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Resident Evil: Underworld - Part 1
72 Plays1 year ago
A NEW S.D. Perry Resident Evil book and you know what that means?? We are starting YEAR FOUR of Pixel Lit! That's wild. Thank you ALL for being here and taking this fantastic journey with us.
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Transcript
Missed Opportunity for Mockumentary Adaptation
00:00:00
Speaker
I just can't believe they passed up the opportunity to do a mockumentary kind of thing, like a fake documentary, like in the same style as the oral history that they did with World War Z. Yeah.
00:00:14
Speaker
And I think nowadays we're obsessed with documentaries.
00:00:17
Speaker
They're a big business.
00:00:19
Speaker
I can't believe it isn't in the works because I feel like that could win awards.
00:00:24
Speaker
That could make money.
00:00:25
Speaker
It could do everything you want to do.
00:00:29
Speaker
a movie like that to do.
00:00:30
Speaker
I'm, I'm genuinely perplexed.
Introduction to Pixel Show Anniversary
00:00:32
Speaker
So, um, what you're saying is that our next book, which is Minecraft, the Island has a chance of being the best book that we read on the show.
00:00:43
Speaker
It needs to be is what I'm saying.
00:00:50
Speaker
Uh, well, you know, we're, we both enjoy some Max Brooks and yeah.
00:00:55
Speaker
Um, you know what else is Max Brooks?
00:00:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:58
Speaker
What's that?
00:00:59
Speaker
Hey, everybody.
00:00:59
Speaker
Welcome back to Pixel.
00:01:00
Speaker
My name is Kevin.
00:01:00
Speaker
With me as always is Phil.
00:01:01
Speaker
And on today's show, we are starting our fourth year where we finished our third year of doing this show.
00:01:10
Speaker
So guess what?
00:01:11
Speaker
We're back with more S.D.
00:01:13
Speaker
Perry.
00:01:14
Speaker
We're back with more S.D.
00:01:16
Speaker
Perry.
00:01:16
Speaker
Yeah, you just got blurred out there.
00:01:18
Speaker
It was like I had pornography.
00:01:20
Speaker
I was like, ah.
00:01:23
Speaker
Resident Evil Underworld, which is the second book of the franchise of the series that she has written that is not based on any particular game.
00:01:38
Speaker
Yes.
00:01:39
Speaker
After Caliban Cove, this is the second time S.D.
00:01:42
Speaker
Perry's gotten an opportunity just to go ham with an original story, which is always exciting because I loved Caliban Cove.
00:01:50
Speaker
Yeah, Caliban Co is great.
00:01:51
Speaker
And Underworld does also feature her created characters that she's made.
Exploring S.D. Perry's Resident Evil Series
00:02:01
Speaker
Yes.
00:02:02
Speaker
Oh, anyway, we're back.
00:02:04
Speaker
And we don't have to talk about Esty Perry much more than we already have.
00:02:09
Speaker
In fact, go listen to the episode in which we pseudo-interviewed her by way of...
00:02:17
Speaker
by way of cat from pixel a day reading off her answers that we sent to her.
00:02:25
Speaker
In her glorious Australian accent, which SD Perry in no way has.
00:02:30
Speaker
In no way has.
00:02:31
Speaker
I love it.
00:02:32
Speaker
SD Perry does not say, oh, no.
00:02:38
Speaker
Not to our knowledge.
00:02:39
Speaker
Not to our knowledge.
00:02:42
Speaker
So yeah.
00:02:44
Speaker
Is there anything else we want to say about, you know, Resident Evil?
00:02:49
Speaker
I mean, yeah.
00:02:50
Speaker
What do you guys need to know about Resident Evil?
00:02:52
Speaker
I mean, you covered it.
00:02:54
Speaker
This one takes place after the third book, which was City of the Dead, which is based on Resident Evil 2.
00:03:01
Speaker
Resident Evil 2.
00:03:02
Speaker
Yes.
00:03:02
Speaker
So that tells you where we are in canonically in this in this particular stretch.
00:03:09
Speaker
You mean cap comically camp.
00:03:11
Speaker
It is kind of hilarious when you think about it, that there are
00:03:15
Speaker
no less than three major Resident Evil storylines that have nothing to do with each other.
00:03:21
Speaker
You got the video games, you got the movies and you've got the books.
00:03:24
Speaker
Right.
00:03:25
Speaker
And never the three shall meet.
00:03:27
Speaker
No, they they have they'll have some they'll have the same characters
00:03:33
Speaker
Sometimes.
00:03:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:34
Speaker
The same characters with different characterizations for each of the characters.
00:03:39
Speaker
Sometimes they'll look similar and sometimes they do similar things.
00:03:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:46
Speaker
Obviously, the movies drift the farthest way far.
00:03:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:51
Speaker
These are closer to the games from from anything just because what's his name?
00:03:59
Speaker
Paul W.S.
00:04:00
Speaker
Anderson really just needed
00:04:03
Speaker
needed a vehicle for his for his wife who.
00:04:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:07
Speaker
Let me be clear.
00:04:08
Speaker
I like Mila Jovovich in The Fifth Element.
00:04:12
Speaker
I think she's a perfectly serviceable actress.
00:04:15
Speaker
She's a perfectly serviceable actress.
00:04:18
Speaker
It's just, you know, he had to put his wife in a Resident Evil movie that had nothing to do with Resident Evil.
00:04:25
Speaker
Just crazy.
00:04:28
Speaker
I want very, very badly.
00:04:31
Speaker
Speaking of oral histories based on zombie franchises, I want to read about the making of those films.
Resident Evil Adaptations: Games vs Movies vs Books
00:04:39
Speaker
I want to know how this happened, where it fell off the line.
00:04:44
Speaker
Like...
00:04:45
Speaker
It's the same thing as a lot of like really shitty movie franchises like Puppet Master, Puppet Master.
00:04:50
Speaker
I would love I have really no interest in those movies, but I would love to know how they got made and like what the process.
00:04:57
Speaker
I don't care if it's a five page pamphlet of somebody being like, we have these puppets and we had to make a story.
00:05:02
Speaker
And like that's I just want to know.
00:05:04
Speaker
I need to know in my heart.
00:05:07
Speaker
Why?
00:05:08
Speaker
Why?
00:05:08
Speaker
Yes.
00:05:09
Speaker
Why?
00:05:09
Speaker
Have you ever read Romero's script for Resident Evil?
00:05:14
Speaker
No, it's meant to be closer to the game.
00:05:19
Speaker
It's a lot closer to the game.
00:05:23
Speaker
Like the same characters.
00:05:24
Speaker
There's some like additional characters added in when some little changes here and there, but it is very much, it's like, you know, a two degree difference between the game and the movie versus a six degrees of difference.
00:05:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:44
Speaker
Yeah, where the only the only similarity is umbrella.
00:05:49
Speaker
Well, I mean, two degrees difference between, you know, a game or a book and the adaptation is pretty normal.
00:05:56
Speaker
Yeah, honestly, probably pretty decent if you think about it.
00:06:00
Speaker
Sure.
00:06:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:01
Speaker
But you're right.
00:06:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:02
Speaker
They they ended up being about a half dozen at very least.
00:06:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:05
Speaker
Degrees of separation there.
00:06:07
Speaker
Actually, that might be a good bonus episode is reading Romero's script.
00:06:17
Speaker
Oh, that would be fun.
00:06:18
Speaker
That would be fun.
00:06:20
Speaker
I like that idea.
00:06:21
Speaker
Maybe we could do that live or something like that.
00:06:23
Speaker
Just sit down and like read it out loud.
00:06:27
Speaker
and get some friends and cast the parts and things like that.
00:06:33
Speaker
Oh, that would be fun.
00:06:35
Speaker
Yeah, that would be a lot of fun.
00:06:36
Speaker
What is a way that you can support us to possibly get some of these bonus episodes is going to patreon.com slash pixel at pod.
Support Options for the Show
00:06:45
Speaker
And you can throw us $1, $5 or $10.
00:06:45
Speaker
$1 gets you in the door.
00:06:50
Speaker
$5 gets you ad-free episodes and bonus episodes when we are able to produce them.
00:06:56
Speaker
And $10 gets your name shouted out in the episode.
00:07:02
Speaker
So to that end, I want to shout out Ruthless Mudder, Kyle Seaman, Friendly Friend, and Jesus Loves You for supporting us at the $10 tier.
00:07:11
Speaker
Thank you so much.
00:07:13
Speaker
We love you.
00:07:14
Speaker
We love you.
00:07:15
Speaker
And we love all of our Patreons.
00:07:17
Speaker
It's true.
00:07:18
Speaker
Our patron.
00:07:19
Speaker
Patronages.
00:07:20
Speaker
Patrons.
00:07:22
Speaker
Patrons.
00:07:24
Speaker
Patron.
00:07:25
Speaker
Patroni.
00:07:25
Speaker
Patronis.
00:07:26
Speaker
Patronis.
00:07:27
Speaker
Jabronis.
00:07:28
Speaker
Patroni Jabronis.
00:07:29
Speaker
Patroni Jabronis.
00:07:31
Speaker
Let's put the body in the bush.
00:07:34
Speaker
Oh, what you got there?
00:07:36
Speaker
Is that lemonade?
00:07:37
Speaker
It's Waterloo Sparkling Water.
00:07:41
Speaker
tropical fruits and it looks like it has a a mango okay okay i think there's a mango on there that's a grapefruit it's a slice of pineapple slice of pineapple how many of those do i taste answer me this riddle me that bad man i'm doing my
00:08:06
Speaker
Fruit punch happy dad as per usual.
00:08:09
Speaker
So we're both on a punch kick.
00:08:10
Speaker
We're both on a punch kick.
00:08:12
Speaker
Happy dad.
00:08:12
Speaker
Come on and sponsor us.
00:08:14
Speaker
I keep telling myself I'm going to send them.
00:08:17
Speaker
I need to do it.
00:08:18
Speaker
I really do.
00:08:19
Speaker
I need to sit down and do it.
00:08:22
Speaker
Oh, God.
Resident Evil Book Discussion: Prologue and Plot Setup
00:08:23
Speaker
Okay.
00:08:23
Speaker
Well, I'm taking the lead on this one.
00:08:26
Speaker
So let's get into it, shall we?
00:08:28
Speaker
Let's put that dirty, filthy, zombie riddled body in the marsh.
00:08:36
Speaker
This ain't reality TV.
00:08:38
Speaker
All right.
00:08:39
Speaker
We open with a prologue in the same way that we have always opened with these books, which is a collection of news bits and excerpts from think pieces and the news about basically bringing you up to speed.
00:08:54
Speaker
It's going to bring you up to speed on what's happened.
00:08:56
Speaker
It brings you up to speed.
00:08:57
Speaker
It sets.
00:08:57
Speaker
I mean, if we hadn't really been sure before, Raccoon City is in Pennsylvania.
00:09:03
Speaker
Yes.
00:09:04
Speaker
In the S.T.
00:09:04
Speaker
Perryverse.
00:09:06
Speaker
It's also significantly smaller in her books than it is compared to, let's say, even the games.
00:09:18
Speaker
How big is it in the games?
00:09:20
Speaker
In the games, I want to say Raccoon City is more of like a Denver.
00:09:28
Speaker
Oh, I never got that impression.
00:09:30
Speaker
Okay.
00:09:30
Speaker
Okay.
00:09:30
Speaker
All right.
00:09:31
Speaker
Okay, not Denver.
00:09:32
Speaker
Let's say Buffalo.
00:09:35
Speaker
How big is Buffalo?
00:09:36
Speaker
Buffalo is population 276,000.
00:09:39
Speaker
So like a Buffalo.
