Transcript
Speaker: If anything, I was going to say, I took almost no notes on this book, which is a sign that I really enjoyed it.
Speaker: So it's just, it's a real page turner.
Speaker: So I think that's kind of, yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker: You know what else is a page turner?
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome back to Pixel It.
Speaker: My name is Kevin.
Speaker: With me, as always, is Phil on today's show.
Speaker: Brand new series.
Speaker: We are reading Borderlands, subtitled The Fallen.
Speaker: Who has fallen?
Speaker: I am actually not sure yet.
Speaker: It might just be a literal thing that has fallen out of the sky.
Speaker: If that's the case, then I understand what The Fallen is.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: That's the case then.
Speaker: OK, sure.
Speaker: We've seen several people fall.
Speaker: We've seen people fall already to the ground.
Speaker: There's a ship that goes falls from the sky.
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: If that's the case, if it's if it's just does what it says on the tin.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So very literal, very literal sense of how this all works, which is fine.
Speaker: Yeah, it's fine.
Speaker: Phil's going to be taking the lead on this one.
Speaker: But before we actually get into the book, I want to talk about the video game Borderlands.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't know a whole lot about Borderlands, aside from what Wikipedia tells me.
Speaker: I know it exists, and I played Borderlands 3 for 15 minutes before saying, this is not my rodeo.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was always that game that like you had to have your clan of friends who loved playing Borderlands and you all got together and played it.
Speaker: And I just didn't have a lot of friends.
Speaker: Don't.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't have any friends.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Multiplayers, that's predicated on the idea of there being multiple anything.
Speaker: It's predicated on having multiple friends who are also not middle-aged parents.
Speaker: That's a big, big part of it.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Maybe we'll come back to it.
Speaker: It's always been a beautiful game.
Speaker: Yeah, it's got some very gorgeous art.
Speaker: Is the...
Speaker: Is the naming conventions of some of the enemies in the game a little bit unfortunate?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It is a little unfortunate.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's got that edgy trademark.
Speaker: It was released.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The first one was released in 2009, which kind of tells you everything you need to know.
Speaker: Very much so.
Speaker: Also, it's a Gearbox game, which also tells you what you need to know.
Speaker: Who was?
Speaker: Oh, yes.
Speaker: Randy Pitchford, who is just one of the biggest pieces of shit in the gaming industry.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Was the founder of one of the founders of Gearbox.
Speaker: So, yeah, Borderlands.
Speaker: Designed by Matt Armstrong and a cadre of people as the programmers, artists and writers, it was an Unreal Engine game and it came out for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in October of 2009.
Speaker: And since then was released on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and the Nintendo Switch.
Speaker: So look at that.
Speaker: It's a first person shooter.
Speaker: People claim role-playing elements by I am pressing X to doubt.
Speaker: Just throw in that little meme.
Speaker: Yeah, a little.
Speaker: of that cop from L.A.
Speaker: Noire where you throw that in there.
Speaker: I guess there's probably leveling up and stuff like that.
Speaker: But I think, yeah, but in this day and age that used to mean, yes, that's RPG.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And we're like, no, nowadays, I don't buy it.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: pretty standard element to to any style of game these days so yeah yeah so it's a shooter there's a lot of spongy folks in the game where you're shooting and shooting and shooting uh yeah it's it's set in an environment it's like a futuristic mad maxian george miller type of
Speaker: aesthetic.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Basically, they looked at anything George Miller had made, including Babe and Babe Pig in the City and said that.
Speaker: Did he direct?
Speaker: Did he also direct Babe Pig in the City or just Babe?
Speaker: Pig in the City.
Speaker: Who directed that?
Speaker: Co-written, produced and directed by one George Miller.
Speaker: Well, damn.
Speaker: OK.
Speaker: Lord Humongous has got to get in there and have himself some pig.
Speaker: George George Miller's career is something that I aspire to.
Speaker: It's beautiful.
Speaker: It's it's I love that.
Speaker: I love that he can.
Speaker: He can.
Speaker: It's like, oh, what's his name?
Speaker: It's such an easy name.
Speaker: The guy who did Spy Kids after doing like Mariachi.
Speaker: Robert Rodriguez.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Spy Kids.
Speaker: Just the just the worst looking CGI 3D films that you could imagine.
Speaker: Just terrible.
Speaker: It's wild because George Miller has, as a director, has between two, it's like between two and five years is he makes something new, right?
Speaker: So you got Mad Max, Mad Max 2, Twilight Zone the movie.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: 1983.
Speaker: Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome, The Witches of Eastwick, Lorenzo's Oil, and then he was not the director of Babe.
Speaker: Oh, I kind of assumed that was the only one that he had directed.
Speaker: No, he wrote it and produced it, but he was not the director of Babe.
Speaker: Then Babe, Pig in the City, he directed.
Speaker: The man's multifaceted.
Speaker: You got Happy Feet, Happy Feet 2.
Speaker: And then finally, after four years after Happy Feet 2, we get Mad Max Fury Road and then 3000 years of longing in between with Furiosa being the most recent release.
Speaker: Why are we talking about George Miller?
Speaker: Because George Miller set the aesthetic for everything that this kind of
Speaker: You know, a story is going forward.
Speaker: Why are we talking about George Miller?
Speaker: Because it makes us happy.
Speaker: Because it makes us happy.
Speaker: Isn't that enough?
Speaker: George Miller, you know, why not?
Speaker: Beautiful man.
Speaker: Beautiful man.
Speaker: He is a handsome man.
Speaker: I don't think I do.
Speaker: God damn.
Speaker: He's got those great little glasses.
Speaker: It's amazing.
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: No George Miller.
Speaker: No George Miller.
Speaker: Anyway. 79.
Speaker: Jesus Christ.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That whole generation is.
Speaker: We're going to need one more good road warrior movie out of him and then he can shuffle loose.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: At least one more.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: At least one more.
Speaker: I mean, Ridley Scott has got.
Speaker: Did you see the trailer for Romulus?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So we were talking movies before the show started.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Phil got to go see.
Speaker: What was that?
Speaker: You got the.
Speaker: The quiet place.
Speaker: The third quiet place movie.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This is pretty good.
Speaker: To complete the quiet place trilogy.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That nobody asked for.
Speaker: That no one asked for.
Speaker: But yeah, the Aliens Romulus trailer was like, fuck yes.
Speaker: It looks good.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: It looks fantastic.
Speaker: And I'm actually going to be able to go see that one when it comes out because it's timing well with another opportunity to drop my kid off with the M.O.S.
Speaker: Oh, fantastic.
Speaker: That's going to be beautiful.
Speaker: Fantastic.
Speaker: But that's enough about Borderlands the game.
Speaker: I don't have a whole lot to talk about Borderlands the game other than it happened.
Speaker: I didn't play it and I played the third one for 15 minutes.
Speaker: So tell us about who wrote the book.
Speaker: Oh, well, I'll tell you what.
Speaker: Who wrote the book was John Shirley, friend of the pod.
Speaker: John Shirley, friend of the pod.
Speaker: John Shirley.
Speaker: Damn good to see him.
Speaker: We haven't seen him in a minute.
Speaker: We haven't seen him since Bioshock Rapture.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And we actually came out the same year as this.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Isn't that funny?
Speaker: That's wild.
Speaker: And John Shirley is we spoke to him.
Speaker: What year did we speak to him?
Speaker: And was it early 2022 or I want to say it was 2022.
Speaker: Yeah, it was definitely not last year, but the year before, I think.
Speaker: OK.
Speaker: Yeah, and John Shirley, for those of you who do not know, is an incredibly prolific writer, not just for hire, but also just his own work.
Speaker: He does a lot of cyberpunk stuff.
Speaker: He kind of rubbed elbows with a lot of, like, classic stuff.
Speaker: genre writers, you know, like he he he was he's a contemporary William Gibson and stuff like that.
Speaker: It's really, really cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But he for our purposes on this show, he also adapted.
Speaker: He's adapted Dune, Constantine, Predator, Alien, Bioshock, The Rapture, which we covered.
Speaker: And he did the first three Borderlands books.
Speaker: This being the first.
Speaker: I think there are more.
Speaker: But he at least did the first three.
Speaker: And he's also a musician.
Speaker: He sure is.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So fascinating guy.
Speaker: I think his most recent book might have been Stormland, which he sent me a copy of, which was really cool.
Speaker: I need to actually read that.
Speaker: Yeah, you should.
Speaker: But I'm busy reading Borderlands.
Speaker: I'm reading Borderlands.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I have time now.
Speaker: Yeah, there was time.
Speaker: No, he's a very cool guy.
Speaker: And it was a lot of fun to have on the show and everything.
Speaker: So it's always nice to come back to these guys.
Speaker: Yeah, it was April of 2022.
Speaker: 2022.
Speaker: Okay, great.
