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S6 E16: Sad Dan is Sad
98 Plays1 year ago
After reviewing the latest TV shows and movies like Ahsoka, Wheel of Time, The Continental and Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part 1, we settle in our major topic for the episode - video game companions that either contribute to or reuin the game.
Beers Reviewed This Episode:
- SIx String Brewing - Hard Lemonade - 5.0%
- New England Brewing - Marmo - Italian Pilsner - 4.5%
- Gypsy Fox Brewing - Hopocrisy Pink Boots - NEPA - 5.0%
- Molly Rose Brewing - Why Not a Brown Ale - 6.5% (Pete)
- Garage Project - Immense World - Pilsner - 6.0%
- Freshwater Brewing - Duke's Pilsner - 5.0%
- Molly Rose Brewing - Why Not a Brown Ale - 6.5% (Dan)
- One Drop - Dark Harp - Black IPA - 6.7%
- Five Barrel Brewing - Possum Paradise - White IPA - 6.0%
- Wooden Axe Brewing - Phase 2 - Black Rye IPA - 6.5%
- Seeker Brewing - Sonic Boom Double WCIPA - 8.4%
- New England Brewing - Mud Map Hazy IPA - 6.6%
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Transcript
Introduction and Overview
00:00:30
Speaker
welcome back to pixels and bytes, uh, where we will be talking shit as usual about all our favorite TV shows, movies, uh, comic books, pod, um, podcasts. Well, sometimes we do know very, very rarely. I think that pretty much covers it. Um, joining me tonight as always is the ever venerable Tom. I'm not vulnerable. You fuck.
00:00:55
Speaker
Maybe a little insecure. My small penis. Wow. And the ever lovely Dan. Oh, ever lovely. Jesus Christ. Okay. Yep. Oh, so give him the nice one. I said, venerable. You need to Google that shit. Anyway. Uh, and yeah, that's us.
Craft Beer and Pop Culture
00:01:16
Speaker
We're going to be trying some, some Aussie craft beer while we talk some shit about our favorite.
00:01:20
Speaker
Uh, pop culture topics. Things and shit. Things and shit. We've been doing this too long. We're kind of getting complacent with the intros. It's like, yeah, welcome to the show. Listen to our shit. That wasn't your best one, but we'll let it go. Yeah. Through to the Wiki. I forget where we are halfway through the episode, halfway through the intro anyway, when I do it.
00:01:40
Speaker
I think about it. Every time I know I've got to do it, I go, I'm going to get this one. This is how it's going to roll out and I'm going to nail it this time. And I fuck it up about a sentence in. I get complacent because I've got it down so well in my head at a point where I could just blurt it out at any given time without thinking that I've stopped thinking about it. And then suddenly I need to do it.
00:02:07
Speaker
I'm a bit of a trip over my own fucking words but then this is what happens when you do it after work. Well that's riveting for the listeners. I hope you all enjoyed that. Just give him yet another reason to like and subscribe. He got it in early. Five minutes. Three minutes in. Well done. Let's kick off with some beer reviews. I think we'll just try and get the show on the road. Let's kick it down the street. Just steamroll through.
00:02:34
Speaker
Has anyone tried their beer yet? I have. Yours look like milk. Yes, I'm drinking imported Scandinavian breast milk. Jesus Christ, what is that?
00:02:45
Speaker
And what do Scandinavian breasts taste like, Tom? Lemons. Let me tell you, because I'm drinking six strings hard lemonade. I'm not actually having a beer. I thought I'd change it up. This is an alcoholic lemonade made with fresh lemons. And it is fucking lemony. It's great. It's really lemony. Like old school, old school homemade lemonade with a nice alcoholic kick. It is 4%. And
00:03:14
Speaker
It doesn't actually say I would really like to know. Oh, here we go. It contains water, lemon, sugar, juice, and alcohol. Water, lemon juice, sugar. Jesus Christ, read that wrong. Sugar juice. It contains sugar juice, everyone. Yeah, so I'm interested if it's like an actual brewed, like some, like some seltzers are actually brewed. They use like a corn, corn like maize base for that. Or if it's just, hey, we zested up a fuck ton of lemons. Let's,
00:03:43
Speaker
Pour a bottle of Smirnoff into it and hope for the best. I suspect with that list of ingredients, wouldn't they have had to have added the alcohol separately? I think so, yes. Because they're missing some key components that are required to make. Yeah. It's a hard lemonade. It's ethanol added to lemonade and sugar. I love it. I think it's great. It's really nice. I really like that old school lemonade.
00:04:10
Speaker
If you want to hear my top, top five lemonades, number one is definitely the old, the original Schweppes lemonade. Like there's nothing past the Schweppesens. Schweppesens. But this, this has so much of that, that really nice lemony zest to it. It's, it's, yeah, it does, it does look like almost milky. Yeah, it does. Well, that's, I mean, I was half joking, but it did kind of look milky. What's, what's the CO2 level like?
00:04:38
Speaker
Oh, yeah, it's it's vibrant. It's like, it's the heads disappear. Yeah, it is effervescent, actually. It's shweppervescent. Like the head obviously dissipated so quickly because of all the lemon juice in there. Yeah. There's no protein in it to it. It's just more more traditional lemonade wasn't carbonated. Like the old school lemonade wasn't carbonated. This is carved. This is yeah, this is bright and bubbly. Right. I'm giving that four and a half.
00:05:05
Speaker
Yeah, right. That's fantastic. That's, that's a real summer winner. I would definitely wouldn't, wouldn't think twice about putting away a four pack of those on a hot summer's day would absolutely disappear. Yeah, cool. What are you drinking, Dan? Uh, I have got a new England, uh, black Italian Pilsner Marmo.
00:05:28
Speaker
Uh, and other than other... Made by whom? New England Brewing. New England Brewing. Oh, New England Brewing. Sorry. New England Brewing. I did that a few weeks ago. Oh, did you? Yeah. Oh, well, I'll shut the fuck up then. Was it the one that I wasn't on? Maybe. Did you really? Yeah. Yeah. I raved about it. I'd love to hear your... No, no, go.
00:05:49
Speaker
Sorry, I've got the dog. She's just fucking wanted off. I think it's really good. It's got a really nice white roast, like black malt character to it. So there's, there's very little coffee or chocolate characters to it. It's got some, got a black malt character to it. I think it's got a really nice kind of herbal
00:06:10
Speaker
a hop character to it. It's only 4.5. It's 29 IBUs. I would have liked a bit more bitterness, but I think I say that a lot about most things these days. Almost every beer. For the life of me, I cannot tell you anything that is written on the back of this can, because the text on the back, I swear, is a fucking... Silver on black? No, it's a fucking millimeter big. It's absolutely tiny.
00:06:35
Speaker
And with the amount of light I've got in here, there's absolutely no way. Yeah, I had to turn my light around to read the back when I- Yeah. Yeah. We're all for winter style in our damn cold small town, something last year wasn't going to do. So we've delivered a black version of our Italian pills, big herby aromas, teas out hints of crusty dark bread and roasted malts delivered in a brilliant dark pour with balanced bitterness. Well, at least I know I'm not talking about Mars. 29 IBU, four and a half percent.
00:07:03
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's really good. It's really fresh and the way that they've used the malt and the light herbal hop character is bang on. I think it's wonderful. I would very happily drink a six or four pack or whatever they come in of that. It's really nice. Full disclosure, I did get this for free, but not from the brewery, from the artist. So yeah, lovely. Absolutely lovely.
00:07:33
Speaker
Nice. Out of five? As good as it's a 475. Yeah, right. You know what? It's super dry as well. It's got, it's got almost a, it's not a powdery dryness, but it makes your mouth go quite sort of tannin dry, which is really, really lovely. A little bit more bitterness. You always say that too.
00:08:03
Speaker
Let's dial that up to about 35 IBUs. Just a bitter old man. Yeah, I am. There's no doubting that. Yeah, wonderful. I really enjoyed that. I'm a little dirty. I've only got one, but yeah. Cool. What are you drinking, Pete? I am drinking Gypsy Fox pink boots.
00:08:27
Speaker
hypocrisy, what is it? Hypocrisy Nipah or Nipah. Rather it's a New England pale at 5%. Hmm. So does it got the pink boots hop blend in it? Doesn't tell me. Oh, I assume that's what it is. I think it is. Yeah. Yep.
00:08:44
Speaker
I would assume so too. There's literally nothing on the can, other than the mandated government bullshit about pregnancy warning. Apparently, the Australian government's currently talking about whether or not they add a cancer risk. Yeah, so let's not cover that. We'll cover that damage. It's going to be fucking plain packaging like
00:09:04
Speaker
Cigarettes. The kind of the way they're trying to spin it, yeah. Like a nanny
PS5 Slim and Gaming Updates
00:09:09
Speaker
state bullshit. When we get some more information on that, we'll do a- Nah, I reckon we'll do a- A rave, an uplink rave. Pinko rogue. With no information. I think that's the best thing, yeah. Yeah, so I didn't realize pink boots, and there's nothing on untapped either, so I looked it up. There's literally no information about this beer, so to me, it's, I mean, look, it's not that hazy. It is hazy, but it's not.
00:09:34
Speaker
It's kind of where you would expect, I'm trying to find the right direction here. It's kind of where you'd expect a New England pale as opposed to a neeper to go. It's got, certainly got some, some pithiness to it. It's got a good kick. I don't know anything about the pink boots hop that you're talking about, but. Pink boots society is a female led brewing, like scholarship? Scholarship?
00:10:01
Speaker
No, no, it's a group. Yeah. And they developed their own hop blend with, I'm assuming, HPA.
00:10:09
Speaker
No, no, it's done through Yakima. There we go. Okay. Every year they release it in sort of January, February. It's a limited run and it's a hot blend picked by the group members and you can buy it up and- So when you say hot blends, so they might say this year it's going to be 40% Centennial and 20% Chinook.
00:10:33
Speaker
You know, whatever the, the, the, it's obviously not that here, but the mechanics, the mechanics behind it. I don't know, but yeah, it's, it's not a specific, um, variety. Okay. It's a blend. Okay. Yeah. All right. So I actually do get.
00:10:49
Speaker
quite a lot of the Centennial style of flavor profile out of it. It's quite bright. There's something almost and it's going to sound negative, but it actually isn't. It doesn't detract from the beer. There's something almost soapy at the end of the palette, if that makes any sense. It does. But it's not unpleasant. So I don't know. It's a good starting beer at five percent. It's kind of mid-range exactly where you want a pal to be.
00:11:16
Speaker
Yeah, I'm going to give it a four. It doesn't kick me in the nuts, but it's a solid put together beer. So the 2023 is the seventh annual release of it. And I can't even pronounce the first bloody hop on it. A-H-T-A. I'm going to put it in the chat because I'm just going to fuck this up.
00:11:38
Speaker
You were doing so well with the spelling part. Yeah, I know. You've found that one. Yeah. When are you guys pronouncing that? It's 2023. I was going to... Artinum? Artinum? Artinum, El Dorado, HBC 638. So I'd experimental and I'd have seven. I knew I could taste some of that. And I'd have seven, okay. So I was way off with Centennial then.
00:12:02
Speaker
Uh, Eldorado might be a child of Centennial. I appreciate your attempts to make me sound more or less wrong.
00:12:13
Speaker
Let's go with that. Let me find out the lineage of El Dorado. It's just got that really brightness. Great film. All right, moving on. Let's kick off with some news. We interrupt this broadcast with some breaking news from the front.
00:12:34
Speaker
I'd rather talk about El Dorado. What a fantastic animated film that is. Anyway. You have to do it in the new Caster Voice. All right. Well, coming back in. The Fallout TV show is given a release date, 12th of April 24, via a Pip-Boy ad on X slash Twitter.
00:12:49
Speaker
You know, it's the funniest thing about the changing it from Twitter to X is that having it, having it, but having a Twitter subscription, um, an account and then getting emails from Twitter and they still have to go X formerly known as Twitter in the email because otherwise it'd just be like, well, that's a porn email. So that's not going through.
00:13:10
Speaker
Well, Tafcap had that problem the whole time, right? Until he was rebadged to Prince again. Yeah, I was going to say he was always the artist formerly known as Prince. Yeah, Tafcap. Yeah. Even fucking Eminem made a joke in one of his earlier lyrics about, I was, I was, the white boy was suspenseful ever since Prince turned himself into a cymbal. Anyway. Please never rap again. That wasn't me rapping. Fuck you. That was me reading lyrics.
00:13:40
Speaker
Motherfucker. You don't want to hear me rap. What happened to not getting hung up in the news and wasting time? Point one. Pete starts singing M&M lyrics. That's going to fucking derail the show. So yes, there's a Fallout 4. It's 12th of April 24. I put the video link in the notes there, but it doesn't show much. It's literally just the Pip Boy animation and he types on his little computer and then it just brings up the date.
00:14:07
Speaker
Look, if they take a page from fucking The Last of Us, then I'm all over that shit. I love a good post-apocalyptic TV show. Yeah, definitely give it a shot. Yeah. If they go down the path of Walking Dead where it's just, then it's, you know, 17 seasons and a movie later kind of thing. Yeah. It won't be Last of Us though, because the tonal difference of Fallout is completely different. It's never going to be that serious.
00:14:35
Speaker
No, but it's not so much the tone, it's more the appreciation for the original source material, the respect, the original source material. Because even Last of Us, the TV show, deviated. So we ended up meeting Ellie's mother, which you never met in the games.
00:14:54
Speaker
Well, there you go. Anyway, we don't know what's happening in the Fallout TV show, but it's coming out 12th of April. And you've got three minutes of talk out of it. Next little point, this one might put in for young Dan over here. Return to Moria has been delayed on the PS5. It's releasing 11 days later than the PC version. I've got my copy. It finished downloading two minutes before I had to fucking log on here. There we go.
00:15:22
Speaker
So yes, fifth of November for the PS5 version, but it released last night on PC. The 24th of October for those playing at home and keeping track of us via some sort of calendar like thing. I've got in my, are you winning son? Sad Dan didn't get to play Return to Moria. Sad Dan. Sad Dan is sad. And Pete needs to superimpose my face on that sad cat.
00:15:53
Speaker
Well there's the cover art done. Sad Dan is sad, there's the episode title. I think that's Cheeseburger. PS5 Slim. So PS5 Slim is coming out. I think the most interesting thing about this is the fact that it is releasing with a removable disk drive. So even if you buy the digital version and then later choose to play something on disk, you can go and buy
00:16:19
Speaker
Let me get you the pricing there. If you paid 679 AUD for the PS5 Digital Edition, just for a cheeky 160 bucks, you can get a little Blu-ray disc drive to clip on. I don't think it would be backwards-complatable with the- Complatable. Complatable with- That's a word. It is. With the original Digital Edition. It's a word. Purely because the new PS5 Slim has four faceplates as opposed to two. I think that's the only-
00:16:49
Speaker
So they can charge double the amount for colored plastic while suing anyone else who makes anything that even resembles a faceplate. Yes. Well done to them. So there's the PS5 with the with a disk drive. The new slim one is 800 bucks Australian. The digital edition without a disk drive is 680. If you want to buy a disk drive separately, it's 160 bucks. And the new vertical stand. So this is you know how it came with a little
00:17:15
Speaker
Like, that's not, that's not being included anymore. If you want to buy the PS official, no, it's giving you a little like one little kickstand thing in it. If you want to buy a vertical stand to stand your PlayStation upright. That's fucking bucks. Bullshit. 50 bucks for a piece of plastic. Fuck off.
00:17:38
Speaker
Yes. So, so my question is, do you think my new inbox never been used PS5 original will go up or down in value when it's released?
00:17:50
Speaker
Well, they're not improving any of the... Actually, no, they are improving the solid state drive. It is increasing in size. It's going up from about 800 gig to one terabyte. So I'll probably just sell mine for 600 bucks. I only still have it here. It's actually literally just off camera here. It's still in the original JB Hi-Fi bag that stretched as I dragged it home. I'm just fucking lazy. I just need to pull it up.
00:18:16
Speaker
The stats on it, it's 30% lighter in terms of the weight of the actual console. And then there was something about the... I figured that's what you meant. They dialed up the white on the white paint. No, it's 30% whiter and 100%... Lighter. Cooler. No, it's not. It's got some sort of racing speed stroke through them and all of it. I prefer the original. I don't like to look at the slim. Does it really have a racing stripe?
00:18:42
Speaker
Well, it's got it's got a black stripe in the middle. Yeah, which is where the four faceplates come in. Yeah, which I get almost guarantees just so they can charge more for the fucking replacement faceplates. Because they're like 100 bucks. If you go to if you go to the colored ones, yeah, they're $100 for a sheet of plastic that's two mils wide and would literally cost maybe 15 cents in filament to 3D print it. Probably. Yeah.
00:19:09
Speaker
Looking like it's releasing in US on November 8th, so I'm sure an Australian release date is not far behind.
New Console Announcements
00:19:18
Speaker
Next little bit of news I think is really cool. The Analogue 3D is releasing in 2024. What is it you might ask? Well, let me tell you gentlemen. It's a 4K version of the N64 with the ability to play original cartridges natively instead of using emulation. Wow.
00:19:36
Speaker
Yes so the company behind it analog have already recreated a game boy super nintendo i see the master system was all do this and the next step is to redo it with a sixty four so if you have a box of you know.
00:19:50
Speaker
Box of old 64 cartridges are sitting around in a garage somewhere, and you've never been able to play them because your 64 shut the bed. I'm sure it'll charge you a very pretty penny for it, and they sold out like hotcakes the other editions. Also, do you really want to play a 64 game in 4K? It's going to look like shit. By definition, flat polygons. I was going to say, it's just more pixels get added to that big blocky ass on the back of Mario.
00:20:20
Speaker
I'm assuming this is sanctioned, right? This is, this is a formal like Nintendo have signed off on this stuff like this before. Have you seen the news recently with Nintendo clamping down on, on even like tournament rules and shit? Yeah. Like must be not for profit. Your first price can't be more than four or $5,000. Like they're basically just decimated the entire e-sports community built around anything Nintendo, which is a weird fucking move.
00:20:48
Speaker
Well, the the Smash Brothers like eSports tournament was huge. Yeah, that's specifically what what I yeah, it was came off the back of that, but I didn't get any time to put in any of my slightly right leaning news this this episode.
00:21:03
Speaker
Sorry, Tom. I know I'm putting words in your mouth. You only gave me shit about it once. I know, I know. I'd say shit. Anyway, let's move on to some PlayStation Plus games because Pete loves those. Gotham Knights has been released as the new if you got extra. I might actually jump in and give it a go, I think.
00:21:22
Speaker
Because it's free. Well, free-ish. Dan's size. Oh, no. I mean, it's like, if, if it, if it came up on mine, I'd add it to my library and when I got bored, I'd probably jump in on play. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's the, yeah. Yeah. But it's, it's just one of those things like this game's like 18 months old. It just got smashed in reviews. So now they've gone, Hey, please can something now continue to play this game?
00:21:47
Speaker
I can't believe it's 18 months old already. It doesn't feel like that long ago we were talking about it before release. Oh, it's gotta be. It's gotta be. I don't think it's 18 months. I'm pretty sure it released this year.