00:09:41
Speaker
I think it's supposed to be significantly larger in the games.
00:09:45
Speaker
Medium-sized city kind of thing.
00:09:47
Speaker
Yeah, as opposed to the book where it seems like it's a population of, what, 10,000, 20,000-ish?
00:09:50
Speaker
Yeah, if that.
00:09:53
Speaker
If that, because the total casualties, I think, end up coming out to four or five thousand.
00:09:58
Speaker
Right.
00:09:59
Speaker
Which, I mean, that's obscene.
00:10:02
Speaker
This is an insane amount of people dead.
00:10:04
Speaker
But yeah, when you have the ratio there, it makes a small difference.
00:10:09
Speaker
A small difference.
00:10:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:12
Speaker
So we get happy.
00:10:14
Speaker
Dad is yawning.
00:10:15
Speaker
It's, it's killing me.
00:10:16
Speaker
The happy dad is always yawning.
00:10:17
Speaker
My son is teething.
00:10:20
Speaker
Uh, and, uh, I've learned the hard way that, uh, he no longer can chew on my fingers, uh, uh, for fun.
00:10:27
Speaker
Uh, he was really fond of grabbing my hand and putting my hand into his mouth to chew on me, which is adorable.
00:10:33
Speaker
And you don't, and now he's got this jagged little lower incisor coming through and it
00:10:40
Speaker
fucking hurts.
00:10:40
Speaker
It's like a snapping turtle.
00:10:42
Speaker
No, now you're like, oh, he's just got a little gums and he's gumming my finger.
00:10:49
Speaker
And then all of a sudden that first one comes in and he's drawn blood.
00:10:53
Speaker
Yeah, he is...
00:10:57
Speaker
Absolutely doing that.
00:10:58
Speaker
So we're watching it.
00:10:59
Speaker
Right.
00:11:01
Speaker
But yeah.
00:11:01
Speaker
But so, yeah, everything is everything is every light has a tracer right now.
00:11:08
Speaker
Something I haven't experienced in a while.
00:11:11
Speaker
So we basically get caught up to speed on where we are.
00:11:15
Speaker
It also gives you the.
00:11:17
Speaker
The lowdown on the fact that the that stars that our heroes, basically the remainder of stars and now Raccoon City's fighting force basically are on the run from actual stars.
00:11:30
Speaker
Yes, they have been blamed for everything.
00:11:33
Speaker
Yeah, they are the cause of all the damages to Raccoon City.
00:11:39
Speaker
Which that's the thing is I am really, really interested in the next book because I feel like this is still working under the assumption of Resident Evil 2, right?
00:11:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:58
Speaker
the it's like, oh, there's fires and there's unrest and there's like 5000 people died.
00:12:04
Speaker
But there's chaos.
00:12:05
Speaker
Right.
00:12:06
Speaker
But eventually things got under control.
00:12:08
Speaker
But yeah, in in Resident Evil three, the city is destroyed with a nuclear bomb.
00:12:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:19
Speaker
Uh, so that's the dip.
00:12:21
Speaker
That's like how I'm just really curious when we get to that one, how does SD Perry rewrites the, all of this to make it.
00:12:34
Speaker
Yeah, I'm absolutely with you.
00:12:36
Speaker
I have no idea.
00:12:38
Speaker
I, I think the strength behind all of our favorite right for hire people is the ability to pivot.
00:12:47
Speaker
I think I think and the fact that there are seven of these books points towards the fact that she she must have succeeded on some level.
00:12:56
Speaker
She just kept it.
00:12:57
Speaker
Just keep on writing.
00:12:58
Speaker
You know what?
00:12:59
Speaker
Keep on writing.
00:13:00
Speaker
That's it.
00:13:00
Speaker
That's it.
00:13:01
Speaker
Hey, you got to retcon a bunch of stuff.
00:13:02
Speaker
You're like, OK.
00:13:03
Speaker
Yep.
00:13:04
Speaker
Okie dokie.
00:13:05
Speaker
Okie dokie.
00:13:06
Speaker
I'll figure it out.
00:13:07
Speaker
Let's go.
00:13:08
Speaker
Oh, Jill is not in Europe with everybody else.
00:13:12
Speaker
Even though I already said she was.
00:13:14
Speaker
That's fine.
00:13:15
Speaker
Sounds good.
00:13:16
Speaker
Sounds good.
00:13:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:21
Speaker
And that brings us to chapter one, actually, where we are thrown headlong into a car chase scene with our heroes.
00:13:32
Speaker
We've got David, who I believe is the British one.
00:13:36
Speaker
They bring up the fact that he's attractive based on his accent alone.
00:13:41
Speaker
And I know we have a lot of English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish friends.
00:13:48
Speaker
Right.
00:13:48
Speaker
So take from that what you will.
00:13:51
Speaker
Life.
00:13:51
Speaker
What you will.
00:13:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:52
Speaker
Life over here really is just like what was that fucking holiday movie?
00:14:00
Speaker
Oh, the one that when you really think about it kind of sucks.
00:14:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:06
Speaker
Sure.
00:14:06
Speaker
Sure.
00:14:11
Speaker
I'm going to be really pissed about this.
00:14:13
Speaker
Hold on.
00:14:14
Speaker
He's going to look it up, everybody, because you're probably already screaming about it.
00:14:18
Speaker
Yeah, you are.
00:14:19
Speaker
I guarantee you.
00:14:20
Speaker
Love actually.
00:14:21
Speaker
Love actually.
00:14:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:23
Speaker
So just so you know, it really is love actually 24 seven over.
00:14:27
Speaker
If you have an accent that is vaguely European, you will get laid.
00:14:31
Speaker
That's just how that works.
00:14:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:34
Speaker
So yeah.
00:14:35
Speaker
So just take of that what you will.
00:14:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:38
Speaker
So we're
00:14:39
Speaker
We've got John, who we've mentioned before, our lovable, gigantic man.
00:14:45
Speaker
We have got Leon and we have.
00:14:47
Speaker
OK.
00:14:50
Speaker
My son is squealing at the top of his lungs.
00:14:53
Speaker
It's all good, though.
00:14:54
Speaker
It's all good.
00:14:56
Speaker
We've got Leon.
00:14:58
Speaker
We have got, gosh, all of them here.
00:15:00
Speaker
I should have written Claire, Claire, Rebecca, the gang's all here.
00:15:06
Speaker
It's the gang's all here.
00:15:07
Speaker
We're literally just missing Barry, Chris and Jill.
00:15:12
Speaker
Yes.
00:15:12
Speaker
And that is addressed.
00:15:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:16
Speaker
It's just it's you know what?
00:15:17
Speaker
I couldn't get the image of this is this is not specifically because I watched a video by Scott Nieswander, but I couldn't get the mystery machine out of my head.
00:15:28
Speaker
Oh, I was talking about the video where he's talking about the purple is a fall color.
00:15:34
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
00:15:37
Speaker
And now they're being chased down by stars agents.
00:15:40
Speaker
They're being shot at.
00:15:41
Speaker
And I are in the mystery machine.
00:15:43
Speaker
Yes.
00:15:44
Speaker
They mentioned that they're in a van and that was good enough for me.
00:15:48
Speaker
I was like, it's they're in the mystery machine.
00:15:50
Speaker
Now the Scoob is Leon.
00:15:52
Speaker
Everyone knows that.
00:15:54
Speaker
So basically this whole chapter is them just like,
00:15:59
Speaker
Avoiding it's actually it's actually kind of great because what the whole chapter amounts to is an explanation and an exposition dump and bringing you up to speed on anything that maybe you couldn't have gotten from the news articles we got in the prologue.
00:16:13
Speaker
Right.
00:16:14
Speaker
It tells you where we are, who's there.
00:16:16
Speaker
And there are lots of moments for a freeze frame.
00:16:20
Speaker
And you're probably wondering.
00:16:21
Speaker
You're probably wondering how.
00:16:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:24
Speaker
There are like four or five of those moments, which is very effective storytelling for what we're doing here because it comes down to an exposition dump.
00:16:33
Speaker
But Perry does a very good job of making it a very good action scene.
00:16:39
Speaker
It's it is it is a really good action scene.
00:16:42
Speaker
And I texted Phil that the opening pages of this book has a better action sequence than the entirety of the Metal Gear Solid book that we just read.
00:16:54
Speaker
Yes, absolutely.
00:16:55
Speaker
The entirety.
00:16:57
Speaker
And we're talking about a book about spy craft written by the one of the James Bond guys.
00:17:04
Speaker
One of the James Bond guys.
00:17:06
Speaker
Like one of the big ones.
00:17:08
Speaker
Like and yet.
00:17:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:11
Speaker
And I did some digging on him when I was working on the you might also enjoy section last week, which is back.
00:17:21
Speaker
And it's back.
00:17:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:24
Speaker
And I found a lot of people talking about him specifically and which of his James Bond books are their favorite.
00:17:30
Speaker
And apparently they're very good.
00:17:32
Speaker
Like his James Bond books are apparently there.
00:17:36
Speaker
He's got fans.
00:17:37
Speaker
So this is not a, this is as we have seen with a lot of these writers, when they're working on a franchise that they actually respect,
00:17:47
Speaker
They do good.
00:17:49
Speaker
But it's clear he didn't have a hell of a lot of respect for what was going on with that.
00:17:54
Speaker
He saw liquid snake.
00:17:56
Speaker
Oh, fuck this.
00:17:57
Speaker
How many words do you need?
00:17:58
Speaker
Liquid snake.
00:18:00
Speaker
Solidus snake.
00:18:01
Speaker
The guy's name is Revolver Ocelot.
00:18:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:05
Speaker
I mean, that is basically where I threw my hat on the floor and said, I can't take it anymore.
00:18:10
Speaker
Revolver Ocelot.
00:18:10
Speaker
I mean, you never even started with Metal Gear Solid.
00:18:13
Speaker
No, no.
00:18:14
Speaker
I believe the book, the book never did not entice you to go any further.
00:18:19
Speaker
It's over.
00:18:20
Speaker
It's done.
00:18:21
Speaker
I played, I played the first 15, 20 minutes of, of metal gear solid.
00:18:25
Speaker
I read the novelization.
00:18:27
Speaker
That's just going to be a blind spot for me forever.
00:18:29
Speaker
And I accept that with grace and dignity, uh, mostly.
00:18:34
Speaker
And, uh, but it's, yeah, no, those are, that's that, that's never happening.
00:18:38
Speaker
Um,
00:18:39
Speaker
We also get, as Kevin pointed out, we've got a trio of our friends who are off in Europe that and that's basically what the deal is.
00:18:48
Speaker
These the the the remaining kids here in the mystery machine are on their way to fly out to meet up in Europe with with the rest of the team with Jill and Chris and all of them.
00:19:01
Speaker
And that's that's that's what chapter one amounts to.
Character Dynamics and Plot Twists in Resident Evil
00:19:05
Speaker
I'm trying very hard.
00:19:06
Speaker
I didn't take as many notes on this one because I, I, I realized that when I take notes, I'm like basically reading the book out and we get a three hour episode.
00:19:16
Speaker
I'd be like, no, we, it's fine.
00:19:17
Speaker
It's fine.
00:19:18
Speaker
We can just, we can just, we can, we don't have to, we don't have to be so precious about this.
00:19:23
Speaker
Um,
00:19:24
Speaker
So we cut to chapter two, where they make their way to the airfield.
00:19:32
Speaker
They're getting up in the plane.
00:19:34
Speaker
They are airborne and they believe that.
00:19:38
Speaker
not unfairly that they are on their way to Europe.
00:19:42
Speaker
They're on their way to Europe.
00:19:43
Speaker
They're on a prop plane on their way to Europe.
00:19:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:47
Speaker
It is.
