March 13, 2023 • 53 mins
Adam is joined by longtime guest, first time host, Vanessa Guerrero (Twitter: @nessguerrero) to talk about Stray, the 2022 beloved indie cat caper. The conversation gets predictably ‘zurked’ as our feline fans veer off into indie game development cycles, monstrous allergies, and whether they need a face to be loved! But did that cute ginger tabby claw its way into the Celestial Hard Drive? Do our hosts finally grant robots the same emotional significance as humans? Will Adam finally find that crack in the cyberpunk fortress and reunite with Michael who’s just, like, waiting outside for him? Leap on in to find out!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh yeah. Every time I sink They're the weakest claps
(00:26):
in my life. I've always wondered if our sync process
is at Old's with your gelatinous fingers with okay a
little bit, yeah, Like I can normally get a pretty
solid clap going yeah. Um. Yet for some reason, every
time we do it, it's like I don't even know
what the motion is. Like, look, your brain forgets it?
(00:46):
Is it like this? Just like it's just like hand
mean hand fast? Have you did you watch everything everywhere
all at once? I did. I thought of you when
they got to the hot dog fingers. Hot dog fingers,
I mean, that's that's your own confection. I'm not making
that up. I've got fucking hot dog fingers. The audience
(01:09):
might not be aware of this because it's a bit
that dates back for a bit, but yeah, you have
like your is it that your double jointed? Is that
what it is? So I actually have a formal diagnosis
now oh um, I have Eller's danlos, which means yeah,
so a joints tend to like hyper extend or super flexible.
I've got these gross little fingertips, uh that can bend
(01:32):
all the way back. Um, and if you think your
fingertips can bend back my bed back further than that. Um,
you're that's amazing. You're so of the third person I
know that has that, uh condition. So it was a
mutual friend that helped me diagnose myself until she gave
(01:53):
me the idea and then I went to the doctor
and they're like, oh, you definitely have ellers danlos Oh wow,
because I met with like a geneticist and they were like, oh, yeah,
this is a classic case because it's the rest of
my body, but my hands especially. Yeah. Yeah, so so
but mostly the hands, you mean, like so it's okay, yeah, right,
(02:15):
so you know, maybe I'll end up being an asset
in that way then, right, Like isn't didn't you say
there's like things you can do that other people can't
do with your hands, just like bendam weird? I also
fall a lot, okay, um uh, and that I just
try and make part of my charm. Yeah. So my
ankles buckle from underneath me like all the time. Um wow,
Like it used to be more of a thing in
(02:37):
childhood and now I'll just be standing around and then
they just buckle, and um, I'm gonna use this to
garner my way into a meat cute. You will absolutely
have a meat cute with that. That just feels like
I just collapse in front of someone. Yeah, a destiny
has been written. Uh you know what I mean, Like
you're just now, you're just following the path until finally
(02:59):
it enters sex with the right person. Yeah, or I
just fall and then people in Los Angeles are people
in Los Angeles, and then they just step over me.
That's true. Nobody wants to get involved with anybody who's
had a physical accident, you know what I mean, Like
they just don't want to deal with it, which is
one of the like I don't know, this is like
the I guess my Midwestern ancestry is like screaming at this.
(03:22):
It's like help a person up, you monsters, Like, just
help them up? What are you doing? I've literally seen that.
I've literally seen people spill and then watch people walk
around them like you like they like they were seeing
an alien or something. And it was like, I'm Central
American and my family, my ancestors would beat the shit
out of me if I didn't do anything right. Right. Well,
(03:45):
we really got to the bottom of several I guess
distressing facts. But welcome all of you long time listeners
to another episode of One Upsmanship. I am your your
permanent co host and Ganzer. As I said, our friend
Michael Swam is out this week, so joining us a
(04:06):
long time collaborator and friend in a great video game
mind my special co host Vanessa Guerrero. Hi Vanessa, Hi me.
I love being here and I love it when you
show up. Love it so much that I'm willing to
record this podcast twice. We've already done the show before
it except the last time I was being her aspect
Kat the end of her time. That's right. I'm kind
(04:28):
of worried about that. I feel like that cat was
really a special thing, and I'm like, man, are we
going to have that without? She had a lot of
flavor text. Yeah, yeah, your cat's name again because I
don't want to what is it again? It's Kyle, right,
her name is Kyle. She looks perpetually damp. Yeah. Yeah.
She's got these crazy looking eyes that every vet I
(04:48):
see is like, did that just recently happen? And I'm like, no,
she's always been like that, and They're like cool, if
it recently happened, it's like indicative of like a brain
melting seizure, and I'm like, no, her eyes are always
just like vibrating and kind of fucked up. What a
wonderful just duo that you have with Kyle over there,
you know, like just what a neat situation because that's
(05:10):
not your only cat, right then? You have two cats?
Am I mistake? You've got two other cats? Kyle? Oh yeah,
I've got two other cats. They live in the living room.
Kyle lives in the bedroom. She gets an entire room
to herself. Sure, because she hates every animal that isn't
a human. Okay, she has so much hate her heart.
Kyle is a prime hater, a hateful cat. She's a
(05:32):
hateful cat if you're not a human. Yeah, she'll hiss
and spit and try to fight you. Even though she's
pure bones. She's all bone. If you touch her, she's
just fur and bone. She kind of looks like like,
you know, in that era of filmmaking when like everything
was a critter's rip off. She looks like she could
be one of those things. I do, I do know
that air of filmmaking. Um, I love this. We'll miss
(05:56):
you Kyle ri ip for this episode. But yeah, Kyle,
here's Germaine to our conversation, because we are covering the
indie Darling Stray from twenty twenty two, the PlayStation exclusive.
It was up for Game of the Year for a
lot of people. It was a huge hit. And let's
snap right into format and pass our first checkpoint, which
(06:19):
means it's time to tell the audience, like their eight bit,
what this game is, Vanessa, you feel up for it.
I'm ready go for it, my friend. All right, So
when I tell you that this game is you as
a cat, this is you as a cat. This isn't
you as a talking cat. This isn't you as a
magical cat. This isn't you as like some anthemorpha, a
(06:41):
creature that's like technically a cat and looks like a cat,
but isn't a cat in the style of Rocket Raccoon.
You're just a straight up fucking cat, and you start
the game doing straight up cat stuff like I'm talking
bap it around things, back around other cats, muzzling. You're
just a straight up cat, and in this universe you
(07:01):
also happen to be a straight up cat that falls
into what is essentially the robotics version. It's like the
Friesy Electronics version of the Kowloon Wall City in which
humans no longer exist and it's all just like robots,
and you've got a companion who's uploaded his entire psyche
into a robot, and there are these stupid little ticks
(07:26):
called the zerks that run around that are terrifying yep,
And you're supposed to put back the memories of this
robot to figure out what the hell is going on,
and eventually you get rid of all these zerks and
get to join all your little cat friends that you've
been separated from. Because while there's so much like world
in this the main point is that you're a cat
(07:46):
that's just trying to get back to do cat stuff.
You said it perfectly, That's how they pitched it, and
they actually definitely accomplished it. You're a cat. That's what
this game is, and hopefully you want that, because that's
what you're going to get if you play this game
well done. I feel like I'm already kind of leaning
(08:08):
into the next segment, So I'm going to pass our
next checkpoint and go right into the game or rants, uh,
do you mind if I lead off? Is it okay? Okay? Great.
Um Stray is fine. It's fine. It's a fine game,
and by fine, I mean it's got a lot of
charm to it. It's definitely fun to play for a while. Uh,
(08:32):
it's I played for about five hours and was finished
with it at five hours, which I think in this
day and age means it should cost about what two
movies cost, and it does, so I have no complaints
about that. Um it was expensive for an indie game,
but it was a well designed indie game. It was
certainly gorgeous to look at. It was certainly a colorful,
fun environment. I think that the designers made a key
(08:56):
philosophical choice that is one that as a gamer I
don't love, but as a consumer of video games and
like a general sort of just sort of aware of
the difficulty and accessibility issues that some gamers have, I
think it was probably the right choice. And that choice
was they decided the cat is basically on rails. You're
(09:18):
not really doing a lot of calculated platforming here. This
is a game where you kind of push the button,
the cat does the thing, and it feels automatic. That
was a decision they made early in design and sort
of I think fundamentally shapes what this game ultimately is,
which is a slightly gamified story, right, Like, it's not
(09:40):
a lot of there's not a lot of exploration or
discovery here. There's just very curated, branching narrative experience with
a little bit of a couple of sequential open areas,
with not a lot of extra stuff to do. That's
not a complaint, that's just a statement of fact. For me,
(10:00):
that was a little bit unengaging. I didn't I'm starting
to get more and more interested in games that kind
of don't tell me what to do, but also allow
me to indulge my curiosity. And weirdly, this game has
very little curiosity. I would say the cat is fantastic.
(10:22):
The cat has a lot of personality, The cat is
super well rendered. Playing as a cat is rewarding in
the sense that the cat does everything you want a
cat to do. Right. All the gamified pieces are exactly
what I want a cat to do. Knocking stuff off
the shelf, scratching things, constantly, rubbing up against things, constantly
(10:43):
incredible at jumping, all the things you want a cat
to do. They designed it perfectly in that respect. The
last point that I'll make before I turn it over
to my illustrious colleague is ultimately I didn't love the robots,
and the reason for that is that they don't actually
have the thing. They don't have the human quality that
makes me care about them as characters. They ultimately, more
(11:04):
than a lot of other games, feel like NPC's sort
of delivering lines without a lot of personality. I think
part of it is they don't really have a face.
I think also part of it is that they just
there's not a lot of varied perspective here. The robots
kind of all have one tone, even though there's one
or two that are a little bit more adventurous or
(11:25):
playful or whatever. But the robots kind of have a tone,
and you're sort of navigating through a deeply uncurious robot
society that's happy to live in the duldrums of a
sealed off existence, and I think that's strange if they're
actually artificially intelligent, which they are so like, I guess,
ultimately it's sort of quashed my curiosity, even though aesthetically
(11:46):
it should have been read I should have been really
into it. I like cyberpunk aesthetic. I like the Spike
Jones thing they're doing with the way the robots are
designed and feel, but I still didn't care, like I'm
just missing that. It didn't quite cross that threshold, which
ultimately made the game fine. And that is my rant.
(12:06):
You could have taken the words right out of my mouth,
because my primary rant is, while I love this cat,
this is a cat on rails ye, not having that
dedicated button for jumping, not having that aspect that makes
us feel like platforming or like some real dark soul shit.