00:22:01
Speaker
Really? And it's already free. Have a look. While you look that up, I'll read off some of the other games that are in there, which sound decent. Disco Elysium, the final cut. October 22. 12 months old. There you go. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. 12 months. Yeah.
00:22:18
Speaker
Dark Pictures Anthology House of Ashes they've done a few of those through the PS Plus description now i think that's the three the trilogy so this must be the last one to get added through that. Alien Isolation the original Dead Island the definition of the definitive edition which i imagine is a remaster of the original.
00:22:37
Speaker
Outlast 2, Elite Dangerous, Far Changing Tides, Gungrave, G-O-R-E, Elder's Souls, and Rokey, the games they've added as part of the extra subscription. If you have that, and any of those games,
00:22:53
Speaker
tickled your little pickle. Well, you better go grab them. Elder souls. How, how much of a fucking cash in on this prom soft is that? I didn't, I should have, and I didn't look up any like gameplay for any of them, but I, I, when I saw that one, I was like, I should probably look that one up and have a look.
00:23:12
Speaker
Yeah, and... Dead Island, was that the one that we used to play, Dan? That was buggy as fuck? Yeah, and I never... I mean, the Definitive Edition might be a little bit less buggy, but I don't think you'll think it's probably just got the DLCs and that, including a bit of a remaster or something. Yeah, it wasn't un-entertaining to play. No. It had certainly had potential, like you could see that... They just released the sequel, like, within the last... It was Dead Island too, but they've also written other games that use the same engine. Weren't they the guys that did Dying Light? No.
00:23:41
Speaker
I don't think so. No, they were both unusually similar in a release at a similar time. Yeah, as in like some developers obviously quit and started their own company and made the other game. Yeah. Well, Dead Island 2 was in development hell for so long and it got picked up by a separate company. And apparently it's for what it is, it's actually really good. Like it's got much more linear mission areas than the original, which was a more open island.
00:24:07
Speaker
And like, it sounds all right to me. And I mean, I've played through Dead Island. Dylan also had the really, um, that really great trailer of the little, the family and the little girl. And it was, no, that's the first one. Is it? Yeah. Dead Island to trailer is the, like the puffed up blonde head guy jogging along with his, uh, with his, with his headphones on while the world turns the shit behind him. Yep.
00:24:35
Speaker
Yeah, and then it gets like cracked in the head by a Jack Black kind of character going along in a minivan. I just got a notification from our recording software that we lost connection to the server for a second, so hopefully we didn't. Hopefully everything's fine.
00:24:52
Speaker
I better not lose my news because that's literally the only thing that I think we've done so far. Yeah. Last little bit, Charles Martinet, who was the voice of Mario, he's he's been replaced as he retired recently. And his replacement has been announced with the new Super Mario Bros. Wonder Game, which came out last week.
00:25:13
Speaker
Um, and the guy who's now voicing, uh, Mario and Luigi is a guy named Kevin Afghani. And he has a very, very short resume, but he's also only like 26. So I was waiting for the joke. There's gotta be a punchline. Which one do you go? Do you go short Mario? Do you go short, uh, short dialogue? He hasn't got much to work with. I didn't know where to go. My brain went too many ways. I couldn't pick one.
00:25:42
Speaker
where you fail. But anyway, yes, so yes, there is a new official voice of Mario and Luigi. And I reckon he's been locked into a long contract being only 26, given how long Charles Martin did the voice of Mario. But you know what, thank God they didn't choose to use Chris Pratt, because you know, it was fine, but wasn't terrible. Yeah, it wasn't great. But you know, wasn't great, wasn't great.
00:26:07
Speaker
Anyway, that's the news broadcast over. I don't know about you guys, but my life's made up of, wasn't terrible, wasn't great.
00:26:21
Speaker
Oh boy. I've got props on hand for this episode. Why can't I tell what Dan was laughing at precisely then? Well, my mind went to a lot of things within your life, Pete. The film roll just rolled over in my head like a greatest hit streak.
00:26:42
Speaker
It's just being a little bit polite. Do you want to pause and see if you've got a file and start again for the next beer? And we're back. No, and I don't intend to. Tom did this beer, but anyway. Doing Tom's greatest hits tonight. Repeat episode. What did Tom do?
00:27:07
Speaker
No, it's all right. Keep going. What didn't Tom do? Keep going. All right. We're going to review our second beer. I haven't committed genocide. I'll go. I'll go first since you guys seem to be faffing around. So this is Molly Rose Brewings. Why not a brown ale?
00:27:23
Speaker
Oh, I meant to ask, when are we doing the brown ale? Oh, bollocks. Sorry. My fault. It was meant to ask the question. This, this can, I mean, it's not, it's not a circle. I don't know what that's supposed to be, but, um, the big ripple in that. Yeah. Well, it's a, it's a stick on label for a start, but the, the actual can design reminds me of the moon, uh, movie cover for some reason.
00:27:52
Speaker
Oh, the moon, the movie called the moon. Yeah. Um, it's a, it's an Indian brown owl, which Tom was explaining to me earlier is basically a hoppy brown owl. And that is exactly what this is. Absolutely. Now's the brief. So right. It does remind me of the moon. So it's, it's, it's biscuity and multi, which is exactly what you'd expect, but it does have a hobby to it. Six and a half percent. Um,
00:28:22
Speaker
I don't have too much to say about it other than it's, it's really fucking good. So go out and buy it, you dogs. Yeah. Are you doing that one tonight as well, Tom? No. No. Okay. I'm saving that for my own personal time. Okay. But yeah, no, like nice and it's got a like a nice citrus hop hit to it. Sorry. I'm trying not to burp on Mike.
00:28:45
Speaker
It's a problem with drinking carbonated beverages on a podcast. Um, to be honest, and this might not come across as politely as I, as I wanted to, it rarely does when I, my mouth is open and words are coming out, but, um, this reminds me a little bit of the Xythologists brown ale, but I really liked this one.
00:29:12
Speaker
I literally- I'm not muting it either. I'm leaving it here. I'm not muting it out. I sighed as soon as he started that sentence. And then I was, I was not, I was not let down. I was not let down. I mean, I'm not being rude. I just, I'm just, I'm allowed to have preferences and I was accused of not knowing anything about brown owls. I'm just saying, well, that wasn't, that wasn't the accusation. It was more just, they're not for everyone. I really like this. So anyway, yeah.
00:29:41
Speaker
And I refuse to edit any of my opinions out. No, no, that was great. I'm gonna give it a four, four and a half. I'm glad you said out on the end of that, that sentence, Pete, I refuse to edit any of my opinions. It works too. Yeah. No, I really liked that. So I would drink plenty more of that. So yeah, I'm gonna get that. What did I say? 4.25. I don't know. I wasn't listening.
00:30:09
Speaker
You know what? I know you're joking, but I also wouldn't put a pasture. Dan, what are you drinking, mate? I'm pretty sure Tom's had this, or I've had it, or I don't remember. You know we have untapped, right? You know what? When I did do this order, I did go and look at what was on there. And I think I even messaged you about, hey, have we done this on there? And then I said, don't worry, I found it.
00:30:37
Speaker
It is, it is one of the garage project, collab beers, the happy sessions. Yep. Happy session, volume 12. That's pretty good for only seeing the side of the can. It reminds me of the Mind Flayer. Is it Mind Flayer? No, it's a Woolworth Slickerland beer. Oh, I know the one you're talking about. Yeah, yep, yep. It's got that same teal color on the side. It's not apple, it's teal.
00:31:06
Speaker
Highland Park, Garage Project, Immense World. It's got a little bit of oxidization on it, but it's still got a good sort of fresh hop character to it. Mosaic, Ruwaka and Mochawaka. So it's got a bit of herbal aroma and character coming from those New Zealand hops, especially the Mochawaka. And it's actually got a little bit of that.
00:31:31
Speaker
It's not funk. I was trying to explain this the other day that New Zealand hops have this... I've said it's funk before, but it's kind of like, I don't eat blue cheese, but it's kind of that smell that comes from blue cheese, which yes, I know is mold and is technically funk, but it's not funk as in barnyard, Saison.
00:31:56
Speaker
It's a heavy baseline kind of funk as well. Yeah, that's exactly what it is. Get a double bass out there. It's, it's really nice. It's like I said, it's got a little bit of oxidization on it. It's been, it's got a best before of February next year. So it's still got a few months on it. But when we talking about NZ hops a little, a few episodes ago, and we were talking about the, the diesel diesel, the earthy aspect of it. Yeah.
00:32:19
Speaker
Yeah, you can get the different ones have different levels of it, but they all seem to have a very similar brew line. I don't know about these new ones, the super delics and things like that. That's why I was asking you about that the other day, Tom, whether you had any in there. So be very interested. Yep. I definitely remember to do that and we'll not do that this weekend. So this one's actually a Pilsner.
00:32:41
Speaker
I didn't, I didn't read the top part because there's a lot of text on the back. I didn't actually read what. We have the technology. We have the technology. We can rebuild it. Highland Park, um, garage. Yep. I'll read every third word. There we go. I wasn't a question. You didn't need to verify. Yeah, I know. But about like the 10th line down, probably even more that like 15th line down between two paragraphs. It's actually three breweries.
00:33:08
Speaker
Oh, is it a hat trick of collaborations from three bro? Oh, no, sorry. That's the happy sessions 23 overall. So this one's with Island Park. You're right. Sorry. Yeah. LA wonder. It's, it's, it's good, but if you want to try it, don't leave it any longer. So, so maybe, and, and so first of all, out of five. That's a hard one. You haven't heard my next question.
00:33:38
Speaker
What does oxidisation taste like? Papery, wet cardboard. In certain beers it can also be mistaken for malt character. Is that an insult to the beer?
00:33:59
Speaker
No, it's just a sensory, it's just a sensory misconception. It can have that sweet multi character to it sometimes, depending on what malts are in there. If it's hop heavy, it's really easy to pick up on it. It's just like, it's like dank wet cardboard that you go and pick up because you've left it on your driveway for too long and it's, you've had a thunderstorm and then you lick it.
00:34:21
Speaker
Yeah. It's always the weirdest thing when I ever, when I first heard it stuck with me ever since when someone was describing, he's describing oxidization to me and it was a certain cicerone whose name rhymes with Ian Pereira. And he may or may not have been on the podcast a few times. But when he, when he first was like, he was teaching me some stuff like years and years ago and he was just like, yeah, so oxidization is all, it's all like wet cardboard. I was like, you ever eaten wet cardboard? He goes, no.
00:34:52
Speaker
But I know what it tastes like. But you do. You know what it tastes like because it's one of those things that gets up there. Well, so much of taste to smell and you do smell this stuff. But it's just one of those things of just being like, they're very wet cardboard. No. I was like, should we?
00:35:08
Speaker
But it's not as an experiment. It's not just wet cardboard. It's kind of like wet old cardboard. It's not. That explains everything. It's not like I'm going to go and get a piece of cardboard, run it under the jet for two minutes and then stick it in my gob and chew on it for a little bit. You can just see the Cicero training courses now. It's like two pieces of cardboard. One's been aged.
00:35:35
Speaker
in a dark room for 12 months and you have to be able to tell the difference. In feeder barrels and the other ones. Last week's Kellogg's packet. Fresh off the Amazon truck. The one I went to when they do a light strike, which is
00:35:52
Speaker
described as skunky. We got a bottle in, uh, we got a bottle that was green glass and then we put it out. It's usually Heineken. I was trying to think of one of your smart, um, you can't do that.
00:36:11
Speaker
And we put it out there. You put down the sun for 20 minutes and then the person pouring it cracked it open in the room next door to the room we're in and we could smell it as soon as he cracked the bottle open.
00:36:32
Speaker
Yeah, there is ways of doing it. And you can also train your palate too, right? Like, so when you're going through- Off flavor kits and stuff. Yeah, I mean, the sommelier kits are all over the internet where they have the concentrated flavors and your brain does need a level. So I've discovered this recently with my palate, even after quitting smoking. So I've been off cigarettes for 14, 15 months now.
00:36:53
Speaker
Other than that, big, big stogie, you were sucking hard. A cigar once a year isn't the same, because it doesn't destroy your palate on an ongoing basis, but
00:37:08
Speaker
I've discovered my palate just isn't great. And it's because my sense of smell, my sinuses are blocked. I need to go back and see and tell you about it, which directly affects your drinking. But you have to also reprogram the brain to be able to separate out these flavours. There's a lot of
00:37:26
Speaker
A lot of them talk about like, if you really want to get that kind of palette, that palette sense, you go and just pick up things in the supermarket and smell them. And then you just like, it's literally like grapefruit. That's grapefruit. I'm going to remember grapefruit. I'm going to come every week. But it's grapefruit next to orange.
00:37:45
Speaker
And you have to smell- You look like a weed-o in the softest. A fucking weed-o walking through a woolly farm. Going to the next fruit and the next one. Hey, I need to clean my palate. I'm going to go and smell some dirty potatoes. Get some coffee beans. You know that's the thing as well. If you want to reset your palate, they say to lick the back of your hand or smell the back of your hand. Smell the back of your hand. Not lick the back of your hand. It's usually, it's coffee beans when it-
00:38:10
Speaker
Fucking this is how we end up with four hour podcast. I just think it's interesting because you do have a level of neuroplasticity where you can reprogram the brain. And for me, it was a parallel with learning languages. Your brain, by the time you're in your teens and if you only speak one language, your brain starts separating sounds into piles. So if you miss hear something or you're only just on the edge, hear something, your brain will fill in the blanks.
00:38:36
Speaker
by sorting sounds into piles based on the language you know, which means as an adult like me, if you're trying to learn Japanese or Arabic. It's like the most like untruth statement that's ever been said on the podcast. What's that? If you're an adult like me.
00:38:55
Speaker
If you're old like me, that motherfucker, people can say, and I struggled with an ex who was trying to teach me some Arabic and she would say some words and I'd try and repeat it back to her and she'd say, no, it's not this, it's this. And it's like, you just said the same thing twice.
00:39:11
Speaker
It's because my brain's incapable of hearing the difference and it's kind of similar when you're and you can reprogram your brain to hear the difference. Same with this stuff. You have to retrain your palate to understand the subtle differences between, say, lemon, orange and grapefruit to be able to taste it. You just have to continuously smell it to reprogram your brain. Anyway.
00:39:33
Speaker
Say on on exactly that we have got a sour beer in tank at the moment and I was exactly having that conversation today Pete it's it's funny you say that because we I was telling talking to one of the brewers after I tasted it and gone.
00:39:53
Speaker
My taste buds want to tell me it's lime, but my brain is saying it's not lime enough to be lime, but it's not. It's, it was a weird blend between the, the, the acidity and sharp citrus side of the lemon lime side of it. And the more rounded orange side of it, it was, it was a weird amalgamation of both. And that's that's yeah. Interesting.
00:40:22
Speaker
It's come up twice today. So far for me, because I had this whole conversation about language and stuff. Um, what do you think is an amazing creature? Yeah. What are you drinking? My brain is smooth for speed. Um, it's aerodynamic. I'm not touching that at all.
00:40:42
Speaker
Also, when Dan was saying it's it's my my taste buds are telling me it's lime, but my brain still isn't laugh. The only thing that was playing in my head, smooth brain was my my body's telling me no, but my mind is saying yes, that song that just came in. Anyway, I I have a lot of problems. I'm drinking Duke's Pilsner from freshwater brewing. It's delicious. It is a
00:41:10
Speaker
5% Pilsner from the guys up at Freshwater. Full disclosure, I did not pay for this beer. I traded it in a bartering system at a festival. And I got the better deal. I got the better deal. Yeah. This is... So money wasn't the item that you gave them in return in this bartering process, right? No, I... Gave them someone else's beer.
00:41:38
Speaker
Yes. This one's for the game changers. So back in 1915, Duke Kahana Moku and Isabelle Latham rode the waves of Freshwater Beach and Aussie surf culture was born. Really? There you go. I did not know that. So this is a celebration of our home and of surfing and a nod to the Bohemian Brewers that changed the game for beer back in 1842. So I guess it's a Bohemian Pilsner.
00:42:06
Speaker
Whatever that actually means. Slash check. Mate.
00:42:13
Speaker
No. Chest joke. Dry biscuity in golden. That's exactly what it is. It's it's very good. It's nice and clear. It doesn't help when my white is not the greatest where it is. But it's it's lighter than the piece on camera. Yeah, yeah. It's really biscuity. Very good. I'm going to give that a four and a half. Very, very much enjoying that one. And at 5%, it's, yeah, it's really easy going down. But cool.
00:42:43
Speaker
There we go. I like that. Also there can is that kind of. Textured paper. Textured paper. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Nice. Yeah. We're all feeling it. You're doing it. We're all feeling it.
00:43:02
Speaker
Let's get into some reviews. Yes. Yes.
Ahsoka Season 1 Review
00:43:06
Speaker
Let's make sure we don't spend the next 20 minutes talking about Ahsoka, but we are going to talk about Ahsoka season one. I think this first game off the rank. Tom and I watched it. Dan did not.
00:43:17
Speaker
Well, I think I did. You basically did through watching people's reviews and episodes. Yeah, that's exactly what I did because there's one guy that I watched. Instead of actually just going and watching the content, you watched other people talk about the content.
00:43:33
Speaker
Sorry, I'm getting a call from the Chinese embassy. I don't illegally download things, although I have asked a certain person to get me a copy of Andor because I really want to rewatch Andor, but I'm not going to pay those Disney fuckers to watch it. When you say a certain person, do you mean somebody whose name rhymes with ooey?
00:43:57
Speaker
Yeah, that would that would it would be a real fair for certain anonymity reasons. We'll call him. No, it's that bluey dog. Yeah, because everyone want to picture the redhead. Oh, sorry for our international audiences. I don't know why, but we call redheads bluey in Australia. I don't get it.
00:44:19
Speaker
But blue is a blue, blue is also a catalog. Anyway. Yeah. Well, it's a color for animals. It's gray, but for people it's red. We're off to three hour episode. Yeah. So what did you think of the season overall, Dan?
00:44:37
Speaker
I thought it was fucking trash. I thought there was some very good and interesting aspects to it that really unrelated to people that knew about certain things like the world between worlds and the whole Anakin thing. I'd love to see some Clone Wars stuff in live action rather than just a flashback in there. And everybody crossed their arms way too much and sighed a lot.
00:45:05
Speaker
And the world. The size. I saw that in the Honest Trailers. Yeah. It was great. Yeah. And he did a super cut of all the size. The big aesthetic and even looking from stills of certain scenes, the world just looks way too clean. Like the whole lived in world is.
00:45:30
Speaker
Yeah, Lothal was. Lothal, Lothal. I always pronounce Lothal in my head. Lothal. Lothal.
00:45:37
Speaker
But even like the main one that stood out was when Hera was on trial for being a bad general and disregarding orders, but still got let off because somebody, another general lied for her. I see 3PO deliver the message. But everything was too clean and they all, they looked like action toys. Like she looked like an action toy. It was a Senate meeting though. Well not Senate, it was a court. So that's where they put on their Sunday best.
00:46:04
Speaker
No, it looked fake. Like I know what he's fake. So that's a really dumb comment. No, but it's not a dumb comment. Cause the whole point of Hollywood is it's all fake. And it's supposed to convince you that it's not. Yeah. And then there was a whole bunch of other stuff. Um, the Sabine's makeup in weird places that like, that was shot looked like it got put on with Homer's shotgun makeup, um, gun. Uh, you said the gun to whore again.
