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S3 E8: Christmas Special
37 Plays4 years ago
A very different episode, and one that almost didn't happen! The boys from Pixels & Pints link up via phone to bring you this COVID-safe short episode covering the PS5 and the few games we've started hammering through so far.
Whilst some craft beers were consumed and are discussed in the episode, none of them could be considered "reviewed" given only one of us drank each beer.
Huge thanks to all our listeners for all your support, Likes, Comments and mainly just for listening to a few ill-informed idiots talk crap about our favourite pop-culture in 2020. It's been a really odd year, but we've had a ball continuing our podcast journey, and we hope you enjoyed it too!
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Transcript
Navigating a COVID-safe Christmas
00:00:29
Speaker
Welcome back to pixels and pints. Uh, we've got a bit of a different episode for us all tonight. We're having a, a COVID safe Christmas. So joining me via remote linkup, we have Tom. Hello. And Dan. Okay. I got to remember I got to do video and audio.
00:00:51
Speaker
Yeah, you can. I suppose you can wave. So we're each sitting in our own homes recording off random devices that we could find sitting around the house and talking over mobile. So the quality is not going to be great this episode, but it is what it is, particularly since New South Wales is experiencing a last minute
00:01:10
Speaker
COVID outbreak just before Christmas. So we kind of have to make do. And I think this was the fourth attempt for us to all get together and do an episode. And we kept having to cancel due to work and it always gets crazy this close to Christmas. And just as we were trying to finalize a last minute, last attempt, COVID just fucked everything. So we're working with what we're working with. So it'll be a mini episode.
Gaming Updates: PS5 and Assassin's Creed
00:01:33
Speaker
this week. I have plenty to talk about in terms of PlayStation 5 and Assassin's Creed Valhalla. Oh Jesus man, I think there's plenty to talk about. We haven't spoken since like episode 2 of Mandalorian, episode 3 or something. Anyway, we haven't got a big backlog of shit to talk about. Yeah, it's not a very quick way. Yeah, I don't know how much we'll get through tonight because we kind of want to keep the episode a bit short, but
00:02:03
Speaker
We'll certainly get started with it. So who's already cracked a beer? I haven't yet. I'm drinking one of these. So Tom's already cracked something open. What are you drinking, Tom? I will tell you exactly. Hold on one moment, Peter.
00:02:21
Speaker
It is from, we'll hold it up to the camera, we're already in a glass. So I got this year, I got two of the Canvas calendars from various establishments. I got the Carwin sellers from Melbourne, which came with the lovely glass, it was just held up to the camera. I've got to remember that the other two can't see what I'm doing. I'm describing it.
00:02:48
Speaker
Um, so it was, I was playing catch up on the weekend cause I did a late night shift. Um, but, uh, so today I'm on yesterday's beers for the 20th of December, it's day 20. Uh, it was the Mayday Hill, which is the, we've done a few of their beers before on the, on the podcast. Um, uh, there.
00:03:10
Speaker
which is a side project at Bridge Road Brewers down in Victoria. This was their hoppy shower, but this special edition came with blood plumb. So it is a, yeah, it's, the current seller's one this year, they put the case into two.
Exploring Unique Beer Flavors
00:03:30
Speaker
So you got two mini cases, which is great for your fridge, because normally you can't fit them in. So the last couple of years, when I've got them, Emma has very kindly
00:03:40
Speaker
when I'm at work after it arrived, has wrapped them up and numbered them so that I don't ruin the surprise with them in the fridge. Oh, well, she pulled each one out and numbered them for the raw data. She wrapped them up. That's a great lady. That's love. That's real love there. That is.
00:03:57
Speaker
So this year I was able to keep the boxes in my two fridges we have. So I've been able to do like popping them out each day, which has been fun. But they split into, so one was all hoppy, like IPAs or hoppy beers. And the other one was the weird and wonderful. But this is, they've said is the bridging between both, both ones. It's 3.8%.
00:04:26
Speaker
It's got a nice little hot characteristic to it, very subtle plum flavor. It's a deep plum color, not quite. Yeah, I'm not sure how much plum went into it. It's not an overly like, plummy kind of sour. Yeah, it's a really nice trick on it. I would happily get a six pack of these and enjoying on a sunny day, not one that's pissing down a frame like today.
00:04:55
Speaker
Hey, I mean, at least we've, we've got some rain this year. I mean, we've been in drought for the last few years, so it's a bit of a nice change. That is true. Annoying as it is. It's an interesting flavor profile. A sour, a blood orange plum based sour sounds interesting. Yeah. And if it's not too plummy, then you won't, you're unlikely to get palate fatigue too. Yeah. It's just like, um,
00:05:20
Speaker
It's got that sour tang at the back, that sour mouthfeel like all the way through, but you get a little bit of the, um, the, the hops in the aroma and then just kind of at the start and then like a, yeah, it's a really subtle plum at the back. But, um, yeah, very, very enjoyable. Well done by, uh, made a hill. Yeah. It's Tom. Talk to me about made a hill. Um, it's a side project for the, yeah. Yeah. So it's there. Um,
00:05:47
Speaker
I think it's mainly like a lot of their wild sediments and sours they do through the Mayday Hills project. They just don't relate those under the bridge road because it's like it's experimental. Yeah, they say that they say Mayday Hills fire bridge road brewers on it. Yes, but I think it's more like a series rather than like a side project. I think it's more similar to
00:06:17
Speaker
like say what Batch do with Small Batch, but they focus on wild fermented salads from what I've seen. Yeah. Okay. No worries. Yeah. They've done a couple, we had one, well, maybe like one or two episodes ago. I think I've brought one. I was the lamb. We did the one with lamb. We, um, yeah, we did, uh, the, uh, one of their table beans. We did. We did. It was, um, it was exactly as it says on the label too.
00:06:45
Speaker
Sorry Pete, we have hit a technical issue here. One thing I did not think of was how much storage was on my iPad. You guys chat amongst yourselves while I delete some apps that have never been used on my iPads because it's linked to my phone.