I'm not asking for dark souls, but something that literally
like lets me put together the connective tissue of like
(12:29):
what makes a cat a cat. It feels like there's
a hand that's guiding me a little bit more than
I want to be guided if I'm given the promise
to being a cat that can explore this like gorgeous
world that they painstakingly created and added a lot of
like texture to. Additionally, by giving us a companion, that's
like putting their memories together. I feel like, because the
(12:52):
cat is a straight up cat, you're not really having
a lot of these like interactions that you wouldn't otherwise
in a game that might be like adding some flavor
text to it, in which maybe I'd prefer it to
be a little bit lonelier. Maybe I'd prefer it to
be a universe in which you're just a straight up
cat picking up the pieces for itself, as opposed to
like having some of these communications. I don't know. Maybe
(13:14):
it's because it lives in this world where it's either
like I either want more or I want less, but
it lives in a place that feels like it's just
not risky. I really enjoyed this game, but the thing
about Stray is that once you play it through one time,
there really isn't any more game to that, which for
an indie game I don't terribly mind, but for an
(13:36):
entire world that feels like there's a lot for me
to explore, I want to go back to that, and
Stray is very much like it's By the end of it,
I was very happy that I played it, but I
had no urge to do it again, especially for how
short it was. And I think my other criticism, which
(13:57):
is something I have a criticism of, like a lot
of Antaparna games, is I wish it was longer. I
feel like Annaperna games tend to run a little bit
short for me, and that's not that's not necessarily a
bad thing. It just means that I want more of it.
They just tend to end rather abruptly when I'm like
really immersed in the story already. That's interesting, that's really interesting.
(14:19):
I'm interrupting your randa rant. Oh thank you? Okay, great
an excellent rant. I do want to talk a little
bit about Annapernau as a as a publishing studio, because man,
they got a lot of dingers, you know what I mean,
Like they have a high batting average, so and that's
kind of exciting. But I want to do that on
(14:40):
the other side of the break. So let's balance ourselves
carefully and leap across these ads with the utmost confidence
that if we just press X, we'll be just fine. Yeah, yow,
(15:03):
indeed we are back. Uh. So I actually got the
trophy for meowing a bunch? Oh did you did? So?
Did them yewing ever unlock anything interesting for you? If
you meow over one hundred times, you get a trophy.
So you were really really focused on that. You really
spend some time on it. Yeah, that's funny. I was
(15:25):
streaming the first few hours and I really just kept
hitting that button. Yeah, as much as I could and
then I eventually got a trophy out of it. Um,
I get a lot of stupid trophies. Uh, And I
can't remember. I think there might have been an interaction
with a robot in which meowing was like the correct
thing to do. Probably yeah, probably, Yeah, they they they're certainly,
(15:47):
they certainly designed a bunch of the fundamental experiences to
use all the tools creatively like they like they've they
definitely cleared the bar of being creative with how they
execute the cats stuff. Yeah, right, Like that's that's that's
the bar for a game to be like fundamentally interesting.
And I'm sure you and I will end up talking
(16:07):
about this at some point. I would say that's the
bar that we're spoken, for instance, didn't clear, you know,
like uh yeah, And so in that regard, like everything
that I say that's negative about Stray, you can't say
that it's not creative. It is absolutely creative, and there's fun,
there's fun ideas in it, and it's so unlike most
things you've played. Yeah, it really is. It really is
(16:29):
unlike most things you played, And I think that's its
strength and weakness. Just because I'm a formalist, I'm gonna
go ahead and pass a checkpoint and get us right
into game on. Uh. So here it is Interruptions are tolerated,
opinions are all welcome. And let me just ask you
a fundamental question. Would this have been on your Game
of the Year list last year? Vanessa? No, but that's
(16:53):
because I played Psychonauts too last year? You did? Yes? Okay?
Oh so you so? Are you saying the second has
two just replaced it? Look? Is that what you're saying?
Just that was just that was my game of the year?
I see, I got you. So, But if you had
like a top five list, would it have been on there?
(17:14):
Honestly for its pure purely for its uniqueness, it would
have been okay? All right? So Mike and I were
having a debate about it because we do a Game
of the Year episode every year where we kind of
make a top five list, and neither of us liked
enough as a game experience to include it. That's how
that's where we both lined up on it, and I
(17:34):
but I still kind of feel like I'm surprised that
we both felt that way, because the whole package of
it is a little bit better than some of its parts.
Would you agree with that? Yeah? I think I would
have put it down my list because it's something that
I don't know if we know it yet, but I
think we're eventually going to see the effects of the
influence of this game because it took so many new
(17:58):
directions that we haven't really seen before, and it gave
us a story that was specifically driven by like a
non humanoid thing, and like, even when you're a monster,
you're still like something humanoid. Even when you're like a
fucking dinosaur or something or some kind of creature or ooze,
(18:19):
you're still something humanoid no matter what you're playing in
a game. And I feel like this opened the door
to put the potential of like playing a lamp I
don't know, right, Like that is the idea here. That
is the exciting thing, is like maybe you don't need
a humanoid character to be your pilot, to be your avatar, Right,
(18:44):
that's the idea here, Yeah, exactly, And so do you
you think they succeeded at that. I think they succeeded
at showing that it is entirely possible and that it
could be like even fun and rewarding. And I think
we're gonna start seeing the effect of that in gaming
at some point, like not even in like you know,
(19:04):
like across Triple A games, but you'll see more indie
games that start taking that into account because Stray was
so goddamn popular and the package that came in was
so that it came in was so interesting that I'm
I'm positive that we're going to see games that have
been influenced by this. Well, so they did kind of
(19:27):
they did kind of like skirt the issue a little
bit with this game, and I think people, I think
that needs to be acknowledged. Like it's very clear. I
think early drafts of this game, you know, you were
going to just be a cat, and like they were
going to make the game harder, like there's going to
be platforming and challenges and stuff, and they came up
against sort of people's actual expectations for playing with a cat,
(19:49):
which is not the same as you would think. One
of those things is the cat has to basically make
jumps automatically, you know, like we don't want to play
a Mario game version of a Cat, where like it's
that's just what I wanted, that's what I thought I
wanted to. But I do kind of trust the developers
in that they tried that idea, and clearly people were disappointed.
(20:10):
Now that doesn't mean that I think the game would
have been that the game is better because they moved
away from it. I think I still would have liked
that other game better, But I know that, you know,
they got to take into account like who they're selling
this too, and I would say, I don't think I'm
the right person for that. But the other big change
and germane to what you just said, is they added
a robot who's a personality that's sort of the avatar
(20:33):
of the humanity for this cat, and the cat seems to,
if nothing else, understand the robot, like when it talks
to it, right, like the cat the cat, So the
cat's not just a cat in that respect. They did
kind of pivot away from it a little bit in
a meaningful way. Right, he's a smart cat, right the cats?
(20:53):
The cat is at least smart enough to understand speech
and respond to it, right, Yes, So like here why
that matters? So, like I was trying to think, I
was racking my brain for like another game where that
you're an animal that acts like an animal, and the
best I could come up with was untitled Goose game
Oh my god. I loved that. A great game. But
(21:13):
I think part of what makes it work is that
there's not really a lot of story to it. It's
just sort of a lot of fun game challenges and
it stayed really really true to the premise, and it's
your own human deviousness that makes it fun. Yeah, you know,
whereas I think with this game, there's not enough deviousness
with what the cat is allowed to do because they
(21:35):
wanted to tell a story, and so it became really
hard to tell a story if you're just a cat.
So suddenly you have to have a robot companion that's
you know, having interactions and stuff, and the cat is
apparently a willing sentient pilot, you know. So I mean
I wanted to be a little bit more of an
Asian to Chaos exactly. That's kind of like I actually
(21:56):
feel like I might have wanted the Stray, the version
of Stray that was untitled Goose Game, which is like
cat needs to get to this other area, and the
whole game is a series of challenges that happen to
create chaos for other people like cats do, and that's it.
That's the game, right, Like that seems more appealing to
me personally because I think it's funnier. But I know
(22:19):
that I'm up against the entire Internet when I say
something like that, because this is clearly right, this is
targeted to It's a meme. This whole thing is a meme,
right Like, That's what I mean. It's definitely targeted to
people like me that'll play it because it's a cat.
I think that's fundamentally that's that's always been the sales
pitch and also fundamentally who it's designed for. Right Well,
(22:42):
there's so much love that goes into like the cat
like elements of the game. While I wish it was
more platform me, like all of the motions, everything you
can do as one, like the animations, the scenes that
it chooses to show you. It very much is like
made by cat people for cat people, and if you're
(23:04):
on the Internet, you're at least fifty percent a cat person.
I think it's cat or no cat. I think it's
tilted a lot further than that. I think I think
the Internet has basically swallowed dogs entirely and now it's
only cats. Uh, It's I mean, it's definitely like and
I use this word not pejoratively, like this is a
meme idea. Everything about it has a meme idea vibe
to it, including the way the robots are and the
(23:27):
sort of world that they're in, right, Like it's a
bunch of shut ins who never want to go outside
deciding to finally go outside, you know what I mean?
Like this is very much an Internet pitch? Is that
I mean? Is that too sarcastic to summarize it that way?
I don't think you know, I'm a start I'm a
cat shut in cat lady, So of course this was
extremely my jam. Yeah, and I don't think. I don't
(23:47):
think there's anything wrong with targeting that way. I just
like I have the same problem with it that I
generally have with a game like Tunic. Did you play
Tunic last year? I did note? How'd you like to
hated Tunic? U? I viscerally hate it Tunic because Tunic
struck me as entirely about algorithmically creating a series of
experiences that were designed to perform well, Like it's like
(24:09):
one third Dark Souls, one third a certain PlayStation esque graphics,
you know, aesthetic, and then the rest of its Zelda
and that's that's the game like it's with anthropomorphic animals,
and I to me, I'm like, no, I want every
I want every indie game to try stuff because that's
why I play indie games. I don't want knockoff Triple
(24:32):
A games because I what do I need that for?
You know exactly? I want indie games. Indie games or
is where my innovation comes from. R It's where I
go to play things that I wouldn't otherwise play. Like um,
I've in the previous episode, I've compared this to another
previous episode, Yeah, um, which is an indie game that
I really loved, which has Gone Home, which is something
(24:54):
in which you never interact with another character, but there's
so much story, in so much life to that world.
I would never find an experience like Gone Home in
a Triple A game, because a Triple A game has
too much money and too much time going into it
to want to take the risk of giving me nothing,
of giving me no NPCs and no other characters in
(25:15):
a game and saying that as an audience member, it
respects me enough to know that I can find the
story there, right, I mean, uh, yeah, you can't think.
I think you can't obviously have that in a triple
A platform. You also can't have it in a console exclusive.
I think that's the other problem, right, is it a
console exclusive has to be a safe bet because they
(25:38):
it needs to move consoles. It needs to be broad
enough that people want to buy consoles for it. And
I think that's another trap that Stray fell into. That's like, well,
it needs to be safe enough that it sells PlayStation fives,
which it did, and uh, you know, more power to it.