00:46:32
Speaker
That's exactly it. And like she was such a good pick for the character, but it was just it just nothing ever felt like it progressed in time or felt like it took any time. Like when she was abducted, she still looked the same. The day she got off is stood in throne of thrawn as the day she like this. The trip was meant to take what hours or days or something to get across the galaxies. I'm jumping ahead here, but I'm going to shut up in two seconds.
00:46:58
Speaker
And that all it all seemed really someone who's never seen it. You're doing so fucking well. And it all just seemed really odd to me that the whole visual aspect of it. And the last thing I'll comment on was Ezra's magic hands. It just looked fucking horrible. That fight scene. And it looks like I dropped it in the chat. One of those kung fu masters in in our real world. I sat out in very loose quotation marks.
00:47:24
Speaker
uh, doing any students falling over when he like lightly taps them on the forehead. And it's just, it's just, it was just a fucking ridiculous and over exaggerated. And it really felt like even though it was written and directed by somebody who we know has a very good understanding of what the, the law is, it felt like it was done by a fucking 12 year old and his mates and a GoPro.
00:47:52
Speaker
Cool. No, I wholeheartedly disagree with that. No, I don't. I don't mean the filming quality of it. I mean, it felt like a bunch of people running around in a backyard. Oh yeah. I'm going to force push you and you fall backwards. That particular fight? Or are you talking about the whole series? That particular one and a couple of bits on the other one. Okay. I'll let that off with a, with a, with a warning.
00:48:18
Speaker
Yeah, the bail in a circle one looks pretty good. And I will step out now. Go on, Peter. No, no, no, you go, mate. No, no, I think it's your points are probably going to roll more better off Dan's and mine because I'm on the opposite side of the fence. Oh, OK. Look, I'm trying to keep a balanced perspective on this because the actual storyline
00:48:44
Speaker
wasn't a terrible one. I think it could have been told in a lot less episodes if we weren't panning it out. And it's a plot device. It's a plot device to create a threat that isn't the Emperor that has to replace Darth.
00:49:03
Speaker
Fundamentally, what this whole season was about was bringing Thrawn back to become the next threat. So they have something to tell a story about in future movies slash TV series, which I'm okay with. I'm all right with all that. I think the casting was perfect.
00:49:22
Speaker
Across all of the characters, I think they fucking nailed the casting. And I love David. David Tennant for me was a standout in terms of his timing. His comedic timing is very David Tennany. I could fucking bang on. Especially the way he delivers. Affirmative.
00:49:37
Speaker
Yeah, just some of the shorter lines. There were a couple of Doctor Who references. I think the fight choreography. It's interesting you brought it up, Dan, because I noted down in the I think the penultimate and the final episodes.
00:49:55
Speaker
Fight choreography for me felt a lot more video gamey than TV that I've seen out of Star Wars before. To me it felt almost, and it's not drawing a parallel, but it was on the spectrum of the Batman fight in BVS.
00:50:12
Speaker
where we always talk about that being so much closer to the Arkham Knight style of fighting. For me, the final fight especially, or the final fights especially in the final episode, felt so much closer to Force Unleashed and to Jedi Survivor in terms of the fight choreography and the stylists, like the style and the approach of, I'm going to force push this bad guy into somebody else's lightsaber. We've never really seen it.
00:50:39
Speaker
Show in the way that it was showing the tv series and i really i really appreciated the dynamics in the fights and the choreography in the fights.
00:50:50
Speaker
Where I think it all fell down for me personally was just how utterly contrived the story felt for me. And to me, you know, and Sabine is an easy through line example. And I took the piece out of Sabine with the whole blast helmet. And oh my God, why are we getting blast helmets out of the comet? Oh, never seen this. To me, that was just cheap, but whatever. Maybe we've got new people watching this that have never seen the original stuff. Maybe. Don't know. I can, I can let that through to the keeper.
00:51:20
Speaker
But to me you had every episode of Sabine not being able to touch the force. She wasn't able to move a fucking it was a pencil or a pen on the table and she spent the entire season being unable to really connect with the force and it was a major plot.
00:51:37
Speaker
line through the entire season and you knew straight up because we're old cynical motherfuckers. You knew right. You knew straight at the start that at the end in the final episode, she'll have some major breakthrough. I expected that. I'm cool with the idea that in the final episode, she's going to reach out and the lightsaber is going to wiggle a little bit and you're going to go, oh, is it going to move? Is it going to move? And then it's going to come to her hand. I expected that.
00:52:02
Speaker
But then the entire fight that followed immediately after, she's wielding the force at the same level as fucking Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi. And to me, that leap of 10 seconds ago, I couldn't move the lightsaber and now I'm force pushing Ezra Miller across a gap bigger than anything with Ev- Ezra Bridger.
00:52:27
Speaker
Sorry. I'm very passionate about this point, sorry. She did make you move pretty fast. But seriously, that, yeah, we got it. I'll cop it. But to me, Force pushing him across that gap and a gap that vast. It's a bigger gap than any jump we've ever made in any video game from a Master Force user. And she pushed him across it 10 seconds after she couldn't move a fucking lightsaber.
00:52:56
Speaker
I definitely I definitely agree with you there. I really think it would have been a really bold and brave move if she tried to force pull that lightsaber in the final fight against the zombie storm, the death trooper. And it didn't come. I think that would have been a much cooler and a much bolder move for them to make. I just don't think I definitely I definitely agree with you. I when she forced push them across, it was wasn't a victory thing for me. Like it wasn't like this is a good way to show the characters kind of like
00:53:26
Speaker
She shouldn't be able to do that. Yeah. And it wasn't just that force push. The force push is the most obvious part of it at the end, but that whole fight. The whole fight with her. See her pulling out more Mandalorian fight. Yeah, exactly right. But there was so much force use. The minute she pulled that lights over to her hands, everything was force push, force pull, force fuck and everything. If she couldn't have
00:53:52
Speaker
She should have tried to pull it, and this is all backseat directing. But in the Rebels animated series, when she's going up against Ezra in the training, when Ezra and Kaner are trying to train her with the Darksaber, she's using all of the Jedi skills with all of her Mandalorian skills. They have the grappling hook. She should have grapple hooked that lightsaber and pulled it in.
00:54:17
Speaker
And that's what bugs me because she is a unique character. If they're going to give her false powers, they had a unique opportunity to create a different type or a different style of Jedi. Definitely. Yeah. And they, and they, to me, they fumbled it. I also wouldn't have got her to grapple hook the lightsaber. If I had my choice, I would have got her as she was kind of struggling to then get her flamethrower right in that helmet. And the last thing I wanted to say was Ezra,
00:54:44
Speaker
Ezra leaning into the Ezra Bridger yeah thank you not Miller Ezra leaning into the force as opposed to his lightsaber was cool but i think a choice.
00:54:55
Speaker
When she went to being offered him the lightsaber and he said, I don't need it, I'm going to use a force, was another contrived plot point to demonstrate his ability. Especially when an episode later, he's building another lightsaber. And it just felt ham-fisted where it didn't need to be because the outcome was cool. Yeah. Stylistically, it was a good choice, but the path to get there felt cheap and Mattel. It just...
00:55:20
Speaker
I just, so to me it was balanced, but I just, overall, the other thing I just wanted to say before I flip to you, Tom, it's not a story I have needed to hear.
00:55:32
Speaker
I mean, bringing Thrawn back breathes life or potential. It doesn't breathe life, it just breathes potential back into Star Wars. It gives them something to talk about in a future movie series or TV series. Well, it doesn't because we're already past that point because they blew it with the sequels. So, if they're on- Yeah, but they can now put in a bunch of movies in between and tell the story of Thrawn's, Re-Rise, and then ultimately he has to die.
00:56:00
Speaker
Because he can't be around for the final trilogy, that would make no sense because if he was, he would have been a part of those movies. So, so he's got a bit, they've got plenty of time to tell a bunch of stories in that space that they've created. So I get that part. I just, I don't think I needed to see. There was nothing in that series that I'd, I personally would have preferred an Ahsoka story that had nothing at all to do with Rebels.
00:56:25
Speaker
I would have preferred her as the Grey Jedi who is still struggling with the emotional turmoil and torment of her master turning into Darth Vader, which they did actually treat quite well. I think the special effects of him de-aging were fucking spot on. I just didn't need to see the story that I saw. That's all. Fair enough.
00:56:50
Speaker
I'm on the opposite side of the fence. I chewed it up. I ate it up. I couldn't get enough of it. I wanted more. The whole diving into the mystical side of the force, I think is a nice balancing act towards what Andor is. It's also very rebels too. It's consistent with rebels. And I wanted more of it. That was the thing that I wanted more of. I think I said to you guys after the first episode that the one thing I wanted now
00:57:14
Speaker
You're talking about the Dathomiran witches, right? And when you talk about the mystical side of the Force- No, I'm talking about well between worlds, like the mystical side of the Force compared to the witchcraft side of the Force that the Nightsisters use. The thing that I wanted to see more, the series that if I had the million dollars or whatever to make it would be in that first episode of Ahsoka hunting down the compass and the archaeological side of
00:57:43
Speaker
what Luke Skywalker did trying to find relics of Jedi and Sith post Return of the Jedi, that's a fucking series I want. I want to dive into that. Yes, we were giant peacekeeping force during the Golden Age of the Republic, but at the same time, you've got in the
00:58:03
Speaker
What's his name? Cal Kestis Games. You've got Cordova, who is literally, he's the Indiana Jones of Star Wars. He's going and he's finding lost relics and he's delving into this mystical side of the force. That's what I really wanted them to dive into. They didn't dive into it. They treaded lightly. They treaded lightly into that pool and they maybe got up to their knees and I wanted them to sink right in.
00:58:30
Speaker
And that's definitely the thing. And I think I mentioned to you guys, it's one of the minor missions in the Battlefront II campaign, where you go as Luke and he's finding one of the Emperor's safe houses. But that's what I want to see now. I want to see post-Return of the Jedi Luke going out and finding mystical artifacts of the Force and just really trying to
00:58:54
Speaker
Because obviously the Emperor wiped all knowledge of the Jedi as much as he could post-Order 66 to make sure they wouldn't rise again kind of thing. But then you've got people who are like, no, no, I'm going to go find it. And then it's like...
00:59:10
Speaker
I want to see Luke doing that, but at the same time, that's when I would like to bring Dr. Aphra in, who's obviously done a lot of that in the comics and stuff. That's what I particularly enjoyed about the whole series, was the diving into the mystical side of the force, as opposed to Andor, which is the gritty, realistic version of the Star Wars universe. I'll be right back. You guys keep talking. Sorry.
00:59:34
Speaker
And I, I've got it. Like I watched it again this morning, granted I had a fucking cracking hangover, but it's fine. But rewatching like Anakin coming back with Hayden Christensen. Amazing. Absolutely amazing. Like.
00:59:51
Speaker
As someone who grew up in the time, like, you know, I obviously grew up with the original Star Wars films, but then the, the prequel series, like I particularly enjoy and I, yeah, everyone shits on Hayden Christensen for the, the, the role he had as Anakin. I think episode two Anakin is still annoying as fuck, but I really liked revenge of the Sith Anakin. Um, I thought that Hayden Christensen came into that role really well, and I think he did an excellent job and seeing him come back, like.
01:00:21
Speaker
pure emotions. Like Emma came home one night and I was watching, I just finished the episode of the Clone Wars flashback and she's like, are you openly crying? And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was, that's my Star Wars moment. That was, that was beautiful.
01:00:38
Speaker
The way he moves the choreography, he think the fucking he can still pull off the Anakin backward slash. I think actually even better. Yeah. Yeah. He was so fluid and watching him walk back when the clouds came through and it flashed to him and he's like coming when he kicks Ahsoka back into the world between worlds. And then he does the shoulder shrug and he's like flashes between him and Vader.
01:01:06
Speaker
Just bucket loads of jizz. Just, oh my God. They did a spectacular job of. But just seeing him come back and the love and care he's been given as like being able to like re-portray that character. And the behind the fucking back. That gives me a really special like feeling like as a diehard Star Wars like fanatic.
01:01:29
Speaker
And I am so glad that they gave that back to Hayden if they give it as anyone else, it just wouldn't have been a special. And I think that episode was really that was the high point. That was the strong point of the series was definitely that it wasn't just fan service. It was.
01:01:47
Speaker
You know, it did like it actually made sense. It made a lot of sense and it was it was good and it was done well. So I don't want to disrail your thought here, Tom, but just before you go on to the rest of the series, there's a little clip of them filming that that sequence and Hayden Christian. So it was a it was a proper walkway that they were standing on the World Between Worlds and Hayden Christiansons squatting on the edge of it. And Dave Filoni is down below and Hayden Christians explaining to him
01:02:17
Speaker
what, how Anakin would actually react to Ahsoka appearing. And it was a really good, you can see that he's held onto it despite all of the backlash. And he's, he's gone, no, I know I've done a good job and there's certain amount of people out there that know I've done a good job and can do this well. And he's just leaned into it. And I just, there's so much love and respect there for that.
01:02:46
Speaker
You can't blame an actor entirely for any portrayal because a lot of you have to understand like most. Yeah, it's writing, it's direction. You know, there's a lot of other aspects to this thing. You can tell he loves a character. And to be honest, out of an actor, that's the highest hope that you could ever go for.
01:03:07
Speaker
Because they, and this is the thing, it's kind of a sidestep. And I'm not a fan, sorry to cut you off there. I'm not a fan of Hayden. So I say that very openly. No, and I know that. And so if you just say that, I know like that, how high regard that is, but it's.
01:03:24
Speaker
And it's a side step now into, um, this is a very light point was, um, this is the problem with what fucking marvel are doing is they don't let the actor embody the character in that same sense. Like the fact that Filoni is there looking up and it's, it's a.
01:03:42
Speaker
Like you wouldn't say it's a power struggle thing, but it's literally him going, no, you're fucking Anakin Skywalker. You're the one who knows the character back to front. Like, yeah, I can write for him, but you're the one who's played him for a while. Um, and it's the same thing with Sam Witwer, who is without a doubt the best Star Wars person to ever exist. That guy has been in the game for so fucking long. I'll say that I, I much, I have much more respect for Sam Witwer than I do have for Dave Filoni.
01:04:08
Speaker
And I have a lot of respect for Dave Filoni, but the fact that he's he or he's there's that interview of ways like corrected him and back. No, this is what more would actually do in the fight and rebels and stuff. It's like, you've got to get the actors. That's what they do. They put their heart and soul into a character and they portray them as they would like to portray it because they understand it. They go through their their acting process. And this is the problem with studios who are like, no, no, we've got this grand plan. It's like,
01:04:36
Speaker
Let an actor character develop themselves. I think there's too much arrogance in Hollywood and I think that's demonstrable through the recent strikes. To have your writers and your actors strike at the same time, this is a pretty big deal, right? Everything stops. The last thing I'd like to touch on is like, it's such a fucking shame. It's the biggest fucking loss about Ray Stevenson because he was
01:05:03
Speaker
Like, obviously I love Anakin and stuff, but the way he portrayed Bailey's goal, like...
01:05:09
Speaker
That was amazing. That was so incredible. And I've always really liked Ray Stevenson. I think we all can say we probably have. Um, but he really came into that role, like, like headfirst, he dived into it. And it's just, it's such a massive shame that he got taken. So, so soon after it came out, because I wouldn't, I would also like an entire bail on the skull series.
01:05:39
Speaker
He must have passed after all principal photography was done, because I kept expecting- He passed like two weeks before the series debuted, I'm pretty sure. Right. No, no, no, no, no. It was well before.
01:05:53
Speaker
Because I kind of kept expecting, I wasn't sure the timeline, I kept expecting them to write him out. At the end of each episode, I was expecting him to die in the show. And he passed away like three months ago. No, it couldn't be that long.
01:06:10
Speaker
We'll look it up. But yeah, I definitely think it's, and the one thing I have seen since, since he passed is that the person to take over for him is, um, leave, leave Shriba as, uh, was, um, save a tooth in the X-Men films. And it's pretty close. Is he taking over as the character? No, no, no. That's, that's like the fan casting. Yeah. It is. Obviously he needs to be, you can't, you can't write him out now. Like.
01:06:37
Speaker
Yeah, because he's well, they left him behind. I guess they could, but just never mentioned him again. It's convenient, but I don't, I don't know. By the way, he wouldn't leave the, um, the mortise gods with that bigger, bigger hole. Yeah.
01:06:54
Speaker
And the last thing for me on Ahsoka was obviously everyone who was involved in that show clearly loved Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings because they had the Warg attack on the caravan. They had the Pillars of the Arganath right at the end there. And Shin Hati was a great character too as an apprentice. I thought there was a nice balance between her and Balon.
01:07:19
Speaker
I agree and the interplay between those two. You know what? And this goes back to what I was saying. I would have much referred an Ahsoka story that had fuck all to do with Rebels and didn't have to connect the dots for us. And that would have been a really interesting dynamic to play out and spend a little bit more time focusing on is the two Grey Jedi as the counterpoint to Ahsoka being a Grey Jedi.
01:07:44
Speaker
on the other side of the force balance. Yeah. So we don't have, we don't have hardcore fucking good guys and bad guys anymore. We've got shades of gray, but on, on clearly moral differences, that to me would have been a far more interesting series to explore.
01:08:02
Speaker
Oh, the other Lord of the Rings reference was Ahsoka coming back as Gandalf the White. That was great. But we needed, we needed Thrawn to come back. So we got the series we got. We do need to move on. Yeah, that's enough on Ahsoka. Yeah, I cheated up. I loved it. But yeah, definitely love that idea of exploring the mystical side of the force compared to Andor's grounded reality. I think that was cool.
01:08:29
Speaker
Whereas, and I'm not rage quitting, but I will finish Loki season two and I will cancel my d plus subscription because I just don't see the, I don't see the, the value for money I'm getting out of it anymore. Yeah, that's fair. Um, so I'm really quickly, cause we're going to have to cut stuff to make up time. Um, so I'm just going to blitz through this wheel of time season two, I've already alluded that it made a comeback for me.
01:08:54
Speaker
Season one was a tragic train wreck. Season two, they've done what I said that they should have done in the first place. Just step back and get the fuck out of the way of the amazing story. He is a world builder. Robert Jordan was a world builder that was likened to
01:09:14
Speaker
to J.R. Jesus, my brain's not working tonight. Tolkien. There hasn't really been a good like a story that kind of hits that level since Tolkien. All they really needed to do is pick the right casting and direction and just tell the fucking story that was written for them. They didn't need to reinvent the wheel. They've already got a world class story.
01:09:36
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I didn't mean to do that. I was going to let it go, Dan. Yeah. Yeah. Um, season two, they've done exactly that. And it's cool because they didn't, they didn't just do book two. They actually had to rewrite some stuff to make book two and three collapse into one season. So there, there is some original content in there, but by and large, they got out of the fucking way and just told the story.
01:09:59
Speaker
The actors have settled into a rhythm. You can tell that the dynamic there, they're now old friends and you can tell that the chemistry really works between the actors and the set dressing. I've got to tell you, the set dressing to me is higher class than most of the Star Wars set dressing in Ahsoka. I know it's not a small thing to say, but
01:10:21
Speaker
They've clearly spent a shitload of time and effort and money looking into how to make everything look super authentic so i would actually suggest skip season one.
