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S7 E3: Up Late - Blowing Dust
86 Plays10 months ago
Responding to David Jaffe, director of the original God of War, we explore character development in video games as the core driving force behind their success.
Beers reviewed this episode:
- Brick Lane Brewing - Smoking Gun - Imperial Stout - 10.6%
- Boatrocker Brewers - Coffee Ramjet (2019) - Imperial Stout - 11.2%
- Small Gods - The Tun - Imperial Stout - 10.0%
Recommended
Transcript
Introductions and Beer Choices
00:00:18
Speaker
Welcome back to Pixels and Pints. Up late. This is our first one for 2024. Full breakdown of a single, single topic for the, for the episode. I'm Dan. I'm joined today by Pete. Howdy. And Tom. Hello.
00:00:35
Speaker
And we're going to be trying one big beer each, but well, mine's a New Zealand one. Tom's is an Aussie one and yours is an Aussie one too, isn't it Pete? Yeah, it is. I'm the outlier here. My one is part of the New Zealand beer pack I bought just before Christmas that had some of the small Godbeards beers in it that I've done before.
Kratos's Evolution in God of War
00:00:57
Speaker
Tonight we're gonna talk about evolution character positive. Character development overtime for video game characters David Jaffee who was the director and part creator also creator of the first two god of war games the old school god of war games not the not the most recent most recent two thousand eighteen and ragnarok ones the great trilogy.
00:01:24
Speaker
The Greek trilogy, yeah, spoke about a month ago about his dislike of the path that they took Kratos's personality on, his character development. He didn't like that they'd turned him into a father and a bit more of a nurturing character. He's, I did make the guys watch the second video that he released
00:01:50
Speaker
that was obviously a follow-up. Address the hate. Yeah, address the hate. Because I completely agree with what he had to address in the second video that he came across Arrogant and Petty in the first one saying, he didn't outright say it, but it was kind of like, oh, well, you stripped everything that I wanted in Kratos from the very beginning, and I wanted the character to do this. In the second video, he was more like,
00:02:18
Speaker
No, I get that a character has to have some sort of development and evolve to be interesting. I understand all this. And if you like the way that it's been taken by Santa Monica, perfectly fine. You're more than welcome to like it. But he was like, this isn't what I wanted. And I don't know how the longevity of this
00:02:42
Speaker
father-like figure, more gentle Kratos character has going forward. So yeah, we're going to talk Kratos and God of War, and we'll probably throw some other character developments in video games. Some examples, some other excellent character games. Good ones. We're not going to get bogged down in negatives because we don't want to do negative ones. We threw some negative ones around ourselves, but we want to focus on the more positive side here.
00:03:09
Speaker
I just just before we move on so just watching that latest David Jeffy video like the follow up.
00:03:16
Speaker
He did liken Kratos to a Wolverine character, or he said he was originally designed to be a superhero. And acknowledge that people like Superman do change over time, but that's a comic that's been going on for almost a hundred years and the rate of change is very fucking slow. And so, of course, it's had to go through. He has gone through some fundamental character development. Superman is still Superman.
00:03:42
Speaker
I thought it was interesting, he kind of adjusted what he was saying around Kratos in that he said that he thoroughly enjoyed the 2018 re-release. He thought it was interesting what they did with the character, but it was a plot twist and a new direction and so his criticism is more of the second game, Ragnarok.
00:04:04
Speaker
And that it didn't have the same impact because they really have nowhere to go. That shock factor is gone now. Although he did say that he hadn't finished playing Valheim, so it'd be interesting to see what he thinks about the follow up and the obvious direction they're taking Kratos into the future.
Spoiler Alerts and Beer Tasting
00:04:23
Speaker
And you've finished Valhalla now, Pete? Yes. Yes, I have. Okay. So I think going forward from this conversation, there'll be a God of War Ragnarok and God of War Valhalla spoilers. So from from this point on, do we want to talk about beers before we go deeper into this? Because I can see us getting distracted and not talking about the beers until about halfway through. What are you drinking, Pete?
00:04:49
Speaker
Oh, um, oh, I'm drinking. Excuse me. Brick Lane Brewings Smoking Gun, which is a Spanish Cedar Imperial Cigar Stout at 10.6%. Um, it's.
00:05:07
Speaker
Interesting, it's certainly complex. You get a lot of, well, obviously you get a coffee, like a black malt coffee base. It's quite acidic, almost. It's not soy sauce in a bad way, but it kind of has those properties. You do get some vanilla. It's, I would say that it's quite subtle compared to how strong the coffee notes are.
00:05:32
Speaker
And then the rest there's not a lot of smoke in the center i'm surprised given it's described as a sagastad and it's called smoking gun is almost no smoking smoke in it. So it's going to be interesting to see how it goes with a wallet warms up i almost want to reserve judgment to be honest.
00:05:49
Speaker
I think that's fine on these episodes if you reserve judgement. Generally, seeing as we are drinking bigger stouts for this, let them do warm up a bit. Yeah, I can already taste that it's starting to open up and the layers are starting to separate out a little bit, so it's easier to kind of pick them up. Yeah, certainly some spice in there.
00:06:08
Speaker
I don't know if cedar is the right word. I mean, I looked it up on Untapped and it does talk about it's designed to evoke the opening of a humidor with fine notes of leather, tobacco, black pepper and sandalwood. So I'd say the black pepper is the spice I'm picking up. I'm not getting tobacco. I've actually, I've got a humidor now made out of cedar so that the smell of the wood is quite familiar to me and I'm not getting any of that. So we'll see how we go.
00:06:33
Speaker
I can only imagine what a new one smells like. Must smell beautiful. A new humidor? It is gorgeous. It is gorgeous. And if you get upmarket, if you get anything but shit cigars, the cigar tubes, even the Australian cigar tubes where they've had to repackage it with the plain packaging for the Australian government, they still leave.
00:06:53
Speaker
a piece of of cedar wood folded up on the outside of the cigar so you can you can actually you're supposed to light your cigar with it so instead of lighting the cigar directly you light the cedar and then the wood lights the cigar um yeah that smells gorgeous but anyway
00:07:09
Speaker
Look out for our offshoot episode, pixels and cigars coming to you next winter. Scotches and snowgies? Now that's, yeah, I'd fucking definitely start that podcast any more time.
00:07:32
Speaker
Who's up next, Tom? Have you tasted it enough? I have tasted it. I've had several sips of mine. I am drinking Boat Rocker Brewers and Distillers from Victoria. This is one of their Ramjet series. It's in class. Long time since I've had a bottle. Yeah. So this is, Ramjet's their annual Imperial Stout series, and they often do weird and wonderful things to it. I've got a completely different one in the fridge still.
00:08:01
Speaker
So this is their Starwood Whiskey Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout that's been infused with whole coffee beans. And it's from 2019, so I've had it sitting in the fridge since 2019 in my stout drawer. And it has, the booze has really mellowed out, but the coffee's still there, and it started to get a bit more chocolaty, and it is like first sip. I was like, oh yeah, yep, yep, okay, that's, yeah, wow.
00:08:31
Speaker
If I'm a jittery mess by the end of it, it's like the coffee notes are huge. Like even being that old, it's like a first sip. I was like, oh, zing. Hello. I'm awake. Let's go. Let's record. Yeah, no, it's tasting really good. I am going to do the same. I'm going to reserve judgment until it's had a little time to warm up. I pulled it out the fridge about 20 minutes before we sat down to record.
00:08:56
Speaker
Second sip of that same thing, more of that chocolate's coming through. So I reckon halfway through, it's going to taste like a really delicious mocha, which is going to be just what I want on a lovely Sunday afternoon. What year was the beer released? Well, it says 2019 on it.
00:09:17
Speaker
Okay. So we've already tried the Ramjet 22, which was a vintage 2014, 2015 brew. Yep. So they're, they're barreling this shit for years before they release it. So I'm just probably drinking the 23 version then. Uh, I can find out. I can find out. Um, yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll let it warm up a bit and maybe boat rocker hasn't even been around for that long. Have they?
00:09:44
Speaker
Surely. Yeah. I'm just, yeah. I mean, it might be the barrel of the Starwood barrels that I hear we go out of this beer will sell a well up to five years. Okay. No, it doesn't say a little few notes on it, but nothing about when it was actually what year it was brewed to be then. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So, um, I have had that in the fridge for a few years though. So I wouldn't be surprised if it was a 2019 release. Um, yeah. Yeah. There is a Ramjet 2019 in a bottle.