But that means it's probably not going to be an
outer Wilds, which exactly we didn't talk about Out of
(26:01):
Wild's last time. I don't think. But if you're looking
for the longer an Aperna game, that's the one that
you want. Ooh, I haven't played it yet, but you
are not. My co host for my new podcast has
been begging me to play out Wild. It's about thirty hours,
So like, there's that and it's um, I mean, it's
(26:22):
it's got some control issues. Uh, long time listeners will
know we did a podcast on it last year. Um,
but it is an exquisite game for innovation and creativity
and narrative. Uh so you know that's that's something to
be said for it. Uh what, it's what it delight
you to know that this game was based entirely on
(26:44):
I think it was a couple and one of it
was two people, and I think they're a couple. They're
two cats, like the whole game was designer of the
two cats. That they are there cats right. First of all,
I would love to see that in some kind of
post credits all, a Jackie Chan movie where I just
get to see the two cats that it's based on.
Second of all, there are some real sick fucks because
(27:06):
the cat can die in the game. And at one
point I was playing the game and I was like,
I wonder why I can't customize a cat to look
like my cat, and then it died and I was like, oh,
because it would be traumatic for me. Yeah, that was probably. Yeah,
they were probably smart and not letting you have not
letting you personalize it too much. Their cats names were
Merton Rigs. Oh, those are such good names. It's pretty cute. Apparently. Also,
(27:29):
the studio had some cats that they used for motion
motion capture, and like one of them was a hairless cat,
which you know was specifically for like figuring out what
the cat's body does, which is cool, and like everybody
who worked on this game has cats, owns cats, loves cats.
Like so I say that because like that kind of
(27:51):
softens the cynical part of me. It's like this is
a cash grab, just package it around memes. No, they
love cats, and I think that does kind of come
through when you're playing it, like it's it's not just
algorithmically designed. This is a love letter to you know,
cat owners. It's a cat. Yeah, it's a love letter
to cat. Absolutely. I'm so glad that you mentioned the zerks,
(28:11):
by the way, which are essentially apparently they are bacteria
affect that never penetrated my skull, but they're basically look
like a metroid melling yes, yes, a good move. By
the way, that's probably the most sci fi thing they
have in this game, of these weird metroid looking bacteria
that swarm in a terrifying way and kill your cat.
(28:33):
And also you know, all of civilization when unlocked, the
game actually really picked up once the Zerks showed up.
I thought it taught me like a fundamental truth again
about narrative, which is without tension, like a threat, it's
actually not that fun to play this game. The Zerks
made it more fun, I thought. And so even though
(28:54):
I hated them and hated having my cat die, it
was like, oh yeah, but loo, but having something that
can make me lose made this game better. Do you disagree?
It added the stakes that it needed, and those were tense.
Those are very tense moments anytime you run from any
time you run from a Zerkum, which gross um. The
(29:16):
first time it happened, I absolutely lost my ship. That
you could your cat could die in such a gruesome
man um. They're such a gross little video game beastie.
But they added a level of tension that was really
needed because you get so wrapped up in the warm,
fuzzy oh I'm a cat, look at me and do
little cat things, uh, that you forget that there are
(29:38):
stakes of this game and your cat is not immortal
and it doesn't have an actual set of nine lives uh,
and it is perishable, right, And like the Zirks are
in a way a sort of difficulty spike too, because
like they're fucking fast, Like they're fast fast, they're fast,
and they are numerous. Yeah, so like and you know,
(29:58):
nobody's I got to game when it came out, so like,
you know, people didn't say anything about that because there
hadn't been enough time for spoilers. It was a fucking
crazy upsetting moment when the first time you get sworn
by zerks, you know, and like that was a nice
moment for the designers. I appreciated that for them. Well done. Also,
like I think people could be stealing that zerk concept
(30:21):
more in video games, uh, because it's a pretty good
one quite honestly, Like, oh yeah, definitely so like evolved
Sci Fi rust bacteria creature, it was pretty chill, especially
the free running aspects of it. Yeah, well, and like
the inhuman speed of it, right, Like they're kind of
they're in that sort of long line of the Half
(30:41):
Life slash Halo the flood villain, Like they're in that,
They're in that trajectory somewhere. But they're definitely an improvement.
So like, you know, maybe maybe designers might steal that. Um,
how do you feel about the robot story? Did you
connect to it? Did you care? I didn't have that
much connection of the robot story, but I really enjoyed
(31:02):
like a lot of the side quests didn't feel that
fruitless for me, Like I really liked them sheets of
music to the music robot, but the actual overall robot story.
I think I'd rather this up in the Lass one.
But um, there's poem I really loved by Ray Bradberry
called Their Welcome Soft Reigns, which is about how in
(31:24):
humanity eventually kills itself of nuclear warfare, the only thing
left will just be animals and technology, and neither one
will give a shit that we ever existed. Um, And
I kind of felt like that where I didn't, I
feel like, I wish they're more there were more relics
of humanity to make me miss humanity, like I've played
other games where it has that dystoping aspect where you
(31:45):
find pieces of like humans used to be here, And
I feel like the robot world was so lived in
that I like, I didn't feel that sense of like, oh,
all humans are lost, right, Like I think part of
what makes cyberpunk is a genre work is the idea
that we're losing humanity but it's still there, like yeah,
that you could see it at the edges amongst every right,
(32:06):
and the fact that like, oh god, we can't lose that,
Like that's that's the tension. This game moved past that
to like no it's already over and uh maybe because
we're all narcissists, I don't know, but it just made
it really hard to connect to it. It's like, well,
if it's over and these aren't people, uh, I you know,
I just don't really care that much. Uh yeah, yeah,
(32:28):
And I'd like to think that I'd like to think
that there's a designer out there with like I guess
endless resources or whatever that could make this game, like
like if you could do this one hundred times with
every like design studio, I want to say, somebody could
figure out how to make an emotional story out of
these parts that really worked for me. But I'm not sure,
(32:48):
like they might actually just not be human enough for
me to care, right, Like, do you feel like if
naught He'd all did this, you'd be into it? Is
that possible? Oh, Naughty Dog did this, I'd be so
into it. I feel like if Naughty Dog did this.
Naughty Dog is also really good at telling human stories.
Though Naughty Dog understands humanity really well, and I feel
(33:10):
like this game understands cats and robots really well, but
it doesn't really get to the point of like, why
why are we mourning humanity? Why do we mourn that
this person uploaded their consciousness and they're not here anymore.
And I didn't really get that sense of like, oh,
I'm in grief over this thing that used to be here,
(33:32):
even though it was so long ago, because like in
the Last of Us, humanity was so long ago that
most people have forgotten it, but you still have these
little echoes of it, of course, like the like the
plants blooming from the ruins. I mean, that's what's so
great about the landscape tells you part of the human story,
(33:53):
you know what I mean? Like, Yeah, in in this game,
they wanted more like the narrative was driven around he
seeing together what happened, not not emotionally experiencing what happened,
you know, like and that's I mean, that's the mistake,
you know, Like it's always got to be about emotionally
(34:13):
experiencing it, Like who cares? What made the guy become
a robot? Who cares? Why? Why should I care? It's
all like that's all stuff that we made up. I
care about, like what does the robot feel when it
discovers it used to be a human being and isn't.
And we really didn't get that exactly. No, we moved past.
We moved past those moments a little bit quick for
(34:34):
my liking, which, um, I think even made the endings
as much as I like the ending um not resonate
with me as hard because it's like, well, I'm happy
to cats back to doing cats stuff, but like I
don't really care about the world that it's leaving behind. Interesting, Like,
I mean, I love the world, I love the world
(34:55):
that I was playing in it, but I don't really
there's there's no stakes for me there, you know What's interesting.
I kind of feel like there was a land before
Time version of this game too that they didn't do,
where you're constant, really yeah, where you're constantly like reconnecting
to that cat crew that you lost, and that's the
emotional driving thing. It's like, just try great for me, right.
(35:18):
If there's a if it was oh my gosh, if
it was a world in which I was a cat
and I missed other cats and I kept trying to
get back to the cats, um, which is what this is.
But I like, if that was the emotional core, if
that was the emotional core of this, if the emotional
core was I'm just a lonely cat. Trying to be
with other cats. I would have played the shit out
(35:38):
of that, right, I mean, like, and it's easy to
kind of second guess things, right, it's easy to write. Oh,
it's so easy. It's easy to be an armchair developer. Yeah. Yeah,
And like I do want to acknowledge they worked for
like seven years on this game. They started in twenty fifteen.
This is a labor of love, and like I want everyone, like,
if anybody who's part of this game, here's this podcast.
(35:59):
Somehow it's beautiful. It really is. It's a beautiful game,
and like so many things about it are excellent. I
still think, though, the best version of it emotionally is
either reconnecting to those cats or finding humans again, Like
one of those two trajectories would have been yeah, more
interesting than what we got, because I don't. I just don't.
(36:21):
I just think, like, as much as people like robots
because they're cool, I feel like they like them in
this like Fallout spreadsheet way where it's like a cool
idea but not an emotionally engaging idea. Yeah, I agree.
How how cyberpunky are you in general? Is that your vibe?
Or are you like am at it? I'm sitting in
(36:42):
pink neon lights. As we speak, I'm massaging the metal
arm I'm going to replace my limbs with if I
could be mostly mental, Um, I've already attached to personality
to my roomba. That isn't there. Okay, fair enough, that
is an answer. I gotta say one thing I like
about this game that as an entry in Cyberpunk, it's
(37:05):
one of the sweetest tones I've ever seen in that context.
It's so lovely. Yeah, Like you never see that in Cyberpunk.
Cyberpunk has kind of a grimy vibe perfectly and captured
by you know, Blade Runner and also the game Cyberpunk.
This game is not grimy at all, Like, no, there's
nothing grimy about it. It's actually very sincere, very sleek. Yeah,
(37:27):
and that's kind of cool. You never see that, right,
There's an earnestness to us and this game. I wish
I wish the heart on its sleeve existed more in
the cat part of it, but it definitely has a
heart on its sleeve. Yeah, I think that's right. I
mean I think that the cat is very winsome, Like
(37:49):
I don't want to skip over that, like playing as
the cat, watching the cat do things that you know,
like all cats do. Being able to make the cat
do things at all cats do in a funny way
is very endearing, like there is a heart connection to it.
But ultimately, uh, there's there's an amount that you need
to be able to control your avatar for you to
(38:11):
feel like you are that person. And I'm I don't
think they quite gave you enough. Yeah, I don't. Like
it doesn't feel like an accomplishment to finish this game.
I think that's the that's the metric, right, Like it's
do you feel like you accomplished anything at the end.
It feels like I got to the end of the story.
It doesn't feel like I accomplished something. Yeah, And like, uh,
(38:32):
there are some games where that's enough, right, like again
Telltale or you know, any of those like sort of
story based quick time event games are basically you know,
a curated movie. Uh, And like I would call those
great games or you know, uh, I don't like this game,
but like a Pokemon Snap, that's a perfectly acceptable game
because it's not trying to tell a story, you know.
