yeah. Uh, Ryan Betts gives $5 and says, for me, both of Soma's back-to-back endings and the contrast between the two were quite satisfying and left me reflecting on the story in the best way. Yeah, things seem cool for the version of you that gets like wandering around a little utopia. That seems nice. Well, that's what you want is an ending that leaves you thinking about it. Oi, speaking of, did the Talos Principle have good endings?
00:45:48
Speaker
Uh, I'd say so. Yeah. Okay. Cause I'm like for all this philosophical music, you better have a good ending. Well, you know, a lot of the pleasure is in the journey. Speaking of, uh, well, speaking of the first person puzzlers that got me to, um, we didn't talk about any valve games. I feel people would be mad if we didn't talk about valve games. Do you think that's a very good ending? Half-life, not so much. I'd say narratively portals ending is good. I think like mechanically we ain't done this stuff. Yeah. Well, it was, uh, well, there were a couple of puzzles that were based around using portals, redirect missiles. So isn't that didn they run out of money or something?
00:46:32
Speaker
Yeah. Well, that's why the final boss was like the boss sitting there, not doing anything. And, uh, there's a timer because nerve gas is entering the room because that's basically all they could afford. Yeah. It's very, um, Monty Python, holy grail kind of ending. Yeah. That's all the money we got. All right. Let's go. Yeah. All right. Wrap it up lads.
00:46:55
Speaker
Uh, yeah. Half-Life 1's ending is, um, okay. Zen level's not withstanding. Half-Life 2, well, that never really ended, did it? Nope. Nope. The cliffhanger the so two is pretty neat. Yeah. And and then they retconned it in Half-Life Alyx. Yeah. It was neat for a little while. There you go. And now I guess no one there knows what the fuck they're going to do now.
00:47:25
Speaker
Uh, low QS gives 50 arses and says, how do you feel about endings that are large text box epilogues thinking of like the original dragon age origins, for example, if that's what you have to do to give me my, uh, what, what happened next ending and you can't put all of your effort into every single possible ending, then fine. I'm fine with it. I don't mind reading. I've read books. It's a thing I do. especially if it's a game that has a lot of like RPGs are kind of built on the foundation of it. So if there's a lot of potential ways the ending could have gone, then I, that I really wouldn't complain. If it's a text ending, even though there's only one possible ending you can get, that would probably be a little bit more disappointing. Pyre did a good job of that, right? Like Pyre almost gives you like, uh, when you finish the game, like every character you could click on and see what their life is like, whether you sacrifice them or not, sent them.
00:48:15
Speaker
Yeah. You don't sacrifice them. If anything, not sacrificing them is the bad thing to do. Yes, that's true. It's it's weird use of those terminologies. Yeah. Weird sort of turnaround, isn't it? Yeah. the character you You have to decide which character you're going to delete from the game as a favor to them. Yes. And so you you, you're wrestling with the idea of you have a character that man is really good, but if you like them narratively, you want them to leave the game. Yeah. Yeah. and I rescued the dog. Of course. I think he was the first one I rescued. oh ah yes Be free. I'll meet to you over the rainbow bridge. my trend for the Damn. My point guard. garden. Jesus basketball.
00:49:01
Speaker
and
00:49:03
Speaker
ah Tommy Salty gives 10 PL ends and says gunshot cuts a black stroke. It was a dream. Best ending with his face. Soprano it. Let's go. yeah That wasn't even Gunshot cut to black. That was just cut to black. Yeah, he could have choked on a little little gabagool there or something. He just ran out of film. They're like, shit, we we did back in our film today. No one would have liked Breaking Bad if it had ended on Gunshot cut to black. It should have ended. And that was scene where he was underneath the crawl, all the money's gone. He's just laughing. and and as yeah yeah cameras
00:49:42
Speaker
ah Dr. Theo gives $5 and says, speaking of endings, I actually don't mind getting spoiled. I enjoy seeing how it builds up to the ending and seeing all the foreshadowing ahead of time. You're weird, Dr. Theo. I don't know. If they close the loop, well enough. Entropy Center ah starts you back at the beginning. Hades starts you back. Well, I guess it's not the beginning, is it? I mean, I recently had to play Through Nights at the Old Republic, which of course has a very famous twist ending, which was spoiled for me beforehand. And I didn't appreciate that having been spoiled for me. It was just narrative, isn't it? Well, yeah. That's one of those endings that would be impossible to go two decades without having it spoiled though, right? Yeah, I'd like to think so. Anyone who was in the video game adjacent space.
00:50:30
Speaker
a will
00:50:34
Speaker
Walpole, member for four months in sponsor free videos, says Baldur's Gate 3 had great endings, but that was a lot of work. For a simple one, I think Bioshock 1 and 2 did it satisfyingly, even if the moral choice was poorly done. Not with the boss fight. yeah <unk> play off Yeah, the fight was shit. You're talking about the like the ending you get based on if you sacrificed the little sisters or didn't. If you're a bad person or not. Yeah. Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like the ending of the burial at sea and of the two DLCs for two and three. Um, burial at sea is the DLC for three, right? Infinite. Yeah, infinite. Infinite. Yeah. And then what's the DLC for two? Minerva's Den. Minerva's Den. It's its own little story. Okay. That one has a really good ending. Okay. The Bioshock thing, the twist was I'm not really Scottish.
00:51:31
Speaker
I didn't, uh, without government spoilers, the the ending of, uh, uh, still wakes the deep than really doing it. The Scottish thing reminded me of that. Yeah. i do i I enjoyed the game. I think overall I got to the ending and I was like, okay, I guess we're done. Yeah. I didn't, I didn't like the ending at all. Yeah. adam Um, is that a horror Is it a horror game? Yeah. Like Outlast type. I don't see how you could be ah let's see how you could be hesitant to describe Still Wake the Deep as a horror game. It's a horror game, but I don't think it's very scary. okay um it tries it It does try to be.