Speaker: So two years and three months ago.
Speaker: Some change.
Speaker: Yeah, damn.
Speaker: Well, Kevin, what do you what do you say we put this body in the marsh?
Speaker: Yeah, let's put it in the marsh.
Speaker: But before we go to the marsh, I just want to go to another... I need to make a pit stop over at patreon.com slash pixelipod.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah, so if you go to patreon.com slash pixelipod, you can...
Speaker: Join us.
Speaker: You can follow it.
Speaker: You just hit that follow button for free.
Speaker: Just make a little Patreon account.
Speaker: Hit follow.
Speaker: Boom.
Speaker: You're following.
Speaker: It's basically our blog at this point.
Speaker: You can follow our blog right there.
Speaker: But if you pledge $1, $1 a month gets you access to Phil's reviews of the books that he reads.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It's novellas, novels, short stories, whatever.
Speaker: He writes a review of it and he posts it right there on the blog.
Speaker: Just for you.
Speaker: just for you.
Speaker: $5 gets you access to the bonus segment, which is recorded before the show every week and $10 gets your name shouted out in the episode.
Speaker: So to that end, I want to say thank you so much to Kyle Seaman, Ruthless Mutter.
Speaker: Jesus loves you and friendly friend.
Speaker: Thank you for being a friend.
Speaker: And there goes Ripley.
Speaker: Yeah, I need my desk Ripley.
Speaker: But now that that's out of the way, now that Patreon has been Patreoned, we've paid our patronage to Patreon.
Speaker: Yeah, let's do that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Body in the Marsh.
Speaker: Body in the Marsh.
Speaker: The cops are saying he's a cop, so I won't look for the cops.
Speaker: Okay, so we've got Borderlands The Fallen.
Speaker: Opens up with a very brief prologue.
Speaker: which is actually the part I remember the least about.
Speaker: We get we get to meet McNeigh, who is this kind of old school mercenary on the on Pandora, which is this just shithole planet.
Speaker: Wild West, you know, just like we were talking about before, George Miller, Wild West, nihilistic.
Speaker: Everyone's killing each other.
Speaker: Mutant creatures.
Speaker: If the if the bandits don't kill you, then the the flora and fauna probably will.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Along with we basically get a quick introduction into this whole world, along with McNee, who is described as like a seasoned mercenary.
Speaker: But in this world, that might mean that he's 32.
Speaker: You know, I.
Speaker: He talks, we talk 20, right?
Speaker: I mean, it's hard on Pandora.
Speaker: I have to believe that.
Speaker: But he's, he's talking about, you know, needing to get back out and find some, find a score, make some money and, and working with an old friend of his Roland, which is a really interesting name for a mercenary.
Speaker: But Roland, we, we,
Speaker: we get the, the father son kind of comparison between the two of them.
Speaker: Once again, that probably means Roland is 21 and, and McNee is like 30.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So we basically get a glimpse into the world through this prologue and basically the inciting incident even just, just, all right, we're going to go out and let's go get some, some swag that we can sell and make some money.
Speaker: It's just kind of a, it's like a, it's like a crash course into the world basically.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: For anybody who didn't play the games like me and Kevin.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So it cuts to chapter one, which is interesting because it just goes to Roland now.
Speaker: So it makes me wonder why we needed the prologue at all, to be completely honest.
Speaker: It doesn't, it changes perspective, but it's with the same group that we're with.
Speaker: It's Roland and McKee, but yeah, McKee.
Speaker: And it just flops the perspective between the two of them.
Speaker: And then it's like, oh, you know, actually, Roland is the protagonist.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: I'm not going to rewrite the prologue, though.
Speaker: No, yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And we get them out on a what it's like an out.
Speaker: They call it an outlander like they're they're they're skiffer, you know, their vehicle.
Speaker: McNee complains about not having his shield set up.
Speaker: He hadn't charged it like he should have.
Speaker: And and how that's pretty dangerous.
Speaker: So foreshadowing insert definition of foreshadowing here.
Speaker: Basically, this chapter, it's kind of a long chapter, but it's I loved this as an opening chapter, because basically what happens here is we get thrown into the action almost immediately.
Speaker: McNeil and Roland are out to find some sort of alien technology, anything that they can get.
Speaker: There's a MacGuffin out there.
Speaker: Everybody's looking for it.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: What it's alien.
Speaker: Does it matter?
Speaker: It doesn't matter.
Speaker: It doesn't matter.
Speaker: It's just, you know, everybody wants it.
Speaker: And basically what we get is this, you know, crash thump introduction into the world and the beasties within.
Speaker: So our heroes are dodging bandits.
Speaker: They're fighting against psycho midgets, which.
Speaker: Okie dokie.
Speaker: One of that's the unfortunate name I was referring to.
Speaker: That is that is an unfortunate one.
Speaker: Okie doke.
Speaker: I'm sure they're probably still called that in the most recent version of Borderlands.
Speaker: But I would I would assume once again, remember, our franchise is edgy.
Speaker: Edgy.
Speaker: Edgy with with a with a capital Joe.
Speaker: Edgy.
Speaker: God damn, that's edgy.
Speaker: You want to be a, what was I saw the other day?
Speaker: It was a picture of a pizza cutter.
Speaker: It says, you want to be a pizza cutter since you want to be all edge and no point.
Speaker: I thought that was nice.
Speaker: That's a good, that's a good comeback.
Speaker: I would say that's that rate says like a solid 2012 internet burn.
Speaker: Very much so.
Speaker: Very much so.
Speaker: I like that one.
Speaker: I feel like I could have posted, responded to that, to somebody on Facebook with that.
Speaker: Oh, easily.
Speaker: And it would have fucking killed.
Speaker: You would have gotten so many virtual high fives.
Speaker: I would have been high fived, fist bumped, thumbs upped.
Speaker: It would have been the score from Top Gun would have started playing.
Speaker: Oh, absolutely.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Everyone would have been.
Speaker: And finally, I would have showed up and be like, you could ride my tail anytime.
Speaker: And scene.
Speaker: And scene.
Speaker: So we get this, we get like a real run and gun kind of a scene that Shirley writes really well.
Speaker: As we've said before, with these action scenes, if you want to see the play by play, read the book.
Speaker: Read the book.
Speaker: for our purposes, it is, it's a very cool action scene.
Speaker: We lose McNeil.
Speaker: Uh, he gets his head shredded right the fuck off.
Speaker: Right, right the fuck off.
Speaker: And pretty quickly, uh, I might add, they didn't, they were like, they were like, Oh, did you like this kid?
Speaker: No, fuck him.
Speaker: He's dead.
Speaker: And remember how his shield wasn't working.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This is, this is it.
Speaker: We,
Speaker: We just had no patience for the foreshadowing.
Speaker: We set that one and then we ripped it out of the earth immediately.
Speaker: Oh, McNee, you had a prologue point of view.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We had a POV prologue.
Speaker: We hardly knew ye.
Speaker: We hardly knew ye.
Speaker: And so-
Speaker: Roland approaches a group of professional mercenaries who he used to work with, basically, in the past.
Speaker: And we get some background on him and all of them, and they're basically all looking for the same group of...
Speaker: ruins slash MacGuffins slash tech.
Speaker: Gotta get those MacGuffins.
Speaker: Gotta get those MacGuffins.
Speaker: And let's see.
Speaker: So we cut to, oh, we cut to a ship.
Speaker: What is the name?
Speaker: Homeworld bound.
Speaker: I, I love it.
Speaker: We cut to space.
Speaker: Space.
Speaker: We cut to space.
Speaker: Outside of Pandora on the home world bound, we meet the Finn family.
Speaker: The Finn family, Zack, the father, Cal, the son, and Marla, the wife slash mother.
Speaker: And basically the gist is they are on, it's kind of like a multi-planet tour.
Speaker: They're going to ultimately settle at some other planet.
Speaker: But along the way, they're going to there have been a lot of stops, basically.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And they are above Pandora, which is a shithole planet.
Speaker: But unbeknownst to Cal and Marla,
Speaker: Zack is planning on using their brief foray over Pandora to collect in on some underground intel he got that there was some alien artifacts.
Speaker: So this guy, Zack, really, he wants that sweet ass MacGuffin.
Speaker: He wants that sweet, sweet MacGuffin.
Speaker: But here's the thing, though, Kevin, it's super easy and there's no risk because he's just he's got the quick trip.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Quick trip.
Speaker: You know, he's, he's got the coordinates.
Speaker: All he needs to do smokes.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: He hits planet, you know, he grabs a, a, not even a full MacGuffin, a Mac, you know, he grabs just one of those and then, you know, high tails it back all in time for them to, you know, have a pint and wait for this whole thing to blow over.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: It's done.
Speaker: It's no big thing.
Speaker: And that Mac Mac,
Speaker: That Big Mac that he's going to get is probably generational wealth right there.
