Mount Rushmore of Gaming Part 02 (Episode 275)

On Gaming the System, host Matt joins Alex and Jem to kick off a lighter episode building their “Mount Rushmore” of gaming icons.

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Transcript

0:15

Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Gaming the System, the podcast where three intersectional feminists examine gaming and games through a feminist lens. Today I am your host, Matt, and I'm joined by my friends Alex and Gem. Before we get started, if you want to support us, you can subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/gaming system for some exclusive content. Or you can send us a one-off donation via PayPal to our email address. We are gaming the system@gmail.com. I. So this episode is going to be part two of our Mount Rushmores of Gaming. Each bus are bringing one of our icon of gamings for each of the four face slots available on our three separate Mount Rushmores. If you want to know what our first two faces were, you can, uh, watch or listen to our previous episodes. The where we covered the first two, and then this one is the conclusion. To that. So this time we are gonna go in the opposite order that we went the first time. And that means that gem, you are first. Mm. See I'm really struggling with what to go for for my third one. Um, oh, I dunno. It really could be anything. I think it is going to be Disco e Lithium. Because it's unlike anything I've experienced before. Really. It's such an interesting game. It doesn't have combat in, in the sort of traditional sense. It's more like a interactive novel, but it's more than a. Pointing click adventure. I think, you know, it had some sort of memories of broken sword. I dunno if you played any of those games that they were, they were sort of really old school pointing click games. They're well worth if you have not played them. They are well worth getting on your, tablet or your mobile because they are just sort of point and click murder mystery basically. And the main character, the, the sort of protagonist that you play is just so snarky and, uh, sassy. And he, he is just. Such a good character. All of the characters are really good and they have, it is all very, very well written, well worth, well worth checking out because it's um, it's a sort of lazy game that you can just play. But it's a really interesting story and it's puzzling. It's puzzling. So it's not, you do have to do a bit of thinking, but I think that's what I was expecting with Disco e Lithium, sort of that kind of point and click. Story, and in some ways that is what it is, but then it is also so much more than that. It's also you're kind of building a human being really, or building a personality throughout the game. So as you learn things or you gain skills or whatever. It changes who you are and that changes the options that you're given at points in the game. So you end up being taken down different routes and interesting routes as a result of your character's personality. I mean it's, it's a very dark, uh, game and. Your character is very depressed. I think it is just, it is very like, so it's, it's a sort of game that where you have to be in the right frame of mind to play, I think. Because it is also the imagery is very. Very well done, but it's not, it's also quite bleak, like the story. So just the, the artwork that used in the game is, and the music, everything about it is quite, kind of, has this kind of bleakness, but it goes in line with the, with the character and with the world that it's set in. And the other thing that I think is fascinating about it is that. It's, it doesn't shy away from big topics. It talks about all sorts of different political positioning, and it's quite happy to kind of get involved in, in a, in very political discussion and debate and to let your character get involved in that. So it's quite intellectual in a very accessible way and. I think the only thing I would say that I struggled with it was that there's just so much reading. There's so much information in it. There's so much to listen to. There's so much to engage with that that can feel a bit overwhelming at times. It's like you're sort of downloading a encyclopedia of humanity, so, but I, but I do think it's just a really novel. Exploration of what you can do with a story led game, and we've talked a lot about those on the pod. We've talked about disco lithium before as well, but, um, yeah, so I would have that up up there. I've been, uh, watching a documentary about disco lium recently. Haven't watched the final part yet, but it is absolutely fascinating about how the team kind of came together from, essentially they were, they were like a band of Estonian. Socialist, communist hip piece who really liked d and d and writing and had never made a game before and just decided maybe we should write this story and, and make it into a game. I'm paraphrasing massively, so I would encourage you to go and check out the documentary. It's, um, by one of my favorite YouTube channels. No clip. But it really goes into lots of detail on the writing and the art and, uh. The eventual collapse of, of the team and the disagreements that they all had. And it's all quite