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We're Here, We're Nier, Get Used To It (Nier Automata: Long Story Short Part 3)
31 Plays9 months ago
We wrap up this book! It's not great, but it does its job of making us actually want to play the game. It's like 10 pounds of story in a 1 pound bag. And the story is leaking everywhere.
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Transcript
Tourism Campaign Origins
00:00:00
Speaker
You got a friend in Pennsylvania.
00:00:02
Speaker
Where did that come from?
00:00:04
Speaker
Ketchum Advertising introduced the tagline.
00:00:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:08
Speaker
Okay.
00:00:08
Speaker
So it was just like an ad thing for the tourism.
00:00:14
Speaker
And then New Found Glory has a song.
00:00:17
Speaker
You've got a friend in Pennsylvania.
00:00:19
Speaker
Oh, that's fun.
00:00:20
Speaker
Well, there you go.
00:00:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:25
Speaker
You know what else is New Found Glory?
00:00:30
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome
Introduction to 'Near Automata'
00:00:31
Speaker
back to Pixlet.
00:00:31
Speaker
My name's Kevin.
00:00:32
Speaker
With me is always Phil and on today's show we are finishing up near automata.
00:00:39
Speaker
Long story short.
00:00:41
Speaker
I now I'm in my I can't even figure out what is the right pronunciation.
00:00:45
Speaker
Is it automata or I've always said I've always said automata.
00:00:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:49
Speaker
But I but the thing is, I say automata because I like the rhythm of it.
00:00:54
Speaker
Well, I've heard near automata basically since it came out.
00:00:59
Speaker
But I would say I think automata is the correct pronunciation.
00:01:03
Speaker
I know Josh gets upset when I when I say automata.
00:01:07
Speaker
So I'm going to stay with that.
00:01:09
Speaker
Yeah, that's good.
00:01:10
Speaker
Orally, automata sounds more bouncy and fun.
00:01:15
Speaker
Well, it's like automata automaton.
00:01:19
Speaker
Yeah, it just it's just it just makes more sense.
00:01:23
Speaker
I like Balotro like I've noticed that you have gone back and forth on that one.
00:01:29
Speaker
Whatever Northern Line says is how I is.
00:01:32
Speaker
Ah, fair enough.
00:01:33
Speaker
Fair enough.
00:01:35
Speaker
Yeah, so I think that's what I'm going to do.
00:01:40
Speaker
But we left off last time.
00:01:44
Speaker
We finished chapter seven, and we were heading into chapter eight.
00:01:48
Speaker
And, whew, boy, there's a whole lot of plot to kind of, like, wrap up in this last third
Intense Plot Developments
00:01:54
Speaker
of the book.
00:01:54
Speaker
So we're just going to go ahead and put the body in the marsh.
00:01:58
Speaker
Let's put it in the marsh.
00:02:00
Speaker
When I tell you to dump a body in the marsh...
00:02:05
Speaker
You dump them in the marsh.
00:02:11
Speaker
So we start chapter eight with 9S having had a dream about what literally just happened.
00:02:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:20
Speaker
And him trying to find 2B only to find her dead by A2's blade.
00:02:24
Speaker
And then he wakes up and he's being cared for by Davola and Poppola.
00:02:29
Speaker
They inform him that he's been unconscious for two weeks and Poppola informs him that 2B's black box signal is gone.
00:02:38
Speaker
And then his pod tells him he should be grateful of Davola and Poppola.
00:02:43
Speaker
Devola informs 9S that most of the Devola and Popla models had been rescinded in the past because they tended to cause problems.
00:02:53
Speaker
9S runs off towards the white cylinder in the sky that erupted out of the chasm that was formed in the ground.
00:03:01
Speaker
And he's blaming the machines for all the problems in the world and the death of 2B.
00:03:08
Speaker
And since there was no longer any backups for her.
00:03:13
Speaker
The pod surmises that Davola found 9S while on an expedition in the region for specific materials.
00:03:22
Speaker
He gets to the tower, which has an elevator that he can't access.
00:03:26
Speaker
And the tower forces a signal into the pod and his goggles, which tell him where he has to go to get an access key.
00:03:33
Speaker
And he's like, OK, well, these machines are just messing with me.
00:03:36
Speaker
They're making me do a fetch quest.
00:03:38
Speaker
What is this, a video game?
00:03:41
Speaker
So he has to go and get three keys from three different locations in order to unlock the things on the elevator in order to open it.
Humorous Memories and Tensions
00:03:50
Speaker
So he returns to the forest kingdom and recalls a conversation he had with 2B about buying her a t-shirt when all the fighting was over.
00:04:00
Speaker
This was such a funny, this to me was like,
00:04:04
Speaker
the most blatantly anime part of the whole thing.
00:04:08
Speaker
This level of like, you've got all this heavy stuff and it goes to this kind of silly memory.
00:04:16
Speaker
It felt, it felt very anime to me.
00:04:17
Speaker
It was, it was, it was so weird.
00:04:20
Speaker
Hey, 2B, can I buy you a t-shirt when this is all over?
00:04:31
Speaker
I suppose.
00:04:31
Speaker
Hmm.
00:04:40
Speaker
Anyway.
00:04:40
Speaker
While he's thinking about this, he's killing machines, the machines that are around.
00:04:48
Speaker
He finds the thing.
00:04:50
Speaker
It's like a floating dome in the sky called a resource recovery unit.
00:04:55
Speaker
And it's gathering resources for the cylindrical tower.
00:04:58
Speaker
And there's like text written on it.
00:05:00
Speaker
And on this one, it's called the meat box.
00:05:05
Speaker
Oh, yes.
00:05:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:06
Speaker
The meat box.
00:05:08
Speaker
Which I immediately when you were talking about how it wasn't well localized, I was like, is that part of it?
00:05:13
Speaker
Is that part of it?
00:05:15
Speaker
Well, what was funny is I was playing I was playing near earlier and there was a scene that we read in the book.
00:05:27
Speaker
that plays out in the game and I'm like, oh yeah, no, the book is terribly localized.
00:05:31
Speaker
Like it's better localized in the game.
00:05:34
Speaker
And from what I understand that even the game is not as well done as it could have been.
00:05:40
Speaker
But it's way better than what the book was.
00:05:44
Speaker
Right.
00:05:45
Speaker
That's yeah.
00:05:47
Speaker
If anything, this book has convinced me that I need to, I really do need to play this game.
00:05:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:56
Speaker
Okay, so he goes inside and starts killing all the machines that are inside, and he's getting more and more agitated with each machine that he kills because they just won't shut up.
Dark Revelations and Battles
00:06:10
Speaker
The floating core of the resource recovery unit has the voice of a child, and it says that it's scared, but 9S don't care.