(38:54):
But I think once you introduce a narrative and there's
emotional expectations, there and you got to meet them, and
it is not quite Any other observations you want to
share about this game. I really appreciate the world building
that it takes time to create. I think it's definitely
(39:15):
one of the most unique worlds that I've ever played,
and I think there's so much little bits of attention
to detail in it, again just missing those traces of humanity.
But like I have criticisms of the game, but I
have criticisms of the game because I am so intrigued
(39:37):
by it and there's so many elements of it that
I did enjoy that I just wanted more of it.
And I know it was like on a lot of
people's Game of the Year, and I think there's a
reason people have been so passionate about this game, and
that's when you get a slew of Triple A titles
that all feel the same. Something just unique and inventive
really does feel like a breath of fresh That's true.
(40:00):
It definitely isn't another Dark Soul's RPG clone like it
Definitely it is unique in that it's got a loop
that we haven't seen in a while. It has some
uniqueness in that regard, and I think the design of it,
And by design, I mean the actual art design of
it is really appealing. Like it's one of the most
beautiful games I've ever played, inasmuch as it's well drawn
(40:24):
and manifested. Right. I think we're getting to a point
with video game whole hardly again, Yeah, we're getting to
a point with video game graphics where like it's not
about fidelity to reality, or it's not even about like
pixels or like frame rates or anything. It's about like,
is this a creatively rendered world? That is what makes
graphics like pop? And I think in this case, it's
(40:45):
a very creatively rendered world which makes it really pop. Like, like,
this is not the right tone, but it's the reason
why we love Tim Burton movies, right, Like it's why
I love Ratchet Clank Drift Apart. Yeah, yeah, there is
a really great pixarish aesthetic to it that makes it
look gorgeous. I totally agree, And this one has its
(41:05):
own vibe. But and then all the pieces do feel
like they fit, uh, And I love and respect that,
you know, um, And that's a triumph, you know, Like
I would feel incredibly accomplished if I had been the
person creating the aesthetic of this game because it's rad um,
it's super red, it really is. Yeah. Um, okay, well,
(41:27):
I think we've reached that point where it's time for
us to make yet another uh determined leap across a
bookshelf here a couple of ads, and spring into action
with our final segment on the other side of the break.
Yeah yeah, yeah, back, i'd had I had a two mios,
(41:59):
so I don't, I don't. I was at one end shifting,
I don't know. Yeah yeah, uh yeah, uh we're back.
Thanks for listening to that. Here we are to put
sort of the final the final treat in the kitty letter.
That metaphor doesn't really work. If there's a treat in
the kitty litter, something has gone wrong, Something has gone wrong.
(42:21):
Can you tell that I don't own a cat. I'm
definitely allergic to cats. So if anybody needs a reason
not to agree with my opinion on this episode, just
imagine all the allergies. Living legs. Oh my house is poison,
living legs exactly, living like zerks in my lungs, you
know what I mean, Like I just can't be around them.
I'm actually allergic to cats too. I'm just a dumb bitch,
(42:45):
I want that quote played at your funeral. How allergic
are you? Is it just like killing you? Like? Thankfully
I've gotten used to my cats, but like another person's
cats will make me like hive up and start to
wheeze a little bit. Yeah, they didn't have any allergy
(43:07):
plots in here, you know which, so I didn't feel
specifically acknowledged here. Didn't need to be. But let me
tell you as that that's my primary experience with cats,
and it's missing here. About being allergic to a cat
would be funny, I don't know if it would fit
this particular game's brand. All right, let's pass our final
checkpoint and zip right into keep or delete. This is
(43:31):
where our final observations about the game go, and where
we decide YEA or an A does it belong or
does it not? Is there anything about the game we
haven't talked about before we actually make our final assessment?
What do you think? I think I've covered everything that
I've wanted to cover about this game other than the
(43:52):
only reason I want to go back is just to
do more catch fair enough. Do you think the including
the Kowloon Walled City is clever as a reference? Yes, okay,
you do. So there's nothing in you that's like me,
that's a little bit like and it's not like it's
another meme thing like, it doesn't feel like that to you.
(44:14):
Like it's packaged around like a bunch of like it's
algorithmically compiled. You don't have any Oh no, I feel
like it was just made by a bunch of dorics
that are specifically my kind of Okay, great, well, and
maybe that's the that's the trick, right is does it
feel specific enough? Uh see to me? Like I again,
it's the same thing with Tunic, where where I'm like, well,
that feels like it's so targeted that I'm suspicious of it.
(44:37):
Uh So, I'm sorry. I don't mean to ruin that
for you. It is very cool though, that is very cool.
I don't want to say it's not um all right,
So we've had our chat, Vanessa, where do you land?
Are we keeping or deleting? Uh? Stray? So, while I
(44:58):
really enjoyed Stray and I appreciate all the care and
thought that went into it, and it really is one
of the more unique games that I've played in a
really long time, and I think it's going to be
overall good for gaming. It's it still makes me want
(45:19):
other things out of it, and because of that, it
feels fairly incomplete to me. So I'm going to say,
for as much as I enjoyed Stray, and I think
if you haven't played Stray, you should play straight. If
you're listening and you haven't played Stray, you should absolutely
play straight. But after that deleted if you're hard drive
so it doesn't take a ride, I think that's right.
(45:40):
So as as none of you are probably surprised here,
I'm also going to delete this game. But I agree
that it is one hundred percent worth playing. I think
it's a great game to stream. If anybody here watches
streams or wants to stream, it's actually a really good
streaming experience because it does have a communal vibe to it.
I think people it really definitely people get attached to
(46:01):
and and have a good time watching the cat do
cat stuff, you know, like uh, And I think in
that way it was very cleverly thought through, like uh,
it's it's perfectly consumable as a stream game for that reason. Yeah. Um,
also like I won't lie to you, like I didn't
do a twelve hour stint with this game, which is
I think what it would take to really see every
(46:23):
nook and cranny of it. Um, because oh and I
I really went in there. Oh did you so you went?
Did you like hundred percent it? Did you get that
far into it? I did a hundred percent? But I like,
I spend a lot of exploration, Okay, Um I did.
I did a number of side quests until I started
to feel like I gotta, I just need to move on. Um. So,
(46:43):
you know, like there may have been like one or
two side quests that want to redeemed the whole thing.
I doubt it, but you know there are games like that,
like Which or three or other games where it's like, man,
that side quest really nails it. Uh. For me, that
wasn't true. But I think if you're interested in, you know,
anthropomorphize cats in a cyberpunk future, like, you'll never find
(47:04):
a better game than this. This is your no, no, no,
this is it. This is your Zanda do one hundred
percent your zan to do. I do kind of feel
like I wanted to. I want to see the untitled
Goose game version of this game, you know, like I
want to see the version, like I want to see
anthropomorphic animal having to navigate a series of chores that
(47:27):
inconvenience as humans. All that, but not the narrative. I
think I would like that game. I hope they make
stuff like that as a lesson from this game, right.
I think that's coming down the pipeline. I think someone
somewhere is working on that. I hope they are. I
hope they are. Um, okay, any last remarks Vanessa before
we sign off? Yeah, where can people find you? Vanessa?
(47:50):
And thank you so much for being on. What are
you up to these days? Thank you for having me.
I always love being on here. You can find me
under sns Guero on Instagram in ny Sasquero on Twitter.
I also have a podcast called Popcorn and Pixels, which
you could find on Apple and Spotify and Anchor, and
it's we take video games and movies and pair them
(48:11):
together to talk about the differences between like linear storytelling
and ludo narrative storytelling, because oftentimes you see games being
remade into movies and vice versa, and we think that
they both have their own very specific strengths as to
why they tell the stories that they tell. So we'll
find ones that are like kind of similar and compare
and contrast the differences and how they choose to tell
that story. So, for example, the episode that we currently
(48:34):
have our war stories and it's the game Valiant Hearts
paired with the movie Jojo Rabbit. Wow, two very unusual
picks for that topic. Have you done that episode yet?
Have you done yet? We did. It's out and we
talked a little bit about how the reason we each
picked what we picked is my co hast picked Valiant
(48:57):
Hearts first, and so I picked Jojo Rabbit to match it.
And the and I picked Jojo Rabbit is because Valiant
Hearts tells a war story in a way that is
very unique to gaming, because most video games choose to
tell a first person shooter war story, and this is
using a puzzle game to kind of tell the story
(49:17):
of like being thrown into the middle of something and
having to like quite literally put the pieces together of
what's happening. And then I chose exactly and I chose
Jojo Rabbit as my pairing because you usually see war
movies told and very like dour straight one to one
historical more like big cinematic landscapes. And I like Jojo
(49:41):
Rabbit because it used comedy to tell the story of
something that was like so scary and sad, and so
I thought these were like very unique war stories, so
why not put them together. And both of them also
wanted to tell the stories of like people that were
affected by war more than I wanted to tell the
story worry about war. Okay, I love that. I mean,
(50:03):
I think if people who listen to this podcast are
hungry for even deeper analysis. It sounds like you got
you got the thing that you got the way to
scratch that itch. That's what it sends it. Yeah, it
sounds rad. I gotta listen to that and check that out.
Just final question, Soul Caliber six is the game we're
supposed to play. Sol Calimber six. Sol Caliber six is
(50:24):
the game we're supposed to play. Um, I downloaded it
and then I beat it because I just skipped through
every cut scene in like two hours. I've never played
Soul Caliber, so you know, I'm saving that colonel for
people to make fun of me at the end. It's great,
we're gonna kick each other's as well. This is what
I love about this. So this is Vanessa, are supposed
(50:45):
to hang out and play this game. I'm just so
you always talk about how you don't have like the
most responsive like hands and stuff, per the thing we
talked about earlier. It's funny to me that you picked
a fighting game to play. Why did you do that?
Is it just soul Caliber favors the button matches, all right,
So it's even playing ground, you think, And it's gonna
(51:06):
get my teeth knocked in? Is that? What's gonna like?
Are you gonna like black like? Uh? Like uh black
belt me? What this ship? Is that? What's gonna be? Oh?
Only if I play as Killick. I don't even know
who any of these characters are. Isn't isn't like Garret
Garrolton this game? Right? No? Not in Okay? Are you
sure I think he is? I thought of saw him.
(51:27):
But soul Caliber does have he might be. Soul Caliber
uh tends to have a lot of like other ip
within it. It's maybe my favorite fighting game. And we actually,
um I work over at game Grums. I produce a
show called ten Minute Power Hour, and we actually have
a machine that plays soul Caliber the first version, and
we frequently do matchups amongst my co workers that way,
(51:51):
which is very fun. That is really fun, man. You
got a lot of cool projects. Uh. One last fact
about uh Stray that I just think is really cute
that I found on Wikipedia. Uh, when Stray launched, there
were lots and lots of viral videos of cats watching
the game, Like it became like this whole other meme.
(52:13):
And then the other thing that's really cool is Annapurna
partnered with charities to raise money for homeless cats as
part of the launch for this game, which that makes
me say, I really feel like Anna Perna as a Like,
they just seem like they're doing things right. Uh, they
deserve to be watched, and almost every game they release
(52:35):
is at least interesting and this is no exception to that.