sad. It's quite sad really, but um, so it kind of makes sense. The game is also kind of bleak in that way. But I think it's one of those, like they said in the documentary, it's one of those lightning in a bottle kind of games where it's all come together and made this really cool thing. Something he never thought would actually happen, or it'll seem stuck against them anyway. But uh, yeah, I'm really, I definitely want to play it. I think it would be really, I haven't played it, but I think it would be very interesting to, to, to give a go and I know how much you like, enjoy talking about it, gem. So yeah, I tried it and then stopped very quickly because the writing was too good. Because the very first, the very first scene is this main detective guy who's an alcoholic, waking up from a, from a blackout night. And it's just the most horrifying description of what it could be like to be an alcoholic and waking up in the morning that I just went, Nope, no thanks. Well, I, I don't need that in my head. Alex, but is he an alcoholic? We don't know. I don't dunno who, but is he? That's the thing. It's like, that's all the way through. You, you, you can have, like, you, you know so little about him and he knows so little about himself. So that's, that's the thing. And I will never know. I mean, it definitely looks like it. I mean it certainly starts off that way, doesn't he? But yeah, I think that's. Yeah, I can't remember how many possible landings there are, but there are quite a few different ones, I think. Yeah. I'll, I'll take your word for it. How good it is. Uh, Alex, what is your phase three? So, my third phase isn't necessarily a game per se. It's more of a, a console that, uh, managed to steal me away from PlayStation for a brief. Brief but enjoyable period in the mid to late noughties. And that is the Nintendo. We, um, having not been a Nintendo person beforehand, really, we did have a Game boy. And, but yeah, the, we was really what broke the, the mold in terms of getting Nintendo to be a permanent fixture in our, in our house. Mainly if I had to name particular games, I would say, um, probably We Sports or We Sports Resort were the top two. And we fit actually. But it's interesting, I've, I've selected it because it is the one and only probably truly cross generational console that we have. Because my parents played on it quite a lot and my uncle as well. So it kind of, I think it that's what it was marketed as, as was a really family friendly concert that everyone could kind of get involved with. And their games were uniquely Nintendo esque, but also very, very accessible. As well in terms of for when you consider like someone who's a non gamer. I think it's very accessible from that kind of perspective as well. But yeah, I think yeah, we, we do still occasionally bring it out, dust it off and uh, give it a try. And I think it also was a bit of a, an experiment because, you know, the controls of the, we. Were pretty revolutionary at the time. Everyone was like, oh, this is the future of gaming. Of course, it, it wasn't quite, but uh, it was something new and novel and I think that's what attracted a lot of people to the we as well. My mum always calls it the Wei machine. We're like, no, mum, that's not its name. It's hilarious. But yeah, we, um, we definitely had a period of time during the mid to late naughties where it was the go-to console that we would play play on a lot of the time. So I think it does deserve its places as being a, um, um, on the mountain. Yes. Yeah, there was that, that very strange period where. Like when, whenever different competitors are trying to work out what the next big thing is gonna be, you get things like the we Yeah. And just whose idea was this? And there isn't really anything like it now, but No. The part where you could, you could say the Nintendo switches because you can detach the two sides. It's sort of like a mini we, but, uh. Did you ever smash anything with using one of the very, nearly, very nearly, we had a neighbor come around to play we sports and it was during the bowling and they, they, uh, hadn't got the strap round and it hit the, the light fixture on our, on our ceiling and kind of doned it quite hard, but it didn't break anything. But it was slightly terrifying'cause it was like everyone was trying to cover their heads. But, uh, because you will, it will fly around. I have seen it happen, but luckily nothing was broken, which was all good. Yes, it can get, like I say, when it gets very competitive, you gotta watch out.'Cause you will chuck things around. But yeah, it's so weird, isn't it? I mean, why didn't it? Take, why wasn't it the start of a whole new, it's strange to sort of had this little pocket of time and now no one plays it anymore. I feel a bit sad about it, but, uh, yeah. Yeah. And it just, there wasn't really much. There's a, there's a limited amount of what you could do with it, and I think that, well, having played on, uh, I think it's an Oculus riff. Rift one of the meta headsets for the first time ever, and that was last year. And they give you these two sort of joystick handle things. And it is the we, but it is in vr. I see. And it feels like everything that the we did