00:06:17
Speaker
Okay.
00:06:19
Speaker
He has the pod fry the core and he takes the key and there's two more RRUs to go.
00:06:25
Speaker
Next, he goes to the flooded city and along the way he finds two bees remains.
00:06:30
Speaker
An unsent transmission is with her body apologizing to 9S.
00:06:35
Speaker
And after a moment of grieving and realizing how much he hates the machines, he carries on and finds the next resource unit.
00:06:42
Speaker
And this one is called the Soul Box.
00:06:45
Speaker
First one was in the meat box, and now we're at the soul box.
00:06:48
Speaker
As 9S explores it, he finds that there are no machines keeping guard, but finds information that the black boxes of the Yorha androids are made out of machine cores.
00:07:02
Speaker
9S then goes into a memory bank and is counter-hacked, he thinks, at least, and begins messing with his memories of 2B.
00:07:10
Speaker
And then he has a...
00:07:12
Speaker
pages of real weird incel stuff going on yeah yeah we're really intense incel stuff he's getting real twisted here uh yeah uh and this this this whole final third is a bit of a heel turn uh uh so a bit of a heel turn for old 9s old 9s old 9s
00:07:35
Speaker
He's like, I'm the only one who's allowed to touch her.
00:07:38
Speaker
I'm the only one who's allowed to hurt her.
00:07:40
Speaker
And I'm like, ooh, ooh, ooh.
00:07:43
Speaker
Nine, honey.
00:07:44
Speaker
Buddy.
00:07:45
Speaker
Honey.
00:07:46
Speaker
Sweetheart.
00:07:47
Speaker
Sweetie, you want to talk?
00:07:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:51
Speaker
Your auntie brought you some cocoa, kid.
00:07:53
Speaker
You want to you want to chat something up?
00:07:57
Speaker
Yeah, it's so great.
00:07:58
Speaker
And the shadow that is attacking his memories is also to be shaped.
00:08:03
Speaker
It's a weird moment.
00:08:06
Speaker
Anyway, he fucking does it fixes.
00:08:09
Speaker
He wins.
00:08:10
Speaker
He kills 2B in his memories or the 2B shadow.
00:08:15
Speaker
And he goes back to the resistance camp after acquiring the second key because his close combat fighting system is messed up.
00:08:22
Speaker
And Davola and Popola fix him up.
00:08:25
Speaker
Then he heads off to the amusement park for the third resource recovery unit.
00:08:29
Speaker
And he begins to think about how he was losing self-control, but at the same time, he didn't care.
00:08:36
Speaker
He approaches the third resource recovery unit, and this one is labeled God Box.
00:08:42
Speaker
Admittedly, an excellent Journey album.
00:08:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:49
Speaker
As he fights through the machines, his pod is being stubborn about warning him how he needs to not strain his chassis.
00:08:57
Speaker
9S begins stomping around like a child and is now annoying even himself.
00:09:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:03
Speaker
As he gets to the roof of the resource unit, he finds that it's being guarded by 21-0, his operator.
00:09:10
Speaker
During the fight earlier, when all the units were being sent down to the surface, 21-0 had been converted into a B-type and took her place on the front lines of the fight.
00:09:26
Speaker
Her consciousness still lingers a bit, even though she's under the machine's control now with the logic virus.
00:09:32
Speaker
And she begs 9S to kill her while they fight.
A2's Tragic Story
00:09:37
Speaker
We get dark.
00:09:39
Speaker
It is pretty dark and dark.
00:09:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:41
Speaker
We get another side chapter A2.
00:09:44
Speaker
And now this another side chapters actually this segment of chapter eight is actually the longest another side that we get.
00:09:54
Speaker
It's from A2's point of view.
00:09:57
Speaker
I know A2 from what I understand, A2 is at some points of the
00:10:03
Speaker
near Automata, a playable character.
00:10:06
Speaker
Okay.
00:10:07
Speaker
Interesting.
00:10:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:08
Speaker
So pod 42 arrives to meet A2 as a final directive from 2B.
00:10:14
Speaker
She eventually relents and lets the pod join her for support.
00:10:18
Speaker
She runs into Pascal wanting to kill him, but then spares him and he flies off.
00:10:23
Speaker
A2 reunites with Anemone.
00:10:25
Speaker
They have been working together during the Pearl Harbor descent attack, which was the first one by the Yorha group at the beginning.
00:10:35
Speaker
And they were the only two left surviving.
00:10:38
Speaker
A2 needs a fuel filter replacement, and Anemone recommends that she talk to Pascal, even though A2 would rather just destroy all the machines.
00:10:47
Speaker
And then we get a bunch of vignettes.
00:10:50
Speaker
Pretty fucked up stuff happens.
00:10:52
Speaker
So A2, it's like A2 slowly warming up to Pascal.
00:10:55
Speaker
And she's like, she and Pascal are like becoming closer and working together more to help each other.
00:11:04
Speaker
And she's like, but I don't want to be in the machine's debt.
00:11:06
Speaker
It's one of those like she's like softening, basically.
00:11:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:11
Speaker
And then one day, a bunch of machines turn on each other in the village.
00:11:15
Speaker
Pascal evacuates the children and helps A2 put down the unruly machines.
00:11:20
Speaker
And when they get back, they find out that all the children machines had committed suicide.
00:11:25
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:11:28
Speaker
This whole section is fucking bleak.
00:11:31
Speaker
Yeah, that's.
00:11:33
Speaker
And the last thing A2 does is grants Pascal's request to wipe his memory so he forgets everything that had had that had happened and leaves.
00:11:45
Speaker
She discusses with the pod how all this might have happened and is thinking that's the giant towers fault.
00:11:50
Speaker
And just then she comes upon 9 as fighting his operator on top of the research unit and stabs its body several times.
00:12:00
Speaker
And then we cut back to we cut back to 9 as the beginning of Chapter 9.
00:12:04
Speaker
9 as wakes up again.
00:12:07
Speaker
Another chapter.
00:12:08
Speaker
He wakes up from losing consciousness.
00:12:12
Speaker
The resource unit had fallen out of the sky when A2 had killed the operator.
00:12:21
Speaker
And A2 had said something about him, about 2B telling her that he was a kind person.
Yorha Project and Human Extinction
00:12:30
Speaker
And then the thing falls out of the sky, collapses underneath him, and he gets knocked out.
00:12:34
Speaker
He wakes up.
00:12:35
Speaker
He has the keys, though, to access the elevator in the tower.
00:12:39
Speaker
When he gets to the tower, though, there's a bunch of machines to deal with, and he's having trouble with them while trying to hack into the elevator at the same time.