01:10:33
Speaker
Maybe. I've still got three episodes left. Should I just watch those three episodes? Yeah, you should. Yeah, just rip that band-aid off. But season two is a really interesting, intricate story and it starts to tell you, it starts to show you how broad Robert Jordan's vision for Wheel of Time was. Cool. And they did a good job of telling the story. Continental, did you guys watch it? Not yet. It is on the list. No spoilers.
01:10:57
Speaker
I know it got panned. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Cool. Like thoroughly enjoyed it. How long before- Three episodes. No, but how long before the time of John Wick, as it says? Is it 70s? 70s? Yeah, it is all in the 70s and it's- As long as it takes for Skarsgard to end up looking like Ian McShane. You put that timeline in there because I think it's about 60 fucking years.
01:11:24
Speaker
Hang on, I've got... Yeah, but the 70s were... But the 70s were 60 years ago, Dan. Oh no, sorry, 50 years ago. Sorry, my bad. I said that was such gusto and I was wrong. Ian McShane's a well weathered man. He was a well. Yeah, he is a well. It just means Skarsgard needs to go out and get some sun to weather that Ian McShane is. Do some hard drinking, smoke a pack a day and get some sun.
01:11:51
Speaker
The story was non-obvious and it is very much a John Wick story in the way that the action sequences are very on point for like a John Woo style movie, but the story line- John was still involved? Probably not. Okay. Probably not. I don't even know for sure if he was ever involved. No.
01:12:11
Speaker
But it's the gun, it's the gun food style is very much. I know gun food. It's still very much involved. But the storyline was actually quite interesting. So if you can get away from the rest of it, yeah.
TV Shows and Movies Discussion
01:12:26
Speaker
Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning part one thoroughly enjoyed it. Popcorn movie did exactly what I thought it would do.
01:12:33
Speaker
He's getting on Tom Cruise, starting to look a lot more like his ex-wife. Vampirism no longer, yes. Because we were given his ex-wife shit in Aquaman, I want to say. No, no, the Northman.
01:12:48
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nicole Kidman. We were calling plastic. You're right. It was the Northman. He's starting to look pretty fucking plastic. Fantastic himself. I got to say that's a Scientology and sleeping in hyperbaric chambers with young Virgin blood circulating around it. But the movie itself don't knock it till you try to the movie. I'm actually 900 years old.
01:13:18
Speaker
It does tell an interesting story that if you think about what the future is likely to hold and you follow it down a certain path in terms of artificial intelligence and IT and where we are in the world with data and digital infrastructure,
01:13:41
Speaker
Yeah, they did a bang up job of describing what bad might come in the very near future. And it's very realistic. But this is also part one of the end of the Mission Impossible series. Yeah, there's one more movie and then they're wrapping it. They actually are. Yeah.
01:13:56
Speaker
I hope they stick to it, because I fucking hate when people say that and then they turn around and go, ah, here we go, we got one more. But this tells a story of a sentient self-aware computer virus. I know it's not the first time we've seen that kind of story, but it tells it very much. No, but that's the thing. No, more like think hackers.
01:14:18
Speaker
the old school movie. It tells in a 2023 realistic lens. We are talking about chat GPT everywhere. I like this is the world that we're starting to move into. And what would a self aware computer virus be capable of doing? Well, how about picking an avatar and then deleting him from all footage in real time. So you can walk through an airport security camera and be completely invisible.
01:14:44
Speaker
That, so it's actually kind of interesting in that sense. Anyway. Uh, and, and, and Gen B. Before we move on, I need to address the, the Phillip Rudd comment. You mean Paul Rudd? I did mean Paul Rudd. I did more. It's been a long day. I've really struggled. Sorry.
01:15:02
Speaker
You either get the first name and the second name first initial right, or you get the first initial and the second name right. Because let's be honest, Philip Rudd looks like a walking corpse. And also my brain is scrambled eggs. Just remember those old ads. This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. I never took drugs, but I still ended up there. So they were wrong. Gen V. That's a fucking lie, but anyway.
01:15:30
Speaker
I've have, I've, yeah. I'm so moving on, moving on. Gen V, as a continuation of the boys, but set in a uni campus is exactly as fucked up as you think it should be. It's so much fun.
01:15:48
Speaker
Yeah. No, I actually want to check it out, but it's just, it's one of those things that's so fucked up that you just have to do that in little bits. I can't, I can't do too much of it. Oh, I fucking love it. And in fact, this, this season with the super ultra violence and gore shit that you wouldn't, you probably wouldn't get away with putting on TV. They kind of gone past that point now where the boys pushed it right up to the edge where it's got an R rating. It can't go any further. If they put too much more gore in, they're not going to get it on TV.
01:16:15
Speaker
And they found a loophole, so there's some scenes where the crazy guy that puts his fist through people's assholes and up through their mouths and then starts talking to himself. That's not an actual example, but it's pretty close to the level. They turn them into Muppets. So there's this whole fight scene where the Muppet is tearing apart other Muppets and all the gore is Muppet glitter. It's actually really well thought out.
01:16:41
Speaker
And that's it for me. Over to you. Talk to me, Dan. Talk to me. I'm going to talk to you. A Aussie horror film. Talk to me. It was on my radar when it came out in the cinemas. I should have gone and seen it in cinemas. It's a fucking great Aussie horror movie. It's set in, I actually.
01:16:57
Speaker
I don't think they say where it's set, but I think it was filmed in South Australia. It's got a all Aussie cast. Miranda Otto plays the mum of one of the two of the kids that are in the movie, and she plays
01:17:12
Speaker
the best ochre Aussie mum that has ever been put to film. She swears and the comments. The shit like that. Like it's like the shit that comes out of her mouth when she's, when she's talking to her daughter's boyfriend and things like that. She just, it's just classic. I'm not going to, I'm not going to even say the line because it made me absolutely kill myself laughing when she did it. It's just, I didn't even know she was Aussie.
01:17:41
Speaker
Yeah, she's the she's the beautiful, beautiful redhead in Return of the King. Yeah. She plays. Yes.
01:17:50
Speaker
Talk to me. It's a group of kids, high school aged 16-17-ish, so year 11-12 in our high school system. Two of the guys have this, it looks like a plaster hand that's holding it hand out like that. Actually, it's a left hand.
01:18:15
Speaker
And they, they have these parties where people go to, they get it. This is the one that I, I brought. It was on trailer tracks. And you guys said that it didn't look great because it was, and we, I think we all said it looks all right. I'm pretty sure. Anyway.
01:18:32
Speaker
You don't have a video judge in the edit. I'll watch it. I'll always watch it. Sure. When I look at this Australian film, I'm just like, oh, this just looks like a student film. And that's maybe like an advertising thing on, on the Australian film department. Like maybe they need to learn to cut their trailers better to like, to grab people more, but it just, it didn't grab me in the same way that that. Cause all, all the, all the.
01:18:57
Speaker
So they bring this hand, they have a small group of parties every night where they bring the hand, somebody gets strapped to a chair, you have to hold the hand and say, talk to me. And the only the person holding the hand can see a spirit appear. And then they say, let me in. And they get a short term possession. 90 seconds is the only is the length of time they're allowed to go for. And they have a candle burning at the same time. And
01:19:26
Speaker
They have to... Yes, the most accurate timekeeper, a candle. No, no, it's not. No, no, no, no. The candle's not a timekeeper. Somebody's giving time on their phone and they have to pull the person out. They have to blow the candle out before 90 seconds because that closes the door. Lighting the candle opens the door, blowing the candle out closes the door. Also, for about 150 to 200 years, it was our only way of measuring time at night, Tom.
01:19:50
Speaker
So they had to, the 90 seconds is the limit of this demon possession or spirit possession. Jean-Claude uses cigarettes. Shut up and let me finish this. I'm trying to fucking move this along. So shut the fuck up and let me get through this fucking talk.
01:20:10
Speaker
Anyway, I've lost my train of thought now. There's some sort of spiritual hand job going on. Things go awry and it's an excellent movie. It's brilliantly acted. It's really well written. I think that should be the plot movement for every horror film. Things go awry. It's always things go awry. It's always things go awry. It's the tagline. Yeah, things go awry on this one too.
01:20:36
Speaker
It's meant to be an allegory for drug usage within teens. And I can completely see this the way they approach it in the movie. And it's great. I think it's a fantastic movie. And like I said, really well acted. They've left it open for a sequel. I think they've been green lit for a sequel. I don't think it needs one. I think it should be one of those one and done movies. But just rely on the fact that Australia has no budget to make movies and they'll probably shit Canada at some point anyway.
01:21:04
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's an A24. That's the studio that's producing it. They did X and Pearl and a couple of others. And so I think they've sat outside the writers strike or something like that. There's something to them in the strikes. They're an American independent entertainment company, so they probably aren't
01:21:25
Speaker
They don't require the film actors. Guild membership. It's not film actors Guild. I'm going to stop saying that. That all comes from world police. I know because it makes me sound so fucking backward. You're part of the film actors Guild. Or facts for short. But they probably don't subscribe to all that sort of stuff. So they don't need the PGA if you're going to be the people that the casting director and all the rest of it.
01:21:52
Speaker
Yeah, maybe. The problem is you're fucking pariahs, apparently, in Hollywood if you're not. If you're not in those guilds, you don't get work. I mean, but A24 has been doing really well on its own. So I don't think they're not really concerned about it. I've done some really good movies. So go and watch Talk To Me.
01:22:08
Speaker
good Australian film, really, really fantastic. We'll, we'll translate anywhere around the world. You might not get all the jokes and all the language because there's a lot of Aussie slang in it. And if you're not from Australia, uh, but it's, it's a fantastic film and it's well, it's well up there with, uh, all the horror movies out there of recent times.
01:22:27
Speaker
And Pearl is the second movie that I've got on there. It's the sequel. Sequel but prequel to X. It tells the story of the lady that runs the farm during X. I'm not going to go into it anymore. It was a bit of a letdown. It's got the same actor as X. It was fine. We, me and Louise, got all through the whole thing. It was fine.
01:22:52
Speaker
There was bits that really related to X and then there was a whole bunch of stuff that didn't. And I was really waiting for the film to go somewhere and it never actually really went anywhere. You knew where it was going from the very beginning and I thought there'd be a twist on it somewhere, but it wasn't sort of just played out the same way. She's really great in it. She does this whole table scene that goes for
01:23:19
Speaker
probably five minutes and it's just the camera on her and she goes through a range of emotions, uh, telling her life story. Uh, and that, I think that's worth just you tubing on a tone. She's excellent. So I'll leave it at that. I don't know her name. I don't know the director. I don't know anything. Sorry.
01:23:38
Speaker
Well that was informative. We're such sarcastic bastards. Yeah, pricks aren't we. I'm going to quickly talk about the creator. Yeah, without spoilers motherfucker. Yes, no spoilers.
01:23:54
Speaker
Cool. It's fine. It's good. No, no, no. Gareth Edwards, obviously, is the director behind that who did Rogue One, who did Godzilla. What else has he done? I think we said it looked like Terminator meets what's it called? Not Section 11. What's the South African
01:24:15
Speaker
Before chappy district nine district nine. Thank you. It's, it's, it's, it's rogue one meets district nine. Okay. Yeah. The, the, the, the, the robots and, uh, well, sorry, design design perspective. Um, the, the, the robots in it, uh, definitely that district nine kind of feel of, um, of Android, let's use that term. Um, the, the AI.
01:24:42
Speaker
people, we can do that. They are very cool, very cool designs. Didn't use Ken Watanabe enough. That's my big complaint because I really like him as an actor. The main guy in it
01:24:59
Speaker
John Washington was incredible. He was definitely like a standout standout part of that film, just the way he went through the emotional range he went through was was brilliant. It was it was very good to watch. But I went and started with my Luke and we walked out and literally one of the first things we said was
01:25:18
Speaker
Well, it's nice that Gareth Edwards used all those cutting room floor things from Rogue One. Running across the beach. There's been running across the beach. The orbital platform that is a major part of the story looks like the gate above Scarif. I was just waiting for the Blue Leader to come in with his glorious, glorious red stash that he had and shoot it down, but he never appeared, unfortunately.
01:25:47
Speaker
Yeah, really cool, really cool. Worth seeing. And as Ben said, it didn't reinvent the AI kind of story, but it was a really good retelling of it. Very similar, very similar thing. So yes, I think it's still in cinemas if you can get to one to see it. But otherwise, fuck you, Villanoo. Watch it on your home theater system in the comfort of your own home with your feet up and a delicious beer in hand. That's my review for that.
01:26:13
Speaker
And then lastly for me only murders in the building so season three wrapped up it's um i just i just always love a bit of um. I just never even heard of this what is only murders in the building it's a star which is the fox side of disney um it is.
01:26:36
Speaker
Fucking Martin Short and Steve Martin. Wow, the fact that I forgot those two people's names. Selena Gomez, Jesse Williams, Meryl Streep. Yeah, they're all in it. No, so it's... Delavanine? How do you spell it out?
01:26:53
Speaker
I'm yes that's the third third third series of this it's it's obviously it's a month and month short are the old dudes and Selena Gomez brings the youth into it. I'm just great chemistry between the three of them you tell that obviously steve martin and my children working together for so many fucking years that i've naturally got it to bring Selena Gomez in and like.
01:27:17
Speaker
She bounces off them. She definitely, the third season is the weakest. The first two were really good, really enjoyed them. It just seemed like...
01:27:27
Speaker
Selena was dialing it in in the third one. They were still so full. Yeah, they were still so full of energy and she just something Emma and I both said it's like something felt off. But yeah, it's it's a fun little, you know, detective series, it's it's it forms around. There's always a murder in their building and they run their own podcasts that are an internal investigation on that.
01:27:52
Speaker
Yeah, it's just fun. It's very light, light entertainment TV. Short episodes.
01:27:59
Speaker
Uh, they're 30 to 40 minutes. Yeah. Um, but they're, they're, they're so easy watching that you, you really feel like you breathe through them. Um, so yeah, it's definitely one of those ones that we, we would love to watch the MRI would watch it while we had dinner. It was just, that was a nice, nice, easy over dinner kind of thing. Um, yeah, again, doesn't, doesn't break ground. Uh, they try and throw a spanner in the works, uh, every series with is the, you know, the who done it story, but.
01:28:28
Speaker
pretty obvious for most of them. Like you can figure it out pretty quickly. Everyone's like, you know, gets the last episode and it's like, Oh, this is who did it. And you're just like,
01:28:36
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. Okay. Cool. I'm going to watch it. What's it on? It's fun. It's on Disney Plus. So get in before you cancel. Yeah. I've got an annual subscription, so I need to figure out exactly when it will take effect, but I'm definitely canceling. Yeah. Look, I've got to admit I've never actually seen Selena Gomez in anything other than SNL skits, I think. I think it's SNL skits. And then, you know, all the bullshit with Justin Bieber. So I've never actually seen her in anything.
01:29:03
Speaker
No no and I think this is the first thing I've actually seen her act in that I've actually watched. But I love Steve Martin and Martin Short. Oh those two together are just they're just hilarious. Steve Martin does get his banjo out and he is excellent on his banjo. He's actually got some pretty good albums if you ever want to listen. Steve Martin's banjo albums are very good. Yeah right. Yeah he's a professional banjo player.
01:29:24
Speaker
Fuck. Cool. I think on that note, we're going to take a quick break. I think that's a plan. And we're back. God, I hate myself when I say that. What are we drinking? Beer's number three. I'm drinking the brown ale. Oh, nice.
01:29:51
Speaker
I heard that was pretty good. It's good. It's good. I like it. I'm not sure I would call it, I would not call it an Indian brown ale, but it's good. This is the Molly Rose Brewing Company. Why not a brown ale that Pete had earlier? 6.5%. It's got that real biscuity multi character that should say real nice savory aspect to it. It's got a little bit of sweetness there, a little bit of sort of caramel toffee malt flavors coming through as well.
01:30:20
Speaker
I'm not getting a huge hot pit for it to be called an Indian brown, but it's very nice and very moreish. And just what I wanted now, I quickly ate something during the break. So this is kind of a pleasant little return to the podcast dessert. Out of five? Looks darker on your screen. Three, three, seven, five.
01:30:49
Speaker
There we go. What are you drinking, Pete? Do you mind? Do you mind coming back to me? No. Anyway, I'm drinking the Dark Harp from One Drop. It is a black IPA. Here we go. It's a lovely little can. From who? One Drop. One Drop. Sorry. No, no, no. I did rush. I might be going deaf. I don't know. You may have said it. What? What?
01:31:15
Speaker
Classic grandad joke. They say on the back that they have used Amarillo, Simco, and Citra hops in this. It cores deliciously dark. It is nice and dank. It is, as you would expect from one drop, it is a very well crafted IPA. That is something that they do do rather well when they're not chucking the entire world's fruit content into a beer. Yeah, I said it. Or half a kilo of glitter. I said it.
01:31:46
Speaker
Nice little story on the back, which I'm not going to read because it's mostly bullshit. It's just them waffing on about how people drink IPAs and in the cold months they drink black IPAs. I think we should have a whole episode where we just randomly aggressive over nothing that deserves being aggressive about. Pretty sure that's me every episode. Yeah, look, winter isn't the time for black IPAs. Every time is the time for black IPAs and most breweries are cowards and won't make them in summer. So, you know what? Throwing down the gauntlet. Do it.
01:32:18
Speaker
That's my next, that's my final beer. That's not the one I'm trying now. Yes. Listen, you coward dog breweries, make more black IPAs.
01:32:28
Speaker
Tom, you're the only, it's only in the context of this podcast. No, I'm just the most vocal person. It's only in the context of the podcast I'm going to say this, but you're the only person who talks and I hear the C word on the tip of your tongue, like 50 times a sentence. Oh, it lives there. I could always tell when you want to say it. Oh, it was right there, wasn't it? I know it was. But I don't want to add a little edit note for you, so I was being very nice.
01:32:53
Speaker
I'm gonna give that a four. That is very good. It could be a little danker. Who would be a little danker? Oh, I didn't say that. It was 6.7%. My apologies. I'd tell you when the best before is, but they've somehow printed it on the rim. And so I can't think worse than a rim job.
01:33:15
Speaker
There's plenty of things worse than a room job. Let me tell you. Can I read it? I don't know. I throw that shit out there just to see the responses. I will never expose my own opinion. Like water off a duck's back for me, you know, I'm used to them.
01:33:34
Speaker
All the way down the crack. Oh yeah, that's where the tongue goes. 8th of the 9th, 24 is the best before date. It's on that one. My parents listen to this podcast sometimes. Well, you know, should keep your rusty trombones to yourself. I used to play the trombone.
01:33:53
Speaker
Why does that not surprise me? I wanted to be LankyCon from Donkey Kong 64. I don't think anything you ever tell me, Tom, ever surprises me anymore. Yeah, it tracks. I've lived many lives. I'm really glad that I looked this up, so my beer is really vexing me because
01:34:17
Speaker
So I'm drinking, uh, five barrel brewing, which I don't think we've ever had on the podcast. Maybe once. We have. I did the red eyes. Yeah. Okay. So this is possum paradise, which is a white IPA at 6%. And. Ooh, a white IPA. Yeah. So I went from white IPA to black rye IPA. That's kind of my, my progression for the second half of this episode. It's given into the darkness.