All Right, friends, Uh, thanks so much for tuning in.
Thanks to Vanessa for joining us when we were miclists.
Really appreciate that. And we'll see you next time on
one upsmanship piece, y'all,
Oh yeah. Every time I sink They're the weakest claps
(00:26):
in my life. I've always wondered if our sync process
is at Old's with your gelatinous fingers with okay a
little bit, yeah, Like I can normally get a pretty
solid clap going yeah. Um. Yet for some reason, every
time we do it, it's like I don't even know
what the motion is. Like, look, your brain forgets it?
(00:46):
Is it like this? Just like it's just like hand
mean hand fast? Have you did you watch everything everywhere
all at once? I did. I thought of you when
they got to the hot dog fingers. Hot dog fingers,
I mean, that's that's your own confection. I'm not making
that up. I've got fucking hot dog fingers. The audience
(01:09):
might not be aware of this because it's a bit
that dates back for a bit, but yeah, you have
like your is it that your double jointed? Is that
what it is? So I actually have a formal diagnosis
now oh um, I have Eller's danlos, which means yeah,
so a joints tend to like hyper extend or super flexible.
I've got these gross little fingertips, uh that can bend
(01:32):
all the way back. Um, and if you think your
fingertips can bend back my bed back further than that. Um,
you're that's amazing. You're so of the third person I
know that has that, uh condition. So it was a
mutual friend that helped me diagnose myself until she gave
(01:53):
me the idea and then I went to the doctor
and they're like, oh, you definitely have ellers danlos Oh wow,
because I met with like a geneticist and they were like, oh, yeah,
this is a classic case because it's the rest of
my body, but my hands especially. Yeah. Yeah, so so
but mostly the hands, you mean, like so it's okay, yeah, right,
(02:15):
so you know, maybe I'll end up being an asset
in that way then, right, Like isn't didn't you say
there's like things you can do that other people can't
do with your hands, just like bendam weird? I also
fall a lot, okay, um uh, and that I just
try and make part of my charm. Yeah. So my
ankles buckle from underneath me like all the time. Um wow,
Like it used to be more of a thing in
(02:37):
childhood and now I'll just be standing around and then
they just buckle, and um, I'm gonna use this to
garner my way into a meat cute. You will absolutely
have a meat cute with that. That just feels like
I just collapse in front of someone. Yeah, a destiny
has been written. Uh you know what I mean, Like
you're just now, you're just following the path until finally
(02:59):
it enters sex with the right person. Yeah, or I
just fall and then people in Los Angeles are people
in Los Angeles, and then they just step over me.
That's true. Nobody wants to get involved with anybody who's
had a physical accident, you know what I mean, Like
they just don't want to deal with it, which is
one of the like I don't know, this is like
the I guess my Midwestern ancestry is like screaming at this.
(03:22):
It's like help a person up, you monsters, Like, just
help them up? What are you doing? I've literally seen that.
I've literally seen people spill and then watch people walk
around them like you like they like they were seeing
an alien or something. And it was like, I'm Central
American and my family, my ancestors would beat the shit
out of me if I didn't do anything right. Right. Well,
(03:45):
we really got to the bottom of several I guess
distressing facts. But welcome all of you long time listeners
to another episode of One Upsmanship. I am your your
permanent co host and Ganzer. As I said, our friend
Michael Swam is out this week, so joining us a
(04:06):
long time collaborator and friend in a great video game
mind my special co host Vanessa Guerrero. Hi Vanessa, Hi me.
I love being here and I love it when you
show up. Love it so much that I'm willing to
record this podcast twice. We've already done the show before
it except the last time I was being her aspect
Kat the end of her time. That's right. I'm kind
(04:28):
of worried about that. I feel like that cat was
really a special thing, and I'm like, man, are we
going to have that without? She had a lot of
flavor text. Yeah, yeah, your cat's name again because I
don't want to what is it again? It's Kyle, right,
her name is Kyle. She looks perpetually damp. Yeah. Yeah.
She's got these crazy looking eyes that every vet I
(04:48):
see is like, did that just recently happen? And I'm like, no,
she's always been like that, and They're like cool, if
it recently happened, it's like indicative of like a brain
melting seizure, and I'm like, no, her eyes are always
just like vibrating and kind of fucked up. What a
wonderful just duo that you have with Kyle over there,
you know, like just what a neat situation because that's
(05:10):
not your only cat, right then? You have two cats?
Am I mistake? You've got two other cats? Kyle? Oh yeah,
I've got two other cats. They live in the living room.
Kyle lives in the bedroom. She gets an entire room
to herself. Sure, because she hates every animal that isn't
a human. Okay, she has so much hate her heart.
Kyle is a prime hater, a hateful cat. She's a
(05:32):
hateful cat if you're not a human. Yeah, she'll hiss
and spit and try to fight you. Even though she's
pure bones. She's all bone. If you touch her, she's
just fur and bone. She kind of looks like like,
you know, in that era of filmmaking when like everything
was a critter's rip off. She looks like she could
be one of those things. I do, I do know
that air of filmmaking. Um, I love this. We'll miss
(05:56):
you Kyle ri ip for this episode. But yeah, Kyle,
here's Germaine to our conversation, because we are covering the
indie Darling Stray from twenty twenty two, the PlayStation exclusive.
It was up for Game of the Year for a
lot of people. It was a huge hit. And let's
snap right into format and pass our first checkpoint, which
(06:19):
means it's time to tell the audience, like their eight bit,
what this game is, Vanessa, you feel up for it.
I'm ready go for it, my friend. All right, So
when I tell you that this game is you as
a cat, this is you as a cat. This isn't
you as a talking cat. This isn't you as a
magical cat. This isn't you as like some anthemorpha, a
(06:41):
creature that's like technically a cat and looks like a cat,
but isn't a cat in the style of Rocket Raccoon.
You're just a straight up fucking cat, and you start
the game doing straight up cat stuff like I'm talking
bap it around things, back around other cats, muzzling. You're
just a straight up cat, and in this universe you
(07:01):
also happen to be a straight up cat that falls
into what is essentially the robotics version. It's like the
Friesy Electronics version of the Kowloon Wall City in which
humans no longer exist and it's all just like robots,
and you've got a companion who's uploaded his entire psyche
into a robot, and there are these stupid little ticks
(07:26):
called the zerks that run around that are terrifying yep,
And you're supposed to put back the memories of this
robot to figure out what the hell is going on,
and eventually you get rid of all these zerks and
get to join all your little cat friends that you've
been separated from. Because while there's so much like world
in this the main point is that you're a cat
(07:46):
that's just trying to get back to do cat stuff.
You said it perfectly, That's how they pitched it, and
they actually definitely accomplished it. You're a cat. That's what
this game is, and hopefully you want that, because that's
what you're going to get if you play this game
well done. I feel like I'm already kind of leaning
(08:08):
into the next segment, So I'm going to pass our
next checkpoint and go right into the game or rants, uh,
do you mind if I lead off? Is it okay? Okay? Great.
Um Stray is fine. It's fine. It's a fine game,
and by fine, I mean it's got a lot of
charm to it. It's definitely fun to play for a while. Uh,
(08:32):
it's I played for about five hours and was finished
with it at five hours, which I think in this
day and age means it should cost about what two
movies cost, and it does, so I have no complaints
about that. Um it was expensive for an indie game,
but it was a well designed indie game. It was
certainly gorgeous to look at. It was certainly a colorful,
fun environment. I think that the designers made a key
(08:56):
philosophical choice that is one that as a gamer I
don't love, but as a consumer of video games and
like a general sort of just sort of aware of
the difficulty and accessibility issues that some gamers have, I
think it was probably the right choice. And that choice
was they decided the cat is basically on rails. You're
(09:18):
not really doing a lot of calculated platforming here. This
is a game where you kind of push the button,
the cat does the thing, and it feels automatic. That
was a decision they made early in design and sort
of I think fundamentally shapes what this game ultimately is,
which is a slightly gamified story, right, Like, it's not
(09:40):
a lot of there's not a lot of exploration or
discovery here. There's just very curated, branching narrative experience with
a little bit of a couple of sequential open areas,
with not a lot of extra stuff to do. That's
not a complaint, that's just a statement of fact. For me,
(10:00):
that was a little bit unengaging. I didn't I'm starting
to get more and more interested in games that kind
of don't tell me what to do, but also allow
me to indulge my curiosity. And weirdly, this game has
very little curiosity. I would say the cat is fantastic.
(10:22):
The cat has a lot of personality, The cat is
super well rendered. Playing as a cat is rewarding in
the sense that the cat does everything you want a
cat to do. Right. All the gamified pieces are exactly
what I want a cat to do. Knocking stuff off
the shelf, scratching things, constantly, rubbing up against things, constantly
(10:43):
incredible at jumping, all the things you want a cat
to do. They designed it perfectly in that respect. The
last point that I'll make before I turn it over
to my illustrious colleague is ultimately I didn't love the robots,
and the reason for that is that they don't actually
have the thing. They don't have the human quality that
makes me care about them as characters. They ultimately, more
(11:04):
than a lot of other games, feel like NPC's sort
of delivering lines without a lot of personality. I think
part of it is they don't really have a face.
I think also part of it is that they just
there's not a lot of varied perspective here. The robots
kind of all have one tone, even though there's one
or two that are a little bit more adventurous or
(11:25):
playful or whatever. But the robots kind of have a tone,
and you're sort of navigating through a deeply uncurious robot
society that's happy to live in the duldrums of a
sealed off existence, and I think that's strange if they're
actually artificially intelligent, which they are so like, I guess,
ultimately it's sort of quashed my curiosity, even though aesthetically
(11:46):
it should have been read I should have been really
into it. I like cyberpunk aesthetic. I like the Spike
Jones thing they're doing with the way the robots are
designed and feel, but I still didn't care, like I'm
just missing that. It didn't quite cross that threshold, which
ultimately made the game fine. And that is my rant.
(12:06):
You could have taken the words right out of my mouth,
because my primary rant is, while I love this cat,
this is a cat on rails ye, not having that
dedicated button for jumping, not having that aspect that makes
us feel like platforming or like some real dark soul shit.
