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Full Throttle
1 Playsin 8 hours
Ben & Jess talk about Ben... Ben Throttle that is, ha ha ha ha ha.
ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha
pretty good- had you fooled there.
Quest Quest podcast is Ben Vigeant and Jess Morrissette.
Editing by Ben Vigeant
Show art by Kevin "WilcoWeb" Wallace
Watch us on Twitch!
Ben: https://www.twitch.tv/ps_garak
Jess: https://www.twitch.tv/decafjedi
Give us a review, they help people find this show! Unless you hated it, in which case, don't.
Talk with us on Discord!
https://discord.gg/ve9fqjgPp2
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Transcript
Unconventional Feedback Methods
00:00:29
Speaker
suggests we've we recently received two pieces of ah ah you know I wouldn't call them complaints because I think that sounds kind of severe yeah I would say two comments critiques critiques there we go one said like with an angry memo attached from you yeah Yeah, they will they they both came attached to bricks ah through the window.
00:01:04
Speaker
But that is how we ask people to reach out to us if they don't have access to email. Right. um But ah we did receive... Now, I'll know... I'll know on two different episodes.
00:01:18
Speaker
So not on the same episode, which would make this a little more. But we received one comment on one episode that was like... Hey, what gives?
00:01:29
Speaker
Not talking about sandwiches enough. Then we got a comment on another episode that says, you didn't talk about the game enough.
00:01:42
Speaker
That's a tough, tough needled thread there. And you know, Ben, I have the solution to all this. Lay it on
Balancing Content with Space Quest 4
00:01:52
Speaker
me. If we would just play space quest four, it's an adventure game with a sandwich making component.
00:02:02
Speaker
ah We could hit both of those demographics. We could make all of our listeners happy, but every week I prep a space quest four episode and you're like, Hey, let's talk about this instead last minute. And then I have to go and play like drop C in 45 minutes.
00:02:18
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, I got great news. We are going to play, like, we are going to play and and discuss Space Quest 4 next week. Okay.
00:02:29
Speaker
Okay, Lucy. that that That is, that that's that's going to be taken care of. But anyway, ah this is Quest Quest.
Critique of Masters of the Universe Film
00:02:40
Speaker
The Adventure Game Podcast. And Sandwich Podcast. How are you doing, Jess? Mm-hmm.
00:02:45
Speaker
I'm doing pretty well. I'm coming in hot straight from Eternia. Oh yeah. Yeah. No, no, no, just i strange as it may be as, as someone turning 40 this year, but I don't know. Like, I mean, I know because we discussed a little bit where, where you came from, but I actually have absolutely no context for that.
00:03:12
Speaker
Yeah, you've got to be a good five or six years removed from He-Man being like a going concern, right? Right. Yeah, I just came from ah the Masters of the Universe film. I hesitate to call it a movie.
00:03:26
Speaker
um And like but I don't think they call the films in the Criterion Collection movies. They call them Pictures.
00:03:38
Speaker
That's right. And that's that's where this is heading someday. No, let me tell you, i hate to like, you know, come in here and dunk all over a movie, but Masters of the Universe, you know, it is already by this point, as the listeners will hear this,
00:03:53
Speaker
a historic box office flop, like an unbelievable box office flop in a way that seems nearly impossible for any project with any tiny amount of nostalgia attached to it. I feel bad for the folks at Mattel with this being their follow up to the Barbie movie.
00:04:12
Speaker
An enormous hit. and or And successful on nearly every creative level. um This movie, not so much. Ben, I have to tell you what it was going for.
00:04:24
Speaker
ahhuh And I can just see like there's a whiteboard somewhere, you know, at Mattel HQ. That's just like Guardians of the Galaxy plus the Dungeons and Dragons movie, which we mentioned recently.
00:04:36
Speaker
Yeah, that is all this is trying to be. But you know what it runs into? It runs into the problem. This is my official Jess review. um The problem with Masters of the Universe is every character is a comic relief character, which means you get no relief from the comedy.
00:04:55
Speaker
It is just a constant stream of quips and one-liners, most of which aren't great. You know... This is i it's it's very weird. the the The massive ship of like blockbuster movie making, similar to to video games in that like, it's like, if if you're going to make something massive budget,
00:05:27
Speaker
it you know from ah getting the green light and scripting and you know getting all the money together and blah blah blah you know this could be years e and uh everything I've heard about the He-Man movie is like man this probably would have hit hard like 14 years ago yeah ish i mean right it is like the pure distilled marvel formula without the money and the personnel behind the scenes to make that work and even then we've all gotten tired of the marvel formula yeah and and and i'm not saying that the he-man movie has been i mean it's probably been in like someone has been in meetings trying to make the he-man movie yeah since like 1995 or some shit like it's probably like i'm not saying that they've been working on it for 14 years this was like the kind of thing that's had like by now 15 stars attached to it at some point yeah i mean it has it has all of that sort of vibe to it and i mean there's some clever bits like
00:06:37
Speaker
prince adam you don't know law about he-man prince i don't i don't know he-man's secret identity yeah prince adam is uh he-man's secret identity and he's living on earth as this film begins and the joke is that he is in human resources and he's all about like talking to de-escalate problems and leading with his emotions and all these sorts of things, which then creates an interesting juxtaposition when he attains the power of Greyskull and wields the sort of power that, you know, this isn't who he is naturally. He has to learn to become this very buff, very sexy barbarian.
00:07:18
Speaker
I think also, you know, contrasting this with Barbie is that Barbie never went away. right everyone
Exploring Lost Media and AI Restoration
00:07:28
Speaker
you know my Like you know, my six year old niece knows who Barbie is. And like, I don't know if she has one or not, but like she, like her if she doesn't have one, her friends do at school. Like, like Barbie is ubiquitous.
00:07:46
Speaker
Yes. It's like he man had its moment in the eighties. And then like, I mean, I assume it went away. Like, it's just like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
00:07:57
Speaker
it's been revived 30 times but it's never been as successful as the first time no and it's like you know when i was when i was a kid it was it was power rangers and teenage mutant ninja turtles and you know teenage mutant ninja turtles has like kind of had its i don't i don't know ah Like, i I don't believe it's as big or as ubiquitous as it was in the It couldn't be as big and ubiquitous as it was. I mean, I think it still does well, but yeah i mean it was yeah a phenomenon back then. I mean, Vanilla Ice rapped a song for them. Yeah.
00:08:33
Speaker
Yeah. Vanilla Ice. Vanilla. mill mil ah Ice. Ice. um But I mean, you know, like kids know who the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are. Like Power Rangers, maybe a little less so, but I know that they like kind of cycle.
00:08:52
Speaker
But it I'm just trying to think like, but it's like Barbie has been ah constant. Right. Like it's like everyone knows who Barbie is. Yeah. yeah whereas he-man is not that no that is my daughter had no point of reference for i don't have a point of reference yeah right right i mean and also something else that the film really fell back on i mean there are a lot of ridiculous elements of of he-man know there's some pretty uh pretty obvious subtexts going on through a lot of i mean it is ah show that's been deconstructed on the internet since like the mid 90s and we've all heard jokes about there being one guy with a giant metal fist whose name is fisto And there's lots of jokes out the internet. Like Sean baby was pioneering this stuff in the, in the late nineties. Right. Shout out to Sean baby. um You talking about, Oh, it's funny. There's a guy named Fisto with a giant fist, but you know, this movie tells like the fisting joke, maybe eight or nine times in the course of its run. And it's, it's old. It's an old joke now.
00:10:01
Speaker
And it's like, it seems like it's a kid's movie, but now we're just constantly talking about fisting. But
Streaming Oddities in Gaming
00:10:07
Speaker
I think it's also, it's like, yeah, you gotta make sure that your movie has new jokes, like jokes that weren't on new grounds. Like if there was like he-man.swf,
00:10:27
Speaker
dot s wf on newgrants.com in 2003, where there's a guy doing a funny voice and he's going, hey I'm Fisto. And I go over here and I have a fist for head. Like, and yeah everybody loved that. Yeah.
00:10:45
Speaker
And then Seth Green already stole that and slapped it on robot chicken. Yeah. I mean, this is, but yeah, we've gone through several. liter Yeah. Ben, I know you've been thinking about it because you've been thinking maybe you want to get into he man. Yeah. Don't go this movie. I can give you a list of Filmation episodes from the 80s. See, I was like the perfect age for He-Man. I had all the action figures. I had Castle Grayskull and Snake Mountain, both of the big play sets.
00:11:12
Speaker
I mean, I was all over the place with the with Masters of the Universe. It was after Star Wars, my first action figure love story. And...
00:11:23
Speaker
Presumably this movie, like all things in our culture was made for me, a a man is late 40s. And even I didn't enjoy this.
00:11:34
Speaker
Now, now, Jess, you when we were speaking earlier, you said that there was an option of another movie. What was that? Well, we went as a work event for my wife's job. So her bosses generously agreed to take the whole office and their families out to a movie and buy snacks, which is incredibly generous. And the thinking was we were going to split up between two films. We were going to either go see He-Man, which we opted to do, or what all the adults who were there for the event chose to do, which was Disclosure Day. Mm-hmm.
00:12:11
Speaker
Which was probably better. I don't know. I haven't seen it. I haven't seen He-Man. Now, now I know like disclosure day. I'm not going to say, i mean, I know there are some people who, yeah, I did sign an NDA, but there, there are, there are, I know that there are some people who absolutely adore it. And also like some people who really fucking hated it.
00:12:35
Speaker
am, I'm, I'm going to be ah ah very boring here and just say, was fine. ah Here's the thing.
00:12:46
Speaker
fine steven spielberg film yeah yeah that's right i mean i don't i don't know what i expected um let me tell you the craziest thing about this film though bam So we arrived at the time of recording. This thing's been out for probably two weeks now. Is that right? Two, three weeks.
00:13:06
Speaker
Yeah. So not new in theaters. And as we record this, it's a Thursday night, maybe not the hottest night for going to a movie. As we're staying in line to get our tickets up walks a family and full He-Man cosplay.