01:34:41
Speaker
International brewing mates collaborating along the Pacific Rim. That word again. Our breweries are both on the on the east coast of our countries. Wollongong Australia and Mango Way New Zealand. I'm sorry if I butchered that. Oceana's trees are home to the infamous possum, protected and loved in Australia, thriving, destructive and hated in New Zealand.
01:35:02
Speaker
East Coast White, a white IPA using heffa vison yeast to exude a creamy banana character across a fruit salad hop base of Galaxy, Vic's Secret and Motowaker. I hope white IPAs aren't making a comeback because I remember when they used to be quite popular. Yeah, very popular. Let's just say that period of history should be wiped from the records.
01:35:27
Speaker
A good one's not bad. They're all shit. I don't get a lot of banana restaurant in this. You know, I don't like heffa wisens. They weren't always made with heffa wisens use, or wheat bee use, but anyway. Sorry. I don't know. No, don't be. I'm really struggling to kind of characterize this bee because they talk about banana. There's no ester in it at all. It's just, it's not bad. It's just a sharp
01:35:55
Speaker
I, it's a sharp IPA. It's got a very low bitterness level. There's a little bit of residual sweetness to it. Um, fuck you, Dan. Uh, and it's funny cause it says, I inhaled deeply at that point too. I was like, I was on mute. So it was all good. I could tell from the facial expression. Um, it's funny cause on the can, it says hot face of galaxy Vic secret and motor waker. And then on untapped they've put enigma Vic secret and motor waker.
01:36:25
Speaker
Murture waker. Murture waker. Yes. So the galaxy is an enigma. The riddle is figuring out which brew it was. Why did I say that? I just, I should have, I should have known. It does say malt, Vienna malt, lager, malted wheat and malted oats. Appearance. God, there's a whole, flavor profile is where I've got the problem. Tropical fruit with banana citrus and white grapes.
01:36:53
Speaker
I can see the white grapes funnily enough. There was no banana in this at all that I can detect. So it might just be my palette, but it's not bad. It's just, to me, it's just another IPA. If you didn't tell me it was a white IPA, I wouldn't have known. Hold it up again. I just can't quite see it. It's the color of a Nipah, really. It's, it's, there's some haze protein in here, but not, not thick.
01:37:22
Speaker
I would have believed you if you'd told me it was just an IPA. Yeah. I think it's the, it's, I think it's the malted wheat because it is listed as a wheat slash white IPA. Hmm. Yep. Hmm. So. Checks. So. Brewers. No. No. It tracks. Um, what is a white IPA IPA compared to just a standard IPA? Um, the ones I've made previously have had,
01:37:50
Speaker
higher weight content. And then in the early days, they went a bit like. No more Beldany. Duvel. Yeah. Duvel and Hogarn. Hogarn. A hoppy, a hoppy Hogarn.
01:38:06
Speaker
Yeah, it is kind of what you would be looking at. That's the name of my retirement village. Oh, can we make that the fucking podcast? Yeah, there's a hyphen there. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Okay. That.
01:38:31
Speaker
That actually tracks a little better, Hoppy Hoe Garden. Put a slice of orange in it, see what does it to it, you know. But I'd expect it to be a little bit lighter and like when I say lighter, I don't mean color, I mean kind of in the body. I'd expect it to be a little bit thinner because Hoe Garden's almost a Pilsner Lager. It's it's clean. It's clean is where I'm going. Dirty in Belgium. Dirty. Yes.
01:39:02
Speaker
Anyway, I'm going to give it a little, a little, a little blue moon. Yeah. The slice of orange in it. Blue moon. Fuck me. That's a dirty word. That's a dirty, dirty word. Fuckin' hoe garden is, do hoe garden and do, you turn your nose up at hoe garden and do Vel. Bigger, a little bit of blue moon. Fuck me. I wasn't saying it in a nice way. Okay, good. I'm just going to call it a hobby hoe garden.
01:39:27
Speaker
Anyway, we're going to move on. I'm going to give it a 375 because I've got, it's causing me some weird personality defect. I'm sure that's not how you spell Hoe Garden, but anyway. No, I did that on purpose. Before we dive into the trailer trash, I did leave off my in-depth review. Do you want me to do it now or post trailer trash? I was going to do the forespoken review.
Video Game Critiques
01:39:52
Speaker
Where do you want me to do it, Peter?
01:39:56
Speaker
Is next episode an answer that you'll accept? Take out trailer trash. I think this will be 10 minutes. I think this will be 10 minutes. Yeah. Do it. I think we still do it. Do it now. All right.
01:40:12
Speaker
I was going to save this for IE Winning Sun, but it doesn't deserve to be in that hallowed hall. I recently finished Forspoken. Ed and I both played this. It's a Square Enix game. It was originally called Project Athia when it was first released. The trailer was released along with the initial PS5 showcase, one of the initial PS5 showcases.
01:40:38
Speaker
So it's a game by Square Enix and another studio because they sent me some fucking platinum email and I literally wanted to vomit on myself again for having to rethink about the game. So the studio was Square Enix and Luminous Productions.
01:40:57
Speaker
My total, and just for stats, my total play time was 58 hours. 58 hours I spent in this game. 58 hours of my kind of life. Let's be honest.
01:41:11
Speaker
So the crux of the game is that you play as a girl, Fray. You have this magical wristband called Cuff, because, you know. Inventive much? Well, he likes to call himself Van Brace. She calls him Cuff because she's edgy. Or uneducated. Fucking tell me that's not like a real thing in the game. No, that's actual thing. That's a conversation they have in the game. He's like, what do you think of the name Van Brace? And she goes, no, I'm going to call you Cuff.
01:41:41
Speaker
How long has he been intelligent for an intelligent bracelet? Uh, like a couple of million years or something. He is a ageless, uh, yeah. It's an ancient ancient, ancient demon, essentially. So he's, he's more educated than she is. And van brace is a pretty specific arm and decide. And so it's literally, it's a, it's a, it's a curled, curled piece of metal around her arm, which would literally be called a fucking van brace or a Bracer.
01:42:09
Speaker
Uh, it's more, more like a bracelet in, in, it looks like it's almost like a snake called run around. So there are gaps in it. So I wouldn't say it's like a van bracer. And you think of, uh, I think of Aragorn putting on. I can almost get without doing any, any, any research. I'm just going out on a limb here and making shit up on the spot, which I have a tendency to do. No, I would almost say that bracelet would be a derivative term of Bracer as a concept. And certainly yeah.
01:42:36
Speaker
As as the Bracer, which was like a cuff of armor that would be, you know, four inches long or something, would slowly get smaller and smaller and you end up with a bracelet. It just ends up being like, like the swords went from being, so swords went, rapiers went from being apart. Like the swords. I want you to start your sentences that way.
01:42:58
Speaker
Rapiers went from being a weapon to defend oneself and to defend one's honor, to becoming almost the elite snobs, the gentle folk would carry them and they would be more and more adorned by jewels and be less and less useful in natural combat.
01:43:16
Speaker
Anyway, this is how we end up with four-hour episodes. I keep complaining. We're getting bogged down on a technicality on a curled serpent piece of metal around this fake character's arm. Anyway, this thing is sentient. It talks to you. And that was the first initial problem. And I talked about this ages ago.
01:43:34
Speaker
the unnecessary level of talking. So I stopped playing Forspoken after the first 20 hours. I got through a bit of it. I got a bit bored with it, something that some other game came up that I was more interested in. I jumped back into that. I wanted to, I was finished Skyrim. I played my little
01:43:55
Speaker
demolition derby game, which was stupid and fun. Um, and then I was like, you know what? I've got a week and a half. I reckon I can smash out the last bit of four spoken. Um, I'm going to go back into it. And they had done an update where they gave you the ability to reduce the time, uh, that cuff.
01:44:12
Speaker
I was going to call him cuff cuff and phrase spoke to each other as you were running about the world. Cause it was a pretty loud complaint on the internet. It was. So in the five minutes that I first booted up the game, I booted it back up, put the disc back in, jumped into it, restarted, uh, ran, let's say the equivalent of a hundred meters and the two fuckers spoke to each other like five times, five times in a hundred meters.
01:44:39
Speaker
It was it was like nittering banter that just wouldn't stop. And the problem with it was, no matter where you were in the story, the banter didn't change. So there were certain. And this is a bit that really shit me. No, it just repeated the same fucking same things.
01:44:58
Speaker
The one that really got me was you discovered these, um, ironically challenge, challenge, challenge monuments. And it's like, no matter how far through the mission you were or the main story, every time you initiated one, it would go, what is this? I don't know. Well, just be careful. And that was like the base, the crux of the conversation happened every time, but this was after I've done 17 of these. I have to do 20 for a trophy.
01:45:27
Speaker
It's like you think the game would be, oh, here we go again. We're going to go back in time and do this, this mission thing. And it sounds like almost like Harry Potter. We talk. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. The, the, the Merlin trials. Yeah. Yeah. All the, all the flu, the flu lady. The flu lady. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Saying the same shit every time you go through.
01:45:48
Speaker
That said, though, once I turned the had the ability to turn the conversation down to minimal and then I think maybe once every half hour they had a little interaction that wouldn't be like combat based, you know, because he'd jump in and say, heal yourself and you'd be like, oh, yeah, I'm low on health. I'll heal myself. That makes sense.
01:46:11
Speaker
Turning that down made the game 10 times more enjoyable because this is the thing. This is the thing that shipped me off the most about the whole game. The size of the map. You both played Red Dead Redemption 2. You know how big a map that is. Do you want to know how much bigger this map was? 1.3 times the size of the Red Dead Redemption 2 map.
01:46:36
Speaker
It is two and a half times bigger than the Skyrim map.
01:46:43
Speaker
Oh, wow. I play Skyrim two and a half more times than I would to play that game again. Yeah. New game plus. And it is a sparse, sparse land. There's nothing except some rocks. So they fucked up that time between, what did we call it? Getting from mission to mission, the amount of time you had to spend actually traveling
01:47:08
Speaker
And like the fast travel was far. We talked about this. There's a measurement in video games could like time between waypoints or time between instances, POIs, something like that. And Witcher had the magic number, basically. And we talked about in the context of Harry Potter, actually. And it just sounds like this one is on the very, very low end of the spectrum.
01:47:32
Speaker
Why the fuck it needed to be that fucking big? I'll never understand because half of it was just nothing. It was literally just flat grassland. Like it wasn't even an exciting landscape. There were things in the background which made it kind of like if you focused on them, they were nice to like run past and thing. But the amount of time it took you to get from point to point to do X or Y was just too big to the point where it actually became a chore to finish this fucking game.
01:47:59
Speaker
Because I spent too long and we talked about obviously like fast travel is good in some games, but fast travel actually detriments. I fast traveled like the motherfucker. Like I had to use fast travel because otherwise it would take me too long.
01:48:14
Speaker
Just doing nothing, running from point to point. And then have to listen to it all on the way. So can I kind of take in a potentially take in a different direction and just ask you a open question. Open question. There was a criticism leveled at this game very early on that it was woke garbage. I don't know anything at all about the game. So this is why I'm saying this is a genuine question. Do you agree?
01:48:40
Speaker
No, no, it was just a really badly fucking written game. In terms of the story content. There's a moment where your character has a fight with one of the main side characters.
01:48:52
Speaker
But two seconds later you can go and complete a side mission with them. Okay, but it's not heavy-handedly pushing minorities into the line line as part of the story. It was almost more a classic tale of the matriarchal society run by witches. They went to war with another country.
01:49:17
Speaker
No one's going to play this game because it's dumb. The cuff turns out to be this demon from the opposing land. And it's literally using you to gain its power back that these four magical witches of. Let me remind you as well, the four witches are just the elements. There's the rock one, the fire one, the water one, and the electricity one. So, yeah. Well, it's electricity. That's new. That's different. Yeah, but essentially that's the four elements of gameplay now.
01:49:47
Speaker
Um, but yeah, so they, and so that was whole thing. And then you, you end up at the end of the game. So there has to be an end game for post, post the last mission. Um, the last mission, the boss was also one of the easiest fights the whole time. They were like small little offside missions that were 10 times harder than fighting the big, big, bad in the end. Um, and, uh, then at the end,
01:50:13
Speaker
You again trap the you don't kill the demon for some ungodly known reason, but you trap him in a tattoo version on your arm and then he makes it out like you're sworn enemies. So there's like a lot of like.
01:50:27
Speaker
I imagine for anyone who had a vested interest in this game, you would have been like, this is quite an emotional turn point where they turn on each other because you've been pals up to this. He portrays you, whatever that kind of thing. But then you trap him and he just acts like you were before the final mission. He's just a little, little quippy occasionally. He makes a few more comments about how
01:50:48
Speaker
Well this sucks so I have to keep doing this. That's just fucking cheap storytelling. So poorly written. So it's not woke, it's just casually racist internet people talking about the fact that she was, it was a she and black. Because that's the only, they seem to be the two extremes. And her acting was, well that's the whole thing what we talked about before. It wasn't necessarily her acting, but it was the bad writing, the bad script.
01:51:14
Speaker
Obviously the direction behind it because they would have done full body capture for it. That's the other thing. So obviously this game is built around and the whole thing was like, yeah, it's a free running parkour style, like traversal mechanism. The controls are fucking sloppier than a... Yeah, you talked about that. I was going to go very graphic there and I think I might stop myself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was the sloppiest thing.
01:51:42
Speaker
No. Since it's a Jaffa. It's a Bolognese Jaffa. Oh, it's a Bolognese Jaffa coming out the other end. Let's put it that way. Anytime they want you to use that movement in a fight.
01:51:56
Speaker
If you're close enough to an enemy and you try and do like one of your like, moves to it, for some reason went, nah, fuck it. You got to do your close up attack move. And I was like, that's not what I was trying to do. Like I was trying to hit a ranged enemy and then I'm, I've fallen off the map now. Like it was just, it was so clunky. Trying to climb was one of the most frustrating things on the planet. So it's just a poorly written fucking game, top to tail by the sound of it.
01:52:19
Speaker
The worst thing on top of that. It looked okay in the very, very, very, very. There were some very nice set pieces in it that you got to run through, but also the worst part about it was, and this is a thing I have against Square Enix. And listen here, Square Enix, you fucking dumb idiots.
01:52:37
Speaker
You can see the C word for me on that one. Stop making your enemies bullet sponges. It is not a way to hide bad gameplay. It is not. It just makes it 10 times more frustrating that I have to fire into the same character when I'm level one the amount of times I have to do it when I'm level fucking 50. It is not smart. It is not clever. It is actually just lazy fucking programming.
01:53:01
Speaker
You should do better because you are a worldwide renowned fucking game studio and I'm sick of it because you do it in every single game the amount of times I played in a Final Fantasy game where I'm level one and I'm level 50 and I fight the same fucking enemy and no matter what my build is I'm still taking 10 hours to kill some fucking wolf that's walked in off the street. It's dumb. It's stupid. It's bad and you're fucked and
01:53:29
Speaker
Mic drop without dropping mic. It's on a stand, so I can't drop it. But yeah, you can't be honest.
01:53:36
Speaker
Anyway. Moving on from full spoken. Sorry, Tom. I think this is the, I think you mentioned it before, the perfect just roll into the spotlight because it's about companions and bits and pieces. So. Is there anything in the trailer trash that we would encourage people to watch the trailer for? Oh, maybe we'll come back to trailer trash. Yeah, we can flick it at the end of this. Yeah, cool. You guys go. I need to cool down. So yeah, please introduce our spotlight because I didn't get the memo.
01:54:05
Speaker
Well, I actually want to read Tom's description of it because Tom's description of it was very good. Mine was just like, hey, let's talk about companions in video games. I wasn't even reading either. I was actually pretty proud of that. I'm ad libbing this shit tonight. Just say I'm phoning it in. You'll definitely have opinions here. Tom's description was...
01:54:31
Speaker
was companions in video games and whether they are improving or detriment to the gameplay experience or the playing experience. And obviously everything Tom just spoke about there, the cuff and the banter and the continuous pointless banter and not the evolution of the banter was what was detrimental to the gameplay there. And we'll let Tom have a breather so he can come into it. No, I'm right in this now. Let's go. I'm in the zone.
01:55:00
Speaker
So I just think back to why why do we need games now to have a companion? Like I'm playing Spider-Man 2 at the moment. It's fantastic. It's amazing. I'm loving every second of it. But I.
01:55:14
Speaker
don't need, I understand for like, there are some points of it where it's world building where I'm swinging along and he calls MJ or he calls miles. You did it in the first two games. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just like, that's fine. But it's just like, do I need that in a game? Like I think back to the, the, obviously the crux of my and the highlight of my gaming history is always going to be Ocarina of time. Link was fucking silent as the grave. He had interactions with people.
01:55:42
Speaker
but he didn't have to, you running through the lands of Hyrule, you didn't need someone talking to you the whole time. You just got on with your job and got it done. I actually wonder whether this is a completely separate, uh, com up late conversation about the, the differences and the, uh, the, the potential benefits of soul, single player character experiences versus group party experiences.
01:56:12
Speaker
OK, I can. In terms of actual people versus in-game. No. In-game. In-game. In-game. In the context of this conversation. Having a party. Yeah. You're talking BG3 versus like maybe an army of two single player versus just a complete solo game. So BG3 peak is talking about as bold as gate.
01:56:34
Speaker
Uh, but, or we'll get to that companions, companions in general, the gameplay with a companion, good or bad, uh, versus a non companion. Gameplay with a team? No, gameplay on their own. I think it could be a three, three, three layer thing where you've got. Yeah. So let's cover it all. So the character with a companion and then character with a team because companions and team are a different thing.
01:57:04
Speaker
It's a really abstract conversation because it really comes down to how the game has implemented your companion and for what purpose. So, you know, you're talking about the bracelet vanguard, brace or whatever. It sounds like the source of how you fire your magic.
01:57:22
Speaker
If that adds some context to it. Sure, but is it a protagonist? Does it propel the story forward? Is it a plot device? Because if you look at like the ghost from Destiny. It was meant to be and then the end game negated it. Right. That was the thing that pissed me off. Yeah. So you've got the ghost from Destiny, which is very much the plot device to explain the world going on around you. Dan, you never played Destiny, did you?
01:57:49
Speaker
No, actually, I knew I knew about the ghost, so I was going to because of the Peter Dinklage replacement. Yeah, because that's exactly. And I knew that was I've still got my Peter Dinklage companion within that behind me. Yeah. But it wasn't it was important in cut scenes, but it didn't really factor that much. It was also it was it was for the tutorial.
01:58:11
Speaker
Well put for your feed for a game perspective it was your recess was your resuscitation device yes yes well your your yeah respawn for everyone else the rest of ice but but. Buy a large it was a tutorial story driver but once the cutscenes are over it really didn't factor into gameplay.
01:58:33
Speaker
on and on, like it wouldn't affect your ability to shoot the gun. No, it's your power. No, but it was a plot device and that's why I call it a plot device, which is why I say this is quite an abstract conversation because your bracer might have just been a constant companion as a way of filling dead air as opposed to a plot device that just shrinks or disappears into the background when it's not necessary. Which I would have preferred it to be. The fact that it was trying to fill dead air, I think it went too far.