00:19:49
Speaker
Is that a thing?
00:19:50
Speaker
Is, or is there a modern prop plane that has a large enough fuel tank?
00:19:55
Speaker
They do reference that.
00:19:57
Speaker
They do reference.
00:19:57
Speaker
And I didn't think about it.
00:19:59
Speaker
I didn't.
00:19:59
Speaker
At first I was like, well, yeah, there are plenty of prop planes are still in service.
00:20:02
Speaker
And I thought about it was like, but to cross the Atlanta.
00:20:05
Speaker
I don't know about that, actually.
00:20:06
Speaker
I don't know.
00:20:06
Speaker
I mean, it depends like with or because we're I just don't know.
00:20:12
Speaker
I mean, every prop plane that I've ever been in is either like a small hobby plane.
00:20:18
Speaker
Right.
00:20:19
Speaker
Or like, you know, one that is like flies you from Tampa to Orlando or something like that.
00:20:28
Speaker
Like, yeah, yeah, exactly.
00:20:30
Speaker
You start out in Lincoln and you're going to make your way.
00:20:33
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:20:34
Speaker
It's just the one.
00:20:35
Speaker
And before you get onto the giant ass plane.
00:20:37
Speaker
I mean, I know prop planes previously, you know, what's Charles Lindbergh across the Atlantic and all that stuff.
00:20:44
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good point.
00:20:45
Speaker
What I'm saying is
00:20:46
Speaker
Are modern prop planes still that it's almost described like a bomber at times?
00:20:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:54
Speaker
You know, you get this impression that it's this long, huge prop plane, like a freaking B one or something like that.
00:21:01
Speaker
It's, it's weird.
00:21:03
Speaker
So they're making their way in there.
00:21:05
Speaker
They're getting comfortable.
00:21:07
Speaker
There's a lot to do about Rebecca, our biologist from Resident Evil Zero.
00:21:15
Speaker
I believe that was the one she was in, right?
00:21:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:16
Speaker
She was in, I mean, she's in the first Resident Evil game too.
00:21:20
Speaker
Right, right.
00:21:21
Speaker
But like her big- Oh, her, the game in which she is the main character is Resident Evil Zero.
00:21:26
Speaker
Yes.
00:21:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:27
Speaker
Which also takes place at the same, I got it.
00:21:29
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:21:29
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:21:31
Speaker
But there's a lot to do about her being afraid of flying.
00:21:36
Speaker
There is a lot of flirty dialogue between her and John, and they're quick to have John's inner monologue talk about like, this is a daughter thing.
00:21:46
Speaker
This is not a girlfriend thing.
00:21:48
Speaker
Like, although, but he doesn't stop.
00:21:50
Speaker
It doesn't stop him from saying the time honored tradition of if I were a little younger, if I were a little younger, I
00:21:58
Speaker
No.
00:21:59
Speaker
Hey, buddy.
00:22:00
Speaker
Still not great.
00:22:01
Speaker
Still not great.
00:22:02
Speaker
How old is he?
00:22:03
Speaker
Are we doing half your age plus seven?
00:22:06
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know.
00:22:07
Speaker
She's 19.
00:22:08
Speaker
She is a teenager.
00:22:10
Speaker
She is a teenager.
00:22:11
Speaker
She cannot legally drink.
00:22:13
Speaker
And although in Europe, even if he was 30, she would still be under the cutoff.
00:22:23
Speaker
Oh gosh.
00:22:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:27
Speaker
If we're using after, I don't know.
00:22:29
Speaker
Do kids do the dude, did it?
00:22:31
Speaker
Is that, is that problematic now?
00:22:33
Speaker
Is that, is that, I don't know.
00:22:34
Speaker
That's a good question.
00:22:36
Speaker
Is that, if there's anyone you're talking about.
00:22:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:39
Speaker
Do people know what I'm referencing is like, basically it was like when you're trying to figure out the range of, of people you can date in terms of going younger than yourself, you, you went half your age plus seven.
00:22:53
Speaker
So if you're 40, then that's 27 and up.
00:22:56
Speaker
It is kind of like, you know, makes it.
00:23:00
Speaker
You know, like, okay, you're in a, you're, you have enough shared experience in life to kind of work.
00:23:08
Speaker
Right.
00:23:09
Speaker
And it's not creepy.
00:23:10
Speaker
It's a, it's a, it's, it's just, it's, it's a mathematical formula that while it has no scientific value.
00:23:18
Speaker
Zero scientific value.
00:23:19
Speaker
Feels right.
00:23:20
Speaker
It feels right.
00:23:21
Speaker
Okay.
00:23:22
Speaker
Right.
00:23:23
Speaker
I don't know.
00:23:23
Speaker
I feel free to, I feel free to email us.
00:23:27
Speaker
at you're wrong about half your age plus seven at Gmail dot com.
00:23:32
Speaker
Please.
00:23:32
Speaker
That's a thing.
00:23:33
Speaker
That's got to be.
00:23:34
Speaker
Hey, it's our three year, four year, three year anniversary, whatever it is.
00:23:38
Speaker
Three year anniversary.
00:23:40
Speaker
I got to I got to throw in an old email bit.
00:23:42
Speaker
That's a classic.
00:23:43
Speaker
It's a goody.
00:23:44
Speaker
It's a goody.
00:23:46
Speaker
I feel like the I feel like
00:23:48
Speaker
uh, Xennials or whatever they're being called now, uh, are, are probably a little more intuitive about it and might say something along the lines.
00:23:55
Speaker
If of, uh, if you have to think up some kind of, uh, mathematical formula to determine if it, if it's okay, she's too young for you, bro.
00:24:04
Speaker
Um, yeah, no, I feel like generation Z would, would be, would,
00:24:09
Speaker
really have some words or generation Z for those of you listening, listening in other English speaking countries.
00:24:20
Speaker
If you like that you're here, thank you.
00:24:23
Speaker
So we do get some uncomfortable flirting.
00:24:27
Speaker
We get we get some backup from Leon and Claire.
00:24:34
Speaker
That's that's another thing that happens.
00:24:36
Speaker
They we get a lot of internal monologue from Leon about Ada.
00:24:42
Speaker
And what an amazing woman she was.
00:24:44
Speaker
And he's he's crushing hard.
00:24:45
Speaker
And that's canon.
00:24:46
Speaker
I mean, that's that's that's totally a thing with the games.
00:24:49
Speaker
That is one thing that is totally in line between this and the games and the remakes of the games is that the only girl for Leon is Ada Wong.
00:24:59
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:25:00
Speaker
And then but then we get another person observing him and Claire interacting, talking about.
00:25:08
Speaker
something going on there.
00:25:09
Speaker
Maybe that would make sense.
00:25:11
Speaker
That works.
00:25:11
Speaker
And then Claire's internal monologue also kind of confirms the idea of like, maybe, maybe something could happen there, which is just setting us all up for heartbreak.
00:25:20
Speaker
Why do you do this?
00:25:20
Speaker
It's all up for heartbreak.
00:25:22
Speaker
Why do you do this?
00:25:23
Speaker
All of our, all of our hopes and fanfic are just going into just depression mode.
00:25:30
Speaker
Tatters.
00:25:32
Speaker
Why are you doing this to us?
00:25:33
Speaker
Why you do this?
00:25:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:34
Speaker
Demi, why you do this?
00:25:36
Speaker
Um,
00:25:37
Speaker
So, yeah, we get a lot of the we get brought up to speed there a lot.
00:25:42
Speaker
And then we are informed that there is a new visitor who somehow on the plane on the plane.
00:25:50
Speaker
They missed on the plane.
00:25:52
Speaker
And and and the gentleman walks out.
00:25:54
Speaker
And speaking of characters that are not video game canon, but S.D.
00:25:59
Speaker
Perry wrote it is it is our dear, dear friend Trevor.
00:26:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:05
Speaker
Trevor Trevor Trevor by the way can you move your mic just a little bit you seem to be bumping it oh am I bump yeah there you go okay Trent so Trent I don't know it was actually three Trevor's in a trench coat equals a Trent
00:26:30
Speaker
And a Trent coat.
00:26:35
Speaker
Oh, we get this is this is hilarious to me because this is the first book where his appearance actually makes a lot of sense to me.
00:26:43
Speaker
And it actually really works for me.
00:26:46
Speaker
And I've been questioning the need for this guy since he was introduced in the very first Resident Evil book.
00:26:54
Speaker
And but this is where she finally gets to use him on a level that I think is kind of effective.
00:27:01
Speaker
So basically, we've got some people who know him, mostly people who don't.
00:27:06
Speaker
And he informs them good news slash bad news.
00:27:13
Speaker
you're not going to Europe.
00:27:15
Speaker
Your friends.
00:27:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:16
Speaker
And they are pissed.
00:27:17
Speaker
They are pissed off.
00:27:19
Speaker
And because no one tells us what to do because we survived the T virus and the G virus and the P virus and right.
00:27:28
Speaker
All that shit, which I think E virus and the N virus and the I virus.
00:27:32
Speaker
And yes, that was awful.
00:27:34
Speaker
The I virus was particularly bad.
00:27:35
Speaker
The
00:27:36
Speaker
Penis virus.
00:27:38
Speaker
Penis virus where your penis falls off and tries to eat you.
00:27:41
Speaker
Yeah, it's like that.
00:27:43
Speaker
It's like that part from the thing where like.
00:27:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:47
Speaker
The head.
00:27:49
Speaker
Oh, it's just a little penis with legs going.
00:27:52
Speaker
That has to rule 34.
00:27:54
Speaker
That has to be.
00:27:54
Speaker
That has to be.
00:27:55
Speaker
John Carpenter.
00:27:56
Speaker
Did you see that they are remastering the thing video game?
00:28:01
Speaker
No.
00:28:02
Speaker
Night Dive Studio is doing it.
00:28:10
Speaker
everything's different now kevin everything's different night dive who most recently did uh
00:28:19
Speaker
System Shock.
00:28:20
Speaker
Yeah, they're great.
00:28:22
Speaker
I mean, they've done System Shock.
00:28:24
Speaker
They've done Shadow Man.
00:28:25
Speaker
Their entire shtick is recreating old games.
00:28:36
Speaker
So, yeah, their next one.
00:28:38
Speaker
They also did the Dark Forces remaster.
00:28:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:45
Speaker
This is this is this is good news.
00:28:49
Speaker
This game fucking ruled.
00:28:52
Speaker
I did a whole video on movie video game adaptations years ago.
00:29:00
Speaker
My top five favorite of them and the thing I believe was number three.
00:29:03
Speaker
So I'm really, really excited about this.
00:29:05
Speaker
They're bringing it up to 4K resolution, high frame rates.
00:29:10
Speaker
Oh, because it was one ugly, but ugly game these days.
00:29:13
Speaker
Yeah, I know.
00:29:14
Speaker
Looking back on it, it's they're, you know, fixing all the textures and all that stuff.
00:29:21
Speaker
That's great.
00:29:21
Speaker
I mean, but it looks like they're keeping it from the...
00:29:25
Speaker
the footage that they have posted like on steam already, it looks like it's, it's pretty much the same game, just like, they're just giving it a coat of paint.
00:29:35
Speaker
Yes.
00:29:36
Speaker
Which is all they need to do.
00:29:37
Speaker
It's it's right.
00:29:38
Speaker
I'm sure that when we play it, there will be a level of, um, and wishlist, uh, there will be a level of, of some of this gameplay hasn't translated all that well.
00:29:50
Speaker
It hasn't aged well, et cetera.
00:29:53
Speaker
Um,
00:29:54
Speaker
But I but having the opportunity to even try is a very big deal to me.
00:29:59
Speaker
So that's because this was because this was a fantastic sequel.