00:10:15
Speaker
because they mostly do cans for that series. So yeah, I could check the other one I've got. I could, did you run from carwin sellers? We'd talked about carwin sellers before. I love carwin sellers. Uh, I honestly cannot tell you. I don't know where I got this. Uh, if it says 2019 on it, I'm pretty sure it is the 2019 brew. I'm looking for 2019 release. I'm looking at it now on carwin sellers, ironically.
00:10:42
Speaker
But yeah, it's really good. I'm going to enjoy this. I'm going to enjoy this. Ciao there. Dan, what do you got?
00:10:49
Speaker
I have the small gods, the ton, a one ton. I have no idea what that one ton Imperial Stout refers to. It's a 10% because there is zero information on the can. It's just a nice simple sort of kind of abstract. It's going to say it's very monolith. We were talking about cosmic horror.
00:11:13
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And that's kind of the feel I get from it is there's a little there's you can't probably can't quite see it. There's a little tiny man standing under the big cube. Got to have him for scale. Yeah, I really like that artwork. That is something that I would hang on my wall. It evokes weirdness. We fucking nailed it. Can I steal the mic for a sec?
00:11:54
Speaker
Its presence was an enigmatic whisper, a ghostly allure that seemed to come from the folds of another realm. The oddity of the ton with its silent immeasurable immensity was a mystery that beckoned, yet remained an untouched enigma. A vague silhouette in time, a question without answer. So that is another beer description that says fucking nothing about the products.
00:12:02
Speaker
Yeah, go, go, go.
00:12:14
Speaker
They do go on because it's quite long and I don't want to spend 15 minutes reading, but the ton is an imperial stout, full stop. This huge and viscous dark beer features a robust base of 1000 kilograms of New Zealand malts, bringing an array of complex dark malt characters. As this decadent and indulgent beer warms in your glass, it reveals elegant and integrated flavors of roast, dark chocolate, dark fruit, burnt toffee, caramel, toasted rye bread, round sugar and porridge.
00:12:43
Speaker
This is reinforced by a smooth and warming boozy finish and top notes of Bramble and Blackberry Jam from a judicious edition of British Hops. I agree with about half of that. Couldn't ask for a broader, like a bigger description.
00:12:57
Speaker
Yeah, I guess it's going to be interesting to see how this warms up, actually, if they're talking about dark fruits. I'm not really getting any of that at the moment. Their sweet, jammy finish with the choice of hot there. You do get that, but it's really delicate. Definitely the dark chocolate, it's not a coffee heavy
00:13:22
Speaker
flavored like a dark roasted barley, which has those coffee notes to it. It's definitely not heavy on that for the stout. The booze to start with, because it was, excuse me, because it was quite cold, the booze didn't really show too much to start with. The first sip I had, I'm like, wow, that's a really well-masked 10%. But now it's sat there for sort of five, 10 minutes. It's
00:13:50
Speaker
opening up more and that booze is coming through, but it's not taking away. It's adding to the overall complexity from it. Definitely agree with their burnt rye bread. You have that burnt spice, that sort of burnt bready spicy character that rye can give. It's really, really enjoyable. It's going to be a really nice one to sit here and drink for the next 45 minutes to an hour.
00:14:18
Speaker
Nice. I'll tell you what, my last sip, I wouldn't have called it cedar or sandalwood had I not read it, but you can definitely taste sweet wooden notes through the beer now, which I think is really cool. I found out, I did my research. It was brewed in 2019 and was aged in the Starwood barrels for six months. Nice. And they said it's five years, so I've drunk it just in time. Well done, Tom. Out on the back.
00:14:45
Speaker
Danny, you're reserving your score as well? Yeah, I think I'll just hold off, hold off till I finish the glass at least. But it's starting very well. Cool.
Character Development in Gaming
00:15:00
Speaker
All right, let's kick off with the topic at large. I think we're obviously going to talk about Kratos quite a lot.
00:15:05
Speaker
I think the core here is what games nailed character development to the point where it was central to the game's success, whether or not it was exclusively the reason for the game's success or not. It was one of the core tenets of the game being considered good. I think really just trying to summarize what we were talking about before. And Kratos is a bit of an outstanding character because there's not too many video game characters that have
00:15:33
Speaker
held the path from their original release 15 years ago or whatever the, whenever the first one came out, 2005. Okay. Almost, almost 20 years. Uh, no character has really continued on that springs to mind from start to finish for 20 years. I, there's tons.
00:16:01
Speaker
It's a me, a Mario. Yeah, but hey, hey, on a consistent, on a consistent basis, Kratos from the start, from when we re-saw him appear in 2018 is the same. I say this in loose quotation marks because we're going to, we're going to talk about how he isn't the same Kratos, but he is the same Kratos from that very first game all the way through. It's a consistent character across. He has memories of those first games. Yeah.
00:16:32
Speaker
Solid snake came up when i was doing some research but i haven't played enough metal gear solid to be able to verify that but i've played three games. And then a bunch of final fantasy characters and a bunch of other games are just i haven't played personally.
00:16:46
Speaker
Um, so final fantasies are always, uh, yeah, there's some spinal fantasy moments that I'm sure Ed right now, as he's listening to this, he's screaming into his phone as I'm going to put to this. But, uh, I often find that the, that a lot of their character developments, uh, a bit harder to, to track or, or to follow it. A lot of it's seems to be lost in translation. Yeah. Welcome to Japanese RPGs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's, and that's a real shame for us as, you know, uh, non-Japanese native speaking people, but it's like.
00:17:15
Speaker
Yeah, I think you lose a lot of that when they do translate it. And there's some particularly weird moments across the series, but there are some some fantastic moments, like, like Sue and I were talking about, like Final Fantasy X, still one of the all time great games in terms of the roles those characters play. But yeah. But I think, yeah, let's start off with Kratos, because he's he's the he's the big one, the big boy. So, Pete, what did you think about his final development at the end of Valhalla?
00:17:47
Speaker
I look I think they ironically going back to what Jaffe said they had nowhere else to go they with what they had done they had like it had played out it's like it had run its course the whole. Father reinventing himself and dealing with the.
00:18:07
Speaker
the pain and the anguish and the guilt and all the other emotions that wrapped up with his original trilogy worth of memories. I think the idea of acceptance and evolution was the only place they really could go to move into another chapter.
00:18:24
Speaker
So I thoroughly enjoyed it. I really enjoyed the Valhalla. The storyline elements were really cool. The game mechanics were okay. I mean, I didn't hate them. I didn't love them. They got stale pretty quickly, but I mean, look, it was a DLC. It was fucking free, right?
00:18:43
Speaker
And in order for them to make it free, they needed to keep dev costs down. But yeah, I think as a character, I'm a bit excited about where they're going next, but I'm I also think that they could have taken it in other directions into other pantheons. I probably would have been more excited if they acknowledged his Greek roots.
00:19:02
Speaker
There's some Greek elements in the latest DLC. They've done the hell out of Norse mythology. If they had introduced like Ra coming out of the fucking ground at the end, that would have been sick.
00:19:14
Speaker
Oh, no, no. Oh, I hate that. Oh, take us into another pantheon of gods is, I think, which, which did that anyway. Tears. Weapons did that. Yeah. That, that tees the element of the other pantheon scene there. But if they'd just done like a, almost been like a weird trailer that you played through, I think it would have completely changed my experience with that game. Well, that DLC.
00:19:39
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. My description would be very ham-fisted because I mean, that's a very AC Origins DLC. Like you had to fight Rahi, or I don't think it was Rahi. One of the gods came up out of the fucking sand. He was huge. But you could do it a lot better. You could just have one of the Egyptian gods scream at him for some slight that we've not heard about before.
00:20:02
Speaker
and pulled him into that world for the next game. I don't know. They, um, well, yeah, if you, if you, if you get a chance to read the, the comic that set in between three and 2018, um, it does allude to the fact that he did end up in the Nile region and didn't whether or not he, whether or not he destroyed the Egyptian pantheon or I've really dealt with them. It seemed more like he was just wandering lost, but ended up there. Um, cause he sees a vision of Athena, like near the Nile and it,
00:20:30
Speaker
Implies that he spends time there. I think I think the way they did tears weapons all being from different cultures indicating like his travels and stuff was an allude to.