Speaker: Yeah, that's just it.
Speaker: All he needs is a little bit, and that's going to be enough to set him and his whole family up for life.
Speaker: You get the impression that he's a bit of a scumbag.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: He's not awful.
Speaker: He's not like the worst guy, but surely talks.
Speaker: Just like you.
Speaker: He talks a lot about how like he's always got some sort of harebrained scheme, you know?
Speaker: Yeah, he's he's I'm trying to think of a TV show character that is always with a harebrained scheme.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I'm blanking for some reason.
Speaker: One of the honeymooners guys like that.
Speaker: No idea.
Speaker: I never watched the honeymooners.
Speaker: But anyway, harebrained schemes, harebrained schemes.
Speaker: The son, by the way, is just, you know, he's a gamer.
Speaker: So obviously he's, he's very out of shape.
Speaker: And he's just sitting there on his VR set, playing games.
Speaker: And his mother's trying to like,
Speaker: Be his mom, you know, and like just try to try to try to make this an educational moment.
Speaker: Like so we get this kind of expository moment where she basically pulls up future Wikipedia and she's like, well, this is interesting.
Speaker: Pandora, it's filled with with monsters.
Speaker: It's filled with terrifying creatures, terrifying creatures, not all of which are quadrupeds.
Speaker: And yeah.
Speaker: So we learn a little bit about that.
Speaker: We learn about she actually has a background as a xenobiologist, which, OK, that's that's.
Speaker: Yeah, she she she's she lights up when she's talking about the fucking monsters on Pandora.
Speaker: Like, yeah, it's Marla wanted to get a closer look or it was like from the son's point of view.
Speaker: It is like the son is like it seemed like his mother wanted to go down there and get a closer look.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: She's a scream queen.
Speaker: It's it's really fun.
Speaker: And we do.
Speaker: And we do have kind of a sweet moment with Cal because he's he is he's just as put off by his mom trying to actively actively involve him in all of this as any kid.
Speaker: I think that he's a teenager.
Speaker: I don't know if they say specifically how old he is.
Speaker: Um, but he's, he's just as put off by it, but we do get a lot of information from him.
Speaker: It's like, well, he, he likes his mom and he wants his mom to be happy.
Speaker: So he, he listens halfheartedly because if he listens, she'll be happy and he likes his mom.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, it's very sweet.
Speaker: Uh, we get, you know, so she's talking about the prison camps on Pandora and how, well, not all the bandits are cannibals, but a lot of them are.
Speaker: And, uh,
Speaker: And you get the impression that the more she's talking about it, the more she's like, oh, I'm kind of glad we're up here then.
Speaker: So Zach goes off and finds this kind of skeezy underworld guy that he's got a connection with on the ship and basically gives him like a five grand advance or some damn thing.
Speaker: His name is Grands.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Very, very George Lucas naming here.
Speaker: Or is it Ron's?
Speaker: Does it rhyme with Hans?
Speaker: Oh, I was thinking Ron's in my head.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But it's just another one scumbag and another scumbag chat.
Speaker: And and he gives him the coordinates for the planet.
Speaker: And basically, so Zack kind of runs down to these drop ships that are like they have enough fuel for a shoot down, a shoot up.
Speaker: And you just put in the coordinates and they just kind of go.
Speaker: They're like these automatic things.
Speaker: Yeah, it'll be easy.
Speaker: It'll be simple, except.
Speaker: He sees a little drone kind of following him, and he doesn't know what that's all about.
Speaker: And he knows even less when the drone hops into the dropship with him and starts fucking with the equipment and just like sabotaging everything.
Speaker: And before you know it, he's freefallen down to this planet in a dropship that he cannot control anymore.
Speaker: And he tries calling his wife from it, basically telling her I fucked up.
Speaker: Here are my coordinates, which he almost saved me.
Speaker: Please save me.
Speaker: And he almost immediately regrets it because he's like, oh, fuck.
Speaker: Someone was listening in.
Speaker: They've got they have the coordinates now.
Speaker: Now they know where.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: After that happens, Marla and Cal get their own adventure as more drones start flying through the ship and just fucking shit up.
Speaker: Just blowing it up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No rhyme or reason.
Speaker: There's no explanation.
Speaker: It's just the ship is being sabotaged.
Speaker: And so they find their way down to life vessels.
Speaker: um, that are one person like coffins, basically they're, they're flying coffins, uh, room for one person in each.
Speaker: Um, so she assures Cal that she'll find him.
Speaker: Uh, they, they both stuff themselves inside.
Speaker: It's basically like the hell diver pod.
Speaker: That's exactly it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, from, uh, what's it?
Speaker: And also, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: From Halo.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's, it's, that's exactly it.
Speaker: It's, it's, it's a bullet.
Speaker: And, uh,
Speaker: You know, and that's getting fucked up and they plummet towards the earth and the zero G's or the G's just totally knock her out.
Speaker: And that's and that's chapter one.
Speaker: It's a beefy chapter.
Speaker: It's a beefy chapter.
Speaker: It's longer than the rest of these chapters, but it's just it's just.
Speaker: So, yeah, the recap after chapter one, McNee is dead.
Speaker: Roland is dead.
Speaker: figuring shit out on planet side.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Zach missing in action.
Speaker: Marla missing in action.
Speaker: And Cal missing in action.
Speaker: Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker: And I will say-
Speaker: It proves that John Shirley knows what franchise he's working within.
Speaker: He sure does.
Speaker: We've read a lot of books on this show that are based on high octane action adventure kind of things where there's a lot of people sitting around talking.
Speaker: Uh, and we'll get an action.
Speaker: You'll, you'll get an action scene when I say so.
Speaker: And, uh, but surely he goes, no, fuck that.
Speaker: We're going to, we're going to kill off this guy that I introduced you in the prologue.
Speaker: Just introduced him.
Speaker: Doesn't matter.
Speaker: Kill him.
Speaker: We're going to blow up this ship.
Speaker: We're going to send everyone to the hell planet, sabotage and, and subterfuge and explosions.
Speaker: And I hope you, I heard you kids like borderland.
Speaker: So I put borderlands inside your borderlands.
Speaker: You know, like he knows what he's writing.
Speaker: You know, I got to give it to him.
Speaker: I was hooked.
Speaker: I was hooked from this chapter.
Speaker: I was like, okay, this is going to work.
Speaker: This is going to work out fine.
Speaker: So chapter two opens with Zack kind of crawling out of the wreckage of his drop ship.
Speaker: He has destroyed the drone that was in there fucking shit up, but it's just left him basically...
Speaker: You know, he has no idea where he is.
Speaker: He's on Pandora.
Speaker: He believes that he's seen an explosion in the atmosphere, suggesting very heavily that the homeward bound has has destroyed, has been destroyed along with his wife and kid, as far as he can tell.
Speaker: And to his credit, he he's not a complete and utter scumbag.
Speaker: He does.
Speaker: He does really give himself a hard time over like, yeah, he blames himself on this one.
Speaker: Even though this is clearly bigger than him.
Speaker: This had, this was less to do with that.
Speaker: He thinks it's possibly him transmitting the coordinates is what triggered the something or.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So he, as he is trying to figure, he's basically like trying to pump himself up.
Speaker: It's a Chevy chase.
Speaker: This is crazy.
Speaker: This is crazy.
Speaker: This is crazy kind of moment.
Speaker: And he is attacked by Skaggs.
Speaker: Which great name.
Speaker: Yeah, you're going to if you're going to name like basically Skaggs act as this planet's coyote.
Speaker: There's these like mutant quadrupeds with like a three hinged mouth and just just just nasty, nasty characters.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I haven't played Borderlands, but I bet you money that if I if I went ahead and played it, I would I would run some skags pretty quick.
Speaker: That's what it feels like.
Speaker: It looks.
Speaker: Yeah, they look like they're just like and they got they got mouths that go like, wow.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Big predator style kind of kind of thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So in keeping with our theme of out of the frying pan into the fire, he is trying to kind of run from these things, trying to figure out how he's going to survive it, because there was supposed to be a gun in the drop ship, but no gun.
Speaker: So he's kind of fucked.
Speaker: And as he is trying to avoid the skag, suddenly he's
Speaker: they are approached by a group of masked men who take care of the Skaggs, basically.
Speaker: I thought the Skaggs were going to break out into a song.
Speaker: Wait, what?
Speaker: Leto, whoa.
Speaker: You know, Boz, Boz Skaggs?
Speaker: Yeah, I think that reference might not be a, might go over the heads of some of our audience.
Speaker: You mean it's talking about Leto Shuffle by Boz Skaggs is not topical?
Speaker: I don't know why you even bring that up because it's never stopped us before.
Speaker: What the fuck difference does it make?
Speaker: We've taught.
Speaker: That's the thing.
Speaker: That's the thing I pride myself on in this show.
