Almost Gamers
Join us in a casual conversation with friends about gaming. It's a humorous journey into what we are currently playing, sometimes poorly and not usually on trend. We also talk new and upcoming releases, gaming news, best of lists, and are never afraid to go off on crazy tangents.
Almost Gamers
Episode Six: Tutorial Part 1
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Another epic episode with tales of 90s mascots and castles. Matt gives up on Blue Prince while Andy delves back into the peasant life with Kingdom Come Deliverance. Matt is loving on South Of Midnight, but not so much on muso games. This Boss Battle is true to it's name as the duo talks Favorite Villains. Listen to see if your picks make the list!
Double smash.
SPEAKER_01Double smash.
SPEAKER_02Double smash, Bob's burgers.
SPEAKER_01Bob's burgers. That was a good book.
SPEAKER_03Or here, regarrier. Forget about oh my god, I can't remember the name of the burger. It really, really doesn't matter. But it was tasty. It was a good burger.
SPEAKER_01And um it was impossibly good.
SPEAKER_03Ah, no, it was yours was beyond. It was beyond.
Intro
SPEAKER_03Okay, yins. Welcome to episode five of the Almost Gamers Podcast. As always, I am your wizard for the week, Matty Flames. Sitting across from me is our ever trusty paladin, the Ann Man. Why don't you say hi to folks at home?
SPEAKER_01Hello, everybody.
SPEAKER_03And uh I hope everyone's had a chance to get through that Mammoth two-parter episode.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we were just on a roll and we just we were like the Energizer Bunny. That's they talk about a nice timely reference there, folks. We uh just kept going and going.
SPEAKER_01That's not around anymore, is it? I don't think.
SPEAKER_03I think surprised it hasn't like come back or like they try to like reboot the energizer bunny. We need a movie. Yeah, I mean they base movies on less.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Why not?
SPEAKER_01Oh, I talked about Minecraft isn't like where did they draw anything? They didn't. Yeah, no plot, really.
SPEAKER_03So they could do a energizer bunny the movie. 2026. I'm assuming it's Himverse Durcel.
SPEAKER_01Ooh. I don't know why I pictured, I pictured uh the Domino's guy.
SPEAKER_03Oh, the no the noide. You bring them all. Bring all the mascots from that era. I love it. Yes. Sprite, the spot, the sprite spot. Yes.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, Sprite. He had a video game, speaking of games. Hey, see, it all comes up. We're back, folks. Back on topic.
SPEAKER_03Oh my god. Uh the Burger King games were great, but we will probably talk about that in detail. You and Steve played those, didn't you? We probably have a whole episode on those. I want to.
SPEAKER_01All right. I don't think I ever played them. They're amazing. You're messing up. Okay. Okay. That'll be a segment all to itself.
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_01Your favorite fast food video games. There it is. Surprisingly many of them. Alright. So, sorry, we're off track. Yeah. Completely.
SPEAKER_03I haven't even made it through the intro yet this time. That's because of those burgers.
SPEAKER_01We talked about those burgers. All burgers.
SPEAKER_03All right. So
What Yinz Playing?
SPEAKER_03what what what are Yin's plan? And man, I mean, let's give us. Can you give us at least a uh a Minecraft update? How's your castle? How's your town coming?
SPEAKER_01Oh, whoo-hoo-hoo. All right. Uh let's see. Minecraft. Haven't played it. But I do have some interesting news, and I'm glad you said it because I I wasn't even thinking about Minecraft. But uh my wife, my daughter, uh, and then obviously me, but we watched the movie. Um again, this seems way off topic, but we watched a movie. Uh I I don't know what its official name was, but it's uh the Minecraft movie? Well, not that movie. Where is he going with this? Yeah, where am I going with this? Everybody. They're all waiting. Pins and needles. Uh, the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. That you know, you know that that whole movie? What was the what was the original called?
SPEAKER_03I think the ri Oh the one with Gene Wilder?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I think that was Willy Wonka. Willy Wonka, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, there's the prequel that came out, I don't know when, maybe three years ago. Oh. With Timothy Shadowman.
SPEAKER_03Is it Shadowman? I have no idea. Okay. Oh, that was a prequel. I think it, yeah, it was a prequel. Oh, that actually makes more sense. Okay.
SPEAKER_01So they watched it, and I was in the room. I was actually gaming because I'm a gamer almost. But uh, I was loosely watching some of it, and it actually is a pretty good movie. I recommend it. But what's interesting, and this is where this all comes back to Minecraft, was if you watched it at the end of the movie, spoiler a little bit, um he's for some reason becomes the Willy Wonka you know, because it's a prequel before he he's just some nobody, and then he bec at the end of the movie, he becomes Willy Wonka.
SPEAKER_03And Johnny Depp Willy Wonka or Gene Wilder.
SPEAKER_01I don't even know. I don't even I never saw that one. I didn't even I basically didn't even register that one. Oh, okay. It's fine. The Gene Wilder one is what I pictured. Okay. But he's dancing, like they find this place, I guess, to maybe build his dreams. I I don't know why they did this, but it's a whole segment where he's singing and there's all these like I don't know, like in his pseudo in his imagination, he's building, but he's using a castle as his foundation for his new factory. And the castle is the castle I built my castle off of, which is it's known as, and I'm gonna probably mispronounce it, but it's a it's a British castle, and I think they pronounce it. It's spelled B-O-D-I-A-M or something, but I think they pronounce it Bojum, Bojum Castle or Bodium Castle. Okay, and it's the and they they use the like it's ruins. There's the outer wall is completely intact, but for the most part, the inside is just kind of like falling apart, but they've preserved it. And so if you want to see kind of and it's really like I just picked it because it looked like a cool castle, and I used it and I tried to follow it, the floor plans as best I could. So wow, yeah, it was so cool to see that castle. Like on a you weren't the only one, yeah. And uh, if you want to see it, maybe, maybe just watch the whole movie and at the end, uh check out your uh check out your castle. Yeah, and then you can see how my castle maybe stacks up. There we go. There you go.
SPEAKER_03That was a roundabout.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I don't know. I was excited. I was so excited to see that castle because it is a beautiful castle, it's really cool. It's it's a medieval castle. Where's it at? I actually I don't know. That's a good question. Okay, I didn't I didn't have anything prepared on it, so I can't I can't tell you much. I mean, I can tell you everything about the inside of it because I've seen pictures. I actually walked watched a person walk through the castle and film it on YouTube. Oh, but so I can nail the interior, but okay.
SPEAKER_03We'll bring that up on uh next week's uh respawn.
SPEAKER_01Ooh, respawn's a good name. That's a good name.
SPEAKER_03Here we are, live trying to come up with segment names. Told you we are on it.
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_01This might be like a four-hour episode because I there's still more to talk about. I didn't really intend to talk about that that much. Sorry, everybody. All right.
SPEAKER_03Well, I'm wanting to sidetracked you, so alright, I guess I'll go next.
SPEAKER_01You know, the side quests get you.
SPEAKER_03Um, I'll tell you what I played for maybe an hour was Blueprints. Went back to that. And uh so we talked a little off-air last time about it. Oh, yeah, probably probably a lot. And it's funny because um there's a guy followed game uh GMT! Game maker's token.
SPEAKER_01But two wanna need and wanna know. My notes are usually the blueprints puzzle.
SPEAKER_03My notes are usually incomprehensible, and we literally spent like a half an hour earlier tonight trying to figure out why I wrote down GMT, and it just came to me now.
SPEAKER_01We're officially just unhinged, weird.
SPEAKER_03Oh man, that might get cut. Anyways, um, so he had kind of touched on a lot of things you said. How about he liked the game, you know, I love the game, had a lot of fun with it, but something about the roguelike doesn't work with a puzzle game to a point because there's just too much randomness, and I had no idea how much more to the game there was, and so you know, I was only on day like 12 or something like that. So and I so I played, and like my next four days, not a damn thing happened, and then I finally was able to do the pump room, which was a bitch, and it got me nothing, it got me a chest in the pole. So I'm like, and then then there was the whole the music pages. I was so proud of myself because I wrote down, I don't want to spoil too much, I wrote down some things, and that's only half of it. You need to go back and and so that is my problem with his complaint. Is that there's too unless you're screenshotting every single fucking thing and writing down every minute detail, there needs to be an in-game map, not a map, like an in-game bibliography or just something. You know, it's it's it's too much. I agree. And that with the randomness, that's the problem. The randomness is what I mean. You can't just oh, I'll go back to this room and pick that book up again. No, you have to spend 20 hours hoping that room randomly generates.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's 100% why I spent so much time on it.