I'm not asking for dark souls, but something that literally
like lets me put together the connective tissue of like
(12:29):
what makes a cat a cat. It feels like there's
a hand that's guiding me a little bit more than
I want to be guided if I'm given the promise
to being a cat that can explore this like gorgeous
world that they painstakingly created and added a lot of
like texture to. Additionally, by giving us a companion, that's
like putting their memories together. I feel like, because the
(12:52):
cat is a straight up cat, you're not really having
a lot of these like interactions that you wouldn't otherwise
in a game that might be like adding some flavor
text to it, in which maybe I'd prefer it to
be a little bit lonelier. Maybe I'd prefer it to
be a universe in which you're just a straight up
cat picking up the pieces for itself, as opposed to
like having some of these communications. I don't know. Maybe
(13:14):
it's because it lives in this world where it's either
like I either want more or I want less, but
it lives in a place that feels like it's just
not risky. I really enjoyed this game, but the thing
about Stray is that once you play it through one time,
there really isn't any more game to that, which for
an indie game I don't terribly mind, but for an
(13:36):
entire world that feels like there's a lot for me
to explore, I want to go back to that, and
Stray is very much like it's By the end of it,
I was very happy that I played it, but I
had no urge to do it again, especially for how
short it was. And I think my other criticism, which
(13:57):
is something I have a criticism of, like a lot
of Antaparna games, is I wish it was longer. I
feel like Annaperna games tend to run a little bit
short for me, and that's not that's not necessarily a
bad thing. It just means that I want more of it.
They just tend to end rather abruptly when I'm like
really immersed in the story already. That's interesting, that's really interesting.
(14:19):
I'm interrupting your randa rant. Oh thank you? Okay, great
an excellent rant. I do want to talk a little
bit about Annapernau as a as a publishing studio, because man,
they got a lot of dingers, you know what I mean,
Like they have a high batting average, so and that's
kind of exciting. But I want to do that on
(14:40):
the other side of the break. So let's balance ourselves
carefully and leap across these ads with the utmost confidence
that if we just press X, we'll be just fine. Yeah, yow,
(15:03):
indeed we are back. Uh. So I actually got the
trophy for meowing a bunch? Oh did you did? So?
Did them yewing ever unlock anything interesting for you? If
you meow over one hundred times, you get a trophy.
So you were really really focused on that. You really
spend some time on it. Yeah, that's funny. I was
(15:25):
streaming the first few hours and I really just kept
hitting that button. Yeah, as much as I could and
then I eventually got a trophy out of it. Um,
I get a lot of stupid trophies. Uh, And I
can't remember. I think there might have been an interaction
with a robot in which meowing was like the correct
thing to do. Probably yeah, probably, Yeah, they they they're certainly,
(15:47):
they certainly designed a bunch of the fundamental experiences to
use all the tools creatively like they like they've they
definitely cleared the bar of being creative with how they
execute the cats stuff. Yeah, right, Like that's that's that's
the bar for a game to be like fundamentally interesting.
And I'm sure you and I will end up talking
(16:07):
about this at some point. I would say that's the
bar that we're spoken, for instance, didn't clear, you know,
like uh yeah, And so in that regard, like everything
that I say that's negative about Stray, you can't say
that it's not creative. It is absolutely creative, and there's fun,
there's fun ideas in it, and it's so unlike most
things you've played. Yeah, it really is. It really is
(16:29):
unlike most things you played, And I think that's its
strength and weakness. Just because I'm a formalist, I'm gonna
go ahead and pass a checkpoint and get us right
into game on. Uh. So here it is Interruptions are tolerated,
opinions are all welcome. And let me just ask you
a fundamental question. Would this have been on your Game
of the Year list last year? Vanessa? No, but that's
(16:53):
because I played Psychonauts too last year? You did? Yes? Okay?
Oh so you so? Are you saying the second has
two just replaced it? Look? Is that what you're saying?
Just that was just that was my game of the year?
I see, I got you. So, But if you had
like a top five list, would it have been on there?
(17:14):
Honestly for its pure purely for its uniqueness, it would
have been okay? All right? So Mike and I were
having a debate about it because we do a Game
of the Year episode every year where we kind of
make a top five list, and neither of us liked
enough as a game experience to include it. That's how
that's where we both lined up on it, and I
(17:34):
but I still kind of feel like I'm surprised that
we both felt that way, because the whole package of
it is a little bit better than some of its parts.
Would you agree with that? Yeah? I think I would
have put it down my list because it's something that
I don't know if we know it yet, but I
think we're eventually going to see the effects of the
influence of this game because it took so many new
(17:58):
directions that we haven't really seen before, and it gave
us a story that was specifically driven by like a
non humanoid thing, and like, even when you're a monster,
you're still like something humanoid. Even when you're like a
fucking dinosaur or something or some kind of creature or ooze,
(18:19):
you're still something humanoid no matter what you're playing in
a game. And I feel like this opened the door
to put the potential of like playing a lamp I
don't know, right, Like that is the idea here. That
is the exciting thing, is like maybe you don't need
a humanoid character to be your pilot, to be your avatar, Right,
(18:44):
that's the idea here, Yeah, exactly, And so do you
you think they succeeded at that. I think they succeeded
at showing that it is entirely possible and that it
could be like even fun and rewarding. And I think
we're gonna start seeing the effect of that in gaming
at some point, like not even in like you know,
(19:04):
like across Triple A games, but you'll see more indie
games that start taking that into account because Stray was
so goddamn popular and the package that came in was
so that it came in was so interesting that I'm
I'm positive that we're going to see games that have
been influenced by this. Well, so they did kind of
(19:27):
they did kind of like skirt the issue a little
bit with this game, and I think people, I think
that needs to be acknowledged. Like it's very clear. I
think early drafts of this game, you know, you were
going to just be a cat, and like they were
going to make the game harder, like there's going to
be platforming and challenges and stuff, and they came up
against sort of people's actual expectations for playing with a cat,
(19:49):
which is not the same as you would think. One
of those things is the cat has to basically make
jumps automatically, you know, like we don't want to play
a Mario game version of a Cat, where like it's
that's just what I wanted, that's what I thought I
wanted to. But I do kind of trust the developers
in that they tried that idea, and clearly people were disappointed.
(20:10):
Now that doesn't mean that I think the game would
have been that the game is better because they moved
away from it. I think I still would have liked
that other game better, But I know that, you know,
they got to take into account like who they're selling
this too, and I would say, I don't think I'm
the right person for that. But the other big change
and germane to what you just said, is they added
a robot who's a personality that's sort of the avatar
(20:33):
of the humanity for this cat, and the cat seems to,
if nothing else, understand the robot, like when it talks
to it, right, like the cat the cat, So the
cat's not just a cat in that respect. They did
kind of pivot away from it a little bit in
a meaningful way. Right, he's a smart cat, right the cats?
(20:53):
The cat is at least smart enough to understand speech
and respond to it, right, Yes, So like here why
that matters? So, like I was trying to think, I
was racking my brain for like another game where that
you're an animal that acts like an animal, and the
best I could come up with was untitled Goose game
Oh my god. I loved that. A great game. But
(21:13):
I think part of what makes it work is that
there's not really a lot of story to it. It's
just sort of a lot of fun game challenges and
it stayed really really true to the premise, and it's
your own human deviousness that makes it fun. Yeah, you know,
whereas I think with this game, there's not enough deviousness
with what the cat is allowed to do because they
(21:35):
wanted to tell a story, and so it became really
hard to tell a story if you're just a cat.
So suddenly you have to have a robot companion that's
you know, having interactions and stuff, and the cat is
apparently a willing sentient pilot, you know. So I mean
I wanted to be a little bit more of an
Asian to Chaos exactly. That's kind of like I actually
(21:56):
feel like I might have wanted the Stray, the version
of Stray that was untitled Goose Game, which is like
cat needs to get to this other area, and the
whole game is a series of challenges that happen to
create chaos for other people like cats do, and that's it.
That's the game, right, Like that seems more appealing to
me personally because I think it's funnier. But I know
(22:19):
that I'm up against the entire Internet when I say
something like that, because this is clearly right, this is
targeted to It's a meme. This whole thing is a meme,
right Like, That's what I mean. It's definitely targeted to
people like me that'll play it because it's a cat.
I think that's fundamentally that's that's always been the sales
pitch and also fundamentally who it's designed for. Right Well,
(22:42):
there's so much love that goes into like the cat
like elements of the game. While I wish it was
more platform me, like all of the motions, everything you
can do as one, like the animations, the scenes that
it chooses to show you. It very much is like
made by cat people for cat people, and if you're
(23:04):
on the Internet, you're at least fifty percent a cat person.
I think it's cat or no cat. I think it's
tilted a lot further than that. I think I think
the Internet has basically swallowed dogs entirely and now it's
only cats. Uh, It's I mean, it's definitely like and
I use this word not pejoratively, like this is a
meme idea. Everything about it has a meme idea vibe
to it, including the way the robots are and the
(23:27):
sort of world that they're in, right, Like it's a
bunch of shut ins who never want to go outside
deciding to finally go outside, you know what I mean?
Like this is very much an Internet pitch? Is that
I mean? Is that too sarcastic to summarize it that way?
I don't think you know, I'm a start I'm a
cat shut in cat lady, So of course this was
extremely my jam. Yeah, and I don't think. I don't
(23:47):
think there's anything wrong with targeting that way. I just
like I have the same problem with it that I
generally have with a game like Tunic. Did you play
Tunic last year? I did note? How'd you like to
hated Tunic? U? I viscerally hate it Tunic because Tunic
struck me as entirely about algorithmically creating a series of
experiences that were designed to perform well, Like it's like
(24:09):
one third Dark Souls, one third a certain PlayStation esque graphics,
you know, aesthetic, and then the rest of its Zelda
and that's that's the game like it's with anthropomorphic animals,
and I to me, I'm like, no, I want every
I want every indie game to try stuff because that's
why I play indie games. I don't want knockoff Triple
(24:32):
A games because I what do I need that for?
You know exactly? I want indie games. Indie games or
is where my innovation comes from. R It's where I
go to play things that I wouldn't otherwise play. Like um,
I've in the previous episode, I've compared this to another
previous episode, Yeah, um, which is an indie game that
I really loved, which has Gone Home, which is something
(24:54):
in which you never interact with another character, but there's
so much story, in so much life to that world.
I would never find an experience like Gone Home in
a Triple A game, because a Triple A game has
too much money and too much time going into it
to want to take the risk of giving me nothing,
of giving me no NPCs and no other characters in
(25:15):
a game and saying that as an audience member, it
respects me enough to know that I can find the
story there, right, I mean, uh, yeah, you can't think.
I think you can't obviously have that in a triple
A platform. You also can't have it in a console exclusive.
I think that's the other problem, right, is it a
console exclusive has to be a safe bet because they
(25:38):
it needs to move consoles. It needs to be broad
enough that people want to buy consoles for it. And
I think that's another trap that Stray fell into. That's like, well,
it needs to be safe enough that it sells PlayStation fives,
which it did, and uh, you know, more power to it.
But that means it's probably not going to be an
outer Wilds, which exactly we didn't talk about Out of
(26:01):
Wild's last time. I don't think. But if you're looking
for the longer an Aperna game, that's the one that
you want. Ooh, I haven't played it yet, but you
are not. My co host for my new podcast has
been begging me to play out Wild. It's about thirty hours,
So like, there's that and it's um, I mean, it's
(26:22):
it's got some control issues. Uh, long time listeners will
know we did a podcast on it last year. Um,
but it is an exquisite game for innovation and creativity
and narrative. Uh so you know that's that's something to
be said for it. Uh what, it's what it delight
you to know that this game was based entirely on
(26:44):
I think it was a couple and one of it
was two people, and I think they're a couple. They're
two cats, like the whole game was designer of the
two cats. That they are there cats right. First of all,
I would love to see that in some kind of
post credits all, a Jackie Chan movie where I just
get to see the two cats that it's based on.
