Transcript
Speaker: uh i mean she's in canada now so yeah yeah yeah somewhat cleaner version of what we do yeah yeah you know who else is in canada what's that technically who's that welcome back to pixelate my name is kevin with me as phil and today cyberpunk 2077 we're gonna keep going
Speaker: This book is dense.
Speaker: Dense book.
Speaker: Dense book.
Speaker: I did shorten my notes this week just for the sake of getting through it in a more timely fashion.
Speaker: Also, I decided there's some bits later where one character is going really deep on some philosophical shit, and I decided not to take many notes.
Speaker: Which maybe we don't necessarily need.
Speaker: We don't need to get into that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He gets a little Elon Musk-y.
Speaker: Gets a little Elon Musk-y.
Speaker: Gets a little Incel-y.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which doesn't surprise me based on the character.
Speaker: Don't like his vibe.
Speaker: Don't like his vibe at all.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Liking him less and less as the book goes on.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This section, though, I mean, it starts to pick up.
Speaker: But as you pointed out, it's still filled with threads.
Speaker: Got more threads than a stalk of celery in here.
Speaker: It's ridiculous.
Speaker: Hey, Jonesy.
Speaker: Jonesy's behind you.
Speaker: Jonesy.
Speaker: He's come to stalk me.
Speaker: He knows it's flea med day.
Speaker: And Ripley doesn't care.
Speaker: Ripley will just take it and deal.
Speaker: Jonesy knows when I kind of walk towards him with a purposeful stride that it's going to mean bad shit for him.
Speaker: And so he's been avoiding me.
Speaker: So I don't know if he's just trying to fuck with me or what.
Speaker: Well, he's getting close to you to keep an eye on you.
Speaker: He wants to make...
Speaker: He's like, he's never tried to give me my flea medicine while he was on that stupid show of his.
Speaker: So maybe.
Speaker: Oh, and I got two puppies over here.
Speaker: We're surrounded by our aminals.
Speaker: We're aminals.
Speaker: So chapter six, it's a bit of a post heist.
Speaker: Oh, I forgot to mention, we're going to put the body in the marsh.
Speaker: Listen, there's going to be a lot of bodies in the marsh.
Speaker: Lots of bodies.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: The body, the body, the body, the body of the man found dead in the Fenway marshes yesterday afternoon is that of Timothy.
Speaker: Chapter six is a bit of a post-heist recap.
Speaker: In the first scene, we see Albert.
Speaker: I was calling him Arthur last episode.
Speaker: Don't know where that came from.
Speaker: His name's Albert.
Speaker: I think you called him Albert once early on, and then it did slide into Arthur.
Speaker: I don't know if it was like a... I don't know.
Speaker: I think it might have just been Mandela affecting something.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: His name's Albert.
Speaker: So he's touring an apartment with a real estate agent to finally move out from the domineering thumb of his mother.
Speaker: Meanwhile, Borg is at a club partying down and being a real misogynistic bummer.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Real bummer.
Speaker: It's bad elsewhere.
Speaker: Ron and Malena are hooking up and relaxing post coitus.
Speaker: Ron's healing well after doing surgery on his own leg.
Speaker: And there's a really good bit in this segment where Malena is like, Hey, would you like some, some whiskey?
Speaker: It's been aged 12 and he goes 12 years, 12 years.
Speaker: And she, and she goes, it might be more like months or weeks.
Speaker: I love that part because she just kind of lets him.
Speaker: He's like, I would say it's been age 12 years.
Speaker: And she goes, uh-huh.
Speaker: And then later in like, she doesn't, she just lets him.
Speaker: It's such, it's like every woman I've ever met where a guy is like, yes, absolutely.
Speaker: I'm refined in her head.
Speaker: She goes, it was age 12 days, but she, but she doesn't tell him.
Speaker: She just like, Oh God, you're so smart.
Speaker: It's the last line of the section.
Speaker: And we're like, yeah, it's, it's a 12 day old whiskey.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, you're such a, yes, you are cultured.
Speaker: Who's cultured.
Speaker: Is it even whiskey at that point?
Speaker: Is it even whiskey?
Speaker: If it's been all days, it's just not good.
Speaker: It's like minimum viable product.
Speaker: Yeah, it really struck me.
Speaker: I just read it and I was just like, I've been that guy.
Speaker: I can't think of any specific instances, but there's no doubt in my mind that there was a time that a woman who was smarter than me just bit her tongue because she didn't want to make things weird and I was trying to impress her with all my cultural knowledge.
Speaker: It may have happened with my wife.
Speaker: It has happened with my wife.
Speaker: Uh, yes.
Speaker: With your wife.
Speaker: It's probably happened when you were working in the wine industry.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: It happened with, it's happened with my cats.
Speaker: It's just, I'm, I'm a white male who's 40 years old.
Speaker: It's happened.
Speaker: I've got, there are too many instances to count.
Speaker: And the worst part is I just have to recognize that those things have happened.
Speaker: I can't think of them off the top of my head, but I know they've guaranteed that they've happened there.
Speaker: Yes, absolutely.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: So, um,
Speaker: club that Borg is at, there's another person.
Speaker: His name is Dum Dum, and he belongs to the Maelstrom gang.
Speaker: Do you remember the Maelstromers?
Speaker: We saw them at Chapter 5 when they stopped the van to figure out what was going on.
Speaker: So Dum Dum is there, and he recognizes Borg from that little incident that happened out on Northside, out in the street.
Speaker: So he grabs Borg by the shirt, realizes that Borg's muscly arms are only there for show, and he throws Borg down the basement steps.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he goes down the steps and he closes the door behind him and a dumb dumb and another maelstrom maelstrom lady by the name of Carla shows up and they begin to interrogate him and Borg folds like a cheap tent.
Speaker: Oh, just immediately.
Speaker: I can't wait to help them out.
Speaker: He does not stop talking.
Speaker: I am assuming that the only reason he stops talking is because they kill him.
Speaker: Yes, that's it.
Speaker: That's the only way to get him to stop talking.
Speaker: Because Dum Dum, right before the scene ends, goes, do you believe in reincarnation, Pork?
Speaker: He keeps calling Borg Pork because he thinks it's funny.
Speaker: Yeah, and it is.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: Yeah, it is.
Speaker: Later, Liam, the police detective we saw earlier in the book, is investigating the death of a security guard at the junkyard that what they're now calling the impromptu gang stole the van.
Speaker: The shade that they get.
Speaker: I love this because they could have very easily given us a story about, you know, some badass people and put a complicated, cool, complex.
Speaker: They gave us level one characters here.
Speaker: That is what we are dealing with it.
Speaker: And I love them for it.
Speaker: I love Rafal's.
Speaker: It's such a great choice.
Speaker: It's such a great choice.
Speaker: They're not good at anything.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: They are, this is a level one, uh, cyberpunk.
Speaker: I don't know what the levels are like in cyberpunk, but it's, it's, it's level one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, so the, the guard at the, uh, at the junkyard has been filleted and, uh, also his fingers have been chopped off.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So that's interesting.
Speaker: Meanwhile, Zor is in his apartment going through news bits to keep up his average Night City citizen profile.
Speaker: And then he pauses again on some news about a corpo guy and recognizes the corpo woman talking to him.
Speaker: And it's because it's Milena, his BFF Milena.
Speaker: Speaking of Milena, she's being interrogated by the head of Militech security in order to get clearance to run a negotiation.
Speaker: It's like a Voight-Kampff test for loyalty or something.
Speaker: The guy's name is Stanley.