00:30:04
Speaker
And it's it's what John Carpenter considers the sequel to the movie.
00:30:08
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's and it's it's a good story.
00:30:11
Speaker
It's well done.
00:30:12
Speaker
So yeah.
00:30:13
Speaker
Oh, oh, God, I lost my train of thought.
00:30:16
Speaker
Where were we?
00:30:18
Speaker
Where were we?
00:30:18
Speaker
OK, so Trent is going.
00:30:22
Speaker
He's basically informs them.
00:30:24
Speaker
Your friends in Europe do not need your help.
00:30:27
Speaker
Uh, they are under control, but there is a, uh, umbrella facility in the West out here in, uh, in Utah that you guys could get in there and, uh, and, and find some very good information and, uh, start some shit and help bring down umbrella.
00:30:49
Speaker
And that would be way more effective, uh, way more effective use of your time than helping out your trio of friends in Austria who do not need your help.
00:30:57
Speaker
They don't need it.
00:30:58
Speaker
They don't need it.
00:30:59
Speaker
And we get a big kerfuffle, especially with John, who just absolutely hates Trent's guts.
00:31:05
Speaker
And we have it pointed out later that he hates him because he maybe is the only person who isn't intimidated by John.
00:31:12
Speaker
Sure.
00:31:13
Speaker
He just does.
00:31:14
Speaker
He just kind of pulls a Mr. Smith and just, you know, he's wearing his black suit and just kind of blinking, you know, right.
00:31:21
Speaker
His eyes crossing, just not caring about anything John's doing.
00:31:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:25
Speaker
Imagine you put most of your points in intimidation and, and it didn't work.
00:31:30
Speaker
And you're failing your rolls.
00:31:32
Speaker
You put all those points in intimidation and it's like, no, the, the role doesn't, it's like, no.
00:31:38
Speaker
And it's not even botches.
00:31:40
Speaker
You're not even rolling ones.
00:31:41
Speaker
You just can't beat the challenge.
00:31:43
Speaker
It's like, it's like, yeah, the, the, it's like, all right, well, you know, you, you, you would have to roll a 20 in order to actually, uh,
00:31:54
Speaker
Get this right.
00:31:55
Speaker
Right.
00:31:56
Speaker
You'd have a 120 chance of this.
00:31:58
Speaker
You have a one.
00:31:59
Speaker
It would only work for a little while.
00:32:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:01
Speaker
So he basically tells them that's that's what the plan is.
00:32:07
Speaker
I'm going to let you decide if you want to do this.
00:32:10
Speaker
And he basically goes back up.
00:32:12
Speaker
He informs him that the pilot is a very good friend of his.
00:32:14
Speaker
And he has been manipulating the situation from the beginning.
00:32:17
Speaker
When he found out.
00:32:18
Speaker
At first they were acting like this pilot, it's this drunk guy who's the only guy we could get to fly us in.
00:32:25
Speaker
And Trent is like, oh, no, no, no.
00:32:27
Speaker
He's actually a very good pilot, very fine pilot.
00:32:30
Speaker
And he's one of my friends.
00:32:32
Speaker
And we manipulated it so that he would be the guy that flies you to Utah.
00:32:38
Speaker
Exactly.
00:32:39
Speaker
Very, very matter of fact, very, you know, the man in black kind of thing going on with him.
00:32:47
Speaker
So he very confidently says, well, talk amongst yourselves.
00:32:51
Speaker
I'm going to go hang out with my best friend, the pilot, while you talk it over and decide whether you want to do this or not, which is more consideration than I think you would expect from a guy like this.
00:33:03
Speaker
Right.
00:33:04
Speaker
But it's very considerate.
00:33:05
Speaker
He's a considerate guy.
00:33:06
Speaker
And he leaves them
New Mission in Utah and Umbrella Challenges
00:33:08
Speaker
to it.
00:33:08
Speaker
And that brings us into chapter four, where we learn about where we get basically Rebecca kind of like pixie dusting John, like, oh, big, strong warrior.
00:33:20
Speaker
Don't worry about it, pal.
00:33:22
Speaker
Everyone's scared of you.
00:33:24
Speaker
That's why you're so pissed.
00:33:25
Speaker
And he has to admit that that is true.
00:33:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:28
Speaker
Which is which, you know what?
00:33:30
Speaker
Fair enough.
00:33:30
Speaker
Fair enough.
00:33:31
Speaker
You know, good for him.
00:33:32
Speaker
Good for him.
00:33:34
Speaker
Uh, so we basically, it comes down to a vote in a way.
00:33:39
Speaker
And John ends up being the only person who's holding back, uh, on wanting to do this, but everyone seems to be okay.
00:33:47
Speaker
What choice do we have at this point?
00:33:50
Speaker
And I at first I was kind of like weirded out by this because it's like, OK, this mysterious man shows up on your plane randomly and tells you you can do this instead.
00:33:59
Speaker
This is what your option option is.
00:34:02
Speaker
And they just kind of go, yeah, OK, fine.
00:34:04
Speaker
But you've got to figure at this point their lives are so fucked with like.
00:34:09
Speaker
you know, clandestine meetings and forces fighting against them, all that shit that they were just like, yeah, it fine.
00:34:17
Speaker
It couldn't possibly be.
00:34:18
Speaker
We'll go to Utah instead of Austria.
00:34:23
Speaker
I wasn't looking forward to beer anyway.
00:34:26
Speaker
I didn't want to go to one of the greatest places in Europe for beer and wine.
00:34:32
Speaker
And I didn't want to go there anyway.
00:34:34
Speaker
I wanted to go to a place where it's going to be hard to find a beer that's 2% alcohol.
00:34:39
Speaker
That seems fine.
00:34:41
Speaker
That sounds great.
00:34:46
Speaker
Hooray.
00:34:47
Speaker
Hooray.
00:34:48
Speaker
I didn't want to go and hang out in this beautiful Alpine country.
00:34:53
Speaker
I wanted to, I want to go to the desert, the goddamn where, where the biggest, most beautiful lake there is filled with salt.
00:34:59
Speaker
Sign me up.
00:35:01
Speaker
It's filled with salt.
00:35:03
Speaker
It's just salt.
00:35:05
Speaker
I'm, I'm super into it.
00:35:07
Speaker
That sounds great.
00:35:08
Speaker
Um,
00:35:10
Speaker
So they basically over this chapter, we get John calmed down nice and good.
00:35:16
Speaker
Calms down.
00:35:17
Speaker
The big galoot and basically confirm we're going to Utah.
00:35:26
Speaker
With all the enthusiasm of someone going to Utah.
00:35:29
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:35:30
Speaker
Including the early Mormons who had to do it or otherwise they'd get killed.
00:35:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:35
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:35:37
Speaker
Trent gives them some secret passcodes also.
00:35:41
Speaker
Yes.
00:35:41
Speaker
Yes.
00:35:42
Speaker
Several.
00:35:43
Speaker
One of these will work.
00:35:46
Speaker
And it's just like, it just reminds me of like a copy protection on an old video game.
00:35:54
Speaker
Yes.
00:35:55
Speaker
Yes.
00:35:55
Speaker
Yes.
00:35:57
Speaker
Where you've got the instruction manual and you kids don't know the insane shit you had to do because you'd be playing the game.
00:36:06
Speaker
It would let you play for about, you know, the first level or two.
00:36:10
Speaker
Depends on the game.
00:36:11
Speaker
And then it would.
00:36:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:12
Speaker
Something would pop up.
00:36:14
Speaker
And it was always different in every game.
00:36:17
Speaker
The one I remember the most is Maniac Mansion, but not the NES version.
00:36:22
Speaker
I'm talking about the one for, well, whatever version you had on the PC.
00:36:28
Speaker
You had your Commodore 64 version.
00:36:31
Speaker
You had your, you know, whatever.
00:36:34
Speaker
Anyway, so you had your version of Maniac Mansion and you would go upstairs and on the second floor, there was a door.
00:36:41
Speaker
It was this big old blast door with a keypad on it.
00:36:44
Speaker
And in order to get the code for the keypad, you had to refer to the instruction manual for the code.
00:36:52
Speaker
And the code would change randomly based on your playthrough.
00:36:57
Speaker
And so it would generate, like, you got to pick, it's got to be one of these.
00:37:02
Speaker
And then you would go and be like, okay.
00:37:04
Speaker
And then, okay, here's the code.
00:37:06
Speaker
Now, some games got even cuter with it where it would be like, um...
00:37:12
Speaker
Be like, oh, you see this symbol on the wall and that was the copy protection.
00:37:16
Speaker
And then you had like a little a little paper dial thing and you would dial in the symbol and it would line up to a number and then you would put that number in somewhere and be like, you're good to play.
00:37:27
Speaker
Now in Maniac Mansion, if you got the thing wrong three times.
00:37:32
Speaker
It triggered a nuclear meltdown in the nuclear reactor below the mansion and ended your game.
00:37:42
Speaker
So you could do whatever you wanted on the first floor and basement.
00:37:46
Speaker
It was when you wanted to get into the second floor, you had to put in the copy protection.
00:37:51
Speaker
Otherwise, you were done-zo.
00:37:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:56
Speaker
Having an instruction manual mattered back then.
00:37:59
Speaker
Having the instruction manual mattered.
00:38:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:02
Speaker
And yeah.
00:38:03
Speaker
So, you know, copy protection.
00:38:07
Speaker
It was a thing.
00:38:08
Speaker
It was better in the day.
00:38:11
Speaker
Fighting cheaters and hackers was just better in the day because you could work it into the game.
00:38:17
Speaker
It was working in the game.
00:38:18
Speaker
And now it got very frustrating.
00:38:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:21
Speaker
But now in the what is it?
00:38:23
Speaker
The version of like Maniac Mansion that you get on good old games or whatever, the copy protection has been disabled.
00:38:30
Speaker
Like that door is just open.
00:38:33
Speaker
Like, yeah, you don't have to enter in anything.
00:38:37
Speaker
And then you've got ones like King's Quest six.
00:38:41
Speaker
I want to say it is that has a similar thing where you're climbing a wall and there are these rooms that appear.
00:38:48
Speaker
And the only way to know which room you need to hit is to get the instruction manual.
00:38:54
Speaker
And they just left it in.
00:38:56
Speaker
And so you've just it's just assume that it's like you've got the Internet and you'll be able to look this up.
00:39:01
Speaker
But it's the only way to get past that.
00:39:03
Speaker
Right.
00:39:04
Speaker
Sometimes they don't even do have the consideration of leaving the door open is my point.
00:39:09
Speaker
Anyway, Trent.
00:39:11
Speaker
Trent.
00:39:12
Speaker
Trent is.
00:39:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:14
Speaker
Trent gives him some codes.
00:39:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:15
Speaker
Just he says, I tried to narrow it down.
00:39:19
Speaker
I did my best.
00:39:21
Speaker
You're lucky you got this.
00:39:22
Speaker
Good guy.
00:39:23
Speaker
Which is good guy.
00:39:24
Speaker
Trent.
00:39:25
Speaker
We come to chapter five, chapter five.
00:39:27
Speaker
And we've got Jay Reston.
00:39:31
Speaker
A corporate lover of umbrella.
00:39:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:36
Speaker
We basically get a walkthrough of Jay's day.
00:39:39
Speaker
He is actually kind of a hilarious character because he is this typical white collar proto tech bro.
00:39:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:50
Speaker
And he's been given a control of this particular white umbrella is what they call it.
00:39:56
Speaker
White umbrella facility out in the middle of nowhere.
00:39:59
Speaker
Not the most glamorous job, but it's like, by God, I'm going to do it really, really well.