Tech Troubles and Cider Preferences
00:07:03
Speaker
Okay, you'll probably find that you'll get more storage out of deleting all your porn videos because that's where it's all going to be.
00:07:10
Speaker
There is absolutely nothing on the iPad. It's quite a different point. It must be like an iPad one with 16 gig of memory. That's cool. It's an iPad 3 with 16 gig of memory. Fair enough. Well, I'm unfortunate. I have one craft to be left in the house because I've been
00:07:35
Speaker
Merrily drinking my sorrows of having to cancel my annual leave due to some last minute work away. Uh, and have been slowly working my way through all the beer in the house. So I have one craft beer, which I'll crack towards the end of the episode. Uh, at the moment I'm drinking a fricking strong bow because it's cider. And if it's going to be mass produced, I'd much prefer a mass produced cider over a beer any day of the week.
00:08:07
Speaker
Well, because I separate them into its own category in my mind and I don't want to assault myself with mass-produced beer, so cider it is. Plus, my favourite cider doesn't come in packaged because reasons that I'm not going to ask you to explain. So, you know, in the absence of choice.
00:08:30
Speaker
Your side of your dope. Oh, I haven't thought that. Australian brewery. I would have thought that that was pretty self-evident from what I was saying. You know, you don't do that. No, no, we don't. We haven't done it yet. You should try small acres side of the pottery. You might say Jane Kindle. He's one of the best. Actually, I think he just won a cider maker of the year at the Indies.
00:08:55
Speaker
He does a whole bunch of artisan stuff, and he does it in 750ml bottles, and I think he even does a small package range now, sorry, can package range rather than bottle package range.
00:09:15
Speaker
Yeah, okay. Accolades that you get. If they're in the kinds of places that I've been shopping lately because I've been pretty lazy and I'm a bit scared. I think it's beer cartel that's around the corner from my place that are doing the 100 can palette at the moment.
00:09:34
Speaker
No, that's craft cartel. I was only talking about that this afternoon. Right, okay. So I actually thought it was beer cartel and I've been scared to go in there because I'm very scared that I might accidentally on purpose buy a pallet of beer and have nowhere in my fucking house to put it and a very angry missus. So I've just been shopping in like the local Woolworths liquor land type stores and they don't have a great selection of beer, let alone cider.
00:10:01
Speaker
Anyway, I definitely go to the beef. I feel I'm, um, the next year I'm going to have is from the fair advent calendar. Um, the, uh, and Akasha had done a single hop with, uh, talent. So one of the new hops that came out this year.
00:10:18
Speaker
Yeah.
Experiences with the PS5
00:10:20
Speaker
So I might kick off with a topic before time gets away from us because it won't end up being a short episode at this rate. I might part Mando and we might come back to this episode, but I know that Ben had a lot to say on that topic and Ben's been very keen to dial in. And the idea was that we'd have the three of us or at least two of us physically at my place and have Ben dial in. So we've got three hosts and tonight I kind of
00:10:47
Speaker
Sorry Ben, kind of didn't bring him in because I figured four people competing for airtime over a phone with no cues in terms of body language as to who's about to speak was probably going to be way too chaotic, so. Oh yeah, definitely. So I think maybe we'll try and part Mando and if we want to get into that later on this app, we can and if not, we can put it off until we can get together and have Ben dial in.
00:11:10
Speaker
who's been on daddy duty for a while now and really, really wants to get on the show. So unfortunately, well, fortunately, unfortunately, so I know, Tom, you've got a PlayStation 5. I picked one up and we were both lucky enough to get pre-order stock allocated. And unfortunately, Dan missed out, although Dan doesn't really care. So it's not really that unfortunate. No.
00:11:37
Speaker
So what's your experience of the PS5 been like, Tom? We haven't spoken about it on the podcast, which is amazing, really. Yeah. Um, so what about it? I, I've already finished employment two games. Um, so if I literally, my friends were worried about me for a while because I just stopped going out and I was like, no, I'm going to play PS5. Um, so I finished Spider-Man Miles Morales, um, which was excellent. It was, uh,
00:12:07
Speaker
It wasn't the longest game, but it was beautiful to play. As good as the PS4 Spider-Man was. I then loaded up the Spider-Man, the PS4 version, the remastered that they did for PS5. And holy shit, that looks so good.
00:12:33
Speaker
It is incredibly like graphic wise. It's like the original was an amazingly well-built New York City. This like blows it out of the water. So it is with the race racing and like the running at the performance mode.
00:12:54
Speaker
like my eyes were like they were watering like it was so sharp it cut my eyes so um yeah like but insanely good but like even better than the
00:13:06
Speaker
the Miles Morales version. So I haven't really been following the Spider-Man series of video games. And I don't know why, because he was... You didn't swear on Deadpool. No, I didn't. And Spider-Man was my favourite comic character growing up amongst a couple of others that I bought regularly. So it's kind of surprising I never really... I just didn't... I wasn't interested when I saw the gameplay footage. It was like, yeah, cool, but not really cool enough to distract me.
00:13:33
Speaker
So, was Miles Morales released for PS4 as well, or is it a pure PS5 exclusive? I think it was designed for the PS5, but I don't know if it was released on PS4. I have a feeling it might have been. Yeah, it's on both, but I'm pretty sure it was designed for PS5. Okay. All right. And then they're backwards ported it. Okay. I mean, obviously...
00:14:01
Speaker
Pete, do you want to drop a mic or I'm just going to start a video again? Sure. Yep, go for it. Cool. So, yeah, I mean, we've put up before and after pictures of the PS4 and PS5 test photos. Tom, I think you sent in and I ended up throwing it up on the Instagram or one of the previous apps. I think it was actually in one of the videos on our YouTube channel.
00:14:26
Speaker
that I threw it up. So obviously, the ray tracing is pretty significantly different. I have to say, I had a funny moment. So I've been playing AC Valhalla, and everyone who's ever listened to the show for more than an episode or two probably would have heard me talk about AC. That and the fact that most episodes have all of the AC figurines behind me. So I've been playing through the game. It's a PS4 disc version in the PlayStation 5.