it is been doing, it's being done better by other things that offer. More things in what they can do.'Cause again, VR still hasn't taken off in the way like Facebook had hoped it would be.'cause none of the VR headsets that any of the, like the main competitors have made, have been financially viable. I've not seen any, um, VR games for PlayStation being advertised. Very, very widely. Not that I've seen anyway. I really, I can't name any upcoming VR games off the top of my head, so I feel a bit bad for people who've shout out on that, on that. And uh, maybe it's not getting quite the amount of attention it used to be when it was initially released. Yeah. And it's now that you can, you can get a stupidly powerful computer for. Almost nothing. You can get a PS four for nothing, and you just, those established things are, there were just too many awesome options to spend hundreds of pounds on something that doesn't have very much going for it. So my number three is I'm going to go with PlayStation. The the series of consoles that started it all for me with PlayStation one. And has just been the, it has just, it has thrashed Xbox. I was right all along Xbox. Xbox is dead and buried and the PlayStation is dancing on its grave, but it's okay because I am onto mainly PC gaming now. But I still spend a lot of time at my PlayStation, and it is still pushing the envelope in terms of its, uh, its technical capacity. And then the other side of that is they not only make the console, they publish some of the best games ever and games that have always put like the, the console exclusives, like the Horizon games and the God of War and, uh, the Ghost of Oshima games. Death stranding and day is gone. Just an an endless, I think, I think the last of us was a PlayStation exclusive, but they've, so they've, every single console generation, they put out an incredible console and an incredible series of new IP games, and they have done that consistently since. Since the very beginning and the first PlayStation was in 1994, and then pretty much on a seven year cycle, they've brought out a new console and just every time, every time smashing out the park. And the probably the single greatest thing that they have in terms of, wow, there are too many, there are too many single greatest things that they've done, but. Just the, the controller, the design of the controller, the layout of the controller is the most elegant and symmetrical beautiful design. And then it's, it just gets sleeker and more awesome. And then it's got the haptic feedback, which Xbox could only dream of, and it's just, it's just the best and has. Continue to open the doors of what's possible in gaming. Um, have you ever had a PlayStation jet? Yeah, I had, I, I kind of came to it late. I didn't have, I, I've got a PS five now, but, um, but yeah, I mean, I think you're right. I've, I've never really, we had an Xbox, but only because it was cheap and we were looking for a cheap console. And one of my sort of like, first lessons that I learned about you, Matt, is that you don't like Xbox. You're like straight in there. And I was like, hi, I am Matt. I hate Xbox. And uh, so, so it always makes me laugh, but I think you're right. I think that, you know, PlayStation just always. Had the upper hand on Xbox, and I'm not, I dunno why. Um, because in some ways it felt like Xbox kind of had some really good stuff going for it, but it just never looked as good as the PlayStation. The controllers were never as nice as the PlayStation controllers and they're just, yeah. And like you say, the, the offerings are awesome. So I think. For me, definitely like, um, but I didn't have, I didn't have the original PlayStation. I think possibly my housemates did. That might have been what we played resident Evil on back in the day possible. So yeah, I just, I didn't get my own PlayStation until I was much older. I am tempted once I, once I make my fortune to, to buy in a version of each of the console generations and just have that on a wall. That'd be nice. Gem, what is your final face on Mount Brushback? Okay, my final face is Dungeons and Dragons. The ultimate, the ultimate game, the ultimate co-op game. Um. I'm still playing it today. I kind of came to d and d quite late. I was in my early adulthood when I first started playing Dungeons and Dragons, and I think that I would've loved to have played it earlier, but I didn't even know it existed. So I just happened to not associate with people that knew anything about it. But. As I got older, I met up with a bunch of people at university and um, and through, through the game that we helped to run and, and things and. And we used to play Dungeons and Dragons together as a group, and it was excellent.'cause you just get together, you get a bunch of people around a table. There's some drinks, and we used to have malt teasers or some other chocolate Were the monsters. So if you killed a monster, if you got that last hit, you were allowed to eat the malt teaser. Many are happy Friday night or long weekends spent. Spent playing Dungeons and Dragons and, and I'm still playing today. And Daniel is right now playing a Swedish version of the game with his, um, Swed Swedish friends over