00:20:43
Speaker
they're going to explore more pantheons and whether or not they do it in the same style of inevitably Kratos ends up destroying that pantheon and what that message is from the developers. Or if it's going down that last line where it ends up and it's like he is the god of hope now as opposed to the god of war. And what that could mean, how they take that to the next level.
00:21:11
Speaker
I'm just conscious. I need like we need to throw back to Dan because then you asked me a question and we we've kind of answered and need to go back to you. But just just on that, though, the whole God of Hope, God of War thing, he still got a war. He's sitting on the council has got a war. It was more an acknowledgement that.
00:21:26
Speaker
By becoming the god of war in the north council he's responsible for setting the terms of war and ensuring that it doesn't spread chaos. And so it's almost inevitable that there will be more war but he can minimize the damage or harm it does to the broader world.
00:21:43
Speaker
It was what I took away. Which pulls back all the way to Ares from the God of War mythology, as well as Ares from Greek mythology, where he's quite haphazard.
00:21:59
Speaker
what happens happens in war and he will agitate both sides to the point where it just breaks out in all hell as where the if Kratos if they that will they obviously do very much imply and the end of Valhalla that Kratos has turned a new page in his understanding of what like you said Pete what a god of war should be and
00:22:21
Speaker
almost bringing in a level of Geneva Convention into ancient war, the Kratos Convention, and how all of that interplays into what we see going forward. I think it's a big mistake for them to... I mean, they've said the North's era is over, so that we will be moving on to another Pantheon or another region after that, but to see
00:22:50
Speaker
how that character, where we are now, to where it goes in the future with him already having that hope side and linking back up with Atreus and how
00:23:03
Speaker
he came to understand and appreciate his son at the end of Ragnarok. Um, and has the family that he ultimately lost in the first, uh, well, in the very first game, you see the flashback of him killing his original, his first wife and in daughter in a, in an Aries induced rage and illusion, um, really.
00:23:25
Speaker
brings it full circle. I mean, we saw it a little bit at the end of God of all three, where he defeated Zeus and bell into what was some sort of, uh, afterlife, uh, where he rejoined the spirit of his daughter and wife. And we don't really know how that continued on. Maybe Tom, the, the, the comic explains where he, how he ended up not in that. Yeah, it does. It does talk about it. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to have to read it now. Thanks. Yeah. I'll track it down and find it. So.
00:23:55
Speaker
I think with how short Valhalla was and how much it actually spoke to his character and his past compared to
00:24:09
Speaker
what we really saw in 2018 in Ragnarok, which was the development of the father-son relationship, the Valhalla DLC really talks to who he used to be rather than
00:24:27
Speaker
rather than who he has to be, if that makes sense. In 2018, yeah, and Ragnarok, he's really still developing that relationship with Atreus and what his wife was talking to him about.
00:24:42
Speaker
building the bond with the sun, as where you would, it was just you, Mamiya and Helios bought all of Valhalla, or most of Valhalla, you know, got a little bit of Freya and the Valkyries, but it was really Kratos Central, compared to the actual mainstream games, if that makes sense. Yeah, put him front and center. Yeah, I mean, sorry, go, Tom. I was just gonna say like,
00:25:13
Speaker
Going back to the Jaffee thing and the point he said, I firmly believe that the step they took with Kratos was obviously the right one. And I firmly disagree with the assumption, or whether or not it's exactly the words he used.
00:25:30
Speaker
I really don't think that the Greek Kratos could have continued. I played Ascension and I loved it, but it was so tired, so tired. It's now up to these developers to get us a new Kratos for a new series, a new Pantheon.
00:25:50
Speaker
The way he was talking about they shouldn't change that much. That's where I have issue with what he's saying. I really like it when characters get that redevelopment when it's done well. And I think Kratos is a perfect example of this. Just because it was tired. Yeah, we get it, man. You scream at everything and you just destroy everything in sight.
00:26:15
Speaker
They tried to wing something in in God of War 3 with Pandora and like having to care about someone else, but ultimately he was just like, still going to sacrifice everything for, for suiting my own needs and stuff. And it's funny because, sorry, I just want to jump in before I lose this train of thought too, is the funny, you should say that sacrifice, sacrifice anything for his. Yeah.
00:26:36
Speaker
for moving his goals forward as we're 2018, he does the exact opposite. He sacrifices everything within himself, that little trip back down the river from Freya's hut to his hut to pick up the blades of chaos. He is absolutely sacrificing what little bit of the soul he had left to
00:26:58
Speaker
rejoin that past he was trying to bury by picking those blades up again. And it's just linked into what you were exactly saying there, Tom. Well, that's the feeling I got from that trip. I love that that solo trip down the river. That is one of the highlights of the of the entire series is that just that one scene and the whole like kind of bathing it in red the whole way they shot it. The storm and yeah.
00:27:23
Speaker
I think the gravity that you felt while he when he picked out when he took out the blades of chaos from under the floorboards was was poignant as well because it's something it was it was kind of symbolic that he had buried that part of himself and it was being forced to to come to the fore again oil to the surface again.
00:27:44
Speaker
And the sheer, the way he wraps the chains, he kind of went around one loop and pulled it toward and then went around again. And it was this, it was this, this, and I mean that is.
00:27:56
Speaker
the actor, the writing and the animation team to all tie that emotion together of that character. And you, you really saw something different there. And it was just between us and him. It wasn't, there wasn't somebody else there to experience it. So no matter what the other characters saw from that point onwards, when he had those blades, and I know Atreus and Mimir and that commented on them, but it was just between
00:28:27
Speaker
It was a, it was a, it was a, it was a contemplative character moment that we were observing. Yeah. A private moment. Yeah. And I think that shows speaks volume for the, the writers of that as well, that because it is the blades are mentioned further on. And I think a trials does say to him at one point, why didn't you just throw them away? And he's like, I tried. Uh, but.
00:28:51
Speaker
It's, it's never overdone. It's never, it's never drawn out and it's never made this blatant thing. It's never, it's, it's the beautiful thing of show. Don't tell. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the, but the, the blades were a symbol of.
00:29:06
Speaker
The guilt and the shame and the anger not the it didn't represent the guilt the shame in the anger itself. And so we never focus too much on he doesn't focus too much on the blades because it's actually what. Was linked to the blades that he was struggling with not the blades themselves. Any treats them going back to Tom's point about Pandora and that as well it's.
00:29:30
Speaker
He, he almost treats them. Now is the blades are the means to the end. Like he needs those blades to save for trials. And he's, he's, it's, that is the means to the end. It's now I have to do this because I have no other choice. There is no other way out of this. Yeah. And at that point in the game, there wasn't.
00:29:51
Speaker
So, no, no, I mean, you can't, you can't defeat the, uh, the hell home, um, uh, brambles, drawers, drawers. Yeah. Yeah. The brambles. You can't get past the brambles. Yeah.
00:30:05
Speaker
I think, I think I'm going to kill a cat. I swear to God, he's, he's left me alone all day. And then ever since I sat down to start recording, he's been pouring at me to get on my lap. Oh yeah. I just had to kick Jasper out whining at the door. I was like, must be that time of the afternoon. Um, yeah, but I think kind of going back to the original topic, Kratos's character development is the reason why it's such a compelling narrative story.
00:30:35
Speaker
And such a successful game in my opinion so yes he he kinda continues it was a little bit more of the same in in Ragnarok but I never thought it was I never felt it was a negative thing it needed more breathing space to tell the rest of the story.
00:30:54
Speaker
Like, how would you have really, like, would you have done a 360 or 180 on that and try to change the way Kratos axed for the sake of a new game? Like, they didn't do that in the original trilogy. It's, it's, it's great Kratos all the way through. It's just angry, angry men gets somehow angrier. But then you get to 2018 and it's like, it was, it was, I didn't think it was.
00:31:17
Speaker
in any way, shape or form less poignant than 2018 was in the way they delivered that story.
00:31:24
Speaker
I think more you get more character development out of Atreus to an extent. There are times when it was actually more about Atreus coming of age than it was about Kratos. Which is a reflection of Kratos's teachings to him. Yeah. And the way he's letting him grow. Yeah. You're right. It's an extension of the development we established in 2018. You're just seeing it through different character.
00:31:50
Speaker
Jeffy makes one point that he says if the 2018 game was pitched with those exact characters and Kratos the way he was without the history of the previous games, he goes, it wouldn't have worked. But.