00:13:23
Speaker
What? on like week two thursday night showing a guy like in a muscle body suit with the loincloth with the like chest armor stuff and a power sword on his back i'm so glad you're telling me this this is wife who is dressed as skeletor uh-huh and their teenage child the great actor jared leto who's been attached to nothing but hits like That's right. And it's always one of the best things in them. And what want I hear a pleasure to work with. And, and, and, and, you know, if you look at that guy's Wikipedia page, absolutely nothing concerning.
00:14:04
Speaker
And then their their teenage child was dressed as Orko the wizard. Now, Ben, you don't have any point of reference for Orko. I want you to Google. That's that's the the little the little purple freak, right? Okay, yeah, you do that little That's little guy that flies around, right? But, yes. Is it not...
00:14:24
Speaker
cuckoo cocoa puffs that's crazy these people this far into the film's run are showing up at the theater in this small town this small rural uh theater In full cosplay for a 7 p.m. showing on a Thursday night. Now, then part me wonders, it's like, what if they have been coming every night?
00:14:46
Speaker
Like, that makes more sense to me than this is just their first. It's like, well, we found's we've finally got some room in our schedule. Let's put on our full head-to-toe He-Man costumes and go to the movie finally.
00:14:58
Speaker
dude Do you think, if if your if your theory is that this is not the first time they've done this, repeat viewings. Yeah. Which is baffling based off of all the impressions of the film I've heard from people, even from people I know who enjoyed it ish.
00:15:19
Speaker
no um ah But I would think a single one of them would say i would see it any more than maybe twice, like the most enthusiastic. But yes, do you think the, the, the, the family,
00:15:35
Speaker
someone in the family, uh, might be like, kind of like, you know, you know, uh, he, man, uh, you know, it's, it's getting bad press
Narrative Depth in Full Throttle
00:15:45
Speaker
for its ticket sales.
00:15:47
Speaker
And, uh, and we have to go out there to support it. We have to, we have to support he, man in theaters. Maybe so. And, and, and like, so we can send the message We want, because my understanding is it's that it has a post-credits tease for a sequel that will absolutely never happen. No, no, no, no. This one may be written off in one of those strange tax things. We may never even see this one again, much less a sequel. This is going to end up like next to ET cartridges. And what was it? like Was it Batgirl, the movie? Yes, Batgirl. It's going to be with Batgirl.
00:16:30
Speaker
you know okay double double double wb oh yeah they got to bring that back um now the um so speaking of like vaulted wb movies that wily coyote movie like starring will forte who i love will forte will forte is amazing here here's the here's the thing do you really think it's good
00:16:58
Speaker
Let's just between us. No one's no one. No one's listening to this part. Everybody's hitting their skip ahead button right now. This is fun. Just between us. he's just waking us And i I love Will Fortin.
00:17:10
Speaker
And I think he's really funny and I'm sure he's quite good in the film. I might even see this movie, but yeah, in your heart of hearts. And I'm not even saying I agree with like, because I, I, I'm just against them making a movie and then just being like, ah yeah didn't but yeah Yeah, it's fine. So I'm not saying they should have kept it shelved, but what I am saying is, do you think that movie is going to be good?
00:17:40
Speaker
Ben, have to ask, has there ever been piece of lost media that measured up to what we imagined? Like, has any piece of media we can't get our hands on ever been...
00:17:57
Speaker
jess i have an answer for you okay okay okay give it to me and i think it's comparable to acme versus wiley coyote coming to theaters soon that is of course orson welles other side of the wind see i was sure you're gonna say the snyder cut Because I know you're big fan of the Snyder Cut of Justice League, but please go or go Orson Welles' other side of the wind, ah which was lost...
00:18:30
Speaker
bo like Orson Welles, the brilliant actor and director, had so many like kind of unrealized or half-finished projects or something like that. and There was Other Side of the Wind, which he spent years and years and years working on.
00:18:47
Speaker
Pretty much every time that he would gig in something, he would just take that money and put it towards Other Side of the Wind, is my understanding. And...
00:18:59
Speaker
um the uh like the patchwork of funding which i believe included the shah of iran i'd i'd like shout out to the to the shah r.i.p brother
00:19:17
Speaker
but it essentially like he he bad like it essentially meant that there were just like film reels of it everywhere.
00:19:29
Speaker
a whole bunch of different people owned it. Some of the film reels were like locked away because they were owned by a, like a, a government that was extremely hostile to the United States after a certain point.
00:19:44
Speaker
Well, I mean, it, We're doing great now. ah And like all of, there was all this stuff. And so it was just like, but he did film all of it.
00:19:59
Speaker
And, but also like, i i and so but it was like this thing where it was just like, yeah, like we're probably never going to see this. Yeah.
00:20:12
Speaker
but Yeah. Like it's like, this it's all been shot, but it's not edited. ah and so there's just a shitload of it. And there's a bunch of people who claim ownership over it.
00:20:25
Speaker
And none of them are going to agree with each other. And then, and this was from the, the moment where they were doing this kind of thing. They were trying to buy prestige. Now they're past that. They were just like, let's just make garbage.
00:20:38
Speaker
Yes. Uh, Netflix was like, what if we just gave everyone involved a lot of money? And guess what? Everyone just cashed the checks. yeah and And an editor that I believe, like ah like an editor, like worked on the film, like kind of based off of like the notes and like kind of looking at, you looking at the script and all that, did all this stuff.
00:21:07
Speaker
And you want to know what? It's a pretty great film. Wow. Pretty impressive film. Orson did it one more time. Wonderful music by ah ah the the man who scored the video game Torren's Passage.
00:21:26
Speaker
Michelle Legrand. It's the only ah video game that he worked on. Weird. Weird. Like he was like, he but he worked with, you know, some of the great directors making incredible film scores that he did. Torrin's passage remains a grand mystery to me. You know, it's funny. i just saw a tick tock today where someone was talking about Torrin's passage and they specifically said the music in this game slaps.
00:21:51
Speaker
So I bet he would be excited to hear that. Well, he's passed away, but I'm sure he's enjoying that in heaven. yeah Rest in peace. Yeah. composer for George Passage and the Shah yeah um but anyway it's a it's a it's an incredible film it's a it's a brilliant film uh I got to see it in an extremely limited theatrical run because Netflix does not uh is extremely hostile to the films being enjoyed in the appropriate context and film yeah yeah
00:22:29
Speaker
Um, and, uh, uh, yeah. So now did they edit in bits where characters are constantly recapping the plot in case someone's like in the next room, uh, or, you know, like watching on a second screen or something.
00:22:43
Speaker
Yeah. Like is Orson constantly just like just restating his character's motivations. But, uh, does he star in this or only direct?
00:22:54
Speaker
He, he directs, uh, starring, Um, uh, it's, uh, starring John Houston. Oh. Uh, himself director.
00:23:06
Speaker
He's very, very good in it. And, uh, and I apologize, uh, to, uh, to everyone, but I just Googled and it was funded by uh, the Shah's brother-in-law.
00:23:19
Speaker
a That's way funnier.
00:23:31
Speaker
Anyway, um, there's a really great, uh, documentary, uh, that I believe it, you know, maybe it's still on Netflix, uh, like about the making of like how they finally put it together. the other side of the wind.
00:23:46
Speaker
Um, um, Yeah, but anyway, that's a really great thing. And, you know, there's another, ah i recently watched ah Orson Welles' second film, ah magnificent Magnificent Ambersons, which is yeah famous for being butchered by the studio. They chopped out one hour of While he was out of the the country of ah filming something for the government.
00:24:12
Speaker
and i ah But you know, Jess, there's there there's someone who recently said, with the magic of ai well we'll we'll finally be able to see the the intended...
00:24:27
Speaker
correct version of the Magnificent Ambersons. Isn't that just wonderful? I love living in the future where things like this are finally possible.
00:24:38
Speaker
and And you just know that a guy like Orson Welles would love it. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Someone like Orson Welles, he absolutely wouldn't have.
00:24:49
Speaker
Well, let me just barely hidden contempt towards that. Just let me pop over to chat GPT real quick. Okay. Pretend you are Orson Welles and answer this question in character is Orson Welles. Are you cool with AI?
00:25:04
Speaker
Says you'd actually be good with it. Oh, um Speaking of things that we're good with.
00:25:14
Speaker
Jess, what have you been playing? Oh, my gosh, Ben, what have I been playing? I want talk about this because I have a feeling we will never do an episode about this game. And Ben, you watched me stream it just just last Are we going to are we going to do are we both going to do this? Because I might do this, too.
00:25:34
Speaker
You should. We should. We should. i mean, first of all, it permits really enjoyed. This was a wonderful stream. If you're go to Jess's YouTube channel, Decaf Jedi, and and watch this after the podcast when you have a moment. Jess, what did you play?
00:25:50
Speaker
i played The Multipath Adventures of Superman, The Menace of Metallo. And if you've never played a Multipath Adventure before, it's a...
00:26:03
Speaker
It's a series of games that were released by brilliant digital entertainment around the turn the millennium. Essentially, they are interactive movies, but done in like computer game graphics style. So you have like pixelated 3D graphics but every few minutes you hit a juncture where you make an either or decision that determines how the how the story continues to unfold its like a choose your adventure it's almost i mean it's a primitive poorly executed version of like what we might think of eventually is almost like a telltale formula but way less interactive than telltale by a long shot and
00:26:47
Speaker
This game, like all the multi-path adventures I've played, I've played a Xena Warrior Princess game in this format, an Ace Ventura game in this format.
00:26:57
Speaker
It is baffling. It is strange. The choices that are made throughout it by the designers are inexplicable.
00:27:09
Speaker
It's funny, it's a game that relies almost entirely on narrative. Like it exists if with very little interactivity. It exists to tell a story and it feels like it was written by someone who has never read a story before.
00:27:27
Speaker
just no sense of how you would like lay out a compelling narrative. And even weirder on this one, like it's a Superman story and Metella's the bad guy. Metella's I guess like a B tier, maybe C tier Superman villain.