00:40:04
Speaker
I'm going to ship them Tiffany cufflinks and then they'll they'll make me one of the head honchos around here.
00:40:10
Speaker
He's that guy.
00:40:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:12
Speaker
And we get a little walkthrough of his his day.
00:40:15
Speaker
Just imagine him played.
00:40:18
Speaker
by, just imagine him played by Tom Pelfrey.
00:40:24
Speaker
And did you see a man in full?
00:40:29
Speaker
No.
00:40:29
Speaker
Okay.
00:40:30
Speaker
So just, oh yeah, that's good casting.
00:40:33
Speaker
Yes, that's good casting.
00:40:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:35
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:40:36
Speaker
Tom Pelfrey, especially in his character in A Man in Full, just this like little, you know, shit heel dude who was just kind of like, I'm I'm I'm the hot shit.
00:40:51
Speaker
But also paranoid about the others.
00:40:54
Speaker
Yes.
00:40:55
Speaker
Yes.
00:40:55
Speaker
That's yes.
00:40:56
Speaker
That's exactly it.
00:40:57
Speaker
Very succession vibes, you know?
00:40:59
Speaker
Yes.
00:40:59
Speaker
But with less power.
00:41:01
Speaker
But with less power.
00:41:04
Speaker
So he's running this place.
00:41:05
Speaker
We get kind of a it's a quick chapter.
00:41:07
Speaker
We get a look at we get basically a lowdown on we get a lot of esoterica of like they've been moving.
00:41:15
Speaker
the subjects.
00:41:17
Speaker
Basically, you're given enough information to know that it is a fully operational umbrella facility that is probably filled with Zambos.
00:41:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:26
Speaker
Sick.
00:41:27
Speaker
Awesome.
00:41:27
Speaker
This fully operational zombie facility.
00:41:34
Speaker
I think you'll find it quite functional.
00:41:37
Speaker
I think you'll find it quite functional.
00:41:39
Speaker
No, we don't talk enough about what's his name.
00:41:44
Speaker
The guy who plays the emperor.
00:41:45
Speaker
Fucking for eight.
00:41:50
Speaker
He was in all of the movies except two of them.
00:41:54
Speaker
Goddamn, just brought it every time.
00:41:56
Speaker
You know?
00:41:57
Speaker
I think because they use his character so badly, most recently people are quick to, and, and, and, and also the clone wars and stuff.
00:42:06
Speaker
It's like, look, yeah, those, you know, those, the prequels, sorry, are not good movies, but he knows exactly what movie he's in.
00:42:15
Speaker
He might be one of the only people who does.
00:42:19
Speaker
He knows exactly what he's doing.
00:42:20
Speaker
At all times.
00:42:21
Speaker
Ian McDermott.
00:42:22
Speaker
Oh, man.
00:42:23
Speaker
He always knows what movie he's in.
00:42:27
Speaker
I was watching a thing on Hellraiser recently, and one of the directions that Clive Barker gave to the guy who played Pinhead was the guy who played Pinhead.
00:42:42
Speaker
I'm already getting yelled at by...
00:42:46
Speaker
I'm a huge fan of Hellraiser.
00:42:48
Speaker
I don't have his name.
00:42:49
Speaker
I feel like Pim is screaming at me somewhere.
00:42:52
Speaker
Oh, Pim is pissed.
00:42:55
Speaker
Sorry.
00:42:58
Speaker
The guy who played Pinhead.
00:43:01
Speaker
Fuck.
00:43:01
Speaker
Doug Bradley.
00:43:03
Speaker
Doug Bradley.
00:43:04
Speaker
Jesus Christ.
00:43:05
Speaker
Anyway, Clive Barker was always telling Doug Bradley less, less, like do like do less.
00:43:13
Speaker
Bring it down.
00:43:13
Speaker
Bring it down.
00:43:14
Speaker
Bring it down.
00:43:14
Speaker
Yeah, because he just wanted this character.
00:43:17
Speaker
And I feel like Ian McDiarmid is the exact person
00:43:22
Speaker
opposite of that.
00:43:23
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:43:24
Speaker
Like, no more.
00:43:25
Speaker
Nope.
00:43:25
Speaker
You know, this take even more.
00:43:26
Speaker
This take do even more.
00:43:31
Speaker
And it's so good.
00:43:33
Speaker
He is taking bites out of the scenery that you could not feel with spackle.
00:43:37
Speaker
It is just crazy.
00:43:40
Speaker
You got to replace that drywall.
00:43:41
Speaker
You got to get a whole new sheet of drywall.
00:43:44
Speaker
A whole new sheet of drywall.
00:43:45
Speaker
Because what happened?
00:43:47
Speaker
Ian McDermott was playing the emperor in here.
00:43:49
Speaker
Oh, fuck.
00:43:49
Speaker
Okay.
00:43:50
Speaker
Oh, fuck.
00:43:50
Speaker
And that's what we're missing from Dune 2 is that you cast Christopher.
00:43:57
Speaker
Listen, Denny.
00:44:00
Speaker
Listen to me, Denny.
00:44:01
Speaker
You cast Christopher Walken as the emperor, and then you have Christopher Walken turn in a really understated performance.
00:44:09
Speaker
What are you doing, buddy?
00:44:10
Speaker
Who are you?
00:44:12
Speaker
What are you thinking?
00:44:13
Speaker
You're like, I'm going to pick the loudest tool off the shelf, but then I'm going to muffle it.
00:44:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:18
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:44:19
Speaker
Anyway, it doesn't make sense.
00:44:21
Speaker
So.
00:44:23
Speaker
Reston.
00:44:25
Speaker
So Reston, the most interesting we get, we get like, we get, we get to know him.
00:44:30
Speaker
He is our, he's our big bad kind of he's our, he's our, he's our weakling big bad, you know, the, the, the corporate guy behind all the bullshit.
00:44:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:38
Speaker
Yeah, the corpo.
00:44:40
Speaker
And the most interesting thing that comes out of this chapter is he's talking about the circle, like the inner circle that runs Umbrella, basically.
00:44:48
Speaker
And he mentions Trent and he and he kind of fanboys over him a little.
00:44:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:54
Speaker
He like really likes him.
00:44:56
Speaker
He's like, oh, I really want to make sure that Trent's happy with this.
00:44:58
Speaker
Like, so it gives you a glimpse into what kind of 4D chess here our dear friend Trent is playing.
00:45:06
Speaker
And the fact that not only is he a part of this, he's like at least well-respected and well-regarded because this guy is a shrimp and he wants to climb his way up the ladder.
00:45:14
Speaker
So he's not going to bother with anyone he doesn't think can help him.
00:45:18
Speaker
And Trent's basically who he talks about specifically.
00:45:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:22
Speaker
Uh, so that, that I think is very interesting.
00:45:24
Speaker
We get, we get another layer of the onion peel back there.
00:45:28
Speaker
Uh, we cut to chapter six where we've got the team.
00:45:31
Speaker
Uh, they, they literally, after they agreed to doing this, uh, I believe they said something like, well, we've got, we've got six hours.
00:45:40
Speaker
Uh, so let's get a nap in and all that shit.
00:45:42
Speaker
So it is six hours later.
00:45:45
Speaker
They are in the middle of the desert in Utah in the freezing cold.
00:45:50
Speaker
Uh,
00:45:51
Speaker
it sucks.
00:45:52
Speaker
It just like, I was actually really impressed when I read that.
00:45:55
Speaker
I was like, this sounds like the worst.
00:45:57
Speaker
Like it's actually very good writing for the situation.
00:46:01
Speaker
So it doesn't look like much where they're going to, it kind of, if you've ever, I don't know if she did this on purpose, but if you've ever actually seen pictures of area 51, uh,
00:46:13
Speaker
out in the desert.
00:46:15
Speaker
It's at least like old ones that they used to show.
00:46:19
Speaker
I don't know if it's changed since then or what, but they're, they're kind of underwhelming.
00:46:22
Speaker
It's just in the middle of the desert.
00:46:26
Speaker
Some buildings, you know, it's, it's, it's, yeah.
00:46:29
Speaker
And that's basically how this is described.
00:46:32
Speaker
So they are, they actually very easily make their way up there.
00:46:38
Speaker
They, they jump, they jump a fence.
00:46:44
Speaker
There really isn't much.
00:46:44
Speaker
I kept waiting for- They don't even have to Naruto run?
00:46:48
Speaker
No, no.
00:46:48
Speaker
They don't even try.
00:46:51
Speaker
It's wild.
00:46:52
Speaker
There's no need.
00:46:52
Speaker
It's wild.
00:46:52
Speaker
It's crazy.
00:46:53
Speaker
So they make their way into the facility and they have to find quickly where is this code going to be?
00:47:02
Speaker
And this is a random detail that I picked up on, but I really liked it.
00:47:06
Speaker
They talked about how-
00:47:08
Speaker
in deciding where they want to go, if it was anybody else, they would have looked for some very cleverly hidden...
00:47:16
Speaker
thing like like for for the for the keypad, basically.
00:47:19
Speaker
Right.
00:47:20
Speaker
You know, some something that, you know, you type it into a trash can and an elevator pops out of the dirt and everything like that.
00:47:27
Speaker
But they point out that Umbrella is an arrogant enough company that it's probably going to be way more obvious than you think.
00:47:35
Speaker
It's going to be by the door.
00:47:37
Speaker
It's and it is and it is.
00:47:38
Speaker
It's it's.
00:47:41
Speaker
It's by the door.
00:47:42
Speaker
And so they get started.
00:47:45
Speaker
They start trying out the different codes on there.
00:47:48
Speaker
And David...
00:47:51
Speaker
He's got his list.
00:47:52
Speaker
He has, well, he doesn't have the list.
00:47:53
Speaker
He has memorized all of the codes.
00:47:56
Speaker
All 11 of them.
00:47:58
Speaker
Sheesh.
00:47:59
Speaker
Better him than me.
00:48:00
Speaker
That's just, that's, that's a lot.
Antagonist Insights and Thriller Elements
00:48:04
Speaker
So we cut to Reston who it's, he's up late having a glass of brandy.
00:48:10
Speaker
This guy is the, the, the quintessential if I'm conscious, I'm working kind of a dude.
00:48:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:17
Speaker
He's at least having a drink.
00:48:19
Speaker
But he is hanging out and he gets like a sensor alarm goes off and he says, oh, fuck the sensor alarms.
00:48:28
Speaker
They keep going off because of like high winds that happen over there.
00:48:34
Speaker
And we need to get that taken care of.
00:48:35
Speaker
So you start to think we're going to have like, oh, that's just another.
00:48:41
Speaker
Another get away with it.
00:48:42
Speaker
You know, basically they sneak past based on the incompetence.
00:48:45
Speaker
But he takes a look in the camera and very clearly sees this team like their cameras must be amazing.
00:48:52
Speaker
Well, and what's funny is the cameras had just come online.
00:48:57
Speaker
Yes.
00:48:58
Speaker
Had they been any earlier?
00:49:01
Speaker
He would not have seen them because the technician was having issues with the camera wiring up until right before they show up.
00:49:10
Speaker
Right, right.
00:49:13
Speaker
It's ridiculous.
00:49:14
Speaker
So there, yeah.
00:49:16
Speaker
But we get into chapter seven and...
00:49:21
Speaker
He's watching them and, you know, alerting, alert, alert the guards and, and the dogs and the bees and the dogs with bees in their mouth so that when they bite, they bark at you.
00:49:33
Speaker
Bees sting.
00:49:34
Speaker
Bees at you.
00:49:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:36
Speaker
All that good stuff.
00:49:37
Speaker
Colonel.
00:49:37
Speaker
Colonel.
00:49:39
Speaker
See, I'm not doing it.
00:49:40
Speaker
I'm not.