SPEAKER_03And I and I refuse to, so I'm done.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, I um I officially uninstalled it myself.
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's probably best for you.
SPEAKER_01Because I kept going back. Oh no! And I was I was stuck, and and I just said, I have to delete this game. Not that you can't re-download it, obviously, but I just said once I delete it, then there's no like mostly no chance I'll go back.
SPEAKER_03Right. Um smart, very smart. I should have.
SPEAKER_01I did look up random, like I was just like kind of curious. I I saw headlines from the thing like magazines I follow, and they're like, How did Bleak beat this puzzle? And there's like some random things. I was like, wait a minute, I don't even know what that means. And there's puzzles that I couldn't even begin to figure out. I didn't even know they were puzzles.
SPEAKER_03You say yes, yes.
SPEAKER_01I was like, that's a puzzle.
SPEAKER_03That was my thing. Like, and and and that's cool again, but it's just yeah, it's too much.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I just that's when I said I'm deleting it because I you know, to solve everything, you would need a walkthrough, or you have to be some sort of genius. I think I don't even know how you begin to. No, yeah, I have no idea. Yeah, and I was like, I gotta walk away. And I it's sad, but all in all, still an amazing game. Yeah, glad I played it. Do not regret it at all. Me too.
SPEAKER_03Very glad.
SPEAKER_01Me too.
SPEAKER_03I had a lot of like I'd say stop after yeah, maybe 20 hours, probably. Wow, yeah, yeah, way before you, way before you.
SPEAKER_01Well before me, obviously. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so that's all right.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03So where are you at? What else you got?
SPEAKER_01Well, the the thing I played the most, and I was actually gonna maybe, but we're already crazy long, probably on this episode, uh, was take a little more deep dive into Kingdom Come. Oh, good! But I've been playing, and I you said in the past you didn't feel like we gave it a fair shot as far, and it was our first episode, and I didn't really have much uh you know experience with this stuff. So I was gonna maybe talk a little more about that, but if it's boring, I don't want to bore everybody. But what do you think, Matt?
SPEAKER_03I think we'll let let's throw it out there and then we'll let the uh the editors when they when they edit the episode.
SPEAKER_01I did think of maybe like hiding a secret password. So if you skip it, you'll not you won't hear it, and then you could win something if you catch it and you're the first person to email us with a password. And I was thinking like a t-shirt.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I like it. Oh, you know, I th I would that's funny. I wanted to bring up merchandise and keep forgetting about that because we have a good logo.
SPEAKER_01I have an idea for another. Well, we could use the logo, which is I still think is a cool logo. I designed it. Uh but yeah, I have a t-shirt idea. But I was also thinking we if the t-shirt doesn't work out, Matt could send you a signed undershirt, one of his undershirts.
SPEAKER_03Oh, okay. Well, yeah, yeah. Post boss battle.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Extra sweaty. Extra sweaty. But hopefully a real t-shirt. But I was just saying, that was spitbowling ideas.
SPEAKER_03I like it. No, that's cool. Some uh audience participation.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So, anyway, Kingdom Come 2 Deliverance 2, I think is the whole name.
SPEAKER_03Kingdom Come Deliverance 2.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Or KCD 2. If you want to just shortcut it. Uh first off, we did talk about the sleepwalking thing. And I just wanted to say, this kind of goes into our respawn segment, but I just thought I'd throw it in here real quick. Uh the actual um, I guess perk, they call them perks, but they're not perks in a way. It's called uh Somnambulent. Somnambulant. Somnambulant.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's a sleepwalking. Sleepwalking. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So there you go. As we talked about it, I didn't know the name of it, but that was the name. If you are interested.
SPEAKER_03That much of a hatred of your own gaming.
SPEAKER_01Right. It's true. If you hate yourself and you want to make it harder on yourself, life or video game. Yeah. Anyway. So I just wanted to say uh like I've been playing it a lot more. That's basically all I played. And uh yeah. So I I still think it it could be the game of the year, but I think um unfortunately for them I think that um the uh what's the RPG that everybody that's probably gonna win because everybody's been talking about that. Yeah, and it's m more recent. Right. But I just don't think it would be my game of the year so far. Uh I just think what they get so right is the immersiveness of of RPGs, and Matt, he hates the peasant life.
SPEAKER_03But I told you, remember, I admitted that episode that I I I now I now see the appeal. Yeah, I don't know if he'll do it, but at least I understand it before I'm like, what the fuck?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, he like in the first game, I I I didn't beat the first game, and and I've talked about this before, but he yeah, it's he starts as a blacksmith's son, but he actually is a bastard of a noble. And um and so there's I guess through that all you you you eventually men end up meeting a noble and you become his kind of I forget the term, but it's kind of like you're his right-hand man bodyguard, and you become good friends, and that's how it ends. This one picks up immediately after that. So you're sent on a mission to deliver a message to uh basically you don't need to all know all the ins and outs, but you have to deliver this message, and so the the problem was with this game is that they have to kind of make you a peasant again, because why like you already have all the skills?
SPEAKER_03Oh no, I'll say do your typical RPG sequel of you You lost everything. Yeah, you lost everything.
SPEAKER_01So the way this game kind of starts out is yeah, you you're on this messenger mission, you're with a group of people, and in the noble lord that you're good friends with, uh Lord Hans Kapon is his name, I think. And um, so while you're like kind of like you decide to make camp for the night, you um you decide to go to the baths after you get make camp, and while you're in the baths, you hear these girls over like yeah, like laughing. So, as horny dudes, you're gonna go check out what's going on over there. But uh while you're kind of creeping, while they're doing their thing, uh your whole camp is attacked by a bunch of bandits, and so you you kind of wanna get back to your stuff, but you can't fight them, and then they see you across in the river for some reason and uh they chase you and you run off, and then all this stuff happens, but that's all the tutorial, so that's why you don't have any of your stuff. Nice, and then on top of that, all the people in the like you're in a whole new area where you're not from because you're delivering a message, so you don't have anything, like nobody thinks you're a noble because you have no clothes.
SPEAKER_03Is that where the term deliverance comes from? Because you're delivering a message.
SPEAKER_01Good pun. I don't know where that. Anyway, not sure. That's a good question.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh and uh so yeah, so all that to be said is you kind of start over from scratch again because nobody believes you're a noble. Oh, no money. Oh, yeah, you don't, you know, you don't have any of your gear, you have no way, like the message you're supposed to deliver was with them and they stole it. So you don't have your message that's on a so that's all how the game starts, and so that's why you're kind of starting over. Although in the first game, like one of the things you have to learn is to read, believe it or not. That's kind of how that's how immersive it is. And like every book you pick up, you you don't you can't read until you learn the skill. Wow. So that's how hardcore these games are. Wow before hardcore mode.
SPEAKER_03You don't have to like hit a breathe button every couple of seconds.
SPEAKER_01No, no breathe buttons, but maybe hardcore buttons. Yeah, turn off manual breathing, manual breathing. Uh but I just wanted to say that like that's kind of where they're from. They're they're immersive, but it's it's fun. And some of the things that you know about the immersive is like one of the subtle things, and Matt, you love subtle. Um like with with grass and like you're you're walking through forests a lot sometimes on foot until you get a horse. Like, even like the heavier grassy like foliage, it like actually slows your walking down. I don't know, like those little things are neat. I don't know. To me, that was kind of a nice subtle, even though it's kind of annoying. It's it makes you feel like you're walking through heavy forests, even though obviously you're not actually being impeded by plans. No, that like that actually. And then I talked about the blacksmithing. Uh, and you actually do pull a piece of steel out, you have to heat it up to the proper color, and you actually have to hammer it, and you have to like vary your hits. You can't just it's not like a blanket, you just hammer over and over again until it's built. Like you have to actually move up and down. Oh wow.
SPEAKER_03Like for a blade, you'd have to like a black smithing simulator sounds like a fun game. I'm surprised they haven't done yet.
SPEAKER_01And the one thing I did a ton of is alchemy, and they actually have like a thing where like you you um you pour the pro like they have a cauldron in front of you, and you and then there's all these pictures of like you have spirits, you have wine, water, and I think there's one more bread. Bread. And you pour bread in there. You pour one of those in there, and then you have to get your plants out, and then you put your plants in there, and you have to boil it for so many turns of a you know, and there's just like each thing like that is in itself a little mini-game. And then um and then the details, you know, like I get it, they're not uh, you know, as big as like your Assassin's Creed. So they don't have you know, you can see some flaws in some of the graphics, but they don't have the manpower. Yeah, they don't have but they grew. Like I think the first game maybe had like twelve or thirteen people working on it. Now they have like a hundred.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_01So they grew. But like, man, like the first castle I went to was Trotsky Castle. It was like halfway point, you get to see the Trotsky Castle. And it's just the details, you could tell it's like a real medieval castle, and it feels so cool to be in this castle. It's history coming alive, and on that, too, is like their codexes, they do like your classic codex, explain things, backgrounds of everybody or whoever, like guilds or you know, people, and it's real history, like they take in it's all written from our perspective, looking back, so they will talk about real historical things in the context of the game and how they they interpreted it, if it needs interpretation.