00:27:43
Speaker
But there is so much obscure Superman supporting cast in this thing. Like characters that... by the real fans, Jess! I know. Well, I mean, I probably know more about Superman than the God in the street.
00:27:58
Speaker
And I didn't recognize half the characters in this game. It just... It's baffling. And i mean... I feel like it's bad in a... This is pretty hilarious kind way. Ben, as a viewer, was it just plain bad?
00:28:14
Speaker
oh I mean, as a viewer, was very entertaining. Like, one thing that really struck me about the game was that the the characters would frequently have...
00:28:31
Speaker
asides to the audience where they would just deliver straight exposition. Like they would explain who they were and then like deliver exposition. So it's like, I'm Lois Lane.
00:28:46
Speaker
I'm a, like when I first met this dopey guy from Hickory, Hick-uh, Hick-filled Smallville, i didn't know what I was dealing with. Then i discovered that I was in love with him, and now I know his greatest secret.
00:29:03
Speaker
Now I work alongside him at the Daily Plant, like, and I'm not, I want to be clear here. I'm not exaggerating. No, that is almost a verbatim quote. And she literally like turns to camera and has a monologue. It's like a bad stage play where occasionally like everyone will freeze in the background and the character will begin, you know, monologuing directly to the audience. It's just constant fourth wall breaks. So every character, even very minor characters is like, Yeah, I'm part of the police force, and what I do is bust up criminals and lock them up in jail.
00:29:37
Speaker
I've been in Metropolis for 14 years. I'm an orphan, you know. it just like, okay, great. That's good to hear. Yeah. um Yeah. yeah it It is a mystifying game. And then, I mean, spoiler alert for everybody who's been holding off on playing the multi-path adventures of Superman. Yeah. Yeah. There's one what guy is pulling off his earphones and going like, no!
00:30:01
Speaker
No, no, no, no, no. Yeah. It ends at what feels like maybe... a third of the way through what the story should be just with the cliffhanger. And it's like episode two coming soon. And you know what, Ben, there is no episode two. This game doesn't get followed up on.
00:30:20
Speaker
It is barely even the beginning of a story. No, it's it's like just the the start of a setup and then and then it's over. It's not compelling.
00:30:31
Speaker
But what's really funny is also
00:30:38
Speaker
like So it's this choose your own adventure. like You occasionally get these prompts of, do you do this or do you do this?
00:30:51
Speaker
And then,
00:30:53
Speaker
the The wrong depth choices, you get a pretty sizable runtime yeah of story.
00:31:05
Speaker
like I think I got like 15 minutes on that Lois Lane dead end where I was like, I'm going to go commando style as Lois Lane and like infiltrate, not that kind of commando style.
00:31:19
Speaker
I would go mercenary style. Are you a writer for He-Man? Oh, I'm gonna get mercenary style into this secret laboratory and like karate kick a bunch of guards and things. And let me play that a really long time before it made it very clear that I had just chosen a dead end. Yeah, this was just a straight dead end. And then the whole universe shattered into pieces.
00:31:40
Speaker
Well, and the funny thing was, it's just like, so you go down this path, Lois dies. And then like Superman is really sad and it just keeps going. And I'm just like, all right, well at the beginning of this, they set up that there's like this time travel thing. yeah so is So they must be setting up like, it's like, yeah, so Lois Lane dies and then Superman goes back in time to stop that. But no, that's just the straight end. They they set up this whole time travel thing.
00:32:07
Speaker
yeah But it's like, but they they spend so much time on this path with Lois, and you get other like choices down that line, but it's just straight up goes nowhere.
00:32:23
Speaker
No, no, no. It really feels like either, yeah, Superman's got rewind time in some way to save her, or maybe it causes Superman to like go off the rails and now you're in like some sort of corrupted evil timeline. That's happened with Superman a few times in comic book and video game history, but no, it's neither of those. It's just like, we're gonna make you sit here for a good 10 or 15 minutes while the game is over, technically. But you know what, Ben? I finished it. and I finished it without a walkthrough.
00:32:51
Speaker
I made all the right choices. i hung out with Jimmy Olsen, who's incredibly cool in this game. Jimmy Olsen is pretty funny. You have to also talk a little bit about the graphics. Oh, gosh. I mean, how would you describe They're almost like...
00:33:06
Speaker
Like, they feel very, like, PS1 era to me, and that they are 3D models. Yeah, really chunky, early And is it like rendering that, or is that what, was it all just... It had to be rendering it, because if it was a video, it would have the interlacing. Right, it's rendering it.
00:33:24
Speaker
It's like, what, 98, 99? 99, I think, is what the release on it was. But, yeah, it it looks like a PlayStation 1 era. Everybody's made up of big, chunky pixels. And then the backgrounds are kind of, like, static JPEGs that... Well, I know i guess the camera moves around the background, so i guess they're all 3D also. so They just have really bad JPEG textures layered onto them.
00:33:48
Speaker
um Every... u Yeah, it... It's bizarre. Like there are moments when you start to think this kind of looks good. Like there's some interesting camera movement and you'll have a moment where like a character looks pretty okay. But most of the time, everyone just sort of looks like they're on a boat out on choppy seas. Like they're constantly, it's like waving their arms around and looking like they're trying to maintain their balance. I guess they were so obsessed with things not looking static that they're just always moving the camera and always moving yes the characters. There's a little bit of like the car wash
00:34:25
Speaker
like the little carwash air air guy going You know what I'm saying? Yeah. There's a little bit of that sort vibe. Yeah. We're both doing it. We're both doing it. You can't see. We can see each other on the camera, but this is, this is an audio podcast. We're not doing a video podcast. Yeah. All of the patrons are seeing this right now. Yeah. If you're a patron at the $5,000 a month level, you get the video.
00:34:47
Speaker
First of all, thank you. But also why aren't you at the 8,000? Yeah. yeah yeah The 8,000 is you get to to sit next to us silently. Yes.
00:34:57
Speaker
If you speak, we take the money and we kick you out. That's exactly right. As per the agreement when you signed up. Yeah.
00:35:08
Speaker
That's just how it is. yeah but that I played the multi-path adventures of Superman. You know what, Ben? I had a good time with it. What have you been playing? Jess, i'll I'll continue and I'll talk about a game ice stream recently I I've talked about this on the podcast, maybe on the console adventures, or maybe someone, someone commented on the discord, like mentioned that I talked about playing it but anyway.
00:35:35
Speaker
So this this week on my stream, PS underscore Garrick, you can also, just in the show notes, you can just find that link. Anyway, um i my compatriots, Sarah and Grayson, were both unavailable.
00:35:54
Speaker
For the very first time, I decided to do a total solo stream. Is that really the first time? I've never done it on an Adventure Tuesday.
00:36:04
Speaker
I don't think. Wow. Wow. Six years. Wow. Generally, like eve I think I've had streams without them, but even then, I think I've like tagged you in or someone else. Yeah. like itways Because I've streamed alone a couple times, but not Adventure Tuesday. Adventure Tuesday has always been...
00:36:24
Speaker
kind of a, you know, with friends hang. And you preferred it alone, you said, right? Yeah, they're done. They're out.
00:36:36
Speaker
Anyway.
00:36:39
Speaker
But, you know, i wanted I wanted to do something a little a little special. I wanted to to do something that I knew would be in some way entertaining.
00:36:51
Speaker
And so I dusted off my ROM of a game I haven't played for six years that I streamed once for only a half hour six years ago.
00:37:07
Speaker
And that that is, of course, Pac-Man 2 The New Adventures. The only official sequel to Pac-Man. And Pac-Man 2, colon, The New Adventures is a game that I am just...
00:37:25
Speaker
fascinated by. just Have you ever played this game or have you just only seen it? Ben, I played this game for a good chunk of its runtime. Oh, to get the soda machine. because There's a soda machine. yeah I called that out when I was playing. I was like, oh shit.
00:37:42
Speaker
Does Jess have that? like I have played this game just to get shot of the soda machine for the video game soda machine project. so So Pac-Man 2, The New Adventures,
00:37:54
Speaker
Now, generally, if you think of a Pac-Man game, he you think of Pac-Man kind of running around in ah a maze, eating pellets, power pellets. He's being chased by ghosts. know something that's really one of the defining features of it are the tight controls. Yeah.
00:38:10
Speaker
Throw all of that out out into the trash. Um... what, what Pac-Man 2 colon the new adventures is, is it's a, uh, console adventure, uh, game where Pac-Man kind of has a mind of his own you, uh, manipulate the world via you have a slingshot and you fire at things on the screen to like, uh, you know, uh,
00:38:45
Speaker
whatever happens when you hit it with a slingshot. So it's like there's a farmer that threatens Pac-Man and you hit a hay bale above his head. kills him. Yeah, he's dead.
00:38:57
Speaker
But so you have a slingshot and you can also tell Pac-Man to look in a direction and just in a direction, not at anything in particular. Just like look left or right.
00:39:16
Speaker
Um, and Pac-Man may or may not listen to you. Pac-Man also is like, is in a very fragile emotional state. Yeah. And you, and at some level are his abuser.
00:39:29
Speaker
You, you do. Yeah. Yeah. Now, So this time I like, I've never gotten very far. Even that, that one other time, I've never gotten really far in Pac-Man to the new adventures.
00:39:44
Speaker
One reason I discovered is that I never knew that there was that option to tell Pac-Man to turn around and look at something because if you do the tutorial a, in a way that the designers, I guess didn't anticipate, it will never tell you that control. So that's, that's one thing.
00:40:03
Speaker
Um, and And to be clear, the way that the designers didn't anticipate is that it gives you three options of things to hit with a slingshot.
00:40:14
Speaker
So if you hit a in a the wrong order, um even though it doesn't make an order clear, It just doesn't tell you that control. So that's one thing.
00:40:28
Speaker
But then I never got that far. And since I was all alone for for for two hours, I decided i would have a walk walk throughout and I would follow it to the letter. like I was just like, I'm going to follow it because I got to do more than just get really mad on the first level.