00:14:56
Speaker
When I first inserted the disc and went to install it, it asked me if I'd like to install the PlayStation 5 version. I said, yes, I've been playing it ever since, but it always bugged me that it had a PS4 symbol next to the disc when you went to launch the game. And I always just assumed that meant that it detected it was a PS4 disc and I was playing the PlayStation 5 version because there is no PS5 version. At least there wasn't when I bought the PS5. I'm pretty sure Marlboro doesn't have that.
00:15:26
Speaker
Yeah, so I upgraded the system because there's been a pretty constant update flurry for the PS5, the PS5 controllers and AC Valhalla. So AC Valhalla I think has released four or five major updates since it was released about four weeks ago. So I installed all the updates two nights ago, went to launch the game because, and we'll talk about the system itself in a second.
00:15:54
Speaker
But you basically never turn off your PlayStation. You never exit the game. Even with standby mode in the PlayStation 4, when you powered it back on, it came up faster. It wasn't a complete cold boot, but you still have to relaunch your game. With the PS5, you don't do that. It just parks the game in memory. And as soon as you turn on your PlayStation 5, you're in the game, ready to go.
00:16:16
Speaker
So I haven't actually booted the game from, you know, the console, you know, the main main menu of the console for weeks. And I launched it yesterday for the first time after an update and it said, you're playing the PS4 version of this game. Would you like to launch the PS5 version? I'm like, I thought I was playing the PS5 version. So yes, please.
00:16:41
Speaker
And it made my eyes bleed just as you were saying tom yeah so all this time i've been playing the ps5 console but i've been playing the ps4 version.
00:16:56
Speaker
I've got to say it's subtle. The difference between PS4 and PS5 versions, I took some screenshots while playing the same save game sequence in PS4 and PS5 versions. And I can't really pick the difference in the screenshots, but it is noticeable while playing the game in terms of frame rates, in terms of the specular reflections of metal, water effects.
00:17:21
Speaker
And yet again, I took screenshots of all of those elements and I couldn't see the difference between them. It's just one of those things that feels different. The other thing I noticed immediately though, was the controller has been properly implemented in the PS5 version. So one of the upgrades with the new DualSense controller, well two of them is haptic feedback instead of just dual shock so you don't get the
00:17:46
Speaker
the general vibration that's now specific and haptic, it's where it wants the, you know, it vibrates specific portions of where your hand is on the controller. And the second is the variable tension trigger. So I noticed that immediately I went to shoot an arrow and usually you hold down L2 and
00:18:08
Speaker
hold down R2 to line up your shot and set your power and then release and it shoots the arrow. Well, in the PS5 native version of the game, the trigger hits what feels like lock halfway down and then you have to strain against the tension to fully charge up the shot. It's fucking cool, it's subtle, it doesn't make a real big difference but it just feels more connected to the game.
00:18:35
Speaker
I said this from the start, I think I said it in the chat, but the one thing I've been telling everyone who has either been getting one, knows they're getting one on like a second wave of orders, or managed to get one but never played it, I highly recommend playing the Astros playroom that's the built-in game that comes with the PSY, just because it really shows you just what that controller can do now. And it's fun. It reminds me of an old Sonic game.
00:19:05
Speaker
Yeah, I got Mario vibes, but yeah, I know exactly me. It's an old school platformer. Like there's different elements to all of it, but yeah, the way that controller operates in that game, it's the perfect showcase. Which is obviously what they made the game for. Yeah. Oh yeah, I understand. I've been playing through Phoenix Roving, which was
00:19:34
Speaker
was shown as Gods and Monsters, like E3 last year. I can't remember the last one we talked about, but it was, yeah, it was called Gods and Monsters originally, and they renamed it, it's called now Mortal Phoenix Rising. It's by the guy who did AC Odyssey, Ubisoft Montreal. It's awesome, I'm really loving it.
Mythology in Modern Games
00:20:01
Speaker
It's a very, very, like,
00:20:04
Speaker
It's the perfect mix of like kind of that Assassin's Creed-ish gameplay, but the world looks like it comes straight out of Zelda. It's all based in mythology. And then the whole story is told through, it's a story being told through a story. So you play the character Phoenix.
00:20:28
Speaker
but you're constantly being commentated on by Zeus, who's talking to Prometheus. Cool. And they have some very like, I wouldn't, I'm not playing in cheek isn't the right word, but some very funny views on like classic mythology stories. They basically point out just how fucked up Greek mythology is really when you actually get down to it and look at deeper into it.
00:20:58
Speaker
Uh, just how much of a jerk Zeus was when he got them painters. It's just like, you know, godly figure, but actually he was just a horny bastard who went around and made lots of demigods. Yeah. I'll tell you what, sorry, go ahead. But it's very fun. Very fun. Um, yeah, your, um, a lot of puzzles to like go through that constantly make you think outside the box. Um,
00:21:24
Speaker
but pretty simple gameplay, but it's fun. Like I haven't been bored through it so far. I've got to say that's, it's interesting to say that that's specifically what I've been enjoying about Valhalla is that.
00:21:38
Speaker
There are, I mean, obviously the mythology, there's, you know, I see games have always had a sense of humor about them. It's not front and center, but it's there. And you do go to... Oh, Brain. Brain just farted. You do go to Valhalla. You do meet Odin. You do meet, and he's not called Odin. He's got, he's using one of his alternate names for Odin, but you meet Loki, you meet Thor. You meet all the major characters. You've got the Rainbow Bridge.
00:22:07
Speaker
or to the Bifrost. Yep. Rainbow Bridge. I've been watching too many Marvel movies. And you interact with all these characters and they're rendered well. There's a dwarf. I actually ended up looking up the story, but they've got a, Odin has a dwarf in servitude to him as a blacksmith who ends up, you know, and you've got a choice to release him from his servitude after he forges something for you.
00:22:34
Speaker
I can't remember his name off the top of my head. He he forges a chain for a dire wolf that Loki birthed. So, Loki's the father of Henry. Henry. Henry. I imagine it's probably the dwarves from God of War, wouldn't it? Well, they are.