SPEAKER_03That's that's all that reminds me of earlier versions of Assassin's Creed. Yeah, they would always have a codex, yeah, yeah. And you're right, and it was needed. You could see, like, oh, this is how the actual historical thing is. Yeah, here's how we present the game, and that's cool as shit.
SPEAKER_01I think that's pretty much all I have written. The soundtrack is really good, and I I like to focus on the music every time I get a chance because we're always music focused.
SPEAKER_03Yep, yep.
SPEAKER_01And uh, and uh it's written by I'm not gonna get them right, but it's like Jan Valta and Adam Sporka. I I rolled the R. Probably Sporka.
unknownI don't know.
SPEAKER_01It sounded good. But they're on anywhere you listen to stuff. But I listen on Spotify and it's really Really good. I th I kind of like you know, and I with everything in this game, I think they improved everything, and including the soundtrack from the first one. So is it a lot of atmospheric stuff? Uh some of it, but it it it feels yeah, it's kind of like Skyrimie, but it's more medieval, you know. Like it they use a little more real realistic medieval instruments, like chamber music, kind of small. Yeah. And you know, like yeah, it's not real big epic fantasy. Okay. Okay, yeah, yeah. And some of like even like menu music is feels very rena, like very early Renaissance or late medieval, like just very small, like a couple instruments, and like if you would hear like at the Renaissance fair, but even on the Renaissance, obviously, it's not medieval, but doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_03Retro medieval. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But you know, a lot of people play like medieval type music. Right. Yeah, Renaissance. But it's it feels like a little quaint little group playing at a pub or a tavern or whatever.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Alright. I got yeah, I I have an idea in my head.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. Oh, there was one more thing, and uh you know, you can skip ahead. Obviously. Matt puts timestamps.
SPEAKER_03Or you could piranha.
SPEAKER_01Uh just the quests are really nice. And I they kind of remind me of Witcher 3. Like the best side quests ever. Yeah. I do think like uh again, they struggle with like some of the character animation as you'll notice, and they've carried over from their animations, repeat a lot. They do a lot of these weird kind of yeah, I mean they're yeah, but I'll give them credit too. Like, they're like oblivion, or or I'm sorry, like um, you know, Bethesda. Their NPCs move about, and uh and for me that's refreshing.
SPEAKER_03A lot of RPGs sweep in the same spot for seven hours.
SPEAKER_01These people move and they talk, and their conversations are pretty good. Like, it's not like Oblivion where they just say random shit to each other. Like these people actually seem like a top I think I saw a thing, like they will pick up shit.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so if you drop a bunch of stuff, everyone will walk over and they really pick it up.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they really goes towards the immersiveness. And people do feel like they're living out their lives, they're doing little, you know, they're sawing something, or they're picking up stuff, like Matt said. So they they do feel alive, and they're and um, but yeah, the quests all have the classic you can maybe steal your way or fight your way or talk your way out of it. So there's plenty of room. And the one quest, and this might and this might be a little spoiler for people, um, but halfway through, and I I just got past the halfway point, even though I'm like almost a hundred hours in. Which I think like 120 is like pretty much what people say is a completionist game. Nice. So uh, but there's a wedding, and you're trying to see, and that's how you kind of get back in the favor as being a noble, is you meet some people who know you at this wedding. So you're trying to get into this wedding. The first half is trying to get back into the wedding, and so the wedding quest was kind of fun, but it's neat because it's a medieval wedding, and you have to mingle. So a lot of these quests are around, and there's like mini quests within the wedding to mingle and talk to people. Small talk in the mini game. I thought it was kind of cool. And one of them, this girl, well, her mom was like, My daughter doesn't, she's real shy, she won't dance with anybody. Will you dance with her? And I was like, I'm gonna be cool, I'll dance with her. So I danced with her. She's really bad at dancing because like your character's mumbling under his voice, like, oh, like she's stepping on his toes or something like that. And then obviously she asks you at the end, how was uh, how was this? And you and you could lie or you could tell the truth. And I lied. And I said, You were amazing. So nice, and I tried to be nice, and then apparently she's pretty horny.
SPEAKER_03That's all right, I was waiting for it.
SPEAKER_01So I was like, I'm going for it. So you you take her upstairs, and then there's like this cut scene, and then you hear moaning, and then all of a sudden you're standing, like she's getting up, and she moves on, and obviously you can imagine what happened. But what the funny part was is like later on in the wedding, there's tears to the wedding as you do certain things. The wedding moves along later in the night, and people are getting more drunk, and you can get drunk in this game. That's another skill is drinking. So yeah, so that's another skill. You can improve your drinking. Um, apparently, Czechs are notorious for being drunks. That's that's the game, not me saying it. That's the game. So uh, yeah, so that then I I saw her, she's at a can, she's at a fire. There's like a little fire pit, and everybody's kind of sitting, some people are sitting around it, and I walk by her and then I see her. I was like, Oh, I'll make small talk again, see how she's doing. So I talked to her, and then and then it comes up and she's like, Oh yeah, what's up, Henry? And I was like, and I was like, about the other, or about just a couple moments ago, whatever. And then she's like, Yeah, and she's like, I and then you can give like I hated it, and I said, I liked it, I loved it, or something like that. And then she's like, Oh, yeah, that's great, and then you could tell there was like this, and so like, and he's like, and then I was like, I respond, and actually I had options, and I was like, You don't sound convinced. She's like, Yeah, it wasn't very good.
SPEAKER_03I was just I was wondering if like she thought of your performance just like you thought of her performance.
SPEAKER_01That was brutal.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah, so it wasn't very good. So maybe you were the bad dance partner, right? Exactly.
SPEAKER_01I just thought that was funny. That was a funny little plus within a game. But anyway, sorry everybody, but you can skip ahead. If you heard the secret password, though, email us right away and you might have a prize.
SPEAKER_03Yes, uh, email us at anyone can email us at any time at almost gamerspodcast at gmail.com. And actually on Buzz Sprout, there is a uh uh a click to just directly text us. All right, supposedly, it's there.
unknownOkay, we're cool.
SPEAKER_03Not entirely sure it works, but try it. Let us know. I decided last week that I haven't really played anything, so uh I got a free night tonight. Right. Let's just start a new game, you know, for the podcast.
SPEAKER_02You know, I gotta work. I do do that now.
SPEAKER_03I think like I gotta do stuff for the podcast. Um, I played uh South of Midnight. That is the uh the Louisiana kind of game. Um yeah, you you were talking about last podcast. I assume that's last one. Um I love it. Yes, I'm maybe at this point eight to ten hours in. I don't think I have much more to go. It's it's a short, very straightforward game, which is you know great. I always say you need some of those, just you know, one or two sittings kind of a game. Uh it might be my game of the year.
SPEAKER_02Whoa!
SPEAKER_03Now I say that with you know asterisk, like Assassin's Creed Shadows is like my game of probably the next three years. I will probably be slowly playing that game, and I just keep going back to it. I love it. There's a lot of things I love better about that, but it's talking about just like a short experience I I I can't see beating this game. But then we'll talk about that later because this is already shaped up to be a hell of a year for games of the year. The it's I've I've I've mentioned this before. I'm a big fan of games that tie everything together. Um, the art style, the music, the just the feel. Like if you hear a snippet of the music, um, a line from a character, the menu screen, or just a random screenshot, you'll be able to say, Oh, that's South of Midnight. You know, because it all has this cohesive feel. I felt that um Deus X, Mankind Divided had that, like everything kind of had that. Well, some people say yellow feel, but it it all did have that tone, it all matched thematically perfectly. And that's that's what this game is. It was just it's great. Um, the some of the cutscenes have like a stop motion feel to them, and that was kind of like how little trailers portrayed it. Yeah, I remember that. The game itself isn't like that, and I see why that'd be a little too jarring, just that you know, that small ratcheting thing that kind of stop motion does. Yeah, right. But it has a little bit of that here and there just to give it a very unique style. Um the voice acting, top-notch. The music is unlike anything in a game I've ever played before. It's just I don't know what it is. It's just it's it's a lot of songs, you know, less so background music because they're just songs. It's interesting. There is an option in the options to turn off the lead vocals. And I saw I'm like, what exactly does that mean? Because sometimes parts in the game, like there is like a lead singer like belting. I I went, Why would you turn it off? Because it's too distracting, because maybe I see that, you don't really see that, but I think it's for uh uh broadcasting and streaming. Like if you're talking, you don't want to be talking over lead singer. Right. So that's a pretty smart option. I like that. Really smart, but it just goes to show you how different the soundtrack is. It's just it's it's just really cool. Yeah, and uh the the the stories kind of like it has a little bit of like kind of voodoo feel to it. You like that Haitian influence, Creole, like it's it's really great.