00:40:53
Speaker
So I made it all the way to the third of four um and felt like I was making pretty good progress on the third. Here's the thing I didn't know. um I didn't know about Pac-Man 2, the new Avengers, is that in addition,
00:41:10
Speaker
in addition to those sequences, like, or or in addition to that, you know, you you tell them to look and just fire at a slingshot.
00:41:23
Speaker
Did you know that there are also really like unresponsive and unpleasant, like kind of fast twitch arcade sequences as well? yes gotta have those.
00:41:39
Speaker
um that are also miserable to play. Yeah. didn't know that. a game.
00:41:50
Speaker
It's a great looking game. It does look good. It's based on the character designs of the Pac-Man cartoon that came out in the Pac-Man is very expressive.
00:42:03
Speaker
has a hat. cool animations. um Like the world looks really cool. It's also, i know that they're like,
00:42:16
Speaker
If you're someone that appreciates a game for doing something different, you'll like, like, I'm fascinated by Pac-Man 2 The New Adventures because it's, it's bad in a way all of its own.
00:42:33
Speaker
Yes. And like the gameplay is so bad. strange the idea that it calls itself pac-man 2 that's the strangest part yeah no no no it yeah follow-ups but this one is the one that gets the number no no there's there's someone firing up their email client and going like well you know that that's only what it was called the United States. In Japan, I think was called like Pac-Man Go or something like that. yeah i don't give a shit. It's called Pac-Man 2.
00:43:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's the only Pac-Man sequel I reckon has. In the United States, it's called, and I believe in Europe as well, and in in the West, it is called Pac-Man 2.
00:43:22
Speaker
hack the m too And the baggage of that is, is that this is sequel to Pac-Man. Maybe at this point in time, the most successful game of all time.
00:43:35
Speaker
And so you kind of, and here here's the thing. I like some years ago, I played there like Namco, I think put out like a couple years ago, like a like a ah Pac-Man collection that had a bunch of, like, Pac-Man games. It didn't have Ms. Pac-Man because there's no apparently complicated rights issues with that. But it had a bunch of, like, it had Pac-Man super pac man and and so on and so forth.
00:44:12
Speaker
And a thing I realized is that there aren't really that many good Pac-Man games. It's a real got it in one.
00:44:23
Speaker
you I prefer Ms. Pac-Man because like I like that it has, like I think the maps are a little bit more fun. It has a little bit more variation to it.
00:44:35
Speaker
And oh yeah.
00:44:46
Speaker
know i can kind of understand that it's ms pac or that it's pac-man 2 because it's just like well i mean what the fuck else are you gonna do You know, when I think about Pac-Man 2, I don't think this is ever... The New Adventures? I'm sorry, yes, The New Adventures.
00:45:03
Speaker
I don't think this has ever really clicked for me until now. It's almost like a far less successful spin on like the Lemmings format. This idea that you have characters marching forward and you have to alter their environment around them to make them do what you want them to do.
00:45:23
Speaker
But whereas Lemmings is, you know, a true classic of gaming, i don't think anyone would make that claim about Pac-Man 2. You know what it actually made me think of? I didn't say this when we were streaming.
00:45:35
Speaker
But you know what it really made me think of was Goblins. Okay, okay. Because like the the gameplay isn't quite like Goblins, but like kind of the the weirdness.
00:45:48
Speaker
Yeah, the the the surreality of it that you're putting the protagonist in constant pain. really is just like hanging by thread this whole game. Like anything can set poor Pac-Man.
00:46:06
Speaker
And And maybe we'll, you know, we we probably should do a ah Goblins episode this podcast. And that's episode with three eyes.
00:46:22
Speaker
But...
00:46:26
Speaker
I'm sorry. Yeah, I mean, listen...
00:46:31
Speaker
I hate the game, but I'm fascinated by it. Yeah. Ben, there's feels like boxed... Yeah. I'm sorry, there's a boxed copy of this sitting at the Retro Game Store across town from me that I've been looking at for months. Genesis or... Genesis. Okay. It's only like $20. And I'm like, would it be funny to have that on my shelf? And I'm like, I feel like it's $15 funny. I don't know if it's $20 funny.
00:47:03
Speaker
It's CIB. I want a Pac-Man 2, the new adventures. CIB. What does that say for? Complete in box. Let's see. I'll tell here.
00:47:16
Speaker
I'm looking. okay All right. All right. I see a couple CIB Pac-Man 2, the new adventures. on eBay. One is 94. Whoa.
00:47:30
Speaker
Another one is 35. But that's SNES. Let me put in Genesis. Let's see if the Genesis costs less. Genesis costs less. Okay. Never mind. Yeah. CIV for Genesis, 14 bucks plus seven, but plus $7 delivery. yeah So.
00:47:49
Speaker
And I'm not helping out a local merchant. Yeah. Yeah. What are you buying? That's what they always say when I come in. What are you selling? ah All right. Well, we before we get to the hour mark, we should probably talk about what the... You know, we we just talked about He-Man and Orson Welles for so long. Did? Oh, God, we did. I'm just looking at the timestamp now.
00:48:14
Speaker
And we didn't even talk about sandwiches.
00:48:18
Speaker
One day we'll have to talk about salmon maxwiches.
00:48:25
Speaker
Like a salmon sandwich? Yeah, with lox, too. yeah maybe on Where are you at on everything bagels? I think they're too one a few too many things. No, I would like a few less things bagels.
00:48:41
Speaker
i I used to not like everything bagels, but they they have been they have been promoted for me. But you know what?
00:48:54
Speaker
Here's a hot take that I don't even know if I agree with. Please. So that that's the best kind of hot take. Yes. I'm just saying something to piss people off. Please. No, that's, I admire that. um are Are everything bagels using the intense over flavoring of everything bagels to cover up a subpar bagel?
00:49:21
Speaker
Almost certainly. Yes. Because I i am a man that has very strong bagel opinions. Same. Absolutely. Outside of New York City.
00:49:33
Speaker
um And I would, I like, I would, anytime I'm in New York, anytime I would go to New York, I would, I would get bagels. i it Living in Chicago, there are very few places I've been to.
00:49:51
Speaker
that have good bagels in Chicago, Illinois. There, there, there are a couple and there are places with, but you know what?
00:50:02
Speaker
The, the, the places that are convenient to me that I end up getting bagels at get the everything bagel. And you want to know what those bagels are very mid, but I get them because sometimes you just want a fucking vessel for, for eggs and sausage.
00:50:20
Speaker
You're an egg and sausage man, huh? Uh, egg sausage, cheese, everything bagel. Wait, wait, wait, wait, what are you doing with your, I mean, if I'm at a good bagel place, I'm getting locks. I'm going, it's a good bagel place. yes yeah If it's good bagel place, I'm just talking about, when I was in the big apple yeah earlier this year, like I was eating locks left and right. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.
00:50:47
Speaker
If I'm at like just your run the mill local kind of bagel place, I'm probably getting something maybe for the same reason. Like I'm getting something that's going to really hit me heavy with the flavor.
00:50:57
Speaker
I'm probably getting like an Asiago cheese or something like that. You know, something that's going be like a, or, or a jalapeno cheddar bagel. I like an egg bagel quite a bit. if you're like an eggel You know what i like?
00:51:11
Speaker
what's that salt bagel yeah salt bagel's pretty good salt but a salt bagel here we go a salt bagel uh plain cream cheese and a fresh tomato oh fresh tomato absolutely where it's at slice of fresh tomato That is a true, I'm saying this to everybody.
00:51:37
Speaker
That's a true treat. It really is. see It really is. That's a classic QQTT. And ah yeah I do a bacon, egg and cheese. I'm more of ah a bacon. You like ah yeah you like the, no. How do you, do you like a little bit of chew on that bacon or do you like it like crumble? I like that stuff crispy. Like I will eat bacon to the point that it's almost like becoming powdery. Hmm.
00:52:00
Speaker
I want to render that fat beyond recognition. All right. So now that we've talked a little bit about sandwiches, we can finally get to the fans, just for the fans. We we can finally get to the main chorus, which is today we're talking about full throttle. Charlie's Angels 2. Yeah. we can start 1995 throttle.
00:52:20
Speaker
ah full throttle Uh, so I recently played this on my stream. Uh, Jess, you've, you've played it on your stream. I think we've both also, was that your first time?
00:52:34
Speaker
No, I played it a couple of times before. is I haven't played as much as I have some of the other LucasArts games like your Monkey Islands, but no, I've, I've played this one a few times through the years. I played it.
00:52:48
Speaker
I played it pretty close to release. I played it. e When I got, when I bought Groom Fandango, there was, you know, and this is many years ago.
00:53:02
Speaker
um and believe that there was like a deal of like, send your proof of purchase and we'll send you a little ah like envelope with full throttle in it.
00:53:15
Speaker
So i got full throttle, uh included but a couple months later with uh grim fandango uh the the the tim the tim schaefer double that's what they called it at the time and so ah full throttle is uh the story of ben not me of course Ben Throttle. Yeah. i
00:53:47
Speaker
It is fun that his name is Ben Throttle. i And he is a head of a motorcycle gang in kind of a...
00:54:00
Speaker
mild dystopian future but not post-apocalyptic tim schaefer is apparently very very specific about this he does not want people calling this post-apocalyptic it's dystopian but he like apparently gets furious at the idea of anyone calling this post-apocalyptic tim schaefer gets furious i don't believe that I don't think I've ever seen. He's the second grumpiest gamer out of LucasArts. I mean, I'm sure is, you know, is a human.
00:54:30
Speaker
ah he' Like, I'm sure he has emotions that he expresses. But I mean, the persona that he presents yeah ah in in an interview and on. Like, but you know what? I haven't watched the the documentaries. I'm sure you can see him pissed off. No, and he he flipped over tape.