00:12:46
Speaker
And just then, Davola and Popla show up as backups and begin dealing with the machines.
00:12:53
Speaker
He gets everything set, but there's a security door and he's not it's not able to be opened without it's like basically, oh, yeah, the security door could be opened if you just self-destruct your black box.
00:13:05
Speaker
And he's like, well, that doesn't help.
00:13:07
Speaker
That's not really.
00:13:08
Speaker
Yeah, that's not really a thing I'm planning on doing.
00:13:11
Speaker
So he's about to give up when Davolo runs in and grabs the security door, trying to like pry it open.
00:13:19
Speaker
And it begins to shock her circuits.
00:13:21
Speaker
And she lets her like personal data run into the system, causing the door to malfunction.
00:13:26
Speaker
And it opens up and Popola grabs 9S and throws him up through the door.
00:13:31
Speaker
And as he flies through the air and up, it's basically like a gravity lift.
00:13:36
Speaker
He finds residual data from them stuck in a tower.
00:13:41
Speaker
And we get information about their past and how a Davola and Popla unit were responsible for the extinction of humanity.
00:13:50
Speaker
And he realizes that to them, they viewed their death as a way of a way for penance.
00:13:56
Speaker
When he gets to the top of the tower, he is greeted by a bunch of 2B units who have no real programming.
00:14:02
Speaker
And he goes full in cell again and he destroys them one by one until there's only one left.
00:14:07
Speaker
And he stabs it a bunch of times and then whoops, that one had a detonator in it and everything goes white.
00:14:16
Speaker
Another side, A2.
00:14:18
Speaker
A2, after destroying a Goliath-class enemy, goes to the tower and finds Popola and Devola dying.
00:14:24
Speaker
They have the door still open for her.
00:14:27
Speaker
And as she enters, the pod mentions that the facility is mimicking a library.
00:14:32
Speaker
A2 finds some books about the reason for the Yorha project, which for the not the Yorha project for the tower project is to launch something to destroy the human network on the moon.
00:14:45
Speaker
And then she finds out information about herself and 2E slash B's history as someone who is designated to keep the confidentiality confidentiality of the Yorha project from 9S.
00:14:58
Speaker
And then she meets the two little girls in red who were a manifestation of the humanoid manifestation of the machine network.
00:15:08
Speaker
They taunt A2 about killing her squad from when they first met.
00:15:14
Speaker
So chapter 10, titled 9S's Story Slash Truth.
00:15:19
Speaker
9S wakes up.
00:15:24
Speaker
9S wakes up from the explosion, his left arm having been completely blown off.
00:15:30
Speaker
And there is a remaining 2B model, which he rips the arm off of and puts it into his arm socket because he needs an arm.
00:15:39
Speaker
9S walks into the next room and he sees the two girls that A2 had just been talking to.
00:15:43
Speaker
They taunt 9S and begin unlocking a classified document.
00:15:48
Speaker
To sum up, the Yorha Project was planned for obsolescence from its beginning and that humans died because of an epidemic that they were trying to figure out a way to separate souls from bodies and then put them back into new bodies.
00:16:03
Speaker
And the only guy who knew how to do this was killed by Davola and Popola.
00:16:09
Speaker
Um, so 9S then tries to stab the, uh, the holograms of the girls.
00:16:17
Speaker
Um, uh, yeah, so the, it, it's really complicated.
00:16:26
Speaker
The only thing is I don't understand the,
00:16:31
Speaker
the why.
00:16:31
Speaker
Um, so there's this whole thing, there's this project gestalt thing.
00:16:36
Speaker
And I, as I'm like, as it's doing all this info dump, it was like, Oh wow.
00:16:41
Speaker
A lot of this sounds similar to signal us.
00:16:43
Speaker
Um, yeah, suddenly there's absolutely that vibe.
00:16:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:53
Speaker
So, um,
00:16:57
Speaker
A bunch of flight units ultimately attack 9S.
00:17:02
Speaker
He's fighting them off.
00:17:04
Speaker
He gets infected by the logic virus.
00:17:08
Speaker
And then he ends up facing off against A2.
00:17:14
Speaker
And she's like, I'm not going to like, I'm not going to kill you.
00:17:21
Speaker
And, but he's like, ah, but I got to kill you.
00:17:26
Speaker
You killed to be.
00:17:29
Speaker
And it's not like, I feel like, I feel like it's like, well, can't, can't she just say that to be?
00:17:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:36
Speaker
You're not going to.
00:17:38
Speaker
Okay.
00:17:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:40
Speaker
So things.
00:17:41
Speaker
Okay.
00:17:42
Speaker
We get more.
00:17:43
Speaker
info dump and it's more or less reiteration about how 2B was actually a 2E, an execution droid, Android, where knowledge of the E units was something that it was typically covered up.
00:18:01
Speaker
So whenever nines or another unit met an E unit, there was like no data because
00:18:13
Speaker
Their entire job was to execute like your androids that are too close to figuring things out, specifically 9S, who is an above average scanner.
00:18:25
Speaker
And 9S is flabbergasted.
00:18:27
Speaker
Like he's he really doesn't he doesn't understand why there would even be an E class unit at that point, which tells you how deep in the cool lady is.
00:18:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:39
Speaker
So.
00:18:42
Speaker
The way it's written at the end, it makes it seem like 9S is dying slash, oh, I actually did fight A2 and I killed her.
00:18:54
Speaker
But I don't know if... The way it's written is a little bit confusing.
00:18:58
Speaker
Did he actually kill her?
00:18:59
Speaker
Is he just seeing a hologram of her at the end?
00:19:04
Speaker
He's not sure.
00:19:06
Speaker
And now they're in some sort of like...
00:19:12
Speaker
It's like some sort of circuit dimension thing.
00:19:16
Speaker
And now the twins are like, all right, well, we decided that we're not going to blow up the moon network.
Machine Consciousness and Empathy
00:19:24
Speaker
We're just going to load up the consciousness of everything we know and we're going to shoot it out into space.
00:19:31
Speaker
And it doesn't matter how long it takes because time is irrelevant to us.
00:19:35
Speaker
So we're going to load up the data that we have from Adam and Eve and Pascal and everybody, all the machines and just put it up and we're going to shoot it out into this point in space and see what happens.
00:19:50
Speaker
And they're like, do you want to come with us?
00:19:51
Speaker
And he's like,
00:19:53
Speaker
No.
00:19:57
Speaker
Good call.
00:19:58
Speaker
Good call.
00:20:01
Speaker
So basically, yeah, we have examined the unique specimen, Pascal, the unique specimen, King of the Forest, Adam and Eve.
00:20:10
Speaker
We're going to launch it.
00:20:12
Speaker
A2 at this point is just shouting at them like, what are...