SPEAKER_01Um who did the soundtrack?
SPEAKER_03Uh I I wanted to look it up and I usually should for this. I know. Um I believe it is a collaboration of uh many different artists. Okay, so it's a yeah, yeah. Yes, singing-wise, I know it definitely is because there's songs that actually all have quite a different feel to them.
SPEAKER_01Cool, very cool.
SPEAKER_03Um, the main character, Hazel Flood, is one of the most compelling uh uh protagonists I've had in quite a while. Um, she's I don't call her spunky, but maybe. And had I played this game a couple weeks ago, she would have definitely been on my crashes list. Yeah, yeah, um Hazel Flood.
SPEAKER_01Just real quick, uh is this a PS5 only or is this an Xbox?
SPEAKER_03Um I well I played on Game Pass.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so it's definitely on Xbox.
SPEAKER_03But I don't believe in it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think it is an Xbox. I feel like it's an exclusive.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it I I think it is too. Now I think about it. Um again, we're all right.
SPEAKER_01For our listeners who might want to for our listeners.
SPEAKER_03But I seem to recall that being one of the like the Game Pass flaunts. Like, hey, this is we are the only ones that have this.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's why I think it's an Xbox PC game.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it it a lot of it something reminds me of Big Fish. Remember that movie? It has those fantastical elements, and you're like, well, is this really happening or not? But you don't care, you're just along for the ride. And yeah, it's just a it's a good feeling. Oh, dude, it's it's absolutely worth it. The gameplay Yeah, you said that was okay when the last time we talked. Well, when I when I heard other people talk, yes, and I agree, it's it's fine. Um, I think I'm almost already maxed out on my skill tree, but again, for this length of a game, I don't want to think complicated, anyways. Right. Um, so oddly enough, a lot of like parkour platforming, which is fine. The problem with it is I've just been playing Assassin's Creed, which is the best parkouring of any game I've ever played so far.
SPEAKER_01Um, which by Minecraft, according to my daughter.
SPEAKER_03So just in comparison, it was like oh frustrating, you know, jump ejecting the wall wrong way off a wall. You know how frustrating that can be. But it's so minor. There's just so much else to this game, but um there, you know, one of my favorite games of all time is uh The Child of Light. And there was a game spot review that called the game beautifully melancholic. And I would to this day, I think that's such a great sum-up of that game. And I think it works for this game too. It's sad but hopeful, but just beautiful. And there's not enough games just kind of have that, you know? It's Game Pass, bro. Yeah, it's on Game Pass. So yeah, I literally didn't have to pay for it. Well, you know, but hopefully they're doing well because they deserve it.
SPEAKER_01And what's the company?
SPEAKER_03You know? I looked it up right before it went on there, I'll already forget it. But I can tell you it's the same people that did uh We Happy Few.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that one kind of does so well, it had a lot of promise, but oddly enough, the story fell kind of flat. Yeah. And this one actually they nailed it and it made up for this. So folks. There it goes. That yet again, almost facts with almost gamers. We're almost there. Absolutely uh 10 out of 10 for sure.
SPEAKER_0110 out of 10.
SPEAKER_03No, no, I gotta be fair. Um, my experience was fantastic, was a 10. But yeah, probably um if I had to really critique it and give it a hardcore, yeah. Nine. Ooh.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, tens, dimes or dimes. Yeah, nickels ain't dimes.
SPEAKER_01Alright, here we go. Going down it. Uh, did you have any more? Uh actually, that was like I said, the only game I played was Kingdom Comes, so that was it for.
SPEAKER_03I have one more quickie. Ooh.
SPEAKER_01And this was one, it was a uh, you know, I hope it wasn't as bad as a girl I met in the wedding.
SPEAKER_03Uh um, so I like to have a main game and then on the back burner, I like to have a when I'm done really being serious, maybe have a little too much to drink. Right. I like to have this a mindless, nunless and the games I like that I always go back to 99 Nights. TikTok about that. Yes, because that to me is a perfect drinking game.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03Um, that might be for another podcast why I love that game so much. But I'm always trying to look for that. And the closest to that are the what's known as the Museo games. Never heard of it. Um, or the warrior games. And it's like um uh Dynasty Warriors, okay, and those billion spin-offs of that. So there just recently came out one called uh Warrior Abyss, which is a kind of roguelike version of Dynasty Warriors in a way.
SPEAKER_02Okay, and it looked pretty cool. I downloaded it and it no good.
SPEAKER_03It's just it's too much. It was just too much. There's so much going on. I don't even know, but just to let you know, like the kind of the type of game it is. Oh, I'm done. Yeah, so that's I'm showing I'm showing Andrew the add-on packs, which are just skimpy outfits you can order from characters, and that's revisit crushes. I mean, that's typical of Koei Tecmo kind of games. I mean, people love them. I get it, I get it. Um, but I need a little more than that. It needs a little more substance. And it's gonna be no flash. Uh it was just, yeah, it was Yeah. Yeah. The men your menu screens look like Final Fantasy IV. You know, as all the games do. Just scrolling through menu and trying to add this, and then I just I there was just too many characters and too much. And I maybe I could see myself getting into it, but it just it was not the drunken Not true. Yeah, it's like I wanna like those Dinosaur Warrior games, but I just thank you. No, yeah, no offense. Not for me, at least. And no offense people you love them. Maybe I'm doing them wrong.
SPEAKER_01What was that game that I played that it was like kids in the school, and it was like Japanese kids are all so the mainline game is Persona.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's it. Uh, you played the weird spin-off of Persona 5. I think it's Persona 5 Warriors. They get like nines and tens on it. So it was the same company. That was their that's like Warriors Abyss. This was War. Yes. So you've tried to play the obscure sequel side game? Yeah, some sort of very in-depth $200, 200 hour game. Yeah, yeah, you told me that. Yeah, just you know, and I told you, like, dude, I play Persona 5 and I struggle trying to figure out that fucking game. So I cannot imagine someone who never played it.
SPEAKER_01I can't, I can't do it. I I'm sorry, Japanese RPG makers, RPGs. I'm I'm too American, I guess, because they don't commitment. Yeah, and again, but yeah, you're right, they're all like 200-hour games, and that's not like side quests. I think it's like main story. No, that was a problem.
SPEAKER_03Like with Persona 5, love that game. Yeah, but you technically that stuff was optional, but not really. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01I don't know how people do it. I did it somehow. But they get fantastic reviews almost like any of those games by that, whatever it is.
SPEAKER_03Again, what you played wasn't Persona 5. Yeah, Persona 5's strikers. That's what you played. Yeah, that's what I played. Yes.
SPEAKER_01So again, bizarre. And I I remember I fought like a hundred people on a screen. I don't know. It was weird. It was very weird. It's just not for me. And that's okay. I'm fine with not being okay with it. You don't have to want to play. I don't have to play, I don't have to bash it, I don't have to do anything. I can move on in my life.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's like yeah, there you go. It's not you didn't like it. You just it just wasn't for me. Warrior's Abyss.
SPEAKER_01Warrior's Abyss. That wasn't for Matt. So I Matt can deal with some of it, but that that was too much.
SPEAKER_03I I do want to thank um Steam and their refund policy. There it is. Yeah, they do have a nice refund. That is good. Yeah, that is that I mean it's great. Like PlayStation. Okay, PlayStation. Take some notes, everybody.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, PlayStation. My PlayStation is all packed away. I don't haven't played it probably for five months.
SPEAKER_03I don't call child services on your place.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I know, maybe. There was a time where I was like itching to get one because they were so rare. Sad.
SPEAKER_03Oh, shout out to uh Frizzy. Rob Frizzy and his friend, right? I think it was Rob? Robin Frizzy's friend, though. Yeah, yeah. He was a Frizzy friend. We literally met a guy in a parking lot.
SPEAKER_01Does Frizzy listen to this? I don't know. I gotta he better off.
SPEAKER_03He might have actually been that New York listen. The Brooklyn. The Brooklyn.
SPEAKER_01Huh. Yeah, that's anyway. Anyway. All right, Brooklyn.
