Transcript
Speaker: I, I never, some of my friends would put like Velcro there, something to keep it in place.
Speaker: I never did that.
Speaker: It just stayed, um, probably because of some ungodly something or other that had gotten on there.
Speaker: And, and I just didn't ask questions.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, cause at that point the, the, the, the less said about shit like that, the better.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Uh, cause I was 19 and I didn't have time for, for questioning.
Speaker: Oh, what's that stain?
Speaker: So stains are observed and not questioned.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Just like, yep, that's there now.
Speaker: That's that's there now.
Speaker: You know what else is observed and not questioned?
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome back to Pixel.
Speaker: My name is Kevin with me as always is Phil on today's show.
Speaker: We got a brand new book.
Speaker: Our first venture into the Warhammer.
Speaker: We're going into Games Workshop.
Speaker: We're going right into Games Workshop.
Speaker: Warhammer 40K Fire Warrior.
Speaker: This opens the door because this is an actual adaptation of a Warhammer 40K video game.
Speaker: But I think now that we've done this, Warhammer 40K is just on the table, we can say, right?
Speaker: We've just fully opened.
Speaker: I honestly thought whenever Space Marine 2 comes out, because they do love doing their tie-ins, they do novel tie-ins for their box sets and shit like that.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: So I was like, they'll probably be a Space Marine 2 novel tie-in.
Speaker: Little did I know.
Speaker: Didn't have to wait that long.
Speaker: Didn't have to wait.
Speaker: We got Fire Warrior right here.
Speaker: Right here?
Speaker: We got, you know, kids are like, Mommy, Daddy, I want the Space Marine 2 novelization.
Speaker: And we're like, we got the Space Marine 2 novelization at home.
Speaker: Yeah, we got 40K at home.
Speaker: We got 40K at home.
Speaker: And that 40K at home is the adaptation of the 2003...
Speaker: a video game made released by THQ called Warhammer 40 K fire warrior.
Speaker: So a little bit about that game.
Speaker: Well, I pull up my, my notes on that.
Speaker: It was, it came out in 2003 for the PlayStation two and windows is developed by Cuju entertainment and
Speaker: and released by THQ as a first-person shooter.
Speaker: And unlike almost every other piece of goddamn media that you see for Warhammer 40K,
Speaker: It's you would you would think we like you would just be like, oh, it's, you know, another shooter from the point of view of a space marine, right?
Speaker: Wrong.
Speaker: You're you're playing as the Tau in in Warhammer 40K Fire Warrior, which is a nice change of pace.
Speaker: I know it was 2003, but God damn, it feels like by like space marines and the Imperium is like the defaults.
Speaker: Oh, yes.
Speaker: When it comes to a lot of things.
Speaker: Yes, very much so.
Speaker: Very much so.
Speaker: Yeah, it's rare enough to get novels around the Tau, let alone a whole goddamn video game.
Speaker: They were in one of the Dawn of War games, but they've never... I think they were trying something here.
Speaker: I think they were like, maybe people will go for them.
Speaker: No, I don't think people went for them.
Speaker: Did they go for it?
Speaker: Did it do well?
Speaker: Uh, well, no, it didn't.
Speaker: I don't know why I even bothered asking.
Speaker: There's no Fire Warrior 2.
Speaker: I don't know about that.
Speaker: Yeah, it...
Speaker: Got bad reviews.
Speaker: According to Wikipedia, Fire Warrior received generally unfavorable reviews for Microsoft Windows and mixed or average reviews for PlayStation 2.
Speaker: So, yeah, on Metacritic, it sits at a 47.
Speaker: on PC and a 64 on PS2.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And yes, is that a first person shooter that missed its mark?
Speaker: It sure is.
Speaker: Yes, I've already pitched it to Hot Cider for both.
Speaker: Yay!
Speaker: Let's do another Hot Cider.
Speaker: to another bullet time.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I didn't, I know that while I was looking into the game, I know that Lord Mandalore, who is a pretty big YouTuber, Lord Mandalore actually has a patch or a mod that he created for the game for his review of the game that he did a couple of years ago to like fix a bunch of the things in the game so that it could be played in high definition.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: I was like, that's a neat little wrinkle.
Speaker: I haven't really looked into it yet.
Speaker: But if we do, if I can talk James into doing it on bullet time, we'll probably get deeper into it there.
Speaker: That'd be awesome.
Speaker: So, Phil, that's the game.
Speaker: Who wrote this book about the Tau doing things?
Speaker: It's how doing things.
Speaker: Fire Warrior colon the Tau doing things was written by Simon Spurrier.
Speaker: And this was actually the first Black Library, Black Library being the Games Workshop literary imprint.
Speaker: This was his first Warhammer related book that he wrote for Black Library.
Speaker: Not the last.
Speaker: He went into...
Speaker: this period.
Speaker: I think he did about four Black Library books in as many years.
Speaker: One of them being Lord of Night, which was a Night Lords novel that I've always wanted to read because I like the Night Lords a lot.
Speaker: Who are the Night Lords?
Speaker: They are a Chaos Renegade Space Marine faction.
Speaker: They were chapter.
Speaker: They're one of the originals.
Speaker: They are Batman, the Space Marine chapter.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Gone fully evil.
Speaker: They use fear as a tactic, as one of their war tactics.
Speaker: And they're all about cruelty and fear.
Speaker: And they're all pale and tragic and goth.
Speaker: So they're also like their Batman crossed with the Spanish Inquisition.
Speaker: Pretty much, yes.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I mean, there are a lot of Spanish.
Speaker: Surprise and fear.
Speaker: Fear and surprise.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: No one expects the Night Lords.
Speaker: No one expects the Night Lords.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: But no, he's got, but it just kind of cut off after a few years.
Speaker: And his big thing, though, is he has written so many comics.
Speaker: And he's written for some really, really well-known franchises.
Speaker: He did a lot of Judge Dredd stuff, which is fucking cool, in 2000 AD.
Speaker: He did some Ghost Rider, some Wolverine, Punisher, X-Men, X-Force.
Speaker: I think he did a several year long run with X-Force.
Speaker: He did Constantine Hellblazer.
Speaker: And he did Dr. Aphra, which is a really...
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I loved Dr. Aphra.
Speaker: So did I. I didn't even think about that.
Speaker: So Dr. Aphra was the, she was in the Star Wars universe.
Speaker: She was the archaeologist that works with Darth Vader uncovering old Sith secrets.
Speaker: Just fucking excellent.
Speaker: And he did, like, he was the co-writer for about half a year, and then issues 20 through 40 he did solo.
Speaker: So he did a nice long run with Dr. Aphra.
Speaker: So he's, he, and let me see, I think most recently he's working on Uncanny Spider-Man.
Speaker: He's done a lot.
Speaker: Dr. Strange.
Speaker: Like, you think of a, you think of a, um,
Speaker: you know, popular comic book imprint.
Speaker: And this guy has... He's done it, yeah.
Speaker: Been involved, yeah.
Speaker: Dr. Aphra, when Marvel started the Star Wars comics up again, after, like, Disney... After it was all under the House of Mouse and Marvel, it was like, Star Wars belongs to Marvel, in terms of the comic book imprint.
Speaker: Yeah, Dr. Aphra was...
Speaker: I want to read the rest of them because I remember reading the first arc, the first storyline of that.
Speaker: I was like, damn, this is neat.
Speaker: Because you have this really interesting character in Dr. Aphra who's like this archaeologist who is just so morally gray.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: She's like, yeah, I don't really care that I'm working with a genocidal madman.