Speaker: Kevin is that since we started, we have never stopped ourself from talking about anything that we wanted to.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think it was a, it was a cat from pixel a day.
Speaker: She recommended us saying that we were a podcast that complained about Ronald Reagan and occasionally talked about video.
Speaker: Two dads complaining about Ronald Reagan.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Occasionally talking about video game adaptations.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: So don't, don't listen to a word I said to fuck it.
Speaker: You, you keep on, you keep on shining, you crazy diamond.
Speaker: That's, that's my old man reference for the day.
Speaker: So we get the bandits who are now sizing them up and it becomes very clear that they are not,
Speaker: there to save anybody.
Speaker: And, uh, and, uh, and, and they, they, they're pretty much sick of eating skag meat.
Speaker: So, uh, some, some long pig sounds very good right about now.
Speaker: And just when you think that, uh, Zach's luck has completely run out, suddenly one of the bandits head erupts into like this burst of acidic blue goo.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, which what the shit.
Speaker: shit.
Speaker: Good body horror right there.
Speaker: When this guy gets hit with some blue goo and starts to fucking melt.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Just nasty shit.
Speaker: And he finds that this giant spider thing is spitting blue goo at them and they call it a drifter.
Speaker: And it's a nasty character, a nasty customer.
Speaker: And he
Speaker: And it's accompanied by what can only be described as the Borderlands version of the there's gold in them hills.
Speaker: This guy reads as a prospector.
Speaker: Yes, that's exactly.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: That's exactly it.
Speaker: And he introduces his trained drifter as Busy, which, adorable, and introduces himself as Burl.
Speaker: And he seems actually friendly.
Speaker: You going somewhere, Buster?
Speaker: I don't think so.
Speaker: No weapon, no water, no shelter.
Speaker: I seen that little space tube of yours crash.
Speaker: I know what's up.
Speaker: You're prospecting just like I was.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: that is true and he does say that it's like zach gets kind of this horrible look into his future it's like oh yeah i remember when i accidentally crash landed on this that was years ago and now here i am i'm doing here i am and i got my suspenders and my hat and my new pickaxe he's everything you expect him to be and more he's my favorite character in the book so far i love him
Speaker: His name is Burl.
Speaker: Burl.
Speaker: Burl and Busy.
Speaker: Burl and Busy.
Speaker: I love him.
Speaker: He is wearing an unusual, like, necklace that Zach notices.
Speaker: It's got these strange crystals on it.
Speaker: And Zach...
Speaker: being ever the opportunistic scumbag suspects that maybe these are some alien artifacts.
Speaker: There's nothing, nothing like the common, there are common alien artifacts, nothing like the ones that he's researched.
Speaker: These are very different.
Speaker: And he's hoping that you can, you can tell already his gears are turning.
Speaker: He's trying to figure out how he can score these, this necklace.
Speaker: But for the moment, he recognizes, thankfully, that he has found a friend somehow.
Speaker: And he follows him, basically.
Speaker: He's going to learn something about the old wastes.
Speaker: So we cut to- The old wastes.
Speaker: There's MacGuffins in them dare hills.
Speaker: That's exactly right.
Speaker: I'm sure if we keep going, we'll find a MacGuffin or two.
Speaker: How long until a game actually introduces quest goals that are just called MacGuffins?
Speaker: Like, that's your thing.
Speaker: Someone must have done it.
Speaker: There's a Lost Ark or a Holy Grail in this mountain somewhere.
Speaker: Maybe two.
Speaker: Maybe three.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I'm burrowed.
Speaker: I'm burrowed.
Speaker: I got some top men waiting for these things.
Speaker: Top men.
Speaker: Top men.
Speaker: Top men.
Speaker: Top men.
Speaker: That's Busy and Burl.
Speaker: They are the greatest.
Speaker: I would die for Busy and Burl.
Speaker: Love them.
Speaker: So we cut to Marla, who is having a somewhat different go of it.
Speaker: She has also encountered some bandits who have found her lifeboat.
Speaker: They can't get it open.
Speaker: She will not open it.
Speaker: And they are carrying her away, though.
Speaker: And these ones are not interested in...
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: How to put this?
Speaker: They're not interested in eating her.
Speaker: They're interested in eating, eating her, eating her.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They're going to sell her into sex slavery.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They're very into the they're like, oh, it's a woman.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: That's very much their attitude on this one.
Speaker: And she doesn't look like a horrible mutant freak, I guess.
Speaker: You get the impression that the other girls in town don't look so good.
Speaker: So you've got this team of bandits who are taking her away.
Speaker: And she attempts to make a call from inside the thing.
Speaker: It doesn't work.
Speaker: And the chapter ends with her wondering...
Speaker: If her son was alive or if she's, you know, what's going to happen to her.
Speaker: So it's left up in the air there.
Speaker: So we cut to chapter three and well, her son's alive for now.
Speaker: Cal is alive for now.
Speaker: Cal is alive and he's in his lifeboat, which is on fire.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which honestly, probably a better situation than his parents had because you can get away from a fire in theory.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: His his first grand gesture as a man outside of video games comes when he has to basically talk the A.I.
Speaker: into opening up so he can be let out.
Speaker: He scrambles out and realizes he has no idea where he is.
Speaker: Basically the same thing everyone else is dealing with.
Speaker: Where am I?
Speaker: How am I going to survive?
Speaker: How does this work?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So he's trying to figure out where, like, just what direction he should go in.
Speaker: And he ends up getting attacked by a spider ant, which is like...
Speaker: I think they call it a fusion of like a bug and a scorpion, basically.
Speaker: But huge because it's huge.
Speaker: It's not just everything's huge.
Speaker: It's we're in we're in Australia here.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Think of it that way.
Speaker: And he starts running from it.
Speaker: And what does he find around the corner?
Speaker: But some skags.
Speaker: So he's also dealing with these horrible mutant coyotes.
Speaker: But he shows some ingenuity and he basically kind of runs in a serpentine fashion and makes it so that serpentine.
Speaker: Serpentine.
Speaker: And so the Skaggs who are coming at him from one angle run into the, I almost called him an antlion, which is a real thing, a spider ant.
Speaker: And he basically pawns them off on each other.
Speaker: They fight each other instead of worrying about him anymore.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So he gets a moment of feeling pretty clever, but there's a lot of inner monologue about basically, Jesus Christ, I'm going to die.
Speaker: Why didn't I learn anything other than how to do a cheat code on my VR headset?
Speaker: And he knows that night is coming and he's not sure how he's going to make it through.
Speaker: It's going to be a tough one, but not as tough or as listening to Silk Degrees, the 2023 remaster of the Boss Gags album.
Speaker: I mean, that's just that's smooth is what that is.
Speaker: That's just smooth.
Speaker: That's smooth.
Speaker: That's not going to be rough.
Speaker: Not rough at all.
Speaker: If only he had that to help him get through the night.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Anyway.
Speaker: We cut to- I'm really working.
Speaker: I'm honing my boss.
Speaker: I'm going to keep honing my boss Skaggs references on the fly for these few episodes because I'm sure that we're going to- The word Skaggs is going to keep popping up and I'm going to- Oh, yeah.
Speaker: It doesn't stop.
Speaker: We're not done.
Speaker: We're not done and I got to have something to say about our man, Bob Skaggs, who was in the Steve Miller band at one point.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, we.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Ladies and gentlemen, let us know if if if you would like to learn more about Buzz Gags, write us and we will make sure that we have a bonus on the Patreon bonus tier specifically for all of you Buzz Gags and Steve Miller band fanatics out there.
Speaker: I think they're called Skag's knee acts Skazdacks course they are.
Speaker: Why wouldn't I get Skag Skag yaks Skag Skagnatics Skagnatics.
Speaker: There we go.
Speaker: There it is done.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: We cut to Zach and Burl.
Speaker: Basically, Burl's giving him a lowdown on where he is, what he's doing.
Speaker: Zach, you're in hell.
Speaker: Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker: No, I don't think that your wife and kids survived.
Speaker: In fact, it would be kind of preposterous if they did.
Speaker: Where do you think you are?
Speaker: A novel?
Speaker: Put the odds of them surviving slimmer than a skag's teeth.
Speaker: It really is that scene.
Speaker: It really is that.
Speaker: It's basically that where he's like, yeah, no, I didn't see anybody.
Speaker: Oh, there she is.
Speaker: Hello.
Speaker: Now, both the kids have made appearances on the show today.
Speaker: Hey, kid.
Speaker: She's saying hi.
Speaker: No, you guys.
Speaker: You got she got a different color braces now.
Speaker: Oh, the blue ones in there.
Speaker: I was about to say they match.
Speaker: It looks good.
Speaker: They match the hair now.
Speaker: Very nice.
Speaker: How long do you have to wear braces these days?
Speaker: Well, I feel like it's it's probably another year or so.