00:22:54
Speaker
Yeah, probably. So, Loki gives birth or his son is a dire wolf. Odin's got the shits because obviously it's been prophesied that he will be killed by a dire wolf. He can't harm Loki or his offspring, so he charges the dwarf to create an unbreakable chain to chain him up.
00:23:21
Speaker
Yes, it was cats breath and something of the seat of a mountain. I think it was.
00:23:29
Speaker
something like that? Yeah, I know the story. I can't remember off the top of my head. Or maybe it's the breath of the mountain and a cat's footsteps. I can't remember. It's a cat's footsteps. So you actually have quests to go and obtain those items and they're riddles. There's no pointers in the game. It doesn't tell you what to do. It just says go and find a cat's footsteps or capture a cat's footsteps.
00:23:50
Speaker
And you find a small golden statue created by Athena with her magical Athena. That's a Greek goddess. I fucking again, it's been a long, long day. But she, she creates these magical statues and one of them happens to be a golden pussycat and you follow it around and it keeps warping or teleporting to another spot. You have to parkour to reach it. Sorry. Yeah, it was Freya. Yeah. Yep.
00:24:21
Speaker
Yep, so and that's how you end up catching it. You've got to follow this magical cat that keeps teleporting through and you've got to keep pace with it while parkouring until it finally jumps off the top of one of the buildings.
00:24:36
Speaker
and you land in the haystack next to her and you capture the breath. So I just thought it was a, it's a cool implementation of telling a traditional Norse story. There's a lot of Norse mythology woven into day-to-day interactions as well in NPCs, you know, back in the main world of ACV.
00:24:53
Speaker
But I'm enjoying the variety. I mean, you know, there's a common complaint about the number of collectibles you have to gather in order to hit a platinum. I've always complained about feathers and those sorts of things. And yet every time I get an AC game, I go and do it anyway and go and get the platinum. So as much as I complain about it, obviously there's a part of it that I'm attracted to or else I wouldn't bother.
00:25:14
Speaker
This game has more collectibles than any AC game before. There's 733, I think. But they're not true collectibles. You have to collect all the wealth and all of the wealth chests are not all the chests in the game. They're specific things like you've got upgrade tokens for your gear, you've got
00:25:37
Speaker
Books of Power, which unlock abilities and then upgrade all those abilities. So they're the only two wealth chests you actually have to collect, which you'd want to do for the XP so that you could level up anyway. You have to go and destroy these curse symbols, which are really cool. They're like a blight on the land and as you approach them, it gets all dark and gloomy and there's crows running around and your vision gets all fucked up.
00:26:01
Speaker
And you eventually have to find these things and some of them are puzzles they're hidden in well you know hidden in plain sight that you have to figure out how to get to them to shoot them or you have to do parkour in a cave system to get to it. So you have to get rid of all those and you've got to do all the side quests but.
00:26:18
Speaker
The side quests are fucking cool. So they're usually 15, 20 seconds side quests. You, you know, you walk up to a quest giver and they might be a guy standing in front of a couple of bodies in a, in a, like a wheelbarrow on fire. And he says, you know, they're not, the fire's not burning quick, hot enough. Can you please help me? I won't be able to send them off to, to, um,
00:26:46
Speaker
to rest and they're going to come back as dark Drenga and, you know, take their vengeance upon me and the land. And then so you go into his house that he's standing outside of looking for an oil barrel and there's a note on the thing saying that my son's a gambling gambler and an alcoholic and he's not going to inherit my
00:27:06
Speaker
my property, I'm going to give it to my second son. So you find the oil barrel, we throw it on the bodies. He says, thank you so much for your help. And you turn around and say, why were you worried about them being like a vengeful drinker? And he said, well, to be honest, I have to admit, I murdered them because I, you know, in a drunken fit of rage, I found out I wasn't going to inherit my or receive my inheritance. So I killed my brother and my father.
00:27:31
Speaker
you know, can you please punish me? And so you do the honourable thing and you send him on his way off, you know, he shuffles off the mortal coil. You actually have a mission to kill him. So all of that story takes 25 seconds or so, but it weaves Norse mythology and culture and values into the story like that all through the game. And I find that really cool. Yeah, I think I will give credit to the A.C. team by saying other things. It was like,
00:28:01
Speaker
The way they've done their research, you can tell that, yeah, there's a bit of fantastical nature to it, and they do take it a little bit further than reality or making it like a simulator. But they're pretty authentic, and they definitely do their research, which is like in a half-elf film.
00:28:20
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, most definitely. And I've got to say the mechanics are fun in this game. So one thing that I keep remembering throughout the game is finally after Odyssey and Origins, this is actually an AC game. It actually feels like an AC game. You now have an entire experience path or an ability path that you put leveling points into focused on assassination and sneaking around and doing lots of damage while being hidden.
00:28:50
Speaker
you've got passive abilities that you can unlock that when you're, we all just got a message on WhatsApp at the same time, I heard the vibration. When you're sneaking around, if you're hidden, it will automatically use your Odin vision, which is the equivalent of the old, you know, Assassin's vision to highlight enemies in your local vicinity, but only if you've unlocked that ability. So there's a whole skill tree and you can now approach every
00:29:17
Speaker
or just about every mission, every encounter with bad guys, you can now approach with stealth. So of course I've gone 100% stealth. You've got your hidden blades and all the rest of it. There are actually assassins and Templars in this game for the first time in three games have actually, you know, gone out and called them that. It feels like an AC game again.
00:29:42
Speaker
So going back to your fenrier binding, the six magical things that were made in the chain that held fenrier was the sound of a cat's footsteps, the beard of a woman, the roots of a mountain, a bear's sensibility, a fish's breast and a bird's spittle. Right. Well, the only two you're required to gather in the game are the seed of a mountain and the cat's footsteps. Fair enough.