00:20:18
Speaker
what are we supposed to be doing here?
00:20:22
Speaker
And then the pod is like, okay, well, the enemy AI has disintegrated, meaning it's just like not there anymore.
00:20:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:33
Speaker
So, yeah, there's a bright white light and then we get an epilogue, which is just like the pods talking to each other.
00:20:45
Speaker
And they're like, all right, well, our last job was to just like flush all the data of the Yorha project.
00:20:53
Speaker
And eventually they're like, no, we don't want to do that.
00:20:57
Speaker
We don't want to destroy the data of our friends.
00:21:01
Speaker
And they realize that this set puts them the pods that are supporting.
00:21:06
Speaker
So it's the pods that supported 9S and 2B from the beginning.
00:21:09
Speaker
It puts them at odds with the rest of the pods out there.
00:21:14
Speaker
And they're like, well, we developed empathy and we're going to save our friends.
00:21:22
Speaker
And then it ends with welcome back to be.
00:21:29
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:30
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:31
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:32
Speaker
There.
00:21:33
Speaker
Okay.
00:21:33
Speaker
So there's more data.
00:21:34
Speaker
There's more data.
00:21:35
Speaker
There's more like description as to what the, what exactly the Yorha project was.
Endless Cycle of Battle Data
00:21:42
Speaker
And it was like, it was created and the whole thing was planned from the beginning and that the war just kept repeating itself.
00:21:52
Speaker
And the, as it gathered battle data from everything that I was constantly doing, um,
00:22:02
Speaker
I feel like that we're missing something here.
00:22:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:06
Speaker
That was, that was exactly how I felt.
00:22:08
Speaker
I felt distinctly confused, but I will say intrigued at the same time.
00:22:16
Speaker
Sure.
00:22:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:18
Speaker
Like, is it that there were never any aliens?
00:22:21
Speaker
I think so.
00:22:22
Speaker
I think so.
00:22:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:23
Speaker
I think that's the, the, what we're, we're kind of looking at is there were never any aliens.
00:22:30
Speaker
That was just a false flag thing in order to give the Android something to do against the machines.
00:22:36
Speaker
Kind of a watchman ending.
00:22:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:39
Speaker
Kind of like the, yeah, the watchman ending.
00:22:42
Speaker
And then I, I, I, I guess,
00:22:49
Speaker
And somebody who knows near Automata is probably screaming in the in there at the thing right now is like, what's the point of doing all this if you're going to delete it later?
00:22:59
Speaker
Right.
00:23:01
Speaker
If that's the plan.
00:23:01
Speaker
Is that the point?
00:23:03
Speaker
Is that what they're trying to say?
00:23:05
Speaker
Maybe it's about the what you choose to do.
00:23:09
Speaker
You know, there's some.
00:23:11
Speaker
some stuff and then the machines launch off into space instead of destroying the, the remains of the human, like the genetic remains of humanity, which they also reveal in chapter nine or 10, I can't remember which aren't really even enough to bring humans back.
00:23:29
Speaker
Like the data that they have.
00:23:31
Speaker
That's all over that whole thing.
00:23:34
Speaker
That's done.
00:23:35
Speaker
That is that whole thing is not worth anything.
00:23:38
Speaker
it's never going to happen, you know?
00:23:40
Speaker
And yeah, just like, just insult to injury on how useless this whole endeavor is.
00:23:47
Speaker
And all the, um, yeah.
00:23:50
Speaker
So I guess there is like some hope of at least nine, like to be coming back, but to be or not to be, I guess that is the question.
00:24:05
Speaker
Um,
00:24:07
Speaker
Or will we have to consider Pascal's wager?
00:24:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:12
Speaker
That's Pascal that wager.
00:24:16
Speaker
Phil, what do you think?
00:24:17
Speaker
What's, what is, what was your takeaway?
00:24:19
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:21
Speaker
I, all right.
00:24:22
Speaker
This was, this was easily one of the more interesting experiences I've had on this show.
00:24:29
Speaker
Not because I enjoyed the book.
00:24:30
Speaker
I didn't.
00:24:32
Speaker
Um,
00:24:33
Speaker
But yeah, clearly something was wrong with the localization.
00:24:37
Speaker
And even if it even if I also but I have a basis on nothing, but my gut tells me that even if it was localized better, it might not have been a terrific book.
00:24:48
Speaker
Sure.
00:24:48
Speaker
At least in terms of just pure entertainment value.
00:24:51
Speaker
What it did do that other books we've read that I haven't enjoyed absolutely didn't.
00:24:57
Speaker
And I've said this before, was intrigued me after to go to say, I really cat hair in my microphone.
00:25:04
Speaker
I really should play this game.
00:25:07
Speaker
And I think there's value in that.
00:25:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:10
Speaker
It shows that it might not have been a terribly well executed book, but it carried through enough of the overarching ideas from the source material that I could see it.
00:25:26
Speaker
I could see what they were going for at least enough to make me go, OK, I've got to play the game to see what
00:25:34
Speaker
they actually meant, which is not, not, not something I generally walk away from one of the books we read when I don't enjoy it and think to myself.
00:25:42
Speaker
So very interesting, very intriguing.
00:25:45
Speaker
What about you?
00:25:45
Speaker
What did, what did you think?
00:25:47
Speaker
Yeah, I, to me, it seems like it's a, trying to summarize
00:25:54
Speaker
It's trying to cut down like a thousand pages of story into 250 pages.
Book Localization Critique
00:25:59
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:26:00
Speaker
I feel like it's really trying to boil down things into the other.
00:26:07
Speaker
So the issue I have with it is it feels like there's a lot of stuff where we are supposed to have stronger feelings about whatever the fuck is going on than we are having.
00:26:20
Speaker
while we're reading it.
00:26:22
Speaker
Because a lot of times it's like, ah, 2B is dead.
00:26:27
Speaker
I'm so sad 2B is dead.
00:26:28
Speaker
And I'm like, well, you know, sure, 9S and 2B had a relationship.
00:26:35
Speaker
But the thing is, I don't get any hint of it being anything other than platonic.
00:26:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:44
Speaker
For the first two-thirds of the book, and then the last third, it gets into a real weird...
00:26:50
Speaker
In Sally 9s is obsessed with her.
00:26:55
Speaker
It feels like in that way.
00:26:56
Speaker
It kind of comes abruptly too.
00:26:57
Speaker
And it feels very abrupt in the way that it's written.
00:27:01
Speaker
And I'm like, is this part of the localization or is this like the translation or is it actually like this in the game?
00:27:09
Speaker
And I feel like it's in the plot of the game.
00:27:13
Speaker
Right.