00:32:08
Speaker
The whole point is the way that it is and the path and the story that it tells is because of those previous games. I disagree with that point. It's a ridiculous point. Spawn. We don't we don't get the first three trade paperbacks covering him his life as a cop. It's fucking flashbacks told after the fact after he's made the pact with the devil to get the get the powers. You can start a character with this whole shame and vengeance and anger and all the rest of it.
00:32:37
Speaker
And then yes you do have to deal with it through good storytelling as to what is that thing like we need to unpick it and understand it but you don't have to.
00:32:48
Speaker
Yeah, I disagree with this point. I think it's still like... I also think it would have worked as a game. It's 100%. It would have worked but not have had the impact that it's had. There is 100% that would have, I reckon it's probably 50% or more of the player base that came in on 2018 had never played the original God of War games.
00:33:12
Speaker
It's got to be upwards of that percentage is my guess. So they're coming in with no knowledge or limited knowledge of what has before and we get enough of who he was through the story. Do we even meet his wife in the previous games? I don't think we do.
00:33:31
Speaker
She's a material in a dream when he goes into the light of Alfheim, but you don't. She talks to him, but you don't see it. Are you talking about Norse wife or Greek wife? We should probably have some characters. So you open the game with him building a pyre.
00:33:47
Speaker
for his wife. She's wrapped up and they get the ashes. Who we've never met. So, that's, yeah. I mean, to me, that was an interesting way to start a new chapter by closing a chapter we never saw. We didn't get to see the wife. We didn't get to see the relationship unfold. We didn't get to see how she interacted with Atreus growing up. Le Fay too. Le Fay.
00:34:11
Speaker
Le Faye? Yeah, he says he calls her Faye most of the time, but her full name's Le Faye. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's longer than that as well. But the point is you can certainly start a story with existing history. And in fact, unless you're telling the story of a child, you have to.
00:34:27
Speaker
Like the character already has a personality and you have to stay true to it. Because if it's not consistent, then you end up with a game where there is no personality in the character. Which is, again, and they did that in God of War I. The original God of War I. We've done that in thousands of games, so there's no personality. 2018 was different. God of War I, from memory, had the voiceover introduction. It has the things that they do at the start of movies where they've got a
00:34:56
Speaker
do the, do the monologue catch up from a Galadriel or somebody else to get everybody, get everybody up to speed. You kill, you kill the Hydra from memory and then you do the first bit and you're just like, it's, you get off the, get into Greece and then there's something happens there that makes it go cool. And it's the old lady who does the, yes. Yeah.
00:35:16
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, so it's not at the start. It's after you kill the Hydra, is it? It's been, yeah, after the Hydra fight. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He could be right. Um, he probably right. Cause he talks with Athena on the ship. It's all coming back to me now. Wow. That was good. Good job. Coffee. Well done.
00:35:36
Speaker
You don't get that backstory monologue. It literally starts with Kratos, press R2 to swing the axe and cut a tree down. Why is this?
00:35:50
Speaker
muscle bound old man swinging acts, cutting a tree down with a glowing handprint on it. Like what the fuck is doing? Yes. It doesn't look like tilt, but yeah. Uh, it it's, it's, it's a brilliant way to, to, to roll through a game and have so much development for a character in the first, before you even press a button with nothing said, it has character development from where we saw him previously.
00:36:18
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, but I think that's how it starts. But the rest of the game and to be honest, the rest of both games is just continuous character development. And that is what drives the narrative forward. It is the reason why the game, the games were enjoyable was because we were playing through that development and kind of witnessing it unfold and the
00:36:43
Speaker
You know, the world around him or around them driving that development into them. I mean, they weren't, you know, they had, they had antagonists that were driving that character development, but it was all internal development. Yeah. Well, you wonder, you wonder how much further in the relationship there with, uh, Kratos and Atreus, if, uh, Boulder hadn't turned up and set off, set off the, well, basically Boulder turning up sparked Ragnarok. So yeah.
00:37:12
Speaker
Yeah, the whole chain of events. Yeah, just with the with the stranger coming up that you didn't even know his name. And so wonder how that continued on. So do we do we disagree with Jaffee? I think I do. I disagree with Jaffee.
00:37:29
Speaker
Yeah, having, well, I mean, I've only watched those two videos and- Well, I've never met the guy either, but- Yeah, I've never met the guy either. Yeah, yeah. It just, it- He's welcome to join us on Pixels and Pints, if you fix this up. I'm going to be acting the shit out of him for these videos. Yeah, hell yeah. I don't know. It just, yeah, I see it as more of a like,
00:37:51
Speaker
Like something, someone took away his toy and now he's angry. He's a little mad. Like, I don't know. I just talk about his being like the way he's doing that first video.
00:38:02
Speaker
I don't know, that second video, I thought he came across just as arrogant and as petty as he did in the first one. Some of the bits where he's talking about- Fuck, I'm not adding him now. Thanks, Tom. Fuck him. I'll take him on. Yeah, I played his game. I've fucking given him money, so fuck the guy. He wants to come on and defend himself. Let him do it. I'd love to have a conversation with him. I'd like to sit down and do it, but I just think he was contradicting himself a lot in those videos for me. I don't know.
00:38:30
Speaker
It didn't, I don't think he defended himself well. I still don't agree with him. It would be good. That, that was that what, what he was doing was not what we do. So he didn't have somebody he had, uh, I think he had, uh, his subscribers in a live chat that were on Twitch. So it would be really good to, I don't know if there's a video out there that is him talking to somebody and actually saying, okay, well,
00:38:58
Speaker
You said you love 2018, where would you go after that if you had to lead into the events of Ragnarok? What would you do? You're right. You're right. I haven't seen any interactive conversations either. It's just him. It's a monologue. So definitely Adam, because if we can get a four way conversation going. I just I just think.
00:39:17
Speaker
Yeah, the reason I disagree with him is if we'd gotten another Wolverine game, if we just treated the first three or four games, if you include Ascension, as the Wolverine character, if we've got no fourth game. I also don't fucking agree with, but we're not going to go down the wall. I don't either. But if we've gotten another cookie cutter,
00:39:35
Speaker
I got a war character with no development, just angry man, just a button mashup. Yeah. In the 2018 game climate, I don't think it would have been nearly as successful. It won game of the year, for fuck's sake. I mean, yeah, 2005, 2005 did win game of the year too. Bunch of it there. But again, it was, I think, I think that's a really important thing that it was a product of its time. Like 2005, you think about some of the games are out there and like it was
00:40:02
Speaker
I like some of them like more, especially more violent titles that were out. Like that was that was a lot of the the appeal around it was it like, yeah, it told a decent half, not a half decent story, a decent story. But it was also, you know, you're some super strong, it was before Marvel was marvelling and like you got to pick dudes up and rip them in half. Like, you felt like you felt like the God of War like they did what they set out to do what it said on the box.
00:40:28
Speaker
It did both games one game of the year and 2018 rerelease was more successful than any game in the original franchise. But then also the the area of that media has changed as well. Yeah, I was going to say that the player base has probably swelled considerably since the last seven games too.
00:40:48
Speaker
And I mean, absolutely not to throw any shade on those early games. I fucking love them. I love the storylines that come into and they play into the Kratos character at the time.
00:41:01
Speaker
Sorry, go ahead. No, no, go, go. I was going to say, does it, but when you compare it to something like Diablo, right? It's another button masher, dungeon delver. Diablo has stayed true to itself from the start. And even whilst they've added modern, I don't know, quality of life changes, Diablo four has a hardcore player base, but is ultimately just a copy of three, which was a copy of two, which was a copy of one. I don't feel like it was nearly as popular.
00:41:29
Speaker
No, I mean, as someone who played the shit out of Diablo 2, I struggled through Diablo 3 and as soon as I finished the main story, I was like, see you later. Cause it's fucking repetitive. I haven't touched Diablo 4 and I don't think I ever will. But also, what's the name of the characters in there? I mean, do they even have names? Are they just areas? It's just generic, generic RPG. Yeah. I guess, yeah, maybe I don't have a valid point there then. I just felt like,
00:41:59
Speaker
You know, we've got some other long running trade choices. I think I know what you're trying to say, and I agree with that point, in that it was repetitive. This mixed it up. Pivoted. This pivoted to the times and the audience. It's funny now. Like, ever since we got those first ones, like Soulslike and everything like that, the new games that came out after that were called God of War clones.