00:52:14
Speaker
yeah
00:52:16
Speaker
Interesting. I just thought it was i just thought the the way they talked was silly and I liked it. ah want board games they have does ah oh what's What's the game you guys were talking about? the the very british hit yeah Does that have voices? Yes. yeah Is there a way to have localized subtitles? like yeah Yes, there are. That's what Yahtzee told you. yes Oh, I thought it would like literally change the script. Ooh, that's good. I like that. Put that in more games. yeah Um, the snake in the garden gives two euros and says Zelda breath of the wild DLC motorbike breaks game, but it's good. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. That's a fun example. You gotta pay for that. Like front motorbike or a jet pack or a fucking napalm launcher that also makes you fly.
00:53:08
Speaker
Yeah. Give me like a handgun in a fantasy game or like in a medieval game or in another crap's treasure. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. No, I'm still waiting for us to do that. Metroidvania. We're at the end. You can actually like bash through the bloody walls and everything. Oh, that sounds great.
00:53:27
Speaker
And assault rifle. Just give you an assault rifle at the end of um Dark Souls. Every game should have a Chicago typewriter with infinite ammo. re would be the best Uh, Eero Lang gives five euros and says, until dawn versus the quarry. Former gives you insight of how the characters felt about everything during the credits. The latter gives you screenshots. Well, hand on heart, yeah. If you held me down and forced me to pick one to be bet- that is the better game, I would have said until dawn. that one had first party Sony money behind it. So I kind of get, yeah. And also Rami Malek's in it. However you pronounce that TV's Rami Malek. Oscar winning Rami Malek now. Wait, what does it Prince? Queen. Queen. It's everything in food. I got Queen, Mercury, Freddie Mercury, Freddie Prince Jr.
00:54:23
Speaker
one I see why you got confused now. yeah ah A superb owner. Welcome to tip jar. And then the witticism gives $5 and says dragons talk, but one is one of my favorite endings. Also I'm with you. The final boss of nine souls is a tad cruel. That phase three attack can go fuck itself. I gotta ask Marty at the end of, um, Erdtree ending aside the fight itself. How'd you fare? I was getting dizzy man. It was incredibly hard Yeah, the way you said it earlier I was like damn Marty's built different he just so he just brushed it
00:55:05
Speaker
Oh, no, no, no, I just meant it was like, it just felt unfairly difficult. like It didn't feel like there's some of those battle fights you get through and you're like, Ooh, this was good. Like, I feel good after this. This was like, Oh, I've just served time in a prison camp. Like, I don't feel like this made me a better person afterwards. This is like, everything is moving so fast. It's it's making me lose consciousness. Yeah. Oh, the G4 scooter. And then I see those videos of like, very specific builds where someone can kill him like before and even mid phase transformation. but How are y'all doing this? so
00:55:37
Speaker
ah FoxD gives $10 and says, I'm a sucker for any game where the NPCs acknowledge how much you've been through together in a hundred plus hour play through like stardew valley or my time at Sandrock. Give me some heartfelt recognition. Yeah. like that's That's what I liked about Firelink. All the different stories and NPCs that pass through there. And then I get something. There's nothing I was shooting for with Starstruck Vagabond. If you get the New Game Plus ending where you like freeze yourself again for 2000 years and all the party members you made friends with leave a message for you to read when you wake up. ah Oh, that'd be nice. That's nice. Yeah. and you And they tell you what they're going to do with their lives now.
00:56:21
Speaker
Not that you care, you need their ancestors and then see, you have to make new games just for endings. Yeah, there you go. um A superb owner gave us $5 and says Metroid Prime's boss is a good final exam and that it made you use each ability you unlocked over the course of the game. Here's some dollars to go play it. I've played it as a superb owner. No, it's for our current goal. It's very, um, for a case in there. It's very guacamelee, isn't it? Yeah. Do you like that? Except like, it'd be a little awkward. Cause I, especially in Guacamelee, cause it almost goes beat for beat in the way that you learn them. So at the start, it was a lot harder. Cause I was like, ah, God, what was that mechanic that they taught me so long ago again?
00:57:06
Speaker
yeah Yeah, they almost like go through there's like either boss rushes or but like the final boss of death's door goes through like a bunch of phases and each phase is one of the main bosses of the game. So you have Yeah. to be like, I remember how you beat that first boss 10 hours ago. I was like, I do not. I do not remember how I beat that man. I guess I have to remember now.
00:57:26
Speaker
I remember the Metroid Prime final boss being really hard when I first played it, but then I like replayed it when it came re was remade on Switch and thought, wow, this is really easy. And then I realized that the original GameCube controls sucked ass. Yeah. And I think they just... And that's when I realized that you can never go home again. Oh, no. The wave bird. How could you do this to us? Oh, man. Jule Rogue is two euros. Asura's Wrath is a choice for good and bad bad ending. Well, ending wasn't DLC. Well, because it has, yeah, it has like the the ending that was there on the disc at launch and then ah the DLC actual ending of the game. Like the ending that was there on the first day was pretty bad. And then the ending you get when you play the play the final episode or two in DLC is very good. Oh, you made my daughter cry.
00:58:21
Speaker
like If you're on a game that has a good ending and a bad ending, and both of them feel satisfying and are decent endings, I would nominate Infamous 2 for that accolade. Oh, yeah. We're either the savior or you become the savior. No. Yeah. and I think they're both got pretty hard-hitting emotional moments. Like if you're the bad guy, you have to kill your best friend. And you have to do it in a very drawn out, horrible way, where you, that really drives it home, what you do. Just like a way out. Oh, there you go.
00:58:56
Speaker
Dr. Theo comes back with $5 and says, saw two, the game had an ending Tron thing, except it was at the start of the game with zero context. You have to start all over to see the other ending. That's insane. No, Black Ops 2 did that multiple. It was, it was a sort of choose your own adventure. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah. horrible thing Horrible thing. And then you could go back at the end and change some of the outcomes, but then you'd have to play the game from there. sort Oh my god. Yeah, I like when you're not buying your a choice before you know, like I think the first Wolfenstein of the new Wolfensplains. Yeah. touch These two characters is going to live and I'm like, I don't know them. I don't know them yet. I haven't spent enough time with them. Like I'll be honest. Yeah. Those decisions for me, a lot of it is like, what do I get? Yeah. Like decide when I decide this, what am I choosing here? Exactly.