01:59:03
Speaker
And I can see someone wrote down God of War and I'm stealing someone else's point. Yeah. So there's several layers to this God of War because we played the first four or five games. Sorry. Sorry. I just saw Pete's note. Tom volume goes up. Yeah, it did.
01:59:23
Speaker
It's my editing note. God of War has several layers because we had the first five games, I think there was, where Kratos was the sole character. And then all of a sudden we're put in this modern era where there's a companion with Kratos all the time. And it is a plot device. It is scripted and it is well-written.
01:59:47
Speaker
all the way through and it pushes and it is, well, no, not in the first game. There isn't, there's only one. Oh, I guess. Well, okay. Very much. Yeah. You're fucking Luddy. He's, he's, he's right there. By the time you get to the second game is in three.
02:00:08
Speaker
So when I say abstract, I mean, like it really comes down to the developer making a conscious choice or an unconscious choice because they're a poor developer or they poorly developed a specific game because I want to rip Square Enix generally. But yeah, I mean, Mamiya doesn't feel a dead air. He drives a plot and
02:00:34
Speaker
Until you're in the boat and then you're just... Yeah, I was just thinking about that, but he does, I guess, fill dead air in that space, but at the same time, he expands your sense of belonging to the world that you're playing the game in. He reads the law so he doesn't have to. Very true. Yeah. But it's... He serves a person that's surrounding you in that world.
02:01:02
Speaker
And it does... You were talking about... What's his name? Starts with A? Atreus. Atreus. I was going to say Atreus, but I kept thinking he's not part of... Never-ending story. Anyway, carry on. But the memoria in both games, probably more predominantly in the first game, is filling in those gaps because even the people that have played all of the old games, they were all said in Greek mythology. We know that story coming in.
02:01:32
Speaker
And you're introducing people into a new mythology that they haven't experienced hundreds of hours of gameplay. So they're wanting to fill this out. And it's not mythological, accurate, all of it. There is aspects of it in there that are. But they've filled in their own lore. And I think it's a very clever way that they've used Mamiya and the boat.
02:01:58
Speaker
And they've they've cleverly, they've very cleverly done things that they go when you beach that boat, he goes, well, that's a tale I'll pick up at another time. And then you jump back in and it reminds him where he was up to in the story, which they do in the Spider-Man games as well. Like if you run through a combat thing when you're on a phone call with someone. Sorry, MJ, I was. Yeah. What were you just saying? And then it started. They did that in the first game, too. Yeah. I just think it's to me, that's a different kind of plot device to the what you described around
02:02:27
Speaker
around bracelet or cuff cuff. I got to start. No, no. A hundred percent. Because the thing with cuff is it's literally just insecure time filler as opposed to it's not adding anything to the story. It's not anything to the interaction between the characters because it's meant to, but it's done in a no way.
02:02:47
Speaker
I don't think it was meant to because they did it so badly like it could not have it's not like they just missed the mark. It's it's the fact that halfway through when you have a camaraderie with.
02:03:00
Speaker
He still talks to you like such a cheap name. Yeah. But he still talks to you like you're an, you're an insulin child sometimes. And the next time he's just like, I'm so proud of you. You did that so well. It's just like, there's no consistency either. That was the thing. It wasn't like a building of poorly scripted building of rapport. Like you have with me and you have with a trace and you have with Freya. It's, it's not that it's literally just.
02:03:24
Speaker
Well, there's so much land to cover. We're going to make this fucking thing just fucking natter at you. And it's like a, literally like a fucking mosquito at night, just hovering around your head. And I just want to, I hate him so much. So another good comparison there, Tom, is the game that I've been playing shadow of war that was made in 2017. So it's now six years old.
02:03:51
Speaker
And you are partnered up to very stoic characters together with Calibrimbor and Talion in one person. So you are literally in each other's heads. And there is no natter until it's absolutely relevant. You've got the very intelligent. Because if you're running around doing shit, you don't want someone saying shit in your ear. That's the thing I think Square Enix entirely missed.
02:04:17
Speaker
I think, I think it is and everything you've described about it. And Ed was talking about as well. Sounds like a goddamn fucking nightmare fuel. It's just when you couldn't turn it down, it was. And that's the whole reason I stopped playing was just, I couldn't, I couldn't deal with it anymore. Like it, it took away from the fun of the game. And that's the thing. When I turned it off, the game became 10 times more enjoyable.
02:04:41
Speaker
And it feels like the things you were saying about Cough always saying the same things that it
02:04:50
Speaker
It kind of puts you in a static point of view as where Atreus and Mameer's and Freya's comments are always something new and fresh. Even if you're going back and mopping up an area to get bits and pieces, they're always talking about something new. It feels like a growth through there. Or saying something like, holy shit, we couldn't get here before. Why are we here now?
02:05:15
Speaker
Yeah. And then that obviously triggers a whole bunch more of clever scripting beyond there where they're going, OK, well, now that they're past this point, we need to introduce fresh dialogue. And of course, yes, we do get those repeated things in combat of health and watch out behind you and whatever Mimir was saying in the second God of War, which was overdone combat vocalisation of a companion.
02:05:43
Speaker
But their banter outside of that, I think was incredibly well scripted. And I really put the same thing down to Shadow of War. And I'd probably put it to the Arkham series as well, because you think about it like, especially a character like Batman, who's a lone wolf. There's no other way to describe him. But like, putting him- He is, but he isn't. He has a team, but he doesn't need to use him if he doesn't want to.
02:06:11
Speaker
And I, you know, there's also the thing around like, should
02:06:16
Speaker
It's been out long enough. The Arkham Knight, Red Hood, being able to contact him directly to go dim or encourage him on to do some things like that. He knows that the Batman's got open channels. Again, that was all story driven and it added to the experience compared to taking away from it. The only chatter you really heard when you were gliding around was
02:06:42
Speaker
you know, some of the funny stuff the criminals would say to each other, like, and those kind of like, like, conversations going on, it wasn't it wasn't someone literally, like, just going on your head. And I know that there's been a real shift. And this is what I was kind of getting to with the topic discussion. In single player games moving to they they feel like you need that companion, rather than the silent hero. And we've done the silent hero chat before. But, you know,
02:07:12
Speaker
fucking running around as a Doom Slayer, like no one's talking to me. I'm having a good time. I'm just demolishing demons. Like I don't know if I need someone constantly like filling that dead space. Um, yeah. For years and years and years, this wasn't even a plot device. Only a recent thing. It's not a recent thing in the sense of it's not a new invention, but if it was included in the game 20 years ago, it was because it was a fucking good reason to include it in the game.
02:07:41
Speaker
Well, because they had to sacrifice some of the tech to make that happen. These days, it seems to be just much power. These days, it just seems to be kind of like shoehorned in where it's not 100 percent. Yeah. But then you then you get those those wonderful things like Red Dead Redemption, where it's set in the old west. You have a gang. You have all these people at your camp. But once you're out in the wild, you're out in the wild. So it's only you.
02:08:09
Speaker
Well, I think Baldur's Gate 3 does that really well too. Well, I was going to say Dragon Age and Mass Effect. You really have to pee. Of course you do. But yeah, like the same thing, like going into a team setting now, like obviously you're thinking Baldur's Gate 3 where you have a team at your disposal. I'm thinking older games, Mass Effect and Baldur's Gate, you still had two companions with you.
02:08:34
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Dragon Age was the same. It was, it was always a team of four with your main character. And it's kind of like, but they, they still had good scripted things. There was a couple of repetition. Uh, Dragon Age origins was the first one and then there was two and then there's, um,
02:08:51
Speaker
Inquisition, which I still haven't finished. It haunts me to my dying days. But yeah, it was still that team-based thing where it was like, yes, you go out with a team. You have a team. Obviously, you've got four people running around. They're not going to talk to each other.
02:09:08
Speaker
but it was meaningful content that they were saying. They commented to be like, you know, it was either like guiding you towards like, Oh, you should check over there. Like somehow more cleverly scripted than that, or it'd be like, you know, in a combat situation to be like,
02:09:23
Speaker
Yeah, or to be like a combat thing where it's like dark because I'm throwing a grenade. Like that's, that's good team, team banter, which is, but single player games, you don't, you don't need someone nattering in your ear the whole time in a team based setting. Sure. They're going to have natural conversations. I think that's valid, but I don't see why single player experience is really needed anymore.
02:09:45
Speaker
Or needed it ever, ever. Yeah. If it's a plot device to tell a story, sure. We can let it through. Like that's not a problem. As long as it's well scripted and well written and well executed and high on life does a great job of that. The gun interacts with you pretty constantly throughout the game, but never.
02:10:03
Speaker
It never nags you, it's never in the way, it's never demands attention. Which I think is was my fear around high on life was that the gun was, yeah, which was the gun was going to nag you. Yeah, no. Yeah. No. And the knife, the knife with the really bad South African slash Australian accent, I can't tell what it is. It's kind of a Captain Boomerang in
02:10:28
Speaker
What's that fucking suicide squad? Suicide Squad, the original movie. Or Ray Stevenson in the... Throw it back to him. Yeah, in the other guys. Yeah, it's that kind of accent. And yeah, which is quite different. So I was talking about Baldur's Gate 3, I think does a great job of you've got three companions in your party if you're playing at single player.
02:10:51
Speaker
And they do drive the story forward and they've all got their own stories and it is a complex rpg as you would expect out of bg3 and we'll talk about it later on in are you winning sun but they meld into the background for the most part as well. It's not like you're constantly hearing them talk to you.
02:11:07
Speaker
I talked to you when it's relevant and when this story beats relevant to the story of course i just. I just walked through town and you literally if you're listening to the background dean of people talking in the city, you might hear is not right shadow heart and sight.
02:11:24
Speaker
Hang on what what just fucking happened I just walked past this group of people and someone said one of my party members names you go back and talk to them and that party member suddenly becomes really important and you can choose whether or not you as your character or your avatar gives her center center stage or you take the lead in the conversation.
02:11:45
Speaker
And so they're constantly in the background. That's very cool. Yeah. And there's a lot to say on BG3 and all of Larian games, but they're companions that will drive the story forward in a really involved and interesting way, or you can just fucking ignore them. They'll never be in the way. Anyway.
02:12:09
Speaker
Yeah, I think one more honorable mention here would be the Uncharted series, more so the later Uncharted games, Uncharted 4 and Lost Legacy. There was times every stage you do has a companion, whether it's your brother, whether it's Sully, whether it's one of the other people that's in there.
02:12:35
Speaker
No, Nadine and that are in the lost legacy, but you always have someone. Elise was the girlfriend. Was it, was she with him at any stage in four? It's been a long time since I've played.
02:12:48
Speaker
But like sometimes you would have the two of them there and it kind of overlaps with this, this PS4 God of War series as well, that sometimes those background companions can be having a conversation with each other. I mean, how much do Atreus and Mamiya talk to each other far more than either of them talk to Kratos? Like Kratos doesn't want to be part of this conversation. Also Kratos literally just talks in grunts.
02:13:15
Speaker
Unless he needs it. Yeah. And that I can respect. But in Uncharted, Nate Drake is obviously super fucking chatty. And then you've got his brother and Sully and Nate all together in this fucking Jeep going across the open land. But then you'll stop and you'll go out to a point in the open land and only one will come with you or only you'll go out. So there's points in this game where you have a party with you in a semi open environment.
02:13:45
Speaker
that Nate will be at the top of a tower and they'll actually yell down to the bottom to the people in the gym and they'll yell up and it's this dynamic voice. Super contextual, yeah. Incredibly contextual and it's just... Is that scripted or is that just...
02:14:04
Speaker
Well, it's scripted when you get to that that that building. Yeah. Yeah. But is it like an in-game cut scene? No, you're in complete control the whole time. It's in gameplay as opposed to cut scene. It's in gameplay. So you're still doing things while your character is. You could walk away from that tower and be like, what the fuck are you doing?
02:14:23
Speaker
And the sound would get further away as you do it. And then you might come back to the point and they go, oh, fuck, are you right? Like, what were you doing back there? Did you find what you wanted to find? Because we're here trying to get up this fucking hill and you left us here. And it's that sort of stuff. And I think Uncharted does it the best, but they were also the earliest to do it as well. And there's a lot to be said for that.
02:14:50
Speaker
dynamic group companion story as to a solo story, as to a companion story that has no meaning. If you get 100%. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's no point having a companion nattering at you if it doesn't actually take you anywhere better in the story. No. Yeah.
02:15:12
Speaker
or character development or an insight to law of the world or anything. And I think the first actually, if I can think back, the first interaction of this that I can really think of in a video game, and I can definitely probably be proved wrong by this if someone wants to go through the archive and find this. I actually think the first time that I had like a similar style, BG3, like four player character game, X-Men Legends, where they actually interacted like that,
02:15:42
Speaker
And that's the first time I actually found that like, helpful. Are you bloody right? Sorry. But yeah, that's the first time I actually found it to be a helpful thing. It's just like, I remember running around at that and you know.
02:16:01
Speaker
Gene would say something to Cyclops, who'd be talking to Wolverine, who'd be talking to Jubilee and that kind of stuff. It was just like, you had those four characters interacting and it was the fact that it was for four characters who would interact because they, yeah. But it was adding stuff to the story at the same time. That's, yeah. And I'll get into B.J. 3 more in I.U. winning star after we talk about our next beer, but
02:16:26
Speaker
That is one thing that BG3 doesn't do. It does a brilliant job. Like, it's pretty close to a perfect game for me. Yeah. My personal tastes. Like, that was a good crack. Sorry. That was a good crack. But whilst each of your characters does interact with you as a protagonist in a really interesting and important way,
02:16:51
Speaker
They don't often interact with each other all that much. Okay. When they do though, it's really well scripted and I'm somewhat surprised that I don't do it more often because. Fucking Shadowheart and the- Astarian? Oh no, okay. Githyanki lady, go at each other, all that. Well, in my playthroughs.
02:17:13
Speaker
They would go at each other because they're not in my part. Well, so shadow hearts in my party, but, but, uh, lay rail or lay rail. Las real. Las real is not. Um, I'll see. I think she's great. She is the right level of abrasive obnoxious.
02:17:32
Speaker
So i've got a starry and and and shadow heart in my group and they do occasionally interact and the starry ends this and for those that will never play the game and this is spoiler free everything i say about bg3 will be spoiler free. He's this he's this absolute narcissist but he's also a vampire.
02:17:53
Speaker
What's the word I'm looking for? The thrall. No, he's a vampire thrall. So he is a half. So he's been bitten by a vampire, but he's a slave to the vampire, basically, which is why I call him a thrall. But he's this absolute narcissist. And he always talks to me like, how are you doing, darling? Like he's got this really- He's full-fault.
02:18:16
Speaker
Yes. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and, and shadow hunters is straighty 180 down the line. This is how it is. I'm a religious fucking zealot and their interactions are so rare. And yet when they do interact with each other, it's fucking hilarious. Cause she's a sarcastic fucking bitch to him. And he knows that she's being that way. And he responds as, as the fop just to rile her up. It's great.
02:18:44
Speaker
I mean that's where the Mass Effect series and which is Bioware and that's where that and Dragon Age excelled because the characters did interact in the background, but it didn't take away from what you were doing. It's like you wanted to stop and listen to it. It's just tapestry. Yeah. Just to paint the picture. It's literally enriching the world. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I just think like, if we're going to close out on this, I just think, look, take us back to the Golden Age where, um,
02:19:10
Speaker
Look, I, I put my headphones on. I don't want to talk to anyone. I'm playing a video game and I don't want my character to talk to me. I just want to walk around, do my thing and just everyone leave me the fuck alone. But if it is done, if you, if you're going to enforce it, do it well in a single play game is what I'm saying. If you're doing a team based game, I want the team to interact. If you're doing a, okay. So I've got a question for you here. So to once again, to close this out and actually go on your closing argument,
02:19:37
Speaker
We know the last Ronin Ninja Turtles game is coming. Yes. Do we want the last Ronin to have the other three turtles talking to him as he goes through the world? I want them to do it in a Deadpool way where he's talking to himself as the other three turtles.
02:20:21
Speaker
like a full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full, full,
02:20:27
Speaker
Raphael was always sarcastic, but in a really kind of dark, like cynical kind of way. He was a cynic. Michelangelo was just like the trickster. Like they all had their own very much personality, very distinct personalities, but it was all essentially voiced the same way.
02:20:46
Speaker
So Pete, do you know who the last Ronin is? I'm saying all this very quickly because I don't know. I know as well. I'm not going to confirm or deny whatever you say. So I'm going to go. Unless you want us to, in which case I will, because I don't care. It will chat. It'll be. Yeah. It's pretty obscure. I'm going to assume that I actually wasn't surprised.
02:21:12
Speaker
I'm gonna assume it's probably Michelangelo because the obvious choice was Leonardo and as the leader of the turtles and Michelangelo was always the carefree, didn't give a shit, never took anything seriously and I think it would be more, most interesting to make him the last survivor because it would have compressed his personality so much.
02:21:32
Speaker
to see you three breath and die. After this podcast. I'm just going to have to respond with yes or no. No, I'm not going to do it now because that'll give it away. After we've finished recording, I will confirm or deny what you just said. Sure. Cool. And here's the spoiler cast. No. Begin this as divine and ever pay full price for late pizza. Should we go into beer number four? Yes. Yep. Yep.
02:21:58
Speaker
Cool. You're up first, Pete. You did your Black IPA slurp. I did. So this is the Wooden Axe Brewing Co. Black Rye IPA. Oh, I want to try this. I want to try this. You should. Yeah. You should. It has- Have you guys heard about Wooden Axe? Who they are?
02:22:18
Speaker
No, but there's phase two at the top of the can. I'm not sure what that means. So this is the second year they've released in cans. I'm excited for them because they are a young, young pair of guys who won the Frenchie's Homebrew comp. And the first one they put out was a nitro, nitro vanilla
02:22:38
Speaker
Nitro Vanilla Stout or something like that. It was really creamy. I just remember we had it in the shop and it was like, yeah, so this is their second beer. So, you know, it's, it's. So we definitely haven't done these guys. We haven't. This is their second beer they released commercially. Okay. So, so the, so it's called Phase Two. That's the name of the beer. I said it was Black Rye IPA. That's the style description. It's a CDA, Cascadian Dark Ale. Um,
02:23:06
Speaker
And it's six and a half percent and it's fucking spectacular. It is really good. There's just a, there's an edge of bacon-y goodness. It's not strong and it's not overpowering. A little bit of smoke involved in there. Yeah. Yeah. You definitely get it, but you still also get, excuse me, a bit gassy. Um, you still get, um, a really solid hot pit out of the IPA base beer out of it. Um,
02:23:37
Speaker
That is a great fucking beer, though. I would definitely hunt that down. Where'd you get that from? I want to say Tom. Nah, probably not.
02:23:52
Speaker
I just tried to swipe increase some text on the back of the can. Don't worry. That is one of the dumbest, dumbest, dumbest things I've ever fucking done. And it definitely record. I literally went.
02:24:12
Speaker
So the untapped describes this as the rhymal lens a spicy zest perfectly complimenting the citrusy hop character for some big hitters citra and amarillo this is phase two. Good yeah it is it is a really solid ipa base and it just has that.