00:42:21
Speaker
like Castlevania at the time, uh, something of shadows, uh, shadow, shadow of the Colossus. Yeah. But they were, they were, that, that style of game was a God of war client. And now that we've gotten 2018,
00:42:39
Speaker
Like they're now God of War clones again, if you've got that, that, that combat over the shoulder, the, the heavy, the heavy and light attacks done to the triggers now, not to the, uh, square circle triangle, uh, buttons, uh, they're now God of War Clones 2018 God of War Clones. So it is now once again, a genre defining game. And that's not, that can't just be down to the gameplay is incredibly solid in.
00:43:07
Speaker
Both the original and what we've got now products of their time but the.
00:43:13
Speaker
the story and the character and the attachment that you have for so many of the play base to go out and play them has now opened this door for more developers to go, yeah, we need to do that, but with our characters, with our IP, we need to do that. And even down to people comparing the enhanced version of Witcher 3 to God of War, because as you're walking around, the camera is much closer to the character.
00:43:40
Speaker
in the same position over the right shoulder as it is for Kratos. But I think the other takeaway for game developers watching 2018 and Ragnarok Unfold were, or be as successful as they were, is hopefully a focus on narrative storytelling in games again. Because I think that's what we want. Yeah.
00:44:03
Speaker
What are the interactive storytelling? Because I think we're all getting fucking sick of hearing the same bullshit stories from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and we're looking for stories to be told to us in other mediums. Because they're not getting a whole lot out of Hollywood, you could argue.
00:44:20
Speaker
And it's, it's, it's gotta be, it's got, yeah, it's gotta be that refocus on the character pullback. I think this is going to be a dumb comment. Uh, but smaller stories because you can't get much of a bigger story than Ragnarok in, uh, in Norse mythology. Uh, but, uh, character scope.
00:44:37
Speaker
Smallest, uh, but, but character driven, not event driven. Yeah. The event of actual, the actual event of Ragnarok happening within Ragnarok, the God of war Ragnarok game was in my mind.
00:44:55
Speaker
Was actually too short that whole section was too short it didn't feel epic enough to me it felt like we're building up we're building a building up okay well that was just ejaculating dust it was. Which is a brilliant title for the episode.
00:45:12
Speaker
If only we could get away with it. Definitely going to get Jaffe on now. Come try to think about ejaculating dust. Fuck's sake. Here we are covering David Jaffe. Ejaculating dust is the name of the episode. I think you should get George RR Martin on that too. I felt it was less consequential than draining the river basin in the first game. Certainly to the gameplay and to the story. Oh yeah, sure.
00:45:37
Speaker
So I agree with you. It didn't last long enough and it wasn't consequential enough. But I think it's also, it's also reflective of the player base. Like you talked about, whether or not we can say how many new players came to the series with 2018 or not, we don't have those numbers, but they're getting to that stage now. Like if they've been, if they're, let's say they're
00:46:02
Speaker
The fuck? Well, that was at me for a second. No, Tom. Shut up. I've never seen Loki push his face against the screen enough for the whole screen to warp on its stand. So you got to smack. Sorry about that.
00:46:16
Speaker
That's right. I was just talking about like, if you think about a player base that's growing up with this and like maturing as gamers, they're all the kids that got the first Call of Duty modern warfare. Yeah. And now they've aged up enough and they're the ones who are desiring that story, like you were saying. And like, you know, if they're not getting it through Hollywood. Well, they're not getting that from Call of Duty games. I can tell you that. No, no. The plot lines are thin at best. But yeah, it's that like,
00:46:43
Speaker
The way that, because I played a lot of those ones and I was like, yeah, the story was, was decent enough. It was, you know, it's a war story, but it's like, but it always left you wanting more. And I couldn't be bothered getting on the multiplayer kind of things. And I think there's enough ways. You weren't getting any story there, mate. I can tell you that other than you got some stories, stories in multiplayer. I got told some things, but.
00:47:04
Speaker
But yeah, they've played those campaigns and they're left wanting for an actual good story. That's where 2018 can come and take them. That's where the Uncharted series can come and take Red Dead Redemption. They've moved in as matured as gamers. They need this. Whereas you can have a good story in the Greek God of War quadrilogy. It's called quadrilogy now.
00:47:27
Speaker
I think it was actually like seven games. Yeah, I lost part of it. But it was still enough of the time. Just destroy everything, kill everything, blood guts, sex minigames, happy days. That's what the player base wanted at the time.
00:47:47
Speaker
But I think now they've grown up with that and they've matured enough that they're actually like, oh, cool. I still want to be able to tear a guy in half with an axe. But I also want a meaningful story to cut that up, to break up that thing. I think that's where a lot of the, let's say,
00:48:06
Speaker
mid 20s to, you know, 40 player base, which is a considerable part of the, of, of those player bases is, uh, that's where they're at and that's what they want. And I, yeah. And that's why it was so successful. I think, but yeah. Yes.
Ellie's Journey in The Last of Us 2
00:48:21
Speaker
I, I, do we want to, do we want to stay on game of thrones or do you want to move on to some other characters? Cause there are certainly some other games. I don't remember talking about game of thrones, but yep.
00:48:33
Speaker
I don't even know where they came from. It's not like I'm looking up anything. You did mention George R. Martin for some reason just before. Yeah, that must be it. It's just a Freudian slip in my Alzheimer's. Yeah, well, Dan'll come back in, but let's start with one of your characters you wanted to talk about. Or we can start with one of yours, because I mean, yeah, well, let's start with mine, because Dan's played Playtale and I haven't. So, I believe so. It's too many rats. He wouldn't like it.
00:49:02
Speaker
Or maybe it was, yeah, okay, maybe I'm wrong. I play, I've definitely played, because it's the rap one, yeah.
00:49:07
Speaker
Yeah. Um, so Ellie from the last of us two. Yes. I don't count her in the first game because she's almost a passenger on that story. I mean, Joel is there to protect her, but, but sorry, Dan, we've, we've moved off. Got a war. Is there anything else you wanted to add on that topic before we do? No, I heard you say Joel. So I assumed you'd moved on. Yeah. Yeah. So, so I mean, look, Joel went through his own journey and that's certainly number one is Joel's story. Number two is Ellie's story. Like, yeah.
00:49:36
Speaker
Yeah, I think John's was interesting and complex and it's what made the game. I was going to let it go. Did I say John? We're getting on to John later. Joel's was a great development of character in that he was an anti-hero at the start of the game and through the course of the original game became a father figure and it was very much
00:50:00
Speaker
It was very much coming to terms with grief and loss. But I think Ellie in The Last of Us 2, her grief and loss was a lot more raw. It happened more recently in terms of the game's storyline. And so it came with anger and vengeance that Joel had probably hung up at some point before the first game.
00:50:28
Speaker
And she didn't get to grow up in a pre-apocalyptic world where it's like you would have had ways to deal with that if Joel had that from previous things. True, but I think, and this is full spoilers for the two games that have been out now for I think a decade, over a decade. The second one's just got re-released.
00:50:46
Speaker
Yeah, the first one was re-released like two years ago and it had been out for 13 years by that stage. But so in the first, I mean, Joel loses his daughter at the start of the apocalypse or the zombie apocalypse and, and was, and therefore a lot of what he dealt with in terms of transporting Ellie was dealing with that loss after he had kind of buried it away in a box. Yeah, he cut it off. He didn't want a daughter again. He didn't want a family again. He just,
00:51:12
Speaker
I don't even think it was again it was that he hadn't dealt with the loss of his original daughter like his actual biological daughter and then having to deal with Ellie and interact with Ellie and Ellie being the complete innocent that she was.
00:51:27
Speaker
forced him to come to terms with the original pain in a way that allowed him to become a father figure to Ellie. And I thought that was, let's be real, if that story, if that storyline wasn't as compelling as it was, I don't think we would have had a game or at least a game that we enjoyed playing as much as we did. And I liken it to God of War for that reason.
00:51:50
Speaker
I think you're right. I mean, the interaction, I haven't played two. I've watched, I caught up with the overall story and character development into this afternoon, because I knew it would come up. Oh, fuck. That would have ruined it for you. Sorry. What's that? Well, there's a big spoiler for two barely early on, about a third or a quarter of the way into the game. I'm never going to play it. Also, I think we already spoiled it 400 years ago when we played it.
00:52:27
Speaker
The interaction with Joel and Ellie and that character development between the two and the relationship development is what drives you forward in the sections where you're not focusing on human or the combat elements outside of those combat sections is they're constantly talking to each other and developing slowly, developing that relationship with each other. And it would have been nowhere near as compelling.