Boss Battle: Villains
SPEAKER_01Boss. All right, the boss, literal boss. Yeah, that's tonight. It is the night everyone's waiting for.
SPEAKER_03This is it. Our favorite villains. It's all downhill from here. Now we I did specify this, but I forgot to follow up to make sure you understood. Like it was like favorite villains, not like some villains you just despise and you want to see die for because you hate them.
SPEAKER_01Oh. Well, that's what I picked. Oh. Well.
SPEAKER_03I don't know the difference. Like, there's some villains that just annoy the fuck out of you. Not annoying. Okay, yeah. I don't know why you would have thought that. I just want to make sure. Because that could be a whole nother list.
SPEAKER_01Is like they're like good villains, like good villains, yes. Like you want to beat at the end, or in some cases, you're you're respect them.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. No, yes, that's exactly. I meant, yeah. There's some villains are like, this guy's the worst. Jesus Christ. Yes, exactly. He's one of my villains.
SPEAKER_04No way.
SPEAKER_03Uh uh. So we are we already decided that we probably have a lot of overlap.
SPEAKER_01I would think, I would think, but I'm curious because we we don't discuss this ahead of time.
SPEAKER_03No, never do. That's not obvious. We barely discuss anything. Um, you want me? I'll just go with one.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, go for it.
SPEAKER_03And we'll just go. Yeah, we'll just go. Um okay. I'm gonna start off. Do it. Yeah. I knew oh, I see it. Yeah. Handsome Jack.
SPEAKER_01Oh, okay. Where are you?
SPEAKER_03All right.
SPEAKER_01I'm not going for the top.
SPEAKER_03I never go from the top. I never go from the top.
SPEAKER_01So handsome Jack. I don't have him on my list.
SPEAKER_04Oh, really?
SPEAKER_01Because I knew that would be I was like, that was the number one.
SPEAKER_04Mm-hmm.
unknownTwo.
SPEAKER_03Um one of the protagonists from the pre-sequel. Oh, that's right, yeah. Sometimes people forget about that. Yes, and had a major role as a hologram. Yeah. Who was dead in Tales from the Borderlands.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, there's that. I was thinking you're gonna maybe say in Borderlands 3 he was loosely in. Loosely because of his clone, right? Well, the clone, but also there was like holograms.
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah, yeah. He had replayed his he was dead. Yeah, he was dead, but it was holograms. Spoiler. But um, I know we both said he is just. Classic, just one of the great villains that you love him. Like, yeah, yeah. He's just so I mean he's a despicable human being, but he's just so silly and stupid.
SPEAKER_01I mean, it's so over the top, yes, yes.
SPEAKER_03Yes, but it's not it's tongue in cheek over the top. Like you know that he's just a they struck gold with him, and I feel bad for the whole series because it'll always be judged by the city.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that was the problem with three, like the twins were they're never gonna compete.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you just can't compete.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, he was too perfect, yeah. As far as a Borderlands villain, right, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Borderlands, that weird kind of silly humor.
SPEAKER_01They're silly, you know, but yeah, I always feel kind of bad for them because they struggled with that, and they're never gonna repeat it. But I hope they do. Yeah. But yeah, he's yeah, I mean there's not much to be all said. He's no.
SPEAKER_02I mean, go look, go look up some quotes on your own. They're amazing. Or play the game. Yeah, everything's gonna be a good one.
SPEAKER_01Orlance 2 still holds up, and I'm sure they'll make a remake sometime down the road. I'm sure that's coming.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, a re-remake. Well, it's already the with the because that game's old, old, and they did the PS4 version.
SPEAKER_01I think they did it, yeah.
SPEAKER_03But I think like a real re-re. Oh, like a real sorry, not a remaster, but like a remake.
SPEAKER_01Oh, think they'd do that? I think they will.
SPEAKER_03The money's there. Yeah, I definitely shit out of that. I would buy it. Yeah, of all the borderline. I already bought it. Yeah, BL. Stun. I bought technically I bought it twice, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Anyway, yeah, so handsome Jack.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, handsome as ever. All right, Andrew. All right, so you don't go in order of your list.
SPEAKER_03It's how I feel.
SPEAKER_01Okay, how you feel. Well, then I'm just gonna go with my number one, and it's not my number one, but it's the first one I wrote down. Okay. Uh, it was GLaDOS. Yes. Did you have that?
SPEAKER_03Yes, definitely. Who? Same deal. Love to hate. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Or yeah, just weird, and it was cool. Very weird. Like it took us such a dark twist. Like, you're like, I'm doing these fun puzzles, yeah, and it got weirder and weirder and creepier. Yes. And if you're not uh uh familiar, that's the uh robot-ish thingy from Portal. Portal and Portal 2. Yeah, I didn't play Portal 2. Oh, okay. Oh, really?
SPEAKER_03You told me me and Haley have to play it as I think you were Oh, well, there's two parts of Portal 2. There's the co-op yeah, there's a co-op that's very different from the single player campaign, it's completely different. I want to play Portal 2 because Portal! It's funny to me that you still love GLaDOS and you she's so much more and better in Portal 2. Oh, really? That's crazy that you love her just from Portal 1. That's great, though.
SPEAKER_01I just remember there was like that twist where like she became is it a she or whatever? I I'll say she, but yeah, it became like the bad guy towards the end. Like you have to escape.
SPEAKER_03I do remember Well, she becomes your not bad guy, like you really yeah, your companion. Again, spoiler alert for a 15-year-old game. Yeah, um, your companion, yeah, um, Wheatley, voiced by the uh amazing um Steven Merchant.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03Um ends up being the bad guy, uh and GLaDAS helps you defeat Wheatley. Oh, okay. So yeah, yeah. So there's like a twist, she actually becomes your ally, which is great because you but obviously you don't trust her because I'm pretty sure she tries to fuck you in the end. I can't remember. Too long, but yeah, it's a hit there's that love hating. It's a love hater.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's complicated, and that's why I kind of remember it. But again, like Matt said, it's a very old game. I just remember that being an interesting boss-ish. I remember there's a twist. Yeah, sorry, I I you know I'm not gonna research everything.
SPEAKER_03She was just one of those things that like tried to seem like she was your friend, but obviously what I'm saying. Yeah, that's what I remember. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I remember that element. Oh. So that was I just that was an easy one. Yeah, that's definitely. But Matt had that one, so yeah. Yeah, we all we all have that one.
SPEAKER_03Okay, go ahead. Um, all right, I'm going with a true baddie here. A bad bad one. Bad bad baddie. Alma from fear. Uh, I never played Fear. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01I well, I did attempt a little bit, but I never fully got into it.
SPEAKER_03Fear is one of the all-time great, not survival horror, just a horror game, I think. Um, at least the first one was. Second one was okay.
SPEAKER_01What does fear stand for? Because I was in my fear period.
SPEAKER_03First encounter assault reconnaissance or something stupid like that.
SPEAKER_01Sounds good to me.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I know what they call they call those backronyms. Where you acronyms you come up with the letters first and then try to make it mean something. Yes, yes. But the game, I always remember it, it was one of the first like scary games I've ever I've ever played. Okay. And Alma was like your typical like Japanese horror girl, you know. Yeah, I remember seeing that picture. You know, the ring. Yeah, the ring. Yeah, ring. But they did such a good job of like met it's one of the first games I remember playing in in uh surround sound. Oh wow. And it would there were clearly a part where you hear something behind you, you spin around, and there's nothing there. Like, okay, and then when you turn back around, she's like right there in your classic face. So it was like Japanese horror in a video game. That's cool. And it just made it terrifying. And her backstory is tragic, and but she was just like a terrifying figure, it would just always kind of stalk you. I don't think she in the end, she couldn't actually hurt you, but you didn't know that. Oh, you know, and it was just, yeah. It was that's a good one.
SPEAKER_01Good pick, man. Alma. Alma. All right, what you got? All right. Well, I don't want to steal all yours because I think this one you might have. That's right.
SPEAKER_03Um I definitely have it off my own. So you can take all the ones I have.
SPEAKER_01Well, all right. I'll just go with Andrew Ryan.
SPEAKER_03There's another one I was gonna put on there. Um, I figured you might be. Would you be kindly, right? Yeah, would you kindly kindly, and I'll when you're done, I'll tell you the big reason why I didn't pick him. But go ahead.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, like I said, these games are pretty old, so I don't remember all the details. But he was just the classic. He was helping you until he wasn't, and then you found it.
SPEAKER_03He's trying to pretend to be someone else, yeah, helping you on the radio.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the radio. Yeah, he was constantly, and then you were I guess he some reason I don't remember the details, but would you kindly was his phrase to make you kind of go into like doing that?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you didn't realize it was a uh uh um a hidden command. Command like dug into your brain.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like some they manipulated your brain. Spoiler.