00:59:46
Speaker
ah Alex Armstrong gives $5 and says in stardivardy, meaning Starstruck vagabond, and found portal on zoop planet. It did nothing went up relanded. Now it's gone. Also shift keys have no faces when reassigning bugs. Wow, let me get out of the settings. Uh, Alex, we have a special discord for this. If you go to the games channel and the stars on the second wind discord, there's a special thread for posting about starstruck vagabond, which I occasionally dredge for bug reports. Maybe you could take your $5 there. No, key the tork out there po all things want to keep your and we appreciate your $5. Take a question there. who that Eric even put a little link. go There you go.
01:00:31
Speaker
Uh, Rose Delta gives five dollars and says, this made me recall. To me, the only satisfying Cyberpunk 2077 ending felt like the suicide ending. The voicemails afterward gut wrenching too. Just mark yourself in these games. imagine i yeah i've I tend to think the suicide ending was the best ending of Silent Hill 2 as well. Without wishing to spoil. I am for butterfly effect.
01:00:59
Speaker
Sometimes that's the best way us the story can end. There you go. I want me, I want a game to do a Donnie Darko ending. Where it turns out like you'll go back in time to the start and then die. I don't think everyone's life will be better because of that. Yeah. Yeah. Just have a good smile and then. Yes. aha I get to die now. Yay. That's the Donnie Darko ending. Uh, Fox Stig is $5 and says the best part of Starstruck Vagabond's ending was the fantastic music on the fluffy critter planet. Big ups to the composers on that track. Yes, Starstruck Vagabond has very good music, composed by Sam Horton and Joe Collinson, the composers of the soundtrack for BPM Bullets per Minute, who are very jolly good musicy men. Mm-hmm. They know how to make earworms. Those are good. They sure do.
01:01:55
Speaker
Uh, the brain sturgeon gives two euros and says, well, there went my question donated anyway. Oh, thank you brain surgeon. There you go. Alex Armstrong gives $2 and says high on life's was anticlimactic. Not that it cares abandoned. I guess so. I didn't finish high on life. Well, I guess now you needn't bother. No, I got tired for Christmas and I started playing it and then Christmas happened. I'm like, I'm not going back to. yeah i so I was like, eh, I don't know how I feel about this. And then the thing came through and I was like, oh, no, I morally don't have to finish. That's good, too. Tommy Salty gives 10 PLNs and says Far Cry 3 and 4 had great endings. Moral ambiguity.
01:02:45
Speaker
Was it ambiguous? Well, at least for three. At least for three. So you can't really ambiguous in that there were just two endings. One of them was where you're being an asshole. And the other one, where you weren't. So. Okay, for sure.
01:03:07
Speaker
So I kind of missed the full intended ending of Far Cry 4. Because at the very end, you walk into like the dude's dinner, and says, if if you if you've come here to kill me, just do it now. So I did. I just shot him in the face and then the game ended. And I was like, Oh, well, that felt anticlimactic. It turns out there's more that comes after that you're supposed to hold out for. Is that not the same game where you could end the game at the start of the game? and That's the very one. Yes. And the actual ending you get feels very similar to the ending you get if you like just wait 15 minutes at the start of the game. Oh, all right. I wonder how many times you could have opted out. Sounds like you could have done it twice at least.
01:03:47
Speaker
I mean, in most games, theoretically, the main character could just bugger off at any time. That's me. One of the things I like about Silent Hill too, in that James Sunderland could bugger off out of Silent Hill whenever he wants. But he doesn't, because he's torturing himself. That's the truth. That's the clue.
01:04:05
Speaker
ah Alex Armstrong gives side dollars and says, controversial, but Far Cry 5's nuclear apocalypse felt like you wasted your time, but at least you died trying to do the right thing, saving your friends. I actually like that, Andy. And then Far Cry New Dawn came out and it turned out everyone was still alive somehow. A little Mad Max. It's fine. Is that going to be like an actual canonical sequel? Yes, it is. In fact, the main character of Far Cry 5 shows up in New Dawn as an unplayable character. Oh, I didn't know that. Wearing a mask so you don't know, so it doesn't mess with whatever appearance you chose.
01:04:43
Speaker
Faz gives 9.99 pounds and says, while being a good sci-fi detective experience, nobody wants to die trips over itself at the end. Without spoiling, the ending forgets about wrapping up the whodunit and tries to mess with your head poorly. Well, that's a very new game, Faz. That is, which I know we're going to have a bite sized of by Jess at some point in the near future. um ah i don' know listen This came out while I was on vacation. What is this game? This wasn't one of my vacation games. so It was a, it's a like the heavily story focused detective game. Apparently I haven't played it. I've been playing a lot of hint dungeons of Hintonburg. I haven't played a lot of needs to gummy. Well, so I'm playing a lot of Hintonburg. I'm going to review that throughout your review.
01:05:28
Speaker
There's a lot of things I'm going to criticize it for, but at the end of the day, it's like, I woke up each morning going, Ooh, I'm looking forward to playing more donuts of Hindenburg today. And that's all you can ask for really. There you go. That's good. Did you make friends with the dog? Certainly did. but you know How else do you find- you have to. There's that whole dungeon you can't find if you could don't make friends with the dog. Oh, I didn't know if it was an optional one or not. I did that dungeon. So you didn't make friends with the dog? No, I did make friends with the dog and I did that dungeon. I just haven't finished the game. I'm only on like day 15. Well, you finished the game by doing all the dungeons. I haven't finished all the dungeons yet. I was too busy exploring my own dungeons in Punta Cana.