00:52:42
Speaker
He does? The interaction between Joel and Ellie.
00:52:54
Speaker
I mean it's got to be one of those one of the one of the original titles to that had a constant companion that was driving the story forward before that there wasn't too many games that had a constant companion. Yeah they were usually a game mechanic rather than a narrative element.
00:53:13
Speaker
Or if they were a narrative element, they were, they were minimal, but they're not, not in the same light that like, there's plenty of the duos that you played as over in the years, but there's always one was either silent. Yeah. Fucktales. No one gives a shit about client. I totally agree. Uh, yeah. Sorry to cut off that time. Yeah, you're right. I think.
00:53:35
Speaker
going onto some game mechanics that we've gone onto and some of our previous talking earlier today, it could be something that's now being overdone a little bit. But the good thing about Ellie was the constant character development, which we have talked about, the constant character interaction was meaningful. It wasn't just filler or repetitive lines that you heard, which drove you insane. It was all like they'd written so much.
00:54:01
Speaker
If you hadn't fallen in love with Ellie's character in the first game, I don't think you would have given as much of a shit about the process that Joel was going through and the attachment that he felt for her wouldn't have felt nearly as believable. He was he was falling in love with a daughter character and it was told through the lens of.
00:54:21
Speaker
this beautiful innocence in this fucking broken world. And I think if you couldn't relate to him, falling in love with her as a protective guardian that it wouldn't have worked. And to me, that's, that was the, that is the master stroke that is that game. It had to make you want to buy into her and then him in that order. But I think the second game,
00:54:47
Speaker
I think it's like it took a very different turn and it's almost looking at the first trilogy of God of War of seven games compared to the second couple is The Last of Us 1 versus The Last of Us 2 because she takes a complete tailspin after Joel dies in the second game.
00:55:07
Speaker
And then suddenly this innocence, she's hesitant to use the word blossoming, but she's going through puberty. She's dealing with the kinds of puberty blues that everyone goes through as a teenager at the start of the second game. But there's still a level of innocence there that she's now a teenage girl coming to her womanhood. And then the whole thing just gets completely interrupted with Joel's death.
00:55:32
Speaker
And her entire psyche. Yeah, and that she fucking witnesses first hand. Yeah. And then her entire psyche just breaks into vengeance and anger and loss and grief. And she has no tools to deal with that. No. And then we watch this character that we fell in love with as an innocent in the first game turn into
00:55:56
Speaker
dare I say a monster in the second game where I really struggled with a lot of the choices that she made in the narrative and yet it never felt inconsistent as a character. You could understand why she was doing the dumb shit that she was doing.
00:56:12
Speaker
She was blinded by that vengeance. It drove. Yeah, massively hurting, especially when you get into the underlay of the story that, you know, her and Joel had kind of drifted apart and fighting and she was left with, yeah, as you said, all that guilt and then now a new.
00:56:27
Speaker
double down on rage and anger when she'd already had her like, and I guess that's the thing as well. She'd already had her innocence stolen when, which Joel, which is, I think is a great run through of the first game is Joel's always trying to protect her innocence wise. Like you're not fighting. Like if they're like you get away and then she has to kill that dude. And it's like, who was trying to rape her. Let's be, let's be clear. Like it's, it was almost a literal loss of innocence as well. Yeah.
00:56:53
Speaker
But it's just like, yeah, he was always trying to protect from that. And like, that was, that was his journey to protect her. And then he had to accept the thing. But then obviously for her, she started out the game in a weird spot, like you said. Um, and purely as well, because she'd started to kind of piece together that maybe Joel lied at the end of the first game, um, about the whole Firefly situation. So she'd lost trust in this father figure. She never thought she'd have, but had grown to absolutely need and want. And then absolutely ripped out of, out of her life like that. Like.
00:57:22
Speaker
Yeah, it was, it was like, it deals with unfinished business. Well, yeah, it was difficult to watch because you, you felt that pain like, and it felt uncomfortable for, well, for me as a player, but the, like, and, and, and, and two character development as a main plot or a main driver for a video game. It's not just her journey. It's Abby's as well. And.
00:57:47
Speaker
A couple of interactions at the very start of the game really put these two characters into almost the same starting lineup where they're both seeking vengeance against the other for wrongs that the other doesn't even know. Yeah and and propels both characters forward to an inevitable kinda climax where they made again. And the character development of abby as a black as a person and her dealing with it.
00:58:13
Speaker
ended up almost overshadowing Ellie's dealing with that pain. Now, I mean, yeah, could you argue that it's a deeper pain perhaps, but just getting to the point on the beach at the end of The Last of Us 2 where,
00:58:27
Speaker
Ellie's finally understood the error of her ways. She's understood that seeking vengeance to the exclusion of everything else is going to only result in further loss for her. She's come to accept Joel's death. She seems to have learnt everything that she needed to learn on her journey and then goes full fucking rage at the end anyway. And it almost kills them both.
00:58:49
Speaker
Just that was the hardest part for me playing that game was just watching her sink back into, into vengeance again. Like she hadn't learned anything along the way. Yeah. Oh, notwithstanding the fact that she also lost her first lover. So when we talk about loss of innocence, she, she had also dealt with grief. She was dealing with grief before Joel died and was kind of processing that still as well. And along with guilt and all the rest of it. Yeah.
00:59:18
Speaker
Anyway, I think to me, Ellie's journey. I didn't agree with every choice that she made, but I never once questioned the writers and to me that made it.
00:59:32
Speaker
That's what told me it was compelling in the sense that I didn't agree with every choice she made, but it was consistent enough with her psyche that I never said the writers fucked up. It was Ellie fucked up, which to me is, yeah. Like when you watch a TV show and you're just screaming at the screen, don't do that. You dumb idiot. And then they do it anyway. It's like, but you never fucking write the writer sternly worded letter to the writers either.
00:59:56
Speaker
I mean, well, we complain about it on here if it's done poorly. If it's executed poorly. Yes, but it was but it was executed excellently. Anyway, I think that's another game to add to the list. Sorry, Tom. No, I was going to say it's a perfect lead into Plague Tale Innocence because it's again, it's that same thing of as the title implies, losing innocence.
Character Growth in Challenging Stories
01:00:16
Speaker
It's been struck by a plague. And because you guys haven't played it. No, Dan never will. Because rat voice. Yeah.
01:00:26
Speaker
But it's the same thing there it's it's a sister and a brother a brief run down the story sister brother living in medieval france there's a conspiracy against her noble family and suddenly she's struck into.
01:00:41
Speaker
plague hitting France of rats, like a literal plague. And she's got to protect her brother in that as they're being hunted down by the church, Spanish Inquisition, that kind of thing. But it's again, you're watching a very well written young character being forced against their will. And I think anytime that's done, and it's written well, there were no like,
01:01:07
Speaker
Like, you know, like almost like those weird hero movie moments where they stand up and like, almost like Neo like flex off the dust to do it, you know, like that kind of thing. It was all, it was all like really well slowly built up. You see the character have to form these ideas. How am I going to survive? What will I do to survive? But how can I still keep my younger brother innocent, even though he's going through what he's going through?
01:01:32
Speaker
I'm very much trying to be spoiler free for this. But again, it's when you see, especially like a young innocent character, just having everything ripped away from them. It's if that's written well and not overly cliched, I think it's going to lead into I always find that really leads into a really well written story.
01:01:53
Speaker
sometimes they do you have stories like that which just go start becoming too cliche and you're just like okay well now now you've lost me but that's another game i would add to this thing that i never thought i'd get into that game because the gameplay style it's mainly stealth
01:02:08
Speaker
That's not, that's not all Tommy boy. Lero Jacobs over here, he just runs in screaming. Better subtle as a bull in a china shop most of the time. But to me, that felt like a thief-esque kind of game, set in roughly the same era. And as you say, stealth-based game. Yeah, but stealth-based, but also like, stealth survival almost, you know, in a weird way. And it's, yeah, it's, it's.
01:02:35
Speaker
a little bit different to thief but yeah i can see the similarities for it but it's just yeah it's that combined like for someone who doesn't really like a stealth based game like i've never gone to metal gear or any of those things um it's taking me how long to finally get it stuck into the assassin's creed series um and even then i'm not stealthy at all uh but like yeah going back and playing um and playing that and i'm really keen to play the sequel of it it's just
01:03:01
Speaker
It's the characters that drew you in. And like Al said, when he talked about it, he just finished it. You walked away like a little harrowed afterwards. You're like, that was fucking hectic. It gets really hectic because it's just such a really well-written tale. And yeah, if you can get past the old ratty boys, I do highly recommend it.