Speaker: And there's some other.
Speaker: I immediately just ran up here because I heard you say, you know,
Speaker: I mean, that's just like, I know who he's talking to.
Speaker: I know who he's talking to.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Well, it's good to know that she has a call sign.
Speaker: So we just need to shout you're in hell and she will appear.
Speaker: Do you remember one of her earlier appearances on the show where something sacrifice human babies or something like that?
Speaker: Sacrifice human babies.
Speaker: That was one of the FNAF books.
Speaker: Yes, it might have been.
Speaker: It's perfect.
Speaker: So perfect.
Speaker: So where are we?
Speaker: Oh, we're talking to the prospector, aren't we?
Speaker: Prospector, yeah.
Speaker: So basically, we get a little, he gets a little insight into where he is.
Speaker: And there's got to be no fun for you here, boy.
Speaker: So he's trying to...
Speaker: Like basically Burl is making friends, but he's also keeping him at Arn's length at the same time out of self, you know, probably because any friends he's made don't live very long.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But also because he doesn't know if he can trust him, which is good instincts because I don't think he can.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So we cut to Marla.
Speaker: She has she's back in.
Speaker: She's still in her in her lifeboat.
Speaker: They've kind of settled down for the evening and she hears the bandits outside singing a song.
Speaker: And I would like to recite the lyrics for you right now because it's a masterpiece.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Go for it.
Speaker: Oh, I've got a very good friend, a very good friend to be.
Speaker: He's my best friend now, for I've run out of meat.
Speaker: He's got strong legs, does he, and fine strong arms, too.
Speaker: Got fine, good meat upon him, so go real fine in a stew.
Speaker: For I've run right out of food, and he's looking good, awfully good, mighty good.
Speaker: Tweet.
Speaker: Tweet.
Speaker: Is this like a barbershop quartet song?
Speaker: Oh, I've got a very good friend to eat.
Speaker: To eat.
Speaker: And the, you know, shaking the hats.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just, yeah.
Speaker: It does give psychopathic barbershop quartet.
Speaker: He's a good friend to eat.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So she hears that delightful song, giving her an idea of what's on the menu.
Speaker: And these guys playing cards, they're playing games, and she hears them.
Speaker: Because she's trying to decide if she should risk opening the lifeboat.
Speaker: And so she's listening.
Speaker: She wants them to stay good and forgetful of her.
Speaker: So she's listening and she hears all that.
Speaker: And then she hears them fighting amongst themselves, someone getting shot, at least one person getting shot and everyone laughing and going about their lives and decides, well, maybe I'll wait until they're asleep, which is it's a good call.
Speaker: It's a good call.
Speaker: So it's a good call.
Speaker: It's a good call.
Speaker: Let's see.
Speaker: She she.
Speaker: like basically in the middle of the night, uh, waits until, uh, they've all fallen into a drunken drug induced stupor.
Speaker: I can only imagine.
Speaker: And talks to the computer, talks to the computer and says, please open the hatch and do it quietly.
Speaker: Uh, which, uh, you know, it does, it does, which is, well, that's, that's, that's what AI is for right there.
Speaker: Uh, this one very specific point, uh,
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Just, just this one thing.
Speaker: Interpret my needs of you opening this very quietly.
Speaker: Everything else can go to fucking hell.
Speaker: Stop.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Stop basing your shit on me.
Speaker: Uh, uh, I haven't looked at that website, but I have to, did you have any, Oh, you didn't, I have to assume I didn't get any videos scraped.
Speaker: Uh, uh, so for those of you who don't know,
Speaker: Came out that a bunch of the AI training models scraped YouTube videos without the creator's permission.
Speaker: And the only person I know that had their videos scraped was Hot Cider.
Speaker: Actually, no.
Speaker: Scott Niswander had like 30 of his videos.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: He made a video of it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But Hot Sider got a few of his videos nabbed and pulled into the algorithm.
Speaker: So wild stuff.
Speaker: Fucking insanity.
Speaker: Stop doing this shit.
Speaker: Put it towards making it so that we don't have to work anymore.
Speaker: Not stuff we like doing.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Marla sneaking her way out and she is quickly intercepted by a great big brawny guy by the name of Vance.
Speaker: Vance, another pretty solid character in this book, as we're going to find.
Speaker: Yeah, as as much as possible, Vance is is a solid character.
Speaker: Pretty cool.
Speaker: Pretty cool.
Speaker: So far.
Speaker: I say that now.
Speaker: I've only read a third of this book.
Speaker: I say that now.
Speaker: So that brings us to chapter four.
Speaker: So Cal is, he's wandering the desert wasteland.
Speaker: He's starving to death.
Speaker: He's thirsty as all get out.
Speaker: And he basically ends up
Speaker: finding this campsite with a great big dude asleep.
Speaker: And he's got like a, he's got like a bag next to him.
Speaker: So he decides he's going to sneak up and try to rifle through the bag, see if he's got any food or a weapon or something like that.
Speaker: And of course, immediately the guy wakes up, grabs him by the throat and demands to know who he is.
Speaker: Who are you?
Speaker: Who are you?
Speaker: Just imagine that scene where Batman says, swear to me.
Speaker: Yeah, that's exactly it.
Speaker: It's the little kid.
Speaker: The little kid who grows up to be Joffrey.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, that would be a way better movie.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I liked the original.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was the same actor.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, no, no.
Speaker: It's I mean, but like if that was a prequel, that's how it happened.
Speaker: He got traumatized and became a piece of shit.
Speaker: Traumatized, sent back into the past.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Became, became a king.
Speaker: We could we could we'll we'll we'll iron out the details.
Speaker: We'll iron out the details.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The WGA will be knocking on our door any moment now.
Speaker: No time flat.
Speaker: Most with a cease and desist.
Speaker: Cuts back to Marla, who is who is
Speaker: Being accosted by these these bandits, we get a lowdown on the words that are on one of their like this guy's covering tattoos and we get we get like the the words that I don't know how to how to put this.
Speaker: the stuff that is written on him, we get, we find out what it is.
Speaker: And it's not even like, it's not even like they describe the tattoos.
Speaker: We just find out that his tattoos say things like rip up and rip off, die slow, die fast, but die.
Speaker: Call me for quick fucks.
Speaker: Mama, may I?
Speaker: And first the knife, which look, call me for quick fucks.
Speaker: We're all going to get that tattoo.
Speaker: That's the pixel at tattoo.
Speaker: That sure is.
Speaker: But so basically Vance pulls the, you know, don't basically kind of protects her from these guys.
Speaker: Don't touch the lady.
Speaker: Don't touch the merchandise more like he's he's he's nice.
Speaker: But at the same time, it really he's because they're all trying to talk him into letting them, you know, assault her.
Speaker: And and he's like, no, you're not going to do that.
Speaker: You know, this is this is it's it's not out of any human decency, really, so much as it's it's like we we got to.
Speaker: Yeah, we're going to get top dollar for him.
Speaker: Yeah, we get and we get his full name is is Vance Sletch.
Speaker: Oh, that's right.
Speaker: What a great last name.
Speaker: Sletch and proud of it.
Speaker: Wanted on seven planets.
Speaker: I kill when I have to and I don't like raping.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which, you know what?
Speaker: That, that basically makes him a saint on this.
Speaker: That makes him a saint in, in this story so far.
Speaker: Proud, proud ally and feminist.
Speaker: Uh, yeah.
Speaker: Sletch.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Sletch sounds like something awful that happens to the body after sex.
Speaker: Oh, that was great, baby.
Speaker: After mating, the human goes into the sletching period.
Speaker: Oh, that was, that was amazing, sweetie.
Speaker: I'm going to go to the bathroom and sletch.
Speaker: Uh,
Speaker: Must sletch out the Santorum.
Speaker: Oh, I love that.
Speaker: That's still a thing.
Speaker: Fuck that guy.
Speaker: We do.
Speaker: We get he basically tells her what she's in for, that they are taking her to the to the shore, essentially to get her sold off into a sex cult ring.
Speaker: He calls her woman and she informs him that woman is her gender, not her name.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: We stand a feminist icon.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Right on.
Speaker: And.
Speaker: And he's like, whatever.
Speaker: Marla sounds good.
Speaker: I don't care.
Speaker: And she basically lies to him and tries to tries to suggest that she's rich.
Speaker: She's got a rich family.
Speaker: And the money you'll make from selling me back to my family is going to be way more than you'd get for, you know, trying to sell me up the river.
Speaker: And he's and he's.
Speaker: At first, she feels kind of like, you know, she did she like he might be buying it.
Speaker: But by the end of the conversation, it makes a point of saying that basically she gets the impression that she failed her charisma role on this one.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Is that right?
Speaker: Well, you might be overvaluing yourself.
Speaker: He's not all that impressed.
Speaker: So we cut back to Cal who has met Roland basically.