01:06:12
Speaker
I didn't go to any dungeons. That sounded like a sex thing, but it wasn't. It was just where I was. it's It really does. and Where I was. ah Jackson Jewel, member for eight months in the Green Gang, says, missed last week due to my birthday. Happy eight months. Happy birthday. So from their perspective, Marty has been here all
Ambiguous Endings in Video Games
01:06:30
Speaker
along. Oh my God. I didn't even know what the topic was. Oh no, it was like, uh, developers, right? Like individual. Developers, we've we like who we've met. That's great. Uh, they booked their hair. They don't call height gives five euros and says, no ending is also an ending. Half life, two episode two ending on closing the portals and losing Eli a bittersweet ending. I don't need episode three to see us cleaning up earth. I mean, that's not an ending though. That's like a, it feels like an inhale. I don't think we actually did close the portals though. did we in there Yeah. It was ambiguous.
01:07:07
Speaker
Matthew Muir gives five Canadian dollars and says, I considered Ys VIII a masterpiece up until its ending. Tacking on the Ys world is some random goddess's dream at the end was just dumb. Ys? Ys. Yeah, it's our RPG series, Ys, which is the best. Ys. Okay. I always say Ys. Ys. I believe Ys is the pronunciation, but it's just a weird. Yes. Yeah. Weird language. Where did it go? Alex Armstrong gives $5 and says he wants an ending done right. Look at Majora's Mask, where in the credits it shows you all the people you've helped if you've 100%ed the game, that is.
01:07:42
Speaker
And then again, Link's got to leave. yes Link doesn't have a place. Can't go to Hyrule anymore because he's too young. Can't live in this place anymore because it ain't real. I didn't have to realize Hyrule was like a fucking roller coaster with a fucking height restriction board. I didn't mean he was too young. I meant like he doesn't like the the world that his his world of Hyrule isn't the world that he experienced throughout Ocarina time. He's like, I became an adult and now I'm a child again. What the fuck do I do? Uh, really kick ass at spelling bees. and Relive your life. Go for it. but He didn't learn anything. He must have been a very dumb adult because he was like mentally an eight year old in the body of like a 20 year old might as well. So he was like Shazam.
Frozen Characters in Games and Media
01:08:25
Speaker
Yeah. He was like frozen in stasis. Yeah. For when he pulls out a sword and it comes out. Yeah. Or a lion. Oh, in Thundercats.
01:08:33
Speaker
Yeah. In the, in the pilot, he was like, he was the one whose chronic freezer didn't work properly. So he had the mind of a child in the body of an adult. See how's life to live? Somehow a really buff adult.
01:08:49
Speaker
Guess there's, did it got a lot of sit-ups done while he was in chronic preservation. Anyway, uh, cure87 gives 20 Danish kroner and says, cyberpunk 2077 really hit me. Bittersweet, but done right. I take it they off themselves as well.
Ongoing Games and Satisfying Endings
01:09:06
Speaker
and There's a few endings. There's a few in Cyberpunk. I guess there was also like the actual endings of the Phantom Liberty. I don't know if that was like a plus game. game so one more i Deathgrip a jellyfish and donate my organs. Oh, you want to do? No.
01:09:26
Speaker
Uh, party pirate member for one month in the green gang at newbie who says end walker good wrapping final fantasy fourteens initial story arc. Yeah. if That's one of those again. Like, can it, can like a world of orca, can an ongoing game have a good ending kind of destiny? I guess those are like ah the equivalent of like good season finales. I suppose. Right? There's no series finale for any of these things? That's all I know.
Sequels Impacting Game Endings
01:09:55
Speaker
I don't know. I mean, and Breaking Bad wouldn't be Breaking Bad without that very decisive ending. Yeah, agreed.
01:10:04
Speaker
um The book, the hair that Uncle Hight gives five euros and says midnight mercenaries has a great ending. You're stuck in a room with a nuke and the only way to end the game is to give up instead of respawn. hell's been named mercenaries. Yeah, what are you? How are you accomplishing it? Hold on. Is this a made up game? It's the made up game. Made by German Peter. A Team Fortress 2 crossed Hotline Miami fan game. What? This is your game. yeah it is It looks like Hotline Miami, but as with tea it is a Team Fortress story. That's wacky.
01:10:38
Speaker
yeah Wearing a light? Wow. Alex Armstrong gives $5. He says, as much as I like Infamous Second Son, yes, I'm weird, it does make the ending of Infamous 2 feel silly, considering Sucker Punch wanted a sequel for PS4. Yeah, let's note that those should have left well enough alone, sequels. Yeah. Ruining a perfectly good ending. Put Infamous 1 to modern consoles and PC, please. Yes, and Bloodborne while you're at it. and Thank you.
01:11:10
Speaker
get it all up there with a big shovel. Sure. 37 gave us 50 Danish Corona and says original fallout three was odd. You had to enter a radiated champer because of story. Even if your companion was immune to radiation, DLC salvaged it. Yeah, I don't know what I said to all that. Somebody is a Star Trek fan. We got to get in there. The needs of the many. What are one of them needy people that decide my game endings? Fox D comes back with $2 and says, the game was pro wrestling on the n NES. Oh, thank you. We call the sport, just like an activity. Bro, anything? Yeah. Yeah. What if we, I was about to say, what if we just had a game called gun, but there was a, there was a game called, gun there was a movie called gun as well. 50 cent and about Kilmer. um what a strange time too As to the, we're actually to the episodic ending or seasonals. How do we fill the Assassin's Creed ones as they were, after they've left Desmond, how do those end?
01:12:07
Speaker
I like most the ending of Thor of Black Flag. Well, the standard Assassin's Creed ending is historical protagonist goes into weird alien spaceship, weird it has a weird epiphany stroke revelation, and then walks out again. Right.
Frustrations with Cliffhanger Endings
01:12:24
Speaker
Sure, but by Black Flag, you were like working for a movie production. Yeah. And then the person in the future goes, Oh, that was interesting. And then the credits roll.
01:12:36
Speaker
The end. There you go. ah Tyrail007, remember for five months in ad-free podcasts, says, Cliffhanger endings with a light with a later canceled sequels, probably the worst perpetrator of them all, IMO. Yeah. that's like That's one of those where it's like, oh, well, they intended on something good to happen, but a ummpon intended to cash in a again. ah intended this was the oh Oh, no, we don't get to make money. Yeah. ah Blank gives $2 and says the Stanley Parable ending was pretty good. I mean, and I wasn't aware that the Sunday Parable had an ending.