Speaker: This guy will come up again.
Speaker: Multiple times.
Speaker: Milena is going to the negotiation with Katsuo, who is a Japanese corpo.
Speaker: She's trying to remember all the customs between East and West.
Speaker: And they, I thought it was neat.
Speaker: They're in a building that is so tall that they see the actual sky.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which residents of Night City never actually see.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because everything is just smog covered, basically.
Speaker: It's smog covered during the day and it's just dark at night and there's just light pollution everywhere.
Speaker: Meanwhile, Zor and Ron are hanging out and they open up the case that they stole from the warehouse.
Speaker: Wouldn't you know it?
Speaker: It's not the thing they intended to steal.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's 108 batteries for previous gen drone, drone technology that they have no way to actually move.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: They don't, it's, it's, it's, it's not even that it isn't the loot that they thought they were going to get.
Speaker: It is loot that they do not have a fence or somebody for selling.
Speaker: There's no buyers for this.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The only people who use it are Corpos.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, and, and if you show up and go, Hey, would you like to buy these?
Speaker: They, they, well, the secret's out.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: They know where you got them from.
Speaker: It's just the first of a long line of them getting fucked over.
Speaker: And it's just,
Speaker: Ridiculous.
Speaker: Gosh.
Speaker: While they're chatting, Zor goes, hey, Ron, by the way, can I talk to your girlfriend, Melina, about something?
Speaker: Scene change.
Speaker: Uh-oh, Dum Dum has arrived at Byers' office.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Dum Dum threatens Byer.
Speaker: And the big man, again, in a series of events, people are just going to flip really easily for Dum Dum.
Speaker: Dum Dum shows up and people talk.
Speaker: He's like, all right, I'll tell you everything I know about Zor.
Speaker: He doesn't work here anymore, but you're going to learn everything.
Speaker: Dum Dum is like, did you just shit your pants?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What's that smell?
Speaker: I showed that clip to my wife and I think she, she, it was the closest she's ever come to,
Speaker: filling out papers for a divorce.
Speaker: She was not, she was not thrilled that I apropos of nothing went, I just forgot about this clip from this old Hulk Hogan movie.
Speaker: You're going to watch it with me.
Speaker: And she's like, okay, sure.
Speaker: Cause she normally trusts me on things like that, but I have, I have placed a, a definite break in that trust.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: Yeah, no, it's never going to be the same.
Speaker: It's one, it's one crack in the wall at a time.
Speaker: First, it was showing her the thing.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: That was a big one.
Speaker: It was Guardians of the Galaxy Part 3.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And now it's Dookie with Hulk Hogan.
Speaker: Suburban Commando?
Speaker: Was it?
Speaker: No, I don't remember what that was.
Speaker: Hold on, hold on.
Speaker: Now I've referenced it and I can't.
Speaker: Hogan, Dookie.
Speaker: Dookie movie.
Speaker: Yeah, there we go.
Speaker: No Holds Barred.
Speaker: No Holds Barred.
Speaker: 1989.
Speaker: Made $60 million at the box office.
Speaker: Look at that.
Speaker: I'd like to think based on that line alone.
Speaker: Based on that line alone.
Speaker: Yeah, that's it.
Speaker: That's the one.
Speaker: So, speaking of pooping his pants, that's what Byers did.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Melina is in conversation with Katsuo continues where she is trying to negotiate Militech's involvement in a project that his company is running.
Speaker: So they maintain some sort of equilibrium between the corporations.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: uh-oh.
Speaker: Uh-oh.
Speaker: Dum-dum, and Carla begin torturing Morris to get information about Zor out of him.
Speaker: And Morris is like, oh, you're the demons that I saw.
Speaker: And they're like, what do you know about Zor?
Speaker: And Morris goes, Zor helped me out once, so I'm going to help him out.
Speaker: And Morris begins to disassociate as they murder him.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just killed the shit out of them.
Speaker: They killed the shit out of Morris.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I told you there's going to be bodies in the Mars, so Borg and Morris are dead.
Speaker: It's so far.
Speaker: I mean, and it stands to reason because Kosick has not shied away from the brutality of this world in any way, shape, or form in terms of, you know, the standard of living in terms of pollution and the corpo bullshit and capitalism and all that.
Speaker: And so, of course, it's like, yeah, by the way, everyone's dropping like flies.
Speaker: Enjoy.
Speaker: Yeah, there's at one point, I forget where, that...
Speaker: Liam makes a note that there's a hundred murders a day in night city.
Speaker: It's like, Jesus Christ.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: How are there people?
Speaker: Just people keep moving here.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: It's like, okay, that's kind of stupid.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So Molina is still negotiating with Katsuo, trying to get him to meet in the middle on a revenue split for the project.
Speaker: And we find out the project is called Project Aeneas and that the project is to be kept secret from upper levels of both companies.
Speaker: Otherwise, there may be some sort of issue with everyone being arrested for being traitors.
Speaker: Dixie, the Maelstrom netrunner, is looking to who the netrunner was for the warehouse job as Carla and Dum-Dum look on.
Speaker: And he finds a brief moment where Albert dropped his encryption and gets his address.
Speaker: Meanwhile, Albert is looking around his new sparse apartment, and he muses on the ship of Theseus.
Speaker: And this is the first time where he's going to really get metaphysical.
Speaker: So if you don't know what the ship of Theseus is, for those of you listening, it's a metaphysics, metaphysics, right?
Speaker: I think.
Speaker: Yeah, kind of existential kind of thing.
Speaker: Yeah, thought experiment where, okay, you have the ship of Theseus.
Speaker: If you replace one piece of wood, one piece of wood gets broken or rotted and you replace it, is it still the ship of Theseus?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Okay, well, what happens over time when every piece of wood gets replaced?
Speaker: Is it still the ship of Theseus?
Speaker: And the answer is nerds.
Speaker: The answer is, oops, give me your lunch money.
Speaker: Oops.
Speaker: Here's a locker.
Speaker: I am stuffing you into it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, how about you take your shippy Theseus and ride the trolley problem right on out of here?
Speaker: philosophy 101 is that way.
Speaker: Uh, but I'm honestly though, would it, would it be a cyberpunk, uh, genre novel if it didn't introduce, uh, you know, philosophy 101 concepts, uh, as if they've never been thought of before.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's an old tradition in, in cyberpunk and sci-fi.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So he doesn't actually know what to do with himself when his mother isn't around.
Speaker: So he jumps into a video game on his cyber deck in order because it's a new cyber deck because his mother broke the other one.
Speaker: He has to, but he has to like hack it in order for him to like, it's basically like if you're, if you're, if you're making it so your DS can play ROMs or something,
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker: He's hacked it.
Speaker: He's doing that.
Speaker: Yeah, he can play old SNES games on it.
Speaker: He's living large.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He goes into a game in the cyberdeck, and he has to convince a woman in the game to let him use a terminal in the game, which he then breaks the security on and then deletes everything but the core files.
Speaker: And I am glossing over it.
Speaker: I said it really quickly.
Speaker: It is...
Speaker: a terrifying scene in which the AI of the woman in the game is terrified of what he's doing and he doesn't give a shit.
Speaker: It is deep, you know, it is, you know, and we just got done talking about like, what is reality?
Speaker: What is, you know, that the, the old, the old chestnuts of like, you know, what is life, artificial intelligence, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker: I, this is a very upsetting scene.
Speaker: This was very, very upsetting.
Speaker: He deletes the water, which causes a tsunami in the village in the game that he's playing.