00:27:14
Speaker
Do we have more of a...
00:27:17
Speaker
lead into it in the game itself.
00:27:21
Speaker
I feel like A2 is probably, from what I understand about the various endings of the game, A2 is a little underdeveloped compared to 2B and 9S in the book.
00:27:35
Speaker
And it's almost weird just shunting her off into these other side, another side chapters.
00:27:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:45
Speaker
There's just a lot...
00:27:47
Speaker
It's a lot.
00:27:48
Speaker
It's a lot.
00:27:50
Speaker
It feels like we're blitzing through a story which required, especially with the apparently looping nature of the story when it comes to what 9S and 2B have been through on the surface of the planet, dying and being reborn and 9S having his memory wiped and all that stuff.
00:28:17
Speaker
It feels like there is more that could have been done creatively with the nature of the narrative that isn't done.
00:28:29
Speaker
And it's very linear compared to
00:28:33
Speaker
I guess what the way that because the game has multiple endings, there's like 26.
00:28:39
Speaker
Right.
00:28:40
Speaker
Well, there's 26.
00:28:41
Speaker
A bunch of them are are for, you know, are kind of jokey.
00:28:46
Speaker
Like I got one of them today when I was playing where it's just like you initiate self-destruct while you're on the bunker.
00:28:56
Speaker
I mean, that's an ending.
00:28:58
Speaker
It gives you an ending and it like plays through the credits of the game and fast forward and then asks you if you want to load your last save.
00:29:06
Speaker
That's pretty good.
00:29:08
Speaker
But there's like five main ones, five main endings apparently and then just, you know, 20 or so haha endings.
00:29:19
Speaker
So, yeah, like I don't I feel like a bunch of them might have been
00:29:25
Speaker
represented in the text, uh, and just missed it.
00:29:33
Speaker
But I don't know.
00:29:34
Speaker
I'm, it felt as you said, as to quote beetle juice, juice, this reads like stereo instructions.
00:29:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:44
Speaker
It is so matter of fact and to the point and, and it's just hard to enjoy.
00:29:52
Speaker
for its own sake, especially because you get the distinct impression that they, what they're doing is interesting enough that you could believe that the source material must be better, especially when, and you know, in the context of having been involved in video games and knowing how well received that game was.
00:30:17
Speaker
So you kind of assume you're like, well, it must've been, you know,
00:30:20
Speaker
well done in the video game.
00:30:25
Speaker
So what's missing here?
00:30:29
Speaker
And it's a shame.
00:30:30
Speaker
There's a delicate touch there that's clearly missing.
00:30:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:33
Speaker
And what's also interesting is, yeah, it made me interested in playing the video game, as you said, just because I was definitely like, I'm missing something.
00:30:43
Speaker
There's some ideas here that I'm interested in seeing fleshed out more.
00:30:48
Speaker
I guess I got to play the game to actually see that happen.
00:30:54
Speaker
And I don't think they did that on purpose.
00:30:56
Speaker
No.
00:30:58
Speaker
The other thing is, though, I know the game itself has its own problems with
00:31:02
Speaker
All of that intrigue being muddled under the fact that to be wears a skirt, which you could look up into and her top has a boob window.
00:31:14
Speaker
I mean, oh, well, yeah, there is that.
00:31:17
Speaker
There's that.
00:31:19
Speaker
There is that.
00:31:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:21
Speaker
And then when you activate self-destruct for her, all it does is blow off her skirt.
00:31:26
Speaker
So she's running around in her.
00:31:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:28
Speaker
So that's just, I mean, that there's a metaphor there.
00:31:30
Speaker
I, I, I think I see.
00:31:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:35
Speaker
Pascal and Sartre.
00:31:40
Speaker
Mutually assured self-destruction exposes the red basket, the baby maker of the world to colossal pain.
00:31:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:58
Speaker
And boobies.
00:31:59
Speaker
So I think that was, I don't know.
00:32:04
Speaker
I feel like it's been a long time since literary analysis, but I feel like I nailed that one.
00:32:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:11
Speaker
I'm going to have to play that game.
00:32:18
Speaker
I'm going to have to play that game.
00:32:22
Speaker
It's, it's, um,
00:32:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:27
Speaker
I mean, in the end, really, it's just an adaptation of waiting for Godot.
00:32:33
Speaker
Yeah, sure.
00:32:36
Speaker
And Vladimir is 2B and Estragon is 9S.
00:32:42
Speaker
Sure.
00:32:43
Speaker
And they're just kind of waiting for God being humanity to...
00:32:56
Speaker
show up.
00:33:00
Speaker
I bet very much that there is a, that there is a, a creative writing nerd in our, in our fandom that is, that is going, you know, he's not far off though, but he's not far off.
00:33:11
Speaker
Like he's, I know he's just messing around, but I'm going to go with, with Josh is going to, is going to have thoughts.
00:33:19
Speaker
You know, he's the, he's the writing guy.
00:33:21
Speaker
writing teacher uh please please in the in the fandom so i'll i'll throw it to him like what is what is near automata's uh is it is it just an expansion on on beckett's work um anyway uh no what do you play
00:33:46
Speaker
Right into it.
00:33:46
Speaker
I love it.
00:33:47
Speaker
I was like, I was like, I wonder how long I keep this bit going.
00:33:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:52
Speaker
Just, just, just, just drag it out like a long embarrassing fart.
00:33:56
Speaker
Yep.
00:33:57
Speaker
Oh, I'm glad you asked.
00:33:58
Speaker
I really am.
00:33:59
Speaker
Because I'm still playing cyberpunk 2077.
00:34:02
Speaker
I am, I think about 80% done with the main storyline.
00:34:08
Speaker
uh, we were talking last time about the Pan Am character and, uh, and romancing her possibly.
00:34:14
Speaker
Um, but the more I get into the game, the more I'm pretty sure I think I'm going to try and if it's, I don't know if it's even possible.
00:34:20
Speaker
I'm going to try and romance a river, the detective, uh, because he's handsome and I like his coat.
00:34:26
Speaker
Okay.
00:34:27
Speaker
Um, and when I, and when I thought about that, I realized that if I were a girl, uh, uh,
00:34:35
Speaker
i would be the one that steals the boyfriend's hoodie i'd be i'd be that one so sure sure just all i could think about was like well maybe if i'm his boyfriend i can get his coat yeah yeah and i could really deck myself out in the coat i'm using him for his fashion sense sure um which which is real rough when you when you're taking down a child predator together and you're using them for their for their coat that's
00:35:00
Speaker
Woo.
00:35:01
Speaker
That's it's a little dark for a lot of reasons there.
00:35:06
Speaker
But yeah, I'm really still really enjoying that.