Second of all, there are some real sick fucks because
(27:06):
the cat can die in the game. And at one
point I was playing the game and I was like,
I wonder why I can't customize a cat to look
like my cat, and then it died and I was like, oh,
because it would be traumatic for me. Yeah, that was probably. Yeah,
they were probably smart and not letting you have not
letting you personalize it too much. Their cats names were
Merton Rigs. Oh, those are such good names. It's pretty cute. Apparently. Also,
(27:29):
the studio had some cats that they used for motion
motion capture, and like one of them was a hairless cat,
which you know was specifically for like figuring out what
the cat's body does, which is cool, and like everybody
who worked on this game has cats, owns cats, loves cats.
Like so I say that because like that kind of
(27:51):
softens the cynical part of me. It's like this is
a cash grab, just package it around memes. No, they
love cats, and I think that does kind of come
through when you're playing it, like it's it's not just
algorithmically designed. This is a love letter to you know,
cat owners. It's a cat. Yeah, it's a love letter
to cat. Absolutely. I'm so glad that you mentioned the zerks,
(28:11):
by the way, which are essentially apparently they are bacteria
affect that never penetrated my skull, but they're basically look
like a metroid melling yes, yes, a good move. By
the way, that's probably the most sci fi thing they
have in this game, of these weird metroid looking bacteria
that swarm in a terrifying way and kill your cat.
(28:33):
And also you know, all of civilization when unlocked, the
game actually really picked up once the Zerks showed up.
I thought it taught me like a fundamental truth again
about narrative, which is without tension, like a threat, it's
actually not that fun to play this game. The Zerks
made it more fun, I thought. And so even though
(28:54):
I hated them and hated having my cat die, it
was like, oh yeah, but loo, but having something that
can make me lose made this game better. Do you disagree?
It added the stakes that it needed, and those were tense.
Those are very tense moments anytime you run from any
time you run from a Zerkum, which gross um. The
(29:16):
first time it happened, I absolutely lost my ship. That
you could your cat could die in such a gruesome
man um. They're such a gross little video game beastie.
But they added a level of tension that was really
needed because you get so wrapped up in the warm,
fuzzy oh I'm a cat, look at me and do
little cat things, uh, that you forget that there are
(29:38):
stakes of this game and your cat is not immortal
and it doesn't have an actual set of nine lives uh,
and it is perishable, right, And like the Zirks are
in a way a sort of difficulty spike too, because
like they're fucking fast, Like they're fast fast, they're fast,
and they are numerous. Yeah, so like and you know,
(29:58):
nobody's I got to game when it came out, so like,
you know, people didn't say anything about that because there
hadn't been enough time for spoilers. It was a fucking
crazy upsetting moment when the first time you get sworn
by zerks, you know, and like that was a nice
moment for the designers. I appreciated that for them. Well done. Also,
like I think people could be stealing that zerk concept
(30:21):
more in video games, uh, because it's a pretty good
one quite honestly, Like, oh yeah, definitely so like evolved
Sci Fi rust bacteria creature, it was pretty chill, especially
the free running aspects of it. Yeah, well, and like
the inhuman speed of it, right, Like they're kind of
they're in that sort of long line of the Half
(30:41):
Life slash Halo the flood villain, Like they're in that,
They're in that trajectory somewhere. But they're definitely an improvement.
So like, you know, maybe maybe designers might steal that. Um,
how do you feel about the robot story? Did you
connect to it? Did you care? I didn't have that
much connection of the robot story, but I really enjoyed
(31:02):
like a lot of the side quests didn't feel that
fruitless for me, Like I really liked them sheets of
music to the music robot, but the actual overall robot story.
I think I'd rather this up in the Lass one.
But um, there's poem I really loved by Ray Bradberry
called Their Welcome Soft Reigns, which is about how in
(31:24):
humanity eventually kills itself of nuclear warfare, the only thing
left will just be animals and technology, and neither one
will give a shit that we ever existed. Um, And
I kind of felt like that where I didn't, I
feel like, I wish they're more there were more relics
of humanity to make me miss humanity, like I've played
other games where it has that dystoping aspect where you
(31:45):
find pieces of like humans used to be here, And
I feel like the robot world was so lived in
that I like, I didn't feel that sense of like, oh,
all humans are lost, right, Like I think part of
what makes cyberpunk is a genre work is the idea
that we're losing humanity but it's still there, like yeah,
that you could see it at the edges amongst every right,
(32:06):
and the fact that like, oh god, we can't lose that,
Like that's that's the tension. This game moved past that
to like no it's already over and uh maybe because
we're all narcissists, I don't know, but it just made
it really hard to connect to it. It's like, well,
if it's over and these aren't people, uh, I you know,
I just don't really care that much. Uh yeah, yeah,
(32:28):
And I'd like to think that I'd like to think
that there's a designer out there with like I guess
endless resources or whatever that could make this game, like
like if you could do this one hundred times with
every like design studio, I want to say, somebody could
figure out how to make an emotional story out of
these parts that really worked for me. But I'm not sure,
(32:48):
like they might actually just not be human enough for
me to care, right, Like, do you feel like if
naught He'd all did this, you'd be into it? Is
that possible? Oh, Naughty Dog did this, I'd be so
into it. I feel like if Naughty Dog did this.
Naughty Dog is also really good at telling human stories.
Though Naughty Dog understands humanity really well, and I feel
(33:10):
like this game understands cats and robots really well, but
it doesn't really get to the point of like, why
why are we mourning humanity? Why do we mourn that
this person uploaded their consciousness and they're not here anymore.
And I didn't really get that sense of like, oh,
I'm in grief over this thing that used to be here,
(33:32):
even though it was so long ago, because like in
the Last of Us, humanity was so long ago that
most people have forgotten it, but you still have these
little echoes of it, of course, like the like the
plants blooming from the ruins. I mean, that's what's so
great about the landscape tells you part of the human story,
(33:53):
you know what I mean? Like, Yeah, in in this game,
they wanted more like the narrative was driven around he
seeing together what happened, not not emotionally experiencing what happened,
you know, like and that's I mean, that's the mistake,
you know, Like it's always got to be about emotionally
(34:13):
experiencing it, Like who cares? What made the guy become
a robot? Who cares? Why? Why should I care? It's
all like that's all stuff that we made up. I
care about, like what does the robot feel when it
discovers it used to be a human being and isn't.
And we really didn't get that exactly. No, we moved past.
We moved past those moments a little bit quick for
(34:34):
my liking, which, um, I think even made the endings
as much as I like the ending um not resonate
with me as hard because it's like, well, I'm happy
to cats back to doing cats stuff, but like I
don't really care about the world that it's leaving behind. Interesting, Like,
I mean, I love the world, I love the world
(34:55):
that I was playing in it, but I don't really
there's there's no stakes for me there, you know What's interesting.
I kind of feel like there was a land before
Time version of this game too that they didn't do,
where you're constant, really yeah, where you're constantly like reconnecting
to that cat crew that you lost, and that's the
emotional driving thing. It's like, just try great for me, right.
(35:18):
If there's a if it was oh my gosh, if
it was a world in which I was a cat
and I missed other cats and I kept trying to
get back to the cats, um, which is what this is.
But I like, if that was the emotional core, if
that was the emotional core of this, if the emotional
core was I'm just a lonely cat. Trying to be
with other cats. I would have played the shit out
(35:38):
of that, right, I mean, like, and it's easy to
kind of second guess things, right, it's easy to write. Oh,
it's so easy. It's easy to be an armchair developer. Yeah. Yeah,
And like I do want to acknowledge they worked for
like seven years on this game. They started in twenty fifteen.
This is a labor of love, and like I want everyone, like,
if anybody who's part of this game, here's this podcast.
(35:59):
Somehow it's beautiful. It really is. It's a beautiful game,
and like so many things about it are excellent. I
still think, though, the best version of it emotionally is
either reconnecting to those cats or finding humans again, Like
one of those two trajectories would have been yeah, more
interesting than what we got, because I don't. I just don't.
(36:21):
I just think, like, as much as people like robots
because they're cool, I feel like they like them in
this like Fallout spreadsheet way where it's like a cool
idea but not an emotionally engaging idea. Yeah, I agree.
How how cyberpunky are you in general? Is that your vibe?
Or are you like am at it? I'm sitting in
(36:42):
pink neon lights. As we speak, I'm massaging the metal
arm I'm going to replace my limbs with if I
could be mostly mental, Um, I've already attached to personality
to my roomba. That isn't there. Okay, fair enough, that
is an answer. I gotta say one thing I like
about this game that as an entry in Cyberpunk, it's
(37:05):
one of the sweetest tones I've ever seen in that context.
It's so lovely. Yeah, Like you never see that in Cyberpunk.
Cyberpunk has kind of a grimy vibe perfectly and captured
by you know, Blade Runner and also the game Cyberpunk.
This game is not grimy at all, Like, no, there's
nothing grimy about it. It's actually very sincere, very sleek. Yeah,
(37:27):
and that's kind of cool. You never see that, right,
There's an earnestness to us and this game. I wish
I wish the heart on its sleeve existed more in
the cat part of it, but it definitely has a
heart on its sleeve. Yeah, I think that's right. I
mean I think that the cat is very winsome, Like
(37:49):
I don't want to skip over that, like playing as
the cat, watching the cat do things that you know,
like all cats do. Being able to make the cat
do things at all cats do in a funny way
is very endearing, like there is a heart connection to it.
But ultimately, uh, there's there's an amount that you need
to be able to control your avatar for you to
(38:11):
feel like you are that person. And I'm I don't
think they quite gave you enough. Yeah, I don't. Like
it doesn't feel like an accomplishment to finish this game.
I think that's the that's the metric, right, Like it's
do you feel like you accomplished anything at the end.
It feels like I got to the end of the story.
It doesn't feel like I accomplished something. Yeah, And like, uh,
(38:32):
there are some games where that's enough, right, like again
Telltale or you know, any of those like sort of
story based quick time event games are basically you know,
a curated movie. Uh, And like I would call those
great games or you know, uh, I don't like this game,
but like a Pokemon Snap, that's a perfectly acceptable game
because it's not trying to tell a story, you know.
(38:54):
But I think once you introduce a narrative and there's
emotional expectations, there and you got to meet them, and
it is not quite Any other observations you want to
share about this game. I really appreciate the world building
that it takes time to create. I think it's definitely
(39:15):
one of the most unique worlds that I've ever played,
and I think there's so much little bits of attention
to detail in it, again just missing those traces of humanity.
But like I have criticisms of the game, but I
have criticisms of the game because I am so intrigued
(39:37):
by it and there's so many elements of it that
I did enjoy that I just wanted more of it.
