Transcript
Speaker: It's worth reading.
Speaker: It's an interesting storyline.
Speaker: I mean, you know, because of Nico's growing ubiquity and other Marvel stuff, you know how it turns out pretty much.
Speaker: Pretty much, yeah.
Speaker: It's worth reading the run.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, worth a read.
Speaker: Why not?
Speaker: You know what else is worth a read?
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome back to Pixlet.
Speaker: My name is Kevin.
Speaker: With me, as always, is Phil.
Speaker: Hello.
Speaker: And today on the show, we're continuing on with Marvel's Midnight Suns, the Infernal Rising.
Speaker: And you know what I just noticed is really sad on the back cover is they called it, because it says to the blockbuster video game, is that Midnight Suns didn't ultimately end up selling very well.
Speaker: Didn't it?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Oh, that's a shame.
Speaker: That is a big shame.
Speaker: I think they kind of assumed them based on kind of assumed that it would.
Speaker: And it didn't.
Speaker: I think probably because there's not a lot of name familiarity with it, with the Midnight Suns.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You can slap Avengers on some bullshit and it'll sell.
Speaker: But Midnight, like, who are the Midnight Suns?
Speaker: I don't get it.
Speaker: And the only reason I knew about it as it was gearing up to be released was the fact that I'm a Firaxis junkie.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like, that was it.
Speaker: I didn't hear much about it.
Speaker: I didn't see a lot of hype for it.
Speaker: And yeah, after it released, I heard a lot of people talking about it, but I didn't.
Speaker: Yeah, like, it's like people were talking about like, oh, yeah, it's like a sneaky game of the year.
Speaker: And it's like, yeah.
Speaker: I think it just never translated to sales necessarily, which is a shame.
Speaker: That's a shame.
Speaker: That is a shame.
Speaker: Because it kind of puts a damper on any hope for a sequel.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, so...
Speaker: Yeah, it was enjoyable while it lasted.
Speaker: And I know there's DLC still on the way.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm sure they got all kinds of good stuff for that.
Speaker: I'll take what I can get.
Speaker: And then people are going to be like, yeah, for access.
Speaker: Now give us XCOM three.
Speaker: See?
Speaker: It'll be basically the same game with a couple of new bells and whistles, but all the exact same bugs from the first and second game will still be unaddressed.
Speaker: And you're going to gobble it up, you idiots.
Speaker: We're like, Fire X is like, how about we try something new with a card battler Marvel game?
Speaker: And they're like, no.
Speaker: And they're like, do you want the same XCOM game rehashed over and over again?
Speaker: And the audiences said, yes.
Speaker: Yes, please.
Speaker: More of that, please.
Speaker: More of that, please.
Speaker: No, I'm sure XCOM 3 will be great whenever they get around to it.
Speaker: As will Civ 7.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Either way, they're getting my money.
Speaker: Who am I kidding?
Speaker: Either way, they're getting our money.
Speaker: Who are we kidding?
Speaker: Who are we to judge?
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: We have no leg to stand on in this fight.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: So we left off chapter five.
Speaker: You're going to take the Fez.
Speaker: We didn't even talk about the Fez.
Speaker: We didn't talk about the Fez.
Speaker: The show just started and you had it on.
Speaker: The gaming Fez.
Speaker: My new gaming Fez.
Speaker: Fez-O-Rama.
Speaker: I am not being paid by them, but I adore them now.
Speaker: It's so soft.
Speaker: It's beautiful velvet.
Speaker: And it fits your head, which is a pretty big feat.
Speaker: I measured my head and found out I'm a 4X, according to them.
Speaker: It's the actual hat size, a 25, and that's mighty big.
Speaker: That is a large, that is a man's head right there.
Speaker: I got a whole lot of noggin.
Speaker: But by God, I sat down, it got mailed to me on my Friday night, which is my gaming night.
Speaker: And I put it on and enjoyed a drink and played some video games wearing my fez.
Speaker: And it was, it's the new ritual now, baby.
Speaker: That's just who I am now.
Speaker: I'm a fez guy.
Speaker: Do you order pizza on Friday too?
Speaker: Is it?
Speaker: I used to.
Speaker: Now I get boneless wings almost every Friday night after I'm done getting hammered.
Speaker: It's not much of a ritual, but it's mine.
Speaker: 99% of the games that I talk about during What Are You Playing are games that I've consumed on a Friday night.
Speaker: So there you go.
Speaker: Consumed alongside Boneless Wings and gin, I assume.
Speaker: Gin and wine.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And when I get and the only breaks I take are after I start getting drinky enough that I wander out into the living room, find my wife and tell her how much I love her because I'm that drunk.
Speaker: I'm the I love you man drunk.
Speaker: So she lives with me, so she can't get away.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: And you just you just you just interrupt her programs, the programs that she's watching.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I interrupt her watching Fleabag for the 19th time.
Speaker: And I just love you so much.
Speaker: I love our life together.
Speaker: She's like, OK, sweetheart, go back and play yourself.
Speaker: Like, OK.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm not sure I could watch Fleabag more than once.
Speaker: It was a lot of, I don't know, something.
Speaker: I liked it.
Speaker: Don't get me wrong.
Speaker: I still haven't seen it.
Speaker: She adores it.
Speaker: It's great.
Speaker: It was a great show.
Speaker: I guess it was two seasons or something like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's just one of those shows with a lot of downer moments.
Speaker: Oh, sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Anyway, chapter five, magic.
Speaker: is in limbo doing some light research to figure out who is part of the triumvirate.
Speaker: And she runs through a list of names.
Speaker: She's like, nah, it can't be this person, can't be this person, can't be this person.
Speaker: And then she's like, Satana Hellstrom.
Speaker: That's an interesting name.
Speaker: Let's let's let's let's figure let's see see what old Satana is doing these days.
Speaker: So she like connects with a demon that is on her friends list that lives in Satana's realm.
Speaker: Literally, it's kind of like the way I mean, you're not that far from it.
Speaker: It's like it's a limbo demon, right?
Speaker: It's like it's a limbo demon that's hanging out in Satan's hell realm.
Speaker: It's one of these moments that it's like I talked about in the last episode how Blade is kind of like the alpha team member, if you will.
Speaker: But the more you look into it, the more you're like magic's kind of OP as shit.
Speaker: Like she's got a whole realm that she's the queen of.
Speaker: Like she's.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And she's like near on God like when she's in limbo itself.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: So she like she connects with a demon and she uses that demon to interview another demon who is hanging out in Satanist throne room.
Speaker: And the other demons like, yes, Satan hasn't been here for like days.
Speaker: I don't know what's going on.
Speaker: They left looking for some Varkath star.
Speaker: No clue.
Speaker: And then the demon like continues partying in Satan's absence and magic was like, oh, well, that sounds like the star we're looking for.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And we may have nailed it.
Speaker: We may have nailed it.
Speaker: Heads back to the Abbey to discuss with Caretaker.
Speaker: Caretaker, meanwhile, is she begins to study books and stuff where where this Varkath star could be.
Speaker: And during this segment, we get a lot of.
Speaker: Backstory and kind of emotional backstory between her and Agatha while she's looking through the books to figure out where it must be in it.
Speaker: Like, ah, it's in Transia.
Speaker: OK, it's in a vault in Transia.
Speaker: Let's do it.
Speaker: Let's let's get going.