00:35:09
Speaker
Just enjoying cruising through Night City.
00:35:11
Speaker
It's a lot of fun.
00:35:12
Speaker
I keep hearing them say and see and assuming they mean North Carolina.
00:35:17
Speaker
That happens a lot.
00:35:20
Speaker
But yeah, really enjoying that one.
00:35:22
Speaker
And I did get to play a demo this week.
00:35:25
Speaker
I played the demo for Foundation.
00:35:28
Speaker
Okay.
00:35:29
Speaker
This came out the end of last year.
00:35:32
Speaker
It is a casual city builder.
00:35:36
Speaker
It's like a medieval city builder.
00:35:39
Speaker
Very laid back.
00:35:40
Speaker
It grows in complexity as you go, like a lot of these games.
00:35:44
Speaker
But it's really chill.
00:35:47
Speaker
It doesn't have it has like really free standing where you put things.
00:35:51
Speaker
You can put them wherever on the on the map.
00:35:55
Speaker
You don't have to worry about tiles or anything like that.
00:35:58
Speaker
couple of features I find really interesting.
00:36:00
Speaker
One is that as long as you have enough, in a lot of these games, you have to make sure that you're building houses to keep up with the
00:36:11
Speaker
your population.
00:36:13
Speaker
This one, as long as you're, as long as they have enough food to be there and they're working, the houses will get built.
00:36:20
Speaker
And so they kind of organically spring up around the windmills and, and, and, you know, gathering huts and stuff like that that you're building.
00:36:31
Speaker
And it's, it's very, it's nice.
00:36:34
Speaker
It's very pretty.
00:36:35
Speaker
Uh, uh, it, you, you start getting excited about what it's going to look like as you expand.
00:36:41
Speaker
Um, it takes some of that out of your hands and I'm fine with that, uh, to a certain extent.
00:36:46
Speaker
Um, it's very chill.
00:36:48
Speaker
Like I said, it's, it's, I've only played the demo and that, that cut out a lot of things, but it looks like there's a lot of game in there.
00:36:56
Speaker
Um,
00:36:58
Speaker
I mean, I played about three hours of it on the demo and I was just scratching the surface of like the research and the island I was on and everything like that.
00:37:08
Speaker
So it looks like there's a lot there.
00:37:09
Speaker
I feel like it would be a very good game for anyone who wants to play something to tide them over until Civ, the new Civ comes in.
00:37:18
Speaker
Sure.
00:37:18
Speaker
Civ 7.
00:37:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:19
Speaker
Next month, right?
00:37:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:21
Speaker
Well, yeah, that's it.
00:37:24
Speaker
It'll be right on the cusp of it coming out.
00:37:27
Speaker
Actually, it might be out by the time our next episode goes live.
00:37:31
Speaker
Okay.
00:37:32
Speaker
Because I think it's the 11th, something like that.
00:37:34
Speaker
But on the other hand, if you're not a big fan of the intensity of Civ and how hard it goes after a while, but you enjoy...
00:37:50
Speaker
like a game like Dorf Romantic, for example, which was a city builder, but was super chill.
00:37:55
Speaker
And you could kind of lean back and just play a podcast and really chill out and build a king.
00:37:59
Speaker
This is not that chill, but you know what it is?
00:38:02
Speaker
It's kind of like banished, but very easy, like way easier than banished.
00:38:08
Speaker
But it has a lot of the same vibes to it.
00:38:11
Speaker
So I like that a lot because banished is still one of my favorite games of all time.
00:38:17
Speaker
Really interesting stuff.
00:38:18
Speaker
I think it would be worth at least playing the demo for anyone who likes city builders between now and again, when Civ 7 comes out.
00:38:25
Speaker
Right.
00:38:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:27
Speaker
So that's been my week.
00:38:28
Speaker
What about you, Kevin?
00:38:29
Speaker
What have you been playing?
00:38:30
Speaker
I have been playing other than near I've been playing Ender Magnolia, which is the sequel to Ender Lilies, which was a came out a couple of years ago as a Metroidvania, which had the interesting the interesting aspect of it is your main character has no ability to attack.
00:38:54
Speaker
They are they basically summon spirits that fight for them.
00:39:00
Speaker
So like, I remember this.
00:39:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:02
Speaker
So when you hit the attack button instead of your person attacking,
00:39:08
Speaker
uh, instantly a spirit that they have with them, like comes in and like, does the like attacks with their sword or whatever.
00:39:17
Speaker
And each of the, as you go through, um, they're called homunculi is the, the spirits that kind of, uh, work with your, your little dude, uh, who is known as a tuner or a tuner.
00:39:32
Speaker
Um, I can't remember which, um, um,
00:39:34
Speaker
But you go through and as you're finding, you find these homunculi and they give you, they might have, some might be passive where it's just like, one of them is just like a little owl that flies over your shoulder and just attacks anything that gets near you.
00:39:53
Speaker
Some are moves that use moves that are like more like heavy duty attacks, but you have to wait for them to recharge.
00:40:03
Speaker
Some are your basic attacks where it's just like, you know, a three hit combo or something like that.
00:40:08
Speaker
And one of them is actually one of the ones that you get pretty early is they call it a pressure attack.
00:40:14
Speaker
But basically, it's a homunculi spirit that just like shoots a gun.
00:40:21
Speaker
constantly as long as you have the button held down.
00:40:25
Speaker
And it does like very little chip damage, but you as, as when you keep firing it, it kind of keeps the enemy like pushed back, you know, instead of, instead of right up on you.
00:40:39
Speaker
It's a fun game so far.
00:40:41
Speaker
I really liked Ender Lilies.
00:40:44
Speaker
Not like I wasn't overwhelmed with joy by Ender Lilies, but I really liked it.
00:40:49
Speaker
It was a fun Metroidvania.
00:40:51
Speaker
Ender Magnolia is a lot of fun as well.
00:40:54
Speaker
In terms of the story, it's one of those games where I'm really mostly just playing it for the gameplay at this point because I'm
00:41:05
Speaker
It's a fantasy story.
Complex Game Narratives Discussion
00:41:08
Speaker
Sometimes it's almost always fantasy where the story will be like, okay, well, it's just, there's too many steps here.
00:41:18
Speaker
I used to devour that kind of thing.
00:41:21
Speaker
I'm just too exhausted for it anymore.
00:41:23
Speaker
Okay.
00:41:23
Speaker
Okay.
00:41:26
Speaker
Like, uh-huh.
00:41:27
Speaker
Uh-huh.
00:41:28
Speaker
Okay.
00:41:29
Speaker
Skip.
00:41:29
Speaker
Skip the cut scene.
00:41:30
Speaker
I'm done.
