Transcript
Speaker: The more the series goes on, five and six become the outliers.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: So I think that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That should be very interesting indeed.
Speaker: I'm looking forward to that.
Speaker: You know what else are outliers?
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome back to Pixel It.
Speaker: My name is Kevin.
Speaker: With me, as always, is Phil.
Speaker: And today we are continuing on with Halo First Strike Part 2.
Speaker: It is a book by Eric Nylund.
Speaker: And we're just going to keep on keeping on.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So we left off at the end of section one.
Speaker: So we're picking up with section two and chapter 12.
Speaker: And chapter 12 starts a few days earlier, or it says five days earlier, but it's more like a continuation of section zero.
Speaker: Pretty much.
Speaker: We got a couple different timelines going on.
Speaker: Yeah, we went back to the B plot, basically.
Speaker: B plot.
Speaker: Or the A plot, depending on how you look at it.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: B-plot resumes.
Speaker: So we get a flashback to the Spartans who are still on reach and Fred and Kelly are trying to make their way through the covenant forces that are still on the planet.
Speaker: And they figure there must be, wait, wait, my notes are, I'm not gonna edit this out because I don't understand the sentence I wrote in my notes.
Speaker: Oh, this is this is this is a figure there must still be on the surface of reach if they only bombarded the polls.
Speaker: Maybe it's just something important on the surface of reach.
Speaker: Yeah, that's yeah.
Speaker: They figure out there's something important on the surface of reach.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Covenant only be part of the poll.
Speaker: Yeah, they didn't.
Speaker: They didn't completely obliterate it the way that you would have thought they would.
Speaker: We're we're really putting the body and we're putting the body in the mosh.
Speaker: We're putting that body doing it in that mosh in that mosh.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Fred and Kelly decide in their infinite wisdom, you know what?
Speaker: They're going to steal a pair of wraith tanks.
Speaker: And they're just going to, they're going to, first they're going to light up the covenant's motor pool.
Speaker: So they just destroy all the other tanks.
Speaker: And then they, they drive around and they see the covenant is excavating a mountain.
Speaker: So they're like, well, we got to go there.
Speaker: And they just start killing every member of the covenant between where they are and the mountain using their tanks.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And they're fighting, they're blowing grunts up, and they get to the other side, and they get to the mountain, and they rendezvous with another Spartan team.
Speaker: These guys are named Will, Isaac, and Vin, and they're trying to get into a vault door.
Speaker: And they're like, we don't know how to do this.
Speaker: And Kelly's like, I have an idea.
Speaker: And she whistles a six note tune.
Speaker: And that has been the safe code for the Spartans since forever.
Speaker: It opens the vault door and there is Dr. Halsey safe and sound.
Speaker: Big reveal.
Speaker: Big reveal.
Speaker: Big reveal.
Speaker: Dr. Halsey's still alive.
Speaker: Chapter 13.
Speaker: Dr. Halsey is able to identify all the Spartans, even with their helmets on.
Speaker: She is like a mother of identical children.
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: When they're like, oh, you have identical triplets.
Speaker: And she's like, yeah, whatever.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: I can...
Speaker: I can tell them apart.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She picks them up pretty quickly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And Kelly fills in halls with everything Kelly knows so far.
Speaker: And they're like, doctor, why are you still here?
Speaker: What everybody else left?
Speaker: Why are you still here?
Speaker: And Hall's is like, well, I'm the fail safe.
Speaker: I'm supposed to basically if the covenant ever comes down in here, I'm supposed to wipe everything.
Speaker: So she's there as the last line of defense.
Speaker: And so Halsey and her AI called Maya discover that Ackerman's AI has been stealing information from the Spartan program.
Speaker: And they take this opportunity to rip it to shreds.
Speaker: And this is only the first of several moments in the book where an AI is brutally murdered by
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This, this becomes a theme.
Speaker: It gets pretty brutal for, for AI killing.
Speaker: For AI killing it gets bad.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: Akerson's been looking into, into one of the things that Halsey did in her past, which was the flash cloning of the children that were used to replace the Spartans.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah, he's been he's been digging that one up, that chestnut, that that that old whatever that old chestnut.
Speaker: So if you don't know, here's some backstory on that.
Speaker: Halsey and Keys went around planet to planet kidnapping children.
Speaker: and replacing them with clones of themselves.
Speaker: So these children were gonna go into the Spartan program, and they replaced them with clones of the children, so that the parents had no idea what was happening.
Speaker: And eventually these these clones, though, would die.
Speaker: They would die after a few months.
Speaker: So the parents would just believe their kid died.
Speaker: Meanwhile, their kid is actually in a government super soldier program that was not designed to fight the Covenant, but to to to fight rebels.
Speaker: I mean, look, it sounds bad on the on the surface.
Speaker: I think we can all agree that it sounds pretty bad on the surface.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: But, but, but.
Speaker: But.
Speaker: Halsey is, hold on.
Speaker: She's a good mom.
Speaker: She's a great mom.
Speaker: Great mom.
Speaker: Probably a better mom than any of those grieving parents.
Speaker: Probably.
Speaker: That's we got to wonder if that's what it was like.
Speaker: Just find the shittiest parents you can.
Speaker: They don't deserve their kids.
Speaker: And I wonder, it's got to be that cloning technology.
Speaker: You got to figure that they were like, look, we can clone these kids in so far as.
Speaker: they will like look and sound like these kids for a little while.
Speaker: But after like they turn two or so, they start really getting fucked up and like, no problem, put in planned obsolescence and it'll take care of itself.
Speaker: I just imagine that.
Speaker: Some real horrific, like, Cronenberg body horror shit.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know, after about six months, the bonds of the DNA starts to unravel.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And we're like, what does that mean?
Speaker: We're like, well, you know, goo, more or less.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You figure that's got to be what it is.
Speaker: Like, they just fall apart on a molecular level or something like that.
Speaker: It's just...
Speaker: Just reaching out to their parents saying mother.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Halsey finds out that Ackerson is interested in the code du jour artifact or du jour artifact, not du jour.
Speaker: It's not of the day.
Speaker: It's the code of the day.
Speaker: It's the code of the day.
Speaker: It's all the same.
Speaker: What's your soup du jour?
Speaker: The soup of the day.
Speaker: Sounds good.
Speaker: Sounds good.
Speaker: I'll have that.
Speaker: A rare Dumb and Dumber reference.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: That's a new one for us.
Speaker: Not even pressed, to be completely honest.
Speaker: So right as she's talking about that or thinking about it with her AI, Kalmaya, the power goes out in the facility and a support beam in her office comes crashing down toward her.
Speaker: Chapter 14.
Speaker: Outside of her office, Kalmya opens the weapons lockers for the Spartans so that they can get their gear porn on.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Gotta have that.
Speaker: And deal with whatever's happening.
Speaker: Halsey was nearly killed by the support beam in her office collapsing.
Speaker: And as they're kind of like getting their bearings, camouflaged elites attack.