02:24:32
Speaker
dark malt body kind of creeping in. It's not overpowering. It doesn't turn it into something that it's not. It's just a, I would have said that it was, it's a dark beer influencing a IPA. Okay. And yeah, you do get a bit of a spicy hit, I guess. I'm going to give it a four to five. Hmm. Yeah. Which is my highest ranking of the night, which yeah.
02:25:02
Speaker
Really enjoyed that. Tom, what are you drinking? Oh, a very bright screen is what I'm drinking. We've talked, I'm going to start this beer with, we've talked about copyright infringement in beer labels before. We have. We have. I don't think this has been sanctioned by the company, if I can show it to you.
02:25:25
Speaker
But I now understand more given who I know is behind the collaboration. It's a collaboration beer. It's a double West Coast IPA using Shinok, Cryo, Amarillo and Simco. It's from Seeker Brewing.
02:25:42
Speaker
And it is the Boomstick Sonic Boom. And let me tell you, I sincerely doubt that Capcom signed up for that. But also knowing Boomstick love doing some collaboration beers where they really just go,
02:26:06
Speaker
It's straight out copyright infringement. The beers they've done with Bracket, they've done the X-Men series, they did the Gambit one originally, and then they did the Juggernaut. To the point where the artwork was literally, if you type Juggernaut into Google, it was the first image that came up, that's what they did.
02:26:24
Speaker
That's a good way to go to jail. And I'm pretty sure that, uh, color that, uh, is around gambit's cards is probably copyrighted by probably as well, as well as the gloves. Cause it was, it was, you know, it was the, um, the, the, the, the two, the two females.
Craft Beer Creativity and Infringement
02:26:43
Speaker
That is a hundred percent go. You know, you know how it is because it says guile right there. That says guile on the can, uh, Kyle guile versus hops sonic boom, double West coast IPA.
02:26:54
Speaker
is a fantastic double west coast RBA. It's delicious. It's dank, it's hoppy. It's everything you want. It's nice and bitter. But it's just...
02:27:04
Speaker
Like, there were two cans in the fridge that I wanted to grab for this reason, this topic around copyright infringement. The other one is a deeds beer, which I will probably enjoy by myself, and it's called There and Bracked Again, and it is literally the Numenorean tree. I was going to say, it's Lord of the Rings reference. It is a very, very...
02:27:25
Speaker
on the nose or the rings reference using because they are part of the bracked brewing system, whatever that was. I just read briefly on the I think it's a potentially a yeast or hop, maybe a hop farm thing. Anyway, I didn't use it, but it has it has the ring script on the can. It's and we've talked about before with some with some deeds cans recently where they
02:27:56
Speaker
They did the can that was back to the future references and it just had the time stamps. And it's just like how?
02:28:05
Speaker
Are you homaging or are you actually being creative with it? And it's just like, if you're going to be that obvious, are you being creative? Anyway, that's just almost like a screen grab printed onto a can. Look, it obviously stood out to me. I grabbed it because of the can.
02:28:28
Speaker
I also grabbed it because the style, if that had been a fucking heifer wise and I would have thrown it against the wall and then taken a shit on it. But look, it is a very good double West Coast IPA. I like the fact that a glassware company is also doing collaborations with breweries. I think that's kind of fun. That's a bit more interesting than just breweries collaborating where you know it's like,
02:28:51
Speaker
one brewer called another brewer and said, Hey, you want to jump on this one with me? And he go, Yeah, sure. Do I have to do anything? No. Okay, cool. But the fact that they are, they're a glassware company and they make they make really nice glassware as well. Yeah, I think it's, it's fun. As a double West Coast IPA, I'm giving that a 4.75.
02:29:17
Speaker
Cool. Wow. It is deliciously better. I'm also impressed you managed to pad it out that long too.
02:29:23
Speaker
I can talk some shit if I need to. We spoke about things. I should probably be a writer for Square Enix for four spoken dogs. Dan, what are you drinking, mate? I've got another New England. Oh, wait a minute. It's called Mud Map Hazy IPA. It's got galaxy and mosaic in it. And it's exactly what it should be. It's a fruity tropical fruit bowl of a hazy IPA.
02:29:52
Speaker
You know what? No, no, this is absolutely wrong. This says it's fucking 50 IBUs. This is not anywhere in the vicinity of 50 IBUs. Is there a point in there? No. No. It's listed in untapped as 50 IBU as well. There's not a chance in hell versus 50.
02:30:15
Speaker
not anywhere near close in any way, shape or form. 6.6%. It's just a great fruity IPA. It's just hazy. Great or grape fruity? Great. Great.
02:30:31
Speaker
tropical fruity, some appley, some melon, some peachy characteristics, apricot, nectarine, sort of that, that whole tropical fruit bowl. It's all just sort of amalgamated together. It's got a, a really nice mouthfeel. It's got a good residual sweetness to it. Just all up. It's really nice. It's not fucking 50 IBUs, uh, but really nice.
02:30:55
Speaker
Nice. Out of five? I'm like, I don't want to give it something in the threes, but I don't think it's well above a four.
Spider-Man 2 Game Highlights
02:31:03
Speaker
So I'm going to give it a four. Okay. Cool. All right. Tom, are you winning, son?
02:31:12
Speaker
I am I am I have obviously jumped straight into and we're gonna bring it out now because it's the most glorious thing on the planet. I have jumped straight into Spider-Man 2. It's so big. It's 19 inches of venom baby. Peter comes off which is fun as well. Emma hates that I can take take Peter off because now he swings around the house and annoys her.
02:31:35
Speaker
sometimes pokes her in the head when she's trying to make business calls. Because what else am I going to do with my time? Yeah, I am apparently almost halfway through the game and I think I've been playing it for about 12 hours. 10 minutes? Yeah. It has been said it's a very short game. I'm not angry about that though. I definitely still am spending time
02:32:05
Speaker
web zipping around New York City. New York City is very much more, it's so much denser in terms of like just the traffic and the pedestrian content of the people walking past and driving cars in New York. It feels more lived in. And we were going to talk about this as a potential spotlight, but you do get your web wing gliders. So you get to glide in this and then you get into these wind tunnels and flying through New York City
02:32:31
Speaker
it really makes me think that that is what a flying superhero game needs in Stormy Act to come in and give it some pointers on that. It feels so natural just zipping through buildings, flying down a main street or something at full bore. I think it's one of the best
02:32:54
Speaker
city flying simulators I've actually played in all my years. And I've played some games which did replicate like...
02:33:03
Speaker
It was a LEGO one, but like LEGO Avengers, like you got to fly around through New York in LEGO Avengers, but it was kind of like it didn't feel as fast and like you got to make these like handbrake turns in it and like and stuff. I'd really love them to take on a Superman character or an Iron Man and fly through a city metropolis or compared to the gliding of the Arkham series. It's going to be so good to see what they do with Wolverine.
02:33:28
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And look, yeah, I'm apparently halfway through the main story. They've made some canon changes, which I'm not on board with.
02:33:44
Speaker
given my love of Spider-Man comics over the years. But I'm not particularly angry with them. I just think it serves the story well. Again, it's good writing. It's very well written. The voice acting is brilliant. It's so smooth. It's so fucking smooth. Literally, it's gliding butter over my ballsack. It's just that smooth. Like, wow.
02:34:12
Speaker
Yeah, it's amazing. And it's, even though it's going to be a short game, like it's definitely one of the ones that I would, it doesn't have a new game plus the moment they said it's coming in. I'd love to play a new game plus version of it just to go back and play it again. Yeah, I haven't finished it. I want to go back into it again.
02:34:31
Speaker
Suits, I've unlocked half the suits so far, they've been cool. They did the same thing where you get to unlock the into the Spider-Verse suits and they play differently, like the animation plays differently. I've still haven't seen that animated film either. You get to turn that off though. We haven't talked about it. You get to turn that off though, which is fun. We haven't seen it, so watch it and we'll talk about it.
02:34:50
Speaker
Um, um, you get to turn it off. So if you want to run around as into the spider verse miles or the one I've unlocked for Peter is the Nicholas cage noir. So, but you have to turn off the animation thing. So it's smooth. It's, it's fluid and smooth. Like as opposed to being a bit jarring, which I think is really cool. You also got once you unlocked the Nick cage.
02:35:14
Speaker
you also got to turn on the power whammy for any suit here, the bubbles, the bubbles for any suit that you used. I have been definitely running around as
02:35:27
Speaker
anyone actually cares, which probably no one does. Classic Spider-Man. So Peter Parker's in classic suit because he just can't get past the original. But Miles is using the 2099 Miles suit, which is kind of similar to the one that they have in the film, but it's hooded and still got the blade. So it's, yeah.
02:35:46
Speaker
look cool. Anyway, I'm fucking loving it. Yes. Tom, can I ask, uh, is this a game that allows you to put a suit on and use the powers, but, uh, like have a cosmetic of another suit?
02:36:02
Speaker
No, they've changed that from the first one, so the suits are purely cosmetic. Purely cosmetic, so they don't have powers. They don't have powers associated to them, which I actually, I'm not angry about because you just, you learn to play as Peter and Miles.
02:36:18
Speaker
So for your upgrade points, you've got a Peter Tingle. No, you've got a Peter map, you've got a Miles map, and then you've got a joint Spider-Man map. I haven't unlocked the black suit yet. I know I'm close to getting- And it's just purely cosmetic. The first one really went into each suit having its own ability.
02:36:41
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Um, which annoyed me cause I have certain suits I like. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, this is, this is purely cosmetic. Um, like, so, you know, for the special powers so far, obviously Peter's going to get black suit powers, but, um, he has, um, the, the forearms, the Doc Ock arms, the spider arms out of the coming out of the back of his suit. Um, no matter what suit you wear, they're, they're his things compared to miles has his, um, bioelectric powers.
02:37:08
Speaker
Yeah. It's just it's just a beautifully done city. The one weird thing actually, and I don't know if you guys find this weird, I found it really weird. I've been to New York several times. And I've been to New York since 2001 when obviously the 911 tragedy happened. The 911 square isn't in the game. Oh, I think it's been replaced with the game.
02:37:32
Speaker
So I've wept around. I know it is. I've been to it. I've looked in it, but it's not in the game, but I'm pretty sure it's been replaced with a fictional building. And I don't know if that was, it's a weird thing. Like, cause I, it was weird that also that I went searching for it, but yeah, I, yeah, I couldn't find it.
02:37:53
Speaker
Yeah, that's that I can understand if it's a city like Metropolis that is meant to be. Yeah, 100%. That's why it's New York. That's meant to be New York. So the buildings they've added in, which obviously- It's a bit of a ham-fisted way to deal with it, right? We weren't sure whether or not to put- No, but I'm pretty sure there was something in about it in the first game. I think you could you could visit it.
02:38:18
Speaker
And like, it's a quite serene memorial when you actually go to New York. So you've been to the memorial? Yeah, I've been to the square. But they've added in an odd building. Some dude recently fell down. Yeah, some guy jumped into the fountain, like the waterfall thing and then... Yeah, broke both his legs probably.
02:38:41
Speaker
I think he actually got away with one broken bone and that was it. And it looked like he was pretty much dead. I don't know the full backstory. It was a Reddit post of, or Reddit video. They've added in. It looks really, yeah. You can visit the Wakandan embassy. You can find, um,
02:38:57
Speaker
There's the Avengers Tower, which is one of the tallest buildings in New York. You can climb up. There's the Trask building. They finished the Fisk building as part of the first game. And that's actually the really cool thing. There's a bunch of things from the first game, which were under construction, which are now completed because there's a time gap. And then there's one other, like, oh, there's the Oscorp building. But yeah, I'm pretty sure we're
02:39:23
Speaker
From my memory of New York, where the memorial is meant to be, there is a building there. And I'm not sure if it's like, meant to be like a, this is what it could have been, or if it's just a, well, there was a gap in the skyline, so we wanted to chunk in this fixed one that's part of the story. Yeah, but if it's a, if this is what could have been, that's, that's some really weird shit. Like that's. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think, I don't feel like a game developer has a. No.
02:39:51
Speaker
I'm not American enough to say what I wanted to say there. I'm just going to leave that out. I just, yeah, that's weird. Change history. Yeah. No, no. So yeah. Yeah. That's kind of where I was going. Like an opinion. You're, you're stating an opinion with us with a change like that. Yeah. Because I don't know that the game developer has a voice. Would ever move on from that.
02:40:14
Speaker
Yeah I don't know that again developer like that's a big call right to say that we have a voice strong enough to declare what we would have done in this situation that's that's that's big. I guess that's the other thing for the other buildings it's like. There's there's one mission one mission I've done which involves the sanctum sanctorum which is a.
02:40:34
Speaker
Obviously, the building that is the Sanctum Sanctorum doesn't actually exist in New York. I've been to 122 Bleecker Street. It is just an apartment building. I love that I would have guessed that about you. Well, the first times I went there, I was like, Emma, I'm going out for a day. I'll be back.
02:40:53
Speaker
I went and did a marvel tour of new york and tried to find all the spots but yeah it's it's you know that is definitely you know it's it's a bigger building than it actually is and it's taken apart like a part of a city block out that's like if you wanted to be completely accurate that building's not there but that's a bit different than yeah removing a tribute and a memorial from from a pretty devastating attack yeah.
02:41:20
Speaker
Yeah, I just found something on Game Informer. It's a pretty long article. I am not in a state to read it right now, but it's the title is why is it missing? Spider-Man 2 is missing this major New York city landmark. I mean, that's good that I remembered where it was and I actually webs it there and it wasn't there. So well done. The old Tom brain still works.
Baldur's Gate 3 RPG Experience
02:41:42
Speaker
Well done. Pat on the back. Anyway, Peter, are you winning, son?
02:41:48
Speaker
Do you really want to go to me next? Well, yeah, because he's doing research and you're sitting there scratching your chin. You should, because if I wait any longer to talk about BG3, I'll be too drunk to fucking get a sentence out. I'm in that fucking zone right now. Are we setting you a time limit? Do you want me to set a timer? No, I'm good. I'm good. We actually need to wrap pretty soon, so I'll be quick. Baldur's Gate 3 is as close to a perfect game as I've ever played.
02:42:19
Speaker
Well done, Larian Studios. Well done. Five stars. It's just, it's, and I've got to do this spoiler free, both for the audience, because it's a relatively new game and Dan, because the early access, early access only exposed act one of a three act story.
02:42:41
Speaker
They've done what we experience them do for the first two games Dan so they they create the story that you actually give a shit about by the end of it and that's to me that's kind of rare in a video game these days you can get on board with a storyline but actually caring about the outcome before it's revealed.
02:43:01
Speaker
That's something that not too many game studios can do for me personally anymore. How far into the game, if we can ask, are you? Yeah. So I just started act three. Okay. So yeah, a substantial part of the story. Yeah. It's not a, it's not, it's not a humongous game. In fact, I would say that it's probably, it's, it's probably a shorter game than, um, uh, divinity original sin two. I think I'm maybe 80 hours in.
02:43:27
Speaker
Yep. And I'm in act three, just gotten into act three, but the interaction between characters, the game mechanics, I talked about this very briefly last episode. The game mechanics are such a, are such a true representation of, um, of Dungeons and Dragons fifth edition, that it exposes some of the flaws in the game mechanics that your dungeon master will typically gloss over.
02:43:55
Speaker
So and this is actually something I've been giving some thought to in the lead up to this episode. A pen and paper RPG is not written as a game mechanic to be implemented as a video game.
02:44:10
Speaker
And so there are some aspects that there are some aspects that the game developers know they can get away with because there's a human helming the way that it's implemented that you can't get away with if you implement it literally in a mechanical sense with no. There's no room for wriggle.
02:44:30
Speaker
Do you have an example of that without things spoiling? Yeah, so I mentioned last episode, just very briefly, the action economy and the just spell slot economy is probably an easy way to deal with this. So if you're a spellcaster as your main class, in the very early game, you might get two level one spell slots and one level two spell slot.
02:44:58
Speaker
your level two spell slot at that level in like the early game. So you're talking levels one, two, three, four, out of 12 in the game, by the way.
02:45:08
Speaker
Um, your level two spell slot might be a nuke that does significant damage to the bad guys. Your level one spell slots are, it's like slapping someone with a sword, but it's not a big deal. Like getting a fly swat sometime and just go, yeah, you naughty boy. Except you only get two level one spell slots and one level two spell slots per long rest.
02:45:33
Speaker
And so going back and doing a long rest is a big deal. It means the day has ended. You've finished adventuring for the day. And so the game mechanics as written, the rules as written in fifth edition, your DM, if he's a good DM, will tell you a story over the space of one in-game day that will come to a natural conclusion and you sleep and you have a long rest and you get all your resources back. Whereas in a video game, you walk into a goblin
02:46:03
Speaker
random encounter, you kill three goblins and you need a short rest, which is kind of your midday. I had lunch and I got some of my resources back, but not all of them. And then I walked into on a second goblin encounter and I killed three more goblins and now my day's over and I have to end my day. And it feels really clunky in a video game. But also that's very fucking lazy. Like you can kill three more than six goblins a day.
02:46:28
Speaker
And yet I'm not even making this up and Dan can attest to this. When you're starting out in Dungeons and Dragons, that's an encounter. And two encounters is a long rest. That's how the game's oriented. So I'm still at a point now where I'm level 10 and it only goes to 12. So the pen and paper RPG game only goes to level 20 and people have complained about there's no end game in Dungeons and Dragons fifth edition. Well, the video game only implements the first 12 levels.
02:46:59
Speaker
So you never actually get to that funnel. Is that because you'll be too powerful level 20 or? What they've said is once you get past level 12. So if they were only implementing the 16 classes, I want to say off the top of my head, maybe 12, 12 classes. Yeah, 12 classes.
02:47:18
Speaker
If they're only, only implementing the 12 classes, they might've gotten away with it, but they've said that with multi-class built into the game where you can be a level one paladin or level one warlock and a level one cleric and a level one druid, it starts to get super complicated for them to implement those rules. And so that's, that's their excuse. Which?
02:47:44
Speaker
I struggle to, I struggle to believe the reason I say this. The reason I struggled to believe it is most video games will have play testers.
02:48:00
Speaker
Yeah, and a fixed limited resource to invest in testing before you release the game. They released it in early access for three fucking years. And Larian Studios also had the benefit of a decade of playtesting the game mechanics because all they've done is implemented the game mechanics.
02:48:20
Speaker
So, yeah, it's different to a divinity, but yeah, similar, same, same, same. No, no, no. What I'm saying is they've had a decade for Dungeons and Dragons fifth edition pen and paper role-playing games, gamers, to test the game mechanics that they implemented because they didn't write the game rules somebody else did. And so if it was complicated and didn't work,
02:48:45
Speaker
Someone's already done that. Wizards of the Coast would have edited the rules. Someone's already done that in a pen and paper version. Yeah. Yeah. So it's really just telling the story. Anyway, I'm pissy and I'm way off track. The game, the actual story is fucking brilliant. And Larian Studio's implementation of the D&D fifth edition rules is true to form. It is very respectfully the original material. It adds its own spin on it.
02:49:12
Speaker
maybe 5% of it's Larian Studios, 95% of the Wizards of the Coast rule set, but the actual story is 100% Larian Studios and you can tell. You're invested, it's interesting, the twists and turns are like, oh shit, I didn't see that coming. You kind of buy into it more and it makes you make some moral and ethical choices.