And I know it was like on a lot of
people's Game of the Year, and I think there's a
reason people have been so passionate about this game, and
that's when you get a slew of Triple A titles
that all feel the same. Something just unique and inventive
really does feel like a breath of fresh That's true.
(40:00):
It definitely isn't another Dark Soul's RPG clone like it
Definitely it is unique in that it's got a loop
that we haven't seen in a while. It has some
uniqueness in that regard, and I think the design of it,
And by design, I mean the actual art design of
it is really appealing. Like it's one of the most
beautiful games I've ever played, inasmuch as it's well drawn
(40:24):
and manifested. Right. I think we're getting to a point
with video game whole hardly again, Yeah, we're getting to
a point with video game graphics where like it's not
about fidelity to reality, or it's not even about like
pixels or like frame rates or anything. It's about like,
is this a creatively rendered world? That is what makes
graphics like pop? And I think in this case, it's
(40:45):
a very creatively rendered world which makes it really pop. Like, like,
this is not the right tone, but it's the reason
why we love Tim Burton movies, right, Like it's why
I love Ratchet Clank Drift Apart. Yeah, yeah, there is
a really great pixarish aesthetic to it that makes it
look gorgeous. I totally agree, And this one has its
(41:05):
own vibe. But and then all the pieces do feel
like they fit, uh, And I love and respect that,
you know, um, And that's a triumph, you know, Like
I would feel incredibly accomplished if I had been the
person creating the aesthetic of this game because it's rad um,
it's super red, it really is. Yeah. Um, okay, well,
(41:27):
I think we've reached that point where it's time for
us to make yet another uh determined leap across a
bookshelf here a couple of ads, and spring into action
with our final segment on the other side of the break.
Yeah yeah, yeah, back, i'd had I had a two mios,
(41:59):
so I don't, I don't. I was at one end shifting,
I don't know. Yeah yeah, uh yeah, uh we're back.
Thanks for listening to that. Here we are to put
sort of the final the final treat in the kitty letter.
That metaphor doesn't really work. If there's a treat in
the kitty litter, something has gone wrong, Something has gone wrong.
(42:21):
Can you tell that I don't own a cat. I'm
definitely allergic to cats. So if anybody needs a reason
not to agree with my opinion on this episode, just
imagine all the allergies. Living legs. Oh my house is poison,
living legs exactly, living like zerks in my lungs, you
know what I mean, Like I just can't be around them.
I'm actually allergic to cats too. I'm just a dumb bitch,
(42:45):
I want that quote played at your funeral. How allergic
are you? Is it just like killing you? Like? Thankfully
I've gotten used to my cats, but like another person's
cats will make me like hive up and start to
wheeze a little bit. Yeah, they didn't have any allergy
(43:07):
plots in here, you know which, so I didn't feel
specifically acknowledged here. Didn't need to be. But let me
tell you as that that's my primary experience with cats,
and it's missing here. About being allergic to a cat
would be funny, I don't know if it would fit
this particular game's brand. All right, let's pass our final
checkpoint and zip right into keep or delete. This is
(43:31):
where our final observations about the game go, and where
we decide YEA or an A does it belong or
does it not? Is there anything about the game we
haven't talked about before we actually make our final assessment?
What do you think? I think I've covered everything that
I've wanted to cover about this game other than the
(43:52):
only reason I want to go back is just to
do more catch fair enough. Do you think the including
the Kowloon Walled City is clever as a reference? Yes, okay,
you do. So there's nothing in you that's like me,
that's a little bit like and it's not like it's
another meme thing like, it doesn't feel like that to you.
(44:14):
Like it's packaged around like a bunch of like it's
algorithmically compiled. You don't have any Oh no, I feel
like it was just made by a bunch of dorics
that are specifically my kind of Okay, great, well, and
maybe that's the that's the trick, right is does it
feel specific enough? Uh see to me? Like I again,
it's the same thing with Tunic, where where I'm like, well,
that feels like it's so targeted that I'm suspicious of it.
(44:37):
Uh So, I'm sorry. I don't mean to ruin that
for you. It is very cool though, that is very cool.
I don't want to say it's not um all right,
So we've had our chat, Vanessa, where do you land?
Are we keeping or deleting? Uh? Stray? So, while I
(44:58):
really enjoyed Stray and I appreciate all the care and
thought that went into it, and it really is one
of the more unique games that I've played in a
really long time, and I think it's going to be
overall good for gaming. It's it still makes me want
(45:19):
other things out of it, and because of that, it
feels fairly incomplete to me. So I'm going to say,
for as much as I enjoyed Stray, and I think
if you haven't played Stray, you should play straight. If
you're listening and you haven't played Stray, you should absolutely
play straight. But after that deleted if you're hard drive
so it doesn't take a ride, I think that's right.
(45:40):
So as as none of you are probably surprised here,
I'm also going to delete this game. But I agree
that it is one hundred percent worth playing. I think
it's a great game to stream. If anybody here watches
streams or wants to stream, it's actually a really good
streaming experience because it does have a communal vibe to it.
I think people it really definitely people get attached to
(46:01):
and and have a good time watching the cat do
cat stuff, you know, like uh, And I think in
that way it was very cleverly thought through, like uh,
it's it's perfectly consumable as a stream game for that reason. Yeah. Um,
also like I won't lie to you, like I didn't
do a twelve hour stint with this game, which is
I think what it would take to really see every
(46:23):
nook and cranny of it. Um, because oh and I
I really went in there. Oh did you so you went?
Did you like hundred percent it? Did you get that
far into it? I did a hundred percent? But I like,
I spend a lot of exploration, Okay, Um I did.
I did a number of side quests until I started
to feel like I gotta, I just need to move on. Um. So,
(46:43):
you know, like there may have been like one or
two side quests that want to redeemed the whole thing.
I doubt it, but you know there are games like that,
like Which or three or other games where it's like, man,
that side quest really nails it. Uh. For me, that
wasn't true. But I think if you're interested in, you know,
anthropomorphize cats in a cyberpunk future, like, you'll never find
(47:04):
a better game than this. This is your no, no, no,
this is it. This is your Zanda do one hundred
percent your zan to do. I do kind of feel
like I wanted to. I want to see the untitled
Goose game version of this game, you know, like I
want to see the version, like I want to see
anthropomorphic animal having to navigate a series of chores that
(47:27):
inconvenience as humans. All that, but not the narrative. I
think I would like that game. I hope they make
stuff like that as a lesson from this game, right.
I think that's coming down the pipeline. I think someone
somewhere is working on that. I hope they are. I
hope they are. Um, okay, any last remarks Vanessa before
we sign off? Yeah, where can people find you? Vanessa?
(47:50):
And thank you so much for being on. What are
you up to these days? Thank you for having me.
I always love being on here. You can find me
under sns Guero on Instagram in ny Sasquero on Twitter.
I also have a podcast called Popcorn and Pixels, which
you could find on Apple and Spotify and Anchor, and
it's we take video games and movies and pair them
(48:11):
together to talk about the differences between like linear storytelling
and ludo narrative storytelling, because oftentimes you see games being
remade into movies and vice versa, and we think that
they both have their own very specific strengths as to
why they tell the stories that they tell. So we'll
find ones that are like kind of similar and compare
and contrast the differences and how they choose to tell
that story. So, for example, the episode that we currently
(48:34):
have our war stories and it's the game Valiant Hearts
paired with the movie Jojo Rabbit. Wow, two very unusual
picks for that topic. Have you done that episode yet?
Have you done yet? We did. It's out and we
talked a little bit about how the reason we each
picked what we picked is my co hast picked Valiant
(48:57):
Hearts first, and so I picked Jojo Rabbit to match it.
And the and I picked Jojo Rabbit is because Valiant
Hearts tells a war story in a way that is
very unique to gaming, because most video games choose to
tell a first person shooter war story, and this is
using a puzzle game to kind of tell the story
(49:17):
of like being thrown into the middle of something and
having to like quite literally put the pieces together of
what's happening. And then I chose exactly and I chose
Jojo Rabbit as my pairing because you usually see war
movies told and very like dour straight one to one
historical more like big cinematic landscapes. And I like Jojo
(49:41):
Rabbit because it used comedy to tell the story of
something that was like so scary and sad, and so
I thought these were like very unique war stories, so
why not put them together. And both of them also
wanted to tell the stories of like people that were
affected by war more than I wanted to tell the
story worry about war. Okay, I love that. I mean,
(50:03):
I think if people who listen to this podcast are
hungry for even deeper analysis. It sounds like you got
you got the thing that you got the way to
scratch that itch. That's what it sends it. Yeah, it
sounds rad. I gotta listen to that and check that out.
Just final question, Soul Caliber six is the game we're
supposed to play. Sol Calimber six. Sol Caliber six is
(50:24):
the game we're supposed to play. Um, I downloaded it
and then I beat it because I just skipped through
every cut scene in like two hours. I've never played
Soul Caliber, so you know, I'm saving that colonel for
people to make fun of me at the end. It's great,
we're gonna kick each other's as well. This is what
I love about this. So this is Vanessa, are supposed
(50:45):
to hang out and play this game. I'm just so
you always talk about how you don't have like the
most responsive like hands and stuff, per the thing we
talked about earlier. It's funny to me that you picked
a fighting game to play. Why did you do that?
Is it just soul Caliber favors the button matches, all right,
So it's even playing ground, you think, And it's gonna
(51:06):
get my teeth knocked in? Is that? What's gonna like?
Are you gonna like black like? Uh? Like uh black
belt me? What this ship? Is that? What's gonna be? Oh?
Only if I play as Killick. I don't even know
who any of these characters are. Isn't isn't like Garret
Garrolton this game? Right? No? Not in Okay? Are you
sure I think he is? I thought of saw him.
(51:27):
But soul Caliber does have he might be. Soul Caliber
uh tends to have a lot of like other ip
within it. It's maybe my favorite fighting game. And we actually,
um I work over at game Grums. I produce a
show called ten Minute Power Hour, and we actually have
a machine that plays soul Caliber the first version, and
we frequently do matchups amongst my co workers that way,
(51:51):
which is very fun. That is really fun, man. You
got a lot of cool projects. Uh. One last fact
about uh Stray that I just think is really cute
that I found on Wikipedia. Uh, when Stray launched, there
were lots and lots of viral videos of cats watching
the game, Like it became like this whole other meme.
(52:13):
And then the other thing that's really cool is Annapurna
partnered with charities to raise money for homeless cats as
part of the launch for this game, which that makes
me say, I really feel like Anna Perna as a Like,
they just seem like they're doing things right. Uh, they
deserve to be watched, and almost every game they release
(52:35):
is at least interesting and this is no exception to that.
All Right, friends, Uh, thanks so much for tuning in.
Thanks to Vanessa for joining us when we were miclists.
Really appreciate that. And we'll see you next time on
one upsmanship piece, y'all,
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