Speaker: This stuff needs to be, it belongs in a museum.
Speaker: Yeah, she's evil Dr. Jones.
Speaker: Not even evil so much like chaotic neutral Dr. Jones.
Speaker: Chaotic neutral Indy.
Speaker: It's I read I think I read the first two arcs and God, they're good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They're funny and great adventure, great twists.
Speaker: And she's been there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's always been my favorite my favorite stuff in the Star Wars universe.
Speaker: has always been those like investigations into those characters.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like those side characters.
Speaker: And I think I think people are catching on.
Speaker: Like, that's why things like Andor did, you know, people loved Andor.
Speaker: It's like there's not a, you know, I haven't watched it, but I know I know there's not like a fucking Jedi.
Speaker: It's about all.
Speaker: It's about spy craft.
Speaker: There's so much you can do.
Speaker: I mean, that's the thing about Star Wars that it has done well over the past few decades is that
Speaker: The original trilogy, the original nine films really, are Jedi stories.
Speaker: They are Jedi stories.
Speaker: That is true.
Speaker: But just like D&D or any number of gaming franchises, it doesn't have to be their story all the time.
Speaker: You've got so much world there.
Speaker: And Dr. Affer's a great example of being able to tap into something different.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: And yeah, and it's something Star Wars can get away with that it's harder for like a superhero
Speaker: movie or series to get away with is Star Wars is just a, it's a setting as opposed to a genre.
Speaker: You know, it doesn't need to be, it doesn't necessarily need to be like, it doesn't need to be the heroic Jedi thing.
Speaker: It can be, you know, and Star Trek has even dabbled, has dabbled in that stuff as well.
Speaker: And as we know, Warhammer 40K has also dabbled in that with, you know, they have their,
Speaker: They sure have with they have their they have their like murder mystery series.
Speaker: Yeah, they have like they have horror stories.
Speaker: That's what I like when you can when you can when you you have a neat, well-defined setting versus just like something that is always calls to mind a specific genre.
Speaker: I think one of my fascination with 40K, and this will get us into the actual book, has always been exactly that, where people think Warhammer in general, whether you're talking fantasy or Age of Sigmar or 40K or whatever, and the first thing people think is grimdark.
Speaker: And don't get me wrong, that is absolutely a part of it.
Speaker: 100%.
Speaker: That is absolutely it.
Speaker: That's a flavor.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: An overarching flavor, probably.
Speaker: But there are...
Speaker: Then you've got stories and full books dedicated to like the orcs, which are hilarious, whose technology only works because they believe it should.
Speaker: They literally will just hammer boxes and wheels and shit together and they go, well, it'll run.
Speaker: And it does somehow.
Speaker: They believe it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, the power of suggestion actually got them into space.
Speaker: Red makes it go faster.
Speaker: The red makes it go faster.
Speaker: That's insane and so silly and dumb and wonderful.
Speaker: And it exists in the same world as Space Vatican.
Speaker: That's the great thing about the orcs in 40K, where it's like, well, we're going to take this
Speaker: fucking fantasy ass race of people.
Speaker: We're going to drop them into basically we're going to drop them into Dune and see what happens.
Speaker: There was a moment in Dawn of War 3 where you've got the orcs, you've got the Eldar, and you've got the Imperium.
Speaker: And they're all fighting over this artifact.
Speaker: And the Eldar are like, look, let's just give this, let's tempt.
Speaker: I think the idea is they want to tempt the orcs with the promise of this legendary artifact.
Speaker: And so they're trying to outsmart them.
Speaker: And it's like...
Speaker: The Eldar, the elves, very ethereal, and there's a weapon of great power that awaits you there.
Speaker: And the orc says something like, what is it?
Speaker: Is it a shooter?
Speaker: A stabber?
Speaker: And the Eldar's like, it is a spear.
Speaker: Da-da-da-da.
Speaker: And goes into this long description of this ancient artifact spear of, like, great unending power.
Speaker: And the orc interrupts and goes, a super pointy stick?
Speaker: I want it!
Speaker: Like...
Speaker: And that's wonderful.
Speaker: And they both exist in the same world.
Speaker: And you can get your super, like, really serious, like, oh, man's got to do what a man's got to do.
Speaker: And that includes genocide side of 40K.
Speaker: And then you've also got this mold people that, like, believe that paint makes their cars go faster.
Speaker: Because, yes, the orcs are mold.
Speaker: They are living fungus.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Which is, which feels like a callback to the, the token, like Uruk.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Where they, they're kind of like pulled out of the ground or something like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Something like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That makes sense.
Speaker: That makes sense.
Speaker: But I, so I, I,
Speaker: I'm excited that we're finally doing this.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't have a ton of experience with the Tau, and maybe that's a good enough excuse to go with this one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, as far as I know from what I've read so far, they're space communists.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They are pretty based, and they're blue.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And there's a lot of Japanese coding with them.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: You've got the big giant mech suits and stuff.
Speaker: And I never played this game, but I did watch a long play of it just to get into it.
Speaker: Have you watched it?
Speaker: I kind of skimmed through it just to kind of see the points in the book that we're going to talk about.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: The cut scenes, the accents they give the Tao.
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: Not great.
Speaker: It's a shame because that's the thing.
Speaker: Like you look at the town and you go, okay, yeah, there's a, there's like this samurai, you know, logic to a lot of them.
Speaker: And you see, there's like an anime vibe to them.
Speaker: The best thing anyone ever did when I was first getting a 40 K and I asked them what the town was all about.
Speaker: And they're like, uh, it's the anime army.
Speaker: Do you like anime?
Speaker: And I said, not really.
Speaker: And they're like, you're fine then.
Speaker: That was, and I was like, and that has always proven true ever since.
Speaker: Like, Oh yeah.
Speaker: Giant mechs.
Speaker: And, and that's that, you know,
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's, it's, yeah.
Speaker: And there's, there's the, the Maoist kind of Kami thing.
Speaker: They're the closest this world has, this universe has to like good guys because they really do want everyone to work together.
Speaker: That's what the vibe I get is like, they have this belief, this religious belief of the greater good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: that is basically just communism and they just want they don't they're like they're not xenophobic well they are a little bit especially when it comes to humans they are um the humans are the guayla um uh-huh
Speaker: Which, like, that's a nice fake slur right there.
Speaker: Oh, it's a good one.
Speaker: It's almost as, I don't suppose you know what the Eldar word for human is.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: It's monkey.
Speaker: They call us monkeys.
Speaker: And the Eldar are the elves.
Speaker: Space elves, yeah.
Speaker: Space elves of 40K.
Speaker: That's a good one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I tell you what, it's probably a good thing that we live as far away from each other as we do, because if we lived closer, we'd probably be playing 40K a lot.
Speaker: We probably would have gotten into 40K, and I don't think that would have been good for either of our marriages.
Speaker: I don't think we can handle that right now.
Speaker: That might have to be a retirement thing for us.
Speaker: We'll put that off a little bit.
Speaker: Yeah, put it off.
Speaker: But let's put this body in the marsh.
Speaker: Oh, let's do it.
Speaker: What fucking size a dog is that?
Speaker: That's a big fucking dog, man.
Speaker: We start with a prologue.
Speaker: We're in a prologue, and I don't know what's happening.
Speaker: The prologue is in first person, and it seems like a space marine is dying.
Speaker: Fun fact, space marines have three hearts?
Speaker: Two.
Speaker: Two.
Speaker: Okay, two hearts.
Speaker: He's trying not to die.
Speaker: And then we jump over.
Speaker: We cut to a space marine is in his bunk using some tarot cards to read the future as his ship is hurtling through the warp.