SPEAKER_03But uh but Bioshock in general is just a fantastic what you remember that the moment the crazy part is when this is finally revealed, yeah, what he ends up doing is making you beat him to death.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there was that.
SPEAKER_03That's the other crazy part. He just like a psychopath. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was just out of his mind. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, you remember that. Yes. See, that's why we talk about this stuff, because Matt remembers a lot more. Yeah, not only did it was reveal he's a bad guy all the time, then you immediately kill him because he wants you to to prove a point about no yeah, the whole thing was a proof of point about no uh self-will or whatnot. His name is actually anagram for Ayn Rand. That's right.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's right. Jeez, man. He knows too much. That's why I I'm always nervous because Matt knows everything. Well, not about everything. So into that.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Um was that on your list? No, because I picked Shodan from System Shock 2. Never played those. Which is the spiritual precursor to Bioshock. I didn't know that. System Shock 2 was Ken Levine.
SPEAKER_02Who's that?
SPEAKER_03The Bioshock guy, and all those, you know, kind of fun, crazy games. Yeah, yeah. Um so this sock was like yeah, a template, if you will, that by that you led into uh Bioshock. But that same and it's it's kind of funny. I'd played System Shock 2 years and years ago, and talkings back and forth, they're almost the same twist. And yet, you know, they took them completely by surprise. Um in System Shock 2, you're landed, uh it's more of a futuristic kind of deal. So you land on this space station called the Von Braum, and everyone's dead, and you're trying to figure out what happened, kind of like Dead Space. Again, that's another thing. You can see how these games like go in like cycles and they create from. And but there's someone on the radio helping you out, and it's uh Dr. Polito. And so it it's so creepy because it's the first game I remember feeling just so isolated, so alone, but there was Dr. Polito talking to you and like having you go through this and do this to come here and to come here, and then you finally make it to his office and he's dead. And he's apparently he he looks like he's been dead for a long time. Ooh, that's creepy, and that's where Shodun, this AI computer, like starts laughing and admits that they have been manipulating you the entire time. That's good. Yeah, but it's so similar to Bioshock. It is the same thing, really. But it's just neat. I just remember that feeling of like I always felt alone because it's a horror type game. And then once I realized at least there's one person, yeah. And when you find them dead, you're like, oh no, I'm just I'm alone. You're alone, alone, yeah. And that's where like like the showdown just terrify me from there and out. Like I know they just had complete and total control over me and everything I was doing, like manipulation. Yeah, that's Ken Levine, man. That man knows how to uh make spin a yarn. Yeah, right. Uh he actually has a game coming out, not that we should talk about at a uh Future Quest.
SPEAKER_01Someday, because I don't know that game right now. Matt's struggling with games, names, and people and everything. Showdown.
SPEAKER_03Oh, by the way, speaking of acronyms, that stands for Sentient Hyper Optimized Data Access Network. Wow.
SPEAKER_01Write that down, everybody. You never know the big quiz at the end of the show. Yeah, right. You never know when that's on one of those random brewery quiz. You'll watch the show that stand for it. Yeah, right. You'll win. You'll win. You'll win that free drink, maybe. Alright. Why don't you go one more, Matt? Since one more? Yeah, we'll just snake it. You do one more. All right, Birdo.
SPEAKER_03Hey, Mario 2! Mario 2!
SPEAKER_02I was gonna say you even remember Birdo don't get enough love, man.
SPEAKER_03Um Birdo is one of the weirdest. Yes, one of the very weirdest. And Mario 2 shouldn't really be a Mario 2. But they embraced it in the end. Yeah. Did Birdo ever appear in another game? Like usually they they end up like shy guys. Yeah, shy guys are in the other games. Yeah. Um, but I don't know if Birdo ever maybe being like a weird like Mario Party game or something like that. Yeah, probably.
SPEAKER_01But so Birdo Yeah, you pick up its eggs and you throw it right at his fucking face.
SPEAKER_03Right. You would basically kill her, him. Um, I I I believe because I think in the end of the it they had changed their name to Birdetta. Oh. Some weird. So people would be confused. Yeah. I don't know. But anyways, yeah, you would throw their own egg at him to kill them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So was it a single one, or was it like, you know, sometimes it's like the shy guys, they're not all the same, you know, there are multiple enemies.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03But was Birdo the same one you were fighting in multiple places?
SPEAKER_01I don't think so. But they were different colors. I think there was other color birdos.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. That seems like a rabbit hole we should not go down. Yeah. Seems too much for the bosses.
SPEAKER_01Definitely. But yeah, Birdo. Really? Birdo. Hey, you needed a weird one on there. Alright, that that was a weird one. I'll go with a classic enemy that I don't think you wrote because I don't think you ever played this game. Pyramid Head.
SPEAKER_03No, but yes, that's great. I mean, not really. I've seen this is one of the things I've watched people play, and I I know all about Pyramid Head. Yeah, you know about Pyramid Head. Everybody kind of in the sports.
SPEAKER_01Unless you're my sister who listens to this, by the way. Um she has no clue. She stopped off at Zelda. But Pyramid Head. I I don't really I mean there's not much more to be said. Uh that was another uh I don't know if I mentioned the past, but an all-nighter, Steve and me. Oh, that was the boat story. Um, where we pushed the boat forever. I think that was Silent Hill too. Yeah. But Pyramid Head it you know, especially like at like probably when we met Pyramid Head in Silent Hill on that night, it was probably like one o'clock in the morning, two o'clock in the morning. Absolute fear. Like uh he's still Unkillable enemy, correct?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's oh that kills me in games.
SPEAKER_01Ah, nice. Um but yeah, he just uh yeah, he was unkillable, he chased you, and all you heard behind you while you're running was he was dragging the dragging the sword.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, I I gotta stop. Well, I gotta slow my swearing down because Kurt, if you remember Kurt, Kurt's my brother-in-law, he sent me a random text. He said, I never heard you swear so much.
SPEAKER_03Did you, speaking of uh callbacks, find out whether or not he can teleport? Oh, I'd never asked him, folks. We still haven't answered.
SPEAKER_01There's still no answer. No answer, folks. Uh I've been slacking, I guess. And uh, but he does know I swear a lot on this show. Oh so I'm sorry for that fuck. I'll stop fucking saying fuck. So if you fucking want less fucks, you're fucking right. Fuck yeah.
SPEAKER_04Fuck yeah.
SPEAKER_03Alright, so fucking pyramid fucking head. Yeah. No, he no, I remember, yeah. I mean, I yeah, again, I don't even know that I really played the game, but I remember being terrified of him. Yeah. Well, he was in the movie. He was in the movie, too.
SPEAKER_01Was that there was only two movies, right? Was there two or three? I mean, we'll just say one. One. I only remember one.
SPEAKER_03Kid Harrington one. Was that a one? That was a second one. That was a second one. I don't think I watched that one. No, no one should. Um so my next one's gonna be a little bit of a a thought, a thought provoker. Um Tim. Alan from the game Braid. Ooh. So Tim is the main character you play as the entire game.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, alright. Yeah, you you always talk about this.
SPEAKER_03That's the twist, again. Sorry, spoiler, is you don't realize to the end of the game it it's a very weird game about time travel and manipulation and things like that. It's kind of a take on Mario, yeah. And you're in the end, you're trying to save the princess from the monster. Yeah, it's like Mario is but in the end, in the very final chapter, you realize you are the monster, and you've basically been stalking this girl the entire time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you like Tyler too, which is a stalking thing. Oh, yeah, Tyler from the Toadies.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, shut up. I guess I like stalking.
SPEAKER_01That's a stalker at heart. He just doesn't have the intensity to do it himself. He likes to listen to other people do it. But yeah, Tim, the actual villain of Braid. Yeah. And that's the guy who made the witness. Well, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Cool. Right. Yeah, I remember you always talking about that. It was neat little twist. Yeah, it was neat, it was very neat. All right. Moving on, or you want to keep talking? Oh, I got a couple more. Well, I meant like Braid and Tim. Why don't you do another one? Should I do the one? Yeah, do the one. All right. I yeah, just go with that. Okay. Yeah. Wow. Took me a second, but once you got to the acquire part. So Sephiroth. I'm gonna cross him off. Yes. I mean, I knew. I mean, that is like I just put him on just in case.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean, like, if you just do video game VI and then bam, you know, Sephiroth.
SPEAKER_01I mean, what and also that what was cool was you knew how to pronounce his name. Like, nobody would ever pronounce that spelling Zeph. I don't think. Oh. Yeah. How else would Zepparoth? Zeparoth? Yeah. Like you would pronounce the P. Oh, no, I never. Did you? Well, I just didn't know how.