01:03:23
Speaker
Isn't it interesting that we've just, you've spoken of, we've spoken about, uh, the, the last of us one and two and plague style, which goes across two games as well. And you've taught, you've really talked about the development of young characters being thrown into situations that.
01:03:42
Speaker
The young ones of that era, those ages shouldn't be subjected to. And just the massive juxtaposition about against what we spoke about for the first 45 minutes. Kratos, who literally put himself in this position. Well, I guess his birthright was a little bit different being a demigod, but he made the deal with Aries.
01:04:04
Speaker
He made the dominoes start to fall with how his life went. And then when he was losing control, he tried harder to exert it and made it worse. Yeah. And then you've got these these young characters coming through and
01:04:22
Speaker
Will they then get to this point where they they realize? And this is what I commented to you earlier, Pete, about where Ellie is now is like Kratos in the original trilogy. Where are we going? The Naughty Doggers said they are going to make a part three, but it's not. The Last of Us was always written as a trilogy in mind. So it will be very interesting to see what
01:04:45
Speaker
how to ended and her path ended into and how much it had destroyed her life and how much she had to come to terms with the path that she'd chosen and what sort of character she will be moving forward. And I think
01:05:03
Speaker
Once again, I'm talking about her in a real person sense, not as in how will they write her going forward, because these characters have developed their own personalities. They are absolutely figments of people's imagination, but they have brought these. They're so well written and the interaction that we have with them across the three games, the game series that we've spoken about.
01:05:29
Speaker
ties you to these characters in a way that they have their own personalities and you go, it's kind of like watching a documentary. Like it's kind of like, what's the next part of this, their life going to, going to show for us? So what are they going to write them to be? I mean, look, and, and, you know, I felt like Jaffee was a little overly defensive when he talked about
01:05:51
Speaker
His bonus, how do you describe it? His bona fides on, yes, I have done a fucking English lit degree and I have studied poetry and, you know, he I felt like it was overly defensive and he was clearly responding to some specific hate mail that he hadn't actually shared with us, but.
01:06:10
Speaker
But one of the things that he talks about is a lot of the time a good story if you strip away all of the setting and the background and the events happening to the characters it should a lot of the times character development should be about a.
01:06:27
Speaker
A moral that you can apply to your everyday life, even if it's in the Lord of the Rings kind of world that the through line should be something that applies to you every day. And that really talks to exactly what I think we've talked about so far and we'll talk about at the end with John Marston in the sense that, you know, if you pursue vengeance at all costs, it will cost you dearly.
01:06:51
Speaker
That was something that Kratos learned. It's funny because they are both very similar when you really break it down. God of War and The Last of Us, there's both lots of story are written around vengeance and the cost of vengeance and the cost of grief and how people respond to grief in different ways and frequently are destructive in the way that they deal with it.
01:07:16
Speaker
God, how do we end up so highbrow? We should talk about these beers again. That's the whole idea of these up plates, Pete. No, I thought they were just to get drunk and talk shit. Can I remind you the phrase, ejaculating dust. No way highbrow. Oh fuck, I came close to that. Spraying that all over my screen. Should we talk about these beers again and give them a score? I think we should, yes. I finished mine.
01:07:46
Speaker
Um, that was sensational. That is, that is beautiful. If anyone out there has this bottle sitting in their cellar or sitting in their fridge, it is perfect to drink now, which is one of those, you know, uh, great things about selling beer sometimes as you, like, I think if I would have had that. Seeing some, some, like when I looked it up on, on tap and seeing some early reviews and stuff, it was like.
01:08:09
Speaker
It was a lot sharper. It was a lot like the booze really like came straight out and like hit you in the face. Whereas this was deliciously like not mellow, like I'm feeling a great buzz right now. But it just became like really rich chocolate and coffee, like smooth experience the whole way through the booze is there definitely. But not in an unenjoyable way for something that's 11.2% like
01:08:36
Speaker
It's not a small beer. So yeah, I'm that's I mean, yeah, it's one of those things. It's got five stars on it. So I feel like it's really trying to push me that way. I think it
01:08:54
Speaker
For having aged it, it's held up really well. I'm going to give it a 4.75. It's not perfect beer. I would have liked probably a bit more of in the balance they had of the chocolate and coffee. I would have liked a bit more of that.
01:09:11
Speaker
the sharpness of the coffee to still come through or whether or not it came through originally and I've missed it. But it is an excellent, excellent, excellent stout. They said they aged it in Starwood red wine barrels. I don't know if that was meant to give any like tanniny like flavors. I didn't get those at all. I didn't get like any
01:09:32
Speaker
You know, and sometimes you have like something that's barrel aged in like a sherry or portcask or, or red wine barrel. You get that, that tannin like flavoring sensation. I didn't get any of that, but, um, yeah, 4.75 really good. If, yeah, look, if you could find one, you walk into a bottle shop and say, just grab it. Carwin sellers has some apparently. They're still selling it online. Grab it. Delicious. I might grab more.
01:10:00
Speaker
Dan. Yeah. Mine's warmed up really nicely as well. The, the flavor has continued to evolve. The, the real dark chocolate cocoa characters are really present. Uh, I do get a little bit of that dark fruit that they were talking about before too. It's got a nice astringent bitterness from that black malts. Uh, it's definitely a four seven five for me. It's a damn near perfect, but I'm going to pull my usual card.
01:10:28
Speaker
I would have liked a bit of like hot bitterness in there.
01:10:33
Speaker
Oh yeah. It's, it's got, it's, it's, it does have a sweeter finishing palette to it. So a bit higher, it's, it's definitely got the, the malt astringency bitterness that I was talking about, but a little bit higher hot bitterness, but that's me too. So yeah, I'm, I'm calling that a four seven five because it is a fucking good beer as well. And I kind of wish I had another one for afterwards. Nice.
01:11:02
Speaker
Mine has I'm not going to give it as high a score. I can I'm going to say that up front. So on the on the nose, I get a lot more. There's a touch of chocolate, but there's a lot more ethanol. You get that real booziness on the nose, but it has master flavor 100 percent. And the problem is it's mastered with and thank you. I was I couldn't remember the word, but you nailed it, Dan astringency. It is that real sharp
01:11:31
Speaker
bitterness that reminds me a little bit of soy sauce. I don't know if it's yeast or tolysis or something else as it's as it's aged, but it would be. It's just barrels, too. Yeah, but it also has developed a note that it didn't have at the start. So I've lost a lot of the coffee. I've lost it, although that that kind of that bitterness from you get from coffee is still there, which is what I put down to astringency. I was getting wood notes through the middle.
01:12:02
Speaker
10 minutes after we crack the beers, now all I get is pepper jack.
01:12:06
Speaker
It's just pepper, pepper, pepper. And it's not a bad thing by itself. One of my favorite, I know this is taking us a little bit off topic for a second. One of my favorite wines, it was probably not designed to take, it was a Pino that wasn't designed, probably wasn't designed to taste as peppery as it was, but it had this real strong peppery note through the middle. And I can't find that wine for level money, but I would love to have bought three or four more to sell her. This though, I just think.
01:12:36
Speaker
It's cool that it's layered, and Brick Lane usually don't miss on their stouts. They're pretty well known for their stouts outside of their core range. But to me, this just fell apart. The layers fell apart over time. And so to me, this is going to be a 375. Ooh. Which is still a pretty fucking good score when you consider it's out of five.
01:13:02
Speaker
Um, yeah, just usually I'm used to fucking the trilogy of fear knocking it out of the park. Anyway, fine. I've still got three of those in my stout drawer. So there you go. Happy days. Which ones trilogy of the first, I think the first three, I've still got the GANs. Oh geez. Yeah. So I've, I've still got 2023 trilogy of fear. I don't know if I'm going to save it for you fuckers or, um, just do one in each of the next three upload episodes. I haven't decided yet.
01:13:29
Speaker
Um, do you want to move on to John Marston from Red Dead? Do we, do we, do we want to do what I want to just call it here and seems to double back on our beer reviews or do we want to.