Speaker: And that's the prologue.
Speaker: And I think that this ties into basically where we're going to leave off today.
Speaker: Because I think the ship is the same one that is going to cause some problems later.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Chapter one.
Speaker: It starts via flashback from our main character, Shashla Tao Kais.
Speaker: And Shashla is his rank.
Speaker: Tau is the planet he was born on, and Kais is... Kais?
Speaker: K-I-S.
Speaker: I was hearing Kais in my head.
Speaker: Kais, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, so Kais is his given name.
Speaker: He's a low-ranking Tau soldier who is also the son of a great Tau general.
Speaker: Now, two things.
Speaker: There's a planet called Tau.
Speaker: There is other planets in the Tau Empire.
Speaker: He is also just generally a Tao.
Speaker: That is the race.
Speaker: They're kind of like the covenant in Halo.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: They like kind of like the, you know, and if there are actually human Imperium planets that have joined the towel, they'll take anybody who sees anyone who wants to be in on the greater good.
Speaker: Come aboard.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: I think there are even rules for playing Imperial guardsmen who are, who are with the towel or something like that.
Speaker: So, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: So he's the son of a great town general.
Speaker: Kais remembers being a kid and training and the training of his regiment being interrupted by a visit from his father who walks around and is super judgy and glares at him.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, these flashbacks are cut back and forth between Kai's getting ready to do his first drop into hostile territory.
Speaker: Um, so think of, uh, if you've ever watched band of brothers, uh, basically they're doing a, they're parachuting.
Speaker: He's, he's in the airborne.
Speaker: That's a great way of looking at that.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: It's, you know, they're going over Normandy beach right now and they're about to be dropped behind enemy lines.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: His, his father is a general and is like, yeah, you're, you're, you're, I guess you're adequate.
Speaker: So there he's getting ready to do his first drop into hostile territory.
Speaker: And then back in the flashback, his father tells him that anyone can overcome their inadequacies for the greater good.
Speaker: And he gives him a little card with a Tao saying on it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I like to imagine as like a it feels kind of like a what do you call it like a little tract little Christian there you go he hands him a chick tract and and you know that's it right
Speaker: It's like this one's about what happens if you play D&D.
Speaker: Here you go.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: Enjoy that.
Speaker: This is from your father.
Speaker: This is from your father.
Speaker: This will have to do in low of a physical contact.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: In lieu of actual love, here is this Chick track that somebody handed him on the way here.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You throw this away.
Speaker: Let's make sure this is away.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So in present day, the commander of the unit he's in talks to him about before the drop about his father.
Speaker: And at this point, his father has passed away and mentions to him, no matter how prepared that Kais thinks he is by the simulations that he's been in, he is not ready for live combat.
Speaker: And it's best to just don't pretend you're ready for live combat.
Speaker: No, but there's like, there's literally nothing that will prepare you for live combat, which is interesting that...
Speaker: having read a bit of Warhammer stuff from like the Imperium point of view, um, the Imperium would be like, like, uh,
Speaker: you know, fuck you, glory to the emperor.
Speaker: Why aren't you ready to go die for, like, you should be ready to die for the emperor.
Speaker: What do you mean?
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: That's the whole point.
Speaker: You're here to die for the emperor.
Speaker: You're here to die.
Speaker: Aren't you lucky?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: That's absolutely their attitude, yeah.
Speaker: The commander then mentions that the mission details are that there has been an incident and that they were to engage and destroy.
Speaker: And that's all they're being told.
Speaker: We cut over to another Tau named Kovash, who is a high ranking member of Tau society.
Speaker: He's being held prisoner somewhere by the Imperium.
Speaker: He's being questioned by a man named Adept Farrakis, who is involved in the office of xenobiology for the Imperium and specializes in learning about the Tau.
Speaker: Kovach tells him that he won't give up any information that could possibly hurt the Tao government or what have you.
Speaker: Meanwhile, Kais and his squad drop.
Speaker: We get into a brief interlude from an Imperial.
Speaker: This is I loved this moment.
Speaker: So we get this interlude from the point of view of an Imperium Lieutenant who is on the other side of the Tau invasion force.
Speaker: And this Lieutenant's like, all right, guys, come on, let's form up.
Speaker: We're going to get these guys.
Speaker: Let's do it.
Speaker: He's just giving their speech, like hold the line.
Speaker: And then the section ends with, and then the Lieutenant and all of his men were cut to ribbons into a pink, fine pink mist.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just auto cannon fire.
Speaker: It's about as 40 K of writing as you can get where it's just like, we've got names, here's their characters, here's the inspirational speech.
Speaker: Oh, they're dead.
Speaker: They're dead.
Speaker: They're dead.
Speaker: Just like that.
Speaker: We're, we're yeah.
Speaker: It's like, and, and Simon, the author, Simon's like, yeah, I'm going to name these characters and they're going to fucking die.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm going to tell you about their hopes and dreams right before they die.
Speaker: Of course I am.
Speaker: I'm only dedicating a page and a half to it.
Speaker: It's not like I'm wasting space here.
Speaker: They're going to fucking die.
Speaker: But you're going to find out about the girl back home.
Speaker: Yes, you are.
Speaker: The girl back home.
Speaker: And guess what?
Speaker: The girl back home is not going to find out about how this person died.
Speaker: She'll never know.
Speaker: They'll never know.
Speaker: Because guess what?
Speaker: There's no body left.
Speaker: None.
Speaker: After the after those auto cannons is away.
Speaker: It's not happening.
Speaker: No, it's it's not happening.
Speaker: So Kai's fights his way through and we get a lot of commentary on how gross he thinks the humans or Gwaela are because he's like he's basically like calling them water balloons like they just.
Speaker: It's like, ew, they're so wet.
Speaker: Yeah, I love that.
Speaker: There's this emphasis on how wet humans are.
Speaker: And later on, we do get a moment where I think it's the guy who's kidnapped the high-ranking official comments on how dry the Tau are and how strange and kind of dusty they are almost.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker: It's amazing.
Speaker: And like there's a moment where Kais is fighting through and he's like up ahead.
Speaker: He sees a sergeant and he knows her and he's known her forever.
Speaker: And then the next sentence is like he sees her head explode.
Speaker: It's like, okay, just not pulling any punches here.
Speaker: No, it's like, this is, this is what you signed up for.
Speaker: This is what's happening.
Speaker: This is that, you know, that, you know, that moment from, um, saving private Ryan, it, where it's like the Normandy beach invasion, specifically where the guy is walking around looking for his arm and he like picks it up.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Fuck.
Speaker: That's Warhammer 40K stretched over a thousand, thousands of books.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's not enough.
Speaker: It's not enough for you, your characters to die.
Speaker: You have to die hopelessly.
Speaker: You have to die with little hope.
Speaker: There's nothing, nothing is going to get better from your death.
Speaker: I think when I first started reading this stuff, I started with Space Marines like you do.
Speaker: And, and I would kind of roll my eyes at a lot of it because,
Speaker: When a space marine would die, it would always be in this grandiose way where they would like save a whole platoon or something like that.
Speaker: And they'd lay their life down for that.
Speaker: And I'd go, oh, Jesus Christ, how many of these deaths do I have to get?
Speaker: And then I started reading Imperial Guard stuff, which is every bit as brutal, but hopeless.
Speaker: So I was like, oh, I see space breeds.
Speaker: That's the optimist books.
Speaker: That's the ones to keep you from hanging yourself in the closet.
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: I get it now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Those are the good, like, you know, the hopeful.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's hope.