SPEAKER_03Oh. And you taught me. Oh, that is a problem with old games, especially old Japanese games. You have no. I mean, look at Eris Erith. You know, like they got it wrong. Yeah. Like in my mind, I probably read it as Zepparoth. I remember Chocobo. I used to do Kokobo.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. You know what I mean? Like until you go back in the day. Yeah, like until you and Steve said Zephyroth, or maybe you said, I don't know who said it. I was like, oh, that's Zephiroth? Okay. Like, I might have not known. I just didn't. Yeah, that's with tech text-based games. You have no idea.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01We might have been wrong. Now it's probably like common knowledge. Yeah. Sorry.
SPEAKER_03But, anyways, sorry. Total badass. That was another one where it was like, because you were he was kind of your teammate for a while, but you just the villain. I mean, the shot of him in the flames with the long ass sword, like was every teenager's like everyone. I didn't have the poster, but if that if I could have bought a poster, I would have fucking bought that poster. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01He represented, yeah, just like as far as JRPGs, he was the villain. Yeah. He just looked like dark. He was kind of emo.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, Cloud was emo before emo was the thing.
SPEAKER_01I think emo was based off of Final Fantasy VII. They're like, how can we turn this into a music style?
SPEAKER_03But I mean, it's now I wonder if now people, you know, kids nowadays, if they're introduced to Sephiroth in I mean, I'm sure if in the original would have been Roth, but it like nowadays in the remakes, like what their thoughts are. Cause you know, because now it's just so stereotypical, like the brutal bad guy with the cool sword.
SPEAKER_01They probably don't have as much respect for it. I don't know. We've never seen anything like that.
SPEAKER_03Not at that time. The bad guys were at that time were just like evil and evil for the sake of being evil, but Zephiroth wasn't. He just had his own weird agenda. Yeah, he was a weird dude. You know what he wanted, but ah yeah.
SPEAKER_01Good. He's a good one. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Alright. Zephroth. Off the list. Am I going?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you're up.
SPEAKER_01Now, you know, you were talking all about that. So I'll go right into mine. And he's kind of a similar vibe. I don't know if you you would consider him a bad guy. And I was calling I I've looked in Wikipedia to see, like, maybe it was I misremembering because it was very long time ago, but Magus. Oh, uh, Croature. Yeah. Okay. He had the same vibe, and I think he was before Zachary. Was Magus trying to save the world or ruin the world? Yeah. Right? He had a complicated thing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I don't remember the details. So, like, if he's most people's good guy, then fine. I'm sorry. I always saw him as a villa as the villain. Yeah, and early on, he was a little bit antagonistic to your agenda, and the and the frog didn't like him, whatever the frog's name was. Which I love the frog. Well, he was the frog, but I think once he turned human, he had an actual name.
SPEAKER_03So that we don't know, and we're not gonna bother.
SPEAKER_01And Ed, if you're if that's the guy from Morgan, sorry, he probably knows all these details. He's a little annoyed. Um, if he listens to this one, but yeah, Magus was dark, brooding, same thing. And uh I just remember like his magic was so cool in Chrono Trigger. He had that dark magic. So dark matter, dark. Did you play Chrono Trigger? Yes.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. It's one of the few games I've replayed, like where they did a remaster. Oh yeah. I replayed it.
SPEAKER_01Um then hand in hand Lavos. Um I can Lavos is the true, I guess, villain-ish. Right. I just thought like Lavos was so epic. Like I I didn't play any JRPGs, if you will, before Chrono Trigger. And I technically didn't play it. I watched my friend Sean play it.
SPEAKER_03Shout out to Sean again.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Sean owned it. And I like we kind of took turns-ish, if you will, but for the most part, he played it and I watched. And I, you know, Lavos was so epically grand for like RPG. And what's so cool about him too is like you fight him in the halfway through maybe the game. Yeah. And you die, and you're supposed to die. But there is an element because it's a time traveling game, if you and there's a uh, and they did like they were. I think I read an article, they were the first person to do new game plus, or one of the early people to adopt that. Yes, that's right. You could literally go back and replay the game, but new game plus means if you for Melanie, who's not privy to the to this thing, uh when you play New Game Plus, you literally play the game again, but you have all the equipment and spells and everything you had when you ended the game, it's still with you, so you don't start technically over again. And you couldn't beat him in that first matchup, which is supposed to be well overpowered, and it changes the whole dynamic of the game. You get an alternate ending. I just think that was so cool. I don't know how many games were doing it before then.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah, I wonder. Uh, but yeah, some new game plus with just the same exact game, but harder enemies.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that was yeah, like Mario did that kind of a secret way. Uh uh, yeah. Instead of like mushroom people, you didn't you fought those shelled little fuckers. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But yeah, nothing really changing the story or anything like that. No, that was definitely new color. Well, yeah, Chrono Trigger did a lot of things.
SPEAKER_01Chrono Trigger was obviously one of the best. But yeah, Magus and Lavos. I I just wrote them together because that game, I don't know. To me, that's probably one of my favorite games of all time. Just such a lot of people.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Sorry.
unknownGood.
SPEAKER_03Alright. Um so my next game is uh the name of the game is Sonic. Um most people refer to as Sonic 06. Yes. Um, it is largely regarded as one of the worst video games of all time. Um, I remember Steve and I rented it from Blockbuster. Hey, Steve. And he rented it, and I remember getting home one day from work. He's like, you gotta play this game. Like, uh, okay. And it was like the first attempt at making um Sonic into like a 3D open world kind of a thing, and it went as well as you could expect. Like the control was non-existent, like I couldn't get through the first 30 seconds of the game. I just was constantly like falling to my death, and um so the antagonist or sorry, the villain definitely of that game was everyone involved in making it. You're all villains, you fuckers. Oh, I am sorry. I'm sure there was a lot of issues that you had to uh no fuck that game. That game was off. All right.
SPEAKER_02Sorry, sorry, man.
SPEAKER_03Well, we gotta have some hot takes here, folks. That's my hot take. I mean, Sonic 06 being a bad game is not a hot take. No, honestly, I never even heard of it.
SPEAKER_01And Steve. What the you're you're our ultimate bad guy. Yeah, the Hutch, not Miller.
SPEAKER_03Miller will have a lot of. Oh, Miller's cool. Actually, Miller's a kind of a fan of the show. Well, he will definitely be up. He's he's gonna he'll be a future guest for sure. Yeah, Steve. We'd love you too, Hutch.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, all right. We do love you. You haven't listened to us unless you're in the Netherlands. Listen for the most skiing through the slopes somewhere.
SPEAKER_03Listening to a podcast.
SPEAKER_01Actually, isn't that unbelievable? In fact, that's probably more normal than what he's actually doing.
SPEAKER_03Yes. All right. Good. Do another one. So I got I got the one big one. I got my final, my, my, my villain of all.
SPEAKER_01Is this the last one, or is this just your ultimate? This is this is my last one, really. Yes. Okay, good. You want me to do it? Are you all right? I'll do another one then. All right. Because I have a couple more. Oh, yeah, yeah, you do another one. All right. Uh, I'll go with the butcher. Oh, shit! I forgot about the butcher. That's the ultimate, man. Oh man. Similar to Pyramid Head vibe, if you will. Yeah. The butcher represents so much to us as friends. Yes. And that's just why, like, oh man, when we played Diablo the original, and where he obviously appears first because it's the first game, but man, that epic moment when we were like I gotta set the stage here. Okay, don't do it, man. You do a better job.
SPEAKER_03So this was we played this at uh the Yellow House, which is where I lived on Southside when I was in college. And this is really before the days of internet gaming. Internet gaming was a thing, but usually you would have well, I call them land parties, I guess if you will. Yeah. Well, what it was is me and my roommates had four computers set up in the room.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And we would all hook up the computer. Which was cool as shit. Yeah. We would all hook up to the same router, that's and then you would you could play multiplayer that way. Really, that was one of the only ways to play it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So there's something about being in the same room as like a bunch of people. And then, you know, Diablo, the original one was also infamous for when you died, you dropped all your shit. Yeah, that was cool. So, and then you would go back to the home, and the only way to get your shit back was to get your ass back down there.