Speaker: The Spartans take them out, but one of them gets away.
Speaker: And Halsey mentions that there's more base.
Speaker: There's more base we got to get down to.
Speaker: But she's cut off again, two chapters in a row where she gets cut off mid-thought.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: By an explosion, literally.
Speaker: End of chapter 13, end of chapter 14, she gets cut off mid-explosion.
Speaker: The mountain is collapsing.
Speaker: It's the same beat.
Speaker: Same beat, Eric Nyland.
Speaker: It's the same beat at the end of each chapter.
Speaker: Not going to hold it against you, but come on, man.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: Let's be real here.
Speaker: Let's mix it up a little bit.
Speaker: Yeah, a little bit.
Speaker: So chapter 15, we assume they get away because we are with them again.
Speaker: Like there is like a small passage of time between 14 and 15 where no description is given of what happens between the base collapsing and suddenly they're fine.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's fine.
Speaker: It's fine, you guys.
Speaker: Fred is leading them down further into the base and it's very dark.
Speaker: They're in some sort of a cavernous area.
Speaker: Halsey mentions that there's some sort of big discovery down there.
Speaker: Fred discovers a weird set of symbols that are glowing on the walls as they remind him of the crystalline formations that were found in Cote d'Azur.
Speaker: Halsey thinks that this is why the covenant did not completely glass reach.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It's also what Ackerson is looking for.
Speaker: So they keep going and they find a room with a fist size crystal sitting on its point and Halsey grabs it and it has neutrino radiation, meaning that suddenly they are very trackable now.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It still turns out to be the best move she could possibly make, to be fair.
Speaker: To be fair, it is the best move they can make.
Speaker: Covenant, and then suddenly the Covenants shoot a Covenant spaceship, shoots a beam energy down, just punching through the mountain into the room that they're in and drops a grav lift down there.
Speaker: And the elites just start raining from the sky.
Speaker: They're just, they're coming on down.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Fred and Kelly take Dr. Halsey.
Speaker: They tell the other two Spartans whose names I did not write, but doesn't matter.
Speaker: They're dead.
Speaker: Yeah, they're gone.
Speaker: Tells the other two Spartans to hold off the elites, and they do not hold off the elites because there's like a thousand elites that are suddenly there.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Kelly blows the corridor behind them, but now they're trapped.
Speaker: Dun dun dun dun dun.
Speaker: Section three.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Chapter 16.
Speaker: We find out that the Spartan in stasis was Linda.
Speaker: Remember that cliffhanger from section one?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't really, but okay.
Speaker: I'll take your word for it.
Speaker: We have a lot of John talking about how pretty Linda's eyes are.
Speaker: Yes, we do.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's okay.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Why not?
Speaker: Why not?
Speaker: Why not?
Speaker: He's a red blooded American male.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Life's weird sometimes.
Speaker: He's got a bald eagle tattoo on his bicep.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: When he does take his helmet off, he combs his hair like Guile from Street Fighter.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I mean, look, that's really the best way.
Speaker: If you want to get into a military girl's panties, you need the- You need the flat top.
Speaker: The blonde flat top.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The natural progression of Wolverine's hair when-
Speaker: when left to just keep going like no one needs to do.
Speaker: Who are the guys from house party?
Speaker: Who's the one that had kid and play kid and play.
Speaker: Which one had the high, the high hair.
Speaker: I think it was kid.
Speaker: Was it kid?
Speaker: They had the very, very tall flat top.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Basically, Guile has that, but for a white guy with straight hair.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: He has the kid haircut.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: I need to find this out now.
Speaker: I need to find out which one.
Speaker: You're going to not let this rest until you know if it was kid or play.
Speaker: I need to know.
Speaker: I need to know which one is which I'm going to Google it.
Speaker: Kid and play.
Speaker: Which is which?
Speaker: Oh, and it popped right up.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: Uh, let's see.
Speaker: Christopher Reed was kid.
Speaker: Christopher Martin was play.
Speaker: Uh, gonna need an image, uh, check here guys.
Speaker: Cause I just didn't follow them.
Speaker: Uh, hold on.
Speaker: Christopher Martin.
Speaker: I was young.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I had it right.
Speaker: Kid was the one with the, uh, was the one with the flat top.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Whatever happened to kid and play?
Speaker: They still seem to.
Speaker: I mean, they just remade House Party.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: Are they in it?
Speaker: Are they?
Speaker: I assume that they would appear in it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's like one of those winking and odd things.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: There's got to be some kind of cameo, right?
Speaker: Like they hold on.
Speaker: I think they're just.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Kid and play.
Speaker: Which one died?
Speaker: Did one of them die?
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: Hold on.
Speaker: Just finding all this out right now.
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: He was in a car accident.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: And somebody died, but it wasn't play.
Speaker: Nor kid.
Speaker: Nor kid.
Speaker: So at this point, I don't know if you're allowed to be called kid anymore, because this dude's got to be in his 50s at least.
Speaker: I don't think kid is.
Speaker: Yeah, I think he left the nickname behind.
Speaker: He's not so childlike anymore, let's just say.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So kid and play are still alive.
Speaker: They're still alive.
Speaker: And so are several of our protagonists.
Speaker: So are several of our protagonists.
Speaker: Hey, including Linda.
Speaker: Oh, Linda.
Speaker: Good Lord.
Speaker: Linda, I just imagine, so I just imagine Linda looking like Linda Belcher from Bob's Burgers.
Speaker: I think you have to.
Speaker: I went with Linda Hamilton.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: I like yours better, to be completely honest.
Speaker: And let's face facts.
Speaker: Oh, Bobby.
Speaker: And without hitting too many spoilers or anything, I think we all, you recognize that the moment someone becomes even vaguely romantically interested in the other one, one of their days is numbered.
Speaker: We know that.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: We'll get to that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We'll get to that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Cortana cuts into this time and says, ah, shit, I miscalculated the time.
Speaker: We're only 19 minutes away.
Speaker: Remember how I told you it was going to take nine hours?
Speaker: Fuck.
Speaker: Well, I mean, slip space is weird.
Speaker: Boy, was I wrong.
Speaker: Slip space is weird.
Speaker: We're there in 19.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Master Chief is very worried about Cortana.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We get in a little aside.
Speaker: Locklear is into Pulaski.
Speaker: Johnson and Master Chief think he's dumb.
Speaker: And to be fair, yeah, I see their point.
Speaker: I see their point.
Speaker: Johnson's like, no.
Speaker: And he's like, what about you, Master Chief?
Speaker: And Master Chief just like shakes his head.
Speaker: He's like, no, no, man.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: I don't think so.
Speaker: They arrive at Reach and realize there's a portion of the planet that was not glassed.
Speaker: And also their cover is still intact with the Covenant.
Speaker: Remember, they are on a Covenant cruiser at this point.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And they start picking up a transmission with the six note signal that only Master Chief knows.
Speaker: Chapter 17.