Speaker: There's no hope with the Imperial card.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Or the Astra Militarum, I think is what they call them now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So in a brief interlude, one of the drop ships.
Speaker: So there was two drop ships bringing units down.
Speaker: One of the drop ships gets absolutely annihilated by the auto cannons, the Imperium auto cannons.
Speaker: And it's just a great moment where the pilot's like the pilot looks out the window and is relatively sure she can see the shells coming for her right before everything turns to fire.
Speaker: I have to believe at this point, we're not even a third of the way through this book, and I have to believe that the entire book is going to have these little interludes of like a page, half a page of, oh, now I'm dead now.
Speaker: You're like, hey, a lot of people are dying, but let's focus, let's zoom in on this one person.
Speaker: Yeah, more as hell.
Speaker: Why don't you come along with me?
Speaker: We'll talk more about it.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: Let's watch some people die.
Speaker: Let's watch some people die.
Speaker: And then it comes down crashing and Imperium tank gets destroyed and the trench gets blocked and Kai's commanders like,
Speaker: Well, the drop zone's a little hot, so we're going to, we're going to, we're going to get back.
Speaker: We're going to fall back and circle up.
Speaker: And Kais is like, I can't.
Speaker: The, the trench is blocked off and, and Shah sell is his commander.
Speaker: He's like, yeah, you gotta, you gotta move to the extraction point on your own.
Speaker: And this is level one.
Speaker: There it is.
Speaker: You finally get control of the character.
Speaker: You finally get control of the character.
Speaker: Meanwhile, we get a point of view scene from a coward human who just wants to live, and he's hanging out in a nearby bunker.
Speaker: And the captain of this little bunker they are in receives a transmission.
Speaker: It's like they intercept a transmission from the Tau.
Speaker: And then he's like, ah, shit, I know what the Tau are doing.
Speaker: And he's going to radio into command, but the comm line gets cut off.
Speaker: And he tells Nico, the coward,
Speaker: to run towards the command position and tell him that he knows the Tao are attacking the city as a diversion.
Speaker: And the real target is the prison.
Speaker: And Nico takes this message and runs off.
Speaker: Kais gets the order from Shasel that, and Shasel's a rank, not the name.
Speaker: The character's name is Lucia.
Speaker: Lucia.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Sha-shell-tau-lu-sha or something like that.
Speaker: Anyway, Kai's commanding officer.
Speaker: uh kai's gets the order that uh the imperium intercepted a transmission and that kai's goes needs to kill the messenger and we get this lovely the next two scenes are not from kai's perspective and it's hilarious because it's nico running he's getting through the trenches and he gets into a town and he's getting closer to the command bunker right he's like i'm safe and
Speaker: And then his kneecap explodes because Kai's shot him in the fucking kneecap.
Speaker: And then it's from Shazelle's point of view, watching Kai's on these like monitors from the ship.
Speaker: And he's like, he's got Kai's heart rate and all that stuff.
Speaker: And he sees like, he sees like Kai's approach Nico and Nico's on the ground holding his kneecap.
Speaker: And Kai's just like, put his gun up and shoot Nico in the head.
Speaker: And Shazelle's like, oh, this guy's excited.
Speaker: He seems to be excited about murdering people.
Speaker: Oh, oh, I see.
Speaker: Yeah, he realizes Kais might have a gift for murder.
Speaker: And just then a tank starts attacking Shazel's ship.
Speaker: Kais then takes over a turret and blows the tank up because he's actually the Michael Jordan of killing things.
Speaker: He sure is.
Speaker: And we find that out in a big goddamn hurry, don't we?
Speaker: He goes from like green wet behind the ears to murdering literally everybody he sees.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We basically go from a flashback of his father looking him up and down and saying, mediocre.
Speaker: And then suddenly he's the fucking Michael Jordan shooting humans in the kneecaps.
Speaker: His father, who looks suspiciously like Bill Murray, looked him up and down and said, medium talent.
Speaker: Pretty much.
Speaker: They don't waste any time.
Speaker: Spurrier does not waste any time getting him into.
Speaker: But Kais is not Chevy Chase.
Speaker: He's the special one now.
Speaker: He's the special one.
Speaker: He's the special.
Speaker: He is your player character.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Kais clears the extraction point and the drop ship picks him up.
Speaker: Mission over.
Speaker: That's the end of level one.
Speaker: Chapters two starts with Governor Lord Maelok Severus going to see Kovash, the prisoner, and he wants to use their new torture toy on him.
Speaker: Meanwhile, Lucia, the Shazel, tells the unit how their attack was just a distraction and that just a single unit is going to be inserted in the prison to get the Aeon out.
Speaker: And that's Kovash.
Speaker: He's an Aeon.
Speaker: Whatever.
Speaker: There's like a lot of Tao stuff that is not English.
Speaker: And I don't remember it all.
Speaker: I have some of it written down, but he's an Aeon, which is an ethereal.
Speaker: At the top level, he's like fourth from the top.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, they get into like, yeah, they do actually get into like the ranking a fair amount.
Speaker: What these words mean?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like the only thing I knew with the Tau is like the cast, you know, named Fire Warriors because he's from the Firecast.
Speaker: They're the Firecast and they're known for war and physical combat.
Speaker: And Aircast is like, are the pilots and stuff like that.
Speaker: And the water cast are the ethereals and they're diplomats and mental people.
Speaker: And the earth cast, I think, are like the menials, like the farmers and shot at that.
Speaker: So I believe, I think that's right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I would be earth cast.
Speaker: We don't like to think we'd be a bad-ass like wizard or fire.
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: I'd be a fucking pumpkin farmer.
Speaker: I'd be like, you guys go to war.
Speaker: Here you go.
Speaker: I have some pumpkins.
Speaker: I hope you like, hope you like the rations.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You could have some pumpkin pie.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, go kill lots of humans.
Speaker: Hope you kill lots of humans.
Speaker: Come back.
Speaker: Oh, you got to come back around summertime.
Speaker: We're going to have that blueberry pie.
Speaker: Can't kill Guilla on an empty stomach.
Speaker: Can't kill that guilla.
Speaker: You know in the fall, we're going to have, you know what's going to happen in the fall?
Speaker: We're going to get an apple pie.
Speaker: We're going to...
Speaker: I want these towel now.
Speaker: Fresh picked apples.
Speaker: It's that, what is it?
Speaker: Is it Tim Heidecker did that character or?
Speaker: Oh God.
Speaker: There's this behind the scenes of Tim and Eric where I think it's Tim Heidecker.
Speaker: He's dressed up as like a Southern man, like a big fat Southern man just talking about pies.
Speaker: It's not even a real sketch.
Speaker: That's the thing.
Speaker: It's not a real sketch.
Speaker: He's backstage and he just started talking about it.
Speaker: We're like, well, we got a,
Speaker: The summer come, you got them blueberry pie.
Speaker: The winter, you got that pumpkin.
Speaker: You got to get that first pumpkin.
Speaker: That has to be how most Tim and Eric sketches came about.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just...
Speaker: I don't even know what the real sketch would have ended up being.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because that's the one that ends up in a fresh apple pie.
Speaker: No, tonight that apple pie.
Speaker: And that's become my default, default Southern gentleman.
Speaker: Like accent is this, the accent from that sketch where he's just, Oh yeah.
Speaker: I had to do an accent for Sam, our friend Sam, over on the channel Afterthoughts.
Speaker: She will just throw a bunch of quotes at me and be like, hey, do you want to...
Speaker: You want to do some voices for me?
Speaker: And I was like, yeah, sure, whatever.