Speaker: And the entire team is coming.
Speaker: She's learned her lesson.
Speaker: It's it's let's go full full team.
Speaker: Midnight Suns.
Speaker: Let's do it.
Speaker: Meanwhile, meanwhile, Zarathos is impatient and wants to find the amulet, which is the Varkath star thing that we referenced earlier.
Speaker: You mean our Chad demon is impatient and ready to go and get his fuck on?
Speaker: That's crazy.
Speaker: That's madness.
Speaker: The chattest of Chad demons ever.
Speaker: uh, Zarathos, uh, he doesn't, he, to be fair, he does not want to get his fuck on.
Speaker: Uh, no, that's true.
Speaker: He makes a point of saying he doesn't like sex anymore.
Speaker: He's like, he's given up sex because it's a waste of time.
Speaker: Um, I mean, it doesn't, he doesn't sound too far off from that type.
Speaker: I think, you know, the type, I mean, he's right.
Speaker: He'll be investing in cryptocurrency.
Speaker: He'll be investing in cryptocurrency, uh, very soon.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: So he's like, come on, let's go.
Speaker: We got to do it.
Speaker: And Satan is like, all right, fine.
Speaker: You big, dumb idiot.
Speaker: And so when they get there, Fen is using like his stuff to kind of try to like hide them or whatever.
Speaker: And Zarathos is...
Speaker: And they get there and Zarathus is like not strong enough to really do anything.
Speaker: And he goes to Satan is like, I just need a little bit of your strength.
Speaker: And Satan is like she like opens up just like the tiniest like thimble of like hell energy to him.
Speaker: And he gets all like.
Speaker: like buff and ready to rock.
Speaker: And then he notices that the Midnight Suns are not that far away from them.
Speaker: And he casts this little spell on Robbie to split Robbie from the spirit of vengeance.
Speaker: So the spirit of vengeance is kind of like what...
Speaker: Plus Spirit of Vengeance plus a person is what makes a ghost rider like they do the fusion dance.
Speaker: And that's you got to have the two parts to have a ghost rider.
Speaker: Spirit of Vengeance on its own is just kind of like a wild force of, well, vengeance, so to speak.
Speaker: He's a guilt machine, basically.
Speaker: Yeah, he's a guilt machine.
Speaker: He's Catholic, you know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's a Catholic guilt machine.
Speaker: Like that's just, and that's, and that's what he does.
Speaker: He like, it was such, it was such, cause I didn't know that that was really interesting lore.
Speaker: They drop in here where it's just like when separated from the host, it does, it's completely on, uh, uh, it has no interest in who you are, why, uh, it should fight.
Speaker: It's anybody is fair game.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: For trying to get retribution of some kind.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It throws every little thing you ever did in your face.
Speaker: So we're in chapter six now and the untethered spirit of vengeance does a group penance stare for each of the Midnight Suns.
Speaker: Uh, Phil, do you know what the penance stare of Ghost Rider of Ghost Rider's parrot powers?
Speaker: Do you know what the penance stare is?
Speaker: It's like an area of effect attack, basically.
Speaker: I mean, it's it's we get a whole chapter, basically, of him forcing them to relive moments where they've hurt people or let people down or otherwise just dropped the ball so that they are just eating themselves alive with guilt.
Speaker: Basically, the idea is it's an AOE attack, first and foremost, to put it in gamer terms.
Speaker: And he basically...
Speaker: forces everyone in the general vicinity to relive any moment in their lives where they hurt someone or betrayed someone.
Speaker: It just basically throws in your face all of your failures and kind of cripples you with guilt and doubt.
Speaker: And it's very effective.
Speaker: It's a very
Speaker: Super effective.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's super effective.
Speaker: So one by one, the book goes through each person's their worst moment, basically.
Speaker: So we have a moment that happened like a decade ago where Blade was in his like hunger, full Bram Stoker, Dracula vampire mode.
Speaker: And he kills a worker in a subway.
Speaker: And the story, it goes through this entire, like...
Speaker: story about how the guy was, you know, he had a family and the guilt rippling out from this guy's death, how it affected so many other people.
Speaker: And Blade feels it all.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like the pain of everybody missing him, the pain of the guy's death, the pain of what he could become.
Speaker: That was like the future that was ripped away from him.
Speaker: Like every...
Speaker: aspect of this guy's and this is just like one this is just one guy that blade kills oh yeah that he remembers and and you know there are more there are more you know there are more but it the the weight of it um
Speaker: You're going to carry that weight.
Speaker: Oh, boy, you're going to carry that weight.
Speaker: We go over to Magic and she has to reflect on the time that she genocided Limbo.
Speaker: Yeah, which fair.
Speaker: Fair.
Speaker: Fair.
Speaker: Maybe a little bit of guilt is due in a moment like that.
Speaker: It was a mission when she was part of the X-Men, and she was trying to save some people, and she absorbs all of Limbo's power, which included every single blade of grass, every single being, innocent,
Speaker: or not that lived in limbo.
Speaker: She absorbed their essence basically.
Speaker: And I was like, holy shit.
Speaker: Magic.
Speaker: That's a lot.
Speaker: That's, that's a lot.
Speaker: You didn't think that anyone was going to make blade seem like tame by comparison in terms of sheer murder kill.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: I don't.
Speaker: And here's the thing.
Speaker: I'm not exactly.
Speaker: I'm not 100% sure what X-Men storyline that's referencing, because it feels like a lot of times these things are referencing like a specific like she became a bad guy briefly.
Speaker: And I don't know.
Speaker: Demon child.
Speaker: Demon child.
Speaker: Yeah, I wouldn't.
Speaker: I think that's what it is.
Speaker: But it has probably had something to do with that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then we have Nico, whose guiltiest moments are she made people feel bad.
Speaker: The most emo.
Speaker: I'm whiny and petulant.
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: People don't like me.
Speaker: It's like I kill billions of people in a flash of light.
Speaker: It's like, oh, I'm kind of passive aggressive sometimes.
Speaker: It really does feel a little like when the potential boss asks you, like, what are your faults?
Speaker: What are your flaws?
Speaker: And you go, sometimes I care too much.
Speaker: Yeah, that Nico gives the sometimes I care too much answer to the spirit of vengeance on the pen and stare.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then it cuts over to Caretaker and she's like racked with the guilt of basically all of the her like fellow soldiers in from the Abbey and all that dying around her falling and all that stuff.
Speaker: And then Caretaker's like, wait a minute, I don't feel guilty at all.
Speaker: And she snaps out of it.
Speaker: Literally, that's pretty much what happened.
Speaker: She'd be the one.
Speaker: She'd be the one for that.
Speaker: She's like, oh, that's stupid.
Speaker: Guilt's for stupid people.
Speaker: Fuck it.
Speaker: She just negs herself out of guilt and just you friggin idiot.
Speaker: Don't be you.
Speaker: Only morons are guilty and just gets out of it.
Speaker: So she gets out of it and she casts a spell and is able to fix, like fuse the spirit of vengeance back to Robby.
Speaker: So we're in chapter seven now and Zarathos and company jump into the pit where the vault is and they use just like so much magic.
Speaker: They use so much magic.
Speaker: They're trying to open this thing.
Speaker: It is not opening and Zarathos just gets so tuckered out.
Speaker: Yeah, it's like he's like magic, the magic equivalent of like just kicking the car as hard as you can to get it to start.