01:13:18
Speaker
For the end is the beginning, is the end, is the beginning. Look at that. Look at that. Take, put it away. It frightens me. What is it? Baby face, Marty. Eric's put a filter on you. You monster. To take your beard away. Now you look weird. Could you? roger on yeah You look like the illegitimate child of Roger Ebert and Dan Aykroyd. The big two. Hot and steamy.
01:13:56
Speaker
oh Mr. Sad Face gives $5 and says, Bloodborne's endings are sudden and not amazing, but I still am satisfied by all of them. I don't know, I wasn't terribly satisfied with being turned into a slug. That's the ending you got, okay. Didn't get the umbilicals, did you? No, you know that the slug ending is the one you get if you do eat the umbilicals. Don't eat them, then. Why don't you eat them? Yeah. just good Because the f FAQ said I had to to get the ending.
01:14:30
Speaker
yeah for thats yeah Whenever I ask you why you blanked something in a game, it's usually they told me to. yeah Looking white phosphorus and speckles the line all over again. That was your idea. That was your idea, you asshole. ah Hunter Road gears $5 and says, I'm surprised nobody's brought up Halo 2's
Examining Abrupt Game Endings
01:14:51
Speaker
ending. Game just kind of stops as the story starts to ramp up. Yeah, but yeah and that was definitely a, well, this thing well we'll keep making these games. So we'll, we'll finish the story next time. and yeah I never played that one.
01:15:07
Speaker
Wait, was Halo 3 the one that starts with Master Chief falling out of space and landing on a planet? So I assume Halo 2 ends with him being lost in space. I'm getting ready to finish the fight. Yeah. Yeah. Well, anyway. Hjorth87 gives 20 Danish crewmen and says, Fallout slides pretty neat. IMO wraps it all up. Fallout slides? Yeah, you know, slides like that. that Yeah. It's what happened text slides so you have to And then, ah, gives $20 and says, assume this is from Tsunami Dusha. Tsunami Dusha said that for some reason YouTube was being a jerk and that they couldn't submit their, their usual $20. So quintuplets for them. Look at that. Thanks thanks for taking that one for the team. Ah,
01:16:02
Speaker
Papa Pinara gives $1.99 and says, Shadow of War had a pretty subpar epilogue. Well, I'm glad you mentioned that, Papa Pinara, because I was thinking of going back to that game to finally finish it, because I remembered when you get to like the story end, the game goes, right, now we have to do a big old gameplay grind to get to the actual, actual story end. And I couldn't be bothered. I never finished either of the games. I enjoyed them while playing them and then just eventually stopped. I own them and haven't touched them for some reason. Could people tell me they're great, right? So I'm just waiting for a nice anniversary to pop up with this vintage game and now it's outdated. Yeah, they're good. I'd still say they're good. I still like the org mechanics. Yeah. no system um Neither of them had endings that one would write home about.
01:16:50
Speaker
uh, Palash Teague is 189 says mafia two ended as abruptly as it gets that the one where it ends with you getting shot by no way that's mafia one So is those mobsters in it? Just don't know how to end anything. They just shoot the ending. Well, they've always got to do the the same ending that every gangster story has. It's like, oh, yeah, you got famous and rich, but at what cost? Sure. It's a bullet. Yes. And then the world, then like the world you embrace turned against you and shot you in the face because that's how it works. So you just want a gangster story where you get famous and rich and damn, everything worked out fine.
Bittersweet Endings and Player Experience
01:17:30
Speaker
Yeah, that was not fair, wasn't it?
01:17:33
Speaker
ah I think in Mafia 3, your character's fate is left ambiguous. Oh, gotcha. I know there was some there were some DLCs. I don't know if that changed things. I don't know. ah Fungus Finder gives $2 and says, Out of Wild's ending was bittersweet. Happy sad. really great ending. I don't think happy sad is going to take off. out of ah funs i said if i on i think That's already a term. I feel like I've heard happy said sad is definitely a term. It's, it's max of new speak from all Wells 1984, you know, double plus on good and all that. That's what too much reading does to your man.
01:18:10
Speaker
i or That's a master case. You're one of those assholes who denigrates people for reading books, are you? No, because I used to read them, but I hide it. And the intellectualism, that's what it is. Plain and simple. I have a Ray Bradbury book on my nightstand.
01:18:31
Speaker
It's a big compliment. It only counts if you actually read it, though. I did. I read about the, what was why is it? Otherwise it's still on your nightstand then. Because that's where I go for reading. It's sleepy time reading. And to hits kill the spiders in my sleep. I just chew them when they into my mouth. No wonder the statistic comes from the average human that attends spiders in a year. Most people don't eat any spiders. I'm just dragging the average up.
Open World Games Lacking Impactful Endings
01:18:59
Speaker
no ah
01:19:02
Speaker
Palash T gets 4.99 and says open world games with an explosive final level, but then they just throw you back into the world and nothing has changed. Oh, okay. I guess I'm done. And relax that's what I said. Agreed.
01:19:14
Speaker
but Because you want to feel like you've had some kind of impact on the world, don't you? That's why I like games where if you kill all the enemies in the area, enemies stop being in that area. Yeah, like you feel like you've achieved something. Yeah, I was playing was Cat Quest 3. Every time you like spawn every now and again, everything comes back and I was like, I feels like I'm just here. Just instanced. Oh, Eric's trying to preempt us bringing up Undertale at this point. Well, jokes on you, Eric, I wasn't going to bring up Undertale. But now i'm played I think that's why I don't jive with MMOs. You just you go through so much, but then you look behind you and it's, you know, another queue of people doing exactly what you did. You killed the same dragons and saved the same village as I did.