00:30:12
Speaker
on the, what's it called, Phoenix Horizon? Is that what it's called? I actually like the aesthetic of it better when it was the, were the announced scores and monsters. I think the vision, well the armor changes and that, I don't actually like the look of it now. I think it's quite generic, but when they announced it, had that really stylized, you could
00:30:37
Speaker
You can tell a little bit from the colors and the shape of the armor. I know that was same as AC Odyssey. They were using historical going on. What Pete's saying, they were using historical accuracy to make it. The Gods and Monsters looks like it had a more cartoon version of that. It looks like it's far more a lot more stylized and a lot more colorful.
00:31:08
Speaker
that, I actually like the original look a bit better. No, I actually have to say it's still very cartoonish. The world map looks like an oil painting, to the point where it looks like cross strokes. And you can change all your armors, like you're not locked to one. I found an armor last night that was
00:31:37
Speaker
What was it? It was a chimera. So you had each cauldron with a different head, and then you had the lion's head in the middle, and you had the snake in the, what's the other one? The eagle. Yeah, so your day were on each shoulder. Now, I'll send you some shots of it. Like, it's still very much, it's still like that trailer that we would have watched. There's a few little changes. The most interesting one I found, especially since the studio did in the South and Scree game,
00:32:07
Speaker
is you have the same kind of like parkour climbing. There's cliffs and valleys everywhere because you get the wings of data loss like in the opening act, you get to claim them. You don't actually actually fly, they're more of a glider. But the interesting thing in this is you have a, when you're climbing up a cliff, you have your stamina bar appears.
00:32:34
Speaker
But unlike an Assassin's Creed Grand where you can climb, you know, a thousand foot mountain lake, it's nothing. This, you get halfway up and you actually start running out of stamina and you have to consume stamina potions to keep going or you fall all the way back down to the bottom. Which was a nice little challenge to get used to. Especially when I was thinking like, I'll be able to climb everywhere and like jump off and do all this stuff. And it features a lot in the puzzles like,
00:33:04
Speaker
because gliding takes your stamina as well. So if you're trying to get to a certain part of the thing and using the ability to push yourself up, but then you run out of stamina, you just, your wings give up and you fall. And it's incredibly frustrating at times, especially around 11 p.m. after a couple of years. Like I should be able to do this, but I'll, yeah, no, Dan, I'll show you some, I'll take some shots when I'm playing later tonight.
00:33:33
Speaker
Definitely still has that vibe that you got from the trailer. I think the last look they gave made it look a bit stale, but I've been loving it. Really, really enjoying the game. Soundtrack's beautiful as well. It adds to the whole mythological nature of it. Very kind of ethereal sound. That's cool.
00:33:57
Speaker
Well, there's a move for them to move from A.C. or to C.C. or something. I mean, they're quite steep in the religion, but they're also quite earth-bound. If you can say that, or reality-bound, I guess, is where this seems to be far more, they can take that from C.C. or Zeus-talking from C.C. kind of approach.
00:34:21
Speaker
Oh yeah, you said on like, so you said on this island and each island, it's the island's divided into four or five areas, but each area reflects the god, like each god, you've got four gods you're trying to save at the start. So like, I've so far gone through Aphrodite and Aries. I bet you went through that.
00:34:45
Speaker
But Aphrodite is lush green forests and all these animals running about, whereas the area side is a literal battlefield. But it's still like to try and create that different thing. And then the other two are, you've got to get Athena and professors. But I haven't gone to those areas yet.
00:35:09
Speaker
I don't disagree with what you said, Dan, in terms of it being, you know, AC games being rooted in reality. But since Origins, they have had elements of alternate added back in. So I think with Origins, not only did you have world events where you'd have to fight massive
00:35:27
Speaker
jackal-headed monsters. But you also had some side quests that you went to the ethereal plane and you looked at the afterlife of ancient Egyptian mythology, which I thought was a cool little addition. And then certainly with the with the Greek gods, I mean, you you ended up picking up the Trident from Poseidon and you took that into the future and that was the key into the next game. Yeah.
00:35:52
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, aren't they still, like, even the Trident, wasn't that part of the fire rate of being that Stedman was talking to? Yeah, they've essentially, yeah, I mean, and that's the AC. That's the AC conceit. You're right. All mythology is actually a reference to the alien race. Yeah, so it's kind of...
00:36:15
Speaker
where the rates of higher beings, the more advanced technology is seen as God. It's just a different take on the same methodology, obviously. I enjoy the contrast, and it seems to be the logical way for the studio to be going. They've done the more earthly-bound Assassin's Creed Odyssey, so they now go to the more magical side of it and do the things rising. I think it's great.
00:36:45
Speaker
If all of them did that, imagine what the next viking game could be if the guys who were doing Valhalla moved into not being restricted.
00:37:00
Speaker
I mean, you actually play as Odin, so your persona becomes Odin while you're in Valhalla. And I do know that there's a second dream sequence. So the way they route it back in reality is the seer gives you a potion, you get high as a kite, you pass out and you wake up in Valhalla as Odin. And even the assassination sequences in the main game when you're back on Earth,
00:37:30
Speaker
Split to this ethereal world where Odin or the, you know, the old father of the wise man is always there talking to you and describing what's going on and you interact, your character interacts with the Odin vision. I do know that Jotunheim is a part of it as well. That's the second dream sequence that I haven't done yet because I'm not high enough. Unlevel because they took levels out.
00:37:53
Speaker
You've still got power levels, but nothing's behind a wall. If you want to go and try and it's exactly the- Yeah, but that's the key word if you'll be going to try. Yeah, that's right. You probably won't succeed. You probably get your arse kicked until you get on grind for another fucking five or six hours.
00:38:09
Speaker
It reminded me of our old D&D games where, you know, when I first took over as DM and I think you said much the same. If you want, if your level one characters want to go spank a dragon, then I'm gonna, you know, if there's a dragon that I'm describing to you in the fucking cave and your level one characters want to go spank it, then expect to get fucking roasted pretty quickly. But you're welcome to.
00:38:32
Speaker
Um, this game's exactly the same. You can, you can essentially walk across the England, which I'm actually finding really interesting. Cause it's, it's teaching me about the, the English country side. I changed the end of the sentence halfway through.