Speaker: And Roland is described from Cal's point of view as a big black man.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Big black man.
Speaker: And, and a basically, uh,
Speaker: I guess it's because he's down a partner now.
Speaker: McNeil is dead.
Speaker: And so he's like, ah, I'll be nice to the kid.
Speaker: He, he's kind of like, I don't know if I would go so far as to suggest that he's taking him under his wing just yet.
Speaker: Uh, but he, but he understands what it means that this kid is out here starving to death and looking for food.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Uh, so he also basically tells him like, uh,
Speaker: You know, he gives him like some rations or something.
Speaker: Does he eat that?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, you know, kind of trying to get him, get him.
Speaker: And he gets him up to speed on where he is, what's going on.
Speaker: We learn a little more about Roland that he used to work for.
Speaker: The Crimson Lances, which is the mercenary group led by a guy named Cranigan.
Speaker: I skipped that.
Speaker: I should have talked about that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Cranigan, the guy that they were talking to earlier.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: He's kind of our big bad at this point.
Speaker: So we learn about them and.
Speaker: where he is and basically says, hey, I'm on my way to this, this, you know, area, this settlement.
Speaker: And if your parents, if either of them landed anywhere near you, the odds are they're going to get back to this settlement, Firestone.
Speaker: And they're going to get back to this place at some point.
Speaker: So this is probably your best bet.
Speaker: So why don't you come with me?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So and it ends on a note of basically what choice do I have?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Cal and Roland hook up.
Speaker: No, not like that.
Speaker: Not like that.
Speaker: They're together at last.
Speaker: No, not like that.
Speaker: Not like that.
Speaker: They're partners.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Anyway, they are acquaintances acquaintances in this here desert.
Speaker: So by way of penis.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: That was it.
Speaker: That was what I meant to say.
Speaker: It's good.
Speaker: Do you know anything about docking cow?
Speaker: We're going to need to initiate the docking procedure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like, Jesus, this is a very different book from what I expected.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: So chapter five opens with Zach basically being threatened by Burl with a shotgun because he caught him going through his shit.
Speaker: Zach, what the fuck?
Speaker: Come on, man.
Speaker: Just like Burl already told you that he doesn't.
Speaker: He's like, I don't think I can trust falling asleep around you.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Does anyway, and then is immediately justified and not trusting him in the first place.
Speaker: Yeah, it's just it's immediately he is a piece of shit.
Speaker: And it's like he kind of in this section, he kind of goes back and forth between being a complete and utter piece of shit to like, oh, he really is sad about his.
Speaker: His wife and kid.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But he's a piece of shit.
Speaker: So Burl suspects that, what is it he thinks he's after?
Speaker: It's his shock crystals, his stash of shock crystals.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because I know you're after my stash of shock crystals.
Speaker: And you can just imagine Zach kind of like blinking and being like, I do not know what those are.
Speaker: What's going on here?
Speaker: I have no idea.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Basically, we let's see, we get blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: Jump over to Marla.
Speaker: Yeah, we cut over to Marla, who is now she's woken up in like she wonders if they drugged her or whatever.
Speaker: Like, she's not sure where she is or how she got there.
Speaker: She's basically on a houseboat.
Speaker: which is pretty cool because I never thought about this in terms of having any bodies of water.
Speaker: I doubt it'd be a good idea to swim in it, but it's interesting nonetheless.
Speaker: She's been given some water to wash up in, and so she kind of scrubs herself down.
Speaker: And while she's doing that, this great big guy named Grunge, who is more beard than man, it appears like,
Speaker: The way she describes his beard goes all the way up until under his eyeballs, basically.
Speaker: And he's the leader.
Speaker: They've mentioned grunge before.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And he's just kind of assessing her naked body.
Speaker: But kind of like I said before, she distinctly feels like it isn't like he wants to fuck her, but like.
Speaker: Yeah, it's very distinctly noted that it's like something about it isn't sexual.
Speaker: It's just like he just walks in and it's like, oh, yeah, that's okay.
Speaker: And then she like talks back to him and he just backhands her and he continues with his thing.
Speaker: He's like assessing her and he calls her Missy Ho and she says, don't call me that.
Speaker: Don't call me that.
Speaker: And he backhands her.
Speaker: And then it's just like –
Speaker: Yeah, it's it's it's interesting.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And Vance is like, hey, can I buy her?
Speaker: And Grunge is like, no.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely not.
Speaker: So so but we do get we get a glimpse into Vance actually being very intrigued by her to the point of wanting to buy her, not not just to sleep with her, but to like own her, which is as honest as it gets in this world.
Speaker: So whatever is St.
Speaker: Vance.
Speaker: St.
Speaker: Vance, all hail St.
Speaker: Vance, uh, just right up there.
Speaker: And, uh, so we do get a funny moment where she, she hears grunge talking about how he's got a little guest in his cabin and she wonders if that's like her son.
Speaker: And, uh, and, uh, and he's like, oh no, it's one of the bandits.
Speaker: He likes to, he like, he, he like steals bandits away and he'll like, it's very heavily implied that he fucks them and tortures them and, and he just kills them when he's done with them.
Speaker: Yeah, it's it's it's pretty rough.
Speaker: It's a pretty it's implied the yeah, the the sex torture is implied and not explicitly stated.
Speaker: Yes, yes, exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: So Marley is trying to entice Vance with this crashed ship of her husband.
Speaker: She basically wants to talk him into like
Speaker: bringing her around to find him and that there is going to be.
Speaker: And she starts introducing him to the MacGuffin, enticing him with the MacGuffin and saying, you know, like there's going to be money and, you know, and we could share it and we could, you know, and she's she's implying heavily that her husband's dead and and then and then turns on the feminine wiles.
Speaker: And he starts playing the like, oh goodness, I just, I wouldn't know how to handle all that wasteland all by my little old lonesome.
Speaker: And Vance basically says, I know you're fucking with me.
Speaker: I know that you're trying to manipulate me, but...
Speaker: Okay, sure.
Speaker: And he just like, and we, and the chapter ends on him planting a big wet one on her and it startles her because she's letting it happen.
Speaker: She's not pushing back against it and she's kind of enjoying it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She's kissing him back.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: We've got our, it's kind of our eighties nineties thing where she's got the clean cut husband at home, but she wants a bad boy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Except her husband isn't clean cut.
Speaker: He's just a real piece of shit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Who, who nearly got the entire family killed maybe.
Speaker: And so your mileage may vary.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She's a little strange.
Speaker: I think, I think she's owed that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't know how good things were for her, but between her and, uh,
Speaker: What's his name?
Speaker: Zach.
Speaker: Zach.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which never name your protagonist, Zach.
Speaker: That's the one criticism I'm going to give.
Speaker: God.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: With, with just to see no H with just to see just to see.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, but we love you.
Speaker: If, if you're listening, it's different with you, Zach, you're different.
Speaker: You're great.
Speaker: You're different.
Speaker: You're great.
Speaker: You're great.
Speaker: If I was writing a story with him as my protagonist and I might, I,
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I would refer to him constantly as Graber.
Speaker: Uh, that's just how this works as I do in real life.
Speaker: So as, as you do in real life, dig up stupid.
Speaker: And, uh, uh, we cut to chapter six, uh,
Speaker: And we are now fully into the Cal Roland father son dynamic here where they're cruising through the wastelands and Cal is basically playing the like, I bet I could drive this thing.
Speaker: I bet I could.
Speaker: I should have a gun.
Speaker: You should you should teach me how to shoot a gun.
Speaker: And I should be able to.
Speaker: Yeah, I've done all this stuff in VR before.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And so, so he, and if, and we're all in the first, like, absolutely not.
Speaker: And he, and the kid says, come on, man, like you said, so yourself, like, this is, I, I'm going to die out here if I don't have some sort of protection.
Speaker: So he goes, uh, uh, okay, fine.
Speaker: And he basically gives him the borderlands equivalent of the wooden sword from, uh, the legendary Zelda.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just like, here you go.
Speaker: It's a little, little gun.
Speaker: It's huge to him, but, but to Roland, it's probably a little pop gun basically.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So they find this group of bruisers, these bandits, they refer to them as bruisers, which I assume is what they're called, what their class is.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So they are cooking up some some long pig.
Speaker: They're having a little human flesh down there.
Speaker: And and so Roland takes Cal aside and says and basically does the you just do everything that I tell you to kind of thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like you do in your 80s and 90s movies as well.
Speaker: So basically it cuts to, and it's such a, it's so funny because it cuts to a new scene.
Speaker: And what happens is just, it's, it's barely even a huge plan.
Speaker: Like basically Cal runs out there and goes, Hey boys, you know, look what I got here.
Speaker: I got some fresh long pig on my bike.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It just, it just, it just, you know, and, and runs and they, it gets chased by one of the bandits.