Speaker: Basically, at one point, Satan is talking is it's so the chapter is told or told from Satan's point of view.
Speaker: And she's like watching him like dig.
Speaker: And she is she's like he could have just used a spell to clear all this away.
Speaker: He's like flexing his biceps.
Speaker: He's like moving big rocks with his arms and flexing and just looks like an idiot.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I love it every time it's from Satan's point of view.
Speaker: She's like, oh, this guy is just the worst.
Speaker: It's it's I adore how she's written Satana and every time it's her point of view, the whole book brightens, which is really weird and rare for your main villain.
Speaker: That that the total attitude of the book shifts to this level of like just kind of fun frivolity almost.
Speaker: Yeah, that's our bad guy.
Speaker: That's hilarious to me.
Speaker: I can't I can't think of any other examples of that happening.
Speaker: She's the best.
Speaker: She's great.
Speaker: I adore her.
Speaker: She's my favorite character.
Speaker: I mean, she's killed so many people so far.
Speaker: So many.
Speaker: She's tormented so many.
Speaker: But so is magic and we're supposed to pull for her.
Speaker: So fuck it.
Speaker: I mean, come on.
Speaker: Fuck it.
Speaker: You know, whatever, whatever, whatever, man.
Speaker: So and then Satana realizes that outside caretaker has cast like basically a gigantic spell that would just absolutely wreck their shit if they get caught up in it.
Speaker: So Satana is like, all right, good, good try, buddy.
Speaker: Good effort.
Speaker: And she portal portals them back back out of the out of the vault area.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The Midnight Suns then drop into the pit and they begin investigating the vault and they realize that it's closed.
Speaker: Basically, it's what amounts to a magic timer.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It's not going to open before it's time.
Speaker: And there's literally nothing that anyone can really do right now.
Speaker: You can't force it open, basically.
Speaker: You can't force it open.
Speaker: There's no forcing it open.
Speaker: It's supposed to open like...
Speaker: on the alignment or something like that.
Speaker: You can't do anything.
Speaker: So they head back to the Abbey and they begin to decompress from the mission and they're going to head out on another one.
Speaker: Yeah, pretty quickly.
Speaker: Pretty quickly.
Speaker: This is like pretty much the same day.
Speaker: I want to point out that the only person who does anything after the pen and stare moments is Nico.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Who apologizes to Blade for how she can sometimes be a whiny brat.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And Blade's like, what the fuck ever, man.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I'm going to be honest with you.
Speaker: It's kind of like there is a level of, you know, those of us who suffer from anxiety, there is a level of that old, this notion you read all the time about the funny thing about having terrible self-esteem or anxiety is that there can often be a level of narcissism attached to it inadvertently.
Speaker: where you basically have to, you have to think that people are thinking about you all the time, uh, for your anxieties to be true.
Speaker: And it's one of the ironies of anxiety and it's, it's, I I've got to imagine in a world where you're literally fighting against unholy demons on a daily basis.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: It's got to be extra surreal for someone to come up and go, sorry if I was being a little passive aggressive to you earlier.
Speaker: It's like, motherfucker, we were just killing a four-headed snake demon.
Speaker: I don't.
Speaker: I wasn't thinking about that.
Speaker: I wasn't thinking about that.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So, yeah, I just wanted to point that out because that's hilarious.
Speaker: Oh, absolutely.
Speaker: So they start looking for where the Triumvirate might be hiding.
Speaker: And they're looking at, they're using the mirror mirror.
Speaker: The mirror map, which if you played Midnight Suns, it's basically the it's your mission select terminal.
Speaker: Pretty much.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So they're they're using the mirror map to find like voids in negative energy.
Speaker: Like this is where negative energy is flowing and they're trying to find a gap in it because that would.
Speaker: show a like one of Fenn's generators.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Fenn being the human dude that's kind of kicked off this entire thing.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So by the way, side note, who do you think Fenn actually is?
Speaker: I have a theory.
Speaker: Fenn's got to be that one scientist that we deal with a lot in the very first missions.
Speaker: You're talking about like Dr. Faustus.
Speaker: Faustus.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Fenn's got to be Faustus, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's how I've been seeing it in my head.
Speaker: I've been assuming that Fenn is Dr. Faustus.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And we'll get to a point later here where we haven't gotten there yet, but that kind of gives a little more evidence to that.
Speaker: But yeah, I've been picturing that dude in my head just kind of automatically without even really thinking about it too much.
Speaker: So I think that might have something to do with it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay, good.
Speaker: I'm not the only one who is like, yeah.
Speaker: No, no, I'm with you 100% on that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, without question.
Speaker: So I guess spoilers for the book, but, you know, we're just putting it together from what we've played of the game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If it is spoilers for the book, it could be just like some.
Speaker: Yeah, we could be we could be completely off base.
Speaker: Completely off base.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah, they begin looking for where the triumvirate might be.
Speaker: And they, you know, Nico and the caretaker are doing their zoom in and enhance.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: The mirror table.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Until they get to a point where they get they figure out like a street and then Robbie is able to figure it all out by using the by asking Siri pretty much.
Speaker: Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker: Go Robbie.
Speaker: Good old Robbie.
Speaker: You know, cutting straight to the heart of the matter.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's a practical kid, that Robbie.
Speaker: Practical kid.
Speaker: You know, he's had to take care of his younger brother.
Speaker: He knows how to build a car.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I like Robbie.
Speaker: I like Robbie too.
Speaker: He's fun.
Speaker: So they arrive in a cul-de-sac near the house that they think is where the base is.
Speaker: And there's just a whole bunch of stealthy stuff that they do.
Speaker: They're stealthing around.
Speaker: It is a stealth mission.
Speaker: It is a snake.
Speaker: It is a sneaking mission.
Speaker: It's a sneaking mission.
Speaker: And meanwhile, Blade's like, caretaker.
Speaker: I'm never going to get tired of it.
Speaker: Caretaker.
Speaker: I'm trying to sneak around, but I'm dummy thick and the clap of my ass cheeks is alerting Hydra.
Speaker: I'm going to keep doing it.
Speaker: so they're um they they uh continue stealthing around and they and blade is like all right i'm going in and he goes in and god damn it it's not just another soulless dude um and another goddamn bomb like what this is the second time they've they've fallen for this but yeah yeah yeah
Speaker: You're like, guys, you're the Midnight Suns.
Speaker: I know you're not an A-league team, but come on.
Speaker: You're not the A-listers, guys.
Speaker: We know that.
Speaker: But you can do better than this.
Speaker: You can do better than this.
Speaker: So they're like, oh, shit, a bomb.
Speaker: And we cut to a van nearby.
Speaker: And Fen gets a notification that the Suns are at the house and sets off the bomb.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And we also learned that he is funding the entire operation.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's drained his life savings to get this going.
Speaker: And also Zarathos is like sleeping it off.
Speaker: He's tuckered out.
Speaker: But big guy's tuckered out.
Speaker: He's literally, you have this unbelievably powerful demon lord sleeping it off in your shitty twin bed in the suburbs.
Speaker: That's literally what's going on here in
Speaker: It's so surreal.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Meanwhile, the explosion does not luckily does not kill the suns because Nico uses a slow spell to freeze the explosion.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: But it's funny to notice, like, the guy, the soulless guy who's in there is getting, like, ripped up with shrapnel.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: And the slow spell only slows down inorganic material.