00:54:48
Speaker
uh during an interview with computer gaming world and like left across it and cross oh that's uh that's how jeff green or jeff green who is it uh who is it tom who was the the the editor green who had like the last page of uh oh i can't remember that's i thought i had such a good pull and then i fucked up his name um scorpia yeah that's uh it's It's gone now, but I was like, oh, but that you know, actually Scorpio would have been better because it would, it was, be it would be like, that's where Scorpio went.
00:55:20
Speaker
Oh no. That was where I was going anyway. Yeah. Um, but, ah Ben Throttle is ah the head of a motorcycle gang in a dystopian, uh, near future. I would say like the vibe of it is like a,
00:55:37
Speaker
Because i would agree it is not post-apocalyptic. post a pakalye dick What I would say is that it does feel like it's at the edge.
00:55:49
Speaker
Like it it it feels like it's a year or two away from like a Mad Max future. That's right. Like the Thunderdome is complete yet. It's a pre-apocalyptic movie.
00:56:03
Speaker
There you go. Yes, this feels right. I mean, yeah, it feels it's not quite Mad Max yet, but that's right around the corner. Yeah, it's a it's a it's a pre apocalyptic. And um so ah the owner of the the the cool motorcycle company this uh uh friendly old man corley i is
00:56:34
Speaker
ah like he what's what's the name of the bad guy rip bag of course thank you ah ah ah yeah He's in charge of this motorcycle company. ah the The big money man, like his second in command is this obviously villainous man who's scheming. Well, now Ben, just because you're good at picking up on clues in media doesn't mean everyone is. Don't brag. What I really, i honestly, what I really like about Rip Berger as the villain is that there is absolutely no ambiguity about him as the villain.
00:57:13
Speaker
He like, he talks like, this and he has two scheming little underlings that are up who are like up to no good and one of them is skinny and one of them is quite large and like he's just so obviously a bad guy which is I like I like that in his story you know sometimes it's it's a lot of fun when a guy just sucks you know like sometimes you know, it's fun to have shades of gray and a complicated story.
00:57:47
Speaker
And, but, but, but that's not this type of story. And, and sometimes it's a lot of fun to just have a bad guy. Who's just a dick.
00:57:59
Speaker
Like, yes. You know, especially when you have Mark Hamill voicing them. Yes, exactly. yeah, and Mark Hamill is tremendous. I mean, everyone knows he's a wonderful voice actor. His voice, all the voice performances in this are excellent. Mark Hamill, of course, is, he puts in, you know, he he puts in the the high quality work he always does.
00:58:20
Speaker
i would say it's his second best Lucasfilm role. Oh, what would be his number one? I don't know if you've seen a little film called Star Wars Episode IV, A New Hope.
00:58:34
Speaker
That's him. Same guy. No way. Yeah. Yeah. He's that cute little guy. That cute little boy. preno Yeah. The green guy. Oh, I wanted to kiss.
00:58:47
Speaker
Yeah. That's how I wanted to kiss. griido Really? You know, in ah the, uh, in Grogu and the Mandalorian, they have a ripped Greedo. I rip. Finally, finally has an enormous dick.
00:59:01
Speaker
He calls it his McClunky. Anyway. um i But, you know, it's like in, you know what it makes me think of is ah talking a lot about movies today.
00:59:16
Speaker
It's like you're familiar Or are you with the movie Roadhouse? Or you? Right? Have you seen Roadhouse? Yes. Roadhouse is funny because it's like, i think ah ah it has among some like a reputation as like a bad movie.
00:59:35
Speaker
Whereas like having watched it recently, I realized it's like, this is a movie that actually achieves everything that it sets out to be. is the perfect dumb movie. Yeah. Which is, which doesn't make it bad. Like it's not bad if it succeeds at being really stupid. Yeah.
00:59:52
Speaker
okay It doesn't seem like they were setting out now to be, you know, Citizen Kane and ended up with Roadhouse. The brother-in-law of the Shah was not involved.
01:00:04
Speaker
As far as we know. As far as we know. I'll be honest, haven't looked it up. um But like, you know, the bad guy in Roadhouse is just a guy that sucks.
01:00:16
Speaker
Yeah. Like he's just a, he's just a dick. And then at the the end of it, spoiler, ah he he, like everybody just, you know, fucking kills him. Like everyone's just like, this guy sucks and now he's dead. The end.
01:00:29
Speaker
And you know what? That's like kind of the energy i feel like with, with Ripperger. It's like, yeah, he's just a bad guy. He's just, he's just a guy that sucks and we all know it anyway.
01:00:43
Speaker
So Ripperger is scheming to take over the motorcycle company and horror of horrors, make it like a minivan company or whatever. um And ah ah he like has some sort of scheme here's the thing i just played this and even like you know this part's a little shaky to me too really complicated story but it is kind of confusing to convey so he hires ben's motorcycle club the polecats yeah provide security for mr corley on his way to an important
01:01:24
Speaker
business thing shareholders shareholders meeting um but secretly I think he like he's he's trying to to to frame them. Frame them. Yeah. Frame them for killing Corley or and they are making motorcycle culture look dangerous. I forget. And there there are people listening that are so fucking mad. like no I know. I know. um And...
01:01:54
Speaker
ah But ah anyway, ben Ben says no dice for escorting him. And so for his trouble, he gets knocked out by Ripperger.
01:02:08
Speaker
And then Ripperger tells like the rest of the motorcycle gang, we're on. And so then the ah the the game ah begins with ah ah Ben having to catch up and find his... ah you know, ah find his motorcycle ah crew club and ah like stop because he knows that there's some sort of like, he knows something's up. He could smell it because probably because this guy is so obviously a bad guy. and yeah yeah Yeah. Even Ben could pick up on this. Even this, even this giant box of a man could tell this was a bad guy.
01:02:51
Speaker
So, it's a It's a game where you, as as Ben Throttle, you're this, as Jess just said, you're this massive, powerful man. You are not Bernard from Day of the Tentacle. You have a lantern jaw. Yeah, like, and so you ah like, one of the the verbs, it it swaps out the...
01:03:23
Speaker
The scum, um like it it it swaps out the the scum list of verbs on the bottom and trades it in for the verb coin, which they later use in Curse of Monkey Island.
01:03:34
Speaker
I love the verb coin. I think the verb coin looks great in both of those games. um I'm a big verb coin fan. in in In the Star Trek game, but that's just because it it just doesn't look good.
01:03:49
Speaker
This is like nice and clear. One of the the verbs is kick. Ben is kind of violent. So a lot of like, you know, he uses violence as a solution to some of the puzzles in a way. we endorse. We endorse completely.
01:04:08
Speaker
And in a way, it kind of reminds me like, I wonder if. ah It was either a direct influence or just kind of in the water when they were developing like the drifter in the sense that like the drifter is about kind of action sequences. Yeah. Told through i point and click adventure
01:04:40
Speaker
Yeah. And i thought about this comparison a lot. Yeah. as I was playing this, I really thought about the drifter. Cause I think they're both trying to accomplish the same thing of like this high octane set piece driven action pacing. Again, a genre, like we talked about when we talked about the drifter that doesn't necessarily lend itself well to that pacing. And i feel like full throttle maybe doesn't quite get that pacing down the same way that the drifter does, because as we'll talk about, full throttle has some action sequences that ironically enough, grind it to a halt.
01:05:19
Speaker
If he rather than pick it up. It's, it's funny because yeah, the, the parts where the the game most succeeds, where I have the most fun playing the game are its most conventional.
01:05:36
Speaker
I will say that it like, but the the Ben is still like in those conventional, like that he like kicks doors down and like pushes people around or, you know, and traps a dog in a,
01:05:53
Speaker
like in a junkyard car or whatever, like ah all of that stuff, like it the the the the puzzles in the more conventional, ah like, kind of point-and-click sections of the game are still very heavily informed by that ethos, even though the game, like, you know, it it does have a little bit of a potion pull, as you were saying, in it, where it's it's trying, like...
01:06:27
Speaker
it wants to, it's, it's a game that's probably aware uh, adventure games might have like a reputation. Yes. And I do think that that approach to puzzle solving, you know, I think Ben solves puzzles in a way that reinforces his character that reinforces the overall vibe of full throttle.
01:06:49
Speaker
It would be weird if the puzzles that Ben confronted and the solutions that he devised for them were exactly like how Guybrush Threep would, or as you said before, Bernard or Hokey or someone, or Sam and Max would solve a puzzle. The fact that, you know, a lot of it does involve physicality and action, even when it's a traditional puzzle solving sequence, I think it's something that the game does really well. Like the tone isn't just in the graphics, the music,
01:07:20
Speaker
the story it it extends to cover the puzzle solving too i feel like yeah no exactly like it has a very consistent tone across um the and you know i think really the strongest What I like the most about the game is ah the the world building and the vibes, which I you know i think that that is ah Tim Schafer as designer's, probably his absolute greatest strength is that
01:08:01
Speaker
He's um across all of his all of his games, um across you know genres. um He, as a lead a designer, has always been extremely talented and um we a team, um conjuring up deeply original ah worlds that are are pretty captivating.
01:08:30
Speaker
Yeah, i mean, you think of something like, obviously, this game, Grand Fandango, Psychonauts. I mean, yeah, the the world building and all of these, and even... ahfl Broken Age.
01:08:40
Speaker
Yeah, Broken Age. Even Day of the Tentacle. I mean, it's based on the earlier Maniac Mansion, but I feel like you really get a better sense of what this this mansion full of maniacs might be like this once Tim Schafer is working on Day of the Tentacle.
01:08:59
Speaker
The... You know, one one thing I really love about Full Throttle is kind of how ambiguous this world, the time it's set in that people could think that it's post-apocalyptic or whatever, like it So it's like in the in the the the game,
01:09:25
Speaker
um like yeah you know it takes place in ah kind of, you know, talk about Wile E. Coyote, actually. Like it takes place in Wile E. Coyote deserts, like with the big mesas and endless deserts.
01:09:42
Speaker
you know, just long, unending, a straight, you know, lines of pavement. a Like, you know, there's there's a part of the game where a bridge goes out and it's, you know, you you have to solve a way to get over that gorge because it's not like you can just, you know drive a couple miles up the road and go to another bridge. It's just like, that's the bridge.