Speaker: And the woman's like terrified.
Speaker: And then he just starts deleting everything around her.
Speaker: And she's like the last thing to be removed.
Speaker: And she's just like, what is what's happening?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She's responding as she's supposed to under those circumstances.
Speaker: And he's just like, you're not real, whatever.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It is creepy.
Speaker: It's very creepy.
Speaker: Very creepy.
Speaker: And it really shows Albert's... He's... I mean, he's...
Speaker: misanthropic, right?
Speaker: He just hates people, but he, I think there's a definite, he hates women vibe.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That terminally online kind of misogyny.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Black pilled, uh, incel type.
Speaker: Um, yeah, it's not great.
Speaker: Uh, those types can get fucked.
Speaker: Um, but, uh,
Speaker: Albert's mother is dead now, by the way.
Speaker: She's dead.
Speaker: Dum Dum is at Albert's old apartment, which could only mean one thing.
Speaker: She's dead.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No getting around that one.
Speaker: Every chapter that begins with, with like dumb, dumb or every section that begins to dumb, dumb.
Speaker: You're like, who'd he kill this time?
Speaker: Albert's mother.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I, you know, and I gotta be honest with you.
Speaker: When they introduced a character named dumb, dumb, uh, I really thought I was like, Oh, this guy's not sticking around with us for very long.
Speaker: And I was wrong.
Speaker: Uh, dumb, dumb is, it takes a pretty important role, uh, in, in no coincidence.
Speaker: Uh,
Speaker: And I looked it up.
Speaker: Basically, this book takes place during act one of cyber of the game.
Speaker: Cyberpunk 2077.
Speaker: Because Dum Dum is a character in the game as well.
Speaker: Oh, cool.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: But for reasons that are too spoilery, this has to take place before act two.
Speaker: For Dum Dum's sake.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Loud and clear.
Speaker: Reading you loud and clear.
Speaker: I'm picking up what you're putting down, Kevin.
Speaker: So his mom had no idea where Albert was.
Speaker: They killed her anyway.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which I don't think that's like, I don't think it matters whether they tell him anything or not.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: I'm not even sure, 100% sure if Byers is still alive.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: I'm just assuming that everybody who talks to Dum Dum is dying in this scene.
Speaker: It's a good assumption to make.
Speaker: He hasn't given you any reason to not think that.
Speaker: As I'm reading this chapter yesterday, I sent Phil a link to a song from Goodfellas.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Which is the Layla piano exit.
Speaker: So it's the very end of the song Layla by, who is it?
Speaker: Derek and the Dominoes.
Speaker: Derek and the Dominoes, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it's the very end of the song Layla.
Speaker: Not Eric Clapton, you fucker.
Speaker: It's Derek and the Dominoes.
Speaker: So it's Derek and the Dominoes.
Speaker: There's this part of the song, the piano exit, where it's this really, really like...
Speaker: It's almost like a Billy Joel-esque.
Speaker: Written by their drummer, actually.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: So in Goodfellas, it plays over a scene in which Ray Liotta's character is talking about how they keep finding bodies, the bodies of everybody who was involved in the Lufthansa heist with Jimmy.
Speaker: It's just this montage of bodies.
Speaker: Montage of bodies.
Speaker: Over this really kick-ass piano ballad.
Speaker: So I sent that song to Phil while I'm reading chapter six.
Speaker: And I knew exactly what scenes you were talking.
Speaker: I was like, oh, yeah, he's there.
Speaker: Got it.
Speaker: Just one dead body after another.
Speaker: Yeah, I know where you're at.
Speaker: If this was adapted into a movie, that's how these moments would play out.
Speaker: That would be amazing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You get a little tilt of the cap for Goodfellas.
Speaker: That would be a lot of fun.
Speaker: A little Scorsese in there.
Speaker: Yeah, I like it.
Speaker: So Albert's heading back to his apartment because there's stuff, some stuff he left there, including a shard, which he needs to access his old data.
Speaker: And shards, by the way, they're almost like a SD card, but larger.
Speaker: They slot into the back of the person's head or into the net running deck or whatever.
Speaker: So he's going back.
Speaker: He needs it to access his old data and his cryptocurrencies.
Speaker: including the Taron, which is a program he was building in an effort to get through the black wall.
Speaker: And then he notices, according to his crime scanning software, there's a serious crime in his old building.
Speaker: Uh,
Speaker: In that building, Liam and his rookie partner are investigating the murder, and he shows his rookie how he tied the murder of Miss Delaney to the murder of the guard at Harris Auto because of the way they have tags in the database of murders.
Speaker: They're like, no, you see here, this was hashtag lacerations.
Speaker: It's like,
Speaker: Um, hashtag the flayed man.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, but yeah, so the, he, he points out like, yes, the, the murders are described in the exact same way by the forensic texts.
Speaker: Um, so I just had, you know, the notification that, that basically pinged me and that's how I knew that this probably is related to our case.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Albert continues as he's, he's, he's walking and he's like, what am I going to say to my mother when I get there?
Speaker: Am I just going to ignore her?
Speaker: Like always, you know, like always, Liam gives some background on the night city police department, how he knows people don't like them.
Speaker: Fuck the police.
Speaker: But also gangers don't attack them without fear of reprisal.
Speaker: The rookie asks, oh yeah.
Speaker: And this is the tag bit.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: And Albert arrives in the elevator and he sees that the crime was in his apartment and his mother is dead.
Speaker: And he doesn't get out of the elevator.
Speaker: The door is open.
Speaker: He sees it.
Speaker: Door is closed.
Speaker: And he leaves.
Speaker: It was it was very Leon, the professional that kind of like just like walking, just walk.
Speaker: And you see all the bodies like just keep going and hope the friendly neighbor's home.
Speaker: Chapter seven.
Speaker: Freak Seek is back.
Speaker: Missed him.
Speaker: Oh, can't, can't wait until we finally get this one on camera.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Love it.
Speaker: Freak Seek television show.
Speaker: He's, uh, he's talking about the crash on the Eastern beltway, which is the one Milena was in before the book started and how it wasn't caused by a cyber psycho, but by a corpo limo with collision detection turned off.
Speaker: Freak Seek really, really keeping the people informed.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Zora's hanging out with Malina and a classy joint and they catch up a bit.
Speaker: Uh, Malina tells him that him and tells him that him and I are made for each other because they're unable to tell that the other one is into them.
Speaker: And then Milena sees one of her ex lovers and makes Zor kiss her so that he doesn't come over.
Speaker: So good.
Speaker: So good.
Speaker: And then so Milena's like, so what did you want to talk about?
Speaker: And he's like, okay, you see this photo of this guy?
Speaker: Like you're talking to this guy.
Speaker: Can you, do you know this guy?
Speaker: And she's like, well, yeah, we're acquaintances.
Speaker: And he's like, okay, I want to kill this guy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: How acquaintance are we talking here?
Speaker: Cause I want him dead.
Speaker: We get a brief moment of a customer support representative speaking with a braindance customer who wants to hire an actor for sexual services.
Speaker: Customer support rep is unable to accommodate and the woman is pissed.
Speaker: Meanwhile, Dum Dum, Carla and Dixie are considering their next moves on the people they know quite a bit about, which are Zor and Albert.
Speaker: Renner, Warden's former boss, and another guy named Ross are talking about what to do with the case that Warden stole with his little heist experiment.
Speaker: They don't know what to do with it and they can't open it.
Speaker: Zora is sitting on his phone reading a message and he thinks about the kiss with Valena and how it woke something up in him.