Speaker: So, like, this dude is, like, his blood is just, like, pouring out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: While like slow motion shrapnel shreds him up.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: They, they really do.
Speaker: We talked about this last time, but they really do take the whole, well, they're soulless.
Speaker: So they're not real people like to an extreme extent.
Speaker: Sometimes like, don't worry about it.
Speaker: I know it's a particularly gruesome death, but don't worry about it.
Speaker: They're not really human anymore.
Speaker: So they're not human anymore.
Speaker: They lost their soul.
Speaker: So whatever.
Speaker: Try not to think about it.
Speaker: You're fine.
Speaker: It's fine.
Speaker: It's fine.
Speaker: It's fine.
Speaker: They're like one step above robots.
Speaker: Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker: Pretty much.
Speaker: They're just slutty male robots is what it comes down to.
Speaker: Very slutty male robots.
Speaker: That's the other thing that the solos all have in common is because Satana is finding them.
Speaker: They're all hot.
Speaker: They're just all hot, stupid himbos.
Speaker: That's all it is.
Speaker: It's this army of himbos.
Speaker: It's an army of himbos.
Speaker: I kind of love it.
Speaker: I kind of love it.
Speaker: It's hilarious.
Speaker: There's an entire conversation.
Speaker: I forgot to put it in my notes.
Speaker: It's an internal monologue or conversation where Satana is talking about how she hasn't been to Earth, hadn't been to Earth in a while, and now she can just get people delivered to her.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like these dating apps are the best.
Speaker: I can just get people delivered to me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They're basically using a dating app as like Uber Eats or something like that.
Speaker: Just imagine Satana.
Speaker: In any scene that she is not like the primary person, just imagine her in the background, like taking selfies for like...
Speaker: It's fantastic.
Speaker: On one of those dating apps and just like, you know, posing and whatever.
Speaker: And man, that's that's just lovely.
Speaker: That's I love it.
Speaker: I really do.
Speaker: Because, you know.
Speaker: with playing the game of Midnight Suns, the stakes are crazy high.
Speaker: You're dealing with this, you know, godlike dark presence.
Speaker: And so how are you going to prequel that properly, especially when the presence doesn't show up until the beginning of the game?
Speaker: You know, it's like, how do you, how do you The Hobbit this?
Speaker: And S.D.
Speaker: Perry said, well,
Speaker: The stakes don't have to be enormous.
Speaker: It's just, it's a couple of idiot demons.
Speaker: They're trouble, but let's just have some fun with it.
Speaker: I frigging love it.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I love the route that she went with it.
Speaker: So, uh...
Speaker: That was that was just an aside.
Speaker: So they she and the other note that I thought was really cool was that she had to cast it in Croatian because the staff of one doesn't let her repeat spells.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which is like she can do whatever she wants with the staff of one.
Speaker: That's like the power of the staff of one.
Speaker: But she can't repeat a spell.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's amazing.
Speaker: That's a great piece of lore.
Speaker: I loved that piece of lore.
Speaker: That's a lot of fun.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: In a later chapter, she's going to cast a spell in Maori.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Because like a protection spell because...
Speaker: she has a whole list of things like utilities that she's memorized, utility spells that she's memorized, uh, in a bunch of different languages so that she can, she can cast them.
Speaker: Um, great.
Speaker: So, uh, chapter nine, uh, they're back.
Speaker: The Abby, uh, uh, caretaker is trying to figure out the vault.
Speaker: Um, and blade has worked out, uh, kind of like a, uh, who owned the hat, like, uh,
Speaker: What the next step?
Speaker: Who owned this house?
Speaker: Where can we go from here?
Speaker: Meanwhile, back at the at the even shittier apartments that they are now living in, Zarathust wakes up to Satana basically forcing a soulless onto him to eat.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then they do a full roster breakdown of the Midnight Suns and all that.
Speaker: And Satana is like has has a few soulless toss the dead body.
Speaker: And there's a room filled with dead bodies.
Speaker: Just corpses.
Speaker: Yeah, put them in the corpse room.
Speaker: Put them in the, yeah.
Speaker: Every house is good.
Speaker: That's when they're looking for real estate.
Speaker: That's the important thing.
Speaker: Man, I got to tell you, me and my wife knew that we'd reached like some level of middle class comfort when we found a place that we could afford that had a corpse room.
Speaker: It was really nice to finally be able to have our own.
Speaker: I really liked it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's it's important to have your own corpse room for the it's a it's a peace of mind.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, it used to be that, you know, minimum wage job would could afford you a house or the corpse room.
Speaker: But those days are long gone.
Speaker: Long gone.
Speaker: Long gone.
Speaker: A corpse room and, you know, all the Big Macs you could want, you know.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Have you ever seen that?
Speaker: The Big Mac Index?
Speaker: How many Big Macs?
Speaker: How many Big Macs you can buy with a minimum wage?
Speaker: I haven't.
Speaker: I have.
Speaker: I haven't thought of that in forever.
Speaker: Back in the 70s, it was like, you could get six Big Macs.
Speaker: And now it's like...
Speaker: Part of one.
Speaker: Good Lord.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Great news.
Speaker: So, uh, big Mac index and corpse room index.
Speaker: Those are the two things.
Speaker: That's the, yeah, that's, I think that's the one people really care about.
Speaker: If I'm being honest, exclusively going to discuss economics, uh, with, you know, so yeah.
Speaker: Um, anyway, anyway, um,
Speaker: Hold on.
Speaker: I might have a burp.
Speaker: Hold on.
Speaker: Let it out.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: There it is.
Speaker: You feel better?
Speaker: I feel better.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: I burped myself.
Speaker: You burped yourself.
Speaker: Just a little tap, tap, tap.
Speaker: A little tap, tap, tap.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So the Blade has figured out a warehouse, a storage room that that the John Doe who owned the house also owned a rental unit, a storage storage unit.
Speaker: So they go there and Robbie uses his charm on the guy and says, yeah, my Uncle Max owns it.
Speaker: And the guy's like, yeah, sure.
Speaker: Whatever, kid.
Speaker: Uh huh.
Speaker: Gives him the key.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Whatever, dude.
Speaker: Whatever, dude.
Speaker: Not my business.
Speaker: Not my business.
Speaker: Not my problem.
Speaker: Not my month.
Speaker: He's not my circus.
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: This is not my floor.
Speaker: So they they start going through the rental unit and it seems like it's just all trash.
Speaker: And then they find a duffel bag with a Hydra logo on it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So apparently Hydra and NPR work together at some point.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like what donation level did you get the Hydra bag?
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: And...
Speaker: That's the thing is like Blade talks about how like, here's one of the things I absolutely hate that they've kind of like retconned into Hydra history and like Hydra lore over the years is that Hydra is an organization that's been around since the dawn of time.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And I'm like, come on, guys.
Speaker: I like I want my I want Hydra to just be fucking Nazis.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Just just they're just Nazis.
Speaker: Like we don't need to like separate them from the Nazis.
Speaker: They are just an offshoot of the Nazis, which they did in like the in the MCU.
Speaker: They were just the fucking Nazis, like a unit of Nazis.
Speaker: It's totally it's totally understandable that you don't want to draw swastikas in your comic book, even if they're the bad guys.
Speaker: You want to give it a coat of some sort of evil paint for.
Speaker: Fine.