00:41:32
Speaker
I'm blowing through all the dialogue.
00:41:35
Speaker
I don't have much.
00:41:38
Speaker
Just let me play.
00:41:39
Speaker
Just let me play the game, please.
00:41:40
Speaker
Thank you.
00:41:41
Speaker
Yeah, let's move on.
00:41:42
Speaker
Let's move on.
00:41:43
Speaker
Let's move on.
00:41:45
Speaker
Because unless it's, unless, and I think, you know, it's funny.
00:41:49
Speaker
I think it's a problem associated with me reading more because I read a lot more now than, than I used to.
00:42:01
Speaker
I am less patient with, with stories that are just like,
00:42:09
Speaker
not as not, not cracking along in terms of being paced.
00:42:15
Speaker
Well, yeah.
00:42:17
Speaker
Well, cause I mean, we read a lot for pixel it and then I read in between the pixel it books as well.
00:42:23
Speaker
So the problem is I feel like, and maybe this is a hot take.
00:42:26
Speaker
I feel like most video game writing, it really, even games that are considered, uh,
00:42:33
Speaker
like the pinnacle of game writing, you know, like last of us, it's, it's super tropey cliche.
00:42:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:42
Speaker
Um, I like the TV show because you know, it, it, I, I enjoy Pedro Pascal.
00:42:48
Speaker
Uh, the charisma of the actors in live action is different.
00:42:53
Speaker
Um,
00:42:53
Speaker
There is almost no charisma a lot of times in photorealistic graphics yet.
00:43:00
Speaker
It's weird, but you go more cartoonish in terms of graphics, you could actually draw me along better than trying photorealism.
00:43:09
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:43:10
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:43:13
Speaker
100%.
00:43:13
Speaker
The handful of games that have actually made me cry, I'm thinking about it, and none of them were photorealistic.
00:43:17
Speaker
The closest one to photorealism would be Bioshock Infinite.
00:43:22
Speaker
Sure.
00:43:23
Speaker
And that one is still very stylized.
00:43:26
Speaker
Super stylized.
00:43:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:28
Speaker
So, yeah, no, I totally agree.
00:43:30
Speaker
It's distracting otherwise.
00:43:33
Speaker
It is a little bit distracting otherwise living in that uncanny valley.
00:43:37
Speaker
I'm just trying to think of games that might have made me cry my own tears.
00:43:44
Speaker
No one makes me bleed my own blood.
00:43:46
Speaker
No one makes me cry my own tears.
00:43:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:53
Speaker
I don't know.
00:43:55
Speaker
Probably wasn't anything like maybe last year while we wait here, had some moments.
00:44:03
Speaker
Nobody wants to die.
00:44:04
Speaker
Had some moments that were pretty sad.
00:44:06
Speaker
Oh, well, mouthwashing.
00:44:09
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:44:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:10
Speaker
Wow.
00:44:10
Speaker
The game with the PS one graphics.
00:44:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:13
Speaker
No, but that's exactly it.
00:44:14
Speaker
That's exactly it.
00:44:16
Speaker
It's it's it didn't need to be.
00:44:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:22
Speaker
Anyway, I was just getting on is like most video games that are heralded, especially in the AAA space as these paragraphs of writing, I feel are not even necessarily.
00:44:36
Speaker
They don't necessarily even live up to a lot of novels or TV shows yet.
00:44:43
Speaker
I mean, in the long and short of it, writing for video games is still in its infancy.
00:44:51
Speaker
Writing actual narrative in games is still relatively new.
00:44:56
Speaker
And I think we're finding more and more about what works and what doesn't.
00:45:00
Speaker
Mouthwashing, great example of a game that was amazing, but the flip side of it is mouthwashing doesn't have a lot of gameplay.
00:45:08
Speaker
Yeah, but then on the other hand, because it's a completely different medium, you have games that don't have much in the way of a linear narrative like Papers, Please, that are incredibly moving.
00:45:21
Speaker
Exactly.
00:45:22
Speaker
Exactly.
00:45:22
Speaker
And it's and it's a different experience and they don't overwrite it to go with the same design.
00:45:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:29
Speaker
I was about to say Lucas Pope is is two for two on that, you know, and I think and I think that's what we're seeing more of where people are recognizing that the medium is better at its own thing.
00:45:42
Speaker
There are things that a video game can do that a book just can't and vice versa.
00:45:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:48
Speaker
Yeah, that's interesting.
00:45:50
Speaker
What was the game with the film where you're looking through the film reels?
00:45:58
Speaker
Oh, God.
00:46:00
Speaker
It's a name.
00:46:02
Speaker
It's a name.
00:46:02
Speaker
All right.
00:46:06
Speaker
I have it.
00:46:06
Speaker
I never played it.
00:46:07
Speaker
I tried to get through it and I just couldn't.
00:46:11
Speaker
Begins with an eye.
00:46:15
Speaker
Doesn't it?
00:46:16
Speaker
I don't know.
00:46:18
Speaker
Someone's screaming at us right now.
00:46:25
Speaker
Well, the infectious madness, mortality, immortality.
00:46:29
Speaker
We were thinking about two different games.
00:46:30
Speaker
Okay.
00:46:33
Speaker
I remember.
00:46:34
Speaker
Oh gosh.
00:46:34
Speaker
I'd forgotten all about immortality.
00:46:36
Speaker
You, yeah, that's, I remember you really liked that one.
00:46:38
Speaker
Yes.
00:46:39
Speaker
Um, I was thinking of the one where it's like, you're watching, um, interrogation footage of a woman.
00:46:46
Speaker
It's the same developer.
00:46:47
Speaker
It's the same developer.
00:46:49
Speaker
Same, same guy.
00:46:50
Speaker
Uh, her story is, thank you.
00:46:52
Speaker
Yes.
00:46:53
Speaker
Her Sam Barlow is the guy.
00:46:55
Speaker
So her story and, uh, telling lies.
00:46:59
Speaker
And there's a couple games coming up called... There's a couple games coming up from Sam Barlow, one of which is from him and Brandon Cronenberg.
00:47:17
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:47:20
Speaker
I'm listening.
00:47:21
Speaker
Is Brandon Cronenberg?
00:47:23
Speaker
Okay, yeah.
00:47:23
Speaker
He is the son of David Cronenberg.
00:47:25
Speaker
What was that movie?
00:47:26
Speaker
Infinity Pool.
00:47:27
Speaker
Yeah, that was a good movie.
00:47:30
Speaker
Yeah, and Possessor.
00:47:31
Speaker
He's got his dad's eye.
00:47:35
Speaker
He does.
00:47:36
Speaker
It's in a jar on a desk.
00:47:44
Speaker
You know, it's a shame David Lynch was never really approached by any of these people.