SPEAKER_01So dying meant something. Yeah, that's what I loved about it. Carry on. No, that was it. Matt, Matt. But we didn't know, but we didn't know. He was the first. Yeah, because like we started, we were and Diablo was in one of these things where you kept going deeper and deeper until obviously eventually you with Diablo, you can figure out you go to hell-ish. I never actually kind of made it with you because I think you ended up playing on with your roommates. Yeah. And I but the first night we did it because it was actually our kind of our first video game all-nighter moment, because me and Steve did it mostly before you. Um and that was like our moment, and you were like, Hey, there's this, and you pulled out a like it looked like a burnt-ass copy of a burnt copies meant like you literally like had a CD, and anyways, it's complicated. One of us legally owned it, yeah. So you you know, and then you're like, let's and I'm like, all right, let's try this Diablo game out. I don't know how you owned it or why you owned it, but we played it, and it's like this dungeon crawler, you just keep going deeper and deeper and deeper. Literally, you know, there was like mini bosses.
SPEAKER_03To the top to the top to get your shit.
SPEAKER_01And also, yeah, when you came back, you had to find your shit again if you died. But yeah, like there's bosses along the way, and the first boss you run into, I think, at least if I remember correctly, is the butcher. And it's just this weird ass. I mean, I don't even know how to describe it. It looks like it has horns, it's a massive creature, and he wields two butcher knives, hence the name. And he just he comes at you and he just waves these fucking and it was he's hiding in a small room. Yeah, well, it was yeah, it was like some sort of like I want to say like a dungeon, and you open the door and he just flies the fuck out. And he's almost like instant death, if especially because Matt was playing a wizard.
SPEAKER_03Oh well, that's if I try to save you instant death.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I was like the I think I played an arm church. Is dead is dead, yeah. Yeah, and then like we were like screaming like little scorgos. No laying down like fire trap. I mean, like I just remember it was chaos.
SPEAKER_03And we were literally like yelling and standing up, yeah. Like, because when you die, you just run over to the guy that's still alive. No, do this! Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Anyway, he was just oh man, one of the most you know, and they've tried to pay homage to him because in Diablo 4, he just kind of randomly appears.
SPEAKER_03We kept waiting for him to to be just a random, uh, an actual boss. Yeah. Then we found out he randomly more terrifying, actually.
SPEAKER_01And he was really difficult in Diablo 4, but the first one, that was just Yeah, never forget, man. That's the truth. Like, hard boss? And again, it was the whole losing your shit, man. Well, and when you when you put something on the line like that, yeah, it really feels like ooh, obviously. Yeah, I missed, I do miss that a little bit. I miss it a little bit with Diablo. All the I don't know if they could ever recapture that. Yeah, I don't ever actually want to go back to that. Yeah, because it like a lot of these newer gamers, because we're old, they probably wouldn't deal with it very well. No with the new gaming standards. I mean shit, I hate losing all my XP in a fucking uh blood souls.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, blood souls, yeah. Souls born game.
SPEAKER_01Born born identity.
SPEAKER_03All right, goddamn Matt Damon is. What do you want, folks?
SPEAKER_01Weigh in. Weigh in. We'll go to the live feed. All right, Matt, go ahead. All right, everybody's you're teasing them.
SPEAKER_03I'm gonna go with my my favorite villain of all time and will never change ever, ever, ever. Just because I say it, um, is Kefka.
SPEAKER_01Oh, Jesus Christ. No way. I know.
SPEAKER_03I thought you knew this one because you were I thought you this is the one you saw and you were sneaking looking at my sheet. No? Kevka. Kefka is from Final Fantasy VI. Well, I want to know that. Okay. So Kefka was uh the court mage. So kind of looking like a Joker motherfucker. Joker motherfucker. He's one of the characters he started off, yeah, just as a side character, but the end ended up being the main bad guy. What I love about him, he was just a he was one of those crazed lunatic bosses that just wanted to end the world for the sake of ending the world. But the twist was halfway through the game, you try to fight him and you lose, and he does it. So yeah, yeah, so you've never played this. So halfway through the game, the world gets destroyed. Like it switches over to the map, it's completely different. A lot of the main characters or well, mainly side characters are dead, like permanently dead, dead. And it's just like it happened. It's like the point in in games and movies, it's not supposed to happen. You're supposed to save it at the end. But you're the game, we're used to this world and these places and whatnot, but he actually kills everyone. And again, it's for no reason other than he just dead out of his mind and just wants to watch the world burn, and he does it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like the Joker.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, kind of like the Joker, except you d Batman doesn't stop him. Yeah, right. He does. He actually does it. So yeah, it's one of my favorite. Yeah, that's that's my that's my villain. That's your number one villain. That's my number one villain. Everyone else is just whatever's, but he's he's ones for me.
SPEAKER_01Alright, well, we got a couple more from me, folks. And and again, you can skip ahead. Matt time stamps these. Yes. Uh I'll go with I'll try to do it in the order of like you. You were like the last one was the best.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So uh I'll go with Frau Engel, if you remember Frau Engel. From um, see if Matt can get it.
SPEAKER_03Um, dude, face with the big guns and the naked pregnant lady. Yeah. Nice. Oh my god, not Duke Newcomb. Oh, jeez. Um, Wolfenstein. You know what? I I she clicked into my head, but I'm immediately like, no, Annie's gonna pick her. Okay. Yes, she is, she's a badass mother.
SPEAKER_01Talk about one of the most evil women on this in the video game history. And then I forgot, but like there's like a the killer, and well, spoiler, you do killer in number two. I don't know if she's in number one. Uh, this is the reboot series, sorry. Uh we're not talking about the old ones from the 90s. Uh, but yeah, you she's on like a TV show, she's getting interviewed, and you sneak into the set, and then you like bury a hatchet in her head or some shit. Yes, and I do remember a good game. Those games are so good. And then they did Indiana Jones, which I have I I'm interested in, but what's their name? I forget. Uh, but yeah, they made such a good bad guy. She was so awful in every way, like a Nazi should be. Yeah, I mean, yeah. And uh, yeah, so that was a good one. Uh, this is more of we'll just keep moving along. Uh, this one is kind of a gag, but over encumbrance. Every time I play an RPG, I always fall to being over-encumbered. I know. It's brutal. It is. It is. I get it. Some games you can't, you know, you gotta you gotta pick and choose games. But some games are better than others, but man, I'm a sucker. I pick every goddamn thing up.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I know you do.
SPEAKER_01I'm a hoarder. In video games, in real life, not really. I I hate having too much junk. And my ultimate bad guy, and he's my ultimate bad guy for anything, doesn't matter video games or not, but especially in the in video games, Dracula. From any Castlevania pick 'em, but specifically the original Castlevania in Symphony of the Night. Um, what else needs to be said? It's Dracula.
SPEAKER_03It's Dracula. I mean, you really you can't, I mean, he he is He's the man.
SPEAKER_01He is the villain. He's so, you know, and and they do give him some dimension. He's haunted by his own, you know, past.
SPEAKER_03And you uh get to see his origin story in uh the the uh animated, right?
SPEAKER_02No, the uh the the 360 era game.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Oh Lord of the Shadows of the Shadows Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's right. That yeah, yeah, that was a cool twist.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that was that was a very yeah. That was a good game. That was a good game. Although people apparently didn't like that one at all because it was just so different. But I felt like it was a great homage to the series. The game needed a little facelift, for a while. That was neat. That was so neat though the you had the origin.
SPEAKER_01But yeah, Dracula. I always forgot Dracula. Dracula. Uh but yeah, the original Castlevania, man. That that cover, that cover is the reason I think I love video games, to be honest. Like, like it was just so cool. Like, he's off in the distance. If you maybe Matt will post a picture of it on our Instagram. What's our Instagram, Matt? Share our Instagram.
SPEAKER_03Our Instagram is just Almost Gamers.
SPEAKER_01Almost Gamers.
SPEAKER_03Oddly enough, we're like snapping up. Oh, we have a website now. Oh, yeah, uh, almost gamers.com. Yeah. Which is I I I it's it's weird to me that like usually I pick a name and I love it, and it's just taken up, taken up, taking up. But we haven't we haven't had a problem at all. Yeah, not at all. The Gmail was the only thing. I had to do Almost Gamers Podcast Gmail.
SPEAKER_01Well, that works, yeah, which is fine because we are a podcast. But yeah, the original Castlevania cover, like I remember walking through some department store where you know Nintendo games were sold, and I just remember sell them, like Kaufman's. Yeah, like some Kaufman's or some shit. And uh look it up Kaufman's kids. But yeah, I just remember seeing that image of Dracula and blood, you know, it's just ah, Dracula forever and ever. Like I like vampires, but to me, there's no vampires are okay. Dracula. Yeah, we gotta be Dracula. You gotta be Dracula. He's the ultimate. That's right. Anyway, sorry folks, if this was uninteresting, but that's my villains.
SPEAKER_03Join us next week for the exciting conclusion to this episode. Save your game now.