01:10:09
Speaker
Right. um the The fact that the game, like, you know, when we were streaming it, a ah couple people, ah like, kind of commented, like, you know, I have so many questions about about this world or, like, what's going on or, like, and...
01:10:31
Speaker
And i love I love that. I love the mystery of the world because it... it And again, I think this is one of Schaefer's great strengths is a as a designer is that it is very strategic in the ambiguities it leaves open for your mind to create all... like To to you know fill in a lot of blanks, um which...
01:11:00
Speaker
is something I really enjoy personally. Like I know some people might enjoy, you know, like full throttle ever did get, ah you know, that, that sequel, which either of them, neither of them look good.
01:11:14
Speaker
um But like, you know, maybe they would have like spelled out the world a little bit more. I don't like that. I, I, I like that. It's, this very kind of strange, like the, the, the cars are kind of hover cars. There's these cops that are on these like kind of like hover, you know, hover copters flying around.
01:11:41
Speaker
Yeah, like, I like that I have to wonder, you know, is this a world where this motorcycle culture is ubiquitous? Is this a little pocket of a larger world? You know, is this a world where corporations are kind of in charge of everything? Because it gives a little bit of those vibes with like how important Corley Motors seems? Or is this, again, just like...
01:12:05
Speaker
in Ben's small pocket of this world, this is the most important thing going on. Yeah. i mean, it's kind of neat that it leaves us to ask those sorts of questions. I think that, yeah, it may be more interesting than if we'd gotten that ton of detailed world building. Right.
01:12:21
Speaker
like Like, like, is it like, you know, if you go 200 miles to the West is Disneyland still there? Like, is it, you know, it's everybody's normal. Yeah. it just Like, He talked about Palm Springs and, you know, just tail it's just, it's like, yeah, there's just this, you know, actually what this, this conversation is making me think of a little bit, this, this kind of ambiguity is another game that kind of has this, this, this kind of miss mystery, though it spells it out a little, like it spells it out a lot more, but it's still, still kind of mysterious about it is Norco.
01:13:00
Speaker
yeah is uh norco takes place in like you know in and around new orleans in the town of norco which is just outside of it and you get like bits and scraps of like of what's going on in the outside world in this like kind of not too distant future space that it takes place in which is like not too different from now but there's robots but like yeah um but like you know the the intro to norco gives you like this kind of background where it's like oh there's like this like civil war going on in the southwest so it's like maybe maybe full throttle is actually taking place maybe norco takes place in the full throttle verse um which is why this fan fiction ben is releasing next week is going to blow everyone's mind but uh uh
01:13:59
Speaker
You know, i I just really, like, I i love this world because it it gives you just enough, and it's all pretty consistent, but it always feels that they're, like...
01:14:18
Speaker
who knows what else could happen? What else is around the corner? You know? Yeah. I mean, there are like Tuscan Raiders riding around on motorcycles as well. I mean, the yeah the idea that you have, I mean, I could see how with some of these rival gangs, it almost does give that post-apocalyptic vibe. Yeah. You know, but...
01:14:39
Speaker
no it's fascinating it really and I think this is probably for me one of the biggest strengths is this world that the game exists in this vibe that's creating that Ben feels so different from any other LucasArts protagonist that we've seen up to this point yeah like and yeah like it it really kind of lives that that feeling and again like you know this this kind of ethos of like you know creating these completely original in in strange worlds uh which are like which leave a lot of possibility space which leave a lot of space for you to wonder
01:15:24
Speaker
like what's going on uh outside of the game outside of the space of the game like if you know it feels like you're just getting a tiny peek into a much bigger thing that that you'll we'll never ever see so we're just you don't think this would be better if ben was constantly picking up like pieces of a codex that are just explaining all the lore. This is this work what I think would have made the game better is if every time we met a new character, they looked at the screen and then monologued about. So I'm Marine.
01:16:02
Speaker
machines have always made sense to me ever since I was a little girl. And now I run my own chop shop and she's just like, so I repair toasters, but I'm extremely good with motorcycles.
01:16:13
Speaker
I live in a tiny little village like that where, where it looks like only three people live here. How I keep my business as a toaster repair person is anyone's guess. Um, Everything was going great until the day Ben Throttle walked into my shop. I mean, that is kind of Ben does have a monologue like that at the beginning of the game. But it's like, in it's not like that. It's well written. It's, you know, like a nice old windup. Anyway. but It's like it was written by someone who's read a book or seen a movie before.
01:16:46
Speaker
Yeah. the The other thing, ah one other great thing about the game is that it has ah occasional little inserts of animation.
01:16:57
Speaker
Like when Ben does something like an action a thing, like it has those little, like at the the very, like at the very, very beginning, like when he, you know, tugs ah the bartender down to the bar by his nose ring. Like there's a little insert animation.
01:17:16
Speaker
And those are so like, love this i love that yeah an adventure game i love that it's always good being always good and we have also some use of 3d in this one too you know for some of the motorcycle scenes the well there's and we'll get there because yeah i think it uses isn't it like isn't it using like The Rebel Assault engine. The Rebel Assault engine. Yeah, it's like playing think the Insane engine. Yeah. Like it's playing a video and then like the sprints are flying around on it. Anyway. Which is, I understand, Scum couldn't do prior to that. So I think they had to incorporate the Insane engine that was used for... that was the name of the engine, to be clear. Yes. It wasn't an insane engine, though it was Anyway.
01:18:03
Speaker
All caps, Insane, which stands for Ben, of course...
01:18:09
Speaker
no i was gonna let you fill in oh okay of course it it stands for interactive uh networked uh apple uh network again edutainment that's right can you repeat that back to me yeah uh it was interactive network you skipped the first day satellite ah ah I know I didn't Lucas Hertz did. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, that's true. I mean look, backernyms are hard.
01:18:47
Speaker
I skipped the first day. Yeah, you did.
01:18:52
Speaker
There's only one a type. Typo insane. think so. Because they said Apple. Oh, wait, you did? Yeah, you got it take it all back. Yeah. Oh, man. You got it wrong. the eggs on my face.
01:19:05
Speaker
Anyway. um Listeners, ah sound off by email. QuestQuestPodcast.gmail.com. Who got it right? Who got it wrong? I got it right. Anyway, um but it also has... Sam and Max has these, too. Like the the pre-render animations, like the the the flying cop...
01:19:26
Speaker
whatever like broom thing that they ride. Like that's in the, i love that. I love pre-rendered like VGA. Yeah.
01:19:39
Speaker
I will say back then, i really liked it. Oh, back then I saw that and I was like, ooh. Yeah. Like when it popped up in Space Quest VI, I was like, this is the best looking Space Quest I've ever seen. And we all know that like objectively incorrect, but I was a sucker for that. Oh, I was such a sucker for that. when When that stuff, when you would see that pre-render stuff, it's it's again, the same in like Sam and Max hit the road, like the little pre-renders like...
01:20:09
Speaker
ah the the little like ski lift. Yeah. Going up. It's like, oh my God, that's, that's three. How are they even doing that? It's little three.
01:20:22
Speaker
It's like a dance of pixels all for me. So awesome. Anyway, i love that. And you know what? When I see those, i still love like there's the, ah the the a aesthetic.
01:20:36
Speaker
Because I think the thing is, is that like kind of the promise of that type of 3D, like when you would see just a little little bits of it in an otherwise 2D game, ah you know, in 1995, like, you know, if you saw it in Legend of Kyrandia 3, Malcolm's Revenge.
01:20:55
Speaker
um like the promise of that 3D is like once we start real time rendering eventually we'll have real time rendering that looks like that and we never there. Adventure Games will be better than ever. Yeah.
01:21:11
Speaker
But we you know what like We, we, somebody's got a, I'm begging you. And my understanding is that there's a lot of funding for video games that are kind of unusual, ah and kind of idea driven right now. So this will happen, uh, based off of this request. Um, but, uh,
01:21:32
Speaker
You know, if we could make like a ah game that is in full like real time 3D that looks exactly like the world of pre-renders. I want to I want to live there.
01:21:47
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. i want to live in like the money for nothing world. that That's different. I would say that's different. That's the money for nothing. i say That's where I want to live. And I think there are things that yeah i want my head to be just like six polygons.
01:22:07
Speaker
Oh, all right. Oh, I'll call my guy. You got a guy? I got a guy. It's not Grayson, is it? It's Grayson. It's always Grayson. Yeah, it's always Grayson.
01:22:18
Speaker
Anyway, let's, you know, we've been talking around it, though. let's Let's talk a little bit about the flaws of this game.
01:22:32
Speaker
I mean, the box is sideways. Yeah, it does have one of those weird ah showy 90s boxes that I'm sure the people have. It runs landscape format instead of portrait. And, you know, I've got it on my shelf right now. And, Ben, I don't want to disappoint, but I've just shelved it vertically.
01:22:52
Speaker
I just turned it on its end because I'm not going to let it stick out weird from the rest of my games. Yeah. But biggest flop. so the the The first chunk of the game is very traditional point and click LucasArts.
01:23:09
Speaker
ah You end up in a place. You're in a little town. ah It's night. You have an overworld map. you You have three things you have to get. ah yes It is like it it was extruded from the, this is a basic LucasArts like design, like the most standard LucasArts thing you could do in making an adventure game is have like a open space where you have to get three things.
01:23:42
Speaker
Yeah. um and And then, and you want to know what you want, the the the reason why they kept doing that? And then why Telltale kept doing that um is because it worked. It's perfect. like It is a great way to run a game. Like it it is totally fine because it's like, you know, and let's say in Monkey Island 2,
01:24:06
Speaker
ah you know you have like having and we'll you know we'll talk about mcquette well we we we do need to do more lucas arts episodes i feel like we've we've probably been saving them a little i think we might say we we might be being a little too precious with our our lucas uh arts games we should probably it's true there's so few of them though and i don't want to burn there's just so many sierra games i know so many more yeah ah ah But yeah, we should probably be a little less precious. um
01:24:41
Speaker
But anyway, um like, you know, arguably in Monkey Island 2, it's actually a little too much. But it is nice, like, having that big open space because it's like in three things. Because, you know, what you could kind of chew on one thing and then, like, kind of run out on chewing on it. So you run over and start chewing on the other thing. And then you start...