Speaker: He's like, ah, ladies.
Speaker: It does work down there.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: That's fun.
Speaker: We get another scene with the operators and talking about how things are kicking up and how impressive the remote drone takeover was.
Speaker: And they also name drop Stanley.
Speaker: Stanley is involved with these folks somehow.
Speaker: Ron and Milena post sex are talking about Zora's request to kill a guy.
Speaker: Milena mentions that she's not interested in making that a thing because she's not that kind of person.
Speaker: And then they talk about, well, whether Zora is a psycho and they both agree that now Borg is the actual psycho.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then they're like, and then she's like, maybe he has PTSD or something like that.
Speaker: He's got, she's like, he's got something buried deep in there.
Speaker: And I don't even think he knows what's going on.
Speaker: Something's wrong.
Speaker: I think we can all agree on that.
Speaker: There's another scene of the customer service rep talking to someone who hasn't paid for the service, doesn't want to pay for the service, but still wants to be able to watch the programs.
Speaker: I love this.
Speaker: Speaking of someone who has worked in customer service before this scene came for me.
Speaker: Or it's just like you have to pay for it and then you can watch it.
Speaker: Well, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker: I want to watch it, but it won't let me because I haven't paid for it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Repeat what you just said back to me, but slower.
Speaker: Like, well, why do I have to do it in that order?
Speaker: Why can't I just watch it and pay it tomorrow?
Speaker: I'd gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Dum Dum visits the warden and the warden tells Dum Dum that Borg would be the best person to start with if you're trying to figure out more information because he's the one that found everyone for him.
Speaker: And it's like the section ends with Borg would side and would have blinked slowly if he still had eyelids.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Or Dum Dum, yeah.
Speaker: It's like, Dum Dum is, Borg is already dead.
Speaker: You could actually look up a picture of Dum Dum so you can see his... I don't know why it took me this long.
Speaker: Let me see.
Speaker: Because he's in the game, you can actually see Cyb... Dum Dum.
Speaker: Yeah, that's pretty much what I had in my head.
Speaker: That's what you imagined.
Speaker: That's the nightmare I imagined, yeah.
Speaker: That's Dum Dum.
Speaker: That's Dum Dum, all right.
Speaker: Oh, Dum Dum.
Speaker: Oh, boy.
Speaker: Very terrifying.
Speaker: Spider-like face, like I said.
Speaker: That is upsetting.
Speaker: It is upsetting.
Speaker: So anyway, yeah, he realizes, okay, well, Borg is already dead, so what do I do now?
Speaker: We get another scene with the customer service operator speaking with somebody who thinks that there's a show on the service that's immoral.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because it's about an affair.
Speaker: And at this point, the customer service operator snaps.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And she's like, you know what, lady?
Speaker: You're the problem.
Speaker: Because it's Aya.
Speaker: Aya is the customer service operator in all these scenes.
Speaker: This is what happens when you try to go straight.
Speaker: It's just not going to work out.
Speaker: She can't deal with the shit anymore.
Speaker: She goes, the manager calls her in and he's like, it's a, it's like, it is the most like, is a perfect summary of like bad corporate experiences where the guy was like,
Speaker: Well, in your tier two training, you would have been... And she's like, I haven't had... I've had tier two training.
Speaker: Tier two training, yeah.
Speaker: She's like... He goes, yes, but when you do, you'll learn... When you do, you'll learn that you never say this to the customer.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: She quits.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Anytime... It's so funny.
Speaker: People talk about...
Speaker: Criminals wanting to go straight and that kind of thing.
Speaker: And when you read interviews with them and everything like that, and this has been portrayed in movies and all that stuff, of course they almost never go back because you used to like, yeah, it was a struggle and yeah, you might've died any minute, but like you were, you were making like money hand over fist and you didn't take shit from anybody.
Speaker: And now you're going to make minimum wage listening to someone moan and piss about, you know, how immoral the TV show that they're paying for is like,
Speaker: Of course you're going to quit and go back to a life of crime.
Speaker: I don't blame you at all.
Speaker: I don't blame you one bit.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: So Albert is in his apartment thinking about he's actually kind of relieved that his mother is dead.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he's like, should I feel bad?
Speaker: Should I feel bad that she's that?
Speaker: I don't feel bad that she's dead.
Speaker: Then he's like, whatever, I have to get back.
Speaker: I have to get back into my apartment anyway to get the access code.
Speaker: I, uh, elsewhere, I and Zora are on a date.
Speaker: They are sharing a beer, literally one beer.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Cause they are broke as shit.
Speaker: They're broke as shit.
Speaker: And they're watching a river of plastic scrape up against the walls of the bay.
Speaker: They talk about how they're both unemployed and Zora opens up to her about, uh, how his wife and son have are dead.
Speaker: And that revenge is the only thing keeping them going.
Speaker: Aya begins dancing for him.
Speaker: I mean, that's my general reaction to getting news like that for my date.
Speaker: So I get it.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm going to dance now.
Speaker: Yeah, feel the rhythm.
Speaker: So Dum Dum and crew are digging through a pile of garbage to get Borg's body back out.
Speaker: And they find it and they pull out his holophone and it's still working.
Speaker: And wouldn't you know, it has all the contact information.
Speaker: Uh, Albert is drifting.
Speaker: Um, he is, uh, he didn't go into his apartment.
Speaker: He's worried that he's, Oh, Oh, I skipped another, uh, Albert segment.
Speaker: Albert thinks more about the medical physical nature of consciousness while he goes back to his apartment and how generation after generation gets better, but he wants to perfect this generation.
Speaker: He gets back to the door and looks at the police tape and he's not sure if he should cross.
Speaker: He goes back to his his his apartment.
Speaker: He never went in because he's worried that he's a suspect and he's thinking that everyone else is in danger and he doesn't actually care if they're in danger.
Speaker: He cares that if they get caught, they will flip on him.
Speaker: Yeah, he's a psychopath.
Speaker: Just just.
Speaker: Yeah, it's some cold blooded shit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Cold blooded shit.
Speaker: Zora and Aya are making out on the elevator as he goes up towards his as they go up toward his unit.
Speaker: And he gets a text from Albert that someone is after them.
Speaker: And as soon as they get up off the elevator, Zora sees that the toothpick that he sticks in the door came back around.
Speaker: Um, it's on the ground.
Speaker: So he pulls Aya back into the elevator just as someone comes out of his apartment and begins shooting at them.
Speaker: Uh, they duck, the elevator goes down.
Speaker: They realize they have to get off the elevator because they could just throw a grenade.
Speaker: And wouldn't you know it?
Speaker: They do.
Speaker: They get off on the 25th floor.
Speaker: Whoever's chasing them throws a smoke grenade.
Speaker: And as they're running down the stairs, Aya's body begins to freeze up and cramp.
Speaker: And she says she doesn't have much time.
Speaker: So chapter eight.
Speaker: We start chapter eight with a police cruiser chasing a car that is chasing another car, and they're trying to save the target in priority over killing the hostel.
Speaker: Eventually, the two cars pull into a strip mall parking lot and the chase car heads off.
Speaker: Lena comes out of the car that was being chased and the hostels get away.
Speaker: Aya wakes up in Albert's apartment.
Speaker: Zor gives her coffee and asks her about what she meant about not having enough time.
Speaker: Aya is surprised at how young Albert looks.
Speaker: She's like, this is just a child.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Aya says that she needs to get back to her apartment, even though Albert says they know where she lives.
Speaker: And she's like, well, yeah, even more important to get back to the apartment.