Speaker: That's fine.
Speaker: But, uh, but let's, let's be real here.
Speaker: Uh, I, I, yeah, I don't really buy the whole, uh, you know, you ever see the movie 2001.
Speaker: Well, that ape that hits the other ape, uh, with the femur, uh, that's the first member of Hydra.
Speaker: He was the very first Hydra.
Speaker: I don't, I don't know if I think that's, and, and, and by the way, isn't this like a secret society?
Speaker: Like, why are they, why do they have duffel bags with their goddamn logo on it?
Speaker: Why do they have a logo?
Speaker: God sakes, you idiots.
Speaker: Don't put it.
Speaker: That's like, like, unless you found out that it was some like edge Lord kid who was like, yeah, I'm part of Hydra.
Speaker: And he made it himself or something.
Speaker: And that's the thing is like blade who is not even like Hydra doesn't figure into, uh, blades like, uh, uh, uh, gallery of, of villains.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: at all.
Speaker: No, not really.
Speaker: 0% Hydra in there.
Speaker: And he's like all up on knowledge of what Hydra is.
Speaker: they did that just because he's the oldest guy there he's the oldest guy there and he does also say like i should probably like i should probably reach out to captain america about this yeah yeah yeah he doesn't try to make it like i know more than that fucking boy scout yeah yeah cap cap knows all about hydra um so he should like maybe i should reach out to cap um and suddenly it seems like xarathos is right there what
Speaker: And Blade and Robby begin attacking and beating the absolute shit out of him.
Speaker: Just wrecking him.
Speaker: Except it's not Zarathos.
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: It's definitely not Zarathos.
Speaker: It's magic.
Speaker: And there was a glamour trap in the storage unit that made magic look like Zarathos.
Speaker: And they take her back to the Abbey and she is really fucked up.
Speaker: She's rightfully pissed off.
Speaker: She's a little annoyed.
Speaker: Just a little annoyed.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: A little bit.
Speaker: Luckily, the trip through Limbo mostly heals her, but they really tore into her.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And yeah, that's we're in chapter 10 now.
Speaker: Nico and caretaker are working on a spell that can possibly open the vault.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It'll like speed up the process.
Speaker: It'll speed up the process.
Speaker: It's called like an unspell or something like that.
Speaker: It's it's
Speaker: You need it requires light magic and all that stuff.
Speaker: And they the team comes back and they they talk about the glamour that caused it.
Speaker: And they're like, yeah, it's probably Satana.
Speaker: You know, the one who does all the fucking glamouring.
Speaker: And caretaker makes an announcement, said, all right, sons are always traveling together from now on.
Speaker: Everybody is together to make it safer for all of you.
Speaker: And that we're heading to Transia after lunch.
Speaker: Grab some of that chicken salad we made yesterday.
Speaker: I made a lovely chicken salad.
Speaker: Robbie brought pitta and we're going to have that.
Speaker: Don't go too hard on it, though.
Speaker: We don't want you to get a bellyache when we're fighting the forces of Satan.
Speaker: You want to avoid some gassiness, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's the forces of Satana.
Speaker: Satana, right.
Speaker: You're right.
Speaker: No way.
Speaker: You don't want to be hit with flaming chains and worrying that your friends are going to think that you're an evil demon god and start beating the shit out of you and be bloated.
Speaker: It's just not fun.
Speaker: Our jobs are already so hard as it is.
Speaker: And, you know, I put caretakers, like, I put out some of those sugar-free chocolates, one, maybe two, but if you eat any more, you're going to shit your pants.
Speaker: Yeah, it's just go light on that stuff, man.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Seriously, if anyone's listening, go light on the sugar-free candy.
Speaker: On the sugar-free candy.
Speaker: For the love of God.
Speaker: It will make you shit your pants.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: I had a real touch and go couple of weeks there when I was diagnosed with diabetes and had to start figuring my diet out a little bit more.
Speaker: And boy, howdy, that sugar-free candy will throw you for a loop, my friends.
Speaker: You're like, oh, my God, it tastes really good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Why doesn't everybody just eat the sugar free stuff?
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: That's the worst part about it, because I do have I get awful cravings for candy.
Speaker: And and I don't I don't mean like I need a piece of candy.
Speaker: I mean, like I need to eat a bag of Sour Patch Kids.
Speaker: And and that is that is no go.
Speaker: with diabetes and it's no go with the sugar free candy for completely different reasons.
Speaker: So you've got to watch that.
Speaker: You've got to watch it, you know.
Speaker: But if you're if you're OK with, you know, occasionally poop in your pants, that's fine.
Speaker: Which I think I think at a certain age, we have a certain age.
Speaker: You got to have to make peace with that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You have to make peace with that.
Speaker: It's going to happen.
Speaker: What was that?
Speaker: There was that clip of the baseball player, the former baseball player from the Kansas City Royals.
Speaker: Oh, right.
Speaker: He's talking about like how he's good.
Speaker: And he's like, yeah, I'm good.
Speaker: I'm good for once, twice a year.
Speaker: Shit in my pants.
Speaker: Shit in my pants.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I just, I just love, I just love the, the casual, like, I respect it.
Speaker: I think more than anything else where it's just like, no, he knows what he's about.
Speaker: He doesn't give a shit.
Speaker: He knows what he's about.
Speaker: But I also suspect that he might think that this is a more common thing than it actually is.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh,
Speaker: Yeah, it happens.
Speaker: I'm not going to judge.
Speaker: I'm just not.
Speaker: I'm not going to get into details here, but I'm also not going to judge.
Speaker: No judgment.
Speaker: No judgment, no details.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: That is a long-standing pixel-lit tradition.
Speaker: No judgment, no details.
Speaker: So after they all eat lunch and probably poop, you know, they haven't pooped in a while.
Speaker: They haven't, have they?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, we haven't.
Speaker: We haven't.
Speaker: SD Perry really light on bowel movement discussion.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She sticks to the important details.
Speaker: I respect it.
Speaker: Important details.
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: They arrive in Transia.
Speaker: Robbie and Magic are on guard duty while Blade is going to stay with Caretaker and Nico so they can do the spell.
Speaker: Fen, meanwhile, Fen tells Satana that the Suns are at the vaults.
Speaker: And Zarathos, the big lug, is not ready to go back out.
Speaker: He's still asleep.
Speaker: So they're going to go without him.
Speaker: And Satana gets there and she sees Robbie and she's like, all right, I think I know what to do.
Speaker: And she like appears in front of him as like a really hot woman.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: AKA herself.
Speaker: And, and then gets close to him and stabs him in the gut with like stabs him.
Speaker: Just a big old dagger.
Speaker: Just right, right in the stomach.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I love it because at this point she like, she kind of, she's just like, no, I think I know just the thing.
Speaker: I think I understand Rob's weakness.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Stab him in the stomach.
Speaker: Like it's just right in the stomach.
Speaker: I'm waiting for some plan, some diabolical scheme.
Speaker: She's like building it up as if it's going to be something really clever.
Speaker: And then she just stabs him in the stomach and leaves.
Speaker: I don't, I don't think you understand.
Speaker: I'm going to stab him in the stomach.
Speaker: really hard.
Speaker: So I think I think it's a there's a distinct viewpoint on this plan here.
Speaker: Yeah, I think it's a good plan.
Speaker: It's a good plan.
Speaker: The proof is in the pudding.