00:38:52
Speaker
The England. The England. So you meet the Celts and the Picts and it's being, you know, the Saxons are obviously there. I find it interesting that it's a period of English history that I was somewhat peripherally familiar with, but certainly didn't have a great knowledge of. And it's kind of going right through the history. And it's one thing that I've always said about the AC games is, as you just said before, Tom, they do do their research. I just quickly want to introduce this beer because I'm just about finished and it's a cork. I've got to do mine.
00:39:22
Speaker
Yeah, cool. So, so this is, this is, uh, Beably A Tech. I'm, I'll probably have to reverse the camera feed because I think it's mirrored. This is, uh, Beably A Tech is the brewing company, a passion for gingers, number 143. Uh, passion for... Yeah, yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's Beably A Tech.
00:39:50
Speaker
It says, not everyone who loves gingers loves ginger, but ginger lovers who do love gingers, love them with a passion. This beer is dedicated to us.
00:39:59
Speaker
This beer is dedicated to our friends Bobby and Steven. It's a passion fruit and ginger sour ale. It's a fucking corker of a beer. I can't see the ABV on it. It's 3.8% but it was made in Sweden, imported to New Zealand and then obviously it's been imported from New Zealand to Australia, sat in my fridge for a year, moved house and it's still a cracker of a sour.
00:40:25
Speaker
Very, very impressed. And what are you drinking, David? Don't be sure of it. Oh, well, yeah, we're going to have to exchange pictures after this for the podcast anyway, so yeah, definitely. Ooh, exchange pictures, are we? We did the Only Fans episode, mate. Ah, damn it. I'm drinking a beer from, you've probably right, the camera's reversed, so everything I'm showing to the camera is now going to be gibberish backwards. That's fine, I'll reverse it. I'm drinking another one of those equipped
00:40:53
Speaker
a hop beard. It's an increase in the assays on. I really like that on, so I sort of feel it out of the fridge that works. You didn't realize it was 7.2% when I cracked it open, but it's New England brewing and HPA, the hop growers, and my mate Blair did the label. He does the label for New England brewing, and it's a beautiful looking label.
00:41:21
Speaker
but it's also a beautiful ceiling label. And I can't show you through, but you come and you will see it later when Pete cuts this together. But Pete, you will see it sooner. They've gone the very smart of only doing a kind of a three-quarter label, but there's a massive chunk of the vacuum can. So my idiosyncrasy of labels not lining up, you can't quite tell.
00:41:43
Speaker
Because it's separated by about an inch and a half, so they're not side by side, so you can't tell. My little issue is not going in my brain. Although now you said that, you're going to get a fucking ruler. Is that the don't stare? That is don't stare, yes. I almost fought one yesterday, damn it, I should have.
00:42:08
Speaker
It's nice. It's a good Saison. It's really full of Saison answers as the alcohol comes through on both the nose and the palate a bit. It doesn't bother me. Saison is quite dry. He kind of expects if they're higher ABV that there's no body there really to hide that alcohol. It's not overpowering. The clip pop is just adding that nice mandarin peel, orange peel character in the background.
00:42:37
Speaker
We don't really compliment Saison for the lemon drop, lemon orange peel characters anyway. Probably one of my least, least favorite styles of beer to be honest. I see how it's Saison.
00:42:52
Speaker
It's just different. It's really good to be always having IPA, IPA, KLL, XPA, this and that, and then if you're out drinking those for a night, to cut it with something that's yeast and acid, whether it stays on, whether it's a wild cement beer, whether it's a wheat beer, something that's got a yeast acid rather than a hot profile. You don't have to just pluck your palate and clean up a little bit.
00:43:17
Speaker
It always just reminds me of a weird sparkling white with a tang. I'm just not a big fan of that whole saison tang. That's a pretty good representation of it, like pretty good description of what they have. They definitely do have a lemon juice tang with that oiliness to it, which is probably, this one's probably coming from that pot, but yeah, they definitely do have that sort of white pepper kind of character. Yeah, I can see that.
00:43:48
Speaker
I cracked my second beer because I had a very long day doing stock takes. Yes, I've only brought one in with me. I brought my bogey, which was just one of my loaders, and I brought this, so I'm going to go and get another one if we kick out. No, I think we'll probably wrap soon, Dan, because your iPad's going to explode. It's like 100 years old.
00:44:10
Speaker
Yeah, it is. It's up to 30 minutes. It's still recording. We only lost about five minutes in here while I was fucking around. Cool. Daniel will be annoyed. This label is off by almost, it's exactly a millimeter.
00:44:26
Speaker
Mine's the same. There's a white line at the back where the joint is and it's just one, the right hand side is just a millimetre below the other one. I hope you're holding it up to the camera, mate, because I certainly am with my label, just so we can all trigger Dan's OCD at the same time on the video recording. Yeah, just a little bit out. So this is the Talus IPA from the Akasha project.
00:44:51
Speaker
It says, it's introducing talus, a new flower from Creations Garden and the core of this single top India pale ale. Exotic yet approachable, expect pink grapefruit, resiny pine, tropicals and sage in a punchy yet perfectly balanced show of natural slender. It is 6.2%. And if I will say, if I hadn't read that back of that, I wouldn't have been able to describe the herb I was getting because I'm definitely getting a herbal flavor and I would say, yeah, that's the sage.
00:45:21
Speaker
But yeah, good amount of the citrus. It's not overly hazy. I'm holding the beer up to the camera now. But it's not exactly quite clear, like a traditional West Coast doesn't have some haze to it. But it's, yeah, it's got that, definitely got that pink grapefruit. The can is, you know, the kasha's on that more simplified design. It's kind of like a close up zoom of a hot cone.
00:45:50
Speaker
with those kind of triangular flowers, and just those talus and big letters on the top. Yeah, pretty good. You have to try, fellas. I've got another one from Garage Project in the fridge I picked up yesterday as well. So, and I've got a keg at work. Stone and Wood did a talus, like, talus pale, strong pale ale. But with a brewery release that I got a keg off.