02:49:36
Speaker
that really make you uncomfortable at times and that was Divinity Original Sin 1 and 2. I really enjoyed that, they don't do black and white, they do 100% shades of grey. And early too. Yeah, it will not be my first playthrough, I can tell you that. Yeah, they make you think about what kind of person you are very early in the game. Which to me is...
02:50:03
Speaker
To me, that is the best encapsulation of the fiber that makes up Dungeons and Dragons. That's what makes them so good at telling that story, is because that is D&D. It makes you make that, it makes you ask yourself the question, who am I?
02:50:23
Speaker
As a character. To be able to be forced to make those decisions for yourself and a party as well and how you interact with a party with a non-existent human DM is a big thing. Yeah.
02:50:42
Speaker
And it's not a perfect game. My complaints are pretty limited. Well, that's a fucking bipolar like twist on what you said at the start of your fucking intro. It's as close to a perfect game as I've ever seen. And I still stand by that statement, but it's not a perfect game. There's a couple of minor bugs in it, like mechanical bugs where I've tried to enter a room that I was supposed to enter, but I couldn't because it didn't reveal that area and I had to reload some saves and shit. So it's not technically perfect. And
02:51:09
Speaker
Because they were so keen on exploring sex in a video game, one of my minor complaints is that all of the party characters and all of the extra characters that you could bring into your party. But so the way they do this is you've got a camp and all of them. Don't tell me the dog's in the camp, Pete. I'm upset if the dog's in the camp. The dog is in the camp.
02:51:38
Speaker
Anyway, there's a bunch of playable characters that you can add to your party and if you choose not to, like there's 10 of them. And so you've only got a party of four. So the other six hang out in your, your camp and you can dismiss any of your party members at any time and you can recruit one of your other party members. And it's the mechanical side of it is actually well executed. Right.
02:52:00
Speaker
But so many of my party members want to fuck me. It's not funny. Well, that means it's a fantasy game then. And I get. I get why they implemented it, but this is the game that meant itself. Like one of its. That was an actual bug though, that they never meant the game to be that.
02:52:22
Speaker
Like that's sexual. Yeah. Yeah. It's so easily. Yeah. That's what they say. I think they said they said they said they like fix because they're like, I call bullshit because I've had to fend off and I don't get into in-depth conversations with some of my potential potential party members because I just don't want to have to go through the bullshit. But of my of my three major party members that aren't the avatar that I built, two of them
02:52:49
Speaker
have now attempted to initiate a romantic relationship. One of them, I've like, yeah, like if I'm going to romance a character, I've picked that character and the other one I've had to fend off. But I've been put in this awkward situation where it's like, if I tell him that I'm not interested in the wrong way, I'm going to break the character progression for this character. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
02:53:16
Speaker
To me, like it's not a, they didn't break the game. I just, I just think there's just like, seriously, everyone wants to fuck me. Like this is poorly written in that sense. Just take it out. It's not actually needed. Also, I think it's one of the weirdest things that a lot of- Do you think romancing games is okay? No, I think it's the weirdest thing. I hate when I have to romance a character. I agree with what Tom said. I hate when I have to romance a character. I hate when I have to romance a character. I hate when I have to romance a character. I hate when I have to romance a character.
02:53:43
Speaker
And I've got to tell you, when you're building your character, you can pick from three different penis types and three different vagina types. It's just like... Do you get my bent to the left one or not? They got a slider. Scented left or right. Tip or full shaft. How far down the shaft is it bent? I didn't spin it.
02:54:13
Speaker
That's going to be the next Larry in studio. A vertical horizontal slider. But seriously, like this. So the three, the three vagina options are basically how much pubic hair you have and the three penis options are circumcised, uncircumcised with a small amount of hair and then circumcised with a large amount of hair or something like that. And it's just like,
02:54:37
Speaker
Do we really need genitalia in video games? Of course we don't. It's not a thought process. Any smart person would just say, this is not a space we need to sexualize. There is so much in life that is over sexualized already. We do not need that as a person playing a game. Just imagine the piece in your mind.
02:54:58
Speaker
Just download. No. So, so, so he does a decent job of DC of, of dealing with the job of crafting a penis. Yeah. Okay. No, no, no. Gender identity does not mean sexualization. And I think they made the mistake of including both when they could have really pushed a progressive agenda around. Okay. You're playing a character that looks like this. Do you identify as male or female?
02:55:25
Speaker
They could have dealt with that. Like the character obviously has boobs or doesn't have boobs. It's obviously feminine or masculine. And that's a separate slider to do you identify your character as he, she, sorry, he, him, or she, her.
02:55:42
Speaker
I can understand making that distinction. I actually think that's a good progressive element to include in a video game so that people that play a role playing game, especially in this context of this type of game, play the role. You look like this. How do you identify it? Because that's not the same thing. Do we need to include genitalia? No. Do we need to include sexual encounters in a video game? No.
02:56:07
Speaker
It's the weirdest thing for me in RPGs. I hate that when I have to, whenever I play an RPG, I have to... Yeah, but this pushes that boundary. I know, I know. And I've read all those things, but it's just, it's still this thing. Like, I think mass effect, I have to romance a character.
02:56:21
Speaker
Don't actually. Sorry, if I'm on a team, I don't have to seduce one of my team members. Especially not if you're the general and the commander of the ship that everybody is going to war on. You don't have to do anything. Then you are actually recommended. Don't do it. So, so in Starfield, which I've abandoned completely, you get a permanent 5% bonus to experience. Five minutes more because I need to pay again. Okay.
02:56:48
Speaker
You've already talked, so we can just throw to Tom anytime I feel like it. Hello, I'm Tom. Throw to me. I will in a sec. In Starfield, you get a permanent 5% bonus to experience gain if you've ever had sex with one of your characters. Oh, that was the same thing that in Skyrim where you had a wife, you got a bonus for having a wife. If you played as a male character. To me, that's just like, why?
02:57:16
Speaker
Because you're cool, Peter, because you've had sex. It just feels cheap. You know, it's actually really good not getting any experience points. Oh, well, look, sex in video games is a long and sordid history. I think back to the God of the-
02:57:34
Speaker
I was going to go through the original PlayStation God of War games where you had a mini game for sex and it was a QTE experience. And let me tell you. But no one was sitting there fucking jerking the gurken while playing that game. While doing QTE, there's no fucking way you're going to pass a QTE with one hand. Well, logistically, you probably could.
02:58:04
Speaker
Dan, what was your opinion? Do you think that you could jerk the gurken while doing a quick time event in God of War 1? For the sex community game. Do you think you could do it?
02:58:16
Speaker
What a horrible way to walk back from the bathroom. I just wanted to put him on the spot. There was so many things that was going through my head. You left us and we... This is what we came up with. We're talking about the first quick time event where he's banging the chicks on the spot. Do you think you can complete that minigame while doing the Gherkin? No.
02:58:40
Speaker
Yeah. It's a two handed fucking QTE. It's not though. And it's a two handed joke. It's not. It's on. It's definitely not. For some of us. It's definitely not. No, there's too much thought going on. Well, just while our minds are in the gutter around this, you can actually pick your janitor earlier in Cyberpunk 2077 as well. 2077?
02:59:07
Speaker
Is that the right unit? 2077? You can pick it, but it's also got one of those traditional RPG character creation screens where you can turn your character. So if you give them a really long dong and you flick it really quick, you flick the character really quick, keep playing.
02:59:23
Speaker
It like wiggles as well. It's got a lot of penis with physics.
Tolkien-Lore Gaming Discussions
02:59:31
Speaker
Well, you can do it. Well, because I played it on PC, so you can just do it with a mouse. You can just hold the button that turns the character and then you can just whip the mouse. You finally got a helicopter penis.
02:59:45
Speaker
There's no place for it. There's so many ways that we sexualize, and a younger and younger age too. Character creation models.
02:59:57
Speaker
I don't need to shape my eyebrows. I don't. I don't. There's so many dumb things get put into character creation. I wouldn't, I, you know what? I wouldn't minimize that because there are some people, there's actually a surprising, surprisingly large amount of people that you see on Reddit, which is not a representation of the general population, but it is a representation of the best part of the internet either.
03:00:18
Speaker
But it is a cross-sectional representation of people on the internet. There are a lot of people on Reddit that say that the best part of playing an RPG game for them is the character creation. So I don't agree, but I will respect their space. And why the fuck not have a huge amount of variety in avatar creation? I just don't think that needs to evolve. I still think the best thing is in an RPG needs to be the story. That's the whole thing.
03:00:44
Speaker
Yeah. And the best thing in character creation is loincloths, male or female loincloths. That's all it needs to be. Fire them underwear. When you, when you loot a corpse, you take the right off, they still got underwear on. Yep. Completely agree. It's not needed.
03:00:59
Speaker
Anyway, Tom, are you winning, sir? I've already answered that. So I think it's Dan's turn. How do we end up with no notes for you and all these notes? Am I winning, son? Yes, motherfucker. Dan, are you winning, son? You know what? No, I'm not. Fuck you. Because I'm sad, Dan, and I didn't get to play Return to Moria. I have my own thoughts about Return to Moria that I've addressed on this podcast already.
03:01:29
Speaker
I think it's probably going to be bad, but I still bought it. It was $55, half price for a game here in Australia. So digital, all digital. Let's see. If I get a couple of weeks out of it, I get a couple of weeks out of it. But I'm on a full Lord of the Rings kick at the moment.
03:01:45
Speaker
I remembered that shadow of war was a free ps plus game many many moons ago so I went and chucked shadow of mortar on the ps5 and god damn it's actually a really good game. Some very very cool all the rings questions I really enjoy some of them but he stopped in the general chat pretty quick or I might have been.
03:02:12
Speaker
It was like being Tom talked for like three hours or more. I got out the companion. Not in my channel. Not in the channel I got to see. Yeah. Yeah. In that channel. Anyway, doesn't matter. I got the companion out. I got the Jay Tyler. It's been a pretty rough week for me.
03:02:33
Speaker
If anyone ever wants some Lord of the Rings questions answered, also you can like and subscribe and then DM me. But at the same time, you should go by the J. Tyler, Lord of the Rings companion. I don't like your level of subtlety. You need to slam that shit home. Like this to be clunky. Like and subscribe or I'll come to your house and cut your mum. Is that better? Fuck. I might have to block some of that.
03:03:02
Speaker
Carry on, Columbus. I said I might cut her off in traffic. I never said that I would actually physically. Yeah. But anyway, the J.E. Tyler Lawtherings companion is the literal encyclopedia for Lawtherings. It's the most beautiful book in the world.
03:03:15
Speaker
Yeah, right. And as Tom pointed out to me that the Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War games take a sidestep from the actual Tolkien and Peter Jackson lore, but I love it. I love it. Just the Tolkien lore more than Peter Jackson. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
03:03:35
Speaker
No, but he was in Power of the Rings of Power. No, no, that is a weak, that is like adding a litre of water to five mils of milk, weak. Like that is how much Celebrimbor is the water here. No, I actually disagree, because the Rings of Power is more akin to the actual Tolkien Celebrimbor. Yeah, so you're saying that, but- You're liking the action adventure Celebrimbor that you can use in that. Yeah, that's angry fucking wraith.
03:04:03
Speaker
Yes, he's an angry race. I do. I very much like Celebrate Morin, Shadow of War and Shadow of Mordor. And he's just a, he's such a good, no, he's a bad balance to Talion, who is the virtuous, honorable ranger.
03:04:20
Speaker
Yeah. And all you've got is Calibrin more in his fucking ear that he can't get rid of saying, get the Palantia. And he's like, every two seconds, he's like, get the Palantia. That's the only thing that matters. Fuck these people. Get the Palantia. Nobody else matters. Palantia, there's no. Palantia.
03:04:38
Speaker
There you go. I've much more invested in the Nemesis system this time around because you really need to upgrade your armor and equipment before you move to the next segments in Shadow of War versus Shadow of Mortal. Yeah, I'm very interested to see where you get with there is one particular deviation from the lore that happens in the Shadow of War game.
03:05:06
Speaker
Um, it was, you will stumble upon and I'm not going to spoil it for you. Um, and I cannot wait for your message about that. Just being like, is this real? And I'll be like, absolutely fucking not. Okay. Well, I'll, I'll keep going and keep going on that because it's just, I think the, the.
03:05:23
Speaker
And I guess that kind of makes me happy, but kind of disappoints me quite a bit as well, that they couldn't have made it work within the world because it is such a cool setting for them to do. I think it's also inventive though, but I also, I liken it to Force Unleashed. Force Unleashed should never be canon. Yeah, it is. And people who are called out for- That's a good call. Yeah.
03:05:49
Speaker
People who called out for Marok in Ahsoka to be Starkiller. I was like absolutely fucking not. Starkiller should never be involved in the actual Star Wars canon because he was too overpowered. And it's the same thing with Talion. Talion is Talion and the Celebrimbor and the way they fuse together and the Assassin's Creed way that they take on Mordor should never be actually involved in the proper
03:06:15
Speaker
official Lord of the Rings canon. It's a fun side journey. And just on the gameplay elements, the dialogue that they give to the orc captains, just incredible that you can get ambushed by people that are
03:06:34
Speaker
that is their play style. Like you might be fighting one captain or a group of orcs and all of a sudden you'll be ambushed by this captain because that is his character. It's a roaming orc band, yeah. It's a roaming orc, like, or he's a thief or he's an assassin or he's something like that that will ambush you or come in like that. They have their own set dialogue. They'll speak to you as at during an execution. You'll defeat them once and they'll come back again with
03:07:02
Speaker
the nemesis is incredible yeah absolutely incredible the the other thing is the it's batman arkham free flow combat style but the brutality of it that is introduced bruise yeah have you done the bruise missions yet
03:07:19
Speaker
No. Aw, wait till you come across Bruce the Shark. It's also a wonderful, weird Lord of the Rings Finding Nemo cross reference that no one ever asked for. Because there's this very ochre Australian sounding orc, troll orc, who's named Bruce, who is meant to be Bruce the Shark from Finding Nemo. I'll let you know when I get there. He's fantastic. Yeah.
03:07:43
Speaker
The beating death animation when you get hit by an archer and you hit the quick time event to escape death is exactly the animation that it is of Aragon knocking the arrow away or dagger. There's something that's thrown at him in fellowship. Lertz pulls the dagger that
03:08:09
Speaker
Kella Kella horn gives him out of his leg and he throws it at Aragon and it was a actual misstep in the film. Fuck you. I'm doing this. He was an actual misstep in the film and the character, the guy who played Lertz, the, the, the, the Mario guy, he unfortunately, um, through the knife, not intending to throw it and Viggo Mortensen actually deflected the fucking knife. And that's why the sound is so good.
03:08:36
Speaker
Oh, and it's an iconic move as well because Talion does exactly the same movement with his sword deflecting that from the outside. So it's really built in because Talion's a ranger the same as Aragon was. So I love it. I think it's great. And that's, well, not the same, but they're
03:09:00
Speaker
spoken to be. He's more like Faramir. He's a ranger of Gondor, as opposed to a ranger of Arnold, which are a different species of people.
Personal Gaming Achievements
03:09:09
Speaker
Rabbit hole anyone? That's a conversation we need to have tomorrow. But it's great. It's a good action game and that's what I wanted. I wanted something that was fun and in the Lord of the Rings world and the Celebrimball is awesome. I hope that Return to Moria brings you more Moria. What did I say? Moria. Yeah. Moria. An extra silver bullet somewhere. Return to Moria.
03:09:35
Speaker
No, let's not. Yeah. Cause you keep saying it wrong. Um, let's not get started on that because I'll go through full, full, full thing about how, um, it's wrong. Um, as the last, as the last thing, if I can, um, steal or steal the spotlight again, and I'm going to embarrass the fuck out of Dan right now, but I need to show it. You knew it was coming. Um, yeah. Yeah.
03:09:57
Speaker
This is the end of the episode. I hit 100 Platinum's and I was very proud of that. Unbeknownst to me, this fucking ginger fuck made me a wood and aluminium.
03:10:18
Speaker
Full trophy, which I'm holding up to the camera now. It's one of the greatest things I've ever been given and I have a dog that I love very much. Literally, I think I might love this more than Jasper. I don't know. I don't know yet. I don't know yet.
03:10:40
Speaker
Well now he wakes me up in the morning and I really don't like that. It's fucking spectacular. It is. If you can't see it, it does have in engraved in fire, fire and ash. It does have the hundred for my hundredth platinum. It's the Skyrim logo. It's the Imperial Skyrim logo. It is literally the greatest thing I've ever been given and I
03:11:07
Speaker
I can't stop staring at it. It lives on my desk now. I want to hang it up next to where I play PlayStation so I can, whenever I play, I look at it. But at the moment, it's literally, I'm just holding it at my desk and it's literally, it's the new heirloom of like, if I have kids, that's literally, that's their inheritance. That's all they're getting. It is. Like, it's obviously, I haven't seen it in person, but it's obviously,
03:11:34
Speaker
I've shown this to actual like people who work metal for their living and they've been impressed. That's the thing that really gets me about it and for something that I want to do. It's cool to see the evolution too. So Dan made me a stand for my samurai swords and it's got.
03:11:53
Speaker
It's a wooden stand in my favorite kind of wood. It smells so good. Yeah, it's good to see the evolution and the progression. It's cool. But the thing for me is like, I only started doing Platinum for myself and to have someone like you, Dan, who doesn't understand the whole Platinum chasing thing. It's not even that, just someone.
Conclusion and Reflections
03:12:17
Speaker
I didn't ask him to do this. He did this out of the goodness of his own heart. And yeah, you're an absolute prick, but still at the same time, this is literally the greatest present I've ever been given. So I need to yell about it on the podcast. I can't get enough of it. I love it. I love it deeply. And it is literally the greatest thing that ever happened to me as a gamer.
03:12:37
Speaker
And, uh, as, as a person, I get to very greatly call my friend, which is you. So thank you very much. I, I, I love that so much. I love it so much. And I need, I needed to, I needed to yell about that on the podcast. And you made it very easy for me making Skyrim your hundredth. Imagine being force spoken. Imagine.
03:13:03
Speaker
Imagine you have to craft something for a game that I fucking absolutely hated. Obviously I play in Skyrim. Thanks so much, Dan, you bastard. Thanks for reminding me of the thing that I fucking hate.
03:13:18
Speaker
No, obviously Skyrim is the most, uh, is, is, is, has such a special part in my life. And, but this, this is more important. This is, this is greater than the game. This is good. I'm, I'm in love with it. I don't love you. I love that. I'm not going to try and fuck you as one of Pete's companions. That makes you feel better. Okay. Thanks. I think on that note,
03:13:46
Speaker
Thank you. Yeah. Lovely, lovely. That's an episode. Yeah. Shitty intro, shitty outro. Fantastic outro. What are you talking about? I don't have a shitty outro. No, I wasn't, I was book handing it. I just, I wasn't talking about what you just said, but I don't have a shitty outro, so. Spooderman, Spooderman does whatever a spooderman. I actually literally wrote it in the notes of Spooderman, so.
03:14:12
Speaker
Spins a web any size. Catches thieves just like flies. Look out, here comes your spoon of me. Thanks for listening. Bye. Bye.