00:49:40
Speaker
I couldn't do it during.
00:49:41
Speaker
I couldn't do it during Metal Gear Solid.
00:49:43
Speaker
But now that we're out of Metal Gear Solid, you're back.
00:49:47
Speaker
Back, baby.
00:49:48
Speaker
Colonel.
00:49:50
Speaker
The clap of my ass cheeks is alerting the dogs bees in their mouth.
00:49:58
Speaker
I love it.
00:49:59
Speaker
I love it.
00:50:00
Speaker
The dogs are biting.
00:50:02
Speaker
Bees are stinging my ass cheeks.
00:50:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:09
Speaker
Oh, I wish.
00:50:09
Speaker
Now that's a crossover whose day has come.
00:50:13
Speaker
I can tell you.
00:50:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:14
Speaker
I mean, Capcom, Konami, get it together.
00:50:18
Speaker
Come on, people.
00:50:19
Speaker
It's got priorities, right?
00:50:21
Speaker
You two are the OG third party Japanese development companies.
00:50:26
Speaker
You got to.
00:50:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:28
Speaker
Come on.
00:50:28
Speaker
Konami put down the pachinko machines for one goddamn second.
00:50:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:33
Speaker
For one, one fucking second, please.
00:50:36
Speaker
You did it long enough to give us some, some contra shit in, in, in vampire survivors.
00:50:41
Speaker
And thank you.
00:50:42
Speaker
But, but come on, come on.
00:50:47
Speaker
So chapter seven basically amounts to, again, a very well-written back and forth kind of chase scene, basically where our Scooby gang, that's who they are from now on out.
00:51:00
Speaker
Let's just, let's just face that.
00:51:01
Speaker
Scoob and the gang.
00:51:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:02
Speaker
Scoob and the gang, they are aware that they have been found.
00:51:05
Speaker
They are racing to get the right code in to avoid further detection and to infiltrate the facilities while Reston, through sheer incompetence, is unable to find the fucking keys that he needs.
00:51:22
Speaker
He can't find the keys.
00:51:24
Speaker
They just it's literally him going, wait, where did I put those keys?
00:51:29
Speaker
I really enjoy Reston so far as a villain.
00:51:34
Speaker
Oh, I do too.
00:51:35
Speaker
He is straight corpo.
00:51:38
Speaker
He is not.
00:51:39
Speaker
He's not Patrick Bateman.
00:51:41
Speaker
He's one of Patrick Bateman's friends.
00:51:43
Speaker
Yes.
00:51:44
Speaker
Yes.
00:51:46
Speaker
And not even one of the more interesting ones.
00:51:47
Speaker
He's not Paul Allen.
00:51:50
Speaker
He's not even, he's not interesting enough to be killed like Paul Allen.
00:51:54
Speaker
He's, um, he's the guy who says, uh, uh, when did you become such a tasteful son of a bitch?
00:52:01
Speaker
Uh, there you go.
00:52:02
Speaker
There you go.
00:52:03
Speaker
Justin Theroux.
00:52:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:04
Speaker
Justin Theroux.
00:52:05
Speaker
Yes.
00:52:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:06
Speaker
That's perfect.
00:52:06
Speaker
Who is so well cast for that.
00:52:08
Speaker
Just, just a great hoity toity bullshit artist kind of guy.
00:52:12
Speaker
Uh, I like that guy.
00:52:14
Speaker
Uh, so, uh,
00:52:16
Speaker
You're going back and forth as they make their way into the facilities up to the elevator.
00:52:22
Speaker
And he tries to and rest and tries to remember where they leave my keys, which is just it shouldn't work, but it really does.
00:52:30
Speaker
It really works.
00:52:32
Speaker
And finally, they get to the elevator that's going to take them down into the main facility.
00:52:38
Speaker
Leon and John hop onto the elevator.
00:52:40
Speaker
Everyone else is going for it.
00:52:42
Speaker
And that is when Reston has the keys and gets the manual override and the elevator doors slam shut.
00:52:49
Speaker
cutting our team in half, not literally, figuratively.
00:52:54
Speaker
I realize now that with Resident Evil, that absolutely could be a literal thing that happened.
00:52:59
Speaker
So I have to be clear.
00:53:01
Speaker
And it ends with a lovely note.
00:53:04
Speaker
As Leon and John realize where they are and what's happened, manual override, he said.
00:53:10
Speaker
And stood up looking at the young cop, not sure what to say.
00:53:13
Speaker
Their simple plan had just been totally screwed.
00:53:16
Speaker
Shit, Leon said.
00:53:17
Speaker
And John nodded, thinking he'd summed it up perfectly.
00:53:22
Speaker
And that's as far as we're going to get.
00:53:24
Speaker
That was just a... How can you not end it on that note?
00:53:31
Speaker
I love it.
00:53:32
Speaker
So, Kevin, what do you think so far of Resident Evil Underworld?
00:53:35
Speaker
It's fun.
00:53:36
Speaker
It's like, I think what S.D.
00:53:39
Speaker
Perry does very well in the non-game books is...
00:53:46
Speaker
she really slims them down to, in terms of like the action, the beats that need to happen.
00:53:55
Speaker
Whereas the games can afford to be a little bit more convoluted.
00:53:59
Speaker
And she usually does a pretty good job of,
00:54:01
Speaker
of trimming the games down into something that is more coherent in terms of a beat by beat story.
00:54:10
Speaker
When she's on her own with these characters, they're even tighter, which is something I've noticed with both Caliban Cove and Underworld so far.
00:54:19
Speaker
And Underworld has like, whereas, you know, you have Wesker and you have these villains in the games that are extremely, uh,
00:54:31
Speaker
like over-the-top cartoonish.
00:54:35
Speaker
In Underworld so far, you have this guy, this corpo...
00:54:42
Speaker
kind of duncy guy, William Reston, who's the reason he's dangerous is because he just his only goal is to climb the ladder.
00:54:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:52
Speaker
And it's like he'll probably do whatever it takes to make that happen.
00:54:57
Speaker
He doesn't have really much else going on for him.
00:55:00
Speaker
No, clearly not.
00:55:01
Speaker
It's the middle of the night and he's having a glass of brandy and watching the security cams.
00:55:07
Speaker
Dude doesn't have a girlfriend.
00:55:08
Speaker
Let's just point.
00:55:09
Speaker
Everybody else is asleep.
00:55:10
Speaker
Um, so yeah, that's, it's, it's, uh, I'm enjoying it so
S.D. Perry's Narrative Craftsmanship
00:55:16
Speaker
far.
00:55:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:17
Speaker
I, I couldn't agree more.
00:55:18
Speaker
I think, uh, SD Perry's, uh, one of her biggest strengths in writing these is, is, has always been the ability to know, as you pointed out what to include and what not to include.
00:55:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:29
Speaker
How to slim it down, how to streamline it.
00:55:32
Speaker
And I couldn't agree more when she when she gets the opportunity to just go.
00:55:40
Speaker
It's so much fun.
00:55:41
Speaker
So I'm.
00:55:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:42
Speaker
Which is the thing that and that's the thing that I think held up the Metal Gear Solid book so much is it's like almost everything was included.
00:55:55
Speaker
Yes.
00:55:56
Speaker
Yes.
00:55:56
Speaker
Even something from the original game,
00:56:00
Speaker
that it was added in, I think, the remaster, Twin Snakes, was included, which is Meryl having a bomb strapped to her.
00:56:13
Speaker
It wasn't in the original game.
00:56:14
Speaker
It was in the remaster.
00:56:16
Speaker
So it was even more stuff that, you know... So I think that's something that... Didn't mean to be there.
00:56:24
Speaker
Yeah, right.
00:56:25
Speaker
So I think that's something that S.D.
00:56:27
Speaker
Perry has...
00:56:29
Speaker
um kind of does well in her uh in her stories and that's the thing is like she's she's not like overwhelming us with like like literate like with the literary prose she is just doing a damn fine job yeah um which i appreciate you know i do too it's it's fast-paced you know kevin did point out uh
00:56:58
Speaker
as he was reading it, how, how just that opening shot is so much better than any of the action sequences we got.
00:57:04
Speaker
And, and I made some off the hand comment about like, yeah, she doesn't give us art, but you know, but it's, it's great.
00:57:11
Speaker
And Kevin was like, I don't fuck art.
00:57:12
Speaker
I, this is, this is fun.
00:57:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:15
Speaker
And I was like, yeah, that's absolutely right.
00:57:17
Speaker
This is, she writes fun, fun stuff.
00:57:19
Speaker
And that's, I, I, I always like coming back to her with these.
00:57:24
Speaker
There's a reason we started with her.
00:57:26
Speaker
There's a reason that this, this show, um,
00:57:28
Speaker
will continue to uh i i mean theoretically we could read all seven over the course of seven years so right um
00:57:37
Speaker
Anyway, now that that's- We'll get there.
00:57:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:40
Speaker
Oh, gosh, yeah.
00:57:41
Speaker
What else are we going to do?
00:57:43
Speaker
What do you got plans for?
00:57:45
Speaker
I keep having dreams about us doing this as a job.
00:57:49
Speaker
Like, literally, I woke up- Literal dreams.
00:57:52
Speaker
Literal dreams.
00:57:52
Speaker
It was like, oh, it was weird.
00:57:53
Speaker
We had this cool studio that we're doing this in.
00:57:55
Speaker
So, it's- I'm prophesying.
00:57:59
Speaker
Is that the word?
00:57:59
Speaker
Prophesying this into the future.
00:58:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:03
Speaker
But now that that's all done-
00:58:06
Speaker
Let's talk a little bit about the things that are important, the things that matter, the things that people actually came here to listen to.
00:58:11
Speaker
Kevin, what are you playing?
00:58:13
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:58:15
Speaker
What am I playing?
00:58:16
Speaker
All right.
00:58:17
Speaker
Well, you know, I'll start with Nine Souls.
00:58:23
Speaker
So Nine Souls is the game that was made by the...
00:58:31
Speaker
What was, what's their, what's their, their red candle games.
00:58:37
Speaker
Their detention and devotion.
00:58:41
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:58:42
Speaker
That's their, their stuff.
00:58:44
Speaker
Nine souls is a Metroidvania, which is interesting in that it's not their,
00:58:55
Speaker
It's not their bread and butter.
00:58:58
Speaker
And it's got a really interesting, I would say unique story
00:59:06
Speaker
You're playing as this fox character, this fox dude who in the opening cut scene is killed by someone who looks similar.
00:59:19
Speaker
And then he falls into a pit and gets sucked into this wall with these like tentacles and then is spit back out like a year later, fully healed.
00:59:32
Speaker
And he then spends the next few years living with
00:59:35
Speaker
a human village and these humans, they do this ritual sacrifice every couple of years where they bring somebody to this platform and a thing comes down and grabs their head and twists it off and the body like falls down a chute.
01:00:01
Speaker
So
01:00:02
Speaker
you're this dude and you're just kind of sitting there and you watch one human do it and watch the second human do it.
01:00:08
Speaker
And then you, the boy that found you after you were spit out of the wall, he goes up to do it, to, to sac, to join his family or whatever.
01:00:19
Speaker
And right before it happens, you like do a jump dash and you break the machine, which causes the door to open and you jump down revealing an entire,
01:00:32
Speaker
like hidden secrets, high technology base.
01:00:38
Speaker
Like the humans are low technology, like low tech humans, you know, they believe in these ritual sacrifices and stuff like that.
01:00:45
Speaker
And then you go down and it's like, oh, shit.
01:00:48
Speaker
So underneath the human village is a super high tech stuff.
01:00:52
Speaker
It it's really fascinating.
01:00:55
Speaker
It's got kind of a neat story so far.