01:20:05
Speaker
ah but but but Frog42 gives $10 and does have to cap this later, but I love you
Impactful Quotes and Reflections on Endings
01:20:11
Speaker
guys. Can each of you give a quote from a game end or near end that stuck with you? There was a hole here, but it's gone now. That wasn't from the end. That wasn't from the end. You idiot. I like it. Yeah. think and The last line in Silent Hill 2 is James, you made me happy. Oh, that's a nice last line. Yeah, I'm gonna go with that then. I was thinking war never changes, but I'm pretty sure that's like at the start. Yeah, that's the very start. That's the very first line in Fallout. Yeah. I like how you can intercut the opening of Fallout with the opening of Metal Gear Solid 4 and it sounds like they're having an argument. War never changes. War has changed. War never changes. War has changed. They don't just argue with each other. They just keep arguing with each other.
01:21:02
Speaker
Uh, Alex Armstrong comes back with $5 and says, A.E.R. Memories of old. God knows what the fuck that stands for. Hadn't ending about ending the world left aftermath up to interpretation and all context about it is in flavor text. I was like raised eyebrow emoji.
Exploration of Little-Known Game Endings
01:21:20
Speaker
This is a real game. We're learning about a lot of games that don't sound real, but are real. Yeah, 2017. A-E-R. Oh, it's nice. Transform and save cars. I'm trying to explore and experience a vibrant world of floating islands in the sky. I like being a bird. This is like journey in the air. That was sky. That was the game they made after Journey.
01:21:41
Speaker
Frog42 gives $5. It says, also have an extra don't know because my boyfriend's birthday is tomorrow and I want to give an extra gift. a speedy Giving us money is a gift for your boyfriend. oh Don't fix the logic. It's fine. Yeah. I guess your boyfriend really likes Second Wind. Well, as well as you should. Thank you Frog's boyfriend. Do you think Frog's boyfriend's named Toad?
01:22:06
Speaker
That's a good book. i read i but No, no, and I've read that book relatively recently because my kids have it. Good stuff. They love the voices I put on. Oh, go on. Give us your frog. Well, I put on a slightly earnest voice for Frog. And then I put on a sort of solid, not a kind of done with this shit voice for Toad. That's good. That's a new page around here is Yahtzee Reed's nighttime books. Nighttime books for you for your young ones. They made the ice cream in that look so good.
Narratives of Suicide Endings in Games
01:22:38
Speaker
but Uh, Dimitri gives, uh, five Canadian dollars and says, I'm tied between that one ending in spec ops, the line where walk guns down the American soldiers that came to save him and the suicide one. ah both away face i like all at za I think all the games that have a suicide ending should get together and have a big fight.
01:23:00
Speaker
Elastic themselves losers. There you go. to imagine that there's a thing there for us to suicide. Bioshock infinite. Does that count? Yeah, I'd say so. Kind of just give us a sign hold to spec offs the line. ah The medium. That's a suicide ending, isn't it? That's a suicide gunshot fades black ending. No, it's
01:23:33
Speaker
um halo reach there you go everyone yeah let's compile all those su suicide games somewhere just to just to cheer everyone up beneath one beneath one one one one gives 100 Swedish Corona and says, now the ending of Rob Blank 3 from the acclaimed of Rob Blank series was weird, like the creator kinda got up into himself. From the self-insert, that weird green hair quest joking over all the fine lag. Yes, ah this is one of the first games I made when I was a dumb teenager.
Absurd Yet Satisfying Endings
01:24:10
Speaker
it's And it was a shitty game. Says you. It looks nice. I like to think I'm the authority on these things.
01:24:21
Speaker
There's a place called Tospot Manor in it. There you go. ah Buff, a full guy, welcome to the Green Gang. And then Chai-Sai Up gives five Canadians and say, Metal Gear of Engines, what a great ending. You get to fist fight a senator while he talks about how war is great, then you kick his ass. You rip his fucking heart out, it's great. Sure. Democracy at work. uh, Fox Stig inside all this says, okay, Eric, here's your green super chat. Make with the clean shaven Yahtzee and frost. Oh no, you don't. Oh no. Oh no. Oh, it's made my beard into my chin. Jesus. With, with the clean shaven and the hat, you look a little like LL Cool J. um but but I'm, doing it.
01:25:10
Speaker
It's the a bo
The Element of Surprise in Joke Endings
01:25:13
Speaker
but jesus ah bad the bad I don't need to know how I look without a beard, thank you very much, because I know how I look without a beard. I look like my mum, and that's not something I want to see. Yeah, you brought up your trauma when we were talking jaw lines. There you go. ah Bob Fogg. Let me just thoughtfully rub my chin when I do the rest of these Superchats. Bob Fogg gives five pounds and says, how do you feel about joke endings akin to that of Castle Crashers?
01:25:42
Speaker
I don't remember that ending. I don't think I ever saw the ending of Castle Crashers. I've seen the start of Castle Crashers like a million times, because every time I had friends around, I'd say, hey, you know, it's a fun game to play together. Castle Crashers, let's have a play of that. And then I'd have just never gotten to the ending. A sad friendship lasted that long. I don't, I finished the game twice. I don't remember how it ended. I don't think I, I think Yahtzee, I think I was in the same boat as you where that's a game I started a bunch and I don't recall ever finishing it, which I guess is like, that's like classic, uh, party or are I guess arcade game almost. Like I played the beginning of this game a bunch, but I usually run out of money halfway through. Uh, Bob, Bob.
01:26:31
Speaker
not good not what it does oh ah pakistan eric ah bob I don't know one SPS guru 2000 gives five euros and says one of the changes versus war has changed will never be as good as it's a fake versus it's real ah referencing moments from quotable moments from Star Trek League Space Nine, I believe.
01:26:58
Speaker
Never heard of it.
Yahtzee's Voice and Children's Books
01:27:00
Speaker
Chris LaHaye gives $2 and says I would play yards reads kids books to my small see Well, we know people ah go to sleep listening to my four-hour compilations. There you go. There's just something about my voice that some people find quite soporific about me. Hi, Toffee. Oh, he's a puppy. You got a filter that makes Toffee look like he doesn't have any fur. Don't imagine. um my he's ah He's just going to sit on that cushion down there.