Speaker: Gonna go real fast through this chapter because it was not necessary.
Speaker: Yes, yes.
Speaker: Chapter 17, flashback time.
Speaker: We got a live fire organization that John and the Spartans were thrown into as kids against soldiers.
Speaker: Spartans had darts while the soldiers had real live fire guns.
Speaker: The long and short of it is it's basically an origin story for the six note melody and Ali Ali Oxenfreit.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Moving on.
Speaker: Chapter 18.
Speaker: Have we established the smiley thing by now, by the way?
Speaker: I think, no, no, we don't.
Speaker: We see it later when Master Chief finds the other Spartans.
Speaker: I won't jump the gun then.
Speaker: Yeah, keep going.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Now, chapter 18, and this is the chapter in which I texted Phil saying, I have thoughts.
Speaker: OK, yeah, I'm very intrigued.
Speaker: We kept this one to ourselves.
Speaker: Because.
Speaker: I don't know what he's getting at.
Speaker: So Cortana, we get Cortana saying, I don't know why he thinks that signal is so important.
Speaker: It's something that could be easily replicated.
Speaker: It's silly, but whatever, Master Chief is going to go down there.
Speaker: But she is very distracted maintaining the cover.
Speaker: Cortana realizes the Covenant must be interested in Castlebase, which...
Speaker: we now understand is the place where Halsey was.
Speaker: Castle base was the base that was located within this mountain.
Speaker: And Cortana is one of those things where like, Oh, of course, Cortana knows everything that's going on in castle base because she was Halsey's AI.
Speaker: Um, and I forgot to mention that the call Maya, uh, was like, is like beta Cortana.
Speaker: She's like Cortana 0.1 or something like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So then she stops thinking about it because there's too much to do.
Speaker: So, all right, here's the thing.
Speaker: Cortana has an interaction with an AI.
Speaker: This AI appears and starts shouting at her that she's an infidel.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And then I picked up on this because I was listening to the audio book.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: And the guy giving the voiceover narration gave the AI a Middle Eastern accent.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And this was written in 2003.
Speaker: This is written in 2003.
Speaker: I'm not saying this is necessarily Islamophobic.
Speaker: And I'm not saying, and I'm not also not saying that it's not my call to make that.
Speaker: But this scene is so unfortunately coded in a way that makes the Covenant and the Covenant AI seem like they are coded to be a representative of Islam.
Speaker: Now, I have actually looked into this.
Speaker: There has been discussions about it online.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But gamers, as they do, usually try to shut the discussion down of like, no, it's probably Christianity that it's, and it'd be like, sure, okay, yeah, there's a lot of Christian allegory in the Covenant stuff.
Speaker: But given the timing of this book's release,
Speaker: And just given the the the how the voice actor was directed to read the line and how and the use of the word infidel.
Speaker: And I know infidel is not a native Middle Eastern term, but at this time.
Speaker: You have to understand the context of the media at the time.
Speaker: Infidel is only, only, only used in media at this time in is said by characters coded or portrayed as Muslim.
Speaker: That's the only way infidel is used in the early 2000s.
Speaker: It's not originally a Muslim term.
Speaker: It's actually a term that dates back to the 15th century.
Speaker: It's one of those terms that started in Latin, went through French and all that stuff.
Speaker: And the original definition was infidel was just a term for somebody of another religion.
Speaker: So to Muslims, Christians were infidels.
Speaker: to Jewish people, Muslims were infidels.
Speaker: That's the only connotation that it had was they were the other religion.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: In media in the early 21st century though, it becomes a very loaded term when trying to portray and
Speaker: Don't get me wrong.
Speaker: There's so much Islamophobic media in the early 2000s.
Speaker: Just endless.
Speaker: Even in the 90s.
Speaker: Even before September 11th, there's a ton, a ton of Islamophobic media.
Speaker: So when I read this scene, I was like, I had to stop and say something because I was like, Jesus Christ, that is unfortunate.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't blame you.
Speaker: I don't I think it would be.
Speaker: Do I necessarily think that they would have done that on purpose?
Speaker: Yeah, probably, because, again, this was released in 2003, which means it was probably written in 2002.
Speaker: It's it's it with that context, you would have to be very.
Speaker: willing, fully ignorant about it.
Speaker: You'd have to really be slapping the hands over the ears and going, la, la, la, la.
Speaker: I don't hear you.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's, it's kind of impossible not to read it in, read that into that, uh, with that context, you know, a younger person who wasn't there, uh, who was not aware of the time period and everything like that.
Speaker: Someone who, uh,
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, infidel is just another word.
Speaker: And they don't they don't hear the loaded aspect of it the same way that you and I would could be forgiven for not seeing that.
Speaker: But guys like you and me who are old enough to remember this shit, it's impossible not to say there isn't some connection there.
Speaker: Yeah, there isn't some sort of, and, you know, I'm not going to accuse Eric Nyland of being intentionally Islamophobic here.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: Absolutely not.
Speaker: I'm just saying this scene is unfortunately written and does not age well using that term.
Speaker: knowing the context of when it was released.
Speaker: It is very much a product of its time.
Speaker: There is no getting around that.
Speaker: And I agree with you.
Speaker: I don't think that this means that Eric Nyland is throwing in Islamophobic shit.
Speaker: Far from it.
Speaker: I just don't think that's what we're dealing with here.
Speaker: But you can participate in stuff like that without willingly doing it.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: You can participate without being...
Speaker: thoroughly aware of the of the implications and the actions that your words are are and if it's if it's not you know feel free to tell me I'm wrong it just it just it was one of those things that was like
Speaker: popped in my head as soon as I saw it.
Speaker: That's very hard to ignore.
Speaker: And then it was also exacerbated by the way the voice actor at the time read it.
Speaker: Now that's interesting because I won't.
Speaker: And I told, that's why I texted you.
Speaker: It was like, it did not click until I heard the voice actor read it.
Speaker: I didn't think about that.
Speaker: Well, I thought about it briefly.
Speaker: I was like, infidel, that's a very interesting choice of words based on the time period that I probably would have left it at that.
Speaker: But yeah, with a performance of it with an actor in an audio book.
Speaker: Yeah, that's a horse of a different color.
Speaker: Like that's very different.
Speaker: Very different.
Speaker: That's why I just stick with the word heretic.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Because heretic is a good, clean, powerful word to throw at the enemies of our emperor.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: And we cannot suffer the heretic to live.
Speaker: We cannot suffer the heretic.
Speaker: That's just good sense.
Speaker: Good sense.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So all praise to the God King Emperor.
Speaker: All praise to the God Emperor.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Anyway.
Speaker: I read one Warhammer 40k book.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, suddenly you are in it.
Speaker: You are in it, my friend.
Speaker: I am in it.
Speaker: I am in it.
Speaker: Where the fuck was I?
Speaker: Anyway.
Speaker: Infidels.
Speaker: Infidels.
Speaker: So she tears apart the AI.