Speaker: And one of them was Mark Twain.
Speaker: Oh, very nice.
Speaker: So, you know, I just had to, I was like, well, Mark Twain was a Southern gentleman, wasn't he?
Speaker: He had a bit of a Southern voice and get in there.
Speaker: And there's, I mean, there's a few recordings of him, but...
Speaker: You know, so I'd tell me that you didn't do a deep dive of research into Mark Twain.
Speaker: I listen to 10 seconds of an old wax cylinder recording of Mark Twain's voice.
Speaker: That's probably enough.
Speaker: It's probably fine.
Speaker: Because he was from Missouri, wasn't he?
Speaker: I think so, yeah.
Speaker: And so, you know, I was like, all right, well, I'm just going to get into that apple pie.
Speaker: And then I read the quote, and there we go.
Speaker: Fuck, where were we?
Speaker: What are we doing?
Speaker: That fresh pumpkin.
Speaker: That pumpkin.
Speaker: You gotta have that pumpkin.
Speaker: So Kais becomes Agent 47 from the Hitman franchise.
Speaker: He's just going to world of assassination, baby.
Speaker: Let's go.
Speaker: He is a killing machine.
Speaker: He's a killing machine.
Speaker: And we see a transmission from the governor, Governor Lord Malak Severus, asking for help from an admiral who is on the way with space marines.
Speaker: Kai sneaks his way through the prison and kills a bunch of guards.
Speaker: He gets shot at at one point, but he gets over it.
Speaker: He's a tough guy.
Speaker: It's a it's a it's a shoulder wound.
Speaker: You know, it's the action hero.
Speaker: I got shot in the shoulder.
Speaker: I'm fine.
Speaker: I ain't got time to bleed, etc.
Speaker: I got time to bleed.
Speaker: Meanwhile, Lucia is telling his superior that he sent Kais, a measly Shashla, to infiltrate the prison.
Speaker: Shashou, the superior, calms down after being angry that he sent such a lowly Shashla.
Speaker: I still have no idea what we're talking about.
Speaker: Uh, to go into the prison, but he's like, fine.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Well, it commenced the bombardment anyway.
Speaker: Um, the prison warden, who is another human coward is hiding out and, uh, you know, he's just keep ducking cover and he looks out and he sees that the towel have a mast outside of the prison.
Speaker: Um, Kais kills some more dudes and then he finds his friend Yole, who he thought was dead, but he's not dead.
Speaker: He was merely taken prisoner.
Speaker: Uh, there's a bunch of survivors and Kais gets Yole to escort them out of the prison from the way he came in.
Speaker: Meanwhile, up in space, Captain Arteus of the Ultramarines debates the merits of sleep while sitting on the Enduring Blade, which is on its way to action.
Speaker: He hates that sleep.
Speaker: He fucking hates sleep.
Speaker: He's like, I wish I could get away with it, but the doctors tell me I need four hours, so I guess I'll take it.
Speaker: The Space Marine doctors.
Speaker: Space Marine doctors.
Speaker: Um...
Speaker: Yeah, so then Kais finds a chapel dedicated to the god emperor and he's like, this is what they worship?
Speaker: What is wrong with these people?
Speaker: I love this scene because it makes me think of this comic strip I saw once.
Speaker: And it's just a one panel, like Farside style, like comic.
Speaker: And it's these two aliens, like standard gray aliens.
Speaker: And they're UFOs in the background that clearly just landed.
Speaker: And they're standing in front of the crucified Jesus Christ.
Speaker: And they're both just slack-jawed staring up at him.
Speaker: And the caption says, you know what?
Speaker: Let's get the fuck out of here.
Speaker: It's a good one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Pass.
Speaker: We'll pass.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We're going to, we're going to keep going.
Speaker: There's a good description from Kai's point of view.
Speaker: It's like, it's like a grotesque man who is looks dead.
Speaker: I think he's dead.
Speaker: Is he dead?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: His head is being held up by a bunch of tubes and his eyes are just kind of hanging out there glassy.
Speaker: And I think he's dead.
Speaker: He's dead.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I,
Speaker: I love this so much because it's such a great, uh, opportunity, uh, that you don't see cause you're right.
Speaker: You know, the Imperium of man is usually 95% of the time our main characters in what we're, we're looking at, uh, in, in Warhammer.
Speaker: And, um, it's one of those rare opportunities that we get to see what humanity looks like from, uh, from another side.
Speaker: And, and,
Speaker: I had this huge epiphany where the Tau looking at humanity, it's like, that's the way that humans look at orcs.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: They're just like, oh, these fucking barbaric, like, look at their disgusting architecture.
Speaker: Look at how, like, there's no grace to it.
Speaker: They're just brutal, nasty characters.
Speaker: And the Tau, meanwhile, are like, they worship a dead guy on a throne.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Who's just... Has feeding tubes?
Speaker: What the fuck?
Speaker: Yeah, it's fantastic.
Speaker: It's such a great way of going, oh, yeah, like... Probably looks really messy.
Speaker: From what I understand on brief research, the Tau are like one of the newest additions to 40K.
Speaker: Yeah, they're one of the youngest races in the game and in the universe in general.
Speaker: Got it.
Speaker: Yeah, they're like the Eldar, like the oldest...
Speaker: And the tower, I think probably the youngest.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Got it.
Speaker: Got it.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: That's fascinating.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's just, it's such a cool way of seeing, because, you know, if you do enough, if you enjoy this franchise enough, you just kind of naturally, as a point of practice, just muttered for the emperor under your breath all the time.
Speaker: And forget about the proto-fascists.
Speaker: that are our main characters almost all the time.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And you see it from the point of view of...
Speaker: They still get their brutality on, but a somewhat, let's say, more civilized civilization.
Speaker: Probably, yeah, relatively the most civilized civilization in the greater 40K conflict.
Speaker: Yeah, I'd say they and the Eldar are probably the ones.
Speaker: And the Eldar are skirted up because they're egomaniacs and fully arrogant about things.
Speaker: Yeah, they're fucking assholes.
Speaker: They're assholes.
Speaker: And so it's, I loved this part so much because it was such a great perspective, which you almost never get in this world.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's amazing.
Speaker: So yeah, Kai's is like, all right, weird, weird person to worship and moves on.
Speaker: Meanwhile, Farrakis has Corso strapped into the pain machine from Princess Bride.
Speaker: Sure does.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What's hilarious is that the way it's described in the book, it does not match the way it's described, like shown in the game at all.
Speaker: I feel like in the game, he's like lifted up into the air on a lot.
Speaker: Like he's being held by electricity or whatever.
Speaker: I don't think it wasn't like that in the book.
Speaker: It didn't seem like no.
Speaker: In the book, it was far more kind of like he's just like had straps on him.
Speaker: Yeah, it was it was a little more physical and brutal in the book.
Speaker: I think it was they were trying to emphasize he's trying to emphasize what he had been about like like this.
Speaker: This this is a brutal people.
Speaker: And yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah, it's it's that Princess Bride scene, basically.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Governor Severus doesn't want him asked any questions, though.
Speaker: He just wants Corso made more pliable.
Speaker: Farrakis switches the device on and then Kai shows up and kills a bunch of people, including Farrakis by shooting him in the head.
Speaker: And we get all of that from Farrakis's point of view, including his own death, in which right before he dies, he tries to figure out the trajectory that his brain and skull is going to fly in.
Speaker: When he gets shot and wouldn't you know it?
Speaker: He guessed right.
Speaker: He guessed right.
Speaker: It's such a mechanicist thing is he's he's a mechanicist character.