01:00:59
Speaker
That being said, I don't think I'm going to keep playing it.
01:01:02
Speaker
Because for a Metroidvania to really hook me,
01:01:08
Speaker
It's got to have a fluidness and a good feeling to the combat that I'm just not finding here.
01:01:18
Speaker
The combat is just one degree too difficult for me.
01:01:22
Speaker
I think there might be a difficulty- I keep seeing comparisons to Sekiro.
01:01:26
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:26
Speaker
There's a lot of, you gotta hit the, it's a lot about hitting the parry window because if you can parry something, then you're, you leave the enemy open for,
01:01:38
Speaker
this attack where you like slide through them and stick a explosive on them and like that's interesting cause them to explode um and it's you know it's surprisingly gory for the art style uh but then knowing that they are the who they are the red candle games with their horror background it's not that surprising
01:02:07
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:07
Speaker
That context actually makes a lot of sense.
01:02:09
Speaker
Makes a lot more sense.
01:02:10
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:11
Speaker
So nine souls is beautiful, beautiful looking game.
01:02:16
Speaker
I'm just not sure it's my thing.
01:02:21
Speaker
Maybe I'll come back to it.
01:02:22
Speaker
Um,
01:02:26
Speaker
I started playing Children of the Sun, which you purchased for me for my birthday.
01:02:32
Speaker
Happy birthday.
01:02:33
Speaker
Very fascinating game.
01:02:35
Speaker
You talked a lot about it last week, but yeah, it's kind of cool.
01:02:38
Speaker
You know, it's a puzzle game with headshots.
01:02:43
Speaker
Right.
01:02:44
Speaker
Right.
01:02:44
Speaker
It's genuinely unique.
01:02:46
Speaker
Like, it's like, what is this?
01:02:49
Speaker
It's fascinating.
01:02:50
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:52
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:52
Speaker
I'm back on my bullshit with Power Wash Simulator.
01:02:55
Speaker
Naturally.
01:02:56
Speaker
Naturally, because I have the Final Fantasy VII expansion pack.
01:03:03
Speaker
So, you know, I'm cleaning up the... Right now, I'm cleaning up the bar for Tifa.
01:03:09
Speaker
She asked me to clean the bar, so... Wow.
01:03:12
Speaker
I mean, Tifa said that.
01:03:14
Speaker
If Tifa asks, you know... Yeah.
01:03:19
Speaker
What else have I played recently?
01:03:22
Speaker
1000x Resist.
01:03:24
Speaker
Okay.
01:03:25
Speaker
I've only played it for a half hour.
01:03:27
Speaker
I have no clue what's going on, but I'm going to keep playing...
01:03:32
Speaker
Donut.
01:03:32
Speaker
I don't.
01:03:33
Speaker
I have no, I don't understand it.
01:03:35
Speaker
I don't know what's happening, but I'm going to keep playing because it's, it's weird.
01:03:44
Speaker
And it's really weird.
01:03:47
Speaker
And I don't know what I'm doing in it, but sure.
01:03:54
Speaker
Um,
01:03:55
Speaker
And then the final thing I'll mention I just started playing today was the first episode of the Alan Wake DLC called Welcome to Night Springs, the Alan Wake 2 DLC.
01:04:17
Speaker
Okay.
01:04:17
Speaker
Okay.
01:04:18
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:19
Speaker
So there's three characters in which you are playing.
01:04:25
Speaker
with which you are playing through the course of the DLC.
01:04:27
Speaker
The first one up is the waitress.
01:04:30
Speaker
I forget her name, but the one who's obsessed with Alan Wake as the writer.
01:04:36
Speaker
The second character, the other two characters are Officer Tim Breaker, who is played by Sean Ashmore.
01:04:43
Speaker
There's actually a
01:04:44
Speaker
a fourth wall breaking moment in the trailer for the Welcome to Night Springs where the character model for Sean Ashmore is like standing in front of a green screen doing something and then it cuts to what's his name Sam Lake standing off camera and he says that'll do Sean
01:05:08
Speaker
It's fun.
01:05:08
Speaker
I like that.
01:05:08
Speaker
Because Sean Ashmore plays Tim Breaker.
01:05:11
Speaker
And then the other person that is in it is Jesse Faden, who is the main character from Control.
01:05:19
Speaker
Okay.
01:05:20
Speaker
Okay.
01:05:20
Speaker
So they're really tying that up.
01:05:23
Speaker
Yeah, they're tying those two things together.
01:05:27
Speaker
Nice.
01:05:27
Speaker
So, yeah, I'm jumping back into it, and I might do the new game plus of Alan Wake 2, which apparently...
01:05:35
Speaker
There's a bunch of things in the story that change a little bit on New Game Plus, from what I understand.
01:05:42
Speaker
So that's what I've been playing.
01:05:44
Speaker
Phil, what are you playing?
Gaming Discussions: 40K Tacticus and Indie Highlights
01:05:48
Speaker
First and foremost, on my phone, I've been playing a lot of 40K tacticus.
01:05:52
Speaker
OK, which is your standard issue, free to play kind of strategy fight, unlock characters thing is just in the 40K universe.
01:06:05
Speaker
If it was any other universe, I wouldn't give two shits.
01:06:09
Speaker
But I've got a space.
01:06:11
Speaker
I've got you start out with an ultramarines army and slowly build up an Echaron and all that stuff.
01:06:16
Speaker
And they've got
01:06:17
Speaker
different abilities and you can upgrade them in all the same ways you've done before.
01:06:21
Speaker
And I will say when I when it first came out, I was intrigued, but I didn't go with it.
01:06:28
Speaker
It was it was brand new and there were only like three squads you could unlock.
01:06:33
Speaker
And in the time since they have added a whole lot of stuff.
01:06:37
Speaker
And unfortunately, that also makes it kind of tough to get into.
01:06:40
Speaker
It's kind of a damn if you do, damn if you don't sort of situation.
01:06:44
Speaker
But it's clean, it's pretty, it's easy to play.
01:06:49
Speaker
And if you're into 40K, it's not a bad way to while away a little time.
01:06:52
Speaker
Sure.
01:06:54
Speaker
I got back on my bullshit in playing weird ass goddamn games with Arctic eggs.
01:07:03
Speaker
Oh, I've heard about this.
01:07:04
Speaker
This fucking weird ass game puts you in it.
01:07:11
Speaker
First off, it's got this kind of just PS1 style graphics.
01:07:15
Speaker
But at the same time, the models are all kind of like bloating and shrinking.
01:07:23
Speaker
I don't know if it's meant to be breathing, but it's happening in their heads and their faces and everything is very
01:07:30
Speaker
unnerving and strange.
01:07:32
Speaker
And it's this dystopian future where you are in an Arctic refugee camp is the only thing I can tell.
01:07:41
Speaker
And you have a frying pan and people are hungry and they have ingredients and
01:07:48
Speaker
You go from person to person and basically take their ingredients.
01:07:51
Speaker
And it's a simple interface of using a frying pan, using it in a certain way to actually fry and then flipping and getting their food order correct.
01:08:04
Speaker
And this goes from anything from it starts with an egg, as the name Arctic egg suggests.
01:08:10
Speaker
And that's one of the easier things.
01:08:11
Speaker
And you can get people ask for bacon and then people start throwing in things like cigarettes.
01:08:18
Speaker
And the cigarette will essentially act as a timer.
01:08:20
Speaker
You have to have it finished before it burns down to the butt.
01:08:24
Speaker
But they talk about how they love the way that the cigarette flavors the food.
01:08:27
Speaker
And then you get to things like blowfish, which bounce way too hard.
01:08:32
Speaker
And if you're
01:08:34
Speaker
too if you're not gentle enough, they will fly off the pan.
01:08:36
Speaker
You have to start all over.
01:08:37
Speaker
It's very frustrating and beer.
01:08:41
Speaker
And like you have to the only thing is the beer can fall over.
01:08:44
Speaker
You just have to keep all the liquid in the pan while you cook the other shit.
01:08:48
Speaker
And it's just all of these random things.
01:08:50
Speaker
But it's a very, very simple.
01:08:54
Speaker
The mechanics are super simple and it's pretty effective.
01:08:59
Speaker
It's it's it's it's fun.
01:09:02
Speaker
I think the world building might be full of shit.
01:09:06
Speaker
Uh, it's the things that people say, you talk to all these people, not everybody wants food from you.
01:09:14
Speaker
They just want to talk to you.
01:09:16
Speaker
And the things that people say, you keep coming back to certain things.
01:09:20
Speaker
Like, uh, they'll say, I wonder if you could fry an egg at the top of Mount Everest that keeps coming back up.
01:09:25
Speaker
Right.
01:09:25
Speaker
Um, and, uh, and people miss the point.
01:09:29
Speaker
And they'll say, well, you like one person says, I wonder if you can fry an egg on top of Mount Everest.
01:09:34
Speaker
And the other person says, well, are you just food prep?
01:09:38
Speaker
That way you've got the egg waiting for you when you're at the top of Mount Everest.
01:09:40
Speaker
And they're like, that's not my point.
01:09:41
Speaker
That's not what I'm getting at.
01:09:43
Speaker
Right.
01:09:43
Speaker
And you run into that a lot.
01:09:45
Speaker
And that's interesting.
01:09:47
Speaker
But a lot of the other stuff they say could almost be word salad to a point that I'm not sure that the author of this game isn't fucking with us.
01:10:00
Speaker
I'm not willing to go out on a limb and suggest that this means diddly squat.
01:10:05
Speaker
Sure.
01:10:07
Speaker
If somebody of larger mind than me who who still makes video essays because that's not something I really do these days.
01:10:16
Speaker
wants to get in there and prove me wrong and give me their theory on what I'm thrilled.
01:10:21
Speaker
I really should look into it more.
01:10:24
Speaker
I'd love to hear what people have to say, but I have a feeling it's meaningless.
01:10:29
Speaker
And the whole point is you got to feed everybody so you can get to the person with six stomachs is what they keep calling them.
01:10:35
Speaker
And at the top of this tower and feed that person.
01:10:37
Speaker
That's like the final level.
01:10:39
Speaker
I'm about I'm about two thirds of the way through it.
01:10:42
Speaker
It's very simple.
01:10:43
Speaker
It's
01:10:44
Speaker
unnerving and weird, but also very satisfying.
01:10:49
Speaker
So I'm enjoying it.
01:10:50
Speaker
I just I just don't happen to believe that it means anything in the same like general category of unnerving lo fi game as a buckshot roulette.
01:11:06
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
01:11:07
Speaker
I actually thought of that a lot while I was while I was playing it.
01:11:11
Speaker
Buckshot Roulette is a little more immediate.
01:11:14
Speaker
Yeah.
01:11:14
Speaker
I mean, the playing game play is a little bit straight, more straight.
01:11:17
Speaker
Sure, sure.
01:11:19
Speaker
Yeah.
01:11:20
Speaker
It's a little more quiet and and and unnerving, whereas in that sense.
01:11:28
Speaker
But yes, I think that's actually a very good comparison.
01:11:31
Speaker
And both of them are strong contenders for game of the year.
01:11:38
Speaker
It is a weird year in terms of what is the game of the year going to be?
01:11:45
Speaker
Because we're halfway through the year and I am completely unsure.
01:11:53
Speaker
I've got my list and it is a weird ass goddamn list so far.
01:11:59
Speaker
And there's no rhyme or reason to it except that, let me think, all of them are indie games.
01:12:06
Speaker
Bellatro.
01:12:07
Speaker
Bellatro.
01:12:10
Speaker
Children of the Sun's in there.
01:12:14
Speaker
Turnip Boy Robs of Banks in there.
01:12:15
Speaker
I just freaking loved that.