Speaker: This is the second scene of an AI being brutally ripped apart.
Speaker: This is really upsetting, too.
Speaker: It's a really upsetting one, too.
Speaker: It's not it's not pleasant, a pleasant read.
Speaker: And she looks at the code and it seems familiar.
Speaker: She's like, what the fuck is going on with this AI code?
Speaker: And while she's doing that, she then fixes the Covenant's method of firing plasma cannons.
Speaker: So basically the way the Covenant fires the plasma cannons, they have these heavy duty plasma cannons and they shape like a magnetic field charge to control it.
Speaker: And they have to heat them up.
Speaker: And then it's like this real rough way of handling the plasma.
Speaker: So she likes she's like, oh, well, they don't realize if you just do this, this, this.
Speaker: And she does some calculations.
Speaker: And suddenly the plasma cannons are operating from go from like 10 percent efficiency to like 100 percent efficiency.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Thank goodness she was there.
Speaker: Thank goodness she was there.
Speaker: And she uses her newly.
Speaker: What I forgot to mention is the AI had alerted the other ships in the area that they were a fake.
Speaker: And then she uses the newly refined cannons to absolutely obliterate a squadron of seraphs and the ship that they came from.
Speaker: Just cuts through them like a hot knife through butter.
Speaker: It is ridiculous.
Speaker: It's so simple.
Speaker: It is ridiculous.
Speaker: It's so simple.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Chapter 19, Master Chief and Company arrive on Reach and they are sneaking through the Covenant patrols with a dropship.
Speaker: And they finally respond to the signal with their own Ali Ali Oxenfree.
Speaker: And they land nearby and they find a group of Spartans.
Speaker: And it's Anton and Grace and Lee.
Speaker: You know them.
Speaker: You know.
Speaker: You remember those guys?
Speaker: Yeah, remember that?
Speaker: They find that they are with Admiral Danforth Whitcomb, a highly decorated admiral who is also responsible for the fuck up earlier on reach, which is weird.
Speaker: It's weird because he's like, he seems like an asshole in section zero.
Speaker: But then in section in this section going forward, he's like, you're my favorite character.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They turn that one around.
Speaker: It's kind of fascinating, isn't it?
Speaker: So, and Whitcomb lays out his, he's this big Texan guy and he lays out his plan and be like, well, first I got some, I got some nuclear bombs.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: And I armed all of them.
Speaker: And either they're going to take them home to the Covenant home planet and blow themselves up or they're going to kill us here on Reach.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Either way, it's a win-win.
Speaker: And Lieutenant Haverson's like, well, how long ago did you do it?
Speaker: He's like, well, I,
Speaker: I promed him for a 10 day countdown.
Speaker: So we got a good amount of time left.
Speaker: 20 hours.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It truly is just the fucking Spartan slash Space Marine bravado bullshit.
Speaker: It's hilarious.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's like, I set the bombs to detonate.
Speaker: Plenty of time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like slim pickings going down on the rocket.
Speaker: I don't remember what quote it was from, but it's like they've surrounded us.
Speaker: The fools, the poor bastards.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: They get back onto the drop ship.
Speaker: It's chapter 20 now.
Speaker: And they're going towards Castle Base.
Speaker: Pulaski has to drive the drop ship through a really narrow hole in order to land inside.
Speaker: And they get down there and they land in the midst of like a covenant work crew.
Speaker: And like the covenant is not doing it.
Speaker: They're like, oh, it's it's a covenant drop ship.
Speaker: It's fine.
Speaker: And then they just like open the doors and they just light up some grunt workers.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like grunts and jackals who are just like digging a hole.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They even make a point of saying like they don't do anything.
Speaker: They just get obliterated.
Speaker: It's it's.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: So they clear out the entire landing area.
Speaker: When the fighting stops, the three Spartans, Kelly and Fred and what's his name?
Speaker: Was there a three or two?
Speaker: Anyway.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Kelly and Fred and Catherine Halsey emerged from hiding and they're like, Hey, we're it's we're together.
Speaker: It's a, um, and this is, it was this chapter before this when, when master chief did the smiley face emoji.
Speaker: That's what, yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That makes sense.
Speaker: So the, the smiley face thing is basically they can't show emotion.
Speaker: So if to show that they're smiling, they just point at their helmet.
Speaker: They kind of like, yeah, they like draw a smile onto their helmet.
Speaker: And I just imagine like there should be like a little like holographic emoji that pops up.
Speaker: A little, like a little heart in anime or something like that.
Speaker: Just like a smiley kitty cat face.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: Master Chief, we really got to teach you how to change that emoji.
Speaker: But I like it.
Speaker: He's like, it's like that lawyer who was on the Zoom call.
Speaker: I'm not a cat.
Speaker: I'm not a cat.
Speaker: Oh boy.
Speaker: Anyway, the room they're in is actually filled with the covenant.
Speaker: They didn't pick it up, I guess, on their motion trackers because there was just too much motion to track, but there's like thousands of covenants.
Speaker: This is ridiculous, by the way.
Speaker: This is like they're setting this scene up and I'm just sitting there going, okay, yeah, right.
Speaker: This is based on a video game.
Speaker: You're right.
Speaker: I forgot.
Speaker: Like it's, it's literally the, every scene you've seen in a movie where like the lights open up and you see literal thousands upon thousands of people on rings all.
Speaker: And they, they describes like the humming of plasma weapons, thousands upon thousands of plasma weapons, all humming as they warm up.
Speaker: all humming, all warming up.
Speaker: They're getting ready to go.
Speaker: And it's ridiculous.
Speaker: Oh man.
Speaker: It was, it was, it was good.
Speaker: It was, it's wonderful.
Speaker: It's a, it's a, it's a real Scooby doo moment.
Speaker: Very much so.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So we cut away.
Speaker: Chapter 21.
Speaker: Cortana is dealing with some remaining elites on the ship by just like venting them out into space.
Speaker: And also while fucking about in the systems of the ship, she uncovers a message that the Covenant's next operation is to go to Earth.
Speaker: They have the location of Earth.
Speaker: Holy shit.
Speaker: How did that happen?
Speaker: Ba-ba-bum.
Speaker: That's the end of section three.
Speaker: Section four, titled, Gambit.
Speaker: Chapter 22, a pair of hunters try to kill the Spartans, but they're gunned down by the gallery of covenant soldiers.
Speaker: This was amazing.
Speaker: Basically the hunters are like, we're the hunters and we go and we kill.
Speaker: And they go and they try to kill the Spartans.
Speaker: They do fuck up Kelly a little bit.
Speaker: But the other people in the other covenant soldiers shoot the hunters.
Speaker: And then John hears over the translation matrix that they were killed because they were firing on the holy light and the next covenant soldier to fire towards the holy light will be scalped.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Pretty hardcore.
Speaker: Like literally you've got thousands of people firing you at once.
Speaker: They, they literally describe it as like, they are vaporized.
Speaker: There is nothing left.