Speaker: So he's like obsessed with, well, mechanics.
Speaker: It's all science and robotics and technology.
Speaker: So I thought it was very appropriate and morbid and beautiful.
Speaker: I quite liked that.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Severus escapes to the shuttle bay and has his sergeant send one of his men in to secure the prisoner.
Speaker: Uh-oh, SpaghettiOs, it's a space marine.
Speaker: Huh?
Speaker: And Kais is outmanned and outgunned because it's a space marine.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: What are you supposed to do?
Speaker: And I love in the book, he's like, he's as tall as he is wide, a space marine.
Speaker: Yeah, they describe him as basically a living tank.
Speaker: It's fantastic.
Speaker: Until Corso, the ethereal Aeon, stares at Kais and makes him really believe in the power of being part of the greater good.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Kai's then John wicks over to a plasma pistol that's on the ground and shoots the space Marine in the face.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just right in the face.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Blows his head right off.
Speaker: It's dead.
Speaker: He, he, he, he headshots a space Marine and kills him.
Speaker: I thought that was the point of the space Marines armor that that wasn't doable, but I guess, well,
Speaker: I mean, I mean, proximity and plasma, I guess.
Speaker: Plasma will do it.
Speaker: Plasma will fuck anybody up.
Speaker: So it's a nice, especially when you watch in the game where he's just another boss that you've got to soften up.
Speaker: Yeah, you just got to roll.
Speaker: Yeah, you just got to strafe around him until you can kill him.
Speaker: But yeah, a plasma gun will kill a space marine good and dead.
Speaker: Yeah, right in the fucking face.
Speaker: But that is basically a level one character taking out like a level 10 character at least.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: The scale is a little... Yeah, he, you know, the level one character found a scroll of power word kill.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: Pretty much.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: and used it and it worked because for some reason the space marine had like tripped earlier and was under 100 HP from like falling down a set of stairs.
Speaker: So power word kill just killed him out right and he won.
Speaker: He didn't think much about it at the time but he didn't know that the kid had that scroll.
Speaker: Didn't know that the kid had that scroll.
Speaker: You know and it's
Speaker: Shit happens, you know, when you roll the dice.
Speaker: Just roll up a new character.
Speaker: You'll be fine.
Speaker: Roll up a new character, Space Marine.
Speaker: You'll be fine.
Speaker: Maybe a bard this time.
Speaker: Yeah, have fun with it.
Speaker: Get horny in your game.
Speaker: Why not?
Speaker: Kais wins again.
Speaker: He's the boy who wins.
Speaker: Yes, he is.
Speaker: The drop ship comes back around and picks Corvo and Corso and Kai's up.
Speaker: Things are good.
Speaker: Things are great.
Speaker: Mission accomplished, right?
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: The Imperium fleet has arrived outside of Dolomar 4, which is where they were.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's where chapter two leaves off.
Speaker: The Imperium fleet is here.
Speaker: The whole thing of ultramarines.
Speaker: Whole contingent of ultramarines ready to go.
Speaker: Here we go.
Speaker: So that's our segment for this episode.
Speaker: Phil, what are your vibes on it so far?
Speaker: I'm enjoying it.
Speaker: I think any even mediocre 40K is better than a lot of the stuff we're doing on this show.
Speaker: You texted me earlier and you said I can feel the gaminess of this book.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: You're 100% correct.
Speaker: There are...
Speaker: And I pointed out, it's not as bad as we got with some of the early Halo books where they felt the need to do it step by step.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: But there are like he goes to rescue.
Speaker: And he found out he had to rescue 10 prisoners.
Speaker: And it's like, oh, got it.
Speaker: Got it.
Speaker: And to Spurrier's credit, he doesn't take us to every one of the 10 prisoners.
Speaker: And I think he does do a really good job of adapting like all this stuff about his dad and like the background.
Speaker: You get none of that in the game.
Speaker: You're just a faceless towel warrior.
Speaker: He created all of that whole cloth so we could actually appreciate this character and root for him.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I like the brutality of it.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, I know.
Speaker: It's it's you got to have that brutality in there.
Speaker: Yeah, the game doesn't look very good, so I feel like he's doing his best with what he's got.
Speaker: So I'm enjoying it so far.
Speaker: It's a page-turner.
Speaker: It goes by quick.
Speaker: Yeah, it does go by quick.
Speaker: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker: I definitely think he's done a good job covering up the game.
Speaker: Like, I think the only reason it felt gamey to me is because I know that it's based on a game.
Speaker: So as I'm like going through these scenes, I'm like boss fight.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I think even if you didn't know it was a game, I bet you would have picked up on that.
Speaker: It does feel like that.
Speaker: It feels very video gaming, very video gamey.
Speaker: Find the 10 prisoners.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: They did everything but like kill rats in the basement.
Speaker: So yeah, he's got an oblivion his way right out of that prison.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: got to save the emperor who then dies and is voiced by Patrick Stewart.
Speaker: Naturally.
Speaker: Naturally.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I, I mean, I like the brutality.
Speaker: It's, it's fun brutality so far.
Speaker: Very 40 K. And I, I, I think I really liked the towel as a good counterpoint to the Imperium.
Speaker: You know, I think the, the Imperium, it's like, uh,
Speaker: And I wouldn't mind seeing Tau get a little bit more in the future.
Speaker: I know they, you know, aside from this, and there's a few video games I looked up.
Speaker: There's like one called Tau Commander or something like that.
Speaker: Oh, I don't think I knew about that one.
Speaker: But yeah, it'd just be nice if the Tau had a little bit more exposure out there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Pretty good.
Speaker: Pretty good.
Speaker: As far as, you know, first forays into 40K for this show.
Speaker: Not bad.
Speaker: Not bad at all.
Speaker: And it's a very light 40K.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It's a very airy 40K, I'll say.
Speaker: It doesn't get too dense.
Speaker: That is absolutely true.
Speaker: It doesn't get too dense.
Speaker: It's not like a heavy cake, right?
Speaker: It's not like a heavy chocolate cake that we're eating here.
Speaker: This is an angel food 40K.
Speaker: This is an angel food 40K.
Speaker: We got a nice light pâtissier.
Speaker: It's French.
Speaker: It's going down light.
Speaker: It's French.
Speaker: Lots of puff pastry.
Speaker: Lots of puff pastry.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's the homemade Pop-Tart of 40K.
Speaker: Ooh.
Speaker: That was delightful.
Speaker: I know you just did that recently, so.
Speaker: Oh, we had a good time.
Speaker: We had a good time.
Speaker: All of my social media is dedicated to the food I'm eating, basically.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Well, with that being said, Phil, I have to ask you.
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: What are you playing?
Speaker: Oh, oh, I'm glad you asked.
Speaker: I actually, I got, I finished a couple of games since we spoke last.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: One of them was me getting into the spooky season, which we are now.
Speaker: Oh, yes, I know you love a good spooky season.
Speaker: Absolutely, and we all love playing horror games.
Speaker: Some of us like playing them year-round, but they're particularly good games.
Speaker: when it hits October or something.
Speaker: But a game that I keep coming back to anytime Halloween comes around is Costume Quest.
Speaker: And I think I've recommended this game to you and your kid.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: In fact, maybe on the show.
Speaker: But for those of you who don't know, Costume Quest is this really...
Speaker: fun, cute, double-find game where you play one of a pair of siblings, and the other one gets stolen away.
Speaker: It's Halloween.
Speaker: You're about to go out trick-or-treating, and your twin gets stolen away by these goblins that are trying to steal all the town's candy because they're obsessed with candy, and it's something to do with this dark,
Speaker: magic that they're trying to resurrect this evil god or something like that.