00:47:52
Speaker
Even though there's so many things that are clearly inspired by him.
00:47:57
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:47:57
Speaker
You got Deadly Premonition and aspects of Silent Hill.
00:47:59
Speaker
You got Deadly Premonition, Alan Wake.
00:48:02
Speaker
Oh, sure.
00:48:03
Speaker
Control.
00:48:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:06
Speaker
Silent Hill is super, super Lynchian.
00:48:11
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:48:11
Speaker
There's...
00:48:12
Speaker
You know, we've my my wife and I, we realized after he passed how piss poor our watching habits of him are.
00:48:21
Speaker
I'd only ever seen Eraserhead and Blue Velvet and and I had a long time walked, watched through Twin Peaks and and Emily hadn't seen any of them.
00:48:32
Speaker
So we watched.
00:48:34
Speaker
what is it?
00:48:34
Speaker
We watched Eraserhead.
00:48:35
Speaker
We watched Wild at Heart and we watched Mulholland Drive.
00:48:40
Speaker
Uh, and just, just, man, that was a, that was a crazy three days.
00:48:44
Speaker
Let me tell you, but it was, but it was wonderful.
00:48:48
Speaker
And I think we're going to do that more with directors.
00:48:50
Speaker
We're going to like try and like watch a bunch of directors.
00:48:53
Speaker
Do a, do a director.
00:48:55
Speaker
Uh, and I, you know what?
00:48:56
Speaker
I, I feel like that's actually a great way to do it is, is kind of like, um,
00:49:01
Speaker
Kind of like what Blank Check does.
00:49:06
Speaker
The podcast Blank Check where they.
00:49:08
Speaker
Oh, I thought you meant the 90s movie.
00:49:11
Speaker
No, no, not the 90s.
00:49:15
Speaker
Go on.
00:49:17
Speaker
Tell me more.
00:49:19
Speaker
Oh, you know, there's another game very inspired by David Lynch is Thimbleweed Park.
00:49:26
Speaker
Oh, absolutely.
00:49:28
Speaker
Lynch and the X-Files, basically.
00:49:30
Speaker
Lynch and the X-Files.
00:49:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:32
Speaker
So, yeah, I'm just looking through a list right now of games that are like very much, very Lynch.
00:49:43
Speaker
Disco Elysium has some Lynch vibes.
00:49:47
Speaker
Kentucky Route Zero.
00:49:50
Speaker
Silent Hill 2 and all that.
00:49:52
Speaker
It's, it's,
00:49:55
Speaker
RIP David Lynch.
00:49:56
Speaker
We got to David Lynch from from Cronenberg from Brandon Cronenberg.
00:50:00
Speaker
And we still ended up talking about David Lynch.
00:50:03
Speaker
Anyway, yeah, town writing guys game writing.
00:50:06
Speaker
I think a lot of times the things that are that are held up as the
00:50:11
Speaker
Premiere examples of writing in games are often not necessarily there.
00:50:16
Speaker
They are they're valued by their closeness or proximity to how close of a they look to being movies.
00:50:25
Speaker
Yes.
00:50:25
Speaker
Rather than their strengths as a game.
00:50:29
Speaker
I totally I totally agree.
00:50:31
Speaker
We got to a point.
00:50:34
Speaker
where people wanted very badly for video games to be taken seriously on some level.
00:50:39
Speaker
Right.
00:50:40
Speaker
And we've gotten to that point.
00:50:42
Speaker
But now the problem is, is that they're only being taken seriously by mainstream based, like you said, based on their allusion to existing art forms.
00:50:53
Speaker
And it has to break through that.
00:50:56
Speaker
We need more people to play games like Pony Island and, you know, mouthwashing and all of these brilliant narrative games that could not exist in a book or in a movie or a TV show or something like that to really make the art form stand out.
00:51:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:15
Speaker
No, I agree.
00:51:17
Speaker
You know what else I agree on is that there is a wonderful website called patreon.com slash pixel.
00:51:23
Speaker
That's your ass there is.
00:51:25
Speaker
You go there.
00:51:27
Speaker
You can join us for free.
00:51:30
Speaker
$1 gets you in the door.
00:51:32
Speaker
$5 gets you ad free episodes in the bonus episode before.
00:51:36
Speaker
restart, start the main part of the episode and $10 gets your name shouted out in every episode.
00:51:43
Speaker
And to that end, I want to say big hearty.
00:51:46
Speaker
Thank you to Jesus loves you.
00:51:47
Speaker
Kyle semen, ruthless mutter, middle of things, Sigma Sal, shut beaks, dumb it.
00:51:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:54
Speaker
Friendly friends.
00:51:55
Speaker
Thank you for being a friend.
00:51:57
Speaker
Thank you so much for being a friend.
00:51:59
Speaker
Thank you for being a friend.
00:52:04
Speaker
You know, it took me until this year for James Hot Sider to point out to me that although that is the theme song to Golden Girls, it was a song on its own.
00:52:21
Speaker
Oh, I don't think I knew that.
00:52:22
Speaker
Yeah, it wasn't just the song by Andrew Gold.
00:52:30
Speaker
So there's like a longer version of it.
00:52:32
Speaker
It's four minutes long.
00:52:35
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:52:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:36
Speaker
I'm not going to, I started to say, I think I'll, I think I'll look that up and then immediately changed my mind.
00:52:41
Speaker
I don't think I'm going to do that.
00:52:43
Speaker
Maybe you should just watch golden girls though.
00:52:45
Speaker
That's a better use of my time.
00:52:47
Speaker
You know what?
00:52:49
Speaker
For every David Lynch movie, three episodes of the golden girls, we must stay balanced.
00:52:55
Speaker
We must stay balanced.
00:52:56
Speaker
We must stay balanced.
00:52:58
Speaker
Every one of us is teetering on the scale.
00:53:00
Speaker
In one hand, David Lynch's eraser head.
00:53:03
Speaker
In the other hand, the golden girls.
00:53:05
Speaker
And we've got to keep it balanced, baby.
00:53:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:09
Speaker
So to because I'm just feeling very, very Lynch.
00:53:22
Speaker
I feel like I need to.
00:53:26
Speaker
end this episode, especially in an era of Trump and things going less than swell for a lot of folks, especially our trans friends, non-binary friends.
00:53:48
Speaker
This quote from Twin Peaks, I tell all your colleagues,
00:53:56
Speaker
those clown comics to fix their hearts or die.
00:54:02
Speaker
Uh, rest in peace, David Lynch.
00:54:05
Speaker
Beautiful man.
00:54:06
Speaker
Beautiful man.
00:54:07
Speaker
And, uh, yeah, that'll be it for tonight's episode.