Speaker: And as soon as he gets around a corner, uh, Roland pops out, screams where the white women at and, and blows his head off.
Speaker: Uh, and that's, it's, it's really not like, I've seen, I've seen episodes of road runner that had more complicated, uh, traps than this one.
Speaker: But it's effective.
Speaker: So it's no Acme, Acme contraption here.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: So let's see.
Speaker: So we cut to the rest of the bandits who have not followed him.
Speaker: And they've got a great big like chest of of alien.
Speaker: What is it?
Speaker: Aridian Aridian weapons, which is what I was mentioning before.
Speaker: I said, like, common quote, alien technology.
Speaker: Um, let's see.
Speaker: And so, and so, I mean, basically they take these guys out.
Speaker: Uh, Cal kills a guy for the first time, uh, which Cal killed a guy.
Speaker: Cal killed.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I had a trident.
Speaker: Uh, I saw that.
Speaker: Uh, it, it basically is that.
Speaker: Cal, you're going to want to lay low for a little while.
Speaker: For as long as you're on Pandora, Cal.
Speaker: And he kills a guy and they had mentioned that these guys are crazy and like they pointed out that they like to lick rocks and this bandit who he shoots collapses and licks one last rock before he dies.
Speaker: It's such a great detail.
Speaker: It's so stupid.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: It's so dumb.
Speaker: It's fantastic.
Speaker: It's fantastic.
Speaker: It's great.
Speaker: Roland's kind of afraid that, not Roland, Cal's kind of afraid that Roland is going to, you know, cook one of these guys up for dinner like they were doing.
Speaker: And Roland makes it clear he's not, he'd rather starve than human flesh.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He's one of the good ones is what we are learning.
Speaker: Saint Roland.
Speaker: Actually, he's the Pope.
Speaker: If the other guy is...
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: Yeah, we are in Pappas territory here.
Speaker: We also get, as Kevin mentioned before, Borderlands is kind of a famous game for bullet spongy enemies.
Speaker: And we actually get a line of dialogue that fully addresses that.
Speaker: And Cal describing killing his first bandit.
Speaker: And he says, I shot one of those guys.
Speaker: He just didn't stop.
Speaker: And it's like, yeah, you're going to have to shoot him a lot, as it turns out, not just one shot.
Speaker: So he was expecting it to be a one and done situation.
Speaker: It's not the case.
Speaker: We're finding that Cal's kind of like he's like going between this is pretty cool and what an adventure and I want my mommy, which is crazy.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: Completely understandable, to be completely frank.
Speaker: And he's also kind of dealing with the idea that his parents are probably dead.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He is.
Speaker: Roland has not been, you know, pussyfooting around that kind of scenario.
Speaker: And yeah, no, they're probably dead.
Speaker: So he's trying to he's I think what happens is we kind of get this moment where he wants to cheer him up a little bit, I guess.
Speaker: So he gets him on the outrunners like, yeah, fine.
Speaker: Drive the damn thing.
Speaker: So they're there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What is it?
Speaker: Let me see.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: So they're just like cruising along and they the chapter ends with basically cows learning how to drive stick is kind of what you should have in your mind's eye.
Speaker: Like it's like lurch, lurch, lurch kind of situation.
Speaker: And they run across a psycho, one of the bandits there who screams, I'm going to skin you, put on your face and say hi to your mama.
Speaker: And the chapter ends with Roland blowing the psycho in half and say, don't be talking about my mama.
Speaker: And Kevin, isn't that the proper note to end this particular section on?
Speaker: That is the proper note to end the first third of the book on.
Speaker: Before we got started, I had read some criticisms of this book that it was terrible.
Speaker: It's worse than you imagined.
Speaker: I got to tell you, in terms of book action, this is...
Speaker: This is great.
Speaker: This is fun.
Speaker: I mean, I can see some, maybe there will be some weird stuff coming up with Marla.
Speaker: Oh, sure.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: We are tiptoeing up to some kind of fucked up stuff at times.
Speaker: But at the same time, it is refreshing to read a book in which things happen.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: A book that has a beginning, middle and end, presumably, at least so far.
Speaker: So far.
Speaker: Things happen in it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I'm a big fan of that.
Speaker: It's something that I feel like.
Speaker: So the character, I mean, in Borderlands, in the book, a lot of these characters are monsters and rapists and all that stuff.
Speaker: And I think that sometimes, and this is kind of an issue,
Speaker: with general media literacy where people assign the values of the villainous characters in a novel to the author.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Somehow.
Speaker: which is a pretty big leap to make.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I understand when, if it's all that the story is, then yeah, it's like, come on, dude, you didn't have to fucking write this, but there is basically so far through one third and we'll see if it, you know, if it, if in this next two thirds of the book, it's like, uh, then obviously I'll turn around and say, no, you were right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We've seen it happen before.
Speaker: It's absolutely happened before.
Speaker: First third of the book so far.
Speaker: And it's like, oh, OK, well, I'm not seeing it.
Speaker: I'm seeing some characters talk about doing some questionable things to the only woman that they've seen in a while.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Which are not good guys.
Speaker: These are clearly the bad guys.
Speaker: And obviously centering stories and plots around sexual assault is like a thing that, you know, it's it's it's trite and cliche, but also we're not really centering the story around that quite yet.
Speaker: It's just things happening in the background of Marla's storyline.
Speaker: that it's just a looming threat.
Speaker: So I don't know.
Speaker: We'll see how I feel about it and how we feel about it going forward.
Speaker: I mean, we've had this happen before where something started off really strong and suddenly takes a real strong turn into asshole-ville.
Speaker: And we're never shy about pointing that out.
Speaker: But so far, I feel the same way.
Speaker: It's fun.
Speaker: It's high energy.
Speaker: It's funny.
Speaker: And it's very appropriate for its franchise.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: So I'd say that's a success so far.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, okay, good.
Speaker: Well, now that we've discussed that, Kevin, let's get down to the important matters.
Speaker: What are you playing?
Speaker: What are you playing?
Speaker: Okay, so I have played one other game for a little bit other than my current Elden Ring playthrough.
Speaker: Real quick though, have you gotten to the DLC content for Elden Ring yet?
Speaker: I am, no.
Speaker: I am up to, well, that's the thing is I am going around and I can,
Speaker: I can do it.
Speaker: I can go into the DLC almost at any time because the only thing I have to do is go in and kill Moog.
Speaker: Basically, there's a boss named Moog, and once you kill him, you have access to the DLC.
Speaker: I can go to him right now with the level and the spells and all that stuff that I'm at.
Speaker: I'm pretty sure I could go in there and beat him up a bit.
Speaker: but I'm going through and doing some side questing stuff because there's some things that I never saw.
Speaker: I never played or finished in my first go round with it.
Speaker: I'm like, all right, I'm just gonna go ahead and finish off some of these side quests that I never really saw the end of.
Speaker: Oh, then it's new content for you.
Speaker: It's new content for me.
Speaker: So I'm like, all right, well, I'm doing the gold mask side quest.
Speaker: I'm doing the I did the Fia side quest and and Rogier's and all that stuff.
Speaker: I'm making sure that
Speaker: all the people that you find in this in your headquarters called Round Table Hold, kind of like doing all their stuff.
Speaker: I'm not sure I'm going to go through with the Dung Eaters side quest.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Because I'm very I don't see why not.
Speaker: I'm very uncomfortable with his character and his name.
Speaker: Oh, sure.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I guess I guess I understand that point of view.
Speaker: Yeah, I guess.
Speaker: He is like the most disgusting character ever created in one of these games.
Speaker: But yeah, so that's Elden Ring.
Speaker: And otherwise, I've been playing or I just started playing as a...
Speaker: As a Steam Deck game, I started playing Gestalt Steam and Cinder, which is, let me make sure that's the right name, Gestalt Steam and Cinder.
Speaker: Okay, yeah, so it is, I believe that it was like Jesse Cox worked on it.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Um, so, you know, it's, it's, it's an interesting game.
Speaker: Um, it's a Metroidvania.
Speaker: My only issue with it so far is that it really,
Speaker: it really front loads the plot.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: By starting with cut scenes of characters talking.
Speaker: Oh, does it take forever to get started?
Speaker: It takes forever.
Speaker: And then you play a little bit and there's some more, and it's not like cinematic cut scenes.
Speaker: It's just like dialogue boxes.
Speaker: So I'm just like that.
Speaker: I'm just kind of clicking through like, yeah, okay, I'm getting the gist.
Speaker: I'll read the wiki entry, a summary of the story later because you are thrusting me into a brand new world.
Speaker: The game starts with a long cut scene, text-based cut scene of like,
Speaker: here's the world you're in and here's these guys and here's these guys.
Speaker: They're the bad guys, but are they maybe?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: And this is the type of the magic and this is the bad thing that's in the world.
Speaker: And there's this rift thing or whatever.