Speaker: They get to Aya's building and start going up.
Speaker: A drunk man accosts them for a smoke and Zor just slams the shit out of him against the wall.
Speaker: He's like, just get the fuck out of the way.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Zor pulls out a gun while Aya opens the door.
Speaker: Jesus Christ, Brandy.
Speaker: She farted.
Speaker: Oh, God!
Speaker: One second, I gotta let them out.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, yeah, that's good.
Speaker: We'll be right back, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker: Kevin's going to air out the room, maybe light a couple of candles or match.
Speaker: Although I've seen bad dog farts, no matter how small the dog might be, lighting a match too quickly after the fact could cause explosions.
Speaker: This is another reason that I tend to stick with cats.
Speaker: They typically don't fart.
Speaker: Or if they do, you haven't noticed it as much.
Speaker: Now, I will say, when they do fart, you notice.
Speaker: But I guess it's a quality over quantity kind of thing.
Speaker: If you can even call that quality.
Speaker: Anyway, back to the show in a minute.
Speaker: Oh, sweet Jesus.
Speaker: That was terrible.
Speaker: Turn on a fan or something.
Speaker: God, I was sitting there like, oh my God, Brad.
Speaker: She has these farts that are just... Cloud kill.
Speaker: Yeah, it's cloud kill, you know?
Speaker: Anyway, I let them into the backyard.
Speaker: They're fine now.
Speaker: Or they can fart freely.
Speaker: They can fart freely.
Speaker: Take it out on the ozone layer.
Speaker: So Zor throws this drunk man against the wall and they go to open the door.
Speaker: And Zor pulls a gun while I opens the door.
Speaker: And then as soon as they open the door, I runs in and looks for Juliana and they find Molly, who is the M that she was texting.
Speaker: And she's dead.
Speaker: She's she's dead.
Speaker: And Juliana dead people, more dead people.
Speaker: That's shocking.
Speaker: Juliana is missing.
Speaker: They go back to Albert's old apartment and everything is gone.
Speaker: People have stolen all the furniture.
Speaker: I mentioned to Zord that the thing Warden blackmailed her about was her implants.
Speaker: So basically it's not just her hand.
Speaker: Like she has, she's like cybernetic in a lot of places.
Speaker: That's why she was freezing up.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Ron is going back to his office thinking about how everything has gone wrong.
Speaker: And he gets in, he looks around and he's like, all right, no one's here.
Speaker: And then two goons from the Animals Gang show up.
Speaker: Yeah, the Animals Gang.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Uh, they remind him that he needs to pay what he owes to bully.
Speaker: Uh, the two named pig face and big cat, uh, know that he made a big score recently and Ron gets them to give him two days.
Speaker: Um, the animals are interesting.
Speaker: They don't look at all.
Speaker: Like, I mean, in the game, the animals are these big hulking guys, but they don't have the, the faces the way, uh, these guys, uh,
Speaker: These guys have literal pig faces and that shit.
Speaker: Like, it's crazy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, Albert is, uh, whining about how hard, how without his shard, he's incomplete.
Speaker: Uh, and they need to get money together in order to get Juliana back.
Speaker: That's when Ron bursts into Bart burst into the apartment and tells them what just happened.
Speaker: And he, that they need a fixer.
Speaker: Ron also mentions that Malina has not been responding to his texts.
Speaker: She has left him on red.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Stanley's talking to Milena about her experience being chased, trying to figure out who was after her.
Speaker: He wants to replace her given the circumstances, but Milena knows that won't fly with Katsuo.
Speaker: She doesn't think it has anything to do with the Belway accident or her negotiations or with Katsuo.
Speaker: Zora approaches Warden about being their fixer and Warden tells them to get fucked.
Speaker: Zora goes back to Albert's apartment and thinks about what to do next.
Speaker: Albert's in cyberspace.
Speaker: Ron is sleeping on a mattress he found, and Aya is asleep as well.
Speaker: Melina, meanwhile, at her apartment, thinks about how Ron and the impromptu gang are the only things that actually made her feel alive recently.
Speaker: But she doesn't think that she has a future with them.
Speaker: I just think it's hilarious that the name impromptu gang ended up sticking.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: It's always that nickname that everybody wants to be cool and they want a cool nickname, but it's always the one that is deeply uncool that you get stuck with.
Speaker: That is just how it works.
Speaker: And this is so true to form.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So we move on to chapter nine.
Speaker: The police are at Aya's apartment.
Speaker: Molly Bernard, the victim, was killed the same way as the others.
Speaker: And they have footage of Aya and Zor showing up to the apartment briefly.
Speaker: And they connect Zor to the Byers and Sons' van.
Speaker: Meanwhile, Renner and Ross are in Northside at an art show.
Speaker: art show.
Speaker: Basically, Carla has been carving up dead bodies.
Speaker: It's dead body art.
Speaker: They are huge fans of it.
Speaker: And they're only there because they needed to meet with Dum Dum.
Speaker: And Dum Dum wants information on the Miltec convoy that the Impromptu gang hit.
Speaker: Liam is reinterviewing Harris about the death of one of his guards.
Speaker: Harris is the guy who owns the chop shop.
Speaker: He's asking about the Byron son's van that was never repaired or was repaired and then redamaged in the heist.
Speaker: Ron and Zorin are a part of town called Kabuki trying to sell the batteries to a black market electronics dealer.
Speaker: I love this.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The problem is the dealer will only trade and not offer cash.
Speaker: Despite their protests, the guy doesn't budge and they end up trading the batteries for a sniper rifle and that they're going to need to plan another heist.
Speaker: Yeah, I love it.
Speaker: It's just, yeah, just the, and now the ball starts rolling down the hill and it's like, okay, yep, yep.
Speaker: Accurate.
Speaker: Liam goes to the Militech warehouse where the heist happened, asking to get inside and look around.
Speaker: But the corporal in charge of the investigation there won't let them in.
Speaker: And he says, Liam, you should go get involved in some other cop stuff.
Speaker: And the guy we find out later is going to be Stanley again.
Speaker: This guy keeps popping up everywhere.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Renner and Ross find Warden and pull him into a van and ask him about the Militech crate.
Speaker: Then what's in it?
Speaker: And Warden's like, I don't actually have any idea what's in the crate.
Speaker: Zor sleepwalks to a random family's house and then he wakes up the family and they want him to leave.
Speaker: And he's like, I'm only going to be a moment.
Speaker: And then he punches a hole in the wall and he finds a crate of his old military gear.
Speaker: So Zor's got things going on, you know.
Speaker: Renner and Warden are looking at the container and Warden comes clean that the client just hired him to get rid of the container.
Speaker: They come up with a plan to set the gang up, the impromptu gang up for the theft, kill them and give the case back to Militech.
Speaker: Zor brings the chrome that he just reacquired to Ron's office and says that he wants him to implant him with all of it.
Speaker: And Ron says, that's too much.
Speaker: All of it at once is either going to kill you or leave you with cyber psychosis.
Speaker: And Zor's like, do it anyway.
Speaker: Ron says the gear could actually be sold for a lot of money, but Zor is like, no, I need it.
Speaker: And Ron also recognizes the gear from somewhere while they're scrubbing in, but he isn't sure where it is, like where it's from.
Speaker: Warden meets with his client, Stanley, and tells him he needs to lose the container, and this time for good.
Speaker: And the rookie and Liam are looking at drone footage and they see the buyer's van on the day of the heist.
Speaker: They also know that the van was turned on with Zor's biometrics.