the over online. Um, and so yeah, it's, it's something that I'm very pleased is having a bit of a renaissance. And I think it's a really good game for teaching, storytelling and teamwork and a nice, wholesome way of hanging out with your friends and it's, it's great for boosting. Confidence in con in communicating because you can go and you can pretend to be a, uh, a character. So, so you can role play, but you don't have to role play. But you can just pretend to be somebody a bit different from yourself. And I think that's great for confidence for helping people who might find it otherwise. Difficult to communicate because you are not communicating as you, you're communicating as your character. And as I said, it's something you can do with a group of friends and some drinks or you know, around at a coffee ha coffee house. My god, I've gone back to the Victorian era and coffee shop or like gaming cafe and you know, so I think it's just a really, original way of kind of like gaming with, with each other. And it's obviously formed the basis of so, so many games that we play today. And, you know, I, I'm surprised it hasn't come up. I'm wondering if it's gonna, but, you know, Bolders Gate three. Absolutely. You know, amazing, amazing game completely based on, on Dungeons and Dragons and. So, you know, it's an amazing world and it's got lots of spinoffs from it. So, you know, maybe I don't mean Dungeons and Dragons specifically. Maybe I just mean sort of, I don't even know.'cause it's because tabletop gaming isn't, is a slightly different thing. So, you know, but that, that kind of like roleplaying game, that's, that's led by somebody and you get a band of ragtag. Like Ragger muffins that that go on an adventure and yeah. Would it be represented by a D 20? I think it would have to be, wouldn't it? Yeah. But would it show, like, what would it show? Would it show a 21? Yeah. I tell you what's really confusing is that obviously if you roll at. A natural 20 that's absolutely awesome in Dungeons and Dragons. But in the Swedish version of the game, it's completely the opposite. So if you roll a 20, that's a fail. So the lower the number the better. So interesting. And that really threw,'cause there was so many times when I was playing the Swedish version, I was like, yeah. And everyone else in the group was like, no. So yeah, it's uh, yeah, I think it would have to be a D 20. Nice. I wish there was a, a sci-fi version of Dungeons and Dragons. Dunno what that would be. You like Starships and Aliens, but I'm sure that must have been, isn't that what Warhammer is? Isn't isn't that basically what Warhammer is? I dunno. I think we'd, we'd get savaged, we'd be savaged by the internet. We, if we Oh yes. If we say that without doing our research. Because I, I, I know nothing about War Hammer. You know more about Warhammer than I do. Yeah. Yeah. You'll have to speak to my resident war hammer. Yes. But for anyone who's listening, we're not saying yes or no to whether Dungeons Dragon is the exact same as 40 K. That's not what we are, that's not what we're saying either, neither for or against. Alex, what is your third one? So my third one I had a bit of a tossup as to what I should do for this one, but I think I've settled on a choice that reflects another leak in technology this time for a game on the PS three. And it's all to do with motion capture. And that game is LA Noir. Which is an unusual choice, but I think what it did, where it was trying to really capture human emotions so that you, as the player as Cole Phelps could detect whether someone was lying or not it really tried to push the boundaries. It is completely not perfect at all. And it, it is hilarious because of that, perhaps. The reason I love it so much is not for its intended purpose, but because I find it so hilarious. And of course they put all the attention into the faces, but not into the bodies. So they've got these like cardboard arms and like really emotive faces. Yeah, I just really like that game. I find it hilarious and it's a good old miss, like a detective mystery. You get to do all the case work, you get to go and interrogate people. There is some combat, although it's not like big on combat, it's more of a. More of a set set space with shootouts or punch punching and things like that. There's a lot of driving. I always enjoy driving in games. But it's really what it represented in terms of the, the promise or potential that was there in terms of mo cup and in particular, very detailed facial. Motion capture where they actually made the characters look an awful lot like their voice actors. And in fact, there were a couple of people I actually recognized from television series that were in the game who I didn't realize were in the game, but because their faces were so well captured, I was like, oh, that's what's it from thing. And I think it did represent perhaps the most advanced. Motion capture on faces at the time, and of course has been outstripped since. But I just thought I'd give it a quick shout up for pushing the envelope in terms of motion capture. But it is one of my favorite games to just mess around in'cause it's, it's good fun. But yeah, for me that was always an interesting