00:46:17
Speaker
which I'm yet to tap, but he started to try it too. But yeah, it's definitely got that mix of like citrus forward, but then gets that hit of pine. But yeah, the sage, like the herbal note in this, it catches you off guard, but I don't hate it.
00:46:34
Speaker
Yeah, I've got to say I'm, you know, I've, this is only my second alcoholic beverage of the night. And whilst I get a lot of passion fruit out of this Beebly attack, I'm not getting any ginger. So I kind of expected a kind of a ginger berry twang to it. Um, even maybe a bit of, yeah, true. True. Um,
00:46:56
Speaker
Almost the, you know, that spiciness you get out of a strong ginger hit, it's almost like a... I was just about to ask, if the ginger flavour's gone, is there still some ginger spice there? Yeah. But there's none. This is, to me... Oh, really? There's none? To me, this is pure passion fruit. It reminds me of Pash the Magic Dragon watered down, which is understandable given it's 3.8, so it is kind of table beer standard.
00:47:20
Speaker
Yeah. It's enjoyable and to be frank, I'm amazed that it's stood up to the test of time as well as it has. It's been in three countries that I know of and it survived a move with, you know, so it's been cooled in my fridge and then warmed back up while I moved and then cooled again and then, yeah. So I'm amazed that it's even drinkable but, you know, there's definitely no ginger flavor out of it. I'm just relieved that I can
00:47:49
Speaker
I hate these different things because it's a sign that I'm COVID-19. That's got to be the biggest fear I ever had of the COVID-19. It wasn't getting sick or anything like that, but it was not being able to say. That's horrible. It is only temporary though, Dan. It's the same as a flu. It's only been temporary with some people. It's been ongoing with others. Some people still haven't.
00:48:19
Speaker
They were, they were months getting their taste back. Yeah. There's, there's also people that have had fatigue for months too. And there's, there's been a lot of long, longer term side effects, permanent scarring on the lungs and all that sort of shit. But yeah, I guess that's a, that's a fair enough fear. I'm a heavy smoker. So if I get it, I'm dead, you know, so I'm not worried about my sense of taste. Yeah, I know. Well, it's still, it's still amazing to me to actually have a sense of taste.
00:48:46
Speaker
Yeah, thanks for that. So the last quick topic I think we'll talk about before we wrap because we did want to keep this episode short and we're already at almost 50 minutes. That hardware upgrade for the PS5 that I mentioned before is worth the price of admission alone in my opinion.
Cyberpunk 2077 Controversy
00:49:06
Speaker
The ability to... Hardware upgrade.
00:49:08
Speaker
In terms of the PS4 to PS5, the biggest leap is not the graphics. No, just the fact that the PlayStation hardware.
00:49:23
Speaker
And it's all down to the hard drive being solid state. It's actually not, it's NVMe solid state, which has a more direct channel and a broader channel to the processor and all the rest of it, but the ability to hit the power button and it turn on faster than my TV turns on so that it's ready to go.
00:49:43
Speaker
It loads you instantly into the game. When you save the game, it's instant. When you load the game, it's instant. When you turn it off again, it switches off and pauses the game so that it's ready. It's finally become practical that
00:49:58
Speaker
If your girlfriend, if you're an impatient fuck like me and your girlfriend goes to the bathroom or, you know, goes and spends 10 minutes doing whatever girls do, their hair or whatever, I sound really sexist, but, you know, or she might go out for a... Sure, sure, whatever girls do.
00:50:17
Speaker
But if you miss this buggers off for 10 minutes to take a phone call, that's probably the most real example I can think of. You can now realistically switch over, play PlayStation, do something for 10 minutes in the game and switch it back off. And as long as you're quick about it, like you'd lose no time in the switch over. Whereas with the PS4, you'd have to wait for the thing to boot up, then you'd have to wait for the game to load, the menu to load, then you have to load your save game. By the time you've done getting into the game, that 10 minute period has ended.
00:50:46
Speaker
So, in terms of usability, there's, I know it sounds stupid because, you know, and conceited because how many people get upset that they can't play their video game for the 10 minutes their girlfriend's taking a phone call. But it is a psychological barrier that I've got 10 minutes to kill, what can I do? Well, I can't play PS4. Well, you can with PS5 because everything's fucking instant. Peter, have you had any crashes yet?
00:51:13
Speaker
Uh, I've had two game crashes for ACV, but I, because I haven't played any of the games, I couldn't tell you if that's hardware related or the game. You know, it is a fucking Assassin's Creed, right? So they're buggy by nature. Yeah. I had, uh, I had the system crashed twice. Um, I got a, I got a P. All right. Um, which don't bring your iPad. Um,
00:51:41
Speaker
So I had it when I, I had heard that, uh, the Spider-Man remastered was bricking people's console, um, when less in rest mode. Wow. Uh, yeah, there was something just, something wasn't code wise, wasn't adding up and it was, it was bricking console. Um, I was lucky that it didn't happen to me, but did crash the system couple of times when playing that. And I have found now that.
00:52:10
Speaker
When I was playing Phoenix the other night, I was having like the sound was like choppy. And I was experiencing quite a bit of lag, but I had booted it straight from rest mode to the point where when I then shut the console down and rebooted it completely.
00:52:27
Speaker
Um, it disappeared. So I've had a few problems with launching from rest mode in certain games. Interesting. Um, I've had absolutely zero issues with the, you know, admittedly. I've had zero issues with almost 90% the PS4 version of ACV. I've only been playing the PS5 version for two days now, but I always, I always launched the game from rest where you're not even launching the game. You're literally just turning it on and you're in the game. Yeah. It's this starting screen.
00:52:58
Speaker
Yeah, but now, just because of that sound issue, it was still playable, but it just got annoying until I was like, oh, I'll just restart the console and see if it goes away. And I didn't know if it was because I was running off a disk.
00:53:14
Speaker
So that's been my, like, that's the thing I kind of want to test. Is it quicker or would I experience that same issue if I had a digital version of the game? There's no difference. So my understanding, and I read this directly, so unless I'm misinterpreted, which does happen, there's no such thing. Sorry, can I just cut in two seconds? What game are you talking about, Tom? I just said that I was asking Peter if he'd had any crashes. What a view the game is.