Speaker: They figure Zor and Aya were in on the robbery and it's led to the death of a bunch of people.
Speaker: And then they're like, we can put out an arrest warrant.
Speaker: And now, chapter 10.
Speaker: Freak Seek is here to tell us about the water in Night City and how the corpse are fucking everyone over by selling their clean water while water in Night City goes bad because there's only two people in the water cleaning department and they don't even show up to work.
Speaker: It's good.
Speaker: It's good.
Speaker: It's good stuff.
Speaker: Milena comes into the apartment with a briefcase changing her mind about working with the group and the briefcase has tier three net running gear and Albert is in heaven.
Speaker: Yeah, he's super pumped.
Speaker: He's super pumped.
Speaker: This is what he's been waiting for.
Speaker: This is what he's been waiting for.
Speaker: This is Christmas for him.
Speaker: Uh-huh.
Speaker: Albert's thinking about how one might back up their consciousness and that the only way to do it might be possible on the other side of the black wall.
Speaker: Ron and Zor are going to meet with the warden.
Speaker: They also talk about how Zor is healing from the surgeries, and Ron says that he can't give him any more nanites because they may generate surplus tissue.
Speaker: Like a penis growing out of his forehead.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: All kinds of extra skin.
Speaker: You're going to love it.
Speaker: You're going to love it.
Speaker: You're going to love the way you skin.
Speaker: I guarantee it.
Speaker: Men's warehouse, but for extra skin.
Speaker: Really warehouse.
Speaker: Yeah, you're going to wear the hell out of this.
Speaker: When they meet with Warren, he says he does have a job for them and that the pay is a half million, but they'll need guns, though.
Speaker: And the warden gives them his contact for some untraceable iron.
Speaker: Ron and Zor get back to the apartment and Ron sees Milena for the first time in days.
Speaker: And Aya is like, hey, buddy, and gives Zor a little shoulder squeeze.
Speaker: And they talk about the next steps.
Speaker: Albert is going to find Juliana with his new gear.
Speaker: And Milena mentions that someone tried to kidnap her.
Speaker: Very casually, by the way.
Speaker: Very casually, by the way.
Speaker: It's not the first thing she brings up.
Speaker: Oh yeah, that happened.
Speaker: That's well.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Someone tried to kidnap me.
Speaker: Don't worry about it.
Speaker: You know, Albert is net running and it only takes him 62 seconds to break into his old hiding space and realize that everything he was doing before was worthless.
Speaker: It's like such a, it's such a funny moment because like, I need the shard.
Speaker: I need the shard.
Speaker: And we're like, Oh, with this new gear, it took just over a minute to actually get my old gear stuff back.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Um, he reconsiders how he's going to work moving forward.
Speaker: And he also finds out that he's made another 2000 eddies in the meantime from the games he sells.
Speaker: I should just be doing that.
Speaker: He should just be doing that.
Speaker: I just, just do that.
Speaker: Stick with that.
Speaker: You're fine.
Speaker: You're fine.
Speaker: Out in real space, Aya is asking Albert whether he's found Juliana yet, and he hasn't, and he doesn't seem to be rushing.
Speaker: He doesn't seem to be putting a whole lot of effort into it.
Speaker: Ron mentions the payday for the gig, and everybody's like, ooh, and Melina's like, eh, it's not that much money.
Speaker: Which begs the question, Melina, can't you help us pay some of these things off?
Speaker: Can't you help Ron pay his debts?
Speaker: What's going on here?
Speaker: Um, but there is a moment in a previous chapter where Malena is like, it does say the money comes in and she spends it all right away.
Speaker: Like she doesn't save anything.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Albert has no real intention of helping anyone.
Speaker: He's just buying time until he can figure out how someone would transfer their consciousness out of their body.
Speaker: And there's a big chunk of metaphysical text here.
Speaker: Zor, Ron, and I are driving around looking for the arms dealers that Warden referred them to.
Speaker: And Ron isn't so sure about any of this and doesn't want to get out of the van.
Speaker: Zor and Aya approach the two men who happen to be the same guys from the animals gang that threatened Ron earlier.
Speaker: They keep basically it's like a negotiation.
Speaker: Like we have the money and the guys are like, yeah, the money's good, but the woman is better.
Speaker: And Zor is like, no.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: They're like, okay, but woman.
Speaker: And they're like, no.
Speaker: And they're like, okay, hour of woman.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So it was like, no, things are getting, things are getting tense until the cops, the popo roll up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, I and Zor are under arrest.
Speaker: Um, Albert does more research into the black wall.
Speaker: Uh, I'm breezing through the Albert stuff because it gets real dense.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It gets very, uh, uh, introspective.
Speaker: Let's say.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, the animals, uh, approach the van and see Ron and Ron's been trying to get away, but without getting out of the car, because the, because the trunk of the van is open, the, the, the car won't go into drive.
Speaker: And so the animals show up and they're like, oh, hey, fancy seeing you here.
Speaker: Why were you trying to buy weapons?
Speaker: I thought you'll... And Ron's like, well, I'm on a job and that's how I'm getting you the money.
Speaker: And they're like, well, how about you just tell us what you're going to do and we're going to go do it ourselves.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Albert has another metaphysical discussion about transferring consciousness.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You heard us right.
Speaker: Another.
Speaker: Another.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Liam is interrogating Zor and Zor plays hardball.
Speaker: And he's basically pulling the charge me or let me walk stick over and over again.
Speaker: Like you can't hold me.
Speaker: Am I being detained lawyer?
Speaker: You know, I, uh, meanwhile is losing it because her only goal is to get Juliana back and the cops are only slowing that down.
Speaker: And she, they're like, why didn't you call the cops?
Speaker: And she's like, are you going to look for Juliana?
Speaker: And, and Liam's like, maybe,
Speaker: Oh, I is like, see, um, as Liam is leaving the parking garage, he sees the same corpo from the warehouse coming in.
Speaker: Stanley, he goes to Zora's apartment to see what kind of, what his deal is and finds that basically what basically Zora expects anyone to find, which is that he's the perfect average night city resident.
Speaker: However, he picks up that Zora would spend more time looking at the material of a certain corpo.
Speaker: Liam goes back to the police station, meets with the police captain who informs him that he's being promoted and forced to retire.
Speaker: And Liam's like, what's going on here?
Speaker: And the captain's like, well, you know, you have this case going on and it's a little too political.
Speaker: Like, what's political exactly?
Speaker: It's like, just don't.
Speaker: Just stop talking about it.
Speaker: Just shut up.
Speaker: Do you want something to drink?
Speaker: And Liam's like, no, I'm on duty.
Speaker: And the captain's like, not anymore.
Speaker: The hell you are.
Speaker: Albert has more efforts to copy consciousness.
Speaker: Liam now, the chapter ends with Liam, and he's at the swearing-in ceremony for the new police officers, including the rookie who's been working with him.
Speaker: And he notices his rookie is off to the side, speaking with that same corpo, Stanley.
Speaker: And Stanley gets her to close the case.
Speaker: Now that Liam is retired and the case is hers, she closes it.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: Case closed.
Speaker: That's the end of chapter 10.
Speaker: So what do you think so far?
Speaker: It's good.
Speaker: It's dense.
Speaker: I think not just the fact that this is among the longer books we've read.
Speaker: Usually when we read these books, they're about 300 pages.
Speaker: We do about 100 pages per episode.
Speaker: Every now and then we hit a real long one like this or the Gabriel Knight book that is close.
Speaker: Well, this is 400.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that would add a little chunk to what we've got to read anyway.