01:27:36
Speaker
ah Ben Abraham gives Saul 99 and says, Marty, one, tell us how you make a Wisconsin old fashioned to then make it into a no true Scotsman about Wisconsinites. Oh God, I can do the first half. What is it? Maraschino cherries, orange slices, a sugar cube and a little bitters. You muddle them in the bottom of a glass ah and then you add ice and a little bit of like seven up or sprite. Oh. Then you garnish with another full maraschino cherry or orange lice. Is there a difference between seven up and Sprite? I don't think there's really coke and Pepsi, if I'm being honest. Whoa. What? Yeah. I hate, I like coke and I hate Pepsi. Yeah.
01:28:23
Speaker
Pepsi just tastes wrong. The aftertaste is completely off. We know who you voted for. Yeah, it was a bit of a zest, a bit of more of tang to a 7-Up. Yeah.
Wisconsin Old Fashioned and Soda Comparisons
01:28:32
Speaker
I'm more impressed you can just build the drink by name. I was not kidding. But brandy old fashions are like every Wisconsin's big on Friday fish fries. Like every restaurant and bar has a Friday fish fry. That's what everyone eats on Fridays. And like the drink of choice with half of them is brandy old fashions. Actually, there's a coke I prefer over Coca Cola. There's a coke I can get in the Whole Foods. That's ah called grown up soda, gu or Gus. And they do a coke that's like low sugar. Oh, interesting. And it's actually really good. I'm very fond of it. Grown up soda. Look at that thing.
01:29:15
Speaker
This looks like a jelly bean. If you say so. The packaging, yeah. But yeah, also it's quite sugary. I'm just a crystal clear Pepsi guy. It's not too sweet. 95 calories is but no nice yeah ah coax about, Yeah. Yeah. And in terms of No True Scotsman by Wisconsin, if I'm being perfectly honest, I think I've already forgotten what a No True Scotsman was because we haven't talked about it every week. No, osman will let's say that one of your old fashions is made with seven up and one of them is made with Sprite, which would you say is the one drunk by no true Wisconsinite? Oh, no, true Wisconsinite would have one with seven up. There you go. Seven up is the poser. Okay.
01:30:03
Speaker
I don't know. ah They're they like, they're both just the same in my mind. Oh, is there one that you absolutely it's like, all right, you're not from here. You're, you're from you put in basic like what the bars have. And I think g yeah Wisconsinite with grapefruit squirt or something. Yeah. Oh God.
01:30:24
Speaker
Uh, Chris Lahage, who signed all those and says, have you told Marty about the no true Scotsman clue from last Sunday's New York Times crossword puzzle? Was it, was it in the Sunday puzzle? Yes. There was a puzzle a couple of weeks back where like the theme was logical fallacies. And one of the long clues answers was a no true Scotsman. yeah God, it was a last Monday. You weren't here. Oh God. I like doing the mini, the mini crossword makes me feel good. Cause I can solve it in like 35 seconds. my My record is 12 seconds.
01:30:57
Speaker
Yeah. You got fast fingers. I just don't pay for the full subscription. Fast brain. ah many did Did I mention I've memorized all 50 states? America. wide heard Yeah, we don't like them. what when I I use an online quiz and now I've ah now I could have completely committed to memory every single state of America. I bet if you bring up the outline of any state in America, I could probably tell you what it is now. If I brought up the outline. All right, like straight on the left end and then a flat end at the bottom and then this little squiggly negative correlation trend.
01:31:35
Speaker
Well, that could be a few. That could be Pennsylvania. If it's got like little stairs at the bottom, it's New Mexico. New Mexico steps. He's got it. Yeah. oh ah The two square ones are Wyoming and Colorado. And you remember Colorado is the one that's more centralized because it starts with a C. Genius. Oh, that'll come through. I know the costals and then everything around the over here. i'm Yeah, I don't need those. so There's no one there. I even memorized all the fiddly little ones in the Northeast. Love the fiddly little. Vermont is the one that's kind of shaped like a V. Oh, is that why it's called that? ah Probably.
01:32:20
Speaker
ah ah And Delaware is the one that's really small and titchy, so ah you'd to be hard pressed to be aware of it. Clever.
01:32:34
Speaker
Anyway, ah Fungus Finding is $2 and says, how great was the ending of Lost, guys?
Lost's Circular Conclusion Debate
01:32:40
Speaker
Oh my God, it was so good. Zoom in but back in on Jack Shepherd's eye as he lays down in the jungle exactly where we saw him six years ago. What? That's how it ends. spoilers. Last shot so doesn't explain the ending ending. Sure. Uh, I just got done watching house again. I was like, you know what? I'm I, if that had been made earlier or nowadays, they would definitely go for the spinoff or have a young house or just see what happened to the last season of what he's doing while Wilson's dying. young guys Who would you cast as young house? Oh, just be Chase. Just be Dr. Chase. Okay.
01:33:20
Speaker
I mean, I was trying to think of this kind of sort of roles. I mean, isn't the good doctor kind of supposed to be him in a sense, the same writer, same style of like, I can't help but not tell the truth. I mean, young Q Laurie was kind of skinny and weird looking. He played Bertie Worcester in Jeeves and Worcester. I've seen that it's weird looking at him there.
01:33:49
Speaker
SVS Guru 2000 gives five euros and says, Pepsi has a tooth filling aftershave, at least when I last tried it 20 years ago.
Soda Taste Comparisons
01:33:56
Speaker
You know, that was my thought when I first tried root beer. When I first tried root beer, my thought was this tastes like dental adhesive. That's a surprise for you. Yeah, it's medical. yeah
01:34:07
Speaker
Yeah. Chai Sai Up gives two Canadian dollars and says, did you already discuss the end Mass Effect 3? I'm afraid we did Chai Sai Up. Oh, were your bone the alien? Did the bone stuff do that again? Well, you do that now way before the ending of Mass Effect. but That's where I walked away. my That's where it ended for me. Who's your favorite alien to bone? Great question. ja butha Hey, guess what? You can bone all the aliens in Starstruck Vagabond. Not a single, unbonable alien in sight. You can't bone Dripburg. Why not? When you take on board as a crew member, you can bone. Also advertising.