one. They didn't quite get it right, but they tried very hard. I always love seeing the. The actual real life recording of those mocap sessions. They always just they and to see them capturing it. So it's just perfect. And how you get a performer who can perform in such a way that makes it so they don't, it's literally they take what the performer does and like just print it onto the thing. And that just goes to show how. Awesome actors are and, and have always been. And mocap is one of those ways that I think it's, it's another avenue into game acting for non-gaming actors. Mm-hmm. Because as we've seen like the more and more cinematic these games become and the more popular they become. The more people who don't game as seeing them and going, oh, well, that, that would, that looks, I, I should be in that, that's something that I should be in. Yeah. And it's, it's such a disservice to, to voice actors who you don't realize they do the, the mocap as well, which is something I feel a little bit bad about for the cast of Boulder Gate three because. They did all the, the mocap for that as well. And it really doesn't look like it. It all looks really, really the same. It all looks really, like all the movements are the same for other people, but so that's, that's a bit, that's a bit of a shame, but, uh, yeah, still amazing. So my final one is going to be the Unreal Engine. The game engine that, well, its, its biggest games with the under Unreal Engine three was the AUM games. That was really showcasing what the, the, the engine was capable of. And then they came out with the Unreal Engine four, which is what they used to make Arkham Knight on the PS four and just raise the technical bar. Just ups the stratosphere compared to everything else. And then going from that to have an entire generation of games on the Unreal Engine four, creating incredible games from a technical standpoint. And then the. They use it to make Fortnite, which makes them filthy money, so that's good for them. But then the biggest thing that they do for me is they, their engine is completely free to use for anyone. You can use the same engine that has been used for blacksmith Woo Kong and for cla obscure and just a, a, an an endless list. If you go, oh, this game looks amazing. I can't believe I'm amazing. This game, look, it was probably made on the Unreal Engine and it just, it has led to this entire ecosystem for video game developers to learn how to make games using an engine that is used by some of the biggest AAA studios in the world and has been, I've been. Everything that I've been learning about game design, I've been learning on the Unreal Engine, and then seeing all the games that are, are, what's possible with it is incredibly inspiring. And then something like Claire Obscure comes up and then raises the, the visual and technical bar again. And just at all times. I'm thinking, I know, I understand some of that. I understand a little bit about how that works and how that works and how that works. And it's, it's just, it couldn't be better really. And. Another good thing is I found out that they take, so if you, if your game is successful past a certain amount, they take royalties from it, but they only take 12% in total. And that is fantastically reasonable for royalties.'cause everywhere else you look with any kind of. Like, like the expenses that a car, a corporation will take for one of its services. It is pretty much always 30%. It's, that's what Deliveroo does. It's what Uber Eats does. They carve out 30% of everything, and so it's always about extracting like resources from, from people, but 12% is. Happily payable for anything. So the difference between 88 pounds and 12 pounds is, is, is fine. The difference between 82 pounds and 70 pounds, that's a massive, a massive deal. And even though they've just sacked a thousand workers, which is a terrible thing, and, but that is part of a. The industry wide thing of going, we want to make our shareholders more muddy. The quickest way to do that is to raise prices and fire people. But when you think that if you sacked five executives, you could keep all of those people, but no, no, no. That would be, that would be insane. But the Unreal Engine itself is a A A A Titanic force for good. For the industry and for indie games.'cause without the Unreal Engine the only game in town would be these big studios and they would be putting out the shit that they're putting out now. And we wouldn't have any, any light in the darkness going. So that is my final one. Thank you both for your four and, uh, I want everyone who's listening to this, if you've never interacted with us before, this is the first time to do it. You're going to find somewhere to talk to us, whether it's in the YouTube comments or on a review or, or a comment on a post. Tell us what your full, what your four faces on your Mount Everest gaming. Mount in Mount Rushmore of game will be and'cause we want to know, tell us that and uh, you know, and find us. Every Thursday we've been streaming some Ani animal and some ghost of oshima. We did some little nightmares last year, so you'll be seeing more of us streaming in that space as well. So until next time, bye-bye. Bye bye.