Speaker: The proof is in the pudding.
Speaker: And she like goes.
Speaker: Hey, I'm going to be honest.
Speaker: She goes and she executes the hell out of it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She, you know what it was?
Speaker: It is a, it's a simple plan.
Speaker: Well executed.
Speaker: You've got to give her full credit for that.
Speaker: She goes right up to him, stabs him and then fucking leaves.
Speaker: The whole thing probably took three minutes tops.
Speaker: And like, so, you know, Robbie's like, I don't, I don't feel anything.
Speaker: Except he's losing so much blood.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, Robbie, buddy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They make a point of saying like the, the, the spirit of vengeance keeps him from feeling the pain, but he definitely feels some sloshing around in there.
Speaker: That ain't normal.
Speaker: It's like, it's like my, my stomach is, is, is moving.
Speaker: There's organs moving.
Speaker: They shouldn't, they shouldn't be moving.
Speaker: They should probably hold still.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's a thing, right?
Speaker: Cause they've always held still up until now.
Speaker: Up until now they've been in one place and now they're,
Speaker: in more than one place.
Speaker: And I feel like that's not a coincidence based on what just happened to me.
Speaker: Yeah, I think they're related.
Speaker: Yeah, I can't help but feel that they might be related.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So Blade jumps up after Magic calls for help with Robbie's having the literal shit stabbed out of him.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And Blades like, oh, fuck.
Speaker: Robbie's in real bad shape.
Speaker: They go down.
Speaker: The spell is done.
Speaker: And Caretaker's like, oh, no, we're done the spell.
Speaker: We can go.
Speaker: And they're like, what?
Speaker: It's not open.
Speaker: And they're like, yeah, well, it's not open yet.
Speaker: I mean, we just moved it up a few cycles.
Speaker: They're very matter of fact about it.
Speaker: They're like, look, they can't open it.
Speaker: We'll be fine.
Speaker: We'll be fine.
Speaker: Let's get back to the Abbey and take care of this.
Speaker: Robbie's in real bad state.
Speaker: The phrase distended, Robbie's stomach is now distended.
Speaker: It's a real bummer of a word.
Speaker: It's a real bummer of a word.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah, they leave to help Robbie.
Speaker: And that's where we end it on that cliffhanger.
Speaker: That is a good note to end it on.
Speaker: Good slash awful.
Speaker: But yeah.
Speaker: Horrifying note of Robbie, you know, having to being gutted, disemboweled by.
Speaker: Yeah, by.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: By Satana.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Hurry.
Speaker: her master stroke, her, her, my deeply thought out plan, a smash him with a hammer.
Speaker: Just, yeah.
Speaker: She's like, she's like so many other villains just overthink shit.
Speaker: And, and, and Satan is like, Hey, look, boobs.
Speaker: And then stabbed him in the stomach.
Speaker: I mean, you know what?
Speaker: The classics never go out of style.
Speaker: It just, it,
Speaker: If it works, it works.
Speaker: So yeah, I'm still team Satana.
Speaker: Still team Satana.
Speaker: I hope they come out with DLC where she comes to the good side and I get to play with her.
Speaker: Man, poor choice of words.
Speaker: Poor choice of words.
Speaker: Or?
Speaker: Or?
Speaker: Or?
Speaker: Or I once I said to a friend of the show, Jesse Gratia, the other day that the thing that makes Midnight Suns so appealing is like I'm basically I'm like playing with my action figures and forcing them to kiss.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Pretty much.
Speaker: That's pretty much the... I'm just like putting two action figures together and then they kiss.
Speaker: And then they kiss.
Speaker: So yeah, that's one of the appeals of Midnight Suns.
Speaker: I mean, the wonderful gameplay design is the main appeal, but otherwise, you know, it's fine.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm enjoying it.
Speaker: So, uh, you enjoying the book so far, Phil?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I mean, S.T.
Speaker: Perry, she's just head and shoulders, uh, someone I always look forward to reading.
Speaker: Uh, it's so funny to think about the fact that she was an author.
Speaker: She and her father were authors that I read all the time, uh, when I was a kid.
Speaker: And now, uh,
Speaker: years later on this show, I get to revisit not just stuff she wrote years ago, but new stuff and still have a delight in what she does.
Speaker: It's one of those rare instances of revisiting pieces of art that you loved as a kid and going, nope, this is still pretty goddamn good.
Speaker: That doesn't happen often, so I'm thrilled.
Speaker: I'm not going to look that gift horse in the mouth.
Speaker: And in case you were wondering, the number of years that Phil covered up there is 30.
Speaker: 30 years.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it's 30.
Speaker: Give or take.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, when I was a kid, I would always wonder, like, I wonder what it's going to be like when I can say that something happened 20 years ago and it be in my lifetime.
Speaker: Like something like that thought crossed my head more than once as a kid.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Now I can say things happened 30 years ago and I don't like that.
Speaker: I don't care for it.
Speaker: I'm extra put off by just as you say, you know, it's like
Speaker: I'm 40 now.
Speaker: And it's like, well, what, you know, if, if, uh, okay.
Speaker: So look, the first alien versus predator novelization by Steve and Stephanie Perry, uh, who is our SD Perry now, uh, came out in 1994.
Speaker: So next year it will be, it'll be, uh, uh, 30 years old.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, and, uh, is that right?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Next year is 2024.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: 30 years old.
Speaker: So, uh, so yeah, about, uh, uh, 10, uh, you nailed it.
Speaker: Actually, you nailed it.
Speaker: Um, you kind of nailed it.
Speaker: Uh, so, so you, you ask 10 year old Phil, like, what do you, what do you think you're going to be doing?
Speaker: What kind of books do you think you're going to be reading when you're, when you're 40 years old?
Speaker: It's like, uh, probably the same stuff.
Speaker: Uh,
Speaker: By the same author.
Speaker: By the same author, but we'll be friends on Twitter.
Speaker: What's Twitter?
Speaker: Never mind.
Speaker: Don't worry about it.
Speaker: Don't think about it too hard.
Speaker: We got to break down her aversion to being on podcasts.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: I wish we could get her on the show.
Speaker: I'm going to revisit that.
Speaker: We've actually gotten to the point where we're just liking each other's posts that have nothing to do with anything.
Speaker: That's sweet.
Speaker: It's kind of
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Like, isn't that like the whole point of social media?
Speaker: You're like getting in contact with these people that you like so damn much and it's neat.
Speaker: It's really neat.
Speaker: Uh, so yeah, I'm, I'm, uh, I'm going to, I'm going to have to write her again and just be like, Hey,
Speaker: When we first brought it up, it was like, oh, God.
Speaker: It was a year and a half ago.
Speaker: It was a year and a half ago.
Speaker: And we're still doing this.
Speaker: It was a brand new series.
Speaker: We hadn't even released the show at that point.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: We were just top-loading stuff.
Speaker: And at this point, you figure it's like, okay, well, come on.
Speaker: We've done it.
Speaker: We're normal with very generous quotation marks.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Quotation marks that have had plastic surgery several times, you know, around that.
Speaker: But I don't know.
Speaker: I think it's worth asking her again.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She wasn't unfriendly to the idea.
Speaker: She's just not a huge fan.
Speaker: So we'll give it another shot.
Speaker: We'll ask very nicely.
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So that wraps up the book segment for tonight.