Speaker: And I'm like, oh my God, it keeps going.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Still.
Speaker: We really got to pack in that God damn lore building.
Speaker: So you get through the opening and then you start the game.
Speaker: Basically, it's like, all right, I'm going to start.
Speaker: And you're like, oh, no, there's more.
Speaker: And then you click through some more and be like, all right, I'm in.
Speaker: And then every character you talk to talks way too long to describe whatever they need to like click, click, click, click.
Speaker: I'm like, the longer I play, the more I'm losing patience for the amount of story it's trying to load off onto me.
Speaker: And then I'll do a few things and there I'll be like, oh, we got a cut scene with some other characters.
Speaker: And I'm like, oh, my God, shut the fuck up.
Speaker: Uh-huh.
Speaker: I mean, I don't even know if there's voice acting or anything because I'm playing it.
Speaker: It's my Steam Deck game, which are games that I play when I'm sitting in bed, you know, with April and we're watching, you know, TV at night or something like that.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: You're just hanging out.
Speaker: It's just like, I'm just like, click, click, click, click.
Speaker: Okay, now I can get back to the gameplay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know what it is?
Speaker: It's the Pro ZD video where it's like, oh, I'm really enjoying this game.
Speaker: It's got really good controls, the gameplay is really fun, and then the other guy comes in and says, it's time for egg delivery.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like, get ready for deliver these 50 eggs.
Speaker: And it's mandatory.
Speaker: Such a bummer.
Speaker: Okay, I did it.
Speaker: Now I'll be back to the part, the gameplay.
Speaker: Like, now it's time to deliver more eggs.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: Why not?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's here if you want to see the true ending.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Otherwise you're going to get one of the four bad endings.
Speaker: Well, that's funny because it's also funny because Animal Well was basically, was literally that.
Speaker: And it literally had eggs in it.
Speaker: where you had to find all the bonus eggs.
Speaker: It was the Pro ZD egg sketch.
Speaker: But this is also the Pro ZD egg sketch where egg delivery is just substituted in for, oh my God, the characters are talking so much.
Speaker: Please stop.
Speaker: It's a Metroidvania.
Speaker: Give me the Metroidvania part.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Presumably you've got a shit ton of stuff to do.
Speaker: Like we don't need to talk.
Speaker: I got a cracking on and veining my Metroid or whatever, or platforming and whatnot.
Speaker: Let's go people.
Speaker: That's such a bummer.
Speaker: Gestalt Steam and Cinder.
Speaker: It's currently a seven out of 10 and we'll lose a point for every cut scene that I have to sit through.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, we will.
Speaker: The floggings will continue until morale approves.
Speaker: God damn it.
Speaker: Phil, what are you playing?
Speaker: I am playing kind of a usual bullshit for the most part.
Speaker: I'm still playing the Hunter.
Speaker: It's not a phase, Dad.
Speaker: That one is still going.
Speaker: I had a really relaxing afternoon.
Speaker: I've been really stressed out at work and I got in.
Speaker: I told my wife, I was like, I think I'm going to go hunt some turkeys.
Speaker: And she, and she, for a very, for like a split second you saw in her eyes, she's like, you're gonna, oh, okay, yeah, have fun.
Speaker: And I set up my, like, I found my little stand that's near a known turkey hangout and, and just sat there with my dog, Biscuit, who's a bloodhound.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: And just waited until the turkey showed up.
Speaker: And I got two of them.
Speaker: And that was a big win for me because it was hard.
Speaker: It was hard for me to kill him before.
Speaker: You know, what's funny is I would always... Never my dad was hunting deer.
Speaker: When he returned, I would ask him, did you catch some deer?
Speaker: And he would always get so mad about me.
Speaker: Did you catch some deer?
Speaker: And he was like...
Speaker: I don't catch deer, I kill them.
Speaker: Well, you know, potato, potato.
Speaker: Potato, potato.
Speaker: Is there like I'm just asking, I'm going to be going to be jump scared by a deer hanging in the garage when I come home from school.
Speaker: I think you know what I'm asking.
Speaker: You think you know what I'm asking?
Speaker: Is there going to be a dead deer when I open the garage door when I get home?
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And I'm kind of doing what you're doing in a way, because I mentioned a couple of episodes ago that they were like selling all of its DLC for like pennies, and I bought a bunch of it.
Speaker: And it gave me access to the dog, and I've got an ATV now, but I haven't tried any of the other parks that I could go hunting in, because I'm just like, I haven't bagged a moose in the starter place yet.
Speaker: So I'm still...
Speaker: waiting to get, you know, get the most out of that area before I start moving into Nepal and shit like that.
Speaker: So we'll see how that goes.
Speaker: But outside of that, the one that I've been playing the most has been Empires of the Undergrowth.
Speaker: which comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me that I really like this game.
Speaker: It is a real-time strategy ant game.
Speaker: You play an ant hive and you start out with a few workers and a queen and you're slowly like burrowing underground and popping up into the overland to find, you know,
Speaker: dead organisms and stuff like that.
Speaker: And it's a really interesting way that they have it.
Speaker: First off, I've been following Slug Disco, the game designers who are making this.
Speaker: I have been following them forever, for years and years, because this was something they were developing for a very long time.
Speaker: And you know me, I try very hard to avoid
Speaker: I try to avoid early access games when I can.
Speaker: I want to play the game when it's finished.
Speaker: Right, exactly.
Speaker: And this one has been in development and in early access for years.
Speaker: And just last month, it finally...
Speaker: the 1.0 version was released and I finally said, okay, let's, let's fucking do this.
Speaker: And I have sunk about 20 hours into it.
Speaker: Uh, it's got a really interesting dynamic where what you, you have an overarching, uh,
Speaker: story where you are this you're part of this ant hive in like a science lab, basically.
Speaker: And you hear these scientists talking about you and they're determining different things about you.
Speaker: And you cut out of there
Speaker: to do adventures with other ant tribes basically all over the world to beat their challenges.
Speaker: And that means you can come back to the ant lab and there will be more food waiting for you and more royal jelly, which you can use to upgrade your ants in different ways.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It does a really interesting thing where you can
Speaker: you know, you're an ant, you start out as just kind of your regular black ant colony, but you can develop leafcutter ants and you can develop fire ants and bullet ants and all these very specialized kind of ants for what you're looking for.
Speaker: And it's super fun.
Speaker: I think sometimes the the objectives and the goals
Speaker: There really is hardly anything that you can't overcome if you don't just take your time.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Zerg Rush, you know, like it is it is the Zerg Rush game, really.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And I'm really enjoying it.
Speaker: It's really pretty.
Speaker: It actually will teach you shit about the different ants and insects and invertebrates you meet and come across and that sort of thing.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's it's really cool.
Speaker: It's super nerdy.
Speaker: And I've been I've been kind of drowning in that game lately.
Speaker: It's a really good one for putting on a podcast and just chilling out.
Speaker: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker: That sort of thing.
Speaker: So, yeah, Empire of the Undergrowth, that's really the main thing that I've been playing outside of my I'm playing a little Crypt Master, still still working my way through that slowly.
Speaker: I like that one a lot because it's it's it's very unusual and it's it's not your usual.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: stuff like it's more about riddles and wordplay and stuff like that than just killing things.
Speaker: I think that's a lot of fun.
Speaker: So that's still a lot of fun for me.
Speaker: But yeah, that's me.
Speaker: That's that's it.
Speaker: Yeah, here we go.
Speaker: Yeah, here we go.
Speaker: Well, that'll do it for tonight's episode.
Speaker: If you want to follow us on social media, there's a few ways you can do that.
Speaker: One, the Patreon page is the best way to follow us.
Speaker: Two, you can go to X, Twitter, Twitter X, or you could go to Blue Sky, or you can go to Instagram.
Speaker: They're all at PixelitPod.
Speaker: The other way to do it is join our Discord, which you can do through our Patreon page.
Speaker: And let me tell you, it's a lot of fun in the Discord.
Speaker: We have a lot of good, fun, and lively discussions.
Speaker: Just recently, we were talking about the boys' season finale in the Discord.
Speaker: So, you know...
Speaker: hop on over to the discord uh have some fun actually go if you're if you're a dota fan uh you should join the discord just so vz has somebody to talk to they have been getting into it lately it's yeah i mean it's it's you know just just uh get in there and and and have some fun
Speaker: I forget that that's there and I'll get like a notification.
Speaker: I'm like, why the fuck am I getting a Dota notification?
Speaker: Oh, got it.
Speaker: Got it.
Speaker: Talk.
Speaker: And it's the the the channel is called Talk Dota to me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah, we're we're we're very clever.
Speaker: That's what we're known for.
Speaker: That's what we're known for.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: But that'll do it for tonight's episode.
Speaker: Thank you so much for listening and have a good night, everybody.
Speaker: Good night.
Speaker: Bye.