01:25:04
Speaker
Anyway, that's the first section. that first part is... And it's not that long. Like, it's pretty short. Yeah. And that part's really tightly designed. Yeah. Like, I feel like that is where the game at some level is sort of clipping along at at the best pace.
01:25:16
Speaker
and Which isn't uncommon for a lot these LucasArts games. Yeah. And the game's like... Yeah, we we know. We know how to make this. we This is... nineteen It's 1985. We've made a million of these. And by a million of these, we mean just a couple. Yeah. ah But um then after that, that's when the game, ah like,
01:25:38
Speaker
a it doesn't do the standard LucasArts formula. and And that's when it gets little messy.
01:25:49
Speaker
um And it so you have a sequence, like a semi-minigame sequence with the aforementioned Rebel Assault a video engine where Ben is having these fights like these while he's riding a motorcycle.
01:26:12
Speaker
And it feels like, you know what? They have to have this in this game, right? They kind of do You need at some point to run someone off a road in your motorcycle. Like that is, that's kind of required. And this feels very road rashy, uh, in its always's conceptualization.
01:26:29
Speaker
Absolutely. Only much worse. I mean, is in the sense that it's not really an engine built for smooth, responsive arcade action at this point.
01:26:41
Speaker
Well, and the the thing is, and someone might, might say that they might go like, well, you know, so what? Like, I mean, it's not really that much of an arcade thing. It's like a puzzle because the thing is is that you get, like, there's a set in in this little section of the game There's a set group of, uh, like people from different motorcycle gangs and each of them has a different weapon and you have a counter like that you accumulate. It's like a paper, rock, scissors, monkey combat kind of situation. And everybody loved monkey combat. Um, and, and so,
01:27:30
Speaker
Like, you know, it is, it's kind of a puzzle. Um, I mean, it still requires a little bit of reaction. And I found that kind of frustrating during my playthroughs of it. Like for me, even when I knew what weapon to use, yeah, it's still like the timing on it wasn't as ideal as I wanted it to be.
01:27:51
Speaker
But it does need to be in there in some form. And again, I think this is what I think is most fascinating to me about Full Throttle. It's there to give it this action-packed you know, fast paced vibe, but because it can be kind of difficult to get through, it actually moves a little bit more slowly because you're redoing segments and you're retrying and things like that. So yeah, that, that part,
01:28:17
Speaker
I see why it has to be there, but I don't know. and maybe it wouldn't have been possible to really realize it any more effectively than they did. maybe this is just a limitation that was part of, if we're going to do motorcycle combat in the scum engine, this is what we're going to have.
01:28:34
Speaker
Yeah. it They could have figured it out. I don't know. It's just not that much fun, but it honestly, and when the first time I played it even, I was like, I get it. Like, I didn't i didn't hate it.
01:28:46
Speaker
And I still don't hate it. I just know don't love it. It's fun to see, like, Ben brandishing each of the new weapons. Like, that shot of him with, like, the spiked ball and chain thing is pretty badass. Yeah. um the ah The worst is that there's another minigame sequence in it.
01:29:13
Speaker
Which is terrible. We're thinking of demolition derby here. Yeah. Yeah. And this one again tries to involve almost like a puzzle element to it. Yeah. It has a puzzle.
01:29:25
Speaker
Yeah. There's a solution to the demolition derby, but it's not one that I necessarily know is immediately apparent. Even when you know what the solution is, it doesn't make it easy to implement, like to, to, to do what you need to do to finish this section is as easy as just knowing how to, to complete it. Here's, here's what I think is, is the problem with both of these. And maybe I'm, maybe I'm totally off base here.
01:29:56
Speaker
But it feels like both of these are kind of inserted, as i said, as kind of a, like a sop to be like, look, you know, like we have some action in this game because it's like, you know, Ben isn't this is, isn't Guybrush three bled. He's not Bernard.
01:30:11
Speaker
Like, you know, he's, he's action packed and he's going to fight and he's going to drive a car in a demolition derby. um The most badass thing you can do. And, um and so it's like, you know, maybe if you're, you know, electronics boutique in 1995 and you're, you know, you like might not be disposed towards an adventure game.
01:30:33
Speaker
They'll be like, Ooh, you know, this, this has some action in it. Yeah. And that's all over the box. Yeah. i mean, it is definitely trying to sell you on that. But but here's here's the thing, is that they're not fun action. Because puzzles...
01:30:50
Speaker
they puzzles As arcade sequences, they fail because it's like there's exactly one path that you have to go.
01:31:03
Speaker
And there's no reward for like kind of mastery of like kind of the the controls of it, which, by the way, for both of them feel...
01:31:15
Speaker
terrible like the yeah it's it's not a skill thing per se which is what you want from an arcade experience yeah the the controls are so mushy for both yeah You also wonder at some level, yeah I think that they do play this important role of it's 95. You know, we are at the height of sort of doom mania.
01:31:38
Speaker
You know, we're at the height of sort of the you grittier 90s pop culture in general. I think LucasArts sees it as being advantageous to them. uh to be able to sell this adventure game as having action elements that's absolutely the case and it's again you see it on the box and and the copy that's there i also wonder too you know it's this is even with the arcade sequences a very short adventure game oh it's super short it's super short with yes without those if you're just burning through this thing
01:32:10
Speaker
you might finish without the arcade sequences and what, maybe an hour and a half, two hours. Do you think? Yeah. If it doesn't have the arcade sequences, you're, you're finishing it. It's like, it might even be shorter than loom.
01:32:23
Speaker
Like, yeah. I mean, it's, it's approaching loom level if you take out those arcade sequences. So I wonder too, also pretty short. Yeah. Yeah. If you need to sell this thing for 49 bucks or whatever it retailed for initially,
01:32:36
Speaker
that promise that there's a little bit more game time and a little bit more replayability which arcade sequences give you the illusion it's going to be replayability but no one would go back to this and just say i've got a saved game right before the motorcycle combat begins i'm going to go back and just play that section would they would anyone on earth of course would anyone do that for any adventure game arcade sequence ever no but But also, again, there's not replayability because there's, like, just one straight path. There's no... Like, this was my complaint about, like, you know, I've talked about this with Astro Chicken.
01:33:15
Speaker
Like, you know, one of my big complaints about Astro Chicken, which I would say, like, as frustrating as it is, it's probably one of the better arcade sequences in any... Yeah.
01:33:28
Speaker
um But like the thing about Astro Chicken is that like almost every, like the levels are are generally functionally the same. There is a little variation in that it will move where Astro Chicken spawns. Mm-hmm.
01:33:45
Speaker
But it doesn't even move the platform. It doesn't introduce any... doesn't make a smaller platform. It doesn't do anything. it doesn' it it It doesn't add a new challenge. It doesn't do... It's like, if if you can beat one level of Astro Chicken...
01:34:05
Speaker
you you've you've done it. You've beaten the game. There's no... There's not that much there there. And it's the same with... Like, and again, Astro Chicken, i would argue, is probably one of the best arcade sequences in an adventure game. Yeah, I think that's probably the case, and which, again, isn't isn't terribly high praise. Like, these are sequences...
01:34:33
Speaker
where it's a little bit of worse of both worlds where you have these, like where they're, they're straight puzzles and you know what you have to do, but you know, instead of controlling Ben in the way that you have in like with your mouse, with the normal way that, uh, like that, you know how to control him. Now you're fighting with,
01:35:01
Speaker
bad controls yes and like an unresponsive controls for both of them for for the motorcycle sequence which i'm a little more mid on like i don't hate it um right but with the the demolition derby sequence terrible yeah i see i see more what the motorcycle combat is doing yes I feel like you could have almost made the demolition derby a cut scene once you'd like set up for it.
Nostalgic Media Discussions
01:35:33
Speaker
And it would have been just as effective. I feel i like having the hands on motorcycle combat is doing something to drive home the world of full throttle. Yeah.
01:35:41
Speaker
But I'm not convinced about the demolition derby. Although, you know, lu ah George Lucas makes a cameo in in the demolition derby. He's that one guy. who who's the one what he mean isn't he like the guy in the like uh like flame retardant suit like doesn't he pop off his mean probably that sounds like something they they do that's the kind of thing that they enjoyed doing yeah you like how he was like the troll in uh in my gallon one you remember that you red remember the red hand show yeah that's a good joke
01:36:14
Speaker
Hey Ben, hey Ben. yeah Communism was a red herring. That's pretty good. Have seen the Clue? that's for I've seen Clue many times. Yeah. i watch I watched Clue um at the at the very start of lockdown.
01:36:31
Speaker
man. At the very start of lockdown when it was all like kind of too much. I took a day off of work. Um, because I was, I was feeling quite emotionally overwhelmed by like with the realization that things were happening.
01:36:48
Speaker
And I was like, I need to watch. I, I'm gonna, I need to do something. Well, take me away from my phone. I'm not gonna look, I can't, I can't look at my phone. I need to disconnect and my brain is buzzing too much to read a book. So I can't do that.
01:37:03
Speaker
And so I was like, I'm going to put on like a ah cozy movie. Like a movie that that that doesn't ask much, but it will make me smile.
01:37:18
Speaker
Yeah, we're people. Yeah. yeah And you want to know what? Good pick. It's a great pick. Yeah, no, I mean, I think it's probably my daughter's favorite movie. We watch it all the time. I... uh clue i forget think we might have talked about clue earlier on this pod like on an earlier pod i would guess i don't know it feels like we had to but clue is one of those movies where i know where all the commercial breaks are when i watch it know exactly where they are like because like i that was where i watched it first was on cable there's a handful of movies where i watch them and i see the moment like the little button
01:37:59
Speaker
That's the the terrible thing. You watch something on like Tubi or whatever, where will just automatically inject. I know Pluto has this too. And I was got to say the exact same thing. I watched it on Pluto recently. I'm like, ah, there we go. That's the joke that we go to commercial on that keeps rolling. And like a minute and a half later, as soon as someone finishes speaking like a line mid scene, it's like now's our commercial.