Speaker: There is nothing left of the hunters.
Speaker: Kelly is severely injured and, and Wickcomb begins making moves and orders to cover the retreat.
Speaker: So he, he shows his competence here.
Speaker: He's like, you do that, do that.
Speaker: And he's shooting his six, six guns up in the air the entire time.
Speaker: Right, right, right.
Speaker: Pulaski gets them into the dropship and they fly away.
Speaker: And the Covenant won't fire on them as long as they have that crystal.
Speaker: Meanwhile, Cortana is realizing that she needs more juice.
Speaker: She needs more power.
Speaker: So she's taking the Ascendant Justice and she's docking it.
Speaker: with the Gettysburg, which is one of the UNSC ships that's kind of floating half dead out in space, but it actually has to have a functioning fusion reactor.
Speaker: So she, she Brundle flies the Ascendant Justice and the Gettysburg together.
Speaker: Pretty much.
Speaker: And, and merges their systems.
Speaker: So now she has two fusion reactors.
Speaker: Now I have a fusion reactor.
Speaker: Ho, ho, ho.
Speaker: Ho, ho, ho.
Speaker: Ho, ho, ho.
Speaker: So while she's doing that, the drop ship is up at the rendezvous point to try to meet Cortana.
Speaker: And then...
Speaker: Cortana does a short slip space jump from where she is over to the rendezvous point.
Speaker: And the reason why she got the second fusion reactor is so she could immediately charge up another slip space jump to go when they docked.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: The weird thing that happens when the crystal goes on the ship and they do the slip space jump, they are now in a space time anomaly and they are stuck inside of a weird blue mist void thing that just does not work.
Speaker: make any sense.
Speaker: So chapter 23, I don't know how to describe it other than what is in the book, but the presence of the crystal has shunted them off into basically the Doctor Strange mirror dimension.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It's kind of what I- It's very weird.
Speaker: It's probably one of the more esoteric and like vague things that we've dealt with in this series before.
Speaker: I didn't fully follow it.
Speaker: I just, I was like, okay, I'll take your, I'll take your word for it.
Speaker: They're like not really in Euclidean space when they fire the plasma cannons, there's a good chance that the, what they fire will curve back around onto them.
Speaker: Like it's weird.
Speaker: It's the Gemini, it's the Gemini man laser from Mega Man three.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: There's a sick ass song too.
Speaker: Oh, fuck.
Speaker: No, there's Mega Man songs.
Speaker: Man.
Speaker: Some of the best.
Speaker: Some of the best.
Speaker: Some of the best.
Speaker: Meanwhile, there's some elites.
Speaker: There's still some fucking elites on this ship.
Speaker: They sabotage the engine power conduit and Pulaski and the Spartans basically are taking the drop ship to go over to where that power conduit is and seal it off.
Speaker: Um...
Speaker: Chapter 24, they take the dropship to where the damage is and Pulaski parks it.
Speaker: And while repairing it, those elites engage them.
Speaker: It gets weird again.
Speaker: There's like plasma flying.
Speaker: There's people shooting at each other, but it's not a very long fight.
Speaker: It's just a weird one to describe.
Speaker: Pulaski, Lee, and Anton are killed at the end of it.
Speaker: Will, Grace, and Fred are nearly dead, but the conduit is sealed.
Speaker: And chapter 25, my note here was super awesome fun times naval stuff.
Speaker: Just read it.
Speaker: Basically the wick, the Admiral does all of these neat things with like charging the plasma cannons and venting atmosphere from.
Speaker: So like he does this thing where he, he goes back.
Speaker: Bonkers, balls speed at one of the Covenant ships and charges the plasma cannons and fires.
Speaker: And then he uses the venting of the atmosphere from the Gettysburg to like twist them away from it at the very last second.
Speaker: And then he takes, they take the ship around and they get another hunk of ship and they pick it up on the nose of the Ascendant Justice.
Speaker: And they go towards another ship and they go full speed at that.
Speaker: And then they hit reverse thrusters and the hunk of metal goes towards like full slip space speed at another ship and just rams it.
Speaker: And it's a really neat sequence of like...
Speaker: Full ahead rudder and it all stops and hands on deck.
Speaker: We've talked about this with the Halo series in the past where I'm not like, I did not expect to be interested in the level of naval combat that Nyland is able to pull off.
Speaker: But such a good naval combat writer.
Speaker: He makes it interesting as hell.
Speaker: It's fantastic.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: It's great stuff.
Speaker: It's great.
Speaker: But chapter 25, Waterwall, is just that.
Speaker: Just the Admiral being like, this is why I'm an Admiral.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: This is what I'm here for, people.
Speaker: This is what I put all my points in.
Speaker: It's that and mustache.
Speaker: Mustache.
Speaker: Which, I get it.
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: That's a superb combination of specialties.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: And they're able to get away.
Speaker: And that's the end of that section.
Speaker: And the end of what we're covering tonight.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: How are you feeling so far about this one?
Speaker: It's it's solid.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know how it holds up to the other halos we've read.
Speaker: If I were to suggest that this is not this is my least favorite of the ones that we've read.
Speaker: It still puts it head and shoulders above a lot of other stuff we've read.
Speaker: Yeah, it's definitely my least favorite of the ones that we've read.
Speaker: It covers a lot of important information.
Speaker: Like this is an important entry, but I don't know if that makes it most engaging.
Speaker: Yeah, because it kind of, it sets us up for Halo 2, from what I understand.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Which Halo 2 starts, you were on Earth fighting the Covenant, right?
Speaker: I believe so, yeah.
Speaker: I never played it.
Speaker: I believe it's like the invasion of Earth.
Speaker: if I recall correctly.
Speaker: I started playing Halo 2 a while ago.
Speaker: I think when we were playing, when we were reading through Reach.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, I'd say it's my least favorite of the Halo books.
Speaker: I'm not as interested in a lot of the characters in this as I am in.
Speaker: And that's the thing I'll give, like, I feel like Kelly Gay was really able to nail was that she made
Speaker: the characters that she was playing with in her book.
Speaker: And obviously she said 20, she had 20 years of like halo juice to, to kind of call upon.
Speaker: But I really cared about the characters in that book.
Speaker: And this one it's like, and I think it was, it's just kind of like a function of like the Spartans kind of being like these nameless, um,
Speaker: uninteresting people for the most part with like names from the 1950s.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It doesn't feel as modern as hers does.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: The Spartans are a little bit more unique in hers.
Speaker: Whereas in here, it's kind of like these first generation of Spartans are just like,
Speaker: we're a team and olly olly oxen free.
Speaker: And they're like, where the fuck are you?
Speaker: Are you out of a Stephen King novel from the 1950s?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They each have their own little bits of individuality, but it feels like the unit is a character.
Speaker: as opposed to Kelly Gay's stuff, which was very distinctly individualized, which makes sense.
Speaker: And I don't hold it against Eric Nyland.