01:13:40
Speaker
another 30 minutes on this. Well, it's up to you because I obviously can't talk about him because I have not played it. And you'd have to probably be spoiler free because I want to play it. Yeah. And you can't talk about it without spoilers. Yeah. And he plays a big part in two and that was where I was. That was probably what I was. I know the basic story, but yeah. Oh wait, are you talking with
01:14:03
Speaker
It's ironic because I don't think of Arthur. I don't really know Arthur's story. I know John's. I know the story of Red Dead 1. Well, that's all we were talking about. So Red Dead 2 is more focused on Arthur. So Red Dead 2 is Arthur. Yeah. Arthur is the main character for most of it. Yes. Well, Arthur is the main character for most of the first game. Exactly.
01:14:32
Speaker
And that's exactly what I mean. And we're trying to be completely vague here because Tom hasn't finished one. I know what happens at the end of one. I don't know. I don't really know the story at two. Why don't you tell us what you know before we go any further? Guns. No, genuinely. Because at the end of one, Jon dies in the shootout outside his family home. Okay.
01:14:59
Speaker
So that was probably the big spoiler we were aiming to kind of avoid. Again, the game's been out for long enough, and it's my fault for not playing it. And you play the prologue. Prologue? Epilogue. The epilogue is Jack the Son. Yeah. Right. Okay, cool. Which was never... Sorry, Dean. And two, you play Arthur for most of it, and then you play John in the epilogue. Right.
01:15:26
Speaker
And I never thought that we would end up with that kind of echo. Like that was somewhat unexpected in playing through RDR2. And I haven't finished the storyline. I knew a long time ago that he dies, that Arthur dies. But until they released the second game and I had that plot twist ruined for me, I never really expected it to be an echo playing two after one.
01:15:54
Speaker
Well, I mean, it's that he's not in one. And as John, you're hunting down Dutch's gang and Arthur isn't there. So, yeah, Arthur's on the other side of the fucking world or he's dead. And I'm pretty sure in those days he's dead in the life that he's living. But there's, yep. But his death is quite different too. Some of the backstory and the three lines and the
01:16:21
Speaker
The character development and the shit that they learn and deal with is similar, but not the same. But Arthur's death is very different to John's. John's a sudden and a direct result of the core plot points, whereas Arthur's was tangential. His cause of death, I mean, was TB. He was dying of TB. He was diagnosed
01:16:50
Speaker
That might have been something that I might have dodged over there. Sorry. It's like Ghostbusters all over again. And no, he doesn't die of TB. He dies of lead poisoning. Thank you very much. Oh, it just gets better. It's fine. I knew he died. I didn't know how it all went, but that's fine. It's fine. It's fine.
01:17:13
Speaker
It's my fault again, not playing it. This is why we should play big stories when they come out. Well, Pete doesn't even know. So, Pete hasn't finished it. So, that's why I was, that's why I wanted to, and you haven't even finished Arthur's story. So, that's why I wanted to put a pin in John Marston. And my comments on Marston were. Well, I'm going to ruin something for you. Snape kills Dumbledore.
01:17:38
Speaker
His character through one is great, but he doesn't actually learn too much in one. I feel that too, being a prequel, he actually learns more in two and the epilogue of two than he does all through one.
01:17:55
Speaker
What's the time difference between the epilogue of two and the start of one? It's a straight cut. Oh, so it's like Rogue One to A New Hope. Yeah. Oh, it might be a couple of years, but it's not. It's in the Old West time. When you start one, Jack is in his mid teens.
01:18:16
Speaker
Yeah.
John Marston's Story Arc
01:18:17
Speaker
Yeah. And so I think in the end of two, Jack is somewhere around 12 or 13 off the top of my head. Yeah. So it's two to three to four years max, but nothing happens in that period. They're on the farm. Then the story of one starts. But to me, John Marston's story was more about he escaped the life.
01:18:40
Speaker
He, which is, which are lessons he learns in the second game. So at the start of the first game, he has gotten out of, of scum and villainy. Excellent shirt, by the way, Tom. But then gets dragged back in and.
01:18:57
Speaker
Again, like against his will and then ends up dying as a result, essentially, of being unable to escape that life. But he got back to it grudgingly. He was blackmailed by the Pinkertons. So, yeah, I think there's still a lot of character development. I think character development drives that story probably to a lesser extent than some of the other games that we've talked about, but it's still very much present.
01:19:24
Speaker
And I can't talk more about his character for development in 2 and why I'm calling
01:19:32
Speaker
that I think it more happens in two for John, even though he's not the main character, until at least you and me do a one-on-one up wait. Because it's gonna be a very long time for Tom to finish, one ends two. Sorry about the TV, Tom. No, that's fine. I'll be honest, if you guys want to go ahead, because I will forget. I will forget. I'm gonna keep my mouth shut, actually.
01:20:01
Speaker
I don't like i got like three missions into the start of one i start up a single player again i was just like i don't have a shit like so yeah you can go nuts go nuts i give you permission because i don't want to spoil it for peter and because i thought the character development even i put john on this instead of alpha because. Mr whippies out front.
01:20:24
Speaker
Jesus. We live in suburbia, man. I can hear it. Yeah, I know. That's why I had to stop because it sounded like something outside my study door, but it's down on the street. That's why I put John in the notes rather than Arthur because Arthur's contained in the story and his story is his character development happens. Yes, it's great and you get to interact with it in real time. But it starts and finishes.
01:20:53
Speaker
Yeah, you don't have any influence on what happens. Same with John, you don't have any influence. But Arthur's story, even though the game is quite long, is there. But with John, we saw where it ended up, and then we come back to where it started. And
01:21:12
Speaker
Even although obviously when they created Red Dead One, that they didn't even have Arthur in mind. Arthur was Arthur was a character that they created down the track and they had to build his and John's relationships on top of that. Yes.
01:21:28
Speaker
And they are completely entwined and rockstar did a fantastic job in doing it and there is even something more i want to mention about. The closeness of their relationship that i don't want to say in case it hasn't gotten to a certain point in the game but it's to do with his john's family and and how that encompasses author into the family as well and.
01:21:52
Speaker
John and Arthur, so being quite vague on this, nobody's played either Red Dead Games. They're a gang of outlaws. In 2, you play John Marsden, who's Marston, who's hunting down his old gang, as Pete said. He's basically blackmailed into the, by the Pinkerton Detective Agency.
01:22:13
Speaker
In idea two it's a prequel and you're with dutch vanderland and dutch's gang is john arthur and a whole bunch of others and you're out running the pinkertons and the law and it ends up. After about thirty hours just before idea one start so it's a it's a real.
01:22:36
Speaker
Old West, but goddamn like the mundane shit you do in that game for the people that you are traveling and escaping the law and that gang is their family and they talk about it all the time. All the time. All the time. It is what attaches you to those characters and develops them more. So it's, I think it's a, it's a great, um,
01:23:01
Speaker
It's a great example of long story, long format storytelling and character development within a single volume. Yeah. I also think that the character development is more interesting because he's an unwilling participant in his own story.
01:23:21
Speaker
Well, yeah, but well, yeah. I think Arthur had more, I think Arthur had had more agency than John. John was literally blackmailed from the start of the game of RDR1 onwards. I think, but it's, to me, John's story was always more tragic.
01:23:45
Speaker
In terms of, he had escaped, he just wanted to raise his kid. He wanted to live his life with his wife. He'd gotten out of the game of, you know, he'd gotten out of the game of being a villain. And it was just- Yeah, he's very fourth-wall breaking. Sorry. Really, Pete's trying to fill it there. Yeah, I just think, I think his is the more compelling story because it's a story about what happens when life
01:24:15
Speaker
life happens to you and changes the course of your life without you really having much control. And as much control as you try to exert, the ending basically says you don't have a whole lot to say. You certainly didn't for him. That's what made history a tragedy.
01:24:34
Speaker
And it's very interesting. One of the characters, the reoccurring characters in RDR one is the stranger on the Hill. And that very much reiterates your point, Pete, as there's, he's, he's, he has no overall influence on the direction that he's life taking. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, it's a, it's pre-written for him. Yeah. It's preordained, but that's, that's all I wanted to say on the topic. Yeah. I think it was good.
01:25:05
Speaker
Happy? Always. Listeners, you happy? They can't hear you yet. Email us with your sternly worded letters at admin at pixelsandpints.com.au. Book and L. All right. Thanks very much for listening. Thank you, guys. Enjoy the rest of your day. Bye. Bye.