Speaker: I got to ask Phil then, what are you playing?
Speaker: Oh, I'm glad you asked because I got to the halfway point with Midnight Suns with the video game.
Speaker: I got to part two.
Speaker: which is the halfway point.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I looked it up.
Speaker: I thought, so I I'm enjoying it.
Speaker: It is a little exhausting in a way it is.
Speaker: It can be, it's, it makes me think of persona five, which was the only persona game I ever played by adored it.
Speaker: Um, um,
Speaker: But there was always, it gets to a point where there's always something to do to the point like Civ, like the whole one more turn thing where you're just like, I have to break away from this or I'm just going to keep, I'm going to find constant reasons to keep playing this.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And oh my God, I'm 50.
Speaker: And it's going to be tough.
Speaker: So I, I, I'm getting back to it, but I took a little break.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: After that.
Speaker: And I started playing Signalis.
Speaker: Oh, OK.
Speaker: And I got to tell you something.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: We've talked about the games of the year thing.
Speaker: And every time we've done this, there was always there was always at least two games that I start playing after we've chosen our games of the year that I know for a fact I would have put on my top 10 list if I had played them.
Speaker: Marvel's Midnight Suns.
Speaker: Yes, absolutely.
Speaker: That would have been in my top 10.
Speaker: Yeah, that would have been my top 10, you know, in the lower five, probably.
Speaker: I think Signalis might have been my number three.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: If it continues the way that it's going, I've played it for, I've got about two, almost three hours of it in.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I love this game so much.
Speaker: Everything about it, it's surprising to me because I, I honest to God think that I, I had been, I had just all kinds of people that I know who have played it, who have described it.
Speaker: And I was like, this does sound like my kind of thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm not an anime guy.
Speaker: And so the anime aesthetic is,
Speaker: May have been something that kept me from just booting it up immediately.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Based on the recommendations I've had.
Speaker: And I regret that so much because it is just everything you love about the first three Resident Evil games combined with just a little...
Speaker: Just a little taste of old school Metal Gear.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's very much Metal Gear Solid 1.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And a really nice just smattering of, frankly, just anything you ever played on the PS1.
Speaker: Yeah, it's I never.
Speaker: And here's the thing.
Speaker: I was not a PlayStation owner.
Speaker: I did not own the first PlayStation.
Speaker: I was an N64 kid.
Speaker: And so somehow this game is making me nostalgic for an era of games that I was not a part of.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And it is the storyline is fantastic.
Speaker: The it feels good to play.
Speaker: The puzzles are very clever without.
Speaker: Oh, with the.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: With the radio thing and all that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Without being obtuse, you know, like they're clever enough that you feel smart for getting them on your own.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: But not so difficult that like you're about to break down and cry.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: The storyline is very spooky, very Philip K. Dick.
Speaker: Um, and, uh, and despite the low graphical quality and everything like that, it is genuinely scary at times.
Speaker: Uh, it's jarring in the same way that like the first resident evil was.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, I agree.
Speaker: I adore this game.
Speaker: I'm, I'm, I just, I, I am, I just love the feel of it.
Speaker: Uh, every time I've booted it up, it's taken me to a wonderful place.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: I, I, that's the thing.
Speaker: So it's like, this is exceptionally frustrating for me because this just, this wouldn't have just been in my top 10.
Speaker: This would have been like my top five.
Speaker: This would have been way up there.
Speaker: Uh, at least if it continues the way, uh, uh, that it's going and I have no reason to think that it won't.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And there was some discourse recently on Twitter about people talking about endings, like not spoilers for Signalis.
Speaker: I mean, just talking about the nature of the endings of Signalis.
Speaker: Like, oh, what's the good ending?
Speaker: What's the bad ending?
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: And I think that was like...
Speaker: I haven't beaten Signales yet, but if the endings are anything like the plot or the story or the way the game is presented, I don't imagine any of the endings being definitively good or bad.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Based on the way this, because this story is very like, okay, so what parts of this are actually happening?
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: And I forget who it was.
Speaker: It might've been one of our mutual friends.
Speaker: I don't remember who it was who said it, but someone made a wonderful comment about, um, the problem with the whole good ending, bad ending thing is that it kind of upends your own experience of the story that you're going through that you should thinking of it as a good ending or a bad ending is already hamstringing you because it's about, uh,
Speaker: the conclusion of the game you played, not this arbitrary, is this the good ending?
Speaker: Is this a bad ending, et cetera.
Speaker: Um, and I think that's really smart.
Speaker: Uh, it's a really good way of looking at it.
Speaker: And, uh, and, and it's way easier to do that with games where they've, uh, managed to put in, you know, six, seven, eight, nine endings, uh, rather than just a binary kind of thing.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Um, but yeah, I, I adore it.
Speaker: Uh, I love its, uh, soundtrack or lack thereof.
Speaker: I, uh, I, I'm just, I'm, I'm having a blast with every bit about it.
Speaker: And I'm going to be really sad when I finish it, to be completely honest, which will probably this be this weekend.
Speaker: It's got a lot of, yeah, I don't think it's particularly long.
Speaker: Um, uh, it's, and it's got a lot of, apparently it's got a ton of anime references in it.
Speaker: Um, the one I think I noticed most often was the, um,
Speaker: So it's like the setting of it and using a lot of like German in the.
Speaker: A lot of German, yeah.
Speaker: Is very much a Neon Genesis Evangelion reference.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I'm glad you said that because I totally agree.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which I think there was a lot of like German stuff in that.
Speaker: And one of the main characters is German.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I love that I just said I'm not an anime guy and you referenced one of the only animes that I unequivocally love.
Speaker: So it sounds like I'm just a goddamn liar.
Speaker: But yeah, I agree.
Speaker: I've seen a lot of it.
Speaker: There's a similar style in the cuts and the editing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, honestly, if you were to make a video as a professional editor yourself, if you were to make a video about the editing in a game like this, I would watch the shit out of that.
Speaker: Oh, OK.
Speaker: I'll consider it.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: Just throwing that gauntlet down.
Speaker: Let's see what you got.
Speaker: Throw that gauntlet down.
Speaker: The other thing about it is, oh, I just, oh, and you can never trust the narrative of a game that references the king in yellow.
Speaker: Just FYI.
Speaker: Right off the bat too, by the way, right off the bat, they tell you immediately, they're like, hey, unreliable narrator, here's the king in yellow.
Speaker: It's like, oh, you dirty motherfucker.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It's like, all right, here's the book that inspired all of Lovecraft's bullshit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh man.
Speaker: Have you ever read the collection, the King in yellow?
Speaker: I've read parts of it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, that's all you need to do.
Speaker: Because honestly he, I was, I didn't, I was, I was not, I went in blind.
Speaker: I was not aware that like, I think two of the five stories or whatever are just like,
Speaker: melodrama romances that have nothing to do with horror or anything.
Speaker: And so when they ended, I was like, did I miss something?
Speaker: What the hell is going on?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's just kind of chunks.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Yeah, so Signalis, I probably would have put it on my top 10 as well had I finished it, but I did not, and I need to get back to it.
Speaker: I would love to hear your thoughts on it.
Speaker: I'm really enjoying it.
Speaker: But what are you playing then, Kevin?
Speaker: What am I playing?
Speaker: I am playing the...
Speaker: Uh, that, that, uh, Star Wars game, Jedi Fallen Order.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I, I got it for sale the other day when they were doing sales stuff and I was like, yeah, I'll play it.