Speaker: This is still so early on in the development of this series.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That makes sense.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And someone like Kelly Gay has to come in to keep it fresh and invite a whole lot of new shit.
Speaker: So it all makes sense.
Speaker: It makes sense.
Speaker: We may have ruined ourselves by skipping ahead with that one though.
Speaker: Yeah, maybe.
Speaker: Maybe we're a little bit spoiled on the on how these are handled.
Speaker: But it's sort of like so, for example, like Pulaski, it seems like she is an interesting character that we could have had more time with.
Speaker: And she gets killed off like just it's just like she wanted to go with them.
Speaker: And she we told her not to go, but she did.
Speaker: And she died.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: Exactly what we expected.
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: You got to have these jobbers.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which I've taken to call like any character who's just there to get killed is just a jobber.
Speaker: It's totally understandable.
Speaker: That makes perfect sense.
Speaker: I think we all get it.
Speaker: I get that.
Speaker: Courtesy of Hot Cider.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Over on the Bold Time podcast.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: I want them to be a little bit more than a jobber because I don't feel like Pulaski is necessarily going to have an emotional resonance with anybody except for maybe, and I didn't bring his name up, Locklear, who is the ODST, who was like, I think she's hot.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: They've got a little moment there.
Speaker: They have a moment there.
Speaker: That was nice.
Speaker: I think what we're dealing with with this is that
Speaker: your audience is people who are champing at the bit for Halo 2 to come out, who are still probably playing Halo 1.
Speaker: And so I think the publishers would assume all anyone wants to hear about is John.
Speaker: Uh, so, uh, you know, we get the master chief in there.
Speaker: That's the main thing.
Speaker: And, uh, and you're even walking on thin ice, popping back and forth with these other Spartans.
Speaker: Um, but yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so when we didn't really deal with him all that much in, um, in, uh,
Speaker: uh, Kelly Gay's book, for example, uh, there was a little bit on protocol.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Protocol.
Speaker: There's, there's more freedom there.
Speaker: I think there is.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think that's something that, uh, it's sort of like my take on the halo verse is similar to my take on star Wars in that, uh,
Speaker: a lot of the best stuff in Star Wars is the non-Jedi stuff.
Speaker: Sure, yeah.
Speaker: And a lot of the best stuff in Halo, from my perspective, has been not specifically the non-Spartan stuff, but the non-Master Chief stuff.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Master Chief is basically, to me, he's the equivalent of...
Speaker: Obi-Wan or whatever.
Speaker: I'm not particularly, like, he's the best and I'm not super interested in reading about the best.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, I get that.
Speaker: It's not as interesting.
Speaker: That's kind of where I am.
Speaker: That's kind of how I feel about Master Chief in general.
Speaker: I don't
Speaker: Like this is my, this is our third book reading with him as a main character.
Speaker: And I'm still, I'm still like, yeah, he's fine.
Speaker: He's fine.
Speaker: It's, it's, it's just like Captain America.
Speaker: We've compared him to Captain America in the past.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: He's fun.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: He's really interesting.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: We could, we could, you know, he's, he's awesome.
Speaker: He is super awesome.
Speaker: Who could even argue, but he doesn't necessarily keep you engaged.
Speaker: Like Cortana does, for example.
Speaker: Cortana is interesting and very malleable, which is becoming worrying.
Speaker: She's a flawed AI.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: What could be more interesting than that?
Speaker: Like, that's really cool.
Speaker: And knowing where Cortana's story is eventually taking her is interesting.
Speaker: But the seeds of it are here, you know?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like, in the current Halo, I think Cortana is kind of like the...
Speaker: the villain at this point in the halo verse, um, or some version of Cortana.
Speaker: I mean, it's not, I don't think we're, I don't think there's a continuous existence of Cortana necessarily, but like a copy of her or whatever, but still corrupt or something.
Speaker: She is.
Speaker: She was corrupted at some point in the fall of reach and in, in halo.
Speaker: And that's kind of where we are.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So, yeah, she's interesting.
Speaker: Maybe Master Chief takes a turn in one of the games or in one of the books that really makes me fascinated with him as a character.
Speaker: But we'll we'll find out.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah, I could I could I would like a whole book written from Sergeant Johnson's point of view, though.
Speaker: That would be interesting.
Speaker: That would be very cool.
Speaker: Apone.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Who I love.
Speaker: Apone's the best.
Speaker: Yeah, so that's it for tonight.
Speaker: The big question then is...
Speaker: What are you playing?
Speaker: Oh, well, I actually finished two games recently.
Speaker: Oh, look at you.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: I'm either it's feast or famine with me.
Speaker: I'm either playing the same old shit or I'm tearing through my to playlist with with abandon.
Speaker: I finished Hi-Fi Rush.
Speaker: which was great.
Speaker: I don't know what else there is to say.
Speaker: It's a solid, solid game.
Speaker: The soundtrack is fantastic.
Speaker: It's all about the power of friendship.
Speaker: It's very cute.
Speaker: It's very fun.
Speaker: It feels good to play.
Speaker: It looks good.
Speaker: It sounds good.
Speaker: It is good.
Speaker: It's just a- Yeah, and I just start moving with the music.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's it's it's it's fantastic.
Speaker: It it it has a a wonderful accessibility feature for those of us who are not as rhythmically inclined, but still want to enjoy the game.
Speaker: And I think that's fantastic.
Speaker: Wonderful, wonderful game.
Speaker: Really enjoyed that.
Speaker: It's it's super easy to imagine that that's going to end up in my shortlist for game of the year.
Speaker: It was just a nourishing, nourishing game.
Speaker: It has a lot of replay value that they actually address in the game.
Speaker: There are certain things you can't unlock when you go through the first time.
Speaker: And they even say, oh, so this I can come back to later.
Speaker: It's like, aha, wink, wink.
Speaker: I don't know if I'll go that far.
Speaker: Some people have played through this game like three times already.
Speaker: I don't know if I go that far.
Speaker: It took me about 11, 12 hours to be
Speaker: And it was worth every minute.
Speaker: It was wonderful.
Speaker: It's a $30 game.
Speaker: And that is absurd.
Speaker: It is absurdly fun.
Speaker: There's so much to do with it.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm only a few hours into it, but it's really cute.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, if you're counting your pennies when it comes to I understand most people out there, they got to be careful about what they buy with their games.
Speaker: And because if it sucks, they're fucked, you know, and I get it.
Speaker: I understand.
Speaker: And this is one of those games that for 30 bucks, you get a lot of replay value.
Speaker: It's just terrific.
Speaker: And it's Shinji Mikami's last game that he, I guess, oversaw at Tango Gameworks.
Speaker: He left recently, didn't he?
Speaker: He left, yeah.
Speaker: He's moving on.
Speaker: And that was the last one with him as the head of the studio.
Speaker: That's a hell of a note to end on.
Speaker: I think the only problem I have with Hi-Fi Rush is there do not appear to be toys for it.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: Some of these robots are- Do you need an 808 toy?