Speaker: And it's an RPG.
Speaker: And you go around and you collect costumes and pieces of costumes.
Speaker: And the combat system is really wonderful because, for example,
Speaker: You've got this robot costume, which is clearly made out of painted cardboard boxes, and you've got roller skates and stuff, and they help you jump ramps and everything out of combat.
Speaker: But when you go into combat, these weird little goblins and you in your weird little robot suit become kaiju, and you are an actual mech suit robot who fires missiles.
Speaker: It's all about imagination.
Speaker: That's hilarious.
Speaker: It's really cute and it's very funny and Double Fine, I think, did it.
Speaker: And it's, God, it's like 11 years old now.
Speaker: And I've beaten it several times and it's just fun and cute.
Speaker: And it's truly a Halloween game.
Speaker: Because it's all taking place on Halloween.
Speaker: Everything, it's a very, you know, Halloween town kind of a vibe to it.
Speaker: Where it's cute, it's fun, it's funny.
Speaker: But it doesn't go into anything too heavy or dark or anything like that.
Speaker: And sometimes you just, sometimes you need that.
Speaker: Especially if you're like us, people who play horror games, not just as a treat in the horror, but...
Speaker: It basically is a career.
Speaker: So that's one.
Speaker: And I can't recommend it enough.
Speaker: I think anybody who wants something just a little different from your amnesias and any of those old Outlasts and shit like that.
Speaker: Costume Quest.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: I've got the sequel.
Speaker: I need to play it.
Speaker: I've never.
Speaker: I don't think I've played it before.
Speaker: I don't remember playing it.
Speaker: I might have to do that.
Speaker: But the other one, I came back to this game.
Speaker: I got this from back in my game review days years ago.
Speaker: The publisher sent me a copy of it.
Speaker: And I never finished it, although I really enjoyed it.
Speaker: It's called Nantucket.
Speaker: And this is basically, functionally, a sequel to Moby Dick.
Speaker: You play Ishmael after Ahab has been swallowed up and everything like that.
Speaker: And it's a whaling strategy game.
Speaker: That is weird.
Speaker: It's really weird.
Speaker: It's really weird.
Speaker: And there are the different ports and you go whaling.
Speaker: That's your main source of income.
Speaker: You literally are out there like...
Speaker: throwing harpoons at different kinds of whales and bringing their oil and blubber home to to sell uh in nantucket and you do feel a little bad about that sometimes but they will knock the out of you so you get yeah you get over pretty quick they're whales yeah yeah yeah they'll you up and uh and along the way you've got these different quests and and stuff so it's it's if you like sid meyer's pirates
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You might really enjoy this.
Speaker: It's pretty brutal because, and I'm going to tell people now, if you play this game, a heads up, it automatically has you in tutorial mode to start with.
Speaker: And the only thing about tutorial mode is that...
Speaker: it's a little easier and you don't get the achievements and you will play under tutorial mode for forever and wonder why am I not getting the achievements?
Speaker: Why am I not progressing in certain ways?
Speaker: Uh, and it's because you start out that way.
Speaker: And so you have to in character creation, uh, change it to C dog, which is the only other option.
Speaker: And that is basically playing it XCOM on hardcore mode.
Speaker: Uh,
Speaker: When you die, it's over and you have to start over again.
Speaker: And I cheated a lot where it was like I would just like alt-tab and like close the thing and reload it when I got back in, you know, just to... Because I don't... I hate that shit.
Speaker: I don't see why it's necessary.
Speaker: But it is a really good game.
Speaker: And they have some DLC for it now that I'm thinking about getting back to trying it again.
Speaker: But it's something...
Speaker: between the nautical theme, which we all know I always love, and the strategy element to it.
Speaker: The soundtrack's great.
Speaker: You get some good sea shanties, kind of like Assassin's Creed 4 style.
Speaker: Oh, nice.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's a lot of fun.
Speaker: It might
Speaker: have been a board game?
Speaker: It plays like a board game?
Speaker: I was just looking at pictures of it and I was like, this looks board game.
Speaker: This is very board game core right here.
Speaker: Yeah, and it's also one of those games that when you start out, it's pretty hard, but when you get ahead of steam on you and you get a few levels under your belt and you get some rhythm to it, holy shit do you feel like a badass and it's super fun and
Speaker: I really like I'm going to look up the
Speaker: the team that did it because I really, again, they gave me a copy of this when it came out, which I think was in, yeah, this is 2018.
Speaker: Picaresque, Picaresque.
Speaker: And I really enjoyed this.
Speaker: And I did review them on my channel and everything.
Speaker: That's just another thing where it's like, I gotta give them another heads up because this is a great game.
Speaker: Ooh, there's a $3 DLC which adds 30 minutes of new sea shanties to your soundtrack.
Speaker: Ooh.
Speaker: That's totally worth
Speaker: it that's totally worth it oh and their other dlc's got challenge modes and oh and a new map you get to go out to the east oh shit okay that's going on the wish list okay um but yeah i finished that one and it's it's the story's really weird uh again it's a sequel to moby dick um uh and it's it's very strange yeah
Speaker: It was super fun.
Speaker: Nantucket, I highly recommend it.
Speaker: That's a good one.
Speaker: Soon may the Wellman come to bring us sugar and tea and rum.
Speaker: What about you, Kevin?
Speaker: What have you been playing?
Speaker: I have been playing Starfield.
Speaker: I'm 30 hours into Starfield.
Speaker: I think I'm well past halfway on the main quest on that.
Speaker: I think I'm pretty far into the main quest on that.
Speaker: But I took a pause on Starfield because somebody was telling me... So Lies of P, you know, the... Ah.
Speaker: Somebody was like...
Speaker: You know how it's... Originally, I thought it was just going to be the Bloodborne we have at home.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But it's actually better than that.
Speaker: I was going to say, I've got it on good authority that if you like a Souls-like game, that that is actually very solid.
Speaker: It's pretty good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I hate to say it's pretty good.
Speaker: It's not like...
Speaker: It's probably the one of the best non FromSoftware Souls likes that I've played.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Which, I mean...
Speaker: I'll be clear.
Speaker: There's like the from software souls likes, and then there's a nice air wall.
Speaker: And then there's the rest of them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Let me be clear about that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's it.
Speaker: One of a few of the things like it's super linear.
Speaker: And I know one of the one of the things I like about the from games is that usually there's.
Speaker: multiple directions that you can kind of go in at once.
Speaker: You don't have to usually follow the same path all the time.
Speaker: That's one of the things that I'm like on maybe add it.
Speaker: It changes later in the game as you go through it.
Speaker: But right now it feels a little bit linear.
Speaker: And the other thing is it's closer to the,
Speaker: It's closer to Bloodborne than any of the other Souls games.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Actually, it's closer to Sekiro.
Speaker: Explain that.
Speaker: I don't know what that means.
Speaker: Bloodborne had no blocking.
Speaker: You can only dodge, right?
Speaker: You can either dodge or the parry was using your offhand.
Speaker: You'd like the pistol in your offhand, right?
Speaker: To parry someone.
Speaker: Sekiro has blocking, but with your sword, there's no shields.
Speaker: So you can block with your sword and, you know, attack with your sword.
Speaker: this goes this does blocking with the sword much like Sekiro and a part of it is like trying to get staggers on the enemy which is very Sekiro based so I'd say it's probably a little bit it's like a cross between bloodborne and Sekiro in terms of some of the like the from uh elements
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: The story is fine.