01:12:17
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's Turnip Boy Robs of Bank will be on my list.
01:12:21
Speaker
I love it.
01:12:24
Speaker
And actually on my list currently is the next game that I am working on right now.
01:12:29
Speaker
Indica or Indica.
01:12:30
Speaker
I don't know.
01:12:31
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah.
01:12:32
Speaker
I've heard.
01:12:33
Speaker
I heard the no clip.
01:12:35
Speaker
guys talking about that.
01:12:37
Speaker
I promised Pym specifically I would play this because it looks fascinating.
01:12:41
Speaker
And and I got to say, complete opposite end of the spectrum in terms of looks.
01:12:47
Speaker
It's gorgeous.
01:12:48
Speaker
It's a very, very beautiful game.
01:12:50
Speaker
Same end of the spectrum for Arctic eggs in terms of one of the coldest games I've ever played.
01:12:55
Speaker
It is the Russian countryside kind of thing.
01:12:58
Speaker
I don't know if they ever come out and say this is Russia.
01:13:00
Speaker
Sure.
01:13:02
Speaker
But basically the game has you playing as a nun in a kind of Eastern Orthodox Russian Orthodoxy kind of church who is not liked by any of the other nuns because you hear things and you see things and.
01:13:18
Speaker
your faith is not strong enough to weather a lot of that and they're not happy about that.
01:13:25
Speaker
So you are given this mission, this letter to take across the countryside to somebody.
01:13:30
Speaker
They're basically just trying to get rid of you.
01:13:33
Speaker
And as you're doing that,
01:13:36
Speaker
you are having these conversations within your head and with various people that you meet that talk about religion, Christianity specifically in a very frank way.
01:13:52
Speaker
It might be some of the best video game writing I've ever seen, because when I first heard that, I thought it was a horror game.
01:13:59
Speaker
And don't get me wrong, there are some really, there are parts in this that very specifically made me think of Resident Evil Village, actually.
01:14:08
Speaker
The atmosphere, and there's a wolf at some point, and you're like, Jesus.
01:14:12
Speaker
But it's not what I would, not so far anyway, what I would call a horror game.
01:14:17
Speaker
And when I found out that it was about
01:14:20
Speaker
questioning God and everything.
01:14:22
Speaker
I was like, oh, Jesus Christ.
01:14:24
Speaker
OK, great.
01:14:25
Speaker
Let's all go back to being 17 years old and arguing with, you know, our friend in homeroom.
01:14:31
Speaker
Great.
01:14:32
Speaker
But it's actually incredibly well written, very thoughtful and funny in a
01:14:40
Speaker
unnerving kind of way there is this I'm not going to give it away because it's early on and I want people to see this.
01:14:46
Speaker
Right.
01:14:47
Speaker
But there is a moment in the first I want to say half an hour, maybe 40 minutes involving a little man that my wife was there feeding our son when this happened.
01:15:00
Speaker
And I just like spluttered and like, what the?
01:15:03
Speaker
fuck is this?
01:15:04
Speaker
And I was just laughing hysterically because I didn't know what else to do.
01:15:08
Speaker
It's so strange and funny.
01:15:11
Speaker
And there's also a level of gamification within the game that I wasn't ready for.
01:15:19
Speaker
It's a very realistic game.
01:15:21
Speaker
It's gorgeous, but...
01:15:24
Speaker
It's very aware that it's a game and will give you these kind of digitized rewards.
01:15:30
Speaker
And there's an advancement system, which doesn't seem to mean anything.
01:15:35
Speaker
And it's drawing parallels between, in many ways, between the monotony of religion and leading a moral life, quote unquote, and some of the monotony of playing a game.
01:15:49
Speaker
Very early on, you're tasked with filling a bucket with water, and it's going to take eight trips back and forth and back and forth to the well.
01:16:00
Speaker
And it's really interesting and clearly has a lot to say.
01:16:04
Speaker
And I'm hoping it can keep this up, keep up this pace, because I'm very, very interested in this game.
01:16:12
Speaker
And this is if they can keep up this pace, this is a very strong contender for game of the year as far as I'm concerned.
01:16:17
Speaker
It is some of the best.
01:16:19
Speaker
I mean, no exaggeration.
01:16:20
Speaker
It's some of the best writing in a game I've ever seen.
01:16:23
Speaker
Yeah, I'm going to fire it up.
01:16:27
Speaker
It's cool.
01:16:28
Speaker
Yeah.
01:16:30
Speaker
Smaller.
01:16:31
Speaker
I'm still playing Paper Mario, Thousand Year Door.
01:16:34
Speaker
I'm still in love with it.
01:16:37
Speaker
It is going to take me months to finish because it is literally just the game that I throw on when the family is chilling out and I'll play 15, 20 minutes of it.
01:16:47
Speaker
And I know I think it's like a 30, 40 hour game, so it's going to take me a while.
01:16:52
Speaker
It's going to take a bit.
01:16:53
Speaker
But I don't mind.
01:16:54
Speaker
That's the best part about it.
01:16:55
Speaker
It's a simple enough game and a charming enough game that I'm always delighted to be able to turn it back on.
01:17:00
Speaker
Right.
01:17:01
Speaker
I love this game.
01:17:03
Speaker
And I played and finished the demo for Crypt Master.
01:17:08
Speaker
And getting that.
01:17:10
Speaker
Holy shit.
01:17:11
Speaker
I did not expect to enjoy that as much as I did.
01:17:14
Speaker
I want to get back to it because it's got a lot of it's like so...
01:17:23
Speaker
It's funny.
01:17:25
Speaker
It's funny.
01:17:26
Speaker
It's really funny.
01:17:28
Speaker
And it's also scary.
01:17:30
Speaker
And the imagery, the art direction is insane.
01:17:35
Speaker
It's black and white.
01:17:36
Speaker
And it's so detailed and gorgeous.
01:17:40
Speaker
I'm...
01:17:41
Speaker
Really impressed with it.
01:17:42
Speaker
And I thought when you were describing it to me, I thought it's a typing game.
01:17:45
Speaker
Yes.
01:17:47
Speaker
And when you were describing it to me, I thought, oh, this is going to get away from me.
01:17:52
Speaker
I can't imagine getting too far into this game.
01:17:56
Speaker
And it was one of those rare moments where the demo ended and I was so bummed out.
01:18:01
Speaker
Yeah.
01:18:02
Speaker
I was like, oh, shit.
01:18:03
Speaker
I want to.
01:18:04
Speaker
Oh, so A, B.
01:18:07
Speaker
going to play that.
01:18:09
Speaker
There's no question about it.
01:18:10
Speaker
B, please never stop making demos, game developers.
01:18:13
Speaker
Yeah.
01:18:14
Speaker
There's a very good chance.
01:18:17
Speaker
Yeah.
01:18:18
Speaker
I don't know if I would have continued on with this thing.
01:18:20
Speaker
Yeah.
01:18:21
Speaker
Just based on, you know, because I can, it's one of those things like this looks weird.
01:18:25
Speaker
I like that more weird games are out there.
01:18:27
Speaker
I might not play it.
01:18:28
Speaker
And then I got to play the first 20, 30 minutes of it.
01:18:31
Speaker
And I, I think it's lovely.
01:18:34
Speaker
I gotta say time.
01:18:35
Speaker
This is the year for weird games.
01:18:38
Speaker
I know it's such a great year.
01:18:41
Speaker
I love it.
01:18:42
Speaker
Yeah.
01:18:42
Speaker
Just the straight.
01:18:43
Speaker
I'm looking at this list of like,
01:18:46
Speaker
None of these are Sonic the Hedgehog.
01:18:47
Speaker
Let me let me say that.
01:18:48
Speaker
No.
01:18:50
Speaker
So it's it's so weird because we got, you know, I got on my game of the year list so far.
01:18:59
Speaker
Right.
01:19:00
Speaker
The most norm core game that I have on there is probably the Alone in the Dark remake, which did not sell that well at all.
01:19:11
Speaker
Got
01:19:13
Speaker
middling reviews for the most part and uh you know the the studio that made it laid off like everybody because it didn't sell well so i mean then you got animal well uh you got balatro which you know oh come on come on come on crow country which is a
01:19:36
Speaker
A wacky PS1 throwback of a game, of a Resident Evil game.
01:19:42
Speaker
Lorelei and the Laser Eyes.
01:19:46
Speaker
Which the more I look into, the more I'm like, God, I'm going to have to play that too.
01:19:49
Speaker
Yeah.
01:19:49
Speaker
Great.
01:19:50
Speaker
Yeah.
01:19:50
Speaker
It's a game where you actually have to take notes.
01:19:53
Speaker
I love it.
01:19:54
Speaker
You would be all over.
01:19:56
Speaker
You break out your little notepad.
01:19:58
Speaker
Yeah.
01:19:59
Speaker
I know you love writing notes.
01:20:01
Speaker
Oh, I do.
01:20:03
Speaker
I do.
01:20:03
Speaker
The Thaumaturge and Turnip Boy Robs a Bank.
01:20:08
Speaker
Yeah, that's a hell of a lineup.
01:20:10
Speaker
Yeah, it's a weird lineup.
01:20:12
Speaker
And that makes me happy because that is that is why I love video games and I love the industry and I love talking about them as much as I do.
01:20:21
Speaker
Right.
01:20:22
Speaker
I think what's fun.
01:20:23
Speaker
I was thinking about this today, actually, because it's funny you bring this up.
01:20:26
Speaker
The fact that.
01:20:28
Speaker
On the show, because we're dealing in game novelizations, we are mostly talking about AAA games.
01:20:36
Speaker
Sure.
01:20:37
Speaker
You know, when it's appropriate and at least big games on some level.
01:20:44
Speaker
But what makes me the happiest in the gaming world are indie games and how strange and specific you can make them.
01:20:55
Speaker
And this is a great year for that.
Top Games of the Year and Replayability
01:20:58
Speaker
Uh, so I, I couldn't agree more.
01:20:59
Speaker
It's gonna be, it's gonna be a very interesting top 10 from us, ladies and gentlemen, let me put it that way.
01:21:04
Speaker
Yeah.
01:21:04
Speaker
And I will, it, this year is gonna feel probably gonna feel like a top 10 with, uh,
01:21:11
Speaker
where it's like, I'm not entirely sure about the order.
01:21:14
Speaker
Right.
01:21:15
Speaker
Which is totally fair.
01:21:17
Speaker
Aside from number one, I think my number one is going to be Bellatro.
01:21:23
Speaker
Yeah.
01:21:24
Speaker
I mean, come on.
01:21:25
Speaker
Come on.
01:21:30
Speaker
I'm still thinking about it.
01:21:33
Speaker
Like, maybe I should go back and get some more.
01:21:36
Speaker
Raise the stakes on a few more of my decks.
01:21:40
Speaker
I'm still going back and playing vampire survivors for Christ's sake.
01:21:43
Speaker
Yeah.
01:21:44
Speaker
Just unlocked adventure mode.
01:21:45
Speaker
And that's going to be a whole other.
01:21:46
Speaker
That's going to be a whole thing.
01:21:48
Speaker
Voloax.
01:21:48
Speaker
Great.
01:21:49
Speaker
Terrific.
Closing Remarks and Social Media Callout
01:21:51
Speaker
So, yeah, but that'll do it for tonight's episode, everybody.
01:21:55
Speaker
If you can rate us five stars on Spotify and Apple or whatever platform you're listening to follow us on social media X slash Twitter, Instagram, wherever, wherever you find us, it's going to be at it's going to be pixel at pod is going to be the name that you find us under.
01:22:15
Speaker
So go ahead and do that.
01:22:17
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening and have a good night.
01:22:21
Speaker
Good night.