Speaker: I need an 808 toy.
Speaker: It goes from a sphere into a cat?
Speaker: Yes, I need several of the robot bosses, the samurai robot toy.
Speaker: I need like the pterodactyl robot toy, the big lizard one.
Speaker: You can make them like the Gundon model action figures.
Speaker: It's right there.
Speaker: It's so simple.
Speaker: I would buy those.
Speaker: Please do it.
Speaker: Please do it.
Speaker: And a RECA body pillow.
Speaker: Well, I mean, look, I'm just human, man.
Speaker: A pillow is not cheating.
Speaker: I've talked about that with my wife.
Speaker: On the other side of that coin, I also completed Aliens Colonial Marines.
Speaker: Oh, so did I. Yeah.
Speaker: You, you beat this one too.
Speaker: I wonder if there is a reason that we both happen to be playing this old game at the same time.
Speaker: I wonder, I wonder if there's a reason.
Speaker: Um, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Bullet time.
Speaker: Subscribe to.
Speaker: Phil and I are going to be on the bullet time pass.
Speaker: Uh,
Speaker: It sounded like you were going with a Boston.
Speaker: We're going to be on the pad cast.
Speaker: We're going to be on the pad cast.
Speaker: Yeah, we're going to be on Hot Ciders podcast in a couple of weeks.
Speaker: And I don't know, like I'm trying to do the math in my head of when this episode is coming out versus when he'll release the Colonial Marines episode.
Speaker: This song.
Speaker: The recording of the Marines episode might have come out before this episode came out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just because we record with a little bit more lead time, I think, than he has at this point with his remaining episodes.
Speaker: So we'll see.
Speaker: It might be like the following week that it comes out.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We'll obviously be getting into the details on Colonial Marines in great detail on Bullet Time, which if you have not subscribed to, please go to your podcast machine and get it.
Speaker: It's got, I'm one of the co-hosts of Bullet Time.
Speaker: You got to Snake Roar is one of the other.
Speaker: You got a lot of really lovely people.
Speaker: One of the best lineups of guests on
Speaker: Oh yeah, we've had Raz Buten, we've had Jacob Geller, Heavy-Eyed has been on there, Aranach, just a lot of lovely people.
Speaker: I Am Error has been on there, Evelyn from I Am Error, she's been on our show and she's been on Bullet Time twice.
Speaker: She was a two-time guest on Bullet Time.
Speaker: It's wonderful.
Speaker: It's great.
Speaker: And I've told Kevin this before.
Speaker: It's, you know, when your friend is working on a creative endeavor that you're not necessarily involved with, you want to be supportive.
Speaker: You subscribe, you listen, that kind of thing.
Speaker: It's always helpful when it is a show you actually enjoy coming back to again and again.
Speaker: I always listen to it.
Speaker: I listened to the four slash five hour diehard episode.
Speaker: That's which
Speaker: I could only record like two and a half hours of.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then I was like, I have to go.
Speaker: And then Snake and Hot Cider were like, oh, yeah, we're just going to keep going.
Speaker: We're just going to keep going.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's a five hour episode on Die Hard Vendetta.
Speaker: It's a five hour episode.
Speaker: It's good.
Speaker: It's good.
Speaker: I'm not going to tell you there wasn't any fat on that meat, but fuck, it was it was a lot of fun.
Speaker: I really enjoyed it.
Speaker: So we're going to get, but, but long story short, it is not the flaming piece of shit that it has the reputation for being having said that colonial Marines, not, not bullet time.
Speaker: It's, but yeah, yeah, yeah, but it sucks though.
Speaker: Uh, it did suck.
Speaker: Uh, and, um, oh, and one last game that I got into a little bit, uh, was a Phantom Brigade, which you actually recommended to me.
Speaker: Yes, I did.
Speaker: How is it?
Speaker: How is it?
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: I don't think I'm going to be able to continue on with it just because it's UI is kind of obtuse for me.
Speaker: I know a lot of other people have had lots of success with it, but I keep coming back to it.
Speaker: And it's been very non-intuitive for me getting into it.
Speaker: But it is a fascinating system.
Speaker: It's a very indie system.
Speaker: XCOM style game where you have these mechs and you're trying to fight back against, you know, this worldwide power.
Speaker: And the thing you have on them is you can see five seconds into the future of what they're going to do.
Speaker: So you can.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Use your RTS skills to intercept it and everything like that.
Speaker: Customize your mechs, recruit new people, take places region by region.
Speaker: All of that on paper.
Speaker: It really should have worked for me.
Speaker: And and actually just not clicking.
Speaker: It just wasn't clicking.
Speaker: But I think I don't know.
Speaker: I think.
Speaker: But having said that, I would still encourage people to give it a try.
Speaker: because I can tell when something just isn't working for me specifically.
Speaker: And this is one of those moments.
Speaker: I was like, this is not for me, but this is still a good game, if that makes sense.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: I told Kevin when I was playing it, actually, I think video editors would have an unfair advantage on it because that's actually...
Speaker: How because it's a five second stream.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Go back and forward, put the shoot here and a walk here.
Speaker: And it actually looks like you're editing something on premiere.
Speaker: It's it's pretty interesting.
Speaker: That's hilarious.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I think people who do that for a living anyway would probably dominate.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just because you're already built for it.
Speaker: Very interesting game.
Speaker: Again, it wasn't for me, but I really recommend people take a look at it.
Speaker: I can see this one being on a lot of people's game of the year list.
Speaker: So what about you, Kevin?
Speaker: What are you playing?
Speaker: Well, as you already mentioned, I have been playing High Fire Rush a little bit.
Speaker: I haven't really been able to get to it
Speaker: that often only because I'm playing it.
Speaker: So it's like it's weird.
Speaker: I'm I'm playing it on my Steam Deck runs beautifully on my Steam Deck.
Speaker: The only problem is I play with my Steam Deck a lot when I'm like sitting in bed and we're watching TV for the night.
Speaker: And the best thing about HiFi Rush is like having the music pumping.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So it's it's like, OK, well, do I just play it with the music off?
Speaker: Because I can you can still see the rhythm like there is a visual indication of the rhythm
Speaker: It's not the same, though.
Speaker: It's not the same, necessarily.
Speaker: But I love what I've played so far.
Speaker: It's a lot of fun.
Speaker: And, you know, getting an S ranking on a fight is just the best.
Speaker: Feels so good.
Speaker: It feels so good.
Speaker: And the point at which I got to now with...
Speaker: what's her name?
Speaker: Is it as peppermint?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Is your, your cohorts.
Speaker: She's, you can call her in to shoot, shoot robots.
Speaker: She has like the temporal ability to just like appear next to you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's wonderful.
Speaker: It's a wonderful game and everything.
Speaker: Relationships they all build up is so cute.
Speaker: And yeah.
Speaker: And she's voiced by one of my favorite voice actresses, Erica Lindbeck.