01:34:52
Speaker
ah Bob Fogg gives five pounds and says, at the end of Castle Crashers, the princess you kiss turns out to be a clown and the sailor's hornpipe plays while cartoon penguins cover the screen. Wow, I guess that's another of those you had to be there moments. Yeah, it was pretty spot on. That's like i that's another like slap former. I think of the end of every level in um Super Mario Land on the Game Boy. Or instead of the toady boy saying our princess is in another castle, ah you see Mario walk up to Daisy and the the Daisy goes, thank you, Mario. And Mario goes, oh, Daisy. And then Daisy turns into a monster and jumps away while scaling music plays. You just keep saving a bunch of monsters, you idiot. Yeah. And it's what the intended message was from that. Maybe Mario's hallucinating. That was my interpretation. He's in a weird land. Isn't one of the levels like a big robot version of him?
01:35:46
Speaker
That might've been more Mario Land 2. I don't think that know that was Land.
01:35:52
Speaker
eie way Anyway... FoxD gives you dollars and says Coke has a battery acid aftertaste. Damn, do people take a shot? If your sense of taste is all wrong, perhaps. It's just sweeter. Well, um admittedly I'm British and therefore eat everything with vinegar. It's possible I'm used to acidic tastes. and to I don't like Pepsi either. It tastes like a flat Coke. I was left sitting in the car. I know what you mean. It doesn't quite have the twang. Feel insane. It's like drinking Pepsi is like listening to a rock song that never kicks in.
01:36:36
Speaker
i um Yeah, well you drink Coke and that kicks in. You had a lovely chorus at the end of your mouthful there. But Pepsi is just sort of, yeah, let's just go back to the start of the first verse. The special drink of edging. Yeah. if if it Yeah. yeah the The start of drinking of Pepsi feels like the end. There was no like, Ooh, you know, it was just, yeah, all the way through. I didn't have that aha moment. Yeah. and so And that they do in the commercials, you know? Yeah. Dimitri gives five Canadian dollars and says, before this is over, Borderlands 3 ending was so awful that it was responsible for my one and only laugh from that game. It's hilariously bad. Was that the ah podcasters one? I don't know. Pretty sure that's the two like influencers. I think two's was really good. God.
Starstruck Vagabond's Unique Mechanics
01:37:32
Speaker
da And then Rose Delta gives $2 and says, does Dripburg get disbarred if we bone him? That's a question. for that no Does get disbarred if we bone him? What a bizarre out-of-contact sentence, if you were here a few minutes ago. I guess you'll all have to buy a starstruck vagabond to figure out what Rose Delta's talking about. There you go. All right, ah that's the last super chat. So I guess we'll wrap things up. Yes, Toffee's giving me that expectant look that says he'd would like to go out now. Though he's already had his walk, so I don't know what he thinks he's going to get.
01:38:14
Speaker
I'm Yahtzee Croshaw, I believe I mentioned that. ah Stick around this week, because on Wednesday, the long awaited, fully ramblimatic, that is the Patreon subscribers voted in retro review, Star Wars Knight of the Old Republic. Now you will get to find out what I think of that game if you tune in on Wednesday for fully ramblimatic. I bet you liked it. Is that what you think? There she goes. And how interesting that you should think that.
Yahtzee's Content Schedule and No Man's Sky Exploration
01:38:45
Speaker
Oh, no. And of course, Yahtzee tries the same day in the afternoon. And then I have a semi-remelomatic dropping on Thursday. And you'd better watch all my... Get your bum out of the camera toffee, you indecent little thing.
01:39:02
Speaker
ah You better appreciate my videos this week because next week there will be no Yahtzee content on second wind whatsoever. You're gonna be the one faffing about on holiday, am I right? Marty's holiday was last week and mine is next week. I'm going to the seaside. We're taking shifts here. For the whole week. Incredible. So I won't be around next week. ah You'll probably have to get someone else in for this podcast. We will. But I'll be back the following week. Who's your video game idol? We'll get Lucas Pope dropping. Ah, yeah. Yeah, you do that. boy Yes, the way you're going.
01:39:45
Speaker
ah Right. What do you two got to plug? Let's see here. I just dropped a cold take. Go watch that. Talking about my ah burning love for Sean Murray. What a lad, what a lad. And say, herre better with friends tomorrow? Well, I think it'll be it'd be apt to actually try out No Man's Sky. That's what Will and I are gonna do. See how long it's come through since its release in 2016. Holy God, it's almost been 10 years. Isn't that crazy? Marty, what else we got? ah Yeah, well, later today at 6pm, the hidden gems crew will be back playing the first Spark the Electric Jester game. I believe we have all three of them in case he's going to play one, two and three. Those are the games that it starts off very much inspired by 2D Sonic the Hedgehog. And then by the end of it is inspired by 3D Sonic the Hedgehog. But apparently three is for good. Spark the Electric Jester the name or an instruction?
01:40:37
Speaker
That's a very good question. It is the name of the game. Like Sonic the Hedgehog, it is Spark the Electric Jester. Could've just been Spark the Electric Jester, I guess. But I guess we'll find out why he's electric. Clearly, by having a whole extra adjective in there, the student has become the master. There you go. um Yeah, normal streams the rest of the week. And tomorrow, remember, if you're in the Phoenix tier at 3pm Central, we're going to be doing our monthly Patreon Movie Hang Night in Discord. We're going to be watching Dick Tracy. Get a little Al Pacino in your life. It's a good thing you finished that sentence. Get a little Dick in your life. We're going to watch Dick. Basie's Dick. It's going to be great. You ever watch Porn with Friends? Porn with Friends? Porn with Friends. I've been at a porn watching party. Everyone just drinks and takes the piss. How did we? No, no. I've heard the one the Beatles had together.
01:41:36
Speaker
and that Lennon, because he's a bit of a scam, would start... Everyone would start shouting names of attractive women, and Lennon would throw out, like, prime ministers. How's it going, Lennon? Just letting and goof. All right, that'll be it from us. See you next time. Is that better with friends? See you on Wednesday.
01:42:16
Speaker
you