01:38:24
Speaker
It's very clear that when they were doing it for TV that there was some amount of thought. Like, clearly it was. It's like, okay, well, it has to fit this, you know.
01:38:35
Speaker
But there was clearly some amount of thought. You know what? i I'm, you know, ah by myself, without your sign-off, I'm dedicating this podcast to the hardworking ah movie television editors of the eighty s and 90s.
01:38:53
Speaker
It's remarkable. You think about the rigid standards of broadcast television and like the amount of, yeah mean, you have a very specific runtime. You have a very specific amount of time allotted to commercials.
01:39:06
Speaker
You have to edit for content and you have to reformat it to fit my screen. h Yeah. This is somehow you just make it work format that it was originally shown in.
01:39:20
Speaker
That's right. That's right. I mean, yeah. I don't want black bars on my 4.3 television. Horrible. Horrible. Terrible. You're stealing movie from me. Yeah. it's Just fill in the rest.
01:39:33
Speaker
Yeah. ah you You know, if there's something interesting happening over there to the left, just pan on over. Pan and scan. ah Scan and then you pan.
01:39:45
Speaker
um but ah But yeah, I mean... Yeah, he you know, like, there's, i now really appreciate the thoughtfulness of of those ad breaks now that we we we live in a world that doesn't, like, imagine being like,
01:40:05
Speaker
you know, somebody that works at TBS and that's your job. Like, you know, it's like, all right, we have ah the Brady Bunch movie and it's going to play 500 times this summer.
01:40:16
Speaker
You have to find ah the spots for the ad breaks. And, um, like just being like, and no one gives a shit. I'm just going to drop them. Like, it's like they need a 20 ad breaks. I'll put them, you know, uh, I'll just put them every 15 minutes who gives a shit.
01:40:32
Speaker
And then like, yeah, you know, that there would be people ah TBS would be furious about it. Well, they know funny. They know funny. um but but like But you know that there would be, like and people would call into the station and be like, ah hey, you know well
Characters and Voice Acting in Full Throttle
01:40:47
Speaker
what gives? like These ad breaks are terrible.
01:40:49
Speaker
Now no one gives a shit. No, we we just put up with. It's like, yeah, just feed me slop. I'm ready to see this new Trimfiant commercial.
01:41:00
Speaker
Ugh.
01:41:03
Speaker
Anyway, so that's full throttle. up A good vibes, a good vibes game and a good, like, the their early chunk I like a lot.
01:41:16
Speaker
And then... We should mention, too, what a charming character Maureen is. Oh, yeah. like We haven't talked about Maureen at all, really. Yeah. Maureen, yeah um ah who who is the, like, mysterious woman character it.
01:41:33
Speaker
I mean, that that is what she is. Like, it's very... yeah that's In a similar way where Ripper... Like, because the twist, which I guess I won't give away, you know, like, saying there's a twist gives it away, I suppose. um But, like...
01:41:49
Speaker
Maureen is another character where it's like, okay, well, obviously, like, she's lying. Like, there's more to her than... There's more to this woman than meets the eye. Yeah, like, it's like, huh, I wonder why that she has such incredible skill ah repairing motorcycles when, ah like, when she says she's a toaster repair person. Mm-hmm.
01:42:10
Speaker
um and fabulous voice acting mean we mentioned mark hamill uh earlier but across the board uh very good voice yeah like you she's she's a really you know actually i mean my problem with maureen is that we don't get enough of her like yeah is that we don't get enough of her and then when we do you end up spending more time with her she's, she is kind of like spitting out a ton of plot.
01:42:41
Speaker
yeah She is. She's carrying a lot of the exposition. in this Like, you you don't You get little drips and drabs of her, and then like you get a, all right, here's my whole deal. by by but but but bye but And that's not quite as good. it is a thing where it's like, well...
01:43:02
Speaker
but like it is a thing where it's like well they are still good at writing and, uh, the voice who, who is the voice Marie in, uh, Ooh, it's, is it like Katie Sochi? Oh man, that's bad. I was trying to, uh, uh, Kath, uh, Sochi.
01:43:24
Speaker
If you pronounce her name or sushi, uh, it's S O U C I E. Yeah. She was also the voice of Lola bunny. Oh, I didn't know that.
01:43:36
Speaker
Oh, Lola Bunny. Yeah, she's... Va-va-va-voom. Let's see here. um She's a toughie in a whole bunch of terrible-sounding Tom and Jerry TV movies that came out in the 2010s.
01:43:56
Speaker
Tom and Jerry meet Sherlock Holmes. Tom and Jerry meet The Wizard of Oz. Tom and Jerry back to Oz. Tom and Jerry, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Question one for me. What? Tom and Jerry cowboy up ah Tom and Jerry snowman's land.
01:44:13
Speaker
She has a uncredited um i credit in one episode of home improvement. ah She's Claire Taylor's scream.
01:44:25
Speaker
Oh, no. ah But no, she's still she's still working today. she's She still has... ah she's She's still at it. um but But yeah, she's wonderful. She does a great job.
01:44:44
Speaker
Benjamin Throttle's quite good too. Yeah. So do you have ah any... oh and she was a Futurama voice actor. Oh. She was Hubert Farnsworth's voice.
01:44:57
Speaker
Really? Yeah, that's what it says. That's a recurring role. Yeah. She sells. And Qbert Farnsworth. Not like a you know, like Hubert shows up a couple times, right?
01:45:12
Speaker
And maybe Hubert shows up a bunch in the, yeah. Once you've rebooted the series several times, he's probably been like 130 episodes. Yeah. like yeah yeah And, and I've watched each one more forgettable than last. watched some of the the reboots and every time I'm like, yeah, he's, you know, these are fine.
01:45:29
Speaker
Yeah. Futurama is a good show and I like these characters. um Yeah.
LucasArts Games Ranking and Podcast Wrap-up
01:45:34
Speaker
they're They're fine. But you know, Full Throttle, it isn't my favorite LucasArts adventure.
01:45:43
Speaker
um I mean, it's probably not in my top five, personally. and But then again, that top five is like a murderer's road, right? I mean, you're going have like Secret of Monkey Island. You're going have Day of the Tentacle. You're going to have Sam and Max. You're probably going have, you know. Where's Curse of Monkey Island in there?
01:46:02
Speaker
I mean, Curse Mikey Island for me is maybe number one. i mean, this has been, yeah i don't want to relitigate what the best LucasArts game is, but if I were going to relitigate it, I think I would say Curse of Mikey Island.
01:46:15
Speaker
In any case. Anyway. Yeah, it's good, but it's not my, where, where did it land? This was all so long ago. Where did it land in our bracket? Full throttle.
01:46:28
Speaker
Oh, man. Let me see if I can pull that up for. I think it was an early exit. Let's see. Really depends on what it's what it like, you know, obviously. What was it up against?
01:46:42
Speaker
Okay, let's see. It was up. Okay, yeah. It was out in the first round, I'm pretty sure, because it was seeded against Loom in the first round. I'd pick Loom. I'd still pick Yeah, i would still pick Loom. Yeah, I'd pick Loom. No regerts.
01:46:57
Speaker
Like, I would say that they are both of similar quality, but I would say that Loom doesn't, like, Loom is generally all good, whereas, like, Full Throttle has sequences I just don't like.
01:47:16
Speaker
Yeah. No, I would say they aren't far apart in terms of quality, but I would pick Loom any day of the two as well, just as a personal favorite. Anyway. ah All right.
01:47:28
Speaker
Well, ask me about loom. I won't. I won't ever ask my wife about loom, please. Okay. i ah Anyway, thank you so much for listening to quest quest, the adventure game podcast. I've been Ben and I am still Jess.
01:47:47
Speaker
uh rate and five stars follow us on twitch uh in in the show notes you can link there ps garrick uh dkf jedi also on youtube etc um send us an email a quest quest podcast at gmail.com join our discord which is also in the uh in the show notes we would love to see you in the discord we need company in the discord Yeah, we have a pretty good group there. We don't need. But yeah, I mean, I want some fresh faces. I want want some new straws to stir the drink, if you will.
01:48:23
Speaker
Getting bored? Getting bored, Jess? Just bored with all those people there. They're now. want new people. Give me new people. um But anyway, ah yeah. QuestQuestPodcast at gmail.com.
01:48:36
Speaker
And ah be sure to join us next week when, yeah, once again, we we dive we dive right back into it. We dive right back into the Sierra catalog with a discussion.
01:48:54
Speaker
A space quest.
01:49:02
Speaker
Four. All right. So Jess, I'm going to get a little metaphysical with you.
01:49:17
Speaker
right so je i'm gonna get a little metaphysical with you Please do. ah So the existence of the Space Quest 4 handbook, like hint book, implies that there was another Space Quest 4, you know, if you if you recall, you know, the hints in there, ah that we have parallel timelines.
01:49:37
Speaker
Given that Roger forgets the events of Space Quest 4, is there another Space Quest 4 that happened before Space Quest 5 that we don't know about?
01:49:53
Speaker
You know, just earlier today, i was in a small boutique that branded itself a metaphysical consignment shop.
01:50:05
Speaker
What the fuck? You've never been to a metaphysical consignment shop? No. Well, I mean, Ben, I'll tell you about it off air. But to answer your question, I think that in the world of Roger Wilco,
01:50:20
Speaker
whatever the most important thing that happens to him between space quest three and space quest five is space quest four. Like if he had a really good meal somewhere in there, that's space quest four.
01:50:32
Speaker
If he got like, you know, if he wrecked his ship, that's space quest four. If he got a really nice gift from a coworker, that's basically just whatever the most important thing that happened to Roger in there is space quest four. But you know, it's definitely not space quest four.
01:50:50
Speaker
Space Quest 4? Correct.