Speaker: It's nonsense.
Speaker: It's whatever.
Speaker: It's like one of those stories that feels like it should be... It's like...
Speaker: It definitely doesn't have the weight that I like in the from games where it's... But basically, the simple explanation is you're playing as Pinocchio, right?
Speaker: It's post him turning into a real boy.
Speaker: Sort of, I guess.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: And then there is this magical...
Speaker: stuff called Ergo that they can use to power puppets, right?
Speaker: And in this case, puppets are just a stand-in for robots.
Speaker: The story is basically I, Robot.
Speaker: The puppets went into a frenzy and started killing everybody.
Speaker: But not only that, to put a hat on a hat, the...
Speaker: There's also a plague that's going around that's, like, mutating people.
Speaker: So there's monsters and there's frenzied puppets together.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And it's, like, I like both of those elements.
Speaker: They're fine.
Speaker: I was just like, do we need both?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like, I think you could have just gotten away with the evil puppets and been fine.
Speaker: But you know what?
Speaker: I'm not going to argue.
Speaker: Bring on the mutants, you know?
Speaker: They're trying to be like FromSoft.
Speaker: You got to have monsters.
Speaker: They got to have monsters.
Speaker: And actually, the boss I'm stuck on right now is honestly one of the coolest monster designs I've seen in one of these games.
Speaker: So, yeah, they...
Speaker: All that being said, in terms of just like my personal taste of like you could have maybe simplified some stuff.
Speaker: They went like full balls to the wall on the designs of some of these on the puppets, on the monsters.
Speaker: It's it's pretty cool.
Speaker: And it's funny as I'm listening to the score, though, and I'm like,
Speaker: That sounds really familiar.
Speaker: And like various songs will have like, and I'm not saying it's plagiarism or anything.
Speaker: It's probably just like, it's probably just like, hey, this is an inspiration.
Speaker: So like, um,
Speaker: What's that song from Platoon?
Speaker: It's like a classical song.
Speaker: Oh, oh, oh.
Speaker: I can hear it.
Speaker: I can hear it in my head.
Speaker: Yeah, it's one of the tragic classical pieces that they play.
Speaker: It's like... I'm going to look it up.
Speaker: It's like... Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, we gotta look that up.
Speaker: Platoon.
Speaker: Adagio for strings.
Speaker: Adagio for strings.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's like, when I was in the hotel, so there's a base of operations as a hotel in this city, right?
Speaker: That's kind of like in the center of the city.
Speaker: There is a, the opening tones of the song in the safe area in the hotel.
Speaker: I was like,
Speaker: that feels like Adagio for strings, and then it goes off into another direction, but it's like the opening is so Adagio for strings that I couldn't ignore it.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: I've heard that the soundtrack is very, very good.
Speaker: It's very good.
Speaker: It's very good.
Speaker: Just having heard... I feel like I've heard enough classical to pick up on the...
Speaker: Like, oh, okay, I think I know what this is based on.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Yeah, I get that.
Speaker: But... Jesus.
Speaker: I accidentally knocked my speaker off the desk.
Speaker: If you're angry, Kevin, we can just take a little break.
Speaker: I'm fine.
Speaker: I like the game.
Speaker: This is the Kevin you guys don't get to see at home.
Speaker: This is the rage Kevin.
Speaker: The rage Kevin.
Speaker: The real rage Kevin.
Speaker: Angry guy.
Speaker: Angry.
Speaker: Just an angry man.
Speaker: I'm sure you can tell.
Speaker: All the time.
Speaker: No, despite all my complaints.
Speaker: My numerous complaints about Lies of Pete, it's very good.
Speaker: Those are just all the things that I don't like about it, basically.
Speaker: I mean, it's kind of like the second Blasphemous game, where it's just like, because you're enjoying it as much as you are, there's going to be, you know...
Speaker: I find that I do complain more about games that I'm enjoying than ones that I don't.
Speaker: So, yeah, I feel that.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I agree with that.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: The other game I've been playing is Void Stranger.
Speaker: I don't know how to describe it other than it's a black and white Sokoban game.
Speaker: Puzzle game with weird stuff going on.
Speaker: Like every 20 levels or so, we get cut scenes and like hints of another game within the game.
Speaker: Oh, this has got some, this is some Game Boy shit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't know how to talk about Void Stranger really without spoiling or...
Speaker: It's weird.
Speaker: There's a lot of weird stuff.
Speaker: It kind of like is pulling me, keeps pulling me deeper.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But I'm sure someday I'll be able to fully describe what the fuck is actually happening in this weird game.
Speaker: Because it's just a puzzle game.
Speaker: It's just a puzzle game, right?
Speaker: On the surface, that looks like a Game Boy game.
Speaker: Is it?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Anyway.
Speaker: This looks very interesting.
Speaker: This might be worth a whirl.
Speaker: But, yeah.
Speaker: So, that's what I've been playing.
Speaker: And that'll do it for tonight's episode.
Speaker: Hell yeah.
Speaker: Before we go, Phil, where should people go on the internet?
Speaker: If they just had a, if they were just looking at the, like they're on Google, they're on their Chrome browser or their Firefox or their Opera or their Safari or their Netscape Navigator and they have an empty URL bar and they want to fill up that URL bar.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: What letters should they fill that up with?
Speaker: What words?
Speaker: Just off the top of my head.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And I'm just spitballing here, but I might consider patreon.com slash pixel pot.
Speaker: That sounds like good letters.
Speaker: Those are good letters.
Speaker: And I'll tell you what, coincidentally enough, a complete utter coincidence, when you get there, you can actually support a wonderful podcast like this one.
Speaker: Not just like this one, this one.
Speaker: This very one.
Speaker: This very one.
Speaker: Not only can you join any number of three paying tiers that will get you all kinds of exclusive content and help us out a whole heck of a lot, you can just join a free tier and be a part of the community and hang out with us.
Speaker: And speaking of which,
Speaker: This is the time of the show where we give a shout out to Friendly Friend.
Speaker: Friendly Friend.
Speaker: Yes, our geek scholar.
Speaker: Our geek scholar.
Speaker: Who actually wrote us and said, am I going to be in the 40K episode?
Speaker: And Friendly Friend.
Speaker: Yes, you are, my friend.
Speaker: My friend, Friendly Friend, you are.
Speaker: Here you are in the Warhammer 40K episode.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: Making history.
Speaker: Making history.
Speaker: Making moves.
Speaker: Making history.
Speaker: Um...
Speaker: Otherwise, if you want to go find us on the internet, you can go to the social media sites, x.com, Elon Musk's x.com.
Speaker: Have you heard of that site?
Speaker: That's really how you want it.
Speaker: Like Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Speaker: It's Bram Stoker's Dracula, Elon Musk's x.com.
Speaker: Equally horrific.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Without question.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You can find us there at Pixlet Pod.
Speaker: You can find us on blueski at pixletpod.com.
Speaker: You can find us on Instagram at Pixlet Pod.
Speaker: You can find us on Tinder at Pixlet Pod.
Speaker: You can find us on Grindr at Pixlet Pod.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: You can find us on Farmers Only at Pixlet Pod.
Speaker: We got a couple of them on Farmers Only, if I'm being honest.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We're playing the field on Farmers Only.
Speaker: We're sewing the fields.
Speaker: Sewing.
Speaker: Oh, it was right there.
Speaker: I can't believe I fucking God damn it Kevin you're a better man than me God damn it Fuck I'm really pissed like I should have It was right there It was right there So yeah that's the end of the episode I don't think we can come back from that Have a good night everybody Good night
Speaker: Bye.