Speaker: Um, and you know, I'm having a pretty decent time with it.
Speaker: It's, it's, um, it's like,
Speaker: It's if you like Star Wars and if you like a little Dark Souls in your Star War, then that's you get that's how you get Jedi Fallen Order.
Speaker: It doesn't quite have the level design that Dark Souls has.
Speaker: It's it's like I can see it.
Speaker: You know, it's it's got the it's got stamina.
Speaker: It's got the block bar.
Speaker: It's got all that all that it's got all the Dark Souls accoutrement.
Speaker: It's got shortcuts.
Speaker: You know, you got shortcuts and bonfires.
Speaker: You got yourself a Dark Soul.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: They got a sequel for that coming out this year.
Speaker: They got a sequel for that coming out.
Speaker: So I figured I would fire it up, try to try to get my way through it before the sequel comes out.
Speaker: Because a lot of times it's like not until the sequel that a lot of the other games in the Souls-like genre really get their handle on what they're doing.
Speaker: Because like I love The Surge 2.
Speaker: Didn't really like the first Surge that much.
Speaker: OK, so hopefully I like Fallen Order more than Surge One.
Speaker: Hopefully, though, it makes a similar leap.
Speaker: And also it's Respawn Entertainment who made it.
Speaker: And Respawn Entertainment, I believe they are the ones, yeah, they're the Titanfall peeps.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, of course, yeah.
Speaker: And I love Titanfall 2.
Speaker: Titanfall 2 is quite possibly one of my favorite games of all time.
Speaker: I never finished it and I adored it.
Speaker: Um, it's, isn't that funny how that happens when I was young, that would never happen.
Speaker: If I loved a game, there's no way you could get me to stop playing it.
Speaker: Um, yeah, but yeah, it, I, I really enjoyed it.
Speaker: Yeah, so Jedi Survivor.
Speaker: Yeah, it's coming out this year.
Speaker: It's from a third person narrative driven game from Respawn and developed in collaboration with Lucasfilm.
Speaker: So, yeah, I'm I'm excited.
Speaker: And I like Respawn as a company.
Speaker: I just I wish there was more Titanfall.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't think you're the only person.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, Apex Legends takes place in the same universe as Titanfall.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But, you know, that's that's their, you know, their arena battler.
Speaker: Does that even have support for it anymore?
Speaker: Apex Legends?
Speaker: Yeah, it does.
Speaker: Oh, it does?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I wasn't sure if that wasn't one of the ones that they just gave up on.
Speaker: No, they gave up on the multiplayer, I think, for the first Titanfall was under a DDoS attack.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And people couldn't play it.
Speaker: So, yeah, I...
Speaker: Oh, well.
Speaker: Oh, well, indeed.
Speaker: But yeah, that's what I'm playing right now.
Speaker: And what I just finished was The Case of the Golden Idol.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: We talked about this last week.
Speaker: Did we?
Speaker: Yeah, didn't we?
Speaker: Did we?
Speaker: Did we?
Speaker: You recommended it.
Speaker: It's on my wish list because of you.
Speaker: Well, I'm not going to talk about it again then.
Speaker: No, I don't think you'd played it at that point.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: I think you were just, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: You didn't like get into it, get into it.
Speaker: Got it.
Speaker: I don't think.
Speaker: People are listening going, you fucking idiot.
Speaker: Of course he did.
Speaker: He talked for 40 minutes about it.
Speaker: I don't remember what I talked about last week.
Speaker: I can promise.
Speaker: I should probably write these things down Case of the Golden Idol is like a point and click It's very much a Lucas Pope-like Yeah Oh, can we have Tell me you came up with that on your own I did Can we coin that?
Speaker: I love that Sure, Lucas Pope-like I love it, a Lucas Pope-like Absolutely Yeah, it's a Pope-like A Pope-like I love it
Speaker: So, yeah, that's it's it's really good.
Speaker: I know Harry from video games are bad.
Speaker: It's been like eating away at his brain for a while now.
Speaker: And he's going to do a video on it because he's been really thinking about what constitutes a detective game.
Speaker: And he is he has decided that it is not a detective game.
Speaker: I don't know if that's spoilers for his video, but maybe the video will be out by the time this.
Speaker: Oh, the video should be out by the time this episode.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Watch the video anyway, people watch the video anyway.
Speaker: He's he's very good.
Speaker: He's very good at what he does.
Speaker: Yeah, but it's a little, it's a mystery.
Speaker: You know, you have to figure out all these individual murders that surround the Golden Idol.
Speaker: And there's a dozen or so mysteries and they'll take various, you know, the varying time to solve.
Speaker: And sometimes it requires you to remember past cases.
Speaker: I know the final one, you have to look back at all the past cases to kind of put it all together.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: But it's it's fun.
Speaker: You know, it doesn't it doesn't it looks great.
Speaker: It doesn't take super long to beat, but I feel like it's a I feel like it's a bona fide fill game.
Speaker: It just the aesthetic of it.
Speaker: And I really loved Obra Dinn.
Speaker: I these deduction games, stuff like this.
Speaker: I really did enjoy that.
Speaker: So, yeah, yeah, that's going to have to be something I play this year.
Speaker: I would say Obra Dinn is still a much better game, but this is a pretty good Pope-like.
Speaker: Obra Dinn isn't just a good game.
Speaker: It goes into this.
Speaker: It's like the difference between a book and literature.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Obra Dinn is a game that should be studied.
Speaker: That game is impossible at the same time.
Speaker: That is one of the only games that I've ever played that was difficult that I have no issue with telling people I cheated to figure out how to beat this game.
Speaker: There are other games that I'll be more coy about it and go, yeah, maybe I've got a hint here.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: Obra Dinn, I had to get walkthroughs to get through this game.
Speaker: And I still...
Speaker: had an immensely satisfying experience.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So that's, that's, that's nothing.
Speaker: That's not, that's not a fair comparison in the slightest.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it, it, it looks fun.
Speaker: I love the aesthetic.
Speaker: It's very culty, very weird, very wicker man.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Got a lot.
Speaker: Anything that feels wicker man ish.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Either version of the wicker man.
Speaker: I don't care if it feels like, it feels like the original classic or bees or bees.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Not the bees.
Speaker: The Wicker Man story.
Speaker: Not the bees.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So either way, I think it's great.
Speaker: And that'll do it for tonight's episode.
Speaker: If you can do us a solid, follow us on social media at Pixelit Pod on both Twitter and Instagram.
Speaker: Go ahead to our website, PixelitPod.com.
Speaker: Subscribe to our newsletter.
Speaker: If you do enjoy getting the episodes early.
Speaker: Well, if you do, you can only get that through our newsletter.
Speaker: So do that.
Speaker: You can get the episodes a couple of days early and then maybe I'll start using the newsletter for other things.
Speaker: I don't know what those other things are yet.
Speaker: We haven't got a plan.
Speaker: We haven't gotten that far yet, but we're probably going to be places this year.
Speaker: So that would be a good way to know.
Speaker: Good way to keep in touch with us.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Also from the website, you can hop on over to our Discord and chat at us there.
Speaker: So, yeah, that'll do it.
Speaker: Good book, good times, good company.
Speaker: Have a good evening, everybody.
Speaker: Good evening.
Speaker: Bye.