Speaker: But there are so many threads and so many characters and so many subplots that you do find yourself rereading it and going back over it again.
Speaker: And it makes it take a little longer that way.
Speaker: Now, I say that I say all of that in no way, meaning that it's a insult, quite the opposite.
Speaker: This is one of the more complex and kind of rich stories we've ever books we've ever done on this show.
Speaker: It's terrific.
Speaker: This guy is a real great writer.
Speaker: The translator is clearly amazing.
Speaker: I'm enjoying this.
Speaker: And not having any experience with Cyberpunk 2077 in and of itself has not...
Speaker: I don't feel left behind.
Speaker: There's enough context in the slang and everything else that I pick up on it pretty quick.
Speaker: I'm obviously, like, for example, Dum Dum, I'm missing some Easter eggs there.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But it's not affecting my enjoyment of the book in the slightest.
Speaker: So that's pretty cool.
Speaker: What about you?
Speaker: What do you think so far?
Speaker: Yeah, I like it a lot.
Speaker: I think it's interesting that in our second part here, and it's turned out to actually be a perfect division where we split it up, this post-heist segment, that Liam went from a character who had one brief mention in the first third of the book becomes more of a main character in the second third of a book.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: As a lot of other characters who had more page space get killed off in the second, third, obviously the police detect it.
Speaker: It's really interesting.
Speaker: It does give you kind of a Game of Thrones feel to it where there's just so many characters and nobody's really safe and you don't know who the real main characters are going to be.
Speaker: It's pretty cool.
Speaker: Pretty cool.
Speaker: cool yeah yeah and your estimation of certain characters goes up or down like albert you're like hey i don't get a good vibe from him in the first third and the second third he's like oh he's a piece of shit yeah yeah exactly at first it's like oh well he's a kid you know he's a kid and and whatever you know but but yeah but the second second you're like oh you're actually might be a psycho okay that's great awesome
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And like a guy like Dum Dum, who makes zero appearance in the first third, becomes like the driving force of the second third of the book.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It becomes like our Anton Chigurh kind of character.
Speaker: It's just showing up and is like heads or tails.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker: What is the most I've ever waged on a coin flip?
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: It's creepy.
Speaker: That's your lucky quarter.
Speaker: Yeah, that's your lucky quarter.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I think because it keeps you on your toes for that reason.
Speaker: You don't know... We've got some characters that have had a little more screen time, so to speak, than others, but it is an ensemble cast.
Speaker: That much is absolutely clear.
Speaker: Actually, yeah, the Game of Thrones reference, as you say it, is more and more apt because...
Speaker: you have characters arising out of events.
Speaker: Like, a thing happened, the response to that thing happening isn't any of the current characters, but another character that was affected by it happening.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Like, of course it wouldn't be any of the current characters.
Speaker: They did something that caused the waves, and now you're going to have some other character pop up because, you know, shit happens.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: Which was very common in games the way Martin writes Game of Thrones.
Speaker: Like this thing happens, therefore there's this other character that's now involved in the plot because it happened.
Speaker: It's constantly knocking new dominoes down.
Speaker: And they're all interconnected in various ways.
Speaker: And meanwhile, while that's happening, we've got this crazy world that he is showing us and displaying to us in full glory with no... It doesn't...
Speaker: it's, it doesn't make the story or the characters less interesting to talk about the world.
Speaker: It's, it's all beautifully integrated.
Speaker: It's really well done.
Speaker: My main criticism of the book, and this might be because I don't like, I don't know enough about the author himself.
Speaker: And I know, I believe there's something like, because of, uh, the, you know, Poland, I believe is a little bit more socially conservative.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: this book as now that we're two thirds of the way through it, I can explicitly say that it is not queer enough.
Speaker: Oh, sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Fair enough.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: I absolutely agree.
Speaker: There's only one quick reference to sexuality, like other, you know, pansexuality or whatever or something like that.
Speaker: And that's about it.
Speaker: And I was like, you know, for a cyberpunk story, it's not, I mean, lowercase cyberpunk, the genre, or sci-fi or whatever, you're writing in 2023.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's not queer enough.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Especially when you have active sex workers and that sort of thing in your story.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know, it'd be one thing you could make an argument for it if you didn't have characters who actively worked in that industry, but they do.
Speaker: And somehow it still doesn't really come up.
Speaker: And it's...
Speaker: I hadn't thought about that, but, uh, but I'm a straight guy.
Speaker: So, uh, that's a good point.
Speaker: Uh, that's a really good point.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I just noticed is like, Oh, it's not happening.
Speaker: Well, and maybe part of that has been, this we'll be getting into later.
Speaker: Uh, but maybe that's also has something to do with the fact that you and I have both been neck deep in, uh, one of the horniest queerest games I've played in maybe a decade.
Speaker: Uh,
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so we're like, where are all the queer people?
Speaker: Why aren't they hitting on each other and fucking under the starlit sky?
Speaker: That just feels like something's missing.
Speaker: So that's the only thing I can think of is that I know Poland is a little bit more socially conservative in terms of
Speaker: In terms of gay rights, LGBTQ rights.
Speaker: And this book was published in like Polish is the primary language of this book.
Speaker: It's unlike the game Cyberpunk 2077, which is made by a Polish developer and CD Projekt Red, but published for.
Speaker: It's I mean, the U.S. is like it's it's probably going to be its biggest market.
Speaker: The rest of Europe is going to be its biggest market, not just Poland.
Speaker: I think it's it's probably and there's there's a there's more queer representation in the game.
Speaker: That was my next question.
Speaker: So there's like some there's like it's so we're a little bit of a flip where there's more queer rep in the game.
Speaker: than the book, but the book has more anti-capitalist vibes.
Speaker: Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker: It doesn't shy from the political messaging, but it doesn't have much in terms of the sexuality.
Speaker: That's interesting.
Speaker: That's very interesting.
Speaker: Which might just frankly mean you give the guy the benefit of the doubt.
Speaker: It might just be a matter of like, I don't know, I didn't have time.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's doing all this other shit, you know?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So, but that is an interesting point.
Speaker: I hadn't thought about that.
Speaker: That's a really good point.
Speaker: So, uh, with two thirds of this book put away, Phil, I only have one more question for you.
Speaker: And that is, Ooh, what are you playing?
Speaker: Oh, um, well, I actually just literally within the hour, uh, beat, uh, boulders game three, 75 hours later.
Speaker: I beat it.
Speaker: I feel like...
Speaker: I'm fascinated because, you know, you look at the achievements and everything like that, and so many of them are hidden away.
Speaker: And based on the percentages of the end-of-game achievements I got, I get the impression that maybe I went about it in a way that is not the usual way.
Speaker: Because I got an ending that only gets 1% of the players, which might have more to do with the fact that a lot of people haven't.
Speaker: finished it.
Speaker: Although, you know what?
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: I got the general finish the game, all's well that ends well achievement is 3.7% of players.
Speaker: But your ending is like... My ending is 1.4%.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: Yeah, so it's just under half.
Speaker: And that's, well, not even just under half, it's well under half.
Speaker: So that's interesting.
Speaker: But the way, but that's the thing.
Speaker: I think that's what the main achievement of this game is, that achievement with a lowercase a, is that
Speaker: It is, we all know that the difference between a tabletop role-playing game experience and a video game role-playing game experience, very different.
Speaker: You're on far more rails, and that's just part of it, and that's fine.
Speaker: But I think this might be, and I mentioned last episode that this is one of those games that does a really good job of, what the fuck did I say last week?