00:53:43
Speaker
Spider-Man Remastered, I know, was bricking people's consoles when launching from rest mode. I think they've updated it now that it stopped doing that. And I had issues with Phoenix where the sound became really choppy when I was launching from rest mode. But that's the thing. I was launching from a cold start, like shutting down the console and booting it up.
00:54:13
Speaker
It's maybe 10 seconds longer compared to what would have been like two minutes to load straight into the game. Like the speed itself, like it doesn't really affect me that I'm not launching straight from rest mode into the game. It's just kind of like.
00:54:28
Speaker
Makes a big difference for ACV. Makes a big difference for Assassin's Creed because the whole launch to the main menu, you've got to go through all the stupid icons for, you know, the company name and the fucking engine name and the bullshit loading and then checking game content on the internet.
00:54:47
Speaker
You know that's that's a that's at least a couple of minutes just to get to the main menu then you load the game and it's an extra 30 seconds whereas when you boot from from standby it's instantaneous you're in the game there's you skip all that bullshit.
00:55:02
Speaker
It's interesting that it was actually bricking consoles. That's obviously a fucking massive concern that a game's even capable of bricking consoles. But what I was gonna say is I read an article from PlayStation Magazine that there is no such thing as a disc game. You buy the discs to install the equivalent of a digital download file, but everything must be installed on the PS5 hard drive. So there's no direct streaming from disc.
00:55:28
Speaker
So there shouldn't be a difference in terms of what you were saying before of testing the disc version versus the digital only. It's just a different delivery mechanism of the install package. It's very much like a traditional PC game. No, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, okay. Yeah, traditional PC game.
00:55:51
Speaker
with floppy disks. You were just saying that and I've got the Cyberpunk...
00:56:09
Speaker
Yeah, we need probably another hour to rant about the shortcomings of Cyberpunk. Plus before we do, before we get into Cyberpunk 2077, because I know you've had some experiences you want to share Dan, I want to start playing it on PS5 so that I've got a comparison that we can make between the PS4 and PS5 experiences overall.
00:56:28
Speaker
I'm not playing on PS4, I'm playing on PC. I'm glad I didn't play on PS4 that fucking shitbites as that is. One review I saw from IGN's review I saw was straight in the short little
00:56:48
Speaker
thumbnail image they do of their review, it gave it a four out of 10 on PS4 and Xbox One and said, if you can avoid it, do not play it on a base PS4. You need to upgrade it because it is ruining an otherwise excellent game. Well, yeah, I mean, well, they've played it and pulled it from the PlayStation store. Yeah.
00:57:08
Speaker
You cannot, they've given refunds. You can get a refund through the playstation store. You can get a refund through a physical store if you bought it from a brick and mortar. If that physical store will not give you a refund, Cyber Plant City Project Red themselves will give you the refund of that game.
00:57:25
Speaker
Mind you, in Australia. We're trying to add to their credibility. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. But I've got to say, in Australia with the ACCC and the amount of consumer protection we've got, a brick and mortar store had really struggled to justify not giving you a discount if the manufacturer said it's faulty. It really doesn't apply to us. I mean, it's probably more a story that has an American fear, but it's probably more those kind of stores that won't have that
00:57:54
Speaker
federal government is something that doesn't live up to expectations. You've got to refund it, no matter what. But yeah, I'm not going to get into it because this is a long conversation of what we've got here. I actually think the game is very good. I'm really enjoying the game. I'm glad I bought it on the premium quality product that I could get it on.
00:58:18
Speaker
Because I don't have a PS5, as we established earlier, I'm probably not going to buy it for a long time. I really wanted to play Cyberpunk. Why would I buy the PS4 version even though I enjoy sitting on the couch and playing games? Why would I buy the version that is going? And I made this decision before it even got released.
00:58:36
Speaker
Why would I buy the version that's going to be the worst version out of all of them? When I say worst, I was saying that in quotation marks because I didn't think it was going to be the actual shit storm that it actually is.
00:58:49
Speaker
Yeah, I might do some research and see if I can't buy the PS4 disc version at EB Games, if it's even available anymore. I want to buy a copy of the PS4 version if it's upgradeable to PS5 for free like ACV because... No, no, that's what I was saying. There is no PS5 version. There's no PS5 version. So there's a PS4 upgradeable to PS5.
00:59:16
Speaker
That's exactly it. You buy the PS4, you buy a play position version and then you plug it into your PS5 and then you go from there. But you'll never see the work version unless you've got your old... I do. That's what I was going to say. So I've got a PS4 base, a PS4 Pro and a PS5 all plugged into my amp right this minute.
00:59:38
Speaker
Oh, okay. Well, you could, you could see all three versions of it. Yeah. I think that'd be an interesting comparison and I'll take some screenshots from all three and we can compare them on the podcast. That's if I get time. Anyway, I think that's probably us. That's just on an hour. So it's still fairly short for us. Anyone have anything else to add? We were talking about doing a big bump reference to get everyone through the holidays, but... Yeah. Anyone else?
01:00:12
Speaker
Merry Christmas to all our listeners and thanks very much for supporting 2020. So keep your eyes peeled for some big things that are happening in 2021 for season four of the podcast. So I'm not ready to really announce too much, but what we need to do for this next time is three letters. So we'll have the time that we're recording, we'll have the conversation on, we'll have the iPad or whatever in front of us that has the
01:00:39
Speaker
the camera that we're recording on, and then you can have it be PT or whatever it is behind it, showing all three of us together. So we can actually look at each other and see. True. So that's easy enough to set up, mate. I've got a full Cisco WebEx, so we can easily do that. Or you can do it through Zoom or one of a million other free apps. But yeah, we'll definitely do that. But in the meantime, thanks very much for listening, guys. And have a great and safe Christmas and stay away from the Rona.
01:01:08
Speaker
Very good. Thank you guys. Have a good break. See you guys. Bye. Bye.