Speaker: Oh, nice.
Speaker: And she does a lot of really great work.
Speaker: So, yeah, there's there's that.
Speaker: I've been playing Hi-Fi Rush.
Speaker: Haven't beaten it yet, but I echo almost everything Phil has said about it so far.
Speaker: It's great.
Speaker: I played and beat Aliens Colonial Marines, as we mentioned, for the Bold Time podcast.
Speaker: Yes, it's not the piece of garbage that everyone kind of made it seem like it was.
Speaker: And maybe that's because it got patched over the years.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: But it's also...
Speaker: My short review of it is uninspired level design.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Most of it is just like go down corridor, turn, go down corridor, turn, go down corridor.
Speaker: And anytime you can venture off the beaten path, there is no reward for doing so.
Speaker: None.
Speaker: it occasionally you'll find a yeah occasionally you'll find a dog tag every now and then but most of those are on the beaten path that's the thing right most of the dreams gonna get and the dog tags are all the marines that were killed in aliens i believe yeah um so you find a pwn and and vasquez and
Speaker: Weirzbowski and all those folks.
Speaker: Spoilers for Aliens.
Speaker: Whatever.
Speaker: Fuck it, man.
Speaker: Fuck it, man.
Speaker: And, you know, the game retcons one of the character deaths from Alien 3 that, I mean, nobody was really happy that
Speaker: the character died in alien three.
Speaker: So yeah, whatever, that's fine too.
Speaker: Um, and there is one of the DLC is, I think you play as him.
Speaker: Oh, that's, uh, uh, and it explains why it's not him in the escape pod or something like that.
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: But yeah, aliens, colonial Marines, it's fine.
Speaker: What else am I playing?
Speaker: Oh, I picked up Gal Guardians Demon Purge.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: I don't know this one.
Speaker: Which is by Inti Creates.
Speaker: And they have, they've done some interesting games.
Speaker: They were the ones who did the Blaster Master Zero game.
Speaker: They did the 8-bit Bloodstained games.
Speaker: Okay, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, you know, they have some juice behind them.
Speaker: This looks pretty sharp.
Speaker: For the Gunvolt games, things like that.
Speaker: Yeah, it's fine so far.
Speaker: I started playing it and then I was like, yeah, I don't know if I'm totally in the mood for...
Speaker: This platforming Metroidvania style game at the moment, but it's there.
Speaker: I have it.
Speaker: I started playing it.
Speaker: So and it seems fine so far.
Speaker: Some interesting some interesting mechanics.
Speaker: You play as a pair of sisters, I want to say, and you can hot swap between the two of them at any time.
Speaker: One of them uses a gun and the other one uses a knife.
Speaker: So like the one with the knife has really powerful short range attacks and
Speaker: And they I guess they have like different ability.
Speaker: Oh, and one of them is shorter than the other.
Speaker: So you switch to the shorter one to get into tighter spaces.
Speaker: It's, you know, that's smart.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: It's got its little problem solving hat on for that.
Speaker: What else?
Speaker: Oh, I have also started playing Terminator Resistance.
Speaker: You mentioned that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I want to hear about this.
Speaker: So Terminator Resistance is made by Taeyan, I believe is the how you pronounce the company's name.
Speaker: It was released a couple of years ago and it is thoroughly like a mid budget, you know, first person shooter game.
Speaker: And it's it's just Terminator stuff, man.
Speaker: And it does a really good job with it.
Speaker: really fun weapons.
Speaker: You know, you got your, you get your, you pick up the, the thing that I really love about it though, is the sound design and the music because you fire the, the plasma rifle and it's like, Oh, this sounds like the way the plasma rifle sounded at the beginning of Terminator two, when you're seeing all those like Terminators walking on the line.
Speaker: Um, it's, it's really cool.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And, you know, you're there's there's some really cool holy shit moments in the game where you there's a there's a one level you're in Pasadena and you're one of the side quest objectives is like, hey, can you get a photo of the new hunter killer?
Speaker: HK-47 that Skynet is starting to use.
Speaker: They're like, just get a photo of it for the records.
Speaker: And you're like, all right, cool.
Speaker: And it's like, I'm walking around and I am getting the little thing.
Speaker: The detection meter is starting to fill up.
Speaker: Something is seeing me.
Speaker: It's like, I don't see anything.
Speaker: And then I turn and I look off in the distance and there's this robot the size of a building looking at me with like gigantic...
Speaker: Vulcan cannon arms.
Speaker: And it's just making that, you know, that robot room.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: It just, it just like lights you up with, with like Gatling gunfire until you get into cover.
Speaker: And then the music, like the, it does really good things.
Speaker: The music, it plays on the Terminator theme and all that stuff.
Speaker: It's, it's really fun.
Speaker: You can tell that it was designed by like a team that was really in true in,
Speaker: into the Terminator property.
Speaker: I say all this because Taeyeon is also working on their next game is a Robocop game and they just released a gameplay trailer and it's like the gameplay trailer has like no flair to it at all.
Speaker: It's just these chunks of Robocop gameplay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's pretty much everything you would expect if you were playing a Robocop first person shoot.
Speaker: Pretty much.
Speaker: I'm not even a RoboCop guy.
Speaker: Not really.
Speaker: But holy shit, that looks tight.
Speaker: It looks like a lot of fun.
Speaker: Looks like it'll be a lot of fun.
Speaker: You go into bullet time.
Speaker: Hey, bullet time.
Speaker: And slow mo.
Speaker: And it's, you know, you have someone doing a Peter Weller, like impression of RoboCop and like freeze punks.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Your move.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: So Terminator Resistance, it's a lot of fun.
Speaker: And I'll keep you all updated on how I find it as I get through it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that brings us up to date, up to speed on what are we playing.
Speaker: That'll do it for tonight's episode.
Speaker: If you can, please drop us a follow on Twitter and Instagram and like and retweet our stuff on those platforms.
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Speaker: Um, if you can go ahead, go to our website, pixelitpod.com.
Speaker: You can join our newsletter where sometimes you get the episodes up to a few days early if I have the time to do so, but, uh, no promises, but you know, sometimes you'll get it and that's a nice little treat.
Speaker: You know, it's a Monday and you're, you're feeling a little sad, feeling a little blue that the work, what's this?
Speaker: It's an email from, from the, the,
Speaker: the dandies over at pixel it.
Speaker: They've sent me a link to listen to their podcast episode early.
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Speaker: I need, I need us to be referred to as the dandies at pixel it from here on out.
Speaker: That is a fact.
Speaker: So, you know, if you, if you, if you want, you know, go ahead and do that and you can, uh, find links to our steam page and our steam purity page at our discord, uh, over on the website.
Speaker: And, um,
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Speaker: Also, rate us five stars.
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Speaker: But if you can, go ahead and rate us five stars on Apple and Spotify.
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Speaker: Anyway, that'll do it for tonight's episode.
Speaker: Have a good night, everybody.
Speaker: Bye.