Speaker: My brain just splattered against the pavement.
Speaker: LAUGHTER
Speaker: No, I just, what I'm getting at is it is, oh, what I said last week was that this is one of those situations where, you know, it doesn't, they haven't reinvented the wheel.
Speaker: This is just, this is how you do classic RPGs.
Speaker: It just has better, you know.
Speaker: art direction, that sort of thing.
Speaker: But otherwise, nothing's changed.
Speaker: But I will say that what puts this above and beyond other role-playing games I've played is this is probably, of any role-playing game I've ever played, does the best job of making it truly feel like your story.
Speaker: There are just so many ways you can go about things, so many different things that you can do, so many little details so that it does feel like your thing.
Speaker: There's so many races to choose from.
Speaker: We talked about that, too, like little dialogue options that you only get if you're this sub race or whatever.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It does a great job of making it your story, and I find that really admirable.
Speaker: By the way, did you know that in the game gnomes can't critical fail?
Speaker: They can't critical fail?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: I did not know that.
Speaker: Is that like a fey thing?
Speaker: If they roll a one, they get to just roll again.
Speaker: Oh, well, that's fucking cool.
Speaker: It's like Luck of a Gnomes or something like that.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: I was looking through the character builder and I was like, huh.
Speaker: I mean, I'm not going to play a gnome, but... Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I think what they did that this game does best, I think, and I'm, you know...
Speaker: it does a great job of the evolution of your character.
Speaker: When you first meet like the big bads and everything like that, they seem insurmountable and scary and holy shit, how am I going to beat this guy?
Speaker: And then as your journey, excuse me, continues,
Speaker: at least the way mine did, when I got to them, I was like, I'm ready for you, fucker.
Speaker: And it was challenging, but still, I felt like a hero.
Speaker: I felt like a badass, and they do a good job with that.
Speaker: Beautiful final set piece, great final boss battle kind of situation.
Speaker: Yeah, 75 hours in, and that's just on one...
Speaker: playthrough, I'm sure I'll play it again eventually.
Speaker: Maybe if they've got to do an expansion of this.
Speaker: They haven't started.
Speaker: Or at least they hadn't started when the game was released.
Speaker: They hadn't even begun.
Speaker: I might still be playing it if my level didn't cap out.
Speaker: If I could go higher than level 12, I think I might still be playing it and doing some side quests and stuff like that.
Speaker: But as it stands, I reached a really good ending point, and I've got to move on.
Speaker: And they just released Blasphemous 2.
Speaker: Which I can't start playing until, well, that was the thing.
Speaker: I knew I had to finish this game in the next couple of days because I'm going on vacation for a week with my wife.
Speaker: And I was like, I can't leave town for a week and have this burning waiting.
Speaker: So I'll get Blasmas 2 when I get back and start playing that, I'm sure.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Great game.
Speaker: Really, really good stuff.
Speaker: What about you, Kevin?
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, I've been playing Baldur's Gate 3 still.
Speaker: I have not finished it yet.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I ran into a weird little glitch where...
Speaker: I broke Shadowheart somehow.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: Like, as in a bug, like, if she's, she won't.
Speaker: Yeah, I broke Shadowheart too, if you know what I mean.
Speaker: Even if she's grouped with me, she won't follow.
Speaker: I've had that issue just in general before, where sometimes, like, yeah.
Speaker: Even if I ungroup and regroup her or go to camp and rest or whatever, for some reason, it's like she's just not working.
Speaker: Unless I lead the party with her.
Speaker: So I got to figure that out.
Speaker: Right now in the game, I am...
Speaker: Like, it feels like every time I'm like, well, I could go kill one of the BBEGs.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Or I could do this instead.
Speaker: So, right now, I'm underneath Worms Rock Prison.
Speaker: Okay, yeah.
Speaker: under the prison.
Speaker: And that's all I'll say about it.
Speaker: If you know, you know.
Speaker: Oh, that was a good one.
Speaker: That section is distressing.
Speaker: I fucked up on the chess.
Speaker: Oh, did you?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That was a bummer.
Speaker: Anyway, dragons, huh?
Speaker: Yeah, dragons.
Speaker: Wacky dragons.
Speaker: Super cool dragon.
Speaker: Super cool and nothing weird and twisty about it at all.
Speaker: Nothing at all.
Speaker: So that's where I am.
Speaker: Yeah, you got another solid day of playing and you'll be through it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If you hunker down, which let's face facts, you might not.
Speaker: Yeah, I know.
Speaker: The only reason I finished is because I hunkered down.
Speaker: You hunkered.
Speaker: I have a ticking clock.
Speaker: You're going on vacation.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I'm not allowed to play Baldur's Gate in Charleston.
Speaker: That is just not happening.
Speaker: No, Chucktown banned Baldur's Gate 3, actually, to be quite honest.
Speaker: Once you enter the city limits, you're just not allowed.
Speaker: You have to uninstall it.
Speaker: No mention of baldering in the, you can't go down by the river.
Speaker: Nothing.
Speaker: Nothing.
Speaker: The other thing I've been playing is Blasphemous 2.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: I didn't know you'd been playing it yet.
Speaker: I've been playing it because I can play... It plays great on the Steam Deck.
Speaker: Of course it does.
Speaker: We're just sitting there watching TV at night and I've been playing Blasphemous 2.
Speaker: I have...
Speaker: I'm at one of the bosses, and he keeps handing my ass to me.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So I got to figure out what I'm doing about that.
Speaker: But otherwise, I've somehow already put six hours into the game.
Speaker: Didn't even realize it.
Speaker: I was just like, I'm just going.
Speaker: I'm exploring.
Speaker: I'm Metroidvania-ing.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm already six hours into the game.
Speaker: I don't know how long the game is supposed to be, but...
Speaker: I remember the original, yeah, time really got away from you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Blasphemous 2.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: About 13 hours for the main story.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: An additional seven for the side quest.
Speaker: About 20 hours total.
Speaker: Okay, okay.
Speaker: Yeah, I guess that makes sense because... So the game starts, you pick one of three weapons as your starting weapon.
Speaker: But now it's like you don't know when you're going to get the other two.
Speaker: I've already gotten the... I have all three now.
Speaker: I have the three weapons, and the weapons are what let you into other areas.
Speaker: Okay, okay.
Speaker: So like...
Speaker: I think that's probably why I'm like, I'm probably further along than I think I am because I've already, I haven't, there haven't been a ton of boss encounters.
Speaker: There's been like one boss encounter that I, I, I played and beat.
Speaker: Um, and I know where there's another boss, but I've just been like filling out the map.
Speaker: Otherwise, you know what I mean?
Speaker: Like, so I'm probably, it's probably more like, I'm just, I'm filling out the map and then there's the only thing that's going to be left are the bosses.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, that sounds about right.
Speaker: Yeah, that's absolutely how I've done that.
Speaker: It's the gaming equivalent of getting a Reese's Cup and delicately peeling all the chocolate away before just eating that disc of peanut butter all by itself.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes, yes, I know exactly.
Speaker: Or you have a slice of cake and you eat all the cake and leave the icing.
Speaker: Just mountains of icing.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And then you wad the icing up into a ball and you eat that all at once and you die.
Speaker: Alone in a corner.
Speaker: Alone in a corner.
Speaker: Weeping softly into a cracked mirror.
Speaker: That'll do it for tonight's episode.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Please follow us on the social media.
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Speaker: Hey, slipping into Fonzie here.
Speaker: Um